Beauty

Buy it now: the best beauty and fashion gifts for Chinese New Year



Beauty and Fashion gifts for Chinese New Year include Giorgio Armani's monkey-themed Illuminating Powder

When is it not gift seaason somewhere in the world? Between Christmas and Valentine’s comes the Lunar New Year, AKA, an opportunity for stores to promote some full price product in festive red and gold. Unsurprisingly, it’s the luxury stores who are pulling out the stops to present enticing, Chinese-friendly gifts, especially with monkey-themed motifs or in editions of lucky number eight.

In truth, I’m not seeing a huge amount of innovation. The beauty brands get my vote for gorgeous jewel-like compacts in lovely packaging – for example this Estee Lauder compact and the Giorgio Armani Illuminating Palette – but for leathergoods brands like Jimmy Choo and Mulberry it’s a case of merchandising all the reds and golds together for a simple (but probably quite effective) pick-n-mix offer.

In China, Burberry is doing what it does best, using social platform WeChat to let users digitally unwrap gifts and create personalised digital Lunar New Year envelopes to send to friends and family. But elsewhere, it’s about slapping a monkey on anything and everything and hoping for the best. Here’s my edit.

SHOP THE POST BELOW…

WORDS: Navaz Batliwalla



New and improved: YSL Touche Éclat Le Teint foundation



A new version of ysl Touche eclat Le Teint Foundation has just launched

This new iteration of YSL Touche Éclat Le Teint Foundation (£32.50, launching today), is so much better than the original. I remember getting very excited about it when it first launched four years ago, but the reality was that it was a little too shine-inducing.

Don’t confuse this with its predecessor, (more…)



THE DRG STYLE INDEX: VETEMENTS, MARC JACOBS BEAUTY, MSGM, WOOYOUNGMI



Here’s the latest weekly DRG STYLE INDEX ranking, a round-up of the brands currently buzzing on my radar…

1. VETEMENTS JUST OPENED ITS FIRST STORE
Vetements store Dover street Market
Dover Street Market, barometer of all things zetgeisty has given Vetements its first ever store. Situated in DSM’s New York outpost, it’s… well, it basically looks like a curtained-off fitting room, but hey if DSM are calling it a ‘store’ then I’m not gonna argue. (more…)



THE DRG STYLE INDEX: ALEXANDER MCQUEEN THE MOVIE, J.W. ANDERSON, LOUIS VUITTON, SEPHORA



Here’s the latest weekly DRG STYLE INDEX ranking, a round-up of the brands currently buzzing on my radar…

1. ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, THE MOVIE
Alexander McQueen by Nick waplington

So an Alexander McQueen biopic has been announced which should be very interesting. I can’t imagine it’s an easy film to get made, so many people to keep happy. You want to tell a compelling story but equally you need the notoriously protective family, friends and Kering gatekeepers to comply. (more…)