Latest news with #Nylon
Los Angeles Times
14-07-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
This Viral Travel Hack is Selling Out – Here's Why
Nearly everyone has a travel horror story – whether it's delayed flights, last-minute seat changes, a mediocre hotel or a luggage catastrophe. And while you can't fix the weather or overbooked flights, there's one thing that travelers can control: how they pack their suitcases. That's where Ekster's TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit comes into play. Really, who hasn't had to sit on their suitcase when they pack a week's worth of clothes for a weekend trip and end up breaking the zipper of pricey baggage? Travel is already stressful without making things harder on yourself. Ekster's space-saving travel solution has blown up on TikTok as travelers discover the key to easy packing – even for someone who needs to pack twelve pairs of shoes for a three-day vacation (if you know, you know). So, how exactly does the TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit turn packing pain into packing pleasure? Easy: It allows users to compress their clothes, saving up to 60% of space in their luggage. Naturally, that makes the process more efficient and organized, cutting down on the expletives that often follow vacation prep. It may seem complicated to figure out how to use vacuum packing bags, but it's quite simple. Once you finish packing and sealing the bag, you'll use a vacuum to suck out the air and maximize luggage space. While Ekster began in the smart wallet industry, it quickly became a leader in both smart wallets and travel gear. Given that the company sold over 1 million smart wallets and amassed more than 50,000+ 5-star reviews, it's no surprise that it's ranked as the #1 bestselling trackable smart wallet brand globally. With those accolades, travelers can rest assured that they're buying products they can trust. But for anyone who's still not convinced, Ekster offers free shipping and 100-day free returns. To boot, the company's GRID Backpack also won the 2024 iF Design Award, and co-founder Olivier Momma is a Forbes 30-under-30 recipient. When it comes to travel perks, the TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit has more than the overflowing number of shirts you packed in your last suitcase. The product includes vacuum seal bags and a portable USB-C rechargeable air pump that provides 20 uses per full charge. The air pump compresses clothing, making it an ideal solution for travelers. Of course, zippers can be the most finicky and unpredictable part of packing. Few things are as frustrating as one side of the zipper breaking away from the teeth. Ekster has travelers covered on that front with high-quality, anti-rip Nylon material and airtight, waterproof, and odor-proof zippers. If only suitcases provided that much support. The carry-on-sized vacuum bags even have one-way valves to keep air from escaping. Even better? There's an alternative compression option that's compatible with any vacuum cleaner, and travelers can use the bags as laundry storage when they reach their destination. You may be asking yourself about the benefits of compression bags vs packing cubes. The biggest difference is that compression bags offer a game-changing amount of space. Wrinkled clothes are almost a guarantee when you overpack your suitcase, but the TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit can help them stay wrinkle-free and organized. For clumsy travelers known for spilling their iced coffee on luggage during a redeye, these travel vacuum bags also protect your suitcase's contents from spills and accidents. Sometimes, checked bags are even pricier than the flight itself. By condensing everything in the TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit, travelers have a better chance of fitting all of the essentials into their carry-on while still having room to spare for anyone who can't resist a good gift shop (or ten). All in all, Ekster's TravelPack is more durable and reusable than cheaper options. The price is worth it in the long run, given how vacuum seal bags for clothes save money. The TravelPack™ Vacuum Kit is changing how people pack, and its viral success proves travelers love the extra luggage space and stress-free process. With stock selling out fast, now is the time to grab the best compression bags for travel. The kit is convenient and also allows travelers to save money, reduce stress, and approach trips with confidence. Smart solutions like Ekster's products demonstrate how innovative design can turn potentially frustrating experiences into moments of ease and anticipation.
AsiaOne
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- AsiaOne
Vanessa Hudgens pregnant with second child, Entertainment News
Vanessa Hudgens is pregnant with her second child. The High School Musical actress has revealed on Instagram that she and her husband Cole Tucker are going to be parents again. Vanessa confirmed the news with a collection of photos of herself and Cole smiling as she showed off her baby bump. She captioned the snaps: "Round two!" [embed] Vanessa and Cole welcomed their first child in July 2024, although have kept details about the name and sex private, and she expressed disappointment that she was unable to break the news of the birth herself after photographs of her leaving hospital in Santa Monica were circulated online. She wrote on her Instagram Story: "We're disappointed that our family's privacy was disrespected and exploited during this very special time due to the greed of a long-lens camera feeding the media. "Despite all of that, mom, dad and baby are happy and healthy." Vanessa, 36, previously explained that she made her career choices with her future children at the forefront of her thoughts. She told E! News: "I'll show my kids all my work. That's why I chose things along the way in my career. I wanted to make sure that when I did have kids, there would be something for them to watch at every age." Vanessa married former baseball star Cole in 2023 but revealed beforehand that she expected to tie the knot and have children at an earlier age. She told Nylon in 2022: "I always thought I would be married at 25 because that's when my mom got married, and then when that didn't happen, I was like, 'Oh, okay, so we're just going to shift everything back a bit.' "I always thought that around 36, 37 is when I would want to have kids, and that still plays. I don't feel panicked about it." She previously dated Elvis actor Austin Butler for eight years but is grateful that their split "catapulted" her to true love with Cole. Speaking on the She Pivots podcast, Hudgens said: "I feel like so much of my character was built from my break-ups ... I feel like my last break-up has really catapulted me to a very, very special place, obviously. "It pushed me to the right person which I'm so grateful for because he's just the most supportive, real understanding human being that I've ever met." [[nid:685515]]
Perth Now
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Vanessa Hudgens is expecting her second child
Vanessa Hudgens is pregnant with her second child. The High School Musical actress has revealed on Instagram that she and her husband Cole Tucker are going to be parents again. Vanessa confirmed the news with a collection of photos of herself and Cole smiling as she showed off her baby bump. She captioned the snaps: "Round two!!!" Vanessa and Cole welcomed their first child in July 2024, although have kept details about the name and sex private, and the actress expressed disappointment that she was unable to break the news of the birth herself after photographs of her leaving hospital in Santa Monica were circulated online. She wrote on her Instagram Story: "We're disappointed that our family's privacy was disrespected and exploited during this very special time due to the greed of a long lens camera feeding the media. "Despite all of that, mom dad and baby are happy and healthy." Vanessa, 36, previously explained that she made her career choices with her future children at the forefront of her thoughts. She told E! News: "I'll show my kids all my work. That's why I chose things along the way in my career. I wanted to make sure that when I did have kids, there would be something for them to watch at every age." Vanessa married former baseball star Cole in 2023 but revealed beforehand that she expected to tie the knot and have children at an earlier age. She told Nylon in 2022: "I always thought I would be married at 25 because that's when my mom got married, and then when that didn't happen, I was like: 'Oh, okay, so we're just going to shift everything back a bit.' "I always thought that around 36, 37 is when I would want to have kids, and that still plays. I don't feel panicked about it." The Spring Breakers star previously dated Elvis actor Austin Butler for eight years but is grateful that their split "catapulted" her to true love with Cole. Speaking on the She Pivots podcast, Hudgens said: "I feel like so much of my character was built from my break-ups ... I feel like my last break-up has really catapulted me to a very, very special place, obviously. "It pushed me to the right person which I'm so grateful for because he's just the most supportive, real understanding human being that I've ever met."
Forbes
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Tyla Releases New Single ‘Is It'
Tyla Grammy-winning singer Tyla is ready to party after the release of her self-titled debut album last year. The South African songstress has been teasing her next project in recent months and giving fans a peek at her musical direction with the single 'Bliss' in May. Now, just as the summer is heating up and fans are eager to get moving, the 'Water' singer is helping them cool off with the new single 'Is It.' 'Is it the f**ks that I don't give? / Is it the men that I don't miss? / Is this song why we get along? / Or am I coming on a little strong?' she sings on the track. 'Is it the way this dress unzips? / Is it the girls that I came with? / 'Cause the more that you tell me 'Don't' / It's the more that you turn me on.' Tyla has been wasting little time since her debut as she puts in work on her sophomore LP. 'Every day I can be in the studio, I'm there. I'm working on the new project currently. I'm super excited because even though I love my debut album, I feel like a totally different person. Everything that has happened forced me to grow very fast,' she told Nylon of her progress. 'I'm also the type of person that gets bored very easily. So I'm excited to see this new version of me and hear what it sounds like and just have fun with it — just bring back fun in music.' Though it might feel like a quick turnaround from her Tyla album last April, the 'Push 2 Start" singer explained to Billboard that a lot has happened since she made her stateside breakthrough in 2023. 'I've changed a lot in a short amount of time because I was kind of forced to with how fast I had to adapt to everything,' she said. 'I don't think it's going to be the same energy [as Tyla]It's all in service of continuing to elevate her career as an up-and-coming star. 'I really want to be the best artist that I can be," she told Nylon. "When you have a lot of pressure, it makes you feel like you need to live up to what people expect. A year from now, I want to be making whatever I want to make, doing whatever I want to do — regardless of the pressures. That's where I want to see myself next year.'
Business Insider
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
The shrinkflation of plus-size clothing
Tess Holliday remembers 2019 as a "glorious" year for plus-size fashion and body positivity. The plus-size model and body activist walked the runway at New York Fashion Week. She'd been featured by magazines such as Cosmopolitan UK, Nylon, and Self. The cultural shift felt palpable — Rihanna's Savage X Fenty runway show made headlines for the size diversity of its models, and Lizzo was topping the charts with catchy songs and a message of empowerment. "It finally felt like we were in a place where that was the norm," Holliday says. That optimistic new norm, however, was short-lived. The pandemic — and all the Zoom calls — had people picking their appearance apart. Some major brands that had made forays into the plus-size realm scaled back. Then came Ozempic and the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, promising miracles that could move shoppers out of the plus-size section entirely. "I don't really see it getting better or shifting to a place where we are maybe hearing the term body positivity and seeing brands promote it in the way that they were," says Holliday, the author of the coming book " Take Up Space, Y'all: Your Bold & Bright Guide to Self-Love." "I mean, look at what happened with the backswing of diversity and inclusivity." Thin is in, culturally, and the fashion industry is happy to oblige. Manufacturing plus-size clothes presents unique operational challenges that many brands would rather avoid. Weight-loss drugs are slimming down some proportion of the population and may be changing inventory mixes in turn. Many fashion retailers and companies have never been thrilled about catering to plus-size clients — even though about two-thirds of American women are estimated to fall into that category — so they're happy to have a reason to turn away. "I'm just convinced at this point that they just want us running around naked," Holliday says. Even before the GLP-1 explosion, brands that ventured into the plus-size market were already backing off. (I'll focus largely on women's fashion for this story, because that's where much of the spending and offerings are.) In 2021, Loft discontinued its plus-size options just three years after launching its first plus-size collection, citing "ongoing business challenges." In 2022, Old Navy said it would pull some options from its stores, about a year after making a big deal about its efforts to place all sizes together on the sales floor instead of separating sections. The retailer still has plus-size clothing, it's just mostly online. In June, the plus-size retailer Torrid announced plans to close up to 180 stores. I'm just convinced at this point that they just want us running around naked. Lauren Hope Krass, the host of " Belly Laughs," a body acceptance podcast, and a web series called "Fat Fashion," tells me the Loft pullback hurt a lot because a lot of what the brand offers is business casual clothing. "You'll hear a lot of plus-size shoppers complain about, 'Well, we want sexy clothes, too.' And that is so true, but if you think about the country, we're business bitches, we're going to work," she says. "It's honestly really discouraging because we're seeing a loss of entire brands and companies go under." Anecdotally, plus-size shoppers and influencers say they've noticed a pullback in merchandise from a variety of retailers, including H&M. In addition to sharp-eyed shoppers, there's data to show that the extended-size clothing options are getting harder to find. In a 2024 report, the retail intelligence firm Edited found that the clothing retailer Aritzia had cut the share of 2XL dresses among its new arrivals by 5 percentage points from 2023 while upping it in many smaller sizes. ASOS similarly reduced its plus-size assortment by 15% from the previous year, the report found, and Reformation reduced its extended sizing range by 46%. A separate 2024 report from the merchandising and inventory consultancy Impact Analytics looked at Manhattan's Upper East Side, an affluent neighborhood where GLP-1s for weight loss were prominent, and found that sales in smaller sizes for women's button-down shirts increased by 12% for local fashion retailers from 2022 to 2024, while sales of larger sizes fell by just slightly less. Impact Analytics found a similar, albeit less pronounced, trend for men. Executives at Lafayette 148, Rent the Runway, and Amarra told The Wall Street Journal last year that they'd spotted an uptick in customers switching to smaller sizes. The authors of Edited's report note that it's not clear whether Ozempic can be directly linked to increased demand for smaller sizes. Trendy weight-loss solutions are often coming and going, and only a tiny sliver of Americans are taking GLP-1s. But the fashion industry was already shifting away from plus size when the drugs hit the zeitgeist, and a scenario in which people lose weight and have to buy new clothes (and perhaps gain the weight back and have to buy more new clothes) is a great one for retailers. "It's a breakthrough miracle drug for people who really need to lose weight, 100%. But I don't think it's going to make everybody a Size 8 all of a sudden," says Danielle Malconian, the CEO of the plus-size apparel brand Vikki Vi and the online retailer Plus by Design. "It's an easy thing for retailers to kind of jump out of the space because it is service-based. It is hard; it's not sexy all the time." As mentioned, the majority of the country counts as plus size. For women in the US, that means those who wear a Size 14 and up. Plus-size consumers have a lot of money to spend, but that's easier said than done. "They have the most beautiful shoes and handbags of everybody in the world, and they get so frustrated that they can't find clothing to spend money on," Malconian says. The fashion industry has long been hesitant to cater to plus-size customers. That's for a variety of reasons — some logistical, some cultural, some discriminatory. Designing and manufacturing for plus-size customers can be more costly and intensive than for what are called "straight sizes," the industry term for the sizes you always find on the rack. Designers and brands often use one standard-size fit model and then scale up and down from there. But that gets harder to do in bigger sizes because of how differently people may carry their weight. "When you're making plus sizes, you have to be really concerned about fit, and when you're dealing with a plus-size customer, you're dealing with a lot of shapes of bodies," Malconian says. "You want to have not just one fit model, but maybe three or four fit models to really understand what's going to fit, or else you end up with a bunch of returns and you go out of business." Other material calculations make retailers less inclined to sell plus-size clothing: It requires more fabric, meaning it's more expensive to make. Retailers are hesitant to charge more for larger sizes, so they may order fewer units to put in their stores, if they carry them at all. E-commerce makes this all a little easier because it allows retailers to respond as orders come in. "With online, we've been able to offer more inclusive sizes because we don't stock the inventory on our balance sheet, and we have the vendor cut it based on demand," says Shawn Grain Carter, a luxury branding and retail consultant who's an associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. "If they don't buy it, no harm, no foul, because you had that excess fabric sitting there." Plus-size brands might go under due to fatphobia, not due to lack of fat people. To be sure, the downsizing of plus-size options is not just about logistical hurdles. Historically, the fashion industry has always prioritized being thin, and it caters to that clientele accordingly. Krass attributes the resistance to embracing plus-size fashion to plain "fatphobia." "I do get so annoyed when people are like, 'Oh, our plus-size brands are going to go under, there's no more fat people,'" she says. "And it's like, no, plus-size brands might go under due to fatphobia, not due to lack of fat people. We are here, and we should be here and should have the dignity of having access to fashion." Culturally and economically, plus-size people are often pushed to the side. Plus-size sections are often hidden away in stores. Brands that sell plus-size clothing often market them almost covertly. The vast majority of their Instagram posts and social media show straight-size models, even if they have plus-size merchandise. And the supposed plus-size models they do use are often still much thinner than their actual plus-size customers, who may not even really realize they're being targeted because models don't look like them in the ads. "A lot of plus-size brands will default to showing Size 14 models, Size 14 people. To me, that's the midsize range," Krass says. "They can shop straight sizes, so why are you catering to them for plus sizes? Get some thicker models, and we'll know, and then we'll shop." Vogue Business' Autumn/Winter 2025 size inclusivity report found that while "curvaceous silhouettes" were all over fashion show runways, curvy models were not. "We're in danger of creating a false narrative yet again, stating that the only way one can look beautiful is to be skinny," Carter says. There are, of course, brands that have figured out that plus-size people have money and cater to them accordingly. Holliday points to Universal Standard, ASOS, and Eloquii as brands getting it right on plus size, though many more brands are "doing it wrong," she says. Krass points out that resale and thrifting can be especially popular among plus-size shoppers, especially as brands pull back on new merchandise. Ozempic and other GLP-1s may change the lay of the land in plus-size fashion, but it's not going to make the need for such options obsolete. These medications are not widely available and accessible. They're costly and often not covered by insurance. And they're not for everyone — they have a lot of side effects, and one study found that more than half of the people who take them for weight loss quit within a year. "With everybody suddenly being like, 'Oh, everybody can be skinny now.' If they could all be skinny, why are there still fat people?" Holliday says. While GLP-1s won't get rid of obesity, they could make it easier for brands and retailers to ignore heavier people. The fashion industry wants to be aspirational, and American culture aspires to skinny, even if that's not realistic or even savvy business-wise.
