H&M

Hennes & Mauritz’s Paris shows are becoming a regular occurrence on the circuit. Last night’s H&M Studio autumn–winter 2014–15 catwalk show during fashion week, with guests including Miranda Kerr, Jessica Alba, Jourdan Dunn, Emmanuelle Alt, Troian Bellisario and Solange Knowles, showed designs that mixed masculine and feminine, including slip dresses, aviator jackets and men’s blazers. Fabrics included silk crèpe, silk satin, cashmere, velvet and faux fur. H&M Studio’s collection not only contrasted feminine and masculine, but luxury (thanks to sequins and embroidery) and simplicity (with slim cuts and clean designs).
   Held at the Grand Palais, there were some 600 guests present, while a global audience watched online at hm.com with host Mademoiselle Agnes and models Andreea Diaconu, Joan Smalls, Izabel Goulart and Saskia. HollySiz performed live at the catwalk show.
   H&M Studio’s collection is a limited edition, created by a dedicated team within the Swedish fashion giant.
   ‘It’s so good to be at H&M Studio in Paris to see this limited-edition collection. H&M is such a wonderful brand—it’s affordable, wearable, and very fashion-forward,’ said Kerr.
   ‘I love H&M—it’s so exciting to be here, so much fun. The way I dress I mix things together, and I love to shop at H&M, I always find something new when I’m there,’ said Alba.

H&M

The Body Shop is getting in for this Valentine’s Day with its new White Musk Smoky Rose scent which adds to its cruelty-free White Musk range. This sensual scent includes fused scents of bergamot, pink pepper, and blackcurrant.
   White Musk Smoky Rose is available as the pure eau de parfum and eau de toilette as well as many other cheaper options. There are the White Musk Smoky Rose body lotion, bath and shower gel and fragrance mist, suiting all budgets—prices start at NZ$25 for the gel and finish at NZ$56 for the eau de parfum.
   The White Musk Smoky Rose exudes youth and floral sweetness with a note of aqua. To us, it evokes a sense of a fresh summer breeze and a fresh teen romance, with school-day memories and associated nostalgia. Head down to the Body Shop and give the scent a test to see what memories it draws for you.—Anna Deans

The Body Shop has released its Special Edition Blueberry range, comprising body butter, body lotion, shower gel, body scrub-gelée and lip butter.
   Made from cold-pressed blueberry seed oil, and Community Fair Trade shea butter and cocoa butter from Ghana, the range is rich in vitamin E and essential fatty acids that nourish and hydrate your skin, while softening, protecting and smoothing it.
   The fruity fragrance is the perfect icing on top that will leave your skin smelling like fresh blueberries!
   Prices begin at NZ$15·25 for the lip butter, and the sweet-smelling body butter retails at the top end for a still value-packed NZ$36.
   Feed your skin with this limited-time-only edition at your local Body Shop store or visit www.thebodyshop.com.—Christine Min

Eric Ouaknine

Above, from top Christine Margossian’s ‘Mutine’, ‘Re-belle’ and ‘It-side’ looks.

L’Oréal Professionnel has shown its new hairstyles for spring–summer 2014, as conceived by its ambassador Christine Margossian. Margossian was named the Meilleure ouvrier de France (MOF) when she was 24 in the early 1990s, with her medal awarded to her by President Mitterand. The psychology-trained hairstylist has had a decades-long partnership with L’Oréal Professionnel, and has been coming up with new trends each season.
   Her new “it” look for the season is named Touch of Pink, summarized with the keywords of optimism, freshness and natu­ral.
   Margossian forecasts a minimalist style, and says that platinum-blonde hair with pastel-pink touches are in. One can choose to have the hair down, letting it ‘fly with the wind,’ keeping it up using twists, or a headband.
   The styles are based around a layered bob, featuring very light blonde highlights using L’Oréal Professionnel’s Lightening Paste Platinum. Splashlights will remain on trend for spring, with pink diluted hair chalk. They also employ the brand’s Volume Architect Tec-Ni Art, SOS Volumetry, Infinium and Crystal Gloss hair sprays.
   The first look, ‘Mutine’, features few pastel pink twists to show off one’s platinum locks.
   The second look, ‘Re-belle’, sees an extra-large chignon with plenty of volume, held up with a headband. Here is where Margossian sees pink pearls and the smoking jacket to complement the look.
   The third, ‘It-Side’, has fine twists on the side, and works for both day and night wear.

Credits
Hair by Christine Margossian for L’Oréal Professionnel
Photographed by Eric Ouaknine
Make-up by Stéphane Dussart
Art-directed and styled by Laure Delvigo
Video by Miguel Cyrille
Special thanks to Max Chaoul Couture, and Lise & Serge
Graphic design by Yvan Babillon

Kicking off this week’s most interesting and stylish Instagrams is Australian blogger Sara Donaldson of Harper & Harley, photographed by Ana Suntay-Tañedo. Finding the ideal outfit for summer work and socializing is a toughie, especially with the longer days—so to solve this, Donaldson has chosen an ensemble of a Zimmermann dress, Windsor Smith sandles and a Givenchy bag, encapsulating the season’s look well.
   But it’s not summer everywhere. Kristina Bazan of Swiss blog Kayture headed to Paris to shoot a fine jewellery video for Love Gold, and she is snapped outside Chanel at the Place de la Vendôme. The look’s spot on, with the Chanel umbrella, but it’s the pairing of a black coat with stonewashed skinny jeans that’s particularly chic for the cool, zero-degree temperatures in the French capital. (You can see more of the Love Gold shoot on Bazan’s blog.)
   On the subject of black coats, our own Instagram shows the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s principal guest artist Gillian Murphy trying on a Tamsin Cooper coat, especially designed for her. Murphy liked the elegance and practicality of the coat and picked it over two others that Cooper had brought up. Cut at knee length, it’s ideal for this winter.
   The black-and-white trend is really emerging this week. Judged the most influential blogger of the year, Kenza Zouiten has shown off her outfit for the Elle-galan (the Swedish edition of Elle had a gala earlier this month). You can see Zouiten’s own photos in a larger format—she wears a stunning dress by Ida Sjöstedt with a clutch by Malene Birger, and pulls the look off immaculately.
   And coming back to summer, our own fashion editor Sopheak Seng successfully styles with black and white stripes for the races, as he dressed models for the Wellington Cup’s barrier announcement on Wednesday. Taken behind the scenes is one of his models, from Kirsty Bunny Management, wearing Deryn Schmidt, available at Kirkcaldie & Stains.
   While our own Anna Deans is away today, we thought we’d cheekily check in to her ’Gram to see her latest hairstyle, which she posted during the week. It’s inspired by Brigitte Bardot—and she means the youthful French icon rather than the right-wing activist. Australian model Miranda Kerr, meanwhile, has shown off her make-up by Lisa Storey and hair by David Keough, both of Los Angeles, with bright lips and the apples of her cheeks highlighted—skilfully. Both these images, and some of the others that are coming through from cosmetics’ companies, are indicative of a more purposeful make-up look in the Zeitgeist over the natural face.
   Doutzen Kroes, meanwhile, has gone on her Instagram to promote the Victoria’s Secret Sport line, which she also promoted in person last week in Florida. It’s a bit of fitspo this week to get you pumped for the weekend!

Surface Too Deep

Top A promotional image from Surface Too Deep. The model on the left is reading Lucire. It’s a better photo than we could have come up with to promote ourselves. Above Lucire’s new look for the web edition’s news pages for 2014.

You may have noticed we’ve continued to do some housekeeping around the place. Our web news pages now sport a new look for 2014, following on from the facelifted home page. We’re still finding our feet a little with the image sizes, but we should settle into things by the lunar New Year.
   You’d never guess, but getting the new search button at the top of the page, as well as having DuckDuckGo handle our searches, took around an hour. (This switch means we will have no record of what you searched for. In the last 10 years, we knew which keywords were used, but we never bothered looking beyond that. With people increasingly concerned about online privacy, DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn’t leak anything to the NSA et al, for the simple reason that it doesn’t keep any search records.) The new footer took an hour and a half. And creating the template for these pages and making sure they worked took around 11 hours. The comment system is now driven by Disqus across the entire Lucire site, not just the features. We also switched from Feedburner for the daily email newsletters to Feedblitz, since there may have been a bug that saw Feedburner deliver the wrong news. We wanted to be safe rather than sorry.
   However, we hope you like it, although if you’re browsing on a cellphone and some mobile devices, you should be seeing a reduced version of these pages as before.
   There have also been new articles on the main part of the website. Elyse Glickman checked out Düsseldorf in her ‘Volante’ feature (the first of three in Germany)—the first article to get the new look. Next up was Stanley Moss, writing as Lovejoy, with our serialization of his novel The Crimson Garter.
   It’s a departure for us to feature fiction, though readers may remember a few road tests by yours truly where I aped the style of another author—my Aston Martin V8 Vantage review was linked and even posted on a forum at the time. However, Stanley’s novel is so compelling it bears the hallmarks of many great Lucire travel stories (many of which were penned by him), and it covers subjects that are familiar to readers. Plus, you can also check out some of the places covered through the related links at the bottom of the page. The icing on the cake is that The Crimson Garter is a really good yarn. The first two chapters are up now, and we’ll add more regularly. Since many of you get into novels over summer, it seems to be an ideal time to serialize his novel. You can also order the whole thing if you want to read ahead—click through and there are links to Kobobooks and Amazon to the right of the title.
   In case you missed the features, Lola Saab has the low-down for spring 2014 from New York; Tamara Madison interviewed Alexandra von Bromssen; and Anna Deans looks at Lindex’s latest campaign with Matthew Williamson and Karlie Kloss. There were also two looks back at 2013: our news-makers, and my personal review of the year.
   Finally, though certainly not least, we have to give props to swimwear label Surface Too Deep for the great photograph above. The model on the left is reading Lucire. The model on the right has put down another title. I think it says it all: the print editions of Lucire, as we regularly hear from readers, truly engage you from cover to cover.—Jack Yan, Publisher

This week’s Lucire Instagram round-up includes some familiar faces, including, first, our own Lucire Instagram. This shot is of Blake Lively, while promoting Gucci in Dubai. She looks fantastic in a black sequinned number with her signature tousled up-do. The second familiar face, is from our fabulous fashion editor Sopheak Seng’s Instagram. He has posted a shot of Meryl Streep, from the iconic fashion-magazine-based movie The Devil Wears Prada. This image includes the famous quote from the movie: ‘The truth is, no one can do what I do.’ He included the humorous hashtag of #justsaying—just saying indeed.
   I also included images this week from a few of Lucire’s favourite models, the first being the extremely well known Georgia May Jagger. Here, she promotes her February cover of British Vogue and, as per usual, she looks incredible, this time in a very natural and low-key way. The second model is one of the up-and-coming models from the spring 2014 runway shows, Malaika Firch. This shot is of her on her current trip to her birthplace, Kenya. She looks elegantly natural next to a funky old-school-looking truck.
   I have included a style-icon of mine, part-time model and daughter of Vogue Paris’s notorious Carine Roitfeld, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld. Julia’s Instagram shot this week shows the very current trend of hand-painted leather bags. These black leather bags by Givenchy have super-cute dogs painted on—I am loving this new artsy trend.
   Derek Blasberg, fashion writer and blogger, is also included this week. He has posted an end-of-vacation shot with the words, ‘I miss the cold,’ drawn on to a sandy beach. His caption read, ‘Preparing for New York. Lying to myself.’ The poor guy obviously doesn’t want to leave his beaching vacation, and neither would I!
   The last two shots this week are also from fashion bloggers. The first is New York-based blogger from Because I’m Addicted, Geri Hirsch. Here she posts a super-cute shot of her fabulous, green Saint Laurent pumps, in what appears to be her back yard. She accompanies the shot with the words: ‘There’s no place like home’—this is just too cute. The last is my Aussie favourite, Sara Donaldson from Harper and Harley. Sara posts an über-glam shot looking over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, reading a novel and sipping what looks like homemade lemonade—yum! I am most definitely very jealous. And that’s a wrap!—Anna Deans

Thibault Grabherr and Anouchka de Williencourt/SND

Top Pierre Niney as Yves Saint Laurent and Guillaume Gallienne as Pierre Bergé in YSL. Above Pierre Niney as Yves Saint Laurent and Charlotte Le Bon as Victoire Doutreleau.

The first of two bio-pics on fashion design legend Yves Saint Laurent opens today in France.
   YSL, directed by Jalil Lespert, stars Pierre Niney, whose make-up is so convincing that Saint Laurent’s last surviving dog reportedly mistook him for his master. Saint Laurent’s former partner and business manager, Pierre Bergé, has also called Niney’s performance convincing.
   Women’s Wear Daily noted that Niney studied footage of Saint Laurent and took sewing and drawing classes to prepare for his role.
   Bergé has endorsed Lespert’s film, which covers the period between 1957 and 1976, and provided the producers with access to the Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent foundation archive.
   Even from the trailer, there is a sense of visual verisimilitude, and the film has already received acclaim from Paris Match and Elle.
   Bergé has said, ‘The film does not take sides, but tells the truth. All men have a dark and a light side. My life with Yves Saint Laurent was not a fairy tale, but I would not change anything.’
   However, critics of Lespert’s film claim that it glosses over Saint Laurent’s genius. Thomas Bidegain, scriptwriter for the rival bio-pic, told The Daily Telegraph that YSL was ‘simply recounted by Bergé, like Mozart recounted by Salieri.’
   One can see the origins of Bidegain’s claim. In a positive review in L’Express, Mathilde Laurelli notes that YSL recounts a ‘pygmalion du couturier,’ and that it could be more objective.
   However, she and other reviewers tended to praise the film for exploring Saint Laurent’s inner demons, and the clothes from the archive.
   The rival film, which also claims “official” status, has the blessing of François Pinault, the owner of the Yves Saint Laurent brand. Saint Laurent, to be released in May, is directed by Bertrand Bonello, and stars Gaspard Ulliel as the designer. Léa Seydoux plays Loulou de la Falaise and Jérémie Renier portrays Bergé.
   Yves Saint Laurent started at Dior in the mid-1950s and succeeded the designer on his death in 1957. He was drafted in 1960 to fight in the Algerian War of Independence. On his return, Bergé, an art dealer who had met Saint Laurent while he was in a military hospital, tried to have Saint Laurent reinstated at Dior, but the house refused. They successfully sued for breach of contract. They went on to start the Yves Saint Laurent label along with some of the Dior staff. Saint Laurent was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 1985. The following year, the company took control of its fragrance business and floated on the stock exchange. In December 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Saint Laurent Officier of the Légion d’honneur. Saint Laurent died in 2008.

Thibault Grabherr and Anouchka de Williencourt/SND

Top Charlotte Le Bon plays Victoire, Dior’s muse, later at Saint Laurent. Above Yves Saint Laurent and Victoire Doutreleau in 1962.

Thibault Grabherr and Anouchka de Williencourt/SND