Latest news with #chic
Harpers Bazaar Arabia
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Harpers Bazaar Arabia
The Gstaad Guy's Fantastique Guide To Summer
Celebrated for his bull's-eye skewering of the 1 per cent, the beloved content creator shares his other – equally well-versed – area of expertise: the chicest ways to travel… Peak Chic Mountains in summer are very chic. The Mediterranean has gotten far too hot and far too crowded in the peak season of July and August. Go to Gstaad; stay at The Alpina. Go to Saint Moritz; stay at Badrutt's Palace. Go to Andermatt; stay at The Chedi. Euro Trip If you must go to the on-grid destinations, my favourite properties are Airelles Château de la Messardière in Saint Tropez, Il San Pietro di Positano, or The Maybourne Riviera just outside of Monaco. No shorts. Unless you're wearing a bathing suit while bathing, or sports shorts while taking part in sport. Long trousers, always. Loro Piana is ideal. No flip flops. Keep those toes tucked away, unless you're barefoot. Barefoot is chic, especially at sea. Quiet Luxury Avoid any restaurant that turns into party mode with sparklers and loud music during the second lunch service. Mykonos, Ibiza, and Saint Tropez have lots of this. Sacred Rituals Similar to an après-ski routine in the winter, you must have an après-lunch routine over the summer. In Saint Tropez, this includes a walk on the beach post-lunch, followed by a pre-dinner walk in town for a Gourmandise Crêpe across the street from the La Ponche Hotel. Plain Nutella is a timeless classic. Stay Active. Summer is not about eating as many sugars and carbs as you can. Although you should indulge and enjoy, you should not be gluttonous or inactive. Play some tennis, some padel, go for a swim, or go for a hike. There is likely lots to do outside of eating, drinking, and sleeping wherever you are. Pack It In Travel essentials should include an elegant tote bag for your beach/pool necessities, bracelets to make your summer looks more playful – ideally from Poubel – sunglasses, that you only wear when actually exposed to the sun (never indoors or when the sun has already set), and a great perfume, preferably Acqua di Parma to use on yourself or those around you. Scenic Route I love road trips. Start in Switzerland, drive down to Portofino, then Monaco, then Saint Tropez, and then back up to Provence, passing by Château La Coste. Finally, head up to Gstaad, Andermatt, or Saint Moritz to end with a four-day mountain detox. The ideal total trip length is 10 days. Pick up and drop off your rental car in Zurich or Geneva. Have logistics figured out. Don't linger trying to work out how to get a car after your long lunch. Plan ahead, and know how you and your guests are going to get home. If you're staying on a boat. Don't talk about staying on a boat. From Harper's Bazaar Arabia July/ August 2025 Issue
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mail
Celebrity skirt dupes: Our fashion editors scoured the High Street to track down astonishing clones of slimming, anti-ageing styles the A-list choose... for a fraction of the price
For those intent on keeping cool in the hot weather, a simple pair of shorts would seem the easy sartorial answer. But what if the very thought brings you out in a wave of 'but-my-legs!' anxiety? Luckily, the summer skirt is having a moment – and there are a raft of chic, flattering styles to choose from on the high street.
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Chic' is dead, says Vogue. Is it time to revive ‘jazzy', ‘snazzy' and ‘swish'?
Vogue has spoken: chic is dead. Not being it, but the word. Chic has, Lauren O'Neill argues, lost its essence, co-opted to cover whatever glazed-doughnut-skinned influencers on TikTok decide it should, from monogrammed lip balm to iced matchas. 'Chic has come to be mistaken for certain monied strains of taste, rather than the sort of unique je ne sais quoi that I think the word at its purest actually means.' Baudelaire – the 19th century's Nicky Haslam, given how many things he disapproved of: photography, Belgium, Victor Hugo – would have agreed. He called chic an 'awful and bizarre word'. Are he and Vogue right? I'm not that troubled by chic. Certainly not as an aspiration – I'm currently wearing the stained puffer jacket I share with my most eccentric hen, who lays eggs in the sleeve – but also as a word. I find it far less objectionable than 'luxurious', which has been similarly overused into vapid meaninglessness but takes longer and feels creepy to say – to me, it feels like one of those awful massages that is just feathery stroking. 'Chic' is just a bit dull (unless used in conjunction with 'le freak', of course). Still, I'm gratefully chastened when someone tries to hold us to higher creative standards. I tried to check how many times I had used 'chic' in print and was appalled at the vast list of results, before realising most of them were actually the word 'chickens'. I did, however, use it twice in something I wrote just yesterday without even realising. To further linguistic plurality and make life more interesting, maybe we need to rehabilitate some alternatives. My suggestion: let's start describing stuff like baffled elderly fathers opining on outfits. I'd love to see the return of 'snazzy', 'trendy', 'swish', and other dad-jectives; let's have influencers calling their baby-blue crocodile Hermès handbags 'jazzy'. I fear, however, we're too far gone – chic is so ingrained, so ubiquitous and so damn useful, it will outlive us. I fully anticipate the last mutated giant post-apocalyptic cockroaches will be complimenting each other on the way their shells glitter in the burning wasteland – so chic! Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Is ‘chic' political? In Trump 2.0, the word stands for conservative femininity
The idea of 'chic' is a fashion-world cliche. At best it is a know-it-when-you-see-it vibe, at worst a lazy adjective chosen by a writer to describe something that reminds her of Jane Birkin. It feels inoffensive enough. But now, 'chic' has become something of a lightning rod online – a shorthand for a type of conservative-coded aesthetic. It began last month, when a creator named Tara Langdale posted a video to her TikTok following of just over 30,000 in which she sipped from a long-stemmed wine glass and read off a list of things she finds 'incredibly UN-chic'. Wearing stacks of gold bracelets and a ballet-pink manicure, Langdale called out fashion choices like tattoos, Lululemon, visible panty lines, baggy denim and hunting camouflage as unchic, because, to her, these choices seemed 'cheap'. 'Remember, money talks, wealth whispers,' Langdale said. The not-entirely-serious video racked up views and sparked a conversation about how style preferences can carry political baggage. 'This is giving mean girl,' one user wrote in the comments. 'Classism isn't chic, hope this helps,' wrote another. 'Voting for Trump is unchic,' went a third. Many took particular issue with Langdale's anti-tattoo stance, which they saw as stuffy or downright rude. Such comments came with a strong dose of projection: Langdale, a lifestyle influencer, does not post about politics, sticking to fashion, makeup or motherhood. Nevertheless, many in the fashion TikTok community felt her commentary on 'chic' aligned with the feminine aesthetic of Trump 2.0, where the rigid and airbrushed beauty standards of Maga officials such as Karoline Leavitt, Kristi Noem and Nancy Mace are celebrated. 'Chic is starting to feel like a conservative dogwhistle that polices women's looks,' said Elysia Berman, a creative director and content creator based in New York who posted a takedown of Langdale's unchic list. 'What chic has come to mean to a lot of people is a very narrow definition of elegance. It's this thin, white, blonde woman who speaks softly and is basically Grace Kelly.' The ideal vision of womanhood from Donald Trump's first term was caked foundation and clumpy mascara, as seen on the likes of Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump. But the facial augmentation and overly sexy aesthetic tied to the president's inner circle – see 'Ice Barbie' Noem, who posts full glam videos while deporting immigrants – does not necessarily match that of the president's more social media savvy supporters, many of whom are now opting for a sleeker presentation. Momfluencers and tradwives celebrate RFK Jr's 'Make America Healthy Again' policies while wearing breezy milkmaid dresses. Evie Magazine, a politically conservative version of Cosmo, appropriates the trending visuals of feminist magazines with headlines that decry body positivity and promote vaccine skepticism. As New York Magazine writer Brock Colyar described young Republicans at a post-election night party: 'Many are hot enough to be extras in the upcoming American Psycho remake.' The word 'chic' has always been tied to a French, or francophile, sense of femininity, usually in reference to a woman who subscribes to Vogue and innately understands how to look good. But those turning it into a dirty word on TikTok, taking note of how it aligns with a changing conservative aesthetic, see it as having a more prescriptive, even oppressive, meaning for women's fashion. Suzanne Lambert, a DC-based comedian whose 'conservative girl' mock makeup tutorials went viral earlier this year, described the right's obsession with all things ultra-feminine as 'just this soulless, boring kind of fashion'. 'Republicans are more focused on assimilating than we are on the left, so it makes sense that they all end up looking the same,' Lambert said. Ultimately, anyone who's attempting to look chic – or wealthy – is probably neither of those things. Those TikTok imitators who equate chicness with pearls and a Leavitt-esque tweed shift dress? 'They think it's giving Reagan, but it's really giving Shein,' said Lambert. (Ironically, some of the unchic pieces on Langdale's list – Lululemon leggings, Golden Goose sneakers, a Louis Vuitton carryall bag – come with hefty price tags and could connote liberal elitism.) In an email, Langdale said that her definition of chic had nothing to do with politics. 'Chic by definition means simplicity and timelessness,' she wrote. 'Reading a neutral palette as 'conservative' conflates style choice with ideology. Conservatism as a moral or political stance varies widely across cultures and religious communities, so tagging a fitting tank top and trousers as 'Republican' is lazy stereotyping.' Langdale called chic 'this year's version' of 'old money' dressing, a TikTok trend that prioritized subdued, luxury items over the loud, brash and individualistic. 'You can own every item on my unchic list and still be considered chic,' she wrote. 'Labeling an item chic or unchic speaks only to its aesthetic, not a person's style or worth. The conversation around chic is ongoing. Other creators, inspired by Langdale's video, posted about what they considered chic in their niches. A medical student said it is 'incredibly chic' to color coordinate scrubs with personal accessories; an office worker considered not letting colleagues in on their personal lives the height of chicness. Kat Brown, a 25-year-old New Yorker who works in fashion PR, made a video talking about how it's 'not chic' to be overly trendy, with chicness coming from a more sustainable wardrobe. 'Smart consumption is chic,' Brown said. 'Chicness is more reflective of your resourcefulness and creativity, rather than any sort of socioeconomic element.' For all the angst on chic-Tok, true insiders probably aren't paying much attention. Fashion editors often make lists of words they consider so dull and unspecific that they prohibit writers from using them in copy; 'chic' is usually right at the top. And when a word like chic is so bland to begin with, who cares if its wielded as an insult? As a British couturier played by Daniel Day-Lewis in the 2017 period drama Phantom Thread bemoaned of 'chic': 'That filthy little word. Whoever invented that ought to be spanked in public. I don't even know what that word means.'
Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
This season's hottest look? It's dull and demure
You might think a summer gathering of fashion editors would be a flamboyant affair but, on a sunny trip last week with industry colleagues, I was struck by how boring we all looked. How boring and how ineffably chic, I should for those of us working and dressing at style's constantly evolving cutting edge (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it), 'boring' isn't an insult — it's the highest praise. Faced, on the one hand, with endless new TikTok 'cores' that seem to cycle in and out weekly and, on the other, the frilly fuddy fussiness that a bit of sun seems to bring out in this country, less isn't just more — it is more comfortable too. That might
