Relay for America ran the American flag from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., this week to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. They did it nonstop for 20 days and nights for more than 3,000 miles on a mission of unity heading to the Fourth of July. Tony Dokoupil has the story.

Why Vogue World should definitely head to San Francisco next. The highs (Celine and Willy Chavarria) and lows (Kevin and Jayden Federline) of Paris Fashion Week Men’s. Angelina Jolie’s new film “Couture” reveals the real stories beyond the runway. And the new Tiffany & Co. store brings the California coast indoors.

Why Vogue World Should Come to San Francisco

Vogue global editorial director Anna Wintour is eyeing California for another edition of Vogue World after the pop culture runway extravaganza was held at Paramount Studios in Hollywood in 2025. 

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and confirmed by Vogue, the fashion maven recently visited the Bay Area to scout locations for the annual event, which combines runway shows and performances, attracts celebrity attendees, and raises money for a different local charity each time. Vogue World debuted in 2022 in New York and has since been hosted in London, Paris and L.A., and will head to Milan in September.

If it comes to San Francisco next year, it would be a coda of sorts to this year’s Met Gala, which was not so affectionately dubbed the “Tech Gala” because of the deep-pocketed tech moguls and firms that underwrote the evening, including Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, Snap and Shopify.

Certainly, the Bay Area is the cradle of today’s Gilded Age, but following the money is only part of why Vogue World: San Francisco is a genius idea.

Sticking with tech, Cupertino-based Apple may be the most influential design brand of our time, having created the iPhone, which is in the hands and pockets of more than 1 billion people worldwide. Apple first intersected with fashion in a meaningful way with the debut of the Hermès Apple Watch in 2015. And tech’s love affair with fashion has only continued.

Just this week, Meta introduced photo- and video-capturing Meta Starfire Kylie Jenner Edition AI glasses, priced at $399, in an effort to leverage the beauty mogul’s influence over her 382 million social media followers and make smart glasses fashionable.

But San Francisco also deserves to host Vogue World on its analog laurels. Historically, it has been a hotbed of innovation and social change that has had an outsized influence on the democracy of fashion and what people wear every day.

Number one, it is the birthplace of Levi Strauss denim and the 501 jean, arguably the most recognizable and widely worn piece of branded clothing ever made.

The origin story goes like this: In 1853, Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant, opened a dry goods company in San Francisco. Recognizing the need for durable workwear during the height of the Gold Rush, he and tailor Jacob Davis combined copper rivet reinforcements with denim, leading to the first manufactured waist overalls in 1873. They were the precursor to what we now call blue jeans, an icon that has come to symbolize America around the world. It does not hurt Vogue World’s San Francisco prospects that the popular Mayor Daniel Lurie, whom Wintour met with, is a Levi Strauss heir.

The event could be a celebration of denim alone and still be a roaring success, with designers interpreting denim workwear from mass to luxury. (Perhaps this is why we have already seen so much denim on the spring 2027 runways … could Jonathan Anderson and Dolce & Gabbana know something we do not?)

Levi’s is not the only San Francisco American fashion success story, of course. There is also Gap, founded in 1969 by Donald and Doris Fisher. What started as a denim and vinyl records store evolved into a brand that transformed the way people dress for work, driving a generational shift to more casual attire that began in the 1990s, when Gap khakis and advertising campaigns became part of pop culture.

Gap also created the blueprint for modern lifestyle marketing with its peppy collaborations with entertainers, which have been rebooted under CEO Richard Dickson and Gap Studio designer Zac Posen, who have tapped Katseye, Young Miko, Gwyneth Paltrow and Apple Martin, among others. Gap is experiencing a renaissance, and Wintour was also spotted in San Francisco at Gap headquarters and with Posen.

Also founded in San Francisco: The North Face in 1964. What began as a climbing gear store (the Grateful Dead played at the opening) became a global juggernaut thanks in no small part to the 1990s hip-hop community, which made outdoor apparel into streetwear, establishing it as a key foundation of the modern casual wardrobe.

Esprit was founded in San Francisco in 1969 by Doug and Susie Tompkins (who previously founded The North Face) and Jane Tise. The brand’s colorful, cheap-and-cheerful, California-aspirational clothing, John Casado–designed stencil-effect logo, and Oliviero Toscani–lensed campaigns starring real people — a novel idea at the time — helped define 1980s fashion for young people and remain a touchpoint for designers today.

Beyond influential brands are the region’s influential social movements which have been inspiring trends and designer mood boards for decades.

Just as Hollywood’s larger-than-life blonde bombshells and teenage rebels shaped the imaginations and wardrobes of countless people across the globe, so too did counterculture and activist leaders in the Bay Area in the 1950s and ’60s, from the bookish workwear of the Beats in North Beach to the tie-dye and fringe-loving hippies of Haight-Ashbury, the Black Panthers in Oakland whose leather jackets, berets and sunglasses became a uniform of resistance, and the ““Castro clone” look of the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

All of it and more would be a rich tapestry for a Vogue World runway. As the song goes: “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”

New Clothes, Old Tricks

During the hottest days on record in Paris, designers still managed to show some cool Spring 2027 clothes, with slim, if not skinny, jeans, lots of sheer suiting, styling wizardry and footwear brand collaborations galore, drawing an impressive celebrity turnout, for better or worse.

Another fashion week, another nepo baby on the runway. Or two. Jayden and Sean Preston Federline walked the Vetements runway show. What’s Vetements? Now you know, which is why luxury brands continue to turn to children of celebrities, even those whose stardom has dimmed.

The brothers’ parents are pop star Britney Spears and her ex-husband Kevin Federline. “K-Fed,” for those who remember, is now living in Hawaii with a new wife and family. He works as a DJ and published a memoir last year, “You Thought You Knew.”

While some family connections bestow a brand halo of exclusivity, glamour and cultural relevance, this one left me rolling my eyes. I’m sure the Federline brothers are very nice, but fashion, is this all you’ve got? And to have them parading underwhelming clothes we’ve all seen before? It felt cheap.

The Federlines weren’t the only “famous” ones on the Vetements runway. Sharon Stone also walked the show, which I would argue was beneath her, given the company.

Dior’s Elevated Everyday 

Dior’s Jonathan Anderson dialed down experimentation to focus on the elevated everyday, including artfully distressed denim, what you might call pajama suits, and a Dior-ified version of fashion’s ubiquitous quarter-zip sweater among the highlights. Not one to resist jaunty neckwear, he also introduced a sparkly sailor tie.

Free-Styling

American designer Michael Rider continues to kill it at Celine, where he’s selling the idea of having fun styling your clothes.

This season’s mix had even more ease, including what I am sure will be a hotly anticipated Reebok sneaker collaboration. I loved the “Flashdance” sweatshirts with a customized feel, the perfectly proportioned jackets, and the offbeat hats, boots and beads. And I loved the show notes even more, which read like a manifesto for personal style: “Making do with a few great things. Customizing … panache. And being very unaware of having it.” More of that, please.

Hollywood Dreams

It may have been Men’s Fashion Week, but there was plenty of womenswear on the runway, too. Willy Chavarria has been working on expanding his women’s business for a while, and this collection really nailed it, with draped silk cocktail gowns, whimsical floral dresses, sexy slit skirts and sheer tops that should put him in the Hollywood dressing conversation in an even more meaningful way than before. Also coming soon: an Ugg collaboration.

Timmy, Is That You?

Sarah Burton held her first full Givenchy men’s presentation during the week, and the collection was a beautiful extension of what she has done on the women’s side, with exquisite tailoring and eveningwear, rich floral embroideries and refined streetwear, including a pink leather tracksuit like the red one sported by Timothée Chalamet last year when he was promoting “Marty Supreme.”

Chalamet wore Givenchy several times during awards season, when he made Burton’s double-breasted tailoring his own. Perhaps he even had an influence on the designer. “I wanted this to feel very personal and intimate, and to reflect the conversations that I have with the friends of the house,” she wrote in the collection notes. Could an official partnership be next?

Paris Fashion Week From Another Angle

While Men’s Fashion Week was unspooling in Paris, Angelina Jolie’s new film “Couture,” which uses Paris Fashion Week as a backdrop, opened in theaters in the U.S.

I went to see the film, which tells personal stories of those behind the scenes who do not usually have a voice, and chips away at some of the glamour of the shows in a way that was familiar to me.

Maxine (Jolie) is at the center of the story, an American director hired to create a short film for a runway presentation. After landing in Paris, she becomes immersed in the pre-show prep at a fashion house, only to receive a phone call delivering the devastating news that she has breast cancer and needs surgery right away, a medical diagnosis that mirrors Jolie’s own personal story.

As someone who spent years going to runway shows, the plot point brings home the disconnect between fantasy and reality that happens during fashion week, particularly when it comes to one’s personal life. It’s easy to feel like you are living in runway la-la land where nothing can touch you during the month of traveling to these fabulous shows twice a year.

The film also follows model Ada (played by real-life model Anyier Anei), a South Sudanese fresh face navigating her first fashion week in Paris, working to make money to send home to her family in Kenya to help lift them out of poverty.

Her journey (partly inspired by Anei’s own) has her palling around with other models too young to know better, staying up late drinking champagne, and disastrously twisting her ankle while practicing her walk ahead of her big runway debut. It is an illuminating look into the lives of the pretty faces who are so often expressionless and dehumanized on the runway.

A third character, makeup artist Angèle (Ella Rumpf), is the least developed. She is an aspiring writer (honestly, her job prospects would be better sticking with makeup design), lugging her kit from gig to gig around Paris, crossing paths with Maxine and Ada in scenes that are somewhat hollow. But somehow, this rings true, too. Brief, surface encounters are the way one experiences fashion week.

There is a lot of pain as Ada walks the runway with a swollen ankle, and Jolie struggles to put on a brave face as she goes between hospital appointments and the film shoot. But in the end, there is beauty under pressure, which is what fashion week is all about.

Tiffany & Co. is shining again on the SoCal retail scene at South Coast Plaza with the opening of a new 15,000-square-foot store designed by architect Peter Marino.

The new location reintroduces the LVMH-owned jeweler to Southern California, where it has invested heavily in celebrity ambassadors including Zendaya, Anya Taylor-Joy, Greta Lee and Chase Sui Wonders, and will open a new Rodeo Drive flagship in 2028 on the site of the former Luxe Hotel.

The South Coast Plaza space showcases the design concept first introduced at the Landmark store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, which opened with much fanfare in 2023. It will also feature an upcoming Tiffany Blue Box Café helmed by chef Daniel Boulud.

Marino’s concept brings the coast inside, with digital screens by artist Oyoram projecting sweeping views inspired by Newport and Laguna Beach.

Tiffany archival pieces with ties to the region are on display, including a specimen of morganite from Mesa Grande, Calif., on loan from a private collection, and others featuring kunzite, a gemstone first identified in California.

The space is also filled with contemporary art, including “Tiffany Miraculous,” “Tiffany Smashing,” “Tiffany Adorable” and “Tiffany Dish” by Damien Hirst near the entrance, as well as works by Urs Fischer, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Vik Muniz.

In addition to high jewelry and megadiamonds, the store showcases the HardWear, Bird on a Rock, Knot, Sixteen Stone and T by Tiffany collections.

Tiffany & Co., 3333 Bristol St., Suite 1509, Costa Mesa, Calif.

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A run of late-summer performances brings Lettuce to SFJAZZ, where the Boston-born sextet continues touring its latest album Cook inside Miner Auditorium. Known for expanding from Berklee students into a tightly synchronized funk collective, the band threads together psychedelic grooves, brass-led arrangements, and extended improvisational passages that often stretch their sets into long-form explorations rather than fixed song cycles. Each performance draws on decades of collaboration and individual side work across jazz, pop, and hip-hop, giving the music a layered, studio-to-stage fluidity that rarely settles into repetition. The SFJAZZ setting frames that approach with concert-hall clarity, allowing rhythm sections and horn interplay to unfold with precision even at peak intensity. Across the run, the focus stays on sustained groove and ensemble chemistry, where variation emerges gradually through solos and shifting textures rather than abrupt changes in direction.