Don’t Buy, Rent - Why H&M Is Hiring Out Fashion

Fast fashion relies on rapid turnover and few retailers have done as much to encourage the adoption of fast fashion as H&M. This week, the Swedish retailer unveils a new concept in its flagship store in Stockholm. Only it isn't selling clothes—it's renting them.

H&M, whose brands include Cos, & Other Stories and Weekday, is introducing a limited collection of some 50 selected party dresses and skirts from H&M's 2012-2019 Conscious Exclusive collections, made from "more" sustainable materials, as well as a small number from this year's collection. Customers will book an appointment with an atelier who will help them select up to three pieces a week, for around 350 SEK ($36) for each item. Once the garment is returned, it's dry-cleaned. A repair and remake counter will also be open for damaged fashion favorites.

This is in part a recognition of growing customer concerns about the fashion industry's impact on the environment. "Fashion is about lust and impulses," admits Anna Gedda, head of sustainability at the H&M Group. "By 2030 there will be 8.5 billion of us. We will need two planets—but that doesn't mean we will all be naked, so the question is how do we make that possible? At the end of the day, we have to change how we enjoy and use fashion."

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Amazon And Its Continuing Assault On Food Retail

There were two significant stories in the past few weeks involving Amazon's incursion into the world of food retail. The first was the announcement of changes to pricing for the Amazon Fresh delivery service and the second was the recognition of what has been an oft rumored launch of a new grocery brand. I wrote about these rumors first back in March of 2019. While these are two separate stories, they really build off one another and offer clues to their future plans to dominate the grocery world.

First, Amazon announced that they will no longer charge for their Amazon Fresh service for Prime members. Amazon Fresh, launched back in 2007, offers proof that not everything Amazon touches turns to gold. This service has slowly expanded without much fanfare, and is now offered in 21 metro markets in the U.S. It has been slow to take off and shows the immense challenges associated with delivering fresh groceries to U.S. households. When launched, this service was priced at $299/year. They later changed to $14.99/month in addition to the cost of a Prime membership. Now, it's free (with a $35 minimum purchase) with Prime but the pricing strategy changes illustrate one core problem of grocery delivery—it is expensive to execute, with the costs of warehouses, trucks and drivers and the trickiness of getting fresh and frozen products into consumers' homes.

In addition to Fresh, Amazon has also been focused on growing their Prime Now program, which delivers from Whole Foods. In fact, there has been so much focus on growing this “instant” delivery service that many Whole Foods stores are becoming overrun with Prime pickers, interfering with the retail customer's shopping experience. And, of course, you can still order directly from Amazon with Pantry and Subscribe & Save. Confused? It's a good bet that consumers are as well. Nevertheless, this relentless pressure on growing delivery has implications for others who are trying to compete (and actually trying to make money) in this space.

The second story is Amazon's confirmation of their first “Amazon branded” (name unknown) grocery store that will open early next year in Southern California. The 35,000-square-foot store is in a former Toys R Us (irony is not dead) and will offer a glimpse at Amazon's latest attempt to penetrate the grocery world. The obvious question is why do they need this, given that they already own Whole Foods and have launched Amazon Go?

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Global Fashion Collective Shines At Paris Fashion Week

International fashion producer, Global Fashion Collective, presented three runway shows at Paris Fashion Week, for the first time last month. The grand Palais de la Decouverte near the Champs-Élysées provided a stunning setting to showcase nine international brands including Kirsten Ley (Canada), Annika Klaas and Madeleine Mesam (Germany) Ozlana (Australia), Faun Studio (Canada), Pariha (India), EmulEos (USA), Erxi x MrHuaMrsHua (China), Sarah Kosinski (France), Devotion Designs (Canada).

A bold collection of designs from Canadian haute couture designer Kirsten Ley provided a dramatic opening to the runway shows in Paris. A recent move to Paris by this innovative designer appears to have inspired her creative processes further, with an exciting new range of highly structured pieces in a striking palette of blues and yellows.

Each of Kirsten Ley’s hand-sewn, sculptural garments take hours to create and is a unique work of art. Silk, chiffon and leather garments combine soft, flowing fabrics and designs with strong lines and tailoring.

                                                             

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Meet Sylvie Millstein, A Female Founder In Fashion

Melding American sportswear and French flair, Sylvie Millstein's journey to founding the fashion brand Hellessy is anything but expected.

She launched Hellessy when she was forty years old, after a successful career at Chanel and while juggling a family with four children. Becoming a designer wasn't always the plan for Millstein, but working in fashion was—she made it her goal to work at Chanel after reading her first Vogue magazine at age thirteen.

"I became obsessed with fashion, but more precisely with the new Chanel designed by Karl Lagerfeld. I never thought I could be talented enough as a designer to join the creative team, but getting a Master [degree] from one of the top French Business Schools—known as the Grandes Écoles de Commerce in France—represents a golden ticket to enter any luxury group," the designer says. "So I made it my academic goal, graduated from HEC, and landed a marketing position in the LVMH group."

Soon after, Millstein moved to Japan where she took a position with the luxury house, Givenchy, and it was in the East Asian nation where her Chanel goals manifested. She was offered a job as a buyer with her dream company, eventually moving into a key role as the GMM for Chanel, Japan. For the company at the time, and given the size of the market, this was a career highlight.

She eventually left Chanel to relocate to New York to start a family, where Millstein found herself disillusioned with the state of the job market in fashion. "I could not find any position in the corporate fashion world that would be as exciting as what I already accomplished," she says. That was when the idea to launch Hellessy came to be. It felt like the next logical step in her career.

Evening Dresses Online

These Cocktails Are Sure To Add A Spark On Independence Day

Independence Day is often about cookouts and days at the beach, but it's also about toasting to all the freedoms Americans have fought so hard to achieve. That's something worthy of a celebratory toast! While toasting with Champagne is always a fantastic idea, these cocktails are sure to help to set the mood.A traditional frozen margarita is layered between strawberry purée and blue curacao, at Dos Caminos in New York City. "The Red, White, and Blue Margarita features our traditional frozen margarita layered between strawberry purée and blue curacao, making it a perfect festive treat to kick off the holiday weekend,” said Matthew Arrants, beverage manager.

An adult spin on a childhood classic, Chicago’s Onward serves a tall glass of sparkling Gran Passione prosecco with a floating firecracker popsicle for a festive Fourth of July treat.  “As you’re drinking sparkling wine, the popsicle slowly melts adding new layers of flavor. As you near the end when the colors gather at the bottom of the glass, the best part is the last three sips which creates a burst of the nostalgic flavors of cherry, lemon and blue raspberry from the classic summertime treat,” said assistant general manager Vicente Romero.

At Greene St. Kitchen in Las Vegas,  this cocktail is made with butterfly pea flower infused Pineapple Plantation rum, Kalani Coconut liqueur, coconut cream, soda, strawberry sorbetto and gold dusted mint leaves.  "Stars and Stripes was inspired by one of my favorite ice pops off the local ice cream truck, the Rocket Pop. It was my go-to and always reminded me of 4th of July. No matter what time of year, I enjoyed one!" says master intoxicologist Eric Hobbie for Greene St. Kitchen.

'Immeasurable' Impact Of Jean-Michel Basquiat On Exhibit At The Brant Foundation

Chances are you've seen some kid somewhere wearing a Jean-Michel Basquiat t-shirt whether you knew it at the time or not. It likely featured a crown with his name scrawled in all caps underneath.

Chances are you've also never actually seen one of his paintings in person.

And chances are you will not have another opportunity again like the one being presented now through May 15 at The Brant Foundation in New York City's East Village to see so many of his best works in one place at one time.

Basquiat began his career as a graffiti artist before rocketing to international contemporary art superstardom in the 1980s, dying of an accidental drug overdose in 1988 at 27-years-old.

An early death naturally limited his artistic output. His background with graffiti and being a black man resulted in museums turning up their noses at his work when it was still affordable. Private collectors, like Peter Brant, namesake of The Brant Foundation, however, flocked to him, driving up his prices.


By the time museums had caught on, it was too late.

As a result of these unique circumstances, Basquiat's art proves exceedingly difficult to find in public collections making this exhibit, Jean-Michael Basquiat, all the more rare.

If you've never seen a work by Basquiat in person, you are in for a treat.

"I think the experience of seeing a Basquiat work in person is immeasurable," The Art Newspaper reporter Gabriella Angeleti, who has seen the exhibit, said. "It has an immense energy that almost dwarfs the viewer. It's an emotional experience and that's something hard to translate when you view the work through a screen or a book."

In 2017, Basquiat dethroned Andy Warhol, a mentor and admirer, as the most expensive American artist at auction when a Japanese billionaire purchased his Untitled (1982) at a Sotheby's auction for $110.4 million including buyer's premium.

"It's interesting to stand in front of Untitled, (1982), for example, and reflect on what Basquiat would have made of the whole circus around his work if he were still creating today," Angeleti said.

Advance tickets for Jean-Michel Basquiat have long been sold out. A limited number of same-day tickets are available. Contact The Brant Foundation at ticketsnyc@brantfoundation.org to have your name added to a waitlist. Each day the foundation accommodates people on the waitlists for entry on a first-come, first-serve basis. Walk-ins will not be permitted.

Basquiat fever, hot as ever three decades after his passing, has had an unusual effect on the art world and art-admiring public, with a potential silver lining for fans according to Angeleti.

Joe Beef and the Excesses of Restaurant Culture

For Americans living through turbulent times, Canada can seem like a refuge. The Montreal chef David McMillan figures it doesn't hurt for Canadians to have a getaway plan, too. Since 2012, he's owned a lakeside cabin in the Laurentian Mountains, accessible only by boat. It's equipped with solar power, fishing rods and rifles, and enough dried provisions to last a year. McMillan, who has three young daughters, told me, "If anything is weird, I could grab everybody and head up there." The cabin was an inspiration for "Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse," McMillan's second cookbook with Frédéric Morin, his partner in five Montreal restaurants, including Joe Beef. Published late last year, and co-written with Meredith Erickson, a cookbook author who was one of Joe Beef's first servers, the new book is in part a tongue-in-cheek survivalist's manual, with instructions for building a subterranean bunker, making hardtack, and growing endive in darkness. By "apocalypse," the authors mean a range of modern ills, from the "constant noise" of social media to the threat of nuclear war. "We don't want to just survive," Erickson writes. "We want to live it out in full Burgundy style." To that end, the book also collects more than a hundred of the chefs' recipes, including a tater-tot galette, sweetbreads cooked with charcoal and licorice, and a rendition of jambon persillé, a Burgundian charcuterie of ham suspended in parsleyed jelly.

Joe Beef, which opened in 2005, is McMillan and Morin's first and best-known restaurant. It specializes in ambitious but unfussy French cooking—no white tablecloths, no minimalist dishes sprinkled with microgreens or gold leaf. Situated in the former industrial neighborhood of Little Burgundy, near the Lachine Canal, the restaurant has the feel of a ragtag bistro, with vintage furniture and stuffed animal heads mounted on the walls. The menu, written only on chalkboards, in French, is defined by exuberant immoderation, a blend of the haute and the gluttonous. On a given night, it might include a traditional foie-gras torchon or a sandwich of foie gras on white bread; tartare of raw duck, venison, or horsemeat; and a hulking strip steak topped with cheese curds—a Québécois staple—or fat links of boudin noir. Often, it includes dishes that aren't French at all: skate schnitzel, porchetta, barbecued ribs cooked in the back-yard smoker. Diners willing to spend at least a hundred dollars apiece can forgo ordering and let the kitchen stuff them with a dozen courses of its choosing. The food writer John Birdsall once published an ecstatic piece on the site First We Feast titled "I Puked at Joe Beef and It Made Me a Better Man."

For a long time, McMillan and Morin made a point of living the experience that they were selling. McMillan was known for drinking with his customers, and then downing bottles of wine long after dinner service was over. The chefs' spirit of extravagance helped make Joe Beef a success. In 2007, they opened Liverpool House, two doors down, to accommodate Joe Beef overflow; four years later, they expanded Joe Beef into an adjacent space, doubling its capacity. And, a couple of years after that, they opened a wine bar, Le Vin Papillon, two doors down from Liverpool House. Today, they employ a hundred and fifty people. But their ethos of excess proved unsustainable. In an essay for Bon Appétit, in February, McMillan wrote, "The community of people I surrounded myself with ate and drank like Vikings. It worked well in my twenties. It worked well in my thirties. It started to unravel when I was forty. I couldn't shut it off."

Food truck fundraiser for unpaid school lunch charges

Not only were they serving fresh food, but they were helping students in the consumer and technical education program, otherwise known as CTE, learn about the food truck business.

"My favorite answer to that is always being my own boss making my own decisions," The Woodshed Mobile Wood-Fired Pizza owner Tom Babler said when asked about what he enjoys in the business.

Family and consumer sciences and the business departments at Logan Middle School made the decision to join forces and teach students about the real-world food truck opportunities.

"It’s really fun you know seeing how they run their food trucks," Eighth-grader Tyler Stevenson said. "And how they make their food."

The co-founders of Midwest Bites Food Truck worked with the school staff to turn the event into a fundraiser. "We figured that we could make it into a big fundraiser for the school lunch program in hopes that the community will come out and support that and reduce any debts that are out there for the school lunch program," Midwest Bites co-founder Mary Walleser said. "Because no kid should be hungry."

According to Feeding America, one in six children does not know where their next meal will come from.

City of Charlottetown adopts food council's charter

Charlottetown city council has voted to officially adopt the food charter established by the Charlottetown Food Council.

A food charter is a visionary guiding document that describes what a community wants its food system to look like. It is a non-binding reference document that provides guidance for developing food-related policy and projects within the community.

“The food charter is an extremely valuable tool that will be used to engage the community and incorporates the overall mission and goals of the Charlottetown Food Council,” said Coun. Terry MacLeod, chairman of the Environment and Sustainability Committee.

“Food security is an issue that has been raised by the community for years. The adoption of the food charter, which also aligns with the goals of our Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP), is an encouraging step forward.”

The Charlottetown Food Council was established in 2018 and is comprised of 13 members and two city employees. The members began developing the food charter during the group’s strategic planning sessions. It was created by reviewing various examples from other Canadian cities and considering regionally relevant goals and principles.

“The adoption of the Charlottetown food charter clearly establishes the City of Charlottetown as a leader in food policy in this province,” said Karen Murchison, chairwoman of the Charlottetown Food Council.

“Our goal as the Charlottetown Food Council is to use this as an opportunity to advance positive change in the food environment within the City.”

More than 60 other municipalities in Canada have recognized the value of making food a priority in their community and have taken on the challenge of improving the regional food system that they operate within through the establishment of a local Food Council and adoption of a Food Charter.