Whole Foods Markets Wipes Instagram Clean To Support Honeybees & National Pollinator's Week

Whole Foods Markets Wipes Instagram Clean To Support Honeybees & National Pollinator's Week

EcoWatch explains why it's critical to protect endangered species, citing, for example, the rusty patched bumble bee species that has declined by 87 percent in the last 20 years,  disease, climate change, pesticides, habitat loss and intensive agriculture.

“We launched the Give Bees A Chance campaign because kids are often taught to be afraid of bees, but the role they play in our ecosystem is imperative and deserving of our respect and protection,” explains Nona Evans, president and executive director of Whole Kids Foundation. “One of the best ways we can teach kids about bees is through educational beehives at their schools, where they get an up-close look into the world of pollination.”

Bette Midler & Michael Kors Open Solar-Powered Essex Street Community Garden In Brooklyn

Bette Midler & Michael Kors Open Solar-Powered Essex Street Community Garden In Brooklyn

Mega talent Bette Midler and designer Michael Kors, joined by his husbandLance LePere, reminded New Yorkers Thursday night that wonderful gifts to humanity can come in small packages. Honoring the summer solstice, the trio joined New York Restoration Project (NYRP) Executive Director Deborah Marton in a ribbon-cutting for the newly restored green space, called the Essex Street Community Garden.

Attending an old-fashioned, New York block party, the global citizens celebrated the 3,200-square-foot green space is the first New York community garden that is entirely solar-powered, featuring Wi-Fi, a projection screen, and greenery that was planted by Kors and other community members themselves. The garden, one of 52 that NYRP installed around the city, will be an intended haven for weddings, yoga classes, movie screenings, and more celebrations to come, bringing together locals into a shared space, writes CR Fashionbook. 

The activist and philanthropy players have worked with NYRP for the last 21 years, after Midler brought Kors and LePere into the organization. 

Trump Revokes National Ocean Policy As Britain Launches Audit Of Fast Fashion Impact Environment

Trump Revokes National Ocean Policy As Britain Launches Audit Of Fast Fashion Impact Environment

Donald Trump cares little about the environment, and that was never more clear than when issued an executive order Tuesday revoking the 2010 National Ocean Policy of the Trump administration. Economic development is Trump's top priority, and if he puts the entire global ecosystem in peril, he could care less. That includes local quality of life as well. His mentality is drill baby drill. As for massive guts of plastic floating in the oceans and killing our fish, basta! Trump insists that it is RIGHT to pollute, to desecrate, to kill the earth in the name of consumption and economic development.

The Obama administration’s goal was to guide a more coordinated, sustainable management of the oceans and coasts in collaboration with states and tribes. Republican opponents call such a plan the liberal bureaucracy in action.  On Tuesday, conservation groups voiced strong opposition to Trump’s action, which, among other things, ensures “federal regulations and management decisions do not prevent productive and sustainable use of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters,” according to the executive order.

The difference between Trump's attitude on consumption and sustainability could not contrast more with Britain's. While Trump practically demands that we pour more chemicals and plastic into the ocean, Britain's House of Commons has launched an environmental audit to assess the impact of fast fashion in the UK.

Jennifer Fisher Jewelry Takes A Stand For Immigration Ethics & Lab Grown Diamonds

Jennifer Fisher Jewelry Takes A Stand For Immigration Ethics & Lab Grown Diamonds

Jennifer Fisher's Instagram page is testimony to her customers' love for OTT jewelry -- aka statement or major bling designs. Why not wear two giant hoops in one ear, writes Vogue. More is better. And just to reinforce the idea that today's bling-lovin girls can also have heart, Fisher throws in ACLU petitions and sad pics of immigrant kids at the border, lost in America's totally dysfunctional immigration system. 

Jennifer Fisher's approach to jewelry design and her personal/brand values underscores that people must not judge a book by its cover -- a challenge in today's Inst-world. The idea that more-is-more may not reflect your personal values. They are not mine, but I will not criticize any brand that is working to product more "sustainable" or "earth-friendly" jewelry

Fisher's new relationship with Diamond Foundry reflects her customers’ changing views on diamonds, particularly her millennial fans who are candidates to buy lab-grown diamonds. “As we’ve grown, people have been asking us more and more questions about [the origins of] our diamonds,” she said. “This new generation wants to know that no one was harmed [in the mining of the stones], and that they essentially have a carbon footprint of zero. But at the same time, we’re getting tons of requests for diamond stud earrings—so I thought now was the perfect opportunity to become more sustainable.”

Johanna Uurasjarvi Becomes Chief Design Officer For J Crew, Joining CEO Jim Brett

Johanna Uurasjarvi Becomes Chief Design Officer For J Crew, Joining CEO Jim Brett

J. Crew announced on Monday that Johanna Uurasjarvi will take over as Chief Design Officer for embattled retailer J Crew. The Finland native was previously Creative Director of West Elm, a division of Williams Sonoma, after a decade as Creative Director of Anthropologie. She launched Anthropologie's first in-house design team and developed its wholesale brand Leifsdottir. 

At both companies, Uurasjarvi worked with Jim Brett, now CEO of J Crew. Brett reflected on the many years he’s worked with Uurasjarvi and her eye for design.

Carolyn Murphy Unveils Detroit's Shinola's Lois Tote As Ford Motor Announces Plans For Michigan Central Station

Carolyn Murphy Unveils Detroit's Shinola's Lois Tote As Ford Motor Announces Plans For Michigan Central Station

Supermodel actor Carolyn Murphy and made-in-Detroit success story Shinola introduce us to Lois, the perfect summer tote at just $495. Named after Murphy's late grandmother Lois, the bag brings back countless memories. 

“My Nana, whom I was inspired by to create the bag, we’d always do these road trips in the Oldsmobile from [Washington], D.C. She’d put her bottle of vodka, her carrots, her hard-boiled eggs and her Scrabble in this big bag, and the goal was to get to our annual reunion in Nags Head, [North Carolina]. I always remember that tote,” Murphy recalled.

"I lost my Nana, and three days later, my agent called and said, 'Bruce Weber wants to shoot you for Shinola in Detroit,'" Murphy said. "So I like to think she brought us together. It was a match made in heaven."

Murphy was featured in last Friday's Porter Edit, with news about her longstanding commitments to sustainability and protecting our oceans -- a potentially losing battle. There are now six-- count them six --  large garbage patches swelling in the ocean, making Gaia weep. (Note that a brand new and accidental discovery of an enzyme that is capable of breaking down plastic bottles offers us a ray of hope.)

AOC covered Carolyn Murphy's Shinola partnership in the September 2017 issue of InStyle.  The entire brand story behind Shinola (yes, that name of shoe polish) is so inspiring in terms of what CAN be accomplished in America to fight decay, create jobs and inspire design in America's forgotten inner cities. Detroit received a HUGE bouquet of urban development flowers with big news from Ford Motor Company. 

Diet Prada Dishes With British Vogue On Using Their Instagram Account For Fashion Industry Changes

Diet Prada Dishes With British Vogue On Using Their Instagram Account For Fashion Industry Changes

British Vogue informs us about the lineage of Diet Prada's infamous Instagram account by Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler launched in December 2014. The duo was outed in October 2017 by The Fashion Law but silence reigned. 

“The time was going to come that we’d need to own it, eventually,” Schuyler told the Business of Fashion in May 2018, during Diet Prada’s official unmasking. Their quest for authority, and to establish themselves as two people with an opinion that matters, has granted Vogue an email interview with “DP” in between their day jobs and the industry events that their exposed identities now affords them.

“We weren't at the point then that we are now,” DP explains of playing down the hype around the account – an amalgam of two fashion addictions: Miuccia Prada and Diet Coke – a year ago. “Now that our work is having a real impact that's often positive, we're excited to own it.”

Owning it involves using Diet Prada as a platform for conscientious conversation around topics like diversity, equality and cultural appropriation. 

Colin Dodgson Eyes Karolin Wolter In 'I Dreamed of Africa' For T Magazine May 20, 2018

Colin Dodgson Eyes Karolin Wolter In 'I Dreamed of Africa' For T Magazine May 20, 2018

Model Karolin Wolter is styled by Suzanne Koller in 'I Dreamed of Africa', lensed by Colin Dodgson for T Magazine May 20, 2018.

The accompanying article by Thessaly La Force 'A Solo Sojourn Inspired by Edith Wharton's 'In Morocco', published in 1920 when she traveled the region with Hubert Lyautey, who served as the resident general of French Morocco from 1912 to 1925. By the end of the First World War, Morocco was still a colonial entity, divided between French and Spanish powers (the country would claim independence in 1956). There were no English-language guidebooks and few accounts from those who had traveled past the international port city of Tangier (“frowsy, familiar Tangier, that every tourist has visited for the last forty years,” Wharton complained in her book). 

Like most rich and successful people with the means to travel, Wharton observed that Morocco's beauty was is vast decay, without ever observing or considering once the damge colonialism may have caused throughout the African continent. Wharton writes: “Overripeness is indeed the characteristic of this rich and stagnant civilization. Buildings, people, customs, seem all about to crumble and fall of their own weight: the present is a perpetually prolonged past.”

In this aspect of her observations, Wharton was trapped in her white privilege. Nevertheless, writes La Force, Wharton possessed a blunt understanding of "the devastating truth that women, no matter where in the world, were trapped by their own society. Wharton may have had grave blind spots, but she knew very well that her own freedom — as an educated woman unencumbered by children, with a great inheritance and a greater intellect — was rare." Read on at T Magazine.  

Supermodel Carolyn Murphy Talks Riding The Waves & Vaca Style With Porter Edit June 15, 2018

Supermodel Carolyn Murphy Talks Riding The Waves & Vaca Style With The Edit June 15, 2018

Supermodel Carolyn Murphy is styled by Catherine Newell-Hanson in 'Riding The Waves with Carolyn Murphy', lensed by Terence Connors for Porter Edit June 15, 2018.

Murphy talks to Eve Claxton about her 20+ years as a model, her enduring love of the ocean and keen surfer skills, and more about the next "bittersweet chapter in her life" -- the departure of her daughter Dylan for college. 

Internet PC Fashion Police Move To Silence Supermodel Gisele's Vogue July 2018 Inspiring Interview

Internet PC Fashion Police Move To Silence Supermodel Gisele's Vogue July 2018 Inspiring Interview

Supermodel, supermom, superwoman Gisele Bündchen covers the July 2018 issue of American Vogue July 2018. Tonne Goodman styles the eco-warrior in color-drenched, high-drama images by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin. / Hair by Christiaan; makeup by Dick Page

Rob Haskell interviews Gisele in an informative, rich interview even for people who know her well. Alas, the Internet PC police went into high gear, forcing the supermodel to apologize for a comment she made about the pressures faced by young models that force them to self-promote on Instagram.

Gisele took to Twitter on Thursday, saying she was "sorry" for comments made in her interview. 

"I'm sorry that my words in my most recent Vogue article were misunderstood. My intention was simply to express that I come from an older generation and am not technologically savvy."

Kering Announces Departure Of Tomas Maier Creative Director of Bottega Veneta

Kering Announces Departure Of Tomas Maier Creative Director of Bottega Veneta

Luxury conglomerate Kering announced on Wednesday that Tomas Maier, creative director of Bottega Veneta since 2001 is leaving the brand. 

The Hollywood Reporter writes that during Maier's time at Bottega, Maier revived the Italian brand's 1970s brand message, "When Your Own Initials Are Enough," creating an understated luxe lifestyle brand "with a nod to '40s and '50s Hollywood silver screen style, gathering fans including filmmaker Liz Goldwyn, Selma Blair, Naomi Watts and more."

Maier made major fashion news around his Spring 2017 runway show, creating the memorable image of sending then 73-year-old Lauren Hutton down the runway with then 21-year-old Gigi Hadid. 

The Cut Profiles Marita Aikonen, Design Director at Dia&Co, For Women Wearing Size 14 And Up

The Cut Profiles Marita Aikonen, Design Director at Dia&Co, For Women Wearing Size 14 And Up

The Cut profiles Marita Aikonen, design director at the subscription service Dia & Co, a fast-growing subscription service catering to women who wear size 14 and up. In her nearly two years at the company, Aikonen has launched eight new labels from the ground up -- NO small feat. Most recently, the Finland-born creative worked with EleVen by Venus Williams to translate her designs into Dia & Co's size range. 

Startups aren't new to Aikonen. At Levi's, she started the women's Dockers plus-size division. After that stint, she moved to Old Navy to oversee both their plus and maternity design offerings. “We built out the plus-size business in active and swim as well as sweaters. These were categories where there had previously been a misconception that they wouldn’t be successful in plus sizes, and we were able to disprove that myth,” explained Aikonen.

Launching her own line and working as a consultant, Aikonen applied for a job at Dia & Co as a stylist. She was initially rejected as being overqualified, until her résumé landed on the desk of co-founder and CEO Nadia Boujarwah. The Cut conducts an interview with Aikonen.

Luxury Safari Glamping In Kenya's Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara Resort

Image: Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara in Kenya

The South China Morning Post drops down in East Africa Sunday, making stops to update readers about the plight of big game animals generally and elephants in particular. We'll chart their stops this week and not in order.

Chris Dwyer takes us six hours west of Nairobi by car to a landmark project within the Maasai eco-sstem, crossing Kenya's southern border with Tanzania. For several years conservationists have worked with local communities to limit cattle grazing on grasslands owned by the private 35,000-acre Olare Motorogi Conservancy, run in partnership with the Maasai people. Today the land hosts several exclusive camps including one owned by Sir Richard Branson, and less expensive lodging as well. The collaboration operating in the conservancy protects many of the world's most extraordinary animals and offers a consistent income and livelihoods for the Maasai landowners. 

Kenya has been ambitious in promoting the positive economic benefits to developing tourism and saving some of the most precious animals to walk the earth, as an alternative to working as scouts or even killers of these animals for money. Not only does the Maasai community prosper, but the animals keep the tourism developing into the future. This project has one of the highest lion densities in Africa. 

Image: Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara in Kenya

Dwyer writes: "The latest aerial census by the Kenya Wildlife Service suggests Kenya’s elephant population has increased recently, thanks in part to stringent anti-poaching measures. But when taken in the context of the overall population decline, from an estimated 167,000 animals in 1979 to 38,000 last year, the figures remain sobering."

Our writer then checks into the Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara resort, a camp of 12 luxury tents, swimming pool and lounge bar. I've picked some images from the resort's website, one's that remind me of the inspiration behind our GlamTribal collection and my own strong physical and unconscious connection to East Africa. 

Image: Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara in Kenya

GlamTribal is also committed to elephant conservation and The Kibera School for Girls (see website) in Nairobi, donating 10% of our sales to these two complimentary endeavors.  Considering that elephants are a matriarchal social organization and educating girls is one of the most important efforts to support peace and stable political institutions -- as well as sound economic development on the planet --  reaching adventurers who support these goals is key to our GlamTribal strategy. 

Image: Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara in Kenya

For the vast majority of us who cannot afford such a splendid experience of staying at Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara, we can always dream a bit through the GlamTribal experience.  To inspire your night visions, I share three pendant necklaces using our GlamTribal studio-made, featherweight beads of elephants, giraffes and our very special map of East Africa bead.  Enjoy the read and the wearing! ~ Anne

EYE| Raf Simons Unveils American Quilts Collab Of 100 Cassina Feltri Armchairs At Design Miami/Basel 2018

EYE| Raf Simons Unveils American Quilts Collab Of 100 Cassina Feltri Armchairs At Design Miami/Basel 2018

Calvin Klein Chief Creative Officer Raf Simons unveils the full range of his cohesive design vision with its first installation at Design Miami/Basel. Housed in an authentic American barn, Raf Simons unveils a limited edition collection collaboration by Gaetano Pesce of 100 Cassina Feltri armchairs upholstered in vintage one-of-a-kind American heirloom quilts.

Calvin Klein house codes are applied to each one of the numbered armchair’s interior upholstery featuring quilt’s that date back to the 19th and 20th centuries. armchairs numbered 1 – 50 will be available for purchase at the fair, while the remaining 50 – 100 will be made available for purchase through Cassina at a later date.

Amal Honors George With Hearfelt Love | Jamella Jamil Jabs Emile Hirsch Bigtime | Shonda Rhimes Launches Netflix Anna Delvey Project

Amal Honors George With Hearfelt Love | Jamella Jamil Jabs Emile Hirsch Bigtime | Shonda Rhimes Launches Netflix Anna Delvey Project

Amal Clooney paid great tribute to her husband George at the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award Gala in LA on Thursday night. 

Citing "a few things you may not know about George", Amal told the crowd that her husband "is a gentleman in every sense of the word and in a way that seems so rare these days and perhaps even outdated." 

Parkland Students Launch Nationwide 50 Stops Tour To Register Young Voters & Talk Gun Laws Reform

Parkland Students Launch Nationwide 50 Stops Tour To Register Young Voters & Talk Gun Laws Reform

Anyone who thought the Parkland students might go into summer hibernation, hitting the beach and soaking up the rays is wrong. Last Sunday 788 diplomas -- four of them posthumous --- were handed out to graduating seniors of Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. On Monday students of the March for Our Lives movement announced the kickoff of a national summer bus tour designed to raise awareness around gun control issues and to register voters in advance of the November midterms. 

Launching June 15th at the Peace March in Chicago, the tour – named March for Our Lives: Road to Change – will make 50 stops across America in 60 days. The state of Florida will not be forgotten when a separate tour led by March for Our Lives activists rolls into action, with events in all 27 of Florida’s congressional districts. Registering young people to vote and educating the community about where their political candidates stand on gun reform and their relationship to the NRA is the students' priority.

Anthony Bourdain: The World Has Lost A Bridge Uniting Us & Women Have Lost A Standup #MeToo Guy

Anthony Bourdain: The World Has Lost A Bridge Uniting Us & Women Have Lost A Standup #MeToo Guy

This is the last article I read about Bourdain, published April 20 in The Daily Beast, and it was about #MeToo. Bourdain sounded stunned to learn first hand what women go though in life -- most women in every country in the world. His words grabbed my heart, because was such a stud muffin and I could see that this man of the world was very impacted to study the female perspective and his own role in advancing what he called "toxic masculinity". I'm not linking this evolution in thinking in any way to Bourdain's suicide. But I want to call out his most recent thinking and how supportive he was of #MeToo, telling Alec Baldwin specifically and men like him who attack #MeToo to just shut up.

As the tributes flood media, Vox details key quotes from a recent interview about #MeToo that Bourdain shared with Isaac Chotiner of Slate. A key quote"

I am a guy on TV who sexualizes food. Who uses bad language. Who thinks our discomfort, our squeamishness, fear and discomfort around matters sexual is funny. I have done stupid offensive shit. And because I was a guy in a guy’s world who had celebrated a system—I was very proud of the fact that I had endured that, that I found myself in this very old, very, frankly, phallocentric, very oppressive system and I was proud of myself for surviving it. And I celebrated that rather enthusiastically.

Gucci Launches Equilibrium, Furthering Commitment to Sustainability and Transparency

Gucci Launches Equilibrium, Furthering Commitment to Sustainability and Transparency

Gucci has again affirmed its commitment to sustainability and transparency with the launch of Gucci Equilibrium, an online platform "designed to connect people, planet and purpose". 

“We have been working on sustainability for so long and we realised at one point that our actions needed to be better understood within and outside the company,” president and CEO Marco Bizzarri told WWD.

The Equilibrium.gucci.com website will launch a company-wide program for the 13,000 Gucci employees, allowing every member of the staff to dedicate one percent of their working time to volunteering in their local communities.

“These are critical times when we can all play our part in helping to deliver on the UN Global Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement,” Bizzarri added. “The only way to do that is by bringing people together, sharing ideas, innovation and experiences. This is the objective we have set for Gucci Equilibrium.”

Gucci’s 10-year sustainability plan centers around three pillars: the environment, people and innovation. Within the first pillar, it has set a target to guarantee the traceability of 95 percent of raw materials. Its “scrap-less” program in association with its tanneries, which reduces the quantity of leather that is treated during the manufacturing process, follows Gucci's late fall announcement that the house will no longer use fur in its collections.

Following in the footsteps of Salma Hayek and Beyoncé's Chime for Change dedicated to girls' and women's empowerment long embraced by Gucci, Gucci Equilibrium will launch a series of social enterprises, such as "I was a Sari", in which Gucci craftspeople teach women from Mumbai's marginalized communities in Mumbai how to upcycle saris. 

Forget Botox. Make Forward Folds Your Daily Dose With A Goddess Pose For Good Measure

Forget Botox. Make Forward Folds Your Daily Dose With A Goddess Pose For Good Measure

Vogue Australia asks: Is yoga the new facelift?  Instead of Botox or other procedures you probably can't afford, consider that practitioners of yoga are known for having youthful looks, and not only because the practice yoga diminishes stress and body-ravaging inflammation. 

Renowned Aussie yoga teacher, nutritionist and author Lola Berry says, “Yoga poses can play a big role in our beauty regime, when you increase blood flow to the face it can result in naturally lifted and plumped skin.” Specifically, “Forward folds—where you are bending at the hip and letting your torso hang towards the ground—and inversions—downward facing dog, shoulder, head and hand stands—where blood is sent to the head and face,” says Berry, will achieve this kind of natural facelift.

'Queen Serena' Covers Harper's Bazaar US June 2018 With Dynamic, Powerhouse Beauty

'Queen Serena' Covers Harper's Bazaar US June 2018 With Dynamic, Powerhouse Beauty

Top American woman and the world's top athlete according to many experts, Serena Williams covers the June 2018 issue of Harper's Bazaar US. Miranda Almond styles Serena in sexy bodies with a classic twist, lensed by Richard Phibbs for 'Queen Serena'. 

The interview begins: "As one of the greatest athletes of all time, Serena Williams has overcome misogyny and racism with inspirational fortitude and grace. Now that she is combining her return to Wimbledon with life as a new mother, after a traumatic birth that nearly killed her, she talks to Lydia Slater about sisterhood, self-acceptance and staying strong."

We hope that Serena is headed to Wimbledon, after dropping out of the French Open on Monday. After a week of surprising all with her 'old Serena' tennis megastar self, Serena withdrew from her scheduled match with Maria Sharapova, with an injury to her right pectoral muscle. via New York Times