It’s Halloween tomorrow. Out of time and ideas?
Halloween is a fun excuse to delve into amateur performance art, a free pass to become who we might want to be, or just to elicit a few laughs and start a conversation.
Pulling out all the stops and dressing up in costume is not for everyone — that’s fine, too. But with our selfies as “proof of life,” now that we’re stuck at home, isn’t Halloween just the perfect reason to get creative with it?
By now, everyone else has probably prepared a tiger print shirt and a wig. Make your last-minute costume work with perfect timing. These pop culture figures are what people are talking about now.
Grande in the kitchen
Ariana Grande switched outfits as she switched “Positions” in her latest music video. Giving us a look into a day in the life of the glamorous first female US president, she starts out with Balmain in the Oval Office, Mugler on the White House hallways, and takes her Dion Lee to the kitchen and miraculously does not get any flour on her cream lace corset tank.
The black version and lace pocket corset iteration (comes with a layer-able garter tank) can both be rented at Vestido. Made possible by a merger with formalwear rental favorite RSVP, you can rent many other designer pieces on the site, including Mugler, and local designers like Martin Bautista and Vania Romoff. The merger also includes a shoppable counterpart, Vend by Vestido, featuring curated fashion gems from yesteryears.
For this look, don’t forget to do your hair and pair it with diamond and pearl earrings. Legit dough-kneading optional.
Visit vestidomanila.com to rent and @vendbyvestido on Instagram to shop.
Golden boy
Here’s something for the boys. Harry Styles is a “Golden” example of how those with influence can use their platforms, and he did just that in his latest music video. In sun-drenched summertime Italy, he is gleeful in his go-to brands, from a Gucci blue jacket to a pair of Bode shorts (pictured), and includes fresh graduate Steven Stokey-Daley’s oversized, off-white, “Princess Diana” floral trousers and a billowing, slightly sheer white shirt, described by the singer’s stylist Harry Lambert as “the perfect oversized white shirt.” This Instagram post by Lambert is a total mood. Styles’ wearing what appears to be unreleased Bode shorts, made of a vintage Pfister Hybrids corn seed sack — not unlikely, since the brand is all about being ultra-sustainable.
The shorts remind me of Craftcha, a local brand that makes upcycled clothing made of flour sacks a.k.a. katsa. The flower headpiece looks right up florist Akong Gugma’s rustic alley.
Shop Craftcha at Instagram.com/craftcha.ph or Facebook.com/craftchaPH. Contact Akong Gugma at (0917) 512 2072.
No gender reveal
This Tuesday, model Emily Ratajkowski announced her pregnancy for the latest Vogue digital cover, but she doesn’t want to reveal the gender of her baby. “I want to be a parent who allows my child to show themself to me,” she writes in the cover story.
It’s an intimate portrait of a woman experiencing pregnancy for the first time and thinking about what gender roles have meant to her throughout her life. The styling for the shoot reflects this; in the main photo, she’s wearing a Jonathan Simkhai slip dress, and the hair, makeup, and lighting all look natural.
Along with a slip dress you already own, an effortless dusting of Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder in the latest shade, Honey is all it takes to create a soft-focus effect for medium skin tones with olive, warm and golden undertone like Ratajkowski’s. As the more natural-looking take on the makeup artist favorite “banana powder,” its warmth neutralizes the appearance of dark eye circles and unwanted redness.
Shop Laura Mercier at rustans.com.
Notorious RBG
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blazed a path fighting for equal rights for women, and expressed her individuality while doing it with jewelry, collars and jabots. In a 2009 interview with The Washington Post, the justice shared, "You know, the standard robe is made for a man because it has a place for the shirt to show, and the tie,” so she and fellow court member Sandra Day O'Connor decided to accessorize their ensembles.
Since 2012, the late US Supreme Court Justice has imbued one accessory with her disapproval: a Banana Republic bib necklace, affectionately known as her “dissent collar.” Equally popular is her crocheted "majority opinion" collar, but the dissent collar is interesting because it’s what the feminist icon wears when she wants to take a stand. She notably wore it the day after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
We all have reason to show our dissent these days. Banana Republic is offering the collar once again and for a limited time, donating 100 percent of its proceeds to the International Center for Research on Women. She received the Champions for Change Award for Vision from the organization in 2016. The brand first rereleased the necklace in January 2019 for the benefit of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, which was cofounded by Ginsberg to advocate for gender equality and women’s economic rights.
Shop Banana Republic via SSI’s at-home concierge The Specialist and contact them through [email protected], (02) 8830 5000, or (0917) 552 9359.
