I Accidentally Accumulated the World’s Largest Archive of ’80s Esprit Merch

Ask any ’80s and ’90s kid at heart, and they’ll tell you: Esprit just did it right. The colour-blocking sportswear, the street-casted campaigns, the cutting-edge collaborations with designers that defined the ’80s. Even the brand’s commitment to environmentalism was so ahead of its time. “Esprit was an ethos,” says Michelle Koza, the woman behind the largest…

The Day the Black Supermodels Stormed Versailles

There’s a “Battle of Versailles” they don’t teach you about in history class; the event that transformed the world’s most iconic château into a star-studded battle royale between French and American fashion designers in the fall of 1973. The guest list was legendary, with Josephine Baker, Princess Grace, Andy Warhol in the audience to name…

Our Date with Diane Pernet, the Internet’s First High Priestess of Fashion

Crowned as the “original fashion blogger” by the New York Times, Diane Pernet has long been a one of a kind, spellbinding presence in the industry. She has filled so many roles – designer, filmmaker, curator, journalist and influencer (in the truest sense of the word) – that it’s impossible to reduce her work to…

The Dandy Suit that America Banned and Caused a Riot

You know the zoot suit. It’s the suit that bad guys are usually wearing in comical mid-century gangster movies, but there’s much more to this story than a stereotype. In the 1940s and 50s, zoot suits were worn by Mexican-American hipsters who embraced the flamboyant oversized style of dress to express their desire for freedom from discrimination and racism as an underclass. The zoot suiters became a…

Our Zoom Date with Artist & Picasso Muse, “Sylvette David”

In April of 1954, a young Sylvette David became one of Pablo Picasso’s most iconic, if not enigmatic muses (if you haven’t read our article of her story, we suggest you do that first and come back). Who was this ethereal woman with an intelligent stare and the impossibly high ponytail? More than half a…

Lovely Ladies in Lace at the Paris Races

I‘m just a little bit mesmerised by these photographs of Parisian ladies showing off their best French lace at the races. The Hippodrome de Lonchamps was the place to be seen in the 19th and early 20th century, a pre-Paris Fashion Week catwalk of sorts in the spring. The very latest modes were on parade, as modelled by these…

If We Ever Start a Cult, this is Where We’ll be Sourcing the Outfits

Meet the Fashion Brand for lizards, sexpots, and three-headed babes. The lazily but brilliantly-named “Fashion Brand Company” was founded in 2018 by Penelope Gazin, and has been delivering deliciously irreverent apparel ever since. Like a sweater covered in nipples, or a three collared dress. It’s as if Gazin has vacuumed up the detritus of our…

How did the King of 20th Century Fashion Disappear into Oblivion?

They compared his legacy to Picasso’s and called him the “King of Fashion” in America and Le Magnifique in Paris. He liberated women from corsets, dominated Belle Epoque fashion with his lavish draped designs and was the first French couturier to commercialise his own perfumes, now an industry standard marketing concept. Paul Poiret should be a…

The Belle Epoque Body-con Dress That Was Too Sexy for Paris

In the Spring of 1908, three women walked onto the Longchamp racecourse in Paris and jaws dropped. The elite society event was known for debuting the latest couture creations to the public, but no one had seen fashion quite like this before. Dressed in blue, white and havane brown creations, according to newspapers, spectators called the three…

Ode to the Ladies Pant Suit of Zanzibar

When fashion has been borrowed from the past over and over again, it’s rare to find something that you haven’t seen before. I was browsing through snippets of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, and noticed that among the historic photographs captured throughout East Africa from the 1890s-1920s, there was one…