The season of escapism is upon us. From spontaneous weekend getaways to extended summer holidays, restorative retreats and energizing adventures are just the thing to achieve a reinvigorated state of mind. But even the most impromptu of trips require a bit of forethought and planning. So for instant gratification, may we present a fictional flee from reality: Enter H&M’s Hôtel Hennes — bienvenue!
Encapsulating a ’70s summer vibe, caught on film by director Bardia Zeinali, the imagined fashion destination — inspired by legendary hotels where artists, thinkers, and icons hung out, collaborated, and completed residencies — is a place where aesthetics are exaggerated and experimental. But this delightful, unexpected, and upbeat retro realm is far more than a summer-loving campaign film. Within Hôtel Hennes’ transcendent environment, stories twist and turn, dreams become a reality, and fashion has no rules. In seconds, you’ll feel swept up by the playful, exciting, and inspired summer scenes, starring Gigi Hadid as the hotel manager.
“We really wanted this film to be a much-needed break from the day-to-day and from reality,” Zeinali stated in a press release. “Visually, Hôtel Hennes is a wonderland; the stars are not in their usual roles, and every frame is intended as a new adventure.”
It’s true — each tantalizing moment is more captivating than the next, from Hadid welcoming a new hotel guest, played by model Jill Kortleve, to the entertaining cast of visitors and staff, including models-turned-bellhops Jazzelle Zanaughtti and Kiddy Akita Lou, and newly checked-in holiday-makers, Isabelle Chaput and Nelson Tiberghien of the Young Emperors.
Mirroring Hôtel Hennes’ aesthetic, each character is equally spellbinding and inspiring, outfitted in a saturated and joyous palette of clothing and accessories to spark summer dressing cues. From the pool scenes to party sets, visions of a vibrant warm-weather wardrobe — and a lively mood to match — are guaranteed to influence your sartorial choices for the rest of the season.
“This is a homage to those magical hotels that have been the site of so much creativity in the past,” Hadid said in a press release. “I had so much fun on set, and I think that shows through in the film; the message is welcoming, playful, and escapist.”
Today’s trends are anything but straightforward, with belly chains, sporty gym shorts, and upside-down bikinis all making waves. Ensuring that your wardrobe is up to date can often mean searching for shoppable items in a sea of puzzling options. Where does one actually buy a belly chain? What differentiates regular gym shorts from fashionable gym shorts? Is shopping for an upside-down bikini as difficult as wearing one? Our new column Sourced answers all your market-related questions, as well as offers you an endless source of styles that will make snagging today’s top trends easy, so you can spend your precious time learning about the next wave of trends.
Short-short summer, meet short-skirt spring. Ever since Miu Miu debuted its viral micro mini skirt set last fall, the teeny garment has become spring's must-have. And understandably so. After being cooped up inside, where we wrapped ourselves in layers of protective jersey, our skin needs to breathe. That’s where spring’s latest (and most scant) trend comes in: the micro mini skirt.
Densely featured in Miu Miu’s spring 2022 and fall 2022 shows, the micro mini skirt trend is the latest in an overall sartorial shrinking that’s already made its way through fashion’s dresses, tops, and shorts. By the time the Y2K silhouette made its way onto the cover of magazines like Vanity Fair and i-D, and worn by celebrities like Rihanna, Nicole Kidman, and , we knew the micro mini was here to stay.
Discover a treasure trove of shoppable mini skirts, ahead.
At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.
To me, Brooklyn-based Catbird has always been the jewelry brand (and store) that has paved the way for “everyday jewelry” — the kind of dainty, wispy, and delicate stackables that you never have to take off. After 14 years of occupying a tiny 200 square foot storefront on Bedford Avenue (a street which New Yorkers know is synonymous with Williamsburg), Catbird recently moved into a larger, more light-filled space on North 7th Street. The expansive new storefront — which the team affectionately calls the “Catbird Emporium” — is “a place to give our visitors space to style their rings and other jewels at our try-on counter, discover small home and beauty treasures on our shelves, and get Zapped! with a signature Forever Bracelet,” Catbird founded Rony Vardi told Refinery29. In addition to carrying shiny pretty things from independent jewelry designers Vardi loves — Digby & Iona, Wwake, Erica Weiner, Jennie Kwon, and Tilda Biehn, to name a few — the founder offers an in-house collection of rings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and earrings made from solid gold, recycled diamonds, and precious stones “that are easy to wear and leave on,” whether you’re headed to your local gym or to a destination wedding. (Catbird’s Wedding Annex, a second location dedicated solely to Catbird’s collections of wedding and engagement rings, will soon move to the airy second floor of the North 7th location.)
I had to pay a visit to the new space, touch everything, and get “zapped” — the brand’s unique bracelet-welding activation that’s only offered in-store at the brand’s Soho, Williamsburg and Rockefeller Center pop-up.
The first thing to shout out is the always-welcoming vibe of Catbird. Yes, I absolutely acknowledge that it’s a destination for relatively pricey items, but the shopping experience is super casual and non-pretentious. Fine jewelry can and should be for everyone, no matter your budget, and there are options at every price point whether it’s under $50, under $200, or over $5,000. The try-on counter is there for customers to play around and get stack-happy with jewelry in a non-intimidating setting. The passionate staffers were so helpful in assisting with sizing and styling for how my body wears jewelry — for instance, they were mindful of picking out only the rings that would fit my tiny baby fingers. (Though if you’re buying rings online, you can also order this nifty ring sizer.)
The way I love to style and wear Catbird pieces is to take the minimalism to the maximum — for instance, I can start with one thin hammered ring but easily pile on more if I’m feeling especially golden that day; small gold hoops are the go-to standard for me but I’ll slip on other danglers and studs in the second and third holes if I wanna amp up the sparkle factor. Catbird has its various opal, sparkler, and chain collections, which make it easy to mix and match for a cohesive — but sometimes beautifully chaotic — jewelry look.
Before Catbird, I had mostly thought of fine jewelry as something you primarily reserve for special occasions — partly because a lot of the fancy stuff I was encountering in my early 20s was too bold and costume-y for daily styling. Elsewhere, larger fashion retailers were (and are still) churning out cheap, short-lived pieces that tarnish or chip quickly. For many people, Catbird pioneered a more-affordable type of fine jewelry that, while precious, feels accessible. “It’s always nice to get credit for something that you feel like you really worked hard for, but the truth is, this is just how I wear jewelry,” says Vardi. “I’m a really unfussy person, but I still want to put on something beautiful — but I would rather have a small 14-karat gold ring rather than a bigger plated ring.”
Catbird opened its first brick-and-mortar location in 2004, paving the way for the current onslaught of digitally-native, direct-to-consumer brands that tout tenets of transparency and sustainability. Everything in Catbird’s in-house collection is handmade at the brand’s Brooklyn Navy Yard studio. There are no limited drops, no urgency to buy hastily, and there are no sales (except for Cyber Monday and a birthday discount) because everything has already been priced based on what will sustain the business. “We’ve always, since the beginning, worked with ethically sourced materials which automatically limits what you can do,” Vardi mentioned of the brand’s tight edit. “Nothing ever gets marked down which is part of our strategy. It’s also an environmental thing where we’re not just sitting on stock.” (Catbird also donates one percent of sales — before proceeds or profits — to “nonprofits that align with our beliefs,” Vardi added. The brand reached one million dollars of giving last year.)
All to say: If you’ve got an eye on a piece, you can always wait to treat yourself at a later date knowing that it’ll still be available when you’re ready. Plus, the slow-paced jewelry cycle of Catbird gives customers time to organically grow and curate their own jewelry stacks, which eventually become uniquely aesthetic to the wearer’s personality. “You only have 10 fingers so it’s fun to start collecting rings with milestones, which is something I love, love, love that people do all the time,” said Vardi. “People walk in and are like, ‘I just got a promotion’ or ‘I’m having a really bad day’ and they can walk out with something special. [Buying jewelry doesn’t have to be] big romantic gestures; it can be a little thing that people do for themselves.”
The way I love to style and wear Catbird pieces is to take the minimalism to the maximum — for instance, I can start with one thin hammered ring but easily pile on more if I’m feeling especially golden that day; small gold hoops are the go-to standard for me but I’ll slip on other danglers and studs in the second and third holes if I wanna amp up the sparkle factor. Catbird has its various opal, sparkler, and chain collections, which make it easy to mix and match for a cohesive — but sometimes beautifully chaotic — jewelry look.
At Refinery29, we’re here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuff. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. All product details reflect the price and availability at the time of publication. If you buy or click on something we link to on our site, Refinery29 may earn commission.
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As a kid, Kelsey Impicciche hoped for a closet just like Cher Horowitz’s in Clueless, fantasizing about flipping through each outfit option on a screen before deciding on a look: “That was my dream.”
Decades later, she gets to do it — sort of. Impicciche is a professional gamer and streamer with over 120,000 followers on Twitch and over 700,000 on YouTube. In particular, she is known for her videos on the popular life simulation game The Sims. Through her content, Impicciche walks her audience through her experiences in The Sims 4, the 2014 version of the popular game, which range from dressing her avatars in the game’s wide selection of trendy digital clothes to following other gamers’ challenges.
But while for many, fashion is a minor part of the gaming experience, for Impicciche, it’s an expression of personal style. “I think what’s exciting and unique about this… [is] the amount of you that you bring to the game,” she says. And, like Cher’s revolving wardrobe, digital fashion gives her seamlessly endless options to consider.
Virtual avatars have existed almost as long as gaming itself. But over time The Sims’ early grainy options of basics became designer-worthy clothes good enough to wear in real life. Thanks to the rapid development of digital wearables and the expansion of downloadable fashion assets for virtual avatars (more on both below) on games like Animal Crossing and Fortnite, avatars can be identical to our human selves, whether in a video game, like Sims, or in metaverse platforms, like Decentraland and Second Life.
According to a recent study, titled “The Screenwear Paper,” by Virtue — the in-house insights agency at Vice Media Group (Refinery29’s parent company) — super-personalized avatars will become commonplace in everyone’s lives over the next three years. This will create a demand for digital fashion, a phenomenon that is already manifesting: According to the study, 95% of those surveyed say they are interested in buying digital fashion; of those surveyed, 82% revealed that they had already bought some type of digital fashion.
In turn, brands like Gucci and Balenciaga have jumped on the opportunity to establish their presence in the digital world, by releasing digital wearables — clothes you can wear online — non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — garments owned in online spaces that can be sold and traded — and skins — a graphic download that changes the appearance of a virtual character. Back in 2020, Balenciaga even presented its Fall 2021 collection via a video game, titled “Afterworld: The Age Of Tomorrow.” (Last year, the brand also partnered with gaming platform Fortnite to release a collection of digital wearables.) Meanwhile, Gucci has teamed up with games and metaverse platforms ranging from The Sims to Genies and Roblox to create clothes for virtual avatars.
For Impicciche, the rapidly-evolving world of digital fashion is exciting, mainly because she’s always seen the virtual world as a limitless journey of self-expression. “Since I was a kid, I really liked building [my avatar] in The Sims,” she says. “Sometimes I’d create them and never even play with them.” According to the Virtue study, 70% of people agree, selecting the ability to build an identity in the metaverse as the main reason for purchasing digital fashion.
For some, it’s also a chance to experiment with their style without committing to the change IRL. “I’ve done a version of myself where I took myself looking like me and dyed her hair black, and I made all her outfits entirely something I would never wear. And it was fun to see this alternate version of myself play out,” says Impicciche.
While Impicciche loves the creative freedom that digital avatars provide, others may find it overwhelming, which has led to a rise in metaverse stylists. A pioneering figure in this space is Gemma Shepard, who signed on with metaverse platform Roblox this year to help users build their digital fashion personas. “The metaverse is the place where anyone can express themselves through fashion so for brands it’s untapped territory for connecting with customers and also road-testing new designs because if it’s popular in the metaverse, it’ll likely fly in store,” Sheppard told Grazia earlier this year. “I’m super intrigued by the idea of uniting real and virtual life.”
And already the IRL and virtual fashion experiences are merging seamlessly. Last week, Decentraland celebrated its first Metaverse Fashion Week, alongside designers like Giuseppe Zanotti, Elie Saab, and Tommy Hilfiger, as well as digital-first brands like Auroboros. And just like a real fashion week, the street style mattered just as much as the runway shows: Virtual avatars were dressed in Decentraland’s array of accessories and clothing, modeling their real-life counterparts. While the technology may not be able to mimic a street style experience (complete with photographers and honking cars waiting for influencers to move out of the way) yet, it’s easy to see how walking around the platform’s Fashion District — a designated area within the metaverse built for the event — could incite a desire to dress the part.
“It’s super fascinating to see a fully digital experience being more normalized,” says Impicciche. “It’ll become more and more commonplace.” Maybe then, there will be no need to imagine a Cher-like closet — it’ll be real.
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Instagram’s best-dressedhave one thing in common: they each have a signature style item that they wear more often and better than anyone else. For one person, it could be astring bikini, worn on and off the beach. For another, it’s a uniquelyretro aesthetic. Whatever the piece may be, it’s their thing. With our column My Thing, we’re talking with those same experts about that one specific item they have made into their signature — and style unlike anyone else.
Maximalism is all about doing the absolute most, and it’s no surprise that the style has taken off as we emerged from the pandemic. Following lockdowns, many put their plain white tees to rest for all things printed, textured, colorful, and embellished. And when it comes to over-the-top fashion, nobody does it quite like 26-year-old stylist and content creator Sara Camposarcone.
“I’ve definitely come into my own personal style over the last few years,” says Camposarcone who’s based in Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. “I like having a lot to look at. It keeps things interesting, fun, and youthful. I feel like I dress like a kid sometimes which I love. I wear whatever makes me happy.” From bright tutus to larger-than-your-head bows and fuzzy accessories, Camposarcone really takes kidcore and dopamine dressing to a whole new level.
“I call myself a sustainable maximalist because my style is very eclectic and 95% of my closet is secondhand or vintage.” With sustainability in mind, Camposarcone will only make the purchase if she can come up with 10 different looks for it. “I also love to shop small designers and brands,” she says. Some of her faves include Philadelphia-based Room Shop Vintage which makes small-batch zero-waste satin scrunchie accessories and Etsy shop Makmak Handmade, which uses vintage bedsheets as fabrics.
Exploring resale platforms like Poshmark, eBay, and Depop helped to develop her aesthetic and find out what she genuinely likes. Her go-to look (which her 380K TikTok followers can’t get enough of) consists of detachable collars, tulle petticoats, bold pantsuits, and platform shoes — and yes, all potentially worn together on any given day. “I love piling on hair accessories, rosy blush, and vivid lipstick,” adds Camposarcone. More is more (just check out her tattoo for the proof).
Click through to see how she styles her impressively outlandish wardrobe.
Opera gloves because why not be swanky as heck?
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