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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Fashion for Dummies

I Accidentally Accumulated the World’s Largest Archive of ’80s Esprit Merch

Ask any ’80s and ’90s kid at heart, and they’ll tell you: Esprit just did it right. The colour-blocking sportswear, the street-casted campaigns, the cutting-edge collaborations with designers that defined the ’80s. Even the brand’s commitment to environmentalism was so ahead of its time. “Esprit was an ethos,” says Michelle Koza, the woman behind the largest…

The Strange Anatomy of ABBA’s Infamous (Tax Deductible) Wardrobe

What do house cats, Euro pop, and the ingenious tax savvy have in common? Owe Sandström, that’s who. As the flamenco-dancing-zoologist-designer behind the costumes of ABBA, Sandström certainly played his part in helping the Swedish supergroup reach fame in the 1970s – where they have remained ever since. In fact, a deeper dive into the…

An Ode to the Man Who Dressed Ziggy Stardust

Every once in a while, pop culture gives us a duo whose legacies feel almost magnetically intertwined. David Bowie and the Japanese designer Kasai Yamamoto created some of the most iconic, gender-bending stage outfits the world had ever seen. Yet, for being such a fashionable and cultural force on East and Western stages, Yamamoto is…

If Fanny Packs made a comeback, surely the Parasol Can Too

For the average person, stepping out with an elegant sun parasol in western society today would probably feel like stepping out in cosplay. You might as well be wearing a corset too. Sadly, not since our grandparent’s generation has carrying a parasol been commonplace, but akin to the disappearance of men’s hats from everyday fashion,…

The Day the Black Supermodels Stormed Versailles

There’s a “Battle of Versailles” they don’t teach you about in history class; the event that transformed the world’s most iconic château into a star-studded battle royale between French and American fashion designers in the fall of 1973. The guest list was legendary, with Josephine Baker, Princess Grace, Andy Warhol in the audience to name…

The Lost Art of “Scrap Book” Fancy Dress

At the start of the pandemic, we looked at some people-repelling fashion statements of yore and wondered whether the surreal measures of a socially-distanced world might impact the future of fashion. Fast-forward several months and an article in the New Yorker this week has declared our current fashion mood as the “the Slob-Chic Style of…

Wait, Why Did Men Stop Wearing Hats?

Let’s play a little game of Where’s Waldo? Only, with men who aren’t wearing hats in the above photograph. It raises the question: where have all the elegant fedoras, bowlers, news caps, and top hats gone? Hats have had a role to play for most of our history, walking the line between the utilitarian, decorative,…

Our Date with Diane Pernet, the Internet’s First High Priestess of Fashion

Crowned as the “original fashion blogger” by the New York Times, Diane Pernet has long been a one of a kind, spellbinding presence in the industry. She has filled so many roles – designer, filmmaker, curator, journalist and influencer (in the truest sense of the word) – that it’s impossible to reduce her work to…

In Defence of a Bad DIY Haircut before its Post-Lockdown Debut

I’m on the brink of cutting my own hair, and I can’t be the only one. I’ve been imagining that coming out of lockdown is going to look like the 1980s for hair all over again. And it got me thinking – there must have been something to those crazy perms and gravity-defying bangs for…

Dream about Dressing Up Again with a Century-Old Fashion Magazine

What will you wear to your first social event when the lockdowns are over? Are you daydreaming about that moment yet? When you finally get to open your closet and put together an outfit that doesn’t involve a stretchy-pant combo. Here’s hoping this worldwide confinement will change fashion for us and bring us back to…
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