Hello, Open Thread. To those living in the United States, it’s Memorial Day weekend. Get ready! I know it’s not officially the start of summer, but this long weekend always feels like the unofficial start. Even if school is still in session, the end of the academic year is in sight; even if work is the same as always, there is something about wearing fewer layers and lighter clothes that just makes you feel … well, lighter. The days when winter wardrobes would be packed away and summer ones brought out are mostly gone. No one has the space, and climate change has rendered temperatures too unpredictable to really put sweaters out of reach. (If you are one of those people who does store winter clothes, though, T magazine has tips for you.) Nevertheless, this weekend feels like a gateway of sorts to more carefree months. It may just be in our heads, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Bring on the shorts! Meantime, in the category of fashion overlords popping up in unexpected places: During last week’s contentious Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, guess who was the room? Johann Rupert. For those who don’t know him, Mr. Rupert is the founder and chairman of Richemont, the world’s second largest luxury group, based in Switzerland. It owns Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Jaeger-LeCoultre — its strength is really in watches and jewelry — as well as Alaïa, Chloé and Dunhill. Anyway, Mr. Rupert is also South African, and he was part of Mr. Ramaphosa’s delegation. He spoke up when President Trump was accusing the country of white genocide to contradict the idea. He is also the second luxury billionaire to make a visit to Trump in the last few weeks, after Bernard Arnault of LVMH, who was also at the inauguration. Unlike Mr. Arnault, Mr. Rupert didn’t seem to be in Washington to protect his business interests, but I still found his presence striking. If I had to guess, I’d say that Mr. Ramaphosa brought him along because he represents stuff President Trump admires — luxury products and financial power. Also, of course, he’s a white South African. I wonder if we will see more of this. Finally, yet another big fashion designer change was announced last week: Pierpaolo Piccioli is joining Balenciaga. That brings the number of houses under new leadership this year to a whopping 17, which is truly an unprecedented number. Slowing sales of many fashion brands, especially in Asia, are generally blamed for the changes — even Chanel reported a 4 percent drop in sales — but I think it’s more than that. (If you are wondering, the trend beaters include Prada, Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli, Moncler, the above mentioned Richemont and, this week, Ralph Lauren, which announced that fiscal 2025 revenue was up 8 percent. Perhaps not surprisingly, none of those houses are changing designers. But even among them, only a smattering are up by double-digits.) Price hikes over the last few years (Chanel’s handbag prices more than doubled between 2016 and 2023) really reached absurd levels, and people feel like suckers only for so long. Especially because, with a few notable exceptions, designers weren’t really taking big, crazy risks. They were not making the kind of disruptive clothes that changed how you thought about self-expression and made you want to buy that stuff. That is partly their fault (ideas, please), but it is also the fault of their corporate overlords, who generally have a fear of what economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. I say, it’s time. Think about that. Then consider the history-making nature of the New York Liberty’s championship ring; dive into the enduring allure of Takashi Murakami’s work in fashion; and get the lowdown on a great vintage wardrobe sale. Have a great long weekend. Don’t forget the sunblock.
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Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
My children have very specific tastes. How do parents steer their kids toward appropriate and flattering choices for clothing, glasses and hair styles and give them enough confidence to not follow trends? — Sally, Marietta, Pa.The issue when it comes to the parent-child fashion gap, as in any form of coded dress, is what exactly constitutes “appropriate.” The word has become a default for dressing in almost any context — it’s the basis of most dress codes — yet it is one that resides entirely in the mind and mores of the beholder. Put another way, one person’s appropriate is another’s entirely inappropriate, no matter what age. Honestly, when it comes to clothing, I think the word should be banned, as it causes more problems than it solves. And this is particularly true for parents and kids. Clothing, after all, is simply a means of self-expression. As any parenting site or psychologist can tell you, it is one of the most accessible tools for beginning to assert one’s own sense of self. That’s why it can be such a contentious subject — it’s the stand-in for a lot of other stuff, especially the separation of child from family. That’s also why there is a whole subset of parenting literature and psychology devoted to the matter of fashion fights. At the same time, parenting is essentially about getting one’s children ready to be adults, so giving them the leeway to start making their own decisions and helping them understand what that means is part of the process. One of the easiest ways to do that is through clothes. That doesn’t make it any more comfortable when they decide to define leggings as pants, or a tunic as a dress, or wear pants halfway down their backsides (we pretty much all turn into clichés when that happens — or our parents), but remember that people dress according to context and community. Trends you may find distasteful or just plain weird are probably popular among your children’s friends. It may seem as if your child is giving in to peer pressure (bad!), but the only way for someone to learn how to manage that particular phenomenon is to wrestle with it, to understand what it means to look like part of a group, literally, or go their own way. The best policy is not to comment. And ask yourself: What are you really afraid of? That they’ll embarrass themselves or embarrass you among your peer group? This is one of those journeys that kids have to take on their own. The stakes, all things considered, are relatively low. When I was about to enter high school, the principal of my school had a meeting with parents, essentially telling them: Your teens are probably about to start dressing in ways you may find problematic. As long as there is nothing permanent involved (no tattoos or piercings), please try not to worry about it, or even engage with it. I think that is among the best advice I have heard about how to handle the parent-child fashion gap, and I have tried to practice it with my own children. Though I confess: When my 5-year-old insisted on wearing her pink fleece skirt for the fifth day in a row, I hid it and pretended it had gone sadly missing. That doesn’t mean you have to opt out entirely. One colleague took a clever approach when she was going somewhere with her children. She would tell them what she was wearing and what other people would be wearing, and let them decide if they wanted to fit in — and what that might look like — or stand out. In other words, she gave them the information to make their own decisions, but they were free to do with that what they wanted. Sound appropriate?
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