Latest news with #St.Nicholas
Irish Independent
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Annacurra have the goal-den touch as they see off St. Nicholas to claim crown
Annacurra 4-9 St. Nicholas 0-6 St. Nicholas travelled over the Gap to the Echelon C.O.E. at Ballinakill on Friday to take on Annacurra in the Division 4 LGFA league final. The game was played in pleasant conditions and was well contested for the most part.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Satanic Temple, ACLU file discrimination complaint over canceled Iowa Capitol event
Iowa satanists are accusing state officials of discrimination and retaliation after they were blocked from hosting a holiday celebration last year at the Iowa Capitol. The claim, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, asserts that the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and Gov. Kim Reynolds' office violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The ACLU filed the claim Tuesday, June 10, with the Iowa Office of Civil Rights, a necessary prerequisite to a potential lawsuit. The filing centers on the 2024 holiday season, in which the temple sought to host a "Holiday Display Day" on Dec. 14 in the Capitol. Plans for the event included "family-friendly" activities: a procession and invocation, a Krampus costume contest, holiday caroling and crafts such as ornament decorating and coloring pages. The complaint notes that other religious groups have been allowed to offer similar events. The group applied for permission in October but says it was not until Dec. 9, days before the event, that the Department of Administrative Services denied it a permit, citing a policy against "actions that are harmful to minors including, but not limited to, obscene materials and gratuitous violence or gore." The temple says it was told that officials feared sticks, traditionally a part of the costume for Krampus — a half-goat, half-man mythical creature who accompanies St. Nicholas and punishes misbehaving youngsters — would be used to hit children. The temple denies its event would have included striking children, or any other violence, obscenity or gore. It says it tried to make changes to its plan to address concerns, but got no response. Since then the group, which is separately suing Reynolds' office in an open records dispute, says it has learned the governor's office was directly involved in the rejection of their event, ACLU Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said in a media call Tuesday. "Based on responses to open record requests, which are not complete and the subject of separate litigation, we can actually see a pretty clear picture that IDAS and the governor's office staff were meeting during that time to come up with a justification for this predetermined denial, really regardless of what the actual content of the event were," she said. The complaint also notes past incidents of alleged discrimination against the Satanic Temple, including the high-profile vandalism of its display at the Capitol during the holidays in 2023 and the denial of a proposed multi-day reading of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" in 2024 under rules that allegedly have not been applied to other religious groups. Austen said the temple believes the 2024 holiday event denial is partly in retaliation for complaints over these prior incidents. Previously: Iowa Capitol satanic idol vandal sentenced to probation in plea deal that drops hate crime "Members of the Satanic Temple of Iowa have the same right to express their beliefs as all other religious groups do, and Iowa officials treated the Iowa congregation worse than other groups because they don't approve of their religion," she said. "It's wrong, its illegal under the Iowa Civil Rights Act." Mortimer Adramelech, a minister with the Iowa congregation, said in a statement that his church believes in principles including compassion, empathy and respect for others' freedoms. "It's frustrating because displays and celebrations like the one we would like to have at the Capitol help educate people more about The Satanic Temple members and the values we embrace," he said. "Instead, state officials have tried to silence us while promoting other more popular religions." While Tuesday's filing is a necessary legal prerequisite to a lawsuit, Austen declined to comment on their potential timing and strategy for future litigation. William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@ or 715-573-8166. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Satanic Temple, ACLU say Iowa officials violated Civil Rights Act
New York Times
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Inside Fashion's Mysterious Silly Hat Festival
Every year on or around the 25th of November, the French fashion industry hosts a kind of runway show just for itself. Wearing mostly green-and-yellow hats — the color combination is said to represent either family and hope or faith and wisdom, depending on which milliner you ask — young people from the Parisian luxury houses gather at City Hall to celebrate St. Catherine's Day, a Catholic holiday dating to the Middle Ages that was first observed by the couture industry in the late 19th century. Historically, the Catherinettes, as they're known — single women, each 25 years old and working in one of the city's then-dozens of haute couture ateliers — were granted a rare opportunity to meet their bosses before getting the rest of the day off to enjoy street parties, all while wearing opulent, often garish hats that were sometimes personalized to represent their individual skills or interests, or at least their house's codes. (In the late 1940s, Schiaparelli's Catherinettes wore oversize versions of the designer Elsa Schiaparelli's surreal fragrance bottles in the shape of suns and candlesticks.) Though only midway through their 20s, the Catherinettes were already considered spinsters, and their hats sent a clear message: 'I'm available,' says Sophie Kurkdjian, an assistant professor of fashion history at the American University of Paris. 'And I'm looking for a husband.' She likens the tradition to Tinder for the petites mains, or 'little hands,' as the generally anonymous artisans responsible for sewing and embroidering the world's most exquisite gowns are known. The Catherinettes' patron saint is Catherine of Alexandria, a skilled debater who died in the fourth century and who, according to legend, converted pagan scholars to Christianity and refused to wed a Roman emperor. (She's also believed to watch over scholars and students.) More than a mating ritual, though — one that was practiced across France long before it was adopted by the fashion industry — St. Catherine's Day was also a 'bonding experience,' says Pamela Golbin, formerly the chief curator of fashion and textiles at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. 'Today it would be considered a team-building exercise.' Men from the houses eventually adopted a parallel tradition in honor of St. Nicholas, another patron saint of many, including those looking to wed, who once purportedly paid the dowries for three unmarried sisters by secretly tossing gold into their father's home. They celebrated on St. Nicholas's feast day, Dec. 6, and enjoyed five additional years of shame-free singledom, becoming Nicholases at 30. Two years ago, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body of Paris Fashion Week, which had long heard complaints about the holiday's 'antifeminism,' decided that participants no longer had to be unmarried, says its executive president, Pascal Morand. It also lowered the age for Nicholases to 25. The rule change affected people like Victor Weinsanto, a 30-year-old French designer who started his own label in 2020 and has now missed his opportunity to be feted as a Nicholas. He had appreciated the tradition since his internship at Chloé, where he'd watched Catherinettes receive handbags with their hats. (Along with the hats, which participants can keep, many houses provide additional gifts: Balenciaga, for example, offers full outfits.) Nevertheless, Weinsanto still relishes the spectacle from a distance. 'It's a moment where you can have some freedom about taste,' he says, recalling the large feathered hats worn last November by employees of Hermès, a brand not especially known for its flamboyance. At City Hall, the participants — about 400, many dressed in black, representing 17 houses as well as the federation itself — modeled their colorful hats in a private fashion show, with each brand having chosen its own music. (Hermès opted for Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso'; Patou went with a Lil Wayne song.) For a competitive industry that generally takes itself quite seriously, the event is a goofy anomaly and rare moment of unity. And yet the ceremony isn't without a bit of good-natured one-upmanship: The Catherinettes' hats are often designed by the house's creative director, but some revelers at City Hall had added personal touches; an employee of the millinery Maison Michel affixed a wooden stake to theirs to reflect their passion for the TV series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' Others attached rhinestones or felt Chanel logos to their hats, the same way American college students might customize their graduation caps. The Catherinettes and Nicholases, who now both celebrate in November, no longer come from only the world of couture, which means that employees from any of the 100 or so houses in the federation can participate. (These days, only 14 of those maisons still make haute couture: custom garments produced entirely by hand and requiring at least four full-time tailors and seamstresses.) Nor must they make clothes at all. Among Balenciaga's 23 participants last year, there were employees from its retail stores and corporate departments. (The brand, known for its subversion and streetwear, dressed its staff in black baseball caps designed by its creative director, Demna, with green and yellow on the brims.) Delphine Bellini, the chief executive of Schiaparelli, sees it as a moment to 'pass the baton between the senior experts and the young talents,' and an opportunity to impress upon the company's next generation the importance of craftsmanship. 'I have to admit that I'd rather represent the modern interpretations of the tradition than the old ones,' says Emma Spreckley, a press assistant and recent Catherinette at Dior, which had 68 celebrants in 2024. Each year on a Friday around the holiday, the house throws a lavish ball for its team — not just any corporate office gathering but an extravagant cocktail party attended by its creative directors, along with Delphine Arnault, the chief executive of Dior fashion, and her father, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of Dior's parent company, LVMH. (Everyone at Dior gets the following Monday off.) 'It's our most important meeting of the year,' says the British milliner Stephen Jones, who learned about the Catherinettes when he was hired at Dior in 1996. He acknowledges some mystery around the tradition — outside New Orleans, which hosts a small neighborhood hat parade to acknowledge St. Catherine's Day, the celebration is unfamiliar to most Americans, even those who work in fashion. Multiple houses and designers were reluctant to say too much about the custom — almost as if it were a secret. 'Some things are meant to be kept private,' Jones says. 'When you buy a Dior haute couture dress, what are you buying? You're buying a dress, but you're also buying privacy — something that's just for you, not anybody else.' To him, the event is about the pride fashion takes in its artisans: The hats he designed for this year's event, inspired by the brand's resort 2025 collection, were made by the Scottish knitwear manufacturer Robert Mackie. 'In the United States, they celebrate sports heroes or military heroes,' says Jones. 'In France, they celebrate dressmaking and fashion design.'
