Believe it or not, we’re almost in the throes of that magical season that we shopping enthusiasts refer to as “back to school.” Sure, we’re still a little ways off from the changing of the leaves, the dropping of the mercury, and the unearthing of the knitwear, but here in the land of fashion we’re always on the lookout for that upcoming shift — be it in seasons, environments, or trends — that will dictate a new mode of dressing. And returning to school — or work — is one of the most exciting changes that happens in the calendar year, bringing with it the need for one let's-get-down-to-business bag to carry it all.
If you’re someone who is returning to —or beginning their journey in — a scholarly milieu of any kind, your satchel needs are unique. What you need is the best college backpack, and it can’t be just any backpack. It has to have room for digital and analog learning devices (in other words, a laptop, notebook, and textbooks) and maybe even snacks, water, and gym clothes. It should also be stylish and polished, as you may find yourself toting it to a networking event, internship or (fingers crossed) a job interview. Click through to see the cutest backpacks for college that deliver equally on style and functionality, and will hopefully keep you in a state of togetherness while you balance your grade point average with a healthy amount of ... um, socializing.
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As it stands, the cyan blue and the Kermit green versions of the Alexa dress are marked down on With Jéan’s website, from $239 to $169, with all sizes fully restocked. Given how many fans the Aussie brand has on TikTok and beyond — 415,000 Instagram followers and counting — the viral style is unlikely to stay in stock for long. (The long-sleeved, longer version, called the Stevie dress, is already sold out.)
In addition to the Alexa dress, With Jéan’s current sale also includes three other dress styles, all of which are garnering their own attention on TikTok. The Lena dress — which features a criss-cross neckline (shown above on fashion influencer Moe Black) — has been marked down from $229 to $149, while the long-sleeved mesh Gigi dress is down to $189 and the ruched Dylan dress is down to $149.
Shop all our favorites from the sale, including the hugely popular Alexa dress, below.
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It’s become normal to see reggaeton stars on the front row at Virgil Abloh’s Paris Fashion Week shows for Louis Vuitton, or collaborating with some of the world’s biggest brands. And magazines like W, Harper’s Bazaar Men, GQ, and Elle have featured reggaeton artists like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Karol G, and Maluma. But the relationship between fashion and reggaeton began in the Caribbean and Latin America decades ago, and has since become one of the biggest influences on fashion, long before the fashion establishment gave the genre its stamp of approval.
“[Reggaeton] fashion used to be a manifestation of what the lyrics represented,” says Orlando Velázquez, the Puerto Rican fashion and reggaeton expert behind No Tan Hype and co-host of the podcast “Sneakers: La Verdadera Cultura.” Born from Afro-Caribbean and American influences, reggaeton is a musical genre credited to Panama and Puerto Rico, where artists, DJs, and musical collectives like El General, Chombo, Playero, and The Noise harnessed a freestyle-like cadence mixed with raunchy and raw lyrics. Some, like “Rumor De Guerra” by The Noise, narrated real life beef with other artists. Others, like Ivy Queen’s “Somos Raperos Pero No Delincuentes” denounced the prejudice faced by their communities.
The lyrics reflected their realities: Living in Puerto Rico and Panama’s low-income barrios with cultural connections to the Caribbean diasporas in the United States. These artists rebelled against the constant criminalization and prejudices against their communities, expressing their frustrations through music that uplifted and celebrated their people with a drum-heavy beat that anyone could hardly contain themselves from dancing to. As Ivy Queen explained in the first episode of Spotify’sLOUDpodcast, the Panama canal and Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the United States helped bring in the influences of hip-hop, rap, and R&B, which tackled much of the same themes and suffered a similar type of marginalization. As such, early reggaeton fashion was a direct product of these influences, according to Velázquez, with artists like Daddy Yankee and Nicky Jam donning baggy pants, winter jackets, and Timberland boots in their early videos, even if they were shot in 90-degree temperatures in Puerto Rico, an island known as the “isla del encanto” but offered little enchantment to its poor and marginalized communities.
But the look also presented challenges for the genre, which was seen as more perverse than mainstream in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, especially in Puerto Rico. In the early days, reggaeton was not only fringe; it was criminalized. Known as “undergound,” early reggaeton artists, producers, and fans were arrested and censored in Puerto Rico in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. According to Marison Lebrón’s account in The Boston Review, the government attempted to control the drug traffic and crime wave in the island with constant raids and militarized policing — and pushed the narrative that reggaeton encouraged criminal activity. The persecution also extended to those who looked like reggaetoneros, meaning people who also wore baggy pants and shirts, bedazzled chains, and baseball caps.
The look is best represented by the cover of Daddy Yankee’s 2004 album Barrio Fino, the first record that introduced reggaeton to the rest of the world with the hit song “Gasolina.” On the cover, Yankee looks off-camera, wearing an army-printed Yankees cap with a long-sleeved shirt and layered chains on his neck.
For scholar Verónica Dávila, the “blin blin” was the defining characteristic of the early days. “This is a genre that is immensely preoccupied with the realities of the working class,” says Dávila. “Through fashion and jewelry, reggaetoneros could show that they had made it.” Dávila adds that while the look cemented the origins of reggaeton as we know it today, hip-hop culture had already popularized it two decades prior.
Barrio Fino exploded globally. The album became the first reggaeton record to reach the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Latin charts. Duos Zion & Lennox and Wisin & Yandel also enjoyed worldwide success in reggaeton’s heyday with their albums Motivando A La Yal (2004) and Pa’l Mundo (2005). Soloists like Don Omar, Tego Calderón, Ivy Queen, and Hector “El Father” also fueled the genre’s boom.
Velázquez says the commercial success of reggaeton at the time led to the first wave of fashion collaborations inside the genre. Following in the footsteps of hip-hop collectives like Terror Squad, which included Puerto Rican Fat Joe, artists like Daddy Yankee and Don Omar saw fashion — specifically sneaker collaborations — as a way to expand their already-booming celebrity.
In 2005, Daddy Yankee signed a multi-year partnership with Reebok, including apparel, sneakers, and lifestyle items, and appeared in the brand’s “I Am What I Am” campaign, making him the first reggaeton artist to do so. That same year, Don Omar also released a collaboration with English sportswear brand Umbro.
“These [collaborations] didn’t reach the mass popularity we know today, but it’s important to remember them because, back in 2006, it was unheard of that a company as big as Reebok would do this with reggaeton,” says Velázquez.
While “Gasolina” broke new ground, it has since been built upon by the worldwide success of reggaeton. Artists such as Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Karol G, Myke Towers, Maluma, and Jhay Cortez dominate global streaming charts while singing only in Spanish. Their fashion influence has followed suit.
It’s also common to see reggaeton artists receive free clothes and products from fashion houses like Versace, Off-White, and Dolce & Gabbana, a hallmark of “having made it” among the celebrity class. Fashion houses, too, are much more likely now than before to lend reggaeton artists clothes for their appearances, music videos, and performances.
Bad Bunny’s stylist Storm Pablo says that, in the past few years, it’s been increasingly easier to pull samples from luxury fashion houses to dress the artist. But back in 2018, when the two started working together and Bad Bunny hadn’t yet reached Billboard’s top spot, it was a struggle. “They’d ask me, ‘Who is that?’,” says Pablo, who also works with Jhay Cortez. Now, he’s able to dress Bad Bunny in Louis Vuitton, Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens, and Balmain. As he rises through the charts, Pablo says that Bad Bunny’s musical authority has grown parallel to his fashion credibility, securing him features and interviews with W Magazine, GQ, and The New York Times Magazine.
Fashion brands have big money to gain from embracing reggaeton and its big exponents. In the United States, the Hispanic community has a $1.7 trillion purchasing power, while in Latin America, apparel and footwear is set to be worth over $180 billion by 2022. “We’re in a very interesting juncture, in which high-end designers are also wanting to get in the game,” says Velázquez.
Luxury houses and sneakers companies have actually attempted to “get in the game” for quite some time. Since 2017, when Louis Vuitton collaborated on the runway with Supreme, streetwear has become the norm in the industry. Birthed in the 1980s and 1990s, the history of streetwear is intrinsically tied to the rise of hip-hop and reggaeton in mainstream culture, with Black and Latinx communities in the United States and the Caribbean leading the boom from the streets to the runway and becoming fashion’s cool factor. Still, for reggaeton artists, their fashion boom is still in its infancy. No luxury fashion label has yet worked on a product partnership with a reggaeton artist. Only Adidas, Guess, and Nike have bet on reggaeton for now. But Velázquez predicts it’s coming soon.
Beyond the million-dollar deals, reggaeton artists have been cementing their style and luxury credibility through their lyrics since the beginning. Much like trap and hip-hop artists who often mention brands in their songs, reggaeton artists have grown increasingly prone to inserting fashion references into song titles recently, as evidenced by singles like Bad Bunny’s “Yo Visto Así,” (2020) Jhay Cortez’s “Christian Dior,” (2021) and Myke Towers’ “Burberry” (2021).
Velázquez sees the relationship between fashion and reggaeton as one of the key reasons that the industry has embraced the genre. “The commerciality of the music now allows people to be closer to it and that also includes the fashion the artists wear but also sing about,” he says.
Other insiders warn that it’s important to observe which artists within the genre are being welcomed into the fashion industry. As reggaeton has gone mainstream, the genre has transformed into pop, catering more to white and Anglo audiences and losing its Afro-Caribbean roots by changing its lyrics from raw narrations of everyday life to sanitized love songs. It’s also become a primarily white genre, with most of its Black proponents, such as Sech and Myke Towers, left out of the mainstream boom. Meanwhile, some white Latino artists, in an effort to mimic the early hip-hop and reggaeton style, push damaging narratives about Black bodies.
One example of this can be seen in Karol G’s cover for the album KG0516, in which she wears braids and an oversized suit paired with white sneakers. In the background, a Black model lays naked wearing only sneakers and a gold plane that covers his penis. It’s a suggestive image that relies on damaging stereotypes about Blackness and perpetuates the commercialization of a look that originated in Black communities in the Caribbean and United States, but has criminalized Black Puerto Ricans for wearing reggaeton clothing.
More than 25 years after reggaeton started in the Caribbean, the genre’s success has turned its best-known voices into global pop stars who are driving trends and securing an audience for fashion houses. Still, Orlando Velázquez says that, as the genre becomes a mainstay in the fashion industry, it’s important for today’s fans and artists to remember where reggaeton comes from. “Without those first artists and collaborations, none of this would’ve happened,” he says.
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This story was originally published on June 29, 2021.
The Olympic games are finally kicking off this July, a year after it was originally scheduled to take place. And fashion’s Telfar Clemens, most known for his unisex shopping tote bag that’s become a must-have piece among young Black communities, is joining his home country’s athletes in the competition for gold.
On Monday, The New York Times reported that the Liberian-American designer is making Liberia’s Olympic uniforms for all athletes, officials, and staff in the delegation.
“They said, ‘Go crazy’,” Clemens told The New York Times. “So I did.”
So far, he’s made about 70 pieces in four months, some of which are currently being tested to meet performance standards.
The partnership with Liberia’s delegation seemed to come at the right time for Clemens, who had never designed athletic sportswear before, but told The New York Times he’d been contemplating doing so for a while. Now, Clemens will be releasing a limited collection of athletic pieces inspired by the Olympics on his direct-to-consumer platforms, and later, the brand will launch a full workout and sports gear line in September as part of Telfar’s regular line.
TELFAR IS GOING TO THE OLYMPICS as OFFICIAL SPONSOR of the LIBERIAN NATIONAL TEAM 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷 Watch the OPENING CEREMONY [July 23] to see the FUTURE. Our Runway. Run way. THANK YOU Emmanuel Matadi and Kouty Mawenh — WE ALL-READY WON. pic.twitter.com/MR0aG2dxXu
The designer has had quite a year after his viral unisex shopping bag sold out each time it dropped in 2020. Everyone from Oprah and Lizzo to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bella Hadid donned the T-logo bag. In 2020, his creation earned him the CFDA’s Accessories Designer of the Year Award.
Although the Olympics prove new territory for Clemens, this is not the first time the designer has worked on uniforms. Since 2017, he’s dressed White Castle employees in their iconic blue-and-white hues, and recently expanded the designs, including T-shirts, polos, aprons, and visors. Notably, he also designed a durag at the request of company employees, making it the first time this hair accessory is part of a company’s uniform, according to the press release.
Now, he’s joining a long line of designers who’ve made the jump from the runway to the Olympics, including Issey Miyaki (Lithuania), Ralph Lauren (USA), Stella McCartney (Great Britain), and Dsquared (Italy). But, true to Clemens’ spirit and work ethic, while most designers prefer the opening and closing ceremonies stages instead of the race track, he will put his technical design skills to the test as he dresses all five Liberian field and track stars for competition, including the 23rd best runner in the world, Emmanuel Matadi.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, activewear had already been on the rise. Brands like Lululemon, Athleta, and Outdoor Voices were leading the market, valued at $155.2 billion in 2018, according to ReportLinker, and was expected to hit $257.1 billion by 2026. It’s now expected to even surpass that, and reach $547 billion by 2024, according to Allied Market Research.
Shopping aggregator Lyst has seen an uptick in consumers looking for outdoor and technical brands compared to last year, while brands like Nike continued to be strong performers throughout the economic crisis brought by the pandemic. Vogue Business attributes this success to the growth of fitness-centered digital platforms and communities that have emerged in the pandemic, such the outdoor fitness tracking app Strava and Nike’s Run Club. Both have built a sense of exclusivity around fitness that also translates to their activewear goods.
According to Business of Fashion, the activewear boom is ripe for brands with strong digital presences and loyal communities that can power their success beyond quarantine as people exit the sweatpants bubble. Telfar has both; the brand’s direct-to-consumer business model speaks to its robust fandom that exists online and off. We’re thinking that, soon, T-logo designs on sweats, leggings, and more will be as popular a commodity as on handbags.
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For the collection, each designer was tasked with bringing their signature looks to the line. The result includes fall essentials, like trench coats and sweaters, as well as on-trend pieces, like psychedelic prints and colorblocking.
“This fall, we’re building upon that legacy and bringing together four dynamic and highly regarded designers to introduce a collection of inclusive, on-trend and timeless fashion staples to re-energize guests’ wardrobes for the season,” Jill Sando, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer at Target, said in the press release.
While announcing the news, Target also released a sneak peek of the line with four looks. Rachel Comey’s lineup includes a green-and-blue turtleneck dress, while Victor Glemaud’s features a striped red-and-white long-sleeve shirt and navy blue pants. Meanwhile, the Sandy Liang collab offers a black dress with puffed sleeves and Nili Lotan’s classic American staples are represented in a striped sweater-and-camel coat look.
Although there is no exact date for the release yet, the collection — which includes sizes XXS to 4X and will range from $15 to $80 — will be available on Target.com and IRL stores sometime in September.
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