Month: January 2021

Naomi Osaka is the newest face of Louis Vuitton. The 23-year-old tennis superstar joins Alicia Vikander, Léa Seydoux and Emma Stone, among other celebrities, as ambassadors for the French luxury label. Osaka will appear in the brand’s spring-summer 2021 campaign photographed by Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, Nicolas Ghesquière.

“Aside from tennis, my most treasured passion is fashion; and there is no brand more iconic than Louis Vuitton,” said Osaka, the reigning champion at the U.S. open, in a press release. “It is such an honour to work with Nicolas – he’s a designer I admire so much and we share a mutual love of Japanese culture and style. To become global brand ambassador is truly a dream come true for me.”

Osaka also shared this anecdote via Twitter: “Funny story,” she tweeted. “I first bought my mom a LV bag when I was 16 as a birthday present and it’s kinda been a tradition since. Do I call this a full circle moment? Yes.”

Ghesquière calls Osaka “exceptional” and a role model. “Her career and convictions are inspiring,” he said. “I am in awe of Naomi, she stays true to herself and doesn’t compromise on her values.”

Osaka, the daughter of a Haitian father and Japanese mother, is the first Asian player to hold the No.1 ranking in singles and the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam (of which she has won a total of three). She competes for Japan, where she was born, and will be the face of the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. Osaka currently lives in Los Angeles.

Where are you going? To take a walk around the block? To the grocery store? To work, because you provide an essential service? (Thank you!) With few other exceptions – some outdoor skating rinks and ski hills are open in some Canadian cities, for example – that is an exhaustive list of the winter activities possible during pandemic lockdowns. This is not to say, however, you can’t love your winter outfit, even if you’re going no further than the end of your street for a stroll. Below, see seven celebs who are giving us serious winter wardrobe inspiration in cozy knits, warm coats and, of course, face masks.

Gigi Hadid

Since having her first child, a daughter, whose name is not yet public, with Zayn Malik, Hadid has been spotted on multiple occasions walking around New York City stroller in hand. The style tips: the bigger the better when it comes to coats, and always add a hat.

Bella Hadid

Bella proves scarves are always a good idea.

Gabrielle Union-Wade and Dwayne Wade

A sweatsuit is instantly dressed up when topped with a camel coat, a la Gabrielle Union.

Alicia Keys

While this isn’t a recent photo of Alicia Keys, the style inspo remains: hoops, hat, black leather jacket.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Don’t overlook brown in your winter wardrobe.

Ciara

In a full Moncler snowsuit, Ciara demonstrates that being warm and being fashionable are not mutually exclusive.

Victoria Beckham

Even the poshest of us all know that knitwear is the perfect work-from-home outfit topper.

You know that saying about how anything Fred Astaire did, Ginger Rogers did backward and in high heels? It comes to mind as Jodie Turner-Smith recounts filming the action movie Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse while in her second trimester of pregnancy—something her costars Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell were quite assuredly not dealing with. “The men think they’re hard-core,” the actress says, cracking up, “but they could never do what they do while also making a baby. They just couldn’t.”

RUTH OSSAI

For Turner-Smith, the fight scenes took a back seat to the humanity of the story. “True strength is not found in force and brutality, but in vulnerability,” she says. “I would love to do more action, and action where I’m allowed to be a woman,” she adds, citing Sigourney Weaver’s classic turn in Alien. “I know we don’t maybe class that as specifically an action film, but I mean, what she’s doing in that? Fucking brilliant.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum—except in the sense that she’s also what a streaming-service menu might consider a Strong Female Lead—is Anne Boleyn, whom Turner-Smith has signed on to play in an as-yet-unnamed series. The English queen’s tragic story has been told countless times via film (The Other Boleyn Girl), musical theater (Six), and literary fiction (Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies), but Turner-Smith has a theory about why we’re still, nearly a half-millennium after her beheading, so enthralled by her. “We can only infer who she was, because she left no paper trail that would hint at her imagination. She’s endlessly fascinating for that reason,” she says. With her portrayal, Turner-Smith wanted to “tell the story of the woman who sits at the center of the myth, and make that story an accessible one—one that’s not entirely about class, but about humanity. Because whether a woman is a queen or a housekeeper, she is not exempt from any of the challenges and trials that women face in navigating their bodies, love, or the patriarchy,” she says. “There’s an opportunity to tell a really human story and for it to feel that much more accessible because a Black woman is playing her.”

Ruth Ossai

• Beauty Tip: Buff Gucci Fluide de Beaute Fini Natural across skin for a perfected, luminous canvas.

As if this weren’t already enough range for one person, Turner-Smith is also playing opposite Colin Farrell in After Yang, about a family with a robot among its ranks. While the film has a sci-fi bent, it also has, she insists, a very intimate focus on “family and connection and what that really means in the age of technology.”

Turner-Smith, of course, is no stranger to tackling weighty issues onscreen. In 2019, she starred in Melina Matsoukas’s Queen & Slim, a tale of Black love and survival that has become even more powerful in the wake of this past summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. “I really think that we made a classic, and [that] 10 years from now, it will be viewed that way as well,” she says. “Black artists are not only the engine, but also the car. We are in the driver’s seat, telling our own stories.” Including Turner-Smith herself, who made her directorial debut this fall with Jackie, a short film created in collaboration with Gucci and Dazed magazine (she became an ambassador for the house in 2019). To finally be behind the camera, she says, was “so incredible, so empowering. To have my hand in everything—to choose every shot, every look, and approve every piece of set decoration; to see the edit, and sit for hours and select the color grade” was her idea of heaven. Her husband, actor Joshua Jackson, “sat with me, being my biggest supporter and my brain trust, and we watched all these references, and he let me bounce all these ideas off him until all hours of the morning.” Her relationship with the Gucci team, including the house’s polymath creative director, Alessandro Michele, sounds similarly collaborative. Working with them “is so natural and feels so lived-in,” she says.

RUTH OSSAI

Speaking of natural and lived-in, here Turner-Smith wears pieces from the house’s glamping-friendly capsule with The North Face. Thanks to Jackson, who grew up in Vancouver, she’s been converted to the outdoor lifestyle. “If we can mix fashion with me getting my outdoor situations on, it’s a very beautiful marriage of two things,” she says, adding that for her lately, fashion has become a form of self-care. She likes “this idea of dressing up for you, of putting something on to enhance your own mood, just to do what you want to do and not necessarily even leave the house—because right now we’re not even doing that. It’s like telling a story about how you feel with what you wear,” she says. “We all need a little bit of carefree energy right now.”

Ruth Ossai

In between acting and directing, Turner-Smith recently gave birth to her daughter. Doing so during a global pandemic has been challenging, but Turner-Smith is grateful to have had her mother by her side throughout. “Navigating parenthood at any time is difficult,” she says, “and it’s even more difficult without support, when everything is shut down and you can’t really see other people or go anywhere.” She’s quick to point out that moms of school-age children have it much harder right now: “I’m not having to sit on Zoom with her and suddenly become her educator as well as her caretaker,” she says of her daughter. Childbirth ultimately taught her another lesson about strength. “Patriarchal society really is out here, scamming women into thinking that they’re not supremely powerful beings,” she says, chuckling. “Because damn, it’s some goddess-level shit.” ▪

Hair by James Catalano for Dyson Hair; makeup by Rebecca Davenport for Gucci Beauty; set design by Luke Kene; produced by Yasser Abubeker.

This article appears in the February 2021 issue of ELLE.

From a gorgeous spring makeup collection from Chanel to big news in sustainable beauty.

Meet Everist, a Local Haircare Line of Eco-Friendly In-Shower Pastes

Clean, waterless and zero-waste. These three big terms are what pushed Toronto-based founders Jayme Jenkins and Jessica Stevenson, who both hail from Big Beauty (think: stints at Giorgio Aramni, Revlon and YSL) to set out on their own and disrupt the industry with their new brand, Everist, a line consisting of patent-pending shampoo and conditioner pastes that officially became available for pre-order earlier this week. “One thing we saw from the inside is this consumer demand for cleaner alternatives and more sustainable options from these big brands. We both tried to influence from the inside, but we just found it super difficult to steer the direction,” says Jenkins. “We decided if we wanted to see something come to life, we had to do it ourselves.” For the duo, the biggest area in need of an eco-friendly overhaul was in haircare, where the founders discovered that most traditional shampoo and conditioner formulas are packaged in single-use plastics and filled with more than 70 percent water (which can easily breed bacteria and destabilize active ingredients) as well as many synthetic preservatives.

To help solve these issues, Jenkins and Stevenson landed on their waterless in-shower pastes that are free from parabens, sulfates, silicones, dyes and synthetic fragrances and instead packed with natural ingredients, like gentle coconut-derived cleansing agents, moisturizing vegetable glycerin and a blend of over five essential oils with scalp benefits. As for the innovative packaging, each travel-friendly 100 mL aluminum tube is the product equivalent of a standard 300 mL bottle and is easily recyclable curb-side. The brand even has a unique recycling program for its plastic caps: “Our products come with a little cotton bag where you can collect all your caps,” explains Jenkins. “Once it’s full, you just go to our website, put in your address and we send you a return shipping label to send them back at our cost.”

Okoko Cosmétiques Opened its First Retail Concept in Vancouver

Know for its high-performing and clean skincare, Black-owned Canadian indie brand Okoko Cosmétiques opened the doors to its very-first retail shop on January 6th. Located inside of its manufacturing facility in the heart of Vancouver’s trendy Gastown neighbourhood, the new storefront, called L’Atelier Okoko, carries all the luxe Okoko Cosmétiques favourites along with a selection of other products from other green beauty brands, including non-toxic nail polish, organic supplements and teas. The flagship store also offers personalized and holistic consultations from Okoko’s team of beauty formulators.

Chanel Dropped its Spring 2021 Makeup Collection, Les Fleurs de Chanel

You can always count on Chanel for eye-catching makeup launches. For its latest spring colour assortment, which officially launched on January 4th, the French luxury house pulled inspiration from a cluster of flowers (think: camellias, peonies, anthuriums, pansies among many others) to dream up a nine-piece collection comprised of warm, earthy hues, like coral orange, bronze, copper and sumptuous pinks and reds. As for the makeup goods, you’ll find a shimmery, flower-embossed blush palette ($90); a terracotta-brown mascara ($43), two high-shine lip lacquers ($48 each), two velvety lipsticks ($48 each), and three signature Le Vernis nail polish colours ($35 each).

Ole Henriksen Has a New Facial Scrub

When it comes to the go-to products needed to have and maintain a glowing complexion, a facial exfoliator should be high up on your list. Not only does the act of exfoliating help slough away dead skin cells to make room for newer, more radiant ones, but resurfacing the skin also helps other skincare products penetrate more deeply — and work better as a result. Made with AHAs, plus sugar exfoliants and lemon peel extracts, this new physical-meets-chemical hybrid by Ole Henriksen, Lemonade Smoothing Scrub ($42), is suitable for all skin types to visibly re-texturize and polish the complexion. The formula also contains basil chamomile extract which work in tandem to soothe and calm.

Clean Beauty Brand Ilia Beauty Launched a Winter-Worthy Lip Treatment

With the temperature outside only continuing to plummet, a heavy-duty lip hydrator is a must-own right now to keep lips from getting chapped. Just as its name suggests, Ilia Beauty’s new Lip Wrap Hydrating Mask ($34) is rich in texture and in good-for-you-skin ingredients. It contains salicornia herbacea extract and hyaloronic acid to deeply moisturize lips, plus papaya enzymes that work to gently buff way any dead skin to clear the way for deeper ingredient penetration.

Ok, so maybe we haven’t landed on what “New year, new you” means in 2021 quite yet. To help us gather our thoughts, we’ve rounded up the recent fashion news that will help you sweat, stay cozy and find some positivity right now – from the Smash + Tess collab with Brunette the Label to Acne Studios’s latest upcycled collection.

Smash + Tess has teamed up with Brunette the Label on a WFH wardrobe staple

Loungewear lovers, rejoice! Two female-founded Canadian brands, Smash + Tess and Brunette the Label, have collaborated to create a new romper style that has a ski suit silhouette and comes in two colourways (wild and mild) which will launch on Tuesday, January 12th. “We wanted to find a way to combine the two things both brands do best – rompers and sweatshirts,” says Smash + Tess co-founder and managing director, Ashley Freeborn. “Comfort was a top priority, but we never sacrifice style.”

The “Girlfriend Romper” can be found in sizes XXS to XXXL, meaning many of us can get our aprés ski on in the piece. “This was a very authentic collaboration for us – both Smash and Tess and Brunette the Label are incredibly aligned in our values, and with our goals of how we want our brand to make people feel,” says Brunette the Label’s CEO and creative director, Miriam Alden. “I think that it’s really special that two brands, both from Vancouver, and brands that others may consider competitors, can work together to create something that their customers will love. For me that’s what it is all about. There is room for us all. Babes Supporting Babes.”

Loewe x My Neighbour Totoro is here

Now that we’re indoors a lot more, an interest in all things animated is on the rise. It’s not only because of the ideal diversionary state that a cartoon provides; they also make a person happier in disposition. Perfect timing, then, that Spanish luxury label Loewe just dropped an assortment of playful pieces made in partnership with Studio Ghibli, the renowned maker of the films that brought characters like the collection’s namesake, Totoro, to life. From charming t-shirts featuring all manner of cute critters to joyful iterations of Loewe’s coveted accessory styles like its Puzzle and Balloon bags, we dare you to wear the offerings sporting anything but a smile.

Sentaler’s current capsule wants you to think pink

Launched earlier this week, Toronto-based label Sentaler’s latest drop encourages us to have a rosier outlook on life. Composed of some of the brand’s best-selling styles done in shades of pink, the Sentaler Refresh pieces are in limited supply (with one coat already sold out). They come in two fabrication weights, superfine and baby alpaca; all the more reason to add a spring to your step today.

New pieces made from repurposed fabrics are available from Acne Studios

Season 2, Acne Studios’s latest release of garments crafted using leftover fabrics from the brand’s previous collections, has been unveiled. The sustainably-minded selection boasts takes on the mini-skirt, shirting and even denim. “This series is about finding creative ways to be more resourceful,” Creative Director Jonny Johansson said in a statement. “Acne Studios was founded on design experimentation, and we want to use our creativity to take positive steps towards becoming more mindful.”

Nordstrom’s new activewear microsite helps you “reset” for the new year

There are plenty of reasons to be more active in 2021, and we’ve seen an expansion in programming from at-home resources such as Peleton in the past few months. Nordstrom has also upped its game with the launch of a fitness-focused microsite that brings together all the elements you need for a workout session. Now, in one sporty spot, you’ll find equipment as well as goods by brands from Adidas to Zella.