The Buzz
 Image: Getty
With millennials spending $200 billion a year globally, a figure that's set to double by 2020, retailers and brands are making it a top priority to understand and woo this increasingly influential demographic.
So what do the kids want? Freedom, happiness, meaning. It's pretty much exactly what their parents wanted at the same age and yet, millennials do differ from previous generations in one crucial way — and it comes down to shopping.
According to a survey conducted by The Intelligence Group, a division of Creative Artists Agency, more and more of us shop for shopping's sake, browsing products and engaging with brands without actually buying anything. Termed "fauxumerism," this approach treats "e-commerce and m-commerce as being as much about entertainment as acquisition."
To make matters worse, 36% of survey respondents said that "they only buy things they deem necessary." Additionally, a whopping 72% "said they research their options online before buying in a store." Another third care about the ethical dimension of their purchases: 32% "said they’ve stopped buying from companies when they’ve become aware of social practices they deem unacceptable." These figures paint a bleak picture for retailers, who would obviously prefer to have a more impulsive, frivolous and morally bereft customer base. [via WWD]
Much like another multitalented H&M summer campaign model, Gisele Bundchen was tasked with recording a song to go along with the Swedish retailer's newest ads. With the help of producer Bob Sinclair, the bodacious Brazilian lent her pipes for a cover of Blondie's classic "Heart of Glass." We had to wait a couple weeks, but the music video for the tune is finally here, and you guessed it—it's very, very sexy.
The vid starts with footage of Bundchen in the studio with Sinclair, when the electro-pop beat starts to build into what I can best describe as a pseudo 90s drag ball rhythm. Gisele's generously autotuned, heavily accented vocals come in, and we cut to the model grinding up against a very lucky mic stand. The rest is all windblown hair and hip-swaying in a teensy leopard bikini and cut-out black one-piece. Also: HORSES. Running free. It's all very inspiring.
Check it out above.
Oh, and if you're digging Gisele's vocals, you can download the song on iTunes, with part of the proceeds going to UNICEF.
It's a pleasure to see an effortlessly beautiful image of a celebrity on the cover of a magazine, it happens so rarely. For its May 2014 issue, WSJ Magazine features a radiant Julia Roberts on the cover. The Academy Award-winning actress is photographed by Josh Olins, who is noted for capturing natural and subtle imagery. Julia wears a Céline sweater on the cover which was styled by Elin Svahn.
 IMAGE CREDIT: ONLINE.WSJ.COM VIA TFS FORUMS
Members of theFashionSpot are very excited about the cover with Luxx kicking off the thread: "All her positive attributes in one image. This really captures her beauty."
"Gorgeous! She looks absolutely beautiful and warm, and the b&w goes very well with the orange text," continued anlabe32.
"Such a charming and beautiful woman, always will be," enthused Marc10.
Omnis was also very fond of the cover: "Amazing photograph that really catches Julia's spirit. One of the biggest smiles I know."
What are your views? Check out Julia's accompanying story within the thread here.
 IMAGE CREDIT: ONLINE.WSJ.COM VIA TFS FORUMS
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Snagging yet another cover is Arizona Muse, who is Vogue Mexico's cover model of choice for May 2014. The American beauty was photographed by Nagi Sakai and wears Vera Wang in a rather beautiful shot. This certainly isn't Muse's first Vogue cover, the Estée Lauder spokesperson has fronted a dozen of them (her Vogue Paris November 2011 cover being my personal favorite).
 IMAGE CREDIT: TWITTER.COM/VOGUEMEXICO
"She snatches Vogue covers month after month, it's like the only thing she does now," writes TheoG, noting the number of Vogue covers Muse has to her name.
Bertrando3 was happy to see Ms. Arizona: "She looks stunning, I'm really fond of her from the beginning. It's nice to see her keep booking Vogue covers and maintaining a high fashion profile."
"I remember when Arizona Muse was a thing… It's nice to still see her pop up every now and then…" commented A.D.C.
Below is an "alternative" cover, which Mexican Vogue regularly releases alongside their actual covers:
 IMAGE CREDIT: FACEBOOK.COM/VOGUEMEXICO
"She looks really good on the first cover. The second one's nice, but it looks random for a cover," writes justaguy.
Nepenthes commented, "Arizona looks gorgeous on the first cover [despite] the awkward layout. The second one is just okay."
Urban Stylin was tired of seeing these Chanel pieces and wrote, "Love it, the first especially, the dress in the second is over used." I, on the other hand, am loving the use of all of these Chanel pieces — I adore that print!
Check out the thread and be part of the discussion here.
By now, the fashion set has come to know and love Tavi Gevinson, editorial wunkderkind that leapt onto the fashion blogging scene in 2008 with The Style Rookie, her personal blog offering insightful views on fashion and fantastic #OOTDs that looked like a stylist put them together. Gevinson is way beyond her Style Rookie days, since solidifying herself as an old pro, launching Rookie, a lifestyle site for teenage girls. Today, Gevinson turns 18, making her a real-life adult on paper. But as the adage goes, age ain't nothin' but a number, and though she's reached this milestone age, we think that Gevinson's been a grown up way before the clock struck midnight on Monday.
Let's be real: Tavi Gevinson is more mature than plenty of people twice her age who have been calling themselves "adults" since she was learning how to tie her shoes. The editrix has an old soul, and has dropped so much knowledge and common sense on us over the years, we thought it appropriate to pay tribute, on her 18th birthday, to the most level-headed teenager around.
These 8 quotes from Tavi that prove she's been grown long before she could vote:
"I look back at some of the things that I wore and I don't really like them now but I like that I wore them and I think it's kind of cool that a bunch of adults, you know, appreciate it that a young person was actually trying to make a really bleak day in middle school more interesting."
[Racked]
"The best cure for procrastination is to have so much on your plate that procrastination is no longer an option."
[Daily Life]
"When I started Rookie, there were a lot of girls like me who had fashion blogs and loved getting dressed up and thinking about appearance, not in a stressful women's magazine way, but in a creative way. I can understand how some feminists who've fought against things like style or beauty defining all women might feel confused about how we can discuss self-esteem and being your own person, but also write so much about fashion. But for Rookie, fashion is about personal expression and creativity. And I want there to be a place where women can do that, where you can care about fashion, and even be super girly, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're not also smart or confident or strong."
[Bitch Magazine]
"There's danger in glorifying negative emotions as fuel for art."
[Daily Life]
"I wanted to start a website for teenaged girls that was not kind of this one-dimensional strong character empowerment thing, because one thing that can be very alienating about a misconception of feminism in that girls then think that to be feminists, they have to live up to being perfectly consistent in their beliefs, never being insecure, never having doubts, having all the answers…and this is not true and actually, recognizing all the contradictions I was feeling became easier once I realized that feminism was not a rule book but a discussion, a conversation, a process."
[TED.com]
“People expect women to be that easy to understand, and women are mad at themselves for not being that simple. When in actuality, women ARE complicated. Women are multifaceted. Not because women are crazy. But because people are crazy, and women happen to be people.”
[TED.com]
"One is that feminism is for smart girls, and fashion is supposedly for stupid girls. I mean, I remember when I was writing [both] about fashion and occasionally about feminism, it was like [annoyed voice] 'Won’t she just give up this fashion crap and be smart already?' I just remember feeling, 'What, the only people who write about fashion should be stupid?' So there’s that, that they both have these different raps. And then because fashion is always about appearance, the industry is deeply flawed, and something that dictates how a woman should look and what her body should be like doesn't’t seem feminist. And it’s not. But a lot of fashion isn’t like that."
[Bitch Magazine]
“I think you have to take the approach that feminism is ultimately about freedom.”
[Daily Life]
Just ahead of Earth Day, here's a friendly reminder that truly conscious fashion isn't just about minimizing the damage done to the environment by our current system of clothing manufacturing, its also about supporting the communities of workers who make our clothes. Handprint, the short film above, commissioned by Eco-Age creative director Livia Firth and starring American model Elettra Wiedemann, was created to spotlight the often invisible garment workers who labor over almost every single piece of clothing we wear. [via Ecouterre]
 Image: Ecouterre
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