List of All Articles with Tag 'au'

L Catterton is set to launch an initial public offering of Birkenstock as soon as September that may

When fashion designer Priya Ahluwalia walked into the dress rehearsal of her autumn/winter 2023 London Fashion Week show in February, she couldn’t stop crying. Titled Symphony, the show was staged at a formerly baroque church hall, with models walking to jazz-infused renditions played by pianist Insxght and saxophonist Solaariss. “I was just so emotional,” the 30-year-old founder and creative director of Ahluwalia says. “It was like the culmination of a big deep dive coming together. That’s how I felt.” Ahluwalia rediscovered the music of her youth when designing the collection. “I don’t like to do things in an obvious way,” Ahluwalia admits. “As life changes, you listen to different things at different stages, so I thought about the visuals of what music sounds like when designing Symphony. “I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston was on the radio when I was born. So my mum finds that song really special and played it to me a lot. Sade’s Kiss Of Life was quite informative, and 50 Cent was also in there too. I remember getting one of his albums when I was 10 and thinking it was phenomenal. I also thought a lot about Prince, Queen, Freddie Mercury and even traditional Punjabi music.” Sound waves and musical notes inspired the lasered print on denim, jacquard patterns on mohair knitwear and track tops with accompanying shorts. Earthy shadows, reds and ochres were taken from the colours of album covers and illuminated cotton separates. Ahluwalia launched her eponymous fashion label in 2018 after graduating from the MA Menswear course at the University of Westminster, combining her dual Indian-Nigerian heritage and London roots, while also exploring the potential of vintage and surplus clothing. Around that time, Ahluwalia visited her father in Nigeria and says she noticed “paupers” wearing secondhand clothing from the UK. “I was really confused and started to ask questions about it,” she says – and it led to the publishing of her first book, Sweet Lassi, exploring the secondhand clothing industry in the Global South. “Finding ways for people to cherish their clothing forever has always been important to me,” Ahluwalia says. “Microsoft and I worked on a platform called Circulate in 2021, where we use AI to crowdsource and categorise people’s unwanted clothing. But now, I think consumers really see the value in learning about the things that happen behind the scenes of the clothes they are purchasing.” It’s why individual garments from the Symphony collection feature Digital ID technology — created and connected by the EON Product Cloud platform, powered by Microsoft Azure. Ahluwalia customers can scan with their mobile phones to discover their item’s unique story, including the design inspiration, production processes and origins of the sourced materials, helping consumers better understand how their clothes can be resold, reused and recycled. “This gives us the opportunity to really share exclusive content and information about a product. As a contemporary luxury brand selling items that are around £400, it’s important to provide our customers with more value and share the stories behind their clothes, whilst encouraging them to engage with sustainability.” But Ahluwalia doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a sustainable designer. “I’m so much more than making the right choices,” she says. “I’m a designer first and foremost, who is also a creative director, filmmaker of Joy and Beloved, who works sustainably to explore and redefine the inherent beauty of blackness [and brownness] through an authentic lens. “The vision is that one day someone would be sitting on Ahluwalia in their front room, watching it, wearing it, smelling it and eating it. A whole 360. I would love Ahluwalia to be an example of how ideas that are not so rooted in Eurocentric values are expandable and amazing on a global stage for people to interact with in a global sense, like we see with many traditional European [fashion] houses.” So what’s next for the fashion house? “We’re doing a show at London Fashion Week in September, but I can’t tell you anything about it. The only thing that I can tell you is that we’re holding the show at the British Library, which I’m really excited about.” Discover more about Ahluwalia’s partnership with Microsoft and EON here: Ahluwalia Symphony Unlocked | Microsoft Unlocked. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Experts reveal why you keep waking up at 4am, and how you can prevent it 10 last-minute gardening jobs before you go on holiday How often should you wash your bra?

With Margot Robbie glowing her way down the pink carpets for Barbie, there's one question on everyone's minds: What is the secret behind her incredible skin? Well, it'll set you back a cool $1,600 (£1,242). While she's previously confessed to loving budget buys including Johnson's makeup wipes and nipple balm as lip balm (yes, really), some of Robbie's other favourite skincare must-haves include La Prairie's Caviar Luxe face cream (£450), and ZIIP Beauty's GX Series Nano Current, coming in at £425. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Hi, it’s Lisa Fleisher, your luxury correspondent for the Middle East. I’ve been asking hoteliers and restaurateurs in

Against Shanghai's glittering river skyline, Kenzo-clad models strutted down a breezy open-air runway on Friday for the French fashion brand's...

Akshata Murty, wife of prime minister Rishi Sunak, has been given the top spot as one of the best dressed people in Britain for 2023. The businesswoman and designer, 43, claimed the number one position on Tatler magazine’s best dressed list, alongside Princess Beatrice’s husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Love Actually star Bill Nighy. Murty, who is the daughter of Indian billionaire and founder of Infosys NR Narayana Murthy, made headlines this year when she stepped out in £570 slippers from JW Anderson for the school run. She also became known for her “quiet luxury” style, also known as “stealth wealth”, having been seen in Gucci trainers that cost £445 and a leather skirt worth more than £1,000. However, after both she and Sunak faced some criticism for donning designer labels (the prime minister was mocked for wearing a £3,500 suit and £490 Prada shoes to campaign in Teesside last July) Murty has since swapped her lavish wardrobe for more accessible brands, many of them British. In May, during the couple’s visit to the G7 summit in Japan, she stepped out in clothes from Joseph, Strethberry, Me+Em, and Chinti & Parker, most of them retailing under £1,000. Chandler Tregaskes, style editor for Tatler, said: “The coveted number one spot in Tatler’s best dressed list belongs to the chatelaine of Downing Street, Akshata Murty. “Her stream of ‘It’ ensembles would have given Jackie Kennedy a run for her money. Though she lacks the pillbox hats and layered pearls of yore, Mrs Sunak is a shining example of modern-day diplomatically decadent dressing that steals the show.” Murty attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and later launched her own fashion label, Akshata Designs. Since her husband became prime minister last year, she has greeted prominent individuals in an array of elegant outfits, including a purple flower patterned dress to attend news publishers Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s annual party in June. For the coronation ceremony of King Charles III in May, she wore a pale blue embroidered dress with a black fascinator. Another memorable outfit was a blue-and-white dress with mosaic-like patterns to greet US first lady Jill Biden, who dressed in solid pink. Murty also made an appearance on Tatler’s Social Power Index for 2023, which was topped by King Charles III and Queen Camilla, as well as Sunak. Others included on the magazine’s fashion list include former chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries Yana Peel, opera singer Danielle de Niese, and the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. Previous mentions on the list included the late Queen Elizabeth II, the Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Sussex, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, fashion designer Stella McCartney, and pop stars Dua Lipa and Harry Styles. Additional reporting by PA Read More Men have a problem – and it won’t be solved by either Andrew Tate or Caitlin Moran Elon Musk reacts to ex-wife Talulah Riley’s engagement to Thomas Brodie-Sangster Thomas Brodie-Sangster references Love Actually in sweet engagement announcement with Talulah Riley

Kering SA agreed to buy a 30% stake in fashion house Valentino for €1.7 billion ($1.87 billion) in

Opting for a fresh look, 'Today’ host Savannah Guthrie sported a twisted bun positioned at the back of her head, with soft tendrils gracefully flowing around her face

By Mimosa Spencer PARIS Second-quarter sales at French cosmetics giant L'Oreal slightly beat expectations, as a rebound in

Did you think that the Barbie movie finally hitting theaters meant that the influx of Barbie fashion collections would be coming to an end? Think again. Vans is the latest to join the party, with a new Barbie collaboration launching Thursday.

PARIS French luxury group Kering, which is struggling to revive sales at its star brand Gucci, said on

Ever wondered why people say they can smell rain before it rains? They are not pulling your leg - there is real science behind it. It is all because of petrichor, made up from the Greek words "petra", meaning stone, and '"ichor", which refers to the golden fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in their mythology. It basically means the the "smell of rain" with the phrase coined by Australian scientists Joy Bear and Richard Thomas in 1964. Jeff Weber, a meteorologist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Unidata Program Center told the Mirror: "Petrichor is caused by oils derived from plants, primarily leaves, that accumulate over dry periods. These oils settle into soils or onto pavement over time and are released into the atmosphere by being disturbed by rainfall." According to the Met Office, the reason people claim to smell rain because it comes is because "when a higher humidity is experienced as a precursor to rain, the pores of rocks and soil become trapped with moisture forcing some of the oils to be released into the air". Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Despite some being released before it actually rains, the strongest smell is released during. This is when raindrops landing on soil "trap tiny air bubbles on the surface which then shoot upward" and "burst out of the drop throwing aerosols of scent into the air where they are then distributed by the wind". The smell is produced by a soil bacteria which releases a chemical called geosmin, which provides an "earthy", musky or fresh aroma. Before it rains, a person might be able to smell the scent of ozone, or O3, which is a naturally present gas in the atmosphere which gets its name from the Greek word 'ozein', or smell. It sometimes indicate that a storm is on the way because pockets of gas are pushed down to ground level by winds. This means that those who are sensitive to the smells will likely be able to pick them up. So now you know. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.