



"Boy de Chanel" is a new makeup line from Chanel. It includes tinted moisturizer, moisturizing lip balm, and an eyebrow pencil. Oh, and it’s exclusively for men. “Beauty is about style,” the press release reads. “It knows no gender.” This is excellent news for Chanel — and any other companies marketing makeup to men — because now they can make even more money. Less good news for men, since now they, too, must apparently spend hours in front of the mirror getting ready in the morning.
All of this is great for feminists, who’ve been arguing for a while now that there is no such thing as gender. Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental College, says, “Gender is all about maintaining the idea that men and women are different. Anything that we do that undermines distinction (sic) is a real threat to male superiority.” So men wearing makeup would be good for feminism because it would undermine “male superiority” — presumably by making men look ridiculous, which would cause people to laugh at them, which would make them feel inferior, and... death to the patriarchy.
You want to corrupt that awesome purity of this design with mundane sleeves?!? Retrograde!
And the Higher Reasons©:Quick crib sheet: haute couture (or let’s just call it “couture” for simplicity’s sake) is a twice-yearly five-day show fiesta in Paris where a select handful of brands produce hand-made-to-order garments that cost approximately $10,000 to $100,000 a piece. Yes, you read that right.
To qualify as a couture house, which is an official designation like champagne, a brand must maintain an atelier of a certain number of artisans full time and produce a specific number of garments twice a year for a show. There are only a very few that can fulfill the requirements, including Chanel, Dior and Valentino. A lot have dropped out over the years (Balmain, Versace, Saint Laurent), and the governing organization that adjudicates this has relaxed some of its rules to admit younger, less resourced or guest designers, like Iris van Herpen and Guo Pei, who made Rihanna’s Met Gala sunny-side-up egg cape.
And you better believe it.It’s about using this particular craft form as a wormhole into what’s going on in the world. The gowns themselves may not seem that relevant (especially when they reimagine a woman as, say, a lavender bush). But the issues they raise are.
Like, for example, the fact that to a certain extent any women’s wear collection, at any level, should be a treatise on female identity at that particular moment in time. At least if it’s any good. That’s why Karl Lagerfeld made his Chanel bride wear the pants last January, not the corseted meringue; why at Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri paid homage to Leonor Fini, an early 20th century Surrealist (I don’t think anyone would dispute the surreal nature of our current era); why at Givenchy, Clare Waight Keller protected gowns dripping in silver fringe with military greatcoats.
Like the fact that the mostly French gatekeepers of couture, the most rigid of fashion sectors, have increasingly lowered barriers to entry to woo and admit designers from China, Lebanon and Russia. Fashion is acknowledging the value of porous borders, even as its Western European home grows more skittish about them.
Like the fact that this is as good a way as any to talk about the current tension between the handmade and human (and historical) and the technological. It’s the fashion equivalent of reading books versus watching YouTube.
Earlier this year Richard Ma, the chief executive of San Francisco-based security company Quantstamp, spent $9,500 (£7,500) on a dress for his wife.
That is a lot of money for a dress, particularly when it does not exist, at least not in a physical form.
Instead it was a digital dress, designed by fashion house The Fabricant, rendered on to an image of Richard's wife, Mary Ren, which can then be used on social media.
"It's definitely very expensive, but it's also like an investment," Mr Ma says.
He explains that he and his wife don't usually buy expensive clothing, but he wanted this piece because he thinks it has long-term value.
"In 10 years time everybody will be 'wearing' digital fashion. It's a unique memento. It's a sign of the times."
Ms Ren has shared the image on her personal Facebook page, and via WeChat, but opted not to post it on a more public platform.
Digital collection
Another fashion house designing for the digital space is Carlings. The Scandinavian company released a digital street wear collection, starting at around £9 ($11), last October.
It "sold out" within a month.
"It sounds kinda stupid to say we 'sold out', which is theoretically impossible when you work with a digital collection because you can create as many as you want," explains Ronny Mikalsen, Carlings' brand director.
"We had set a limit on the amount of products we were going to produce to make it a bit more special.
Being digital-only allows designers to create items that can push boundaries of extravagance or possibilities.