Y Style Picks

In Memoriam: Peaches Geldof

On Monday, April 7, 2014, London socialite, former model, writer, daughter, sister and not least of all, young mother of two sons, Peaches Geldof has died at the tender age of 25.

We send our continued thoughts and deepest sympathy to her young sons Astala (20 months), Phaedra (10 months), the Geldofs and her husband Thomas Cohen.

#CastMeMarc Wants You!

Hot off the heels of Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins instagram flood, Marc by Marc Jacobs has announced #CastMeMarc — a crowd-sourced model casting for the next Marc by Marc Jacobs ad campaign. Think a model Kickstarter, but with selfies for barter.

Fresh from his departure from Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs hired British duo Katie Hillier and Luella Bartley to spearhead the diffusion line Marc by Marc Jacobs while the eponymous designer keeps his eye on main label Marc Jacobs. Exploding onto the scene with a well-received F/W 2014 collection for the diffusion line, #CastMeMarc is a strategic bid by Hillier and Bartley to stay on top of their social media game. It may seem ludicrous at first but the get has paid off: in less than 24 hours, #CastMeMarc had been tagged 12,000 times.

The contest ended on April 9. Scouring the hashtag on both Twitter and Instagram, diversity does not score high on the crowd submitted report card. Crossing our fingers an Asian model takes it home. 

Tom Ford and Richard Buckley Forever

London-based designer and filmmaker Tom Ford is an enigma; ubiquitous yet highly elusive. With three films currently in the works (much due to the acclaim of A Single Man), women’s ready-to-wear collections, a thriving menswear business, a slew of fragrances, eyewear and not to mention his storied fashion legacy with YSL and Gucci — Tom Ford is revered as an icon. As trite as it sounds, Valentino and Karl Lagerfeld would agree. Oh, and it doesn’t detract that at 52, he is still the hottest thing since sliced bread. #Woof. 

In a recent display of humanity, the designer flashed his wedding ring at a recent press event, announcing his marriage to long-time partner Richard Buckley. Although they had married in the States, the London reveal was made especially more poignant as same-sex marriage had just been legalized in the UK. 

To quote Out magazine’s humorous 2011 feature on the couple, “Tom Ford was a shy 25-year-old when he met magazine editor Richard Buckley. It took him the length of an elevator ride to decide he wanted to marry him.” It was “instant attraction,” Tom was quoted as saying.

Here at YStyle, we’ve been charting the 27 year saga of #BuckFord (or do we prefer #FordLey?) and their story is adorable; from their chance encounter at a fashion show, the garment transfer of destiny and the elevator ride that sealed everything. With their son Alexander John Buckley Ford (born in 2012 via a surrogate), Tom and Richard have made a home all their own.

In a time of loss and conscious uncoupling, we could all use a happily ever after.

Condé Nast Intern-Uprising: The Settlement

The unending saga of the Condé Nast internship program began in 2006 — with the rise of LC and Whitney Port on MTV’s The Hills. Japes and Teen Vogue dreams aside, the unpaid magazine boot camp of sorts has been heralded as both crux and curse for many a determined upstart. The opportunities to set foot inside the hallowed Condé halls (home to prestige titles Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, among others) were hardly without tales of intern toil and drudgery.

It had all come to a head in 2012 when two interns from Condé titles New Yorker and fashion magazine W¸ Matthew Leib and Lauren Ballinger respectively, sued the parent company for paying less than minimum wage and enforcing 12-hour workdays as the norm. Under the steam of anti-exploitation, labor laws and the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada, the issue made newsstands everywhere and the great Intern-Uprising had spread from Hearst (patient zero), to Condé Nast and Gawker Media. 

As no good deed goes unpunished, Condé Nast decided to shutter their intern program in 2014, effectively eliminating the rise of further lawsuits but at the same time, denying hundreds upon hundreds of ingénues the invaluable “foot in the door” they so desperately crave. For an undisclosed sum, the parent company have settled with both Leib and Ballinger. Condé CEO Charles Townsend told WWD that the settlement agreement will allow the company “to devote our time and resources towards developing meaningful, new opportunities to support up-and-coming talent.”

We can’t decide who comes out on top here: the disingenuous interns who looked a gift horse in the mouth or the slave-driving publishing conglomerate. In both fashion and publishing, industries with a lot of drawn parallels, internships mean everything — it is unfortunate that Condé Nast has decided to forego them altogether. In our eyes, a dick move if there ever was one.