Fashion
Joint effort
As Rodarte launches a hot high-street collaboration, Carolyn Asome talks to the sisters behind the US label
H&M’s grown-up sister store & Other Stories is fast gaining a reputation for producing the most interesting designer collaborations on the high street. Its latest one is with Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sisters behind the American label Rodarte. The duo are most famous for collaborating on the costumes for the film Black Swan, but Keira Knightley, Cate Blanchett and Michelle Obama have all been snapped in their £6,000 tulle and lace dresses.
In the pantheon of nutty eccentrics, the Mulleavys ride high. They shun the fashion world, preferring to live instead with their parents in the sleepy Californian backwater of Pasadena. “I love the fact that we all have dinner together every evening,” says
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Kate. Laura interrupts: “I laugh so much with my parents. It’s an environment that inspires us, which in turn makes us feel more creative.”
The sisters tick as a single unit. “Yes, it’s true — we have one email address,” says Kate, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Don’t they argue? “All the time,” they chorus. “But it’s usually about everything except the creative stuff,” says Kate. “We have this strange inner connection, as if we were meant to make things together.”
They are inspired by teen dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight,
Disneyland and Japanese horror movies, as well as by California. Of their & Other Stories collection, Laura says: “We thought about the ease of dressing in LA, and how we could create essential pieces that worked from day to night. It’s mainly casual, a jeans and a T-shirt landscape. We don’t have a huge street culture, as everyone is always in their cars. We wanted to create beautiful and detailed pieces that are cool but easy to wear.”
The collection is steeped in a louche 1940s and 1970s nostalgia, redolent of silver-screen glamour that feels romantic and feminine. Highlights include the navy suede cropped
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jacket with faux-fur trim (£245), which feels luxe yet edgy, and the blush-pink dresses (£165). “This stripy Lurex sweater,” says Laura, pointing to the jumper she is wearing, “and my sister’s print shirt, well, we’d definitely wear them with jeans, even if we were heading to a gala.”
Fashion misfits, perhaps, but in 2016 you don’t get much more modern than wearing jeans to a gala.
Rodarte & Other Stories will be in stores from March 17
Beauty
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Sarah Jossel
Make the cut
I’m backstage at New York fashion week, talking to Isabella Emmack (below), whose catwalk career skyrocketed after Redken’s global creative director, Guido Palau, chopped her hair into a boyish bob moments before the Alexander Wang show in 2014.
“It was a shock, but now it’s 100% easier, and the industry is responding really positively,” Emmack says of losing the length. She’s just been named the face of the new Akris campaign.
This season, Palau’s styling tool of choice at Wang was, once again, a pair of scissors (see Katherine Moore, above). “Designers used to request long, robotic beach waves, but now they’re increasingly casting models who have their own unique style,” said Palau, pointing to Peyton Knight’s punky pixie crop. Knight, above, who has secured a spot in the Gucci SS16 campaign, agrees that her versatile ’do has elevated her profile and transformed her career.
A good cut can’t guarantee a career transformation, but it can transform your face — and you don’t need to go radically short, either. “The smallest change can have a huge impact,” says the hairstylist George Northwood. “One inch can make you look younger, or a blunt cut can give a fuller, thicker finish.”
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Northwood has just launched a “curated cuts” bar at his salon. “The aim is to give clients who are undecided an opportunity to discuss different looks, have a bespoke style and feel more confident about getting exactly what they want.” Chop chop. georgenorthwood.com
Party
Michael Hennegan
Brits behaving madly
To the Brit awards, the music industry’s annual humdinger of a night, fuelled by egos, big hair and tit tape. It may never be as good as when Geri Halliwell paraded in a Union Jack dress, but when Party found ourselves sandwiched behind Ant and Dec on the Warner Music table — live on ITV, no less — we decided we might as well make a night of it. Where did that take us? Well, a robot-dance with Jess Glynne for a start, sharing the biggest bottle of vodka we’ve ever seen with Charli XCX, having a wee next to Major Lazer’s Diplo, then back to a suite at the Rosewood, where one of our number was last spotted heading for an 8am flight to Milan. Ouch. Best advice of the night came from the fashion brand Dsquared2’s Dan Caten (or was it Dean?). “Darling, just enjoy yourself,” he told us, as we bopped along in the Warner afterparty VIP room: “All you need in life is good music, good people and good times.” Ultimate song, we asked? “Got to be Real by Cheryl Lynn,” he told us, before being dragged into a walk-off. Someone pass us the paracetamol.
