At 1-800-Flowers, shoppers can easily snap up a dozen red roses ready to ship for Valentine's Day. But this year, they'll also have the choice to purchase a social media-inspired "Girls Night In" flower arrangement, complete with Ghirardelli chocolate, Popcorn Factory kettle corn and rosé spritzers. "We're constantly looking out for the next big thing, evaluating different colours, styles, varieties and add-ons that may be appropriate for the brand and our products – and attract a younger consu

More beauty companies are making a concerted effort to reduce the carbon footprints of their packaging by working with partners to use more sustainable materials, reduce the weight of packaging components and use postconsumer recycled content. L’Oréal aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, and make packaging either from entirely recycled or bio-based sources by 2030. Estée Lauder has said that by 2025, 75% to 100% of their products will meet at least one of the following classifications: “r

Packaging companies and gift wrap brands are working to provide more sustainable solutions, such as wrapping options made with recycled content or biobased materials, while also educating consumers about the nuances of recycling. Consumers are increasingly shopping online — meaning more shipping boxes and mailers — and they often use large amounts of gift wrap during the holiday season. More often than not, holiday packaging and gift wrapping involves single-use materials. “When you think abou

Chris Rhodes attended Austin Pride in 2013 and wore a t-shirt he made emblazoned with the phrase “Pretty Boy.” About 50 people came up to him and asked where he got his shirt. In 2014, Rhodes and his twin sister Courtney decided to sell the “Pretty Boy” t-shirt, along with other designs including tie-dye sweats and tees with phrases like “Gender Roles Are Dead,” and “Wish You Were Queer,” under the name FLAVNT Streetwear.

“I’ve always liked the aesthetic of a high heel,” said 51-year-old Rob Taylor, who runs the Instagram account Men’s Heels Revolution. “It’s a beautiful thing.” Growing up in the English countryside, Taylor loved playing dress-up, often sporting his mom’s dresses and high heels. As he grew older, he felt the need to hide his love of heels to conform to what society and fashion deemed “acceptable” for men. In the past year, this all changed. Watching other cisgender men like Mark Bryan get featu

“It’s none of our business who you are, what genitals you’ve got,” said Lisa Honan, founder of gender-fluid underwear brand Gender Free World. “The gender part of your shopping experience with us is irrelevant.” Honan launched Gender Free World in 2016, starting with a button-down shirt in four different silhouettes to fit people with larger busts and hips, as well as those with broader shoulders. Today, the brand is known for its solid-colored boxer briefs made of bamboo viscose with a waistband reading "no labels."

About three years ago, in 2017, Liz Beecroft started posting pictures of herself sporting her favorite sneakers — Balenciaga knit high tops, Adidas Yeezy Boost 700s, and Nike Air Jordans on Instagram. She curated her feed around the “hypebae” persona in order fit in with other female sneakerheads like San Poeze (@girlonkicks) and Wendy Lam (@nitro_licious), who post about the sneaker drops and project a luxe, idealistic-looking lifestyle.

Anthony Felix and girlfriend Stephanie Libanati love thrift store shopping. In 2018, they went to Goodwill every morning and scoured through bins of old jackets, homeware fabrics and beat-up handbags. “Stephanie and I would go shopping at the Goodwill bins,” Felix said. “We always knew there had to be this recurring item that people always overlooked that could be turned into something.” For Felix, that recurring item was the ski mask.

Lazoschmidl’s sheer pink lurex pants, striped pastel knit bodysuits, and purple lurex shirts embroidered with sequined rainbows stick out even amongst the other flamboyant offerings at Opening Ceremony. The Swedish-German menswear brand, founded in 2014 by Josef Lazo and Andreas Schmidl, has a penchant for creating colorful, delicate, sexy clothing that subverts gender norms. Lazo and Schmidl, who started their brand creating

In August, i-D got a preview of Lazoschmidl’s colorful lurex knitwear, sheer printed blouses and sequined bodysuits, which debuted at Stockholm fashion week for SS19. The collection, which will hit Opening Ceremony in February, has now been artfully displayed in a fanzine. Designers Joseph Lazo and Andreas Schmidl have been creating fanzines since they released their first collection in 2015. “I just have this addiction to print," says Schmidl. Unlike prior zines, which contained 30-50 pages

When most of us picture '70s fashion, we think of Diane von Furstenberg's colorful, figure-flattering wrap dresses or Yves Saint Laurent's gender-bending Le Smoking tuxedos. However, many people have forgotten about Halston, who created some of the major garments that defined the decade — think the bias-cut satin dresses that elegantly skimmed the body. Director Frédéric Tcheng

Today, neon clothing is omnipresent — pop into any boutique, department store or mass retailer and you'll surely see a neon yellow bag, bright green pants or a fluorescent magenta top. Not to mention, you can now buy the fluorescent-hued garments that graced the Spring 2019 runways of brands like Off-White, Jeremy Scott and Prabal Gurung. Neon clothing is nothing new — and we've been following this trend's comeback as early as 2017. One might even associate the trend's origins with colorful spandex workout gear that defined the '80s, or the outlandish PVC neon outfits that cybergoths and ravers wore in the '90s.

Handcrafted in DeMarco’s LA factory, the Tesla Jordans took 22 hours to produce — slightly longer than the typical DeMarco sneaker, which takes about 12-15 hours. To make a custom design, the company first purchases the sneakers and deconstructs and destroys them, throwing out everything but the original sole. Then it’s time for shoelasting, a process that involves creating a plastic mold in the size of the shoe and draping the materials around it, using a special chemical to make the leather malleable. Once the components are stitched together and attached to the sole, the shoe is complete.

When you think of the term ‘fetish wear,’ what comes to mind? Dungeons, whips, chains, BDSM, sex orgies, leather and metal that doesn’t leave the privacy of a boudoir…right? Wrong. This outdated concept that restricts fetish wear purely to the bedroom has since evolved into daily attire. Fetish wear as everyday wear continues to be a trend today, as brands have created pieces inspired by the leather harnesses, latex dresses, PVC bralettes and O-ring chokers that were first used during sexual roleplaying. We caught up with a few prominent ‘fetish wear’ designers that are currently influencing fashion circles and beyond.

Ayana Ife’s sporty metallic tunics, distressed cropped pants, and long-sleeved tulle and silk ball gowns hit the runway at Project Runway’s finale last year. The first fully modest collection the show has seen, the beautiful collection earned Ife high marks from judges Heidi Klum and Jessica Alba. Ife is not the first modest designer to garner mainstream attention. I spoke with several modest designers and boutique owners who are bridging the gap between conservative and couture.

The fashion industry has long been epitomized by appearances, whether it’s the looks of a garment or the face and body of a model. Modern streetwear brands are seeking to shed these frivolous connotations (and connect with contemporary society) by creating clothing that advocates for mental health awareness. Bashea Williams, a Maryland-based social worker, says that open mental health conversations on social media are the impetus behind this recent trend. “More information is out there," he said.

One of the first garments Kristin Mallison ever made was a skirt crafted from recycled pink and blue fabric scraps fastened together with safety pins. Mallison, now 28, recalls wearing it nearly every week in high school in Detroit, Michigan. She bought the materials from her local Salvation Army. "I started to kind of crudely make my own clothes when I was 14," she said. Mallison’s use of safety pins and repurposed fabric was inspired by her love of punk music and the DIY aesthetic that matched.

Due to travel restrictions and social distancing requirements, London Fashion Week looks different this year. The global pandemic has forced designers to get creative with how they present their collections. For LFW SS21, we’ve seen virtual runways, livestreams and films. Korea-based womenswear label Hanacha Studio decided to take a look back the past with a retrospective film. The film included design inspiration, illustrations and clothing from the brand’s archives.

The fashion industry is indisputably wasteful. Every year, people throw out nearly 200,000 tons of clothing, and companies use 5 trillion liters of water on apparel that won’t last us more than one or two washes. A recent talk titled “Sustainable Fashion: A Brand New Bag,” at New York City’s Baruch College addressed what companies, factories, designers and consumers can do to combat these issues. Debera Johnson, the executive director of the Brooklyn Fashion & Design Accelerator (BFDA) and director of Pratt Institute’s Design and Sustainability center, moderated the panel.

Between Valentino's colorful embroidered tunics and Junya Watanabe's lacy leopard dresses, there is no doubt that African-inspired designs saturated the spring 2016 runways. These bright colors and exotic looks were part of “Africa: In Fashion and Fabric,” an exhibition that will run until June 4 at the Bronx Music Heritage Center’s current location on Louis Nine Blvd. “Lately, fashion has been one of the first things that we thought to connect with Africa,” said BMHC curator Christie Gonzalez. “It feels like there’s been a huge recent media presence.”