Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Milan Fashion Week opened its third day of preview shows for next spring and summer against the backdrop of thousands of young environmental protesters calling out the industry Friday for its wasteful and polluting ways.
The question hanging over fashion week is whether after 19 months, the coronavirus pandemic has led to any real changes in a system that has revolved around four ready-to-wear cycles a year, plus cruise and couture. Yes, shows are socially distanced, and fewer editors are admitted than ever. But with companies racing to restore sales to pre-pandemic levels, one is left to wonder: are deeper changes really afoot?
Signs at the climate march through the heart of Milan urged "Dress the change," a slogan aimed at the second-most polluting industry after energy. "Everyone wanna be hot, but Earth isn't one of them," read another sign.
Some highlights from Friday's shows:
Prada returned to the live runway for the first time since February 2020, when the creative partnership between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons was announced and just as Italy detected the first locally transmitted cases of the new coronavirus.
Fans thronged the sidewalk outside the Fondazione Prada showroom and contemporary art exhibition space to hail VIPS and influencers alike, as old fashion rituals resumed.
Inside, masked editors vetted with a health pass sat at a social distance that left plenty of room to breathe. Another show was staged simultaneously in Shanghai, with images of the darkened skyline broadcast in the Milan showroom.
The collection, the third of the Prada-Simons era, was a deconstruction of traditional evening wear -- trains, corsets and evening gowns -- as a study in sensuality and in revealing the female form, the designers said in show notes.
Simons bemoaned the "irreality" of an evening gown "however beautiful," and it is certainly the case that many gowns have spent the pandemic hanging, unheralded, in closets.
"These clothes can become complicated: evening dresses, historical costume. We want to make it uncomplicated, easy, that feels modern," Simons said.
Mini-skirts in couture silk trailed long sashes, sometimes left floating behind. More formally, skirts sported full tuxedo tails. They were worn with sweaters, distressed leather bomber jackets and sleeveless blouses with black-and-white prints that laced up for a punk feel.
Dresses were cinched at the waist and left open at the back in a way that suggested the Prada V logo, while the skirt had a deep inverse-V slit. Leather straps on bare biceps finished the look.
Knitwear was soft, with breastplate or corset detailing, finished with the same leather bicep straps. Mini-knit tunics were cinched at the waist and worn over matching short-shorts
The colour palette ranged from navy and black to cotton candy pink and canary yellow. Magenta accented acid green, which in turn complemented girlish pink. Shoes had a low, cantilevered heel, giving the sensation of suspension.
For Prada, it is a mistake to discuss the show in terms of a "return to normal."
"We have learned that we in fashion engage with a much wider world," Prada said in the show notes. "After all that has happened, how can you just go back?"
Donatella Versace pumped energy into Milan Fashion week with a star-filled runway and front row, and collection strong on the fashion house's codes: bright colours, safety pins and especially silky foulards.
British singer and emerging fashion icon Dua Lipa opened the runway show in a skin-baring black suit held together with coloured safety pins as her song "Physical" blasted through the venue and closed it in a liquidy fuchsia skirt and corset.
In between, she was joined by Naomi Campbell, smiling and brightly clad in a hot-pink suit and orange shirt, Gigi Hadid in a snug latex black dress with just a silky flash of turquoise and pink, and Lourdes Leon Ciccone, in a metallic silvery dress.
The show opened with black suits and dresses with tiny flashes of color in pins and foulards that peeked from hemlines and slits, the colors growing ever more bold until they burst into a vivid palette of pink, aquamarine, seafoam green, acid green and yellow.
The women's silhouette exuded the confidence, with body-hugging dresses and skirts offering an array of ways to bare skin with high slits on skirts, pinned together tights and ab-revealing corsets or bra-tops. Footwear included wavy platforms shoes in bright satin.
Menswear was more relaxed, with floral suits, sportier varsity jackets with mesh tops, or bright leather jackets paired with tight latex T-shirts and jeans.
Outside the Versace venue, hoards of fans partied like it was 2019, waiting for glimpses of arriving VIPs.
Front-row guests included Milan's own fashion influencer-turned-entrepreneur Chiara Ferragni and her husband, the singer Fedez, American influencer-turned-actress Addison Rae and actress Bella Thorne with her Italian boyfriend, singer Benjamin Mascolo.
----------
Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina, the designers behind the Sunnei brand, invited the fashion crowd to don sunglasses inside a white tunnel and watch the collection as strobe lights flashed.
The youthful collection was strong on layering, with long skirts worn over trousers, or grassy fringe peeking out of Bermuda shorts. Proportions were mostly loose and oversized, with coats gathered at the waist to offer some definition. Bags were soft and large, or rigorously boxy.
Sunglasses, de rigeur in flashing tunnels, strapped to the back of the head.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.