– Photography + Digital Art by studio-e.ca and C Side Photography – Article, Makeup + Art Direction by James Kershaw - Model Lauren at PHABRIK model + artist management   Fringe Benefits Each season, cosmetic houses launch new items in an attempt to fulfill everyone’s desire to find their ideal lash enhancing product. This season is no exception. Elizabeth Arden Prevage Clinical Lash + Brow Enhancing Serum contains a triple peptide complex that claims to support the lash’s natural renewal cycle to promote lush, healthy revitalized lashes when applied daily. Many houses offer a variety of mascaras that contain lash enhancing ingredients. Lise Watier’s Dramatique Lash Booster Mascara utilizes the benefits of apple staminal cell derivatives to strengthen and regenerate the eyelash structure to achieve faster growth, while Clarins’ Be Long Mascara contains a complex of matrikine, a peptide to stimulate lash growth combined with panthenol for strength. Elizabeth Arden’s Beautiful Colour Lash Enhancing Mascara is also peptide rich and claims an increase in lash volume and density. The formula instantly lengthens, curls and colours the lashes and is available in a limited edition pearlized brilliant blue this season. Clinique’s Lash Power Feathering Mascara offers an innovative formula with an advanced thermal technology initially developed for humid Asian environments that is resistant to tears, rain, perspiration, chlorinated and salt water. However, it is still able to be removed with warm water (39°C/103F). The mascara utilizes the benefits of Pullulan, a polysaccharide with a honey-like consistency to help stretch lashes during application. Temporary false lashes such as the examples from Lise Watier and Ardell are a tried and true standby for those seeking lush voluminous lashes on a temporary basis. All Bases Covered A successful makeup application depends on having a smooth even base on which colour is applied. Cosmetics applied on a properly primed complexion will have greater longevity. Lise Watier’s Base Miracle, available in two formulas, one for normal/dry and one for combination/oily skins, decreases the appearance of fine lines and pores. It also imparts a soft matte finish and prepares the skin for a perfect makeup application. Her Luminous Correcting Primer adds a glow while colour correcting, Banane (shown) illuminates and helps correct moderate redness, and Rose Lilas corrects a sallow skin. Abricot restores a healthy glow and Vert neutralizes ruddiness and blotchiness. Both products may be mixed together to form a custom blend ideal for the particular needs of the skin. Clarins Paris, famous for their Instant Smooth Perfecting Touch primer, launches Instant Light Radiance Boosting Complexion Base. This new product restores vitality and radiance, while correcting small imperfections. The complexion base contains katafray bark extract, which encourages the skin’s natural hydration mechanisms, and white tea to aid the skin’s defense from pollution and environmental aggressions. Radiance Boosting Base is available in three tones: 01 Rose, which adds radiance to all skins, 02 Champagne, which reduces redness, and 03 Peach, which adds adds warmth and radiance to deeper skin tones. Clinique debuts their new CC Cream Compact SPF25, an alternative to liquid CC creams. This product corrects and reflects light to neutralize perfections and hydrate the skin.  Once the complexion has been primed for makeup, the next very important step for those wearing foundation is, of course, to chose the correct finish and colour. Clarins launches four new global shades to their Skin Illusion SPF10 Natural Radiance Foundation line. The house launches, as they do each season, a limite d edition face compact. The Opalescence compact has an ultra-fine, soft powder texture that illuminates and matifies with a lightweight finish. Elizabeth Arden New York introduces Flawless Finish Perfectly Nude Liquid Makeup SPF15 with hydro-pigment technology. Pigments are enveloped with moisture rich, plant based emollient that mimic the skin’s flexibility and smoothness, providing a lightweight, colour true, long lasting, flawless finish. The company’s new Flawless Finish Correcting + Highlighting pen is the ideal companion; this item erases signs of fatigue, restores radiance and masks imperfections, dark circles, blemishes and ruddiness.

For her Autumn/Winter 2014 menswear collection, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood turned once more to Earth for inspiration. However, instead of delving deeply and closely into the environmental issues that have preoccupied her lately, Westwood looked at the bigger picture by studying the Earth from space before paying closer attention to its ethnic and cultural manifestations throughout history. The influence of science fiction and of 1970s pop culture futurism pervaded the collection in the form of geometric shapes, symbols and patterns, as well as in coated and plasticised fabrics where a predominant colour palette of black, grey and burgundy was accentuated by dashes of white, red and gold. Similarly, contrasting images of masculinity as constructed through sartorial and cultural embodiments of the past couple of centuries were brought together in the juxtaposition of a nuanced biker aesthetic with sportswear, urban subcultures and a reinterpretation of suave dandyism. To illustrate the fusion of influences, leather trousers and jackets with embossed patterns were aligned with track suits, bomber jackets and hoodies. Lace-trimmed garments, bow ties and turtle necks coexisted with trench coats and layered outerwear. In addition, Vivienne Westwood trademark bulbous silhouettes were engendered by combining asymmetrically fastened coats and trousers with wide pleated pants and shorts that came in tightly belted or tapered versions.

The Walker Tower is one of the most significant examples of Art Deco architecture in New York City. Inaugurated in 1929, it has reopened after extensive restoration by architecture firm CetraRuddy for developers Property Markets Group and JDS Development Group. Located in Chelsea at 18th Street and Seventh Avenue, the 24 storey building, named after its architect Ralph Walker, has been attracting the attention of celebrities. Actresses Cameron Diaz and Blake Lively, have shown interest in its ample 47 apartments with 14-foot ceilings, two-foot thick floors, underfloor heating and bedrooms of unusually large proportions for New York City. Some of the residences in the Walker Tower allow 360-degree views of the Manhattan harbour, and more than half have private terraces. Amenities for residents include a 24-hour doorman, concierge, library lounge with bar, children’s playroom, fitness centre, sauna and a common decked roof terrace.  

The Armani Group announced their first residential project in China. They have partnered with the Mind Group to develop a luxury residential project in Chengdu in southwest China. Known as “Art Residence,” the development will be located near the city’s fashionable Jinjiang district and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2016. The project will comprise of two 65-story towers with apartments and common areas designed by the Armani/Casa Interior Design Studio, the division also responsible for other Armani residential ventures such as the Maçka Residences in Istanbul, the World Towers in Mumbai and the Century Spire in Manila.  

Picture this: You pull into work ready to start your day, reach into your pocket to check your cell phone…and it’s not there. What do you do? Panic? Go through your day feeling like you’ve lost a limb, not knowing if someone is trying to reach you? Emerging designer Zebina Masse explores this attachment we as a society have to our electronic devices in her latest collection: a thesis project that explores the outward, tangible expression of the human soul. “I imagine our souls as being housed in our electronics,” said Masse. “It’s like a part of us is living in that object and when we’re separated from it, we almost feel physical pain from it.” Masse is an Apparel Design major in her final year at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Interestingly, Masse didn’t always know she was going to pursue fashion. Prior to RISD, she received an associates degree in liberal arts with a concentration in visual arts from Cape Cod Community College. It was there that personality tests kept pointing her in one of two directions: a math teacher or an artist. While technically good at math, art was a path that “just made sense” for Masse. “I was always one of those weird, quirky, artistic types,” she said. “I’ve been making clothes since I was pretty young, just as a hobby.” Well, that hobby is starting to turn some heads. For her final thesis project, Masse is creating a collection of six looks with matching handmade shoes that keep with her clean aesthetic. The looks feature lots of natural, nude colours and a combination of delicate knit-work and resin. “I let the knitting machine guide me,” said Masse, who prefers to be hands-on in her design process. “I don’t like to just concoct things in my head. I like to work with materials; I’m very moved by fabrics.” The collection is inspired by the book His Dark Materials, particularly the concept that people’s souls are housed inside animal demons that morph with them as they grow older and change and eventually mature. “I really love animals, and I love the idea that you have this animal character that’s connected to you so strongly like that,” explained Masse. “I love the idea that the soul is housed outside of the body too.” Masse built on that core concept, exploring the idea that our souls “live” in our electronic devices. The resin in her pieces—a synthetic material—represents that digital and plastic place our soul resides in the digital world. “When we lose our phones, it’s almost painful,” she said. “I saw these intense connections to my concept.” For more work from Zebina Masse, visit her website at zebinamasse.squarespace.com.  

- Photography by C Side Photography - Article + Art Direction by James Kershaw - Model Lauren at PHABRIK model + artist management Each season, fragrance houses launch new scents to entice the consumer, and this season is no different. All new scents exciting are new versions of top sellers, and this year, a rediscovered one enters the marketplace. Calyx, originally debuted in 1986 as a fragrance for Prescriptives, a cosmetic line in the Estee Lauder portfolio that has since been discontinued. The scent, which will now live on now as Clinique Calyx, was quite the departure in the mid 80’s when fragrances were anything but subtle and fresh. The name comes from the term used for the protective covering of a flower bud, the green leaves that wrap around the petals before they bloom. Top notes include grapefruit, guava, green leaf and mango; heart notes include freesia and neroli, finishing with notes of oakmoss, orris and vetiver. The house of Burberry launches Burberry Brit Rhythm for Her, the companion scent to their very successful men’s version that launched last fall, housed in a clear glass flacon of the same design. The scent, described as sensuous, feminine and irreverent, is a powdery floral with notes of English lavender and pink peppercorn, warming to notes of orange flower and blackberry leaves, finishing with vetiver and vibrant woods. Calvin Klein adds another version of the house’s very successful line of Euphoria scents. Endless Euphoria was created as the daytime counterpart of the first. The scent opens with notes of mandarin and cherry blossom with uplifting violet at the heart and finishes with sensual bamboo and bare musk accord. Another house adding to their collection of fragrances is Marc Jacobs, this time with a pair of limited edition scents. Daisy Marc Jacobs Delight is described as a luminous bouquet of fresh picked florals with a burst of quince flower, and iris with crisp red apple, sun-ripened woods and musk. Daisy Eau So Fresh Delight is a twist on the original, combining blood orange with exotic tiare Tahiti, raspberry and apricot leaves. Both scents are housed in the now iconic chunky glass bottle topped with a bouquet of brilliantly coloured daisies. The venerable house of Elizabeth Arden adds to their portfolio of Green Tea scents with Yuzu. The scent blends yuzu zest with green tea vapors, lemon tree petitgrain, spearmint and wild thyme that warms to notes of white birch and ambrette seed. Bottega Veneta debuts Essence Aromatique, described by the Italian fashion and fragrance house as “a perfect balance between fresh aromatic and lasting character.” It is a reinvention of the cologne combining precious essences bergamot, coriander, patchouli, rose absolute and sandalwood, housed in a simple, chic frosted glass bottle. Juicy Couture Malibu embodies the attitude of free spirited California girls combining watermelon, black currant and pink passion fruit merging with sparkling jasmine petals and frangipani, drying down to creamy musk and precious woods. Couture La La channels the cool, sun-kissed L.A. girl with sparking mandarin, red currant and wet flower petals, warming to middle notes of orange blossom and white peony, finishing with base notes of white musk and blond woods with a hint of pink sugar crystals. Both scents are housed in chunky glass bottles embellished with painted swaying palms, topped with faceted caps adorned with neon bright coloured heart charms.  

It’s all about bold pattern and colour this season and men are asked to go big or go home. Modern camouflage, vibrant florals and pristine white are must-haves for spring and summer. Short Stories Suiting just got turned on its head. Voluminous Bermuda shorts were the new match to well tailored blazers on the runways of Jill Sander, Fendi Balenciaga and other heavy hitters, making short suits one of the most controversial trends this year. We’re not certain men will take this look into the boardroom, but hope to see the more daring fashionistos try it off-duty. White Knight There was major white noise happening on the runways of Vivienne Westwood, Comme des Garcons and Louis Vuitton. All-white suiting is a tricky look to pull off; the secret is to mix textures and fabrics to ensure you don’t look like you just walked off a cruise ship. Try silk with linen, or cotton with wool. Camo-Chameleon Just when you thought it was safe to come out, the camo trend is sighted again. The print first returned in 2012 and keeps popping up in major collections from Valentino to Dries Van Noten to super hip Ami. It’s been updated in flashy colours and slightly altered patterns to keep it looking fresh. You’ve got your marching orders, now go forth and be fashionable. Hit the Clutch Men’s bags are nothing new, but this season we saw an evolution from structured leather bags to what would be traditionally considered more feminine, soft clutches. Flower Power Embracing florals might have been the most consistent command from the spring/summer 2014 shows. Prada and 3.1 Philip Lim were favourites in executing the print with interesting, kaleidoscope patterns and beautifully contrasted colours. If you’re not ready to go full bloom, try incorporating florals into the details with a patterned tie, pocket scarf or a button-up layered under a blazer.