Since the pandemic, dress code within companies has changed, as well as the decline in revenue from men’s suits.
Lately, a lot of major companies are rolling out requirements for employees to start coming into the office, which a lot of employees aren’t too thrilled about. A major point of contention? What we have to wear.
Many Americans who have been working from home have traded in pencil skirts and blazers for the casual comforts of home or maybe a nice shirt for zoom, but casual shorts.
But the truth is, this isn’t actually a new development thanks to the pandemic. U.S. revenue for men’s suits declined from $2.2 billion in 2013, to $1.9 billion in 2018. And to look even further back, an estimate in 1948 from a clothing manufacturers association put that revenue at $12.5 billion with inflation.
The pandemic may have accelerated the trend, but the decline in formalwear has been going on for decades now.
In the mid-20th century, formalwear was not just an office staple. For both men and women, suits and hats were the standard for everyday activities: from shopping for groceries, to going to the movies, to watching sports games.
But major fashion trends in the ’60s and ’70s opened the door for more variety within formalwear, especially as new styles were being seen on television.
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Colorful power suits and trousers were in, and outfits that could be worn both to the office and after work drinks were seen as more practical and fashionable. It was what Esquire Magazine called “the rise of loose-collar culture.”
Soon, the rise of casual wear would become unstoppable, thanks to the khaki pants and button-down collared shirts in Silicon Valley.
The ’80s and ’90s saw the invention and rise of “business casual” what this 1995 article from the Chicago Tribune declared was a “confusing” new world. Silicon Valley already embraced a culture of rule-breaking, and creativity, and risk over conformity.
The rise of “athleisure” clothes during the past couple of decades, like yoga pants and workout sneakers, coincided with this. By the time we reach the 2000’s, formalwear was confined to only certain industries, and outside the office could be seen mostly during special occasions like weddings.
Though it’s worth noting, not even traditional industries might be so strict on the suit much longer! In 2019, Goldman Sachs infamously relaxed their dress code to “business casual.”
Some fashion experts have noted that the cultural implications of formalwear have been transferred to some areas of casual dress.
Being able to work remotely, and thus dress casually, is more common in white-collar industries. One could argue there’s a new flex of status with high-end athleisure brands like Lululemon, or streetwear from luxury brands like Gucci.
Changes in culture shape our changes in fashion, and we can trace those changes through our decline in formalwear.
Thousands have already paid their respects, filing past the casket draped with the royal standard and topped with a diamond-encrusted crown.
Thousands of mourners lined up through the night to file past the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Parliament’s Westminster Hall on Thursday, as King Charles III spent a day in private to reflect on his first week on the throne.
The queue to see the queen lying in state grew through the day to stretch for 4.4 miles, past Tower Bridge. The line snaked along the south bank of the River Thames and then over a bridge to Parliament. Thousands in the line didn’t mind the hours of waiting.
“I’m glad there was a queue because that gave us time to see what was ahead of us, prepared us and absorbed the whole atmosphere,” said health care professional Nimisha Maroo. “I wouldn’t have liked it if I’d had to just rush through.”
Buckingham Palace released details of the queen’s funeral on Monday, the first state funeral to be held in Britain since the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. Royalty and heads of state from around the world will be among 2,000 people attending the Westminster Abbey service, which will be followed later in the day by a smaller committal service at Windsor Castle.
At the end of the day, the queen will be buried in a private family service at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.
After a day of high ceremony and high emotion on Wednesday as the queen was borne in somber procession from Buckingham Palace, the king was spending the day working and in “private reflection” at his Highgrove residence in western England. Charles has had calls with U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron and is speaking to a host of world leaders — many of whom will come to London on Monday for the queen’s funeral.
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Heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine, Princess of Wales, will visit the royal family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England to see some of the tributes left by well-wishers.
On Wednesday the queen left Buckingham Palace for the last time, borne on a horse-drawn carriage and saluted by cannons and the tolling of Big Ben, in a solemn procession through the flag-draped, crowd-lined streets of London to Westminster Hall.
Charles, his siblings and sons marched behind the coffin, which was topped by a wreath of white roses and her crown resting on a purple velvet pillow.
The military procession underscored Elizabeth’s seven decades as head of state as the national mourning process shifted to the grand boulevards and historic landmarks of the U.K. capital.
The 900-year-old Westminster Hall is now the focus of events, as the queen lies in state until Monday.
The display of mass mourning is an enormous logistical operation, with a designated 10-mile route lined with first aid points and more than 500 portable toilets. There are 1,000 stewards and marshals working at any given time, and 30 religious leaders from a range of faiths to stop and talk to those in line.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Church of England, wore a high-visibility vest emblazoned with the words “Faith Team” as he spoke to mourners.
Welby, who led a service for the royal family when Elizabeth’s coffin reached Westminster Hall, paid tribute to the queen as “someone you could trust totally, completely and absolutely, whose wisdom was remarkable.”
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Thousands have already paid their respects, filing past the casket draped with the royal standard and topped with a diamond-encrusted crown.
People old and young, dressed in dark suits or jeans and sneakers, walked in a steady stream through the historic hall, where Guy Fawkes and Charles I were tried, where kings and queens hosted magnificent medieval banquets, and where previous monarchs have lain in state.
After passing the coffin, most mourners paused to look back before going out through the hall’s great oak doors. Some wiped away tears; others bowed their heads or curtsied. One sank onto a knee and blew a farewell kiss.
Keith Smart, an engineer and British Army veteran, wiped away tears as he left the hall. He had waited more than 10 hours for the chance to say his goodbye.
“Everybody in the crowd was impeccably behaved. There was no malice, everybody was friends. It was fantastic,” he said. “And then, to come into that room and see that, I just broke down inside. I didn’t bow — I knelt to the floor, on my knees, bowed my head to the queen.”
The late-night silence was broken when one of the guards standing vigil around the coffin collapsed and fell forward off a raised platform. The man, his chest adorned with medals, could be seen on livestreams of the queen’s coffin lying in state swaying on his feet before pitching forward onto the floor. Two police officers rushed to his assistance.
Crowds have lined the route of the queen’s coffin whenever it has been moved in its long journey from Scotland — where the monarch died Sept. 8 at age 96 — to London.
On Tuesday night, thousands braved a typical London drizzle as the hearse, with interior lights illuminating the casket, drove slowly from an air base to Buckingham Palace.
Earlier, in Edinburgh, about 33,000 people filed silently past her coffin in 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral.
Williams has ensured she will play at least one more singles match at what she’s hinted will be the last tournament of her illustrious career.
Serena Williams can call it “evolving” or “retiring” or whatever she wants. And she can be coy about whether or not this U.S. Open will actually mark the end of her playing days. Those 23 Grand Slam titles earned that right.
If she keeps playing like this, who knows how long this farewell will last?
No matter what happens once her trip to Flushing Meadows is over, here is what is important to know after Wednesday night: The 40-year-old Williams is still around, she’s still capable of terrific tennis, she’s still winning — and, like the adoring spectators whose roars filled Arthur Ashe Stadium again — she’s ready for more.
Williams eliminated No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-2 in the U.S. Open’s second round to ensure that she will play at least one more singles match at what she’s hinted will be the last tournament of her illustrious career.
“There’s still a little left in me,” Williams said with a smile during her on-court interview, then acknowledged during her post-match news conference: “These moments are clearly fleeting.”
After beating 80th-ranked Danka Kovinic in straight sets Monday, then collecting her 23rd victory in her past 25 matches against someone ranked Nos. 1 or 2 against Kontaveit on Wednesday, the six-time champion at Flushing Meadows will play Friday for a spot in the fourth round.
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Her opponent will be Ajla Tomljanovic, a 29-year-old Australian who is ranked 46th. They’ve never met, but Tomljanovic, who said she considers herself a Williams fan, figures she knows what to anticipate from the American — and from those in the seats.
“I was playing on Court 7 both of my matches so far at the same time as her, and I could hear the crowd. I’m like, ‘Court 7 isn’t that close.’ I kept thinking, ‘Oh, my God, that’s annoying me and I’m not even playing against her,'” Tomljanovic said. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”
Making Williams’ potential path possibly simpler if she can get past Tomljanovic: 2021 U.S. Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez and 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova both lost.
On Wednesday, Williams hit serves at up to 119 mph, stayed with Kontaveit during lengthy exchanges of big swings from the baselines and conjured up some of her trademark brilliance when it was needed most.
After pulling out a tight first set, then faltering in the second, Williams headed to the locker room for a bathroom break before the third.
Something had to give, someone had to blink.
When they resumed, it was Williams who lifted her level and emerged as the better player.
Just as she’s done so many times, on so many stages, with so much at stake.
“I’m just Serena. After I lost the second set, I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness, I better give my best effort because this could be it,'” Williams said, surely echoing the thoughts of everyone paying any attention.
“I never get to play like this — since ’98, really,” she said. “Literally, I’ve had an ‘X’ on my back since ’99,” the year she claimed her first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open at age 17.
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Whatever rust accumulated when Williams missed about a year of action before returning to the tour in late June appears to have vanished. She was 1-3 in 2022 entering the U.S. Open.
“Now it’s kind of coming together,” Williams said. “I mean, it had to come together today.”
Williams has doubles to play, too. She and her sister, Venus, have won 14 major championships as a team and will begin that event Thursday night.
Kontaveit, a 26-year-old from Estonia, is a powerful hitter in her own right, the sort that spread across women’s tennis over the past two decades after a pair of siblings from Compton, California, changed the game.
But there’s a caveat attached to Kontaveit’s ranking: She has never won so much as one quarterfinal match at any Grand Slam tournament in 30 career appearances.
So maybe that’s why, much like with Kovinic 48 hours earlier, Williams’ opponent was introduced just by her name, and Kontaveit walked out to a smattering of applause. Williams, in contrast, got the full treatment: highlight video, a listing of her many accolades and a loud greeting from folks part of the largest U.S. Open attendance ever at a night session, 29,959, eclipsing the record set Monday.
“It was her moment,” said Kontaveit, who began crying during the Estonian portion of her news conference and cut it short. “Of course, this is totally about her.”
As strident a competitor as tennis, or any sport, has seen, as rightly self-confident in her abilities as any athlete, Williams was not about to think of this whole exercise as merely a celebration of her career.
She came to New York wanting to win, of course.
Wearing the same glittery crystal-encrusted top and diamond-accented sneakers — replete with solid gold shoelace tags and the word “Queen” on the right one, “Mama” on the left — that she sported Monday, Williams was ready for prime time.
The match began with Kontaveit grabbing the first five points, Williams the next five. And on they went, back and forth. Kontaveit’s mistakes were cheered — even faults, drawing an admonishment for the crowd from chair umpire Alison Hughes about making noise between serves.
Early in the third set, Kontaveit hit a cross-court forehand that caught the outermost edge of a sideline. A video on the stadium screens showed just how close it was, confirming that the ball did, indeed, land in. That brought out boos from the stands. Williams raised her arm and wagged a finger, telling her backers not to cause a fuss.
If anything, Kontaveit received more acknowledgment from the player trying to defeat her than anyone else, as Williams would respond to great shots with a nod or a racket clap.
“They were not rooting against me. They just wanted Serena to win so bad,” Kontaveit said, calling the treatment she received “fair,” even if it was “something I never experienced before.”
Williams broke for a 5-4 edge when Kontaveit pushed a backhand long, spurring yelling spectators to rise to their feet — and Williams’ husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, jumped right in, too, waving his arms in her direction, in front of where Venus and Tiger Woods were two seats apart.
Eventually they went to a tiebreaker, and at 3-3, a chant of “Let’s go, Serena!” broke out, accompanied by rhythmic clapping. Soon, Williams delivered a 101 mph service winner and a 91 mph ace to seal that set.
To Kontaveit’s credit, she raced to a 3-0 edge in the second with 10 winners and zero unforced errors.
In the third, after a swinging forehand volley winner put Williams a game from victory, she raised both arms, then clenched her left fist.
One game, and five minutes later, it was over — and her stay at the U.S. Open could proceed.
Asked whether she’s a title contender, Williams answered: “I cannot think that far. I’m having fun and I’m enjoying it.”
Thu Trang traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2019, ecstatic to get a job at a factory. She worked eight-hour shifts and was guaranteed overtime pay, and the wages were nearly triple what she had made as a farmer back home.
But during a Covid-19 outbreak this summer, the factory where she worked making Adidas, Converse and New Balance shoes virtually shut down. She and her co-workers were forced to live in a cramped apartment for nearly three months, subsisting on a diet of rice and soy sauce. In October, when restrictions loosened as global supply chain issues surged, Thu Trang decided she would pack up and return to her home province, Tra Vinh.
Her manager promised her higher wages, but she didn’t bother to find out how much.
“Even if the company doubles or triples our wages, I insist on moving back home,” said Thu Trang, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she feared retribution from her company and the government. “Ho Chi Minh City was once a destination where we sought our future, but this is no longer a safe place.”
Just last year, Vietnam’s coronavirus controls were lauded by health officials around the world. The country was so successful that it achieved the highest economic growth in Asia last year, at 2.9 percent. That outlook has dimmed: Workers have fled their factories, managers are struggling to get them back, and economists are forecasting that a full recovery in output won’t come until next year.
monthslong factory shutdowns in the Southeast Asian country. It could mean a longer wait for Nike sneakers,Lululemon yoga pants and Under Armour tank tops before the holidays.Several American retailers have already switched to suppliers in China to ease the crunch.
Patagonia and other brands.
Ms. Doan said that when the government imposed coronavirus restrictions, she went days without food and received only about $130 for August and September from local authorities. The subsidy was not enough for her to pay rent. She said shewas waiting for the company to approve her resignation.
“My trust in the authorities has vanished,” she said. “They failed to control the pandemic effectively, causing many to die from infection and to live in hunger.”
the deliveries of gifts during the Christmas season.
Nike cut its 2022 revenue growth forecast, sayingin September that it had lost 10 weeks of production because 80 percent of its footwear factories were in the south of Vietnam and nearly half of its apparel factories in the country were closed.
On earnings calls, Chico’s, a women’s clothing maker based in Florida, and Callaway, the golf company, said they had moved some of their production out of Vietnam.
Adam Sitkoff, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, said many companies were looking for workarounds and other remedies to help ease the stress.
“American companies are seeing what they can do,” Mr. Sitkoff said. “If we charter buses and send them to whatever province and hometown, will that help us get the people back?”
American businesses have pushed the Vietnamese government to speed up its vaccine program, which they say is essential for workers to feel safe.Only 29 percent of the population has been fully inoculated, one of the lowest rates in Southeast Asia. Vietnam says it hopes to fully vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the end of the year.
Nguyen Huyen Trang, a 25-year-old worker for Changshin Vietnam, a major supplier for Nike, is fully vaccinated but said she still feared being back on the factory floor. Ms. Nguyen and her husband returned to their home inNinh Thuan, a province in central Vietnam, from Dong Nai when cases there started soaring at the end of July. Her husband wants to go back to the city, but her family is pressuring her to stay.
She said her manager called her in October and offered to increase her wages if she returned. Her response, she said, was “a definite head-shaking no.”
The suits are returning to the office. In chinos. And sneakers. And ballet flats.
As Wall Street workers trickle back into their Manhattan offices this summer, they are noticeable for their casual attire. Men are reporting for duty in polo shirts. Women have stepped down from the high heels once considered de rigueur. Ties are nowhere to be found. Even the Lululemon logo has been spotted.
The changes are superficial, but they hint at a bigger cultural shift in an industry where well-cut suits and wingtips once symbolized swagger, memorialized in popular culture by Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” and Patrick Bateman in the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel “American Psycho.” Even as many corporate workplaces around the country relaxed their dress codes in recent years, Wall Street remained mostly buttoned up.
relax dress codes — including in 2019, when Goldman made suits and ties optional — banking had been one of the last bastions of formal work wear, alongside law firms. And in some quarters of Wall Street, such as hedge funds, the code has typically been more permissive.
But in banking, the strict hierarchies were embedded in unwritten fashion rules. Colleagues would ridicule those wearing outfits considered too flashy or too shabby for the wearer’s place in the corporate food chain. Superiors were style guides, but wearing something swankier than one’s boss was considered a faux pas. An expensive watch could be seen as a mark of success, an obnoxious flex, or both.
TV interview; Goldman’s boss, David Solomon, D.J.s in T-shirts on weekends; and Rich Handler, the head of Jefferies, posted a photo of himself sporting a henley tee on Twitter. At an event welcoming employees back to the office in July, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser — the only female boss of a major Wall Street bank — kept her signature look: a jewel-toned dress.
known for its leather-soled dress shoes for men and boys. “It’s going to continue to get more comfortable and casual, but people are still going to want to look nice.”
Now, 80 percent of the shoes his company designs are casual styles, Mr. Florsheim said, compared with 50 percent before the pandemic.
compete for recruits with technology companies — which are friendlier both to remote work and casual clothing — they are seeking to present a less stuffy image. Many banks are also trying to hire a more diverse cohort.
John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an avowed sneakerhead, said the Fed wanted people to bring their “authentic self” to work because personal style was an important part of valuing all forms of individuality and diversity.
He said he was looking forward to wearing new pairs from his sneaker collection in the office. “When people can be themselves, they do their best work,” he said.
bring staff back to offices. Most of the industry was targeting Labor Day for a full-scale return, although that may be complicated by surging coronavirus cases. Some Wall Street employees have been working out of their offices for months, but many returned only recently for the first time since the outbreak began.
It felt like the first day of school, some bankers said. They wanted to look good in front of colleagues, yet couldn’t bear the thought of wearing dress shoes or heels. Before going in, some checked with friends to see if their choices were in line with the crowd.
One item that has been popular among Wall Street men is Lululemon’s ABC pant, which the athleisure company markets as a wrinkle-resistant, stretchy polyester garment suitable for “all-day comfort.” (The company put its highly recognizable logo on a tab near the pocket to make the pants look less like workout gear.)
Untuckit, the maker of short-hemmed button-downs, saw a jump in sales as vaccination rates across the United States rose in April and May, said Chris Riccobono, the company’s founder. Customers have flocked to its two stores in Manhattan, seeking still-sharp shirts made from breathable fabric.
“What’s amazing is these guys were wearing suits in the middle of summer, walking the streets of New York, coming off the train” before the pandemic, Mr. Riccobono said. “It took corona for the guys who never wore anything but suits to realize, ‘Wait a second.’”
The costume designer and wardrobe stylist Zerina Akers does not want people to think that her life is picture-perfect, even if she spends her time making sure that her clients are.
“I want to dispel the thought that it is glamorous,” she said of her days, which often include piecing together ensembles for her celebrity clientele, overseeing fittings and tending to her e-tail site. “Yeah, you’re dealing with beautiful things, but you also have to deal with all the luggage, getting all the looks right and running around. It’s a lot of hard work and heavy lifting.”
And, lately, she has been doing all of that on a wounded ankle. She’s mainly worn comfort shoes during the pandemic, but a pair of post-quarantine wedge heels led to her recent mishap. (“Who did I think I was?!” she said, while describing the stumble during a phone interview.)
Ms. Akers, 35, is the go-to stylist for Beyoncé Knowles-Carter — the iconic oversized black hat that the singer modeled in the 2016 “Formation” music video was her handiwork. She also compiled the wardrobe for Ms. Knowles-Carter’s opulent 2020 visual album, “Black Is King,” pulling designs from both established European fashion houses and independent designers from across the African diaspora.
Black Owned Everything, an e-commerce hub featuring a curated selection of apparel, accessories, beauty and décor products.
“Last summer, there was a huge surge in support of Black brands,” she said, describing widespread calls for inclusivity and representation that swelled after the protests against racism and police brutality. That led some people to ask a new question: How long would this last?
“Would it be something that’s going to stick around and really create change, or was it just a trend?” Ms. Akers said. “I felt it was important to not wait around and gauge the reaction of the fashion industry. We were able to create something that we own, and we’re going to keep it going,” she said of the website, which features about three dozen brands.
Ms. Akers, a Maryland native who is based in Van Nuys, Calif., has also been designing clothing recently, a throwback to her teenage years spent creating garments for school fashion shows. Some of her work — a color-blocked dress, a chain-trim bodysuit, a trench jumpsuit — is featured in a capsule collection of separates for Bar III, the private label from Macy’s.
We spoke with her in early May, as she mulled over ideas for revamping the Black Owned Everything site and sorted through wardrobe items intended for the Colombian reggaeton artist Karol G and Chloe Bailey of the R&B duo Chloe x Halle.
Interviews are conducted by email, text and phone, then condensed and edited.
Brandice Daniel, the founder and chief executive of Harlem’s Fashion Row, as part of their annual Designer Retreat. We’re on with the accessories designer Brandon Blackwood, talking about our career paths and giving advice to young people on how to make it in fashion. I talk about the importance of being in good financial standing and doing what you love without prioritizing being “internet famous.”
3:30 p.m. My assistant, Christian Barberena, arrives at my house and we chill in the backyard, going over our next two weeks of work and divvying up tasks. Usually, my team handles internet shopping and sourcing items in stores. Then, I’ll primarily handle things that are being custom-made by designers.
5:45 p.m. I realize I’m about 15 minutes late for a Netflix virtual screening event for “Halston,” and Chris and I tune in to watch. It’s a must-see. Based on what I’ve read about him, it was well-cast — and it’s visually quite stunning.
Today in Business
Tuesday
8 a.m. I awake with a bit of anxiety, because I’ve been trying to figure out how to seamlessly do some construction on the Black Owned Everything site without alarming our followers. I want it to have much more storytelling, engage more Black photographers and graphic designers, and make it more than just a generic e-commerce space. I also have to find an entry-level social media manager to help make the Instagram account more robust while the site is down.
The Rooftop by JG with Liza Vassell, the founder of Brooklyn PR. We’re both late but make it just in time to not lose our table. It’s our first time connecting outside of work and we spent an hour and a half stuffing our faces, discussing our experiences being Black women making our own way, and investing in and supporting each other.
6:30p.m. Today was one of those weird days — productive, yet somehow I was left feeling like I didn’t quite do enough. I start checking out mentally by watching trash TV.
Thursday
8:30 a.m. My makeup artist, Leah Darcy Pike, arrives to help me get ready for a portrait for this column. I decided to throw on an aqua blue look from my Macy’s collection.
1:17 p.m. I call my product development consultant and deliver the good news that I love our new Black Owned Everything candle sample. It’s kind of woody and sort of like patchouli, with these other weird notes. We also discuss possible product ideas we could launch for Juneteenth, like a summer travel kit.
2:05 p.m. I open my garage in an attempt to organize it, then close it back. It’s filled with jewelry, clothes from past photo shoots, my personal wardrobe overflow, B.O.E. stuff … it’s gotten a little crazy.
3 p.m. It’s Chris’s birthday, so I run out and grab a cake from Sweet Lady Jane and we indulge for just a moment.
4:15 p.m. I go to a mall in Sherman Oaks to pick up monochromatic sneakers for my weekend shoot with Karol G. I love color-blocking, particularly red shoes and red bags.
Sally Hemings. I’m currently obsessed with the narratives of slaves. The varied experiences never cease to amaze me. I keep them etched in my brain as a reminder of how resilient we really are as a people.
Friday
8:33 a.m. I’m cracking open the week’s packages one by one. There are 20 to 30 — a combination of gifts, things from Black-owned businesses that they want us to review, and some celeb stuff. For the most part, I try to have some stuff go to my office, but since we’re blurring lines with the pandemic, I’ve just been having it come straight to one place.
10:45 a.m. Head out to meet Chris so we can set up a rack for Karol G before heading into a fitting. The first thing I usually try to do with fittings is see what makes the client’s face light up, then I’ll start with those things that they’re most excited about. Typically, the trickiest part is the alterations because you want to make sure they hold up and last, but not damage the garment. On this day, everything went smoothly.
5:33 p.m. After grabbing a bowl of fried tofu with veggies and grits at Souley Vegan, I head to my office to work on a new project with Chris. We’re trying to start a virtual reality character for the site. She’ll be dressed in the Black-owned brands and you can follow her day-to-day.
8 p.m. We realize we should probably stop working and head home to pack for a shoot in San Francisco. When I fly, I have to have my travel blanket (right now, it’s Burberry), my memory foam neck pillow and a sleep mask — I can never stay awake on a plane, even if it’s just an hourlong flight.
Paul Van Doren, a founder of Vans, the Southern California sneaker company that became synonymous with skateboarding almost by chance and then grew into a multibillion-dollar business, died on May 6 in Fullerton, Calif. He was 90.
His death, at the home of one of his children, was confirmed by a representative for VF Corporation, which now owns Vans. He lived in Las Vegas.
Mr. Van Doren founded the Van Doren Rubber Company in 1966 with the investor Serge D’Elia and soon brought on his younger brother James and Gordon Lee, a colleague from his years working for another sneaker manufacturer.
The idea was straightforward: sell high-quality but inexpensive sneakers from a store adjacent to a factory in Anaheim. The company handled production on-site, making it easy to fill orders of different sizes and allowing buyers to customize their shoes in a rainbow of colors and patterns.
Los Angeles magazine this year. “And here’s a company listening to them, backing them and making shoes for them.”
Vans provided Mr. Alva and Mr. Peralta with free shoes and sponsored them as part of a team of professional skateboarders, an arrangement that became a model in the skateboard shoe business.
The company went on to develop new styles, like the Old Skool, which has leather panels on the toe and heel for increased durability; the Sk8-Hi, an Old Skool with a padded high-top collar to protect ankles from errant boards; and a laceless canvas slip-on equipped with the signature Vans sole.
By the early 1980s the shoes were available in about 70 Vans stores, mostly in Southern California, and in outlets around the country. The shoes had earned a following among skateboarders, surfers and BMX bicyclists but were not widely known outside of those core markets.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Frank Ocean wore checkerboard slip-ons to the White House to meet President Barack Obama.
Vans has collaborated on custom shoes with the labels Kenzo and Supreme, companies like Disney, the music makers Public Enemy and Odd Future and the contemporary artist Takashi Murakami. Customers can design their own shoes on the company’s website.
But Vans remains tied to its original demographic, continuing to sponsor skateboarders, snowboarders, surfers and other athletes and run surfing and skateboarding contests around the world. For nearly 25 years it funded the Warped Tour music festival, which featured skateboarding demonstrations.
“We lost our founding father, but his roots run deep with us,” Mr. Alva wrote on Instagram after Mr. Van Doren’s death.
Paul Joseph Van Doren was born on June 12, 1930, to John and Rita (Caparelli) Van Doren and grew up in Braintree, Mass., south of Boston. His father was an inventor who designed fireworks and clothespins, and Mr. Van Doren learned valuable business lessons working alongside him.
He wrote that he dropped out of high school at 16 and for a time made a living at the horse track and in pool halls, work his mother could not abide. She helped him get a job at the Randolph Rubber Manufacturing Company, a Massachusetts concern that made canvas sneakers.
died in 2011 at 72.
His son Steve, daughter Cheryl and some of his grandchildren continue to work for the company he built.
Mr. Van Doren spent more than 15 years at Randolph Rubber. In 1964 he moved to Southern California to run a factory for Randolph there but left two years later to start Vans, having had disagreements with Randolph management.
He retired in the early 1980s, and his brother James took control of the company. James Van Doren tried to compete with companies like Nike and Adidas by expanding into different sports — running, basketball, wrestling and break dancing among them — only to bankrupt the company by 1984, Mr. Van Doren wrote.
Mr. Van Doren returned to lead Vans back to solvency. He refocused the company on its core offerings, and in a few years Vans paid back about $12 million in debt, he wrote.
mound wearing a pair of Sk8-Hi shoes customized with spikes, Mr. Van Doren wrote.
“The company doesn’t pay people to do these things; they happen organically,” he added. “Our customers, famous or not, just like the shoes.”
On Wednesday, two of the three major auction houses announced shifts in the makeup of their leadership teams.
Phillips announced that Stephen Brooks would become the company’s next chief executive as its former leader, Edward Dolman, transitioned to a new role as executive chairman. Separately, Sotheby’s said that the head of its fine art division, Amy Cappellazzo, would depart the company after more than five years guiding it toward billionaire clients and major sales; her duties will be divided among three different employees when she leaves the auction house this summer.
Changes in the upper echelons of the auction world demonstrate how companies are trying to reposition themselves for growth during the pandemic, said Natasha Degen, chair of art market studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
26 percent decline in global auction sales last year. “So auction houses quickly pivoted online. They have taken a real interest in new categories like NFTs, sneakers and streetwear. There are also more collaborations between auction houses and luxury brands.”
Stephen Brooks will become the next chief executive of Phillips.Credit…via Phillips
Earlier this week, Phillips revealed a new advisory service intended to help their clients find works of art in the primary market, which consists of galleries and artists’ studios. The initiative demonstrated how auction houses have taken the year to diversify their offerings, making incursions into business areas once firmly controlled by art galleries.
“Our ambition is considerable,” said Brooks, who regards the advisory service as part of a larger plan to accelerate growth at the auction house. Brooks, 56, a key member of the board of Christie’s and its executive management team for over 11 years, also has plans to expand Phillips’s footprint in Asia and the 20th-century art market. He added that he would like to see the company double the size of its overall business in the next five years.
At Sotheby’s, change involves a triumvirate of new positions. Brooke Lampley will oversee auctions and private sales for categories including old masters and contemporary art; Mari-Claudia Jiménez will lead the company’s global business development activities; and Gregoire Billault is being promoted to chairman of contemporary art.
Art Agency, Partners, in 2014. Two years later, Sotheby’s acquired the company for $85 million and she signed a five-year contract, which ended in January.
Her tenure at Sotheby’s helped cement her reputation as an industry rainmaker. In 2016, she organized an auction of the musician David Bowie’s trove of artworks and a year later oversaw the $110.5 million sale of a Basquiat painting. Earlier this year, she also helped secure the $150 million collection of the philanthropist Anne Marion, which will be auctioned at Sotheby’s this spring.
“You sort of know when it’s the right time to leave,” Cappellazzo said in an interview, declining to discuss her next venture except to say that it would not be in direct competition with Sotheby’s. “The real story is what I’m doing next, but first I want this chapter to finish.”
Have months of self-isolation, lockdown and working from home irrevocably changed what we will put on once we go out again? For a long time, the assumption was yes. Now, as restrictions ease and the opening up of offices and travel is dangled like a promise, that expectation is more like a qualified “maybe.” But not every country’s experience of the last year was the same, nor were the clothes that dominated local wardrobes. Before we can predict what’s next, we need to understand what was. Here, eight New York Times correspondents in seven different countries share dispatches from a year of dressing.
Italian Vogue called “a luxury version of classic two-piece sweats.”
Fabio Pietrella, the president of Confartigianato Moda, the fashion arm of the association of artisans and small businesses, said that while consumer trends indicated a shift from “a business look to comfort,” it was “not too much comfort.” Italian women, he said, had eschewed sportswear for “quality knitwear” that guarantees freedom of movement but with “a minimum of elegance.”
flyest city on the planet.
In the Senegalese capital, at Africa’s westernmost tip, men in pointy yellow slippers and crisp white boubous — loosefitting long tunics — still glide down streets dredged with Saharan dust. Young women still sit in cafes sipping baobab juice in patterned leggings and jeweled hijabs. Everyone from consultants to greengrocers still wears gorgeous prints from head to toe.
Occasionally they now wear a matching mask.
While much of the world was shut up at home, many people in West Africa were working or going to school as normal. Lockdown in Senegal lasted just a few months. It was impossible for many people here to keep it up. They depend on going out to earn their living.
the poet and revolutionary Amílcar Cabral loved.
joint report by the Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India.
While infections were low during the winter, the past few weeks have seen cases rising to staggering levels in many parts of the country. Right now, it looks as though many people will be working from home for most of 2021 too.
For Ritu Gorai, who runs a moms network in Mumbai, that means she has barely shopped at all, instead using accessories like scarves, jewelry and glasses to jazz up her look and add a little polish.
For Sanshe Bhatia, an elementary schoolteacher, it has meant trading her long kurtas or formal trousers and blouses for caftans and leggings. In order to encourage her class of 30 kids to get dressed in the morning rather than attending lessons in their pajamas, she takes care to look neat and makes sure her long hair is brushed properly.
into a tailspin,” interviews with a range of Parisians suggest a compromise of sorts had been reached.
When Xavier Romatet, the dean of the Institut Français de la Mode, France’s foremost fashion school, went back to work, he didn’t wear a suit, but he did wear a white shirt under a navy blue cashmere sweater and beige chinos, as he would at home. He paired his outfit with sneakers by Veja, a French eco-friendly brand.
Similarly, Anne Lhomme, the creative director of Saint Louis, the luxury tableware brand, dresses the same whether remotely or in person. A favorite look, she said, includes a camel-colored cashmere poncho “designed by a friend, Laurence Coudurier, for Poncho Gallery” and loosefitting plum silk pants. Also lipstick, earrings and four Swahili rings she found in Kenya.
light blue or white shirts, which I buy at Emile Lafaurie or online from Charles Tyrwhitt, with a round-collar sweater if it’s cold” — and, from the waist down, “Uniqlo pants in stretch fabric.”
And Sophie Fontanel, a writer and former fashion editor at Elle, said, “I am often barefoot at home, alone, wearing a very pretty dress.”
Daphné Anglès
Fifth, as well as high-fashion labels, have focused on bright satin, silk and linen shirts with bow ties or stand-up collars, striped patterns or gathered sleeves. The trend for such showy tops has led to a boom in clothing subscription services.
One such platform, AirCloset, announced that 450,000 users had subscribed in October 2020, three times more than in the same period in 2019. Often users request tops only (one bottom item is usually included), and there is now a limit of three in any one order.
“Customers prefer brighter colors to basics such as navy or beige for online meetings, or they prefer asymmetric design tops,” said Mari Nakano, the AirCloset spokeswoman. About 40 percent of subscribers are working mothers for whom the subscription service saved time because they didn’t have to be bothered with washing. They just put the tops in a bag, return them and then wait for the next package to arrive with their new items.
Hisako Ueno
Ushatava, an independent label of sleek, geometrically tailored sleek designs in mostly muted natural colors. It was founded in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains that in the last few years has turned into a Russian fashion hub. 12Storeez, another rising brand from Yekaterinburg, saw its turnover balloon by 35 percent over the last year, even as the market overall shrank by a quarter, said Ivan Khokhlov, one of the founders.
Nastya Gritskova, the head of a P.R. agency in Moscow, said the effect of the pandemic was that for the first time in the Russian capital people stopped “paying attention at who wears what.” Yet last fall, when the government eased coronavirus-related restrictions, things started going back to normal.
“There isn’t a pandemic that can make Russian women stop thinking about how to look beautiful,” she said.
Ivan Nechepurenko
Elisabetta Povoledo, Ruth Maclean, Mady Camara, Flávia Milhorance, Shalini Venugopal Bhagat, Daphné Anglès, Hisako Ueno and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.
A Brooklyn company that was sued by Nike over the unauthorized sale of Satan Shoes — an aftermarket sneaker that contains a drop of blood and was promoted by the rapper Lil Nas X — agreed on Thursday to accept returns of the footwear as part of a settlement.
The company, MSCHF, will offer refunds to people who want to return the sneakers under the terms of the settlement, according to Nike, which said in a statement that the purpose of the “voluntary recall” was to remove the shoes from circulation.
The settlement came a week after a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn granted Nike a temporary restraining order against MSCHF (pronounced mischief) after it sued the company last month.
A total of 666 pairs of the Satan Shoes were produced by MSCHF, which incorporated drops of its employees’ blood and ink into an air bubble in the Nike Air Max 97 sneakers. Each pair cost $1,018. They sold out in less than a minute last month.
“Luke 10:18” — a reference to the biblical passage that says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” — is printed on them.
A previous line of unauthorized Nike sneakers that MSCHF sold, which was named the Jesus Shoe and contained holy water, can also be returned for a refund, Nike said.
“In both cases, MSCHF altered these shoes without Nike’s authorization,” Nike said in a statement on Thursday. “Nike had nothing to do with the Satan Shoes or the Jesus Shoes.”
A lawyer for MSCHF did not dispute that the company had agreed to the voluntary buyback, but said on Thursday that he could not disclose the terms of the settlement.
music video for his song “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” in which he gyrates on Satan’s lap.
In the song, Lil Nas X, who was born Montero Lamar Hill, “cheerfully rejoices in lust as a gay man,” wrote Jon Pareles, the chief music critic for The New York Times.
Lil Nas X came out in 2019. The song’s title is an apparent reference to “Call Me by Your Name,” a novel about a clandestine summer romance between two men that was adapted into a film.
Mr. Bernstein said all but one pair of the Satan Shoes had been shipped to buyers before the temporary restraining order had been issued on April 1.
He described the sneakers, which are individually numbered, as works of art that represent the ideals of equality and inclusion. Mr. Bernstein said MSCHF had looked forward to arguing that its activities were covered under the First Amendment right of artistic expression.
“However, having already achieved its artistic purpose, MSCHF recognized that settlement was the best way to allow it to put this lawsuit behind it so that it could dedicate its time to new artistic and expressive projects,” he said.
Nike said it would not be responsible for any issues with sneakers that people decide to keep.
“Purchasers who choose not to return their shoes and later encounter a product issue, defect, or health concern should contact MSCHF, not Nike,” the company said.
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