The DRG Style Index: Celine, Instagram, Gucci Beauty, Joseph, The Harmonist

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

HEDI’S DEBUT AT CELINE
Celine ss19 by Hedi Slimane
What are we to make of Celine 3.0? I loved Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme and Hedi at Saint Laurent, but I’m not sure how I feel about the exact same look at Celine. It all feels a bit… Sandro circa 2016 (which is kinder than the ‘H&M Divided’ comment on Insta). I did like the menswear though (which is actually unisex), and the women’s boots. As Olivia Singer points out in Vogue, it’s all about the accessory kerching factor, in line with Bernard Arnault’s ambitions for revenues to reach 2-3 billion euros within 5 years. So where to now for the Phoebephiles? I’m thinking Lemaire


INSTAGRAM’S FOUNDERS ARE MOVING ON

instagram's founders are moving on. Photo by Reuters
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have reportedly left Instagram to regroup and start up something new. It’s a good time to move on methinks. Instagram is becoming one big advertising-channel-slash-shopping-mall and I reckon people are getting bored. Any ideas what’s next for them?


GUCCI’S BEAUTY WIN

Gucci Beauty Instagram filter
Everyone’s jumping on the beauty community bandwagon. Gucci Beauty’s new Instagram account shows beauty in a non-commercial way, mixing catwalk beauty with historic cultural references. Plus, for launch, it offered followers exclusive filters to ‘dress up’ in on Instagram Stories. Totally camp, cheesy and not very haute, which is exactly what made them so addictive and sharable!


JOSEPH’S NEW GIRL

Joseph creative director Susana Clayton
There’s a new girl at Joseph. Filling Louise Trotter’s creative director shoes is Susana Clayton, a Phoebe Philo lookalike, previously at Givenchy, Gap, Chloé and Rag & Bone. Her aim is to ‘realign it with Joseph Ettedgui’s vision, creating a balance between fashion and a timeless wardrobe of luxury essentials,’ which sounds very promising to me. Her first collection arrives for AW19.


FARFETCH’S FUTURE VISION

Farfetch IPO
Farfetch was in the news this week following its IPO float. According to founder Jose Neves, the online luxury market is set to grow by $100 billion over the next seven years, which I can fully believe as gen Y matures and gen Z takes over. Luxury consumers are getting younger and e-commerce will evolve to serve them in ways it hasn’t quite managed so far. So we’ll see solutions to the ‘last mile’ pain point, faster deliveries (Farfetch already offers same-day in some cities), easier returns and personalisation. As well as its online marketplace of global boutiques, Farfetch also operates a ‘white label’ tech pillar, offering back-end services to luxury brands that elevate their e-com services. Watch this space…


THE HARMONIST: FENG SHUI FRAGRANCE

The Harmonist fragrance
Feng Shui beauty is a thing. Well, in perfumery anyway. The Harmonist is a fragrance brand based around feng shui elements – fire, water, wood, earth and metal. You fill in your date, time and place of birth on an online form and it suggests the fragrance that harmonises your individual elements and desires. As a concept I think it has legs, helped by the fact that it’s beautifully sensorial – the bottles alone are works of art – and the smells are great. (Mine is Velvet Fire, a lavender-and-spice concoction with a gentle musk dry down that’s supposed to make me more charismatic). And feng shui is perfect for the beauty-self-care-homebody crossover movement in which 70% of millennials apparently prefer to stay in rather than deal with the hassle of going out. Buy The Harmonist fragrance here.


IN OTHER NEWS…

Martine Rose and Colette’s Sarah Andelman are collaborating with Nike.

Rollerskating is having a(nother) moment and this time it’s a feminist issue – according to the NYT.

One of my favourite bloggers, Le Beauty Journal, wrote a great post about the feel-bad paradox of consuming too many self-help podcasts. (That said, I recently revisited the classic self-help tome, ‘The Magic Of Thinking Big‘ and I highly recommend it if you’re in a motivation funk.)

The Guardian unpacks the perils of a cashless society (spoiler: it’s good for brands but not so good for consumers. In other words, cashless means you spend more). Dive deeper here

Music heads: a new Joe Strummer box set has just been released featuring his lesser known work, including his frankly underrated film soundtracks.

WORDS: Disneyrollergirl/Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Celine, Reuters, Disneyrollergirl, Joseph, Farfetch, The Harmonist fragrance
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