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STX Entertainment How Hustlers Captured the Excesses of Prerecession Fashion
The film’s costume designer, Mitchell Travers, talks about fur, glitter, and the characters’ changing relationships with wealth.
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JP Yim / Getty Isabel Toledo: Beyond the Michelle Obama Dress
The late fashion designer, best known for creating the first lady’s 2009 inauguration-ceremony look, imbued her work with a love of diversity.
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Jonathan Dorado / Brooklyn Museum How Pierre Cardin’s Futuristic Fashion Infiltrated Everyday Life
The space-obsessed French couturier has pushed his avant-garde designs, with tremendous success, into houses and closets around the globe.
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Popperfoto / Getty Wimbledon’s First Fashion Scandal
One hundred years ago, a player shocked spectators with her “indecent” dress—not the last time attire has distracted from athleticism in tennis.
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Hulton Archive / Getty When American Suffragists Tried to ‘Wear the Pants’
Starting in the 1850s, proponents of the movement for women’s rights traded their long dresses for bloomers—and paid a heavy social price for it.
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Associated Press How Rihanna’s Fenty Line Is Challenging Luxury-Fashion Norms
The singer places her new collection squarely within a black aesthetic tradition—and in doing so, reimagines the industry’s ideal customer.
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Claudette Barius / Universal Pictures To Understand Us, Pay Attention to the Outfits
The deeper meaning behind the red jumpsuits, the leather glove, and Lupita Nyong’o’s costumes—according to the woman who designed them
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Reuters There Was No One Like Karl Lagerfeld
Chanel’s creative director, who died at 85, winkingly played into the stereotypes of a great couturier. But he also refused to be pigeonholed.
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Yuri Gripas / Reuters How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Plain Black Jacket Became a Controversy
The backlash against the incoming congresswoman’s “very nice” outfit is both tedious and predictable.
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Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty / Arsh Raziuddin / ... How Kelly Rowland Fell in Love With Color
The singer turned style icon talks natural beauty, bold fashion, and learning to embrace her hue in a world that doesn’t affirm brown-skinned girls.
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Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty The Risky Business of Branding Black Pain
The commodification of civil-rights activism may appear revolutionary, but it can undermine the basic tenets of social movements. Colin Kaepernick's Nike campaign illustrates this conundrum perfectly.
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Courtesy of John Lucas The Pursuit of Blondness
Modern hair-coloring technology has allowed people to dye their hair virtually any shade. So why is one hue in particular so popular?
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Matt Sayles / AP Beyoncé’s Vogue Takeover Is a Show of Power
The pop star’s reported shaping of the September cover hints at the shifting relationship between the media and their subjects—and between creators of color and traditional gatekeepers.
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Wikimedia Commons What High Heels Can Teach About Gendered ‘Truths’
A reminder that the quintessential piece of women’s footwear—a symbol of delicacy, of danger, of beauty—used to be worn by men
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AP The Glorious, Bizarre History of Soccer and Fashion
Simon Doonan’s new book, Soccer Style, summarizes the long and complicated relationship between athletes and outlandish style.
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Eric Thayer / Reuters / Jon Flobrant / ... Kate Spade’s Unforgettable Designs
A pioneer who followed her own path rather than chasing fads, Spade infused her work with a singular blend of optimism and nostalgia.
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Ben Gabbe / Getty What Kate Spade Meant for Women
The designer, who died at 55, built up a female-led lifestyle brand that held an accessible appeal across generations.
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Kirn Vintage Stock / Corbis / Getty Images The Curious History of Mommy-and-Me Fashion
This matching-outfit trend has cycled in and out of popularity for more than a century, reflecting changing views about motherhood and femininity.
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Marvel Why Fashion Is Key to Understanding the World of Black Panther
The Oscar-nominated costume designer Ruth Carter on how she created the style of the film’s fictional African nation of Wakanda
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Monique Jaques / Anita Sepehry / Benita Amalina How Muslim Women Use Fashion To Exert Political Influence
The rebellious potential of an apparently conservative style
