At Sunday night’s Presidential Town hall debate in St. Louis, lots of newsworthy events occurred. And yet, as I’m sure you already know, one of the most prominent vignettes that has gone viral is about a sweater. A red sweater.
As sure as falling temperatures, flying phalanxes of geese and golden leaves herald the arrival of autumn, so too does the appearance of a flock of new luxury fragrance introductions. Like clockwork, each fall brings forth dozens of launches in a bewildering array. This season there were several fairly significant events in the category, with Louis Vuitton re-entering luxury fragrance for the first time in almost 30 years; make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury launching her first scent; ditto Alexander McQueen, architect Philippe Starck, and shoe designer Christian Louboutin (the latter two actually launched three new scents at once, and sadly none of them smell like new shoes fresh out of the box). Tom Ford introduced Orchid Soleil; Aerin Lauder debuted Tangier Vanille; and SJP (that’s Sarah Jessica Parker, for the uninitiated) launched “Stash,” her new fragrance, which she describes as smelling “like a sweaty European man.” OK, then. Moving right along.
OK, I have a beef with the luxury apparel industry that grows ever more urgent with each passing birthday: why are designer brands and retailers so focused on clothes for skinny people? What hope is there for the standard-sized and zaftig among us?
With the appointment earlier this year of the first-ever female lead designer at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri (lately of Valentino), I have noticed real pride in the ranks of the women I know who work at the house. They may not shout it, but they certainly whisper it: Finally! It’s our time – a woman is designing Dior! It only took 70 years.
It may be the ultimate in old-school publishing and fashion, and the last gasp of the media business as we have known it, but for me the arrival of the September issues of the big fashion magazines is still a thrilling moment. I still feel a jolt of excitement when I see them on the newsstand, as if a bell has just been rung and something wonderful is about to commence. Arriving long before the kids are actually back in school, and well before leather jacket weather, the September issues are one of my favorite harbingers of autumn.
