Can A Bike Helmet Be Chic?

Bike helmets unlock some deep-seated middle school discomfort around what is “cool.” For me, it’s enough to ruin the freeing experience of riding a bicycle in the first place. Suffice it to say: I hate helmets.

Like many, I signed up for a Citibike membership as a way to get around during the pandemic. You should, of course, always wear a helmet. But I reasoned that since there weren’t any cars on the road, I could get away without one. That reasoning kind of worked during the weeks of no traffic, but as the city started opening up so did my chance of a head injury. So, much like wearing a face mask, I was compelled to do the responsible thing and find one that I could deal with. I went to Google and typed in a few key search terms: “chic bike helmets” “bike helmet fashion” and “cool helmets.”



Many hours later, what I found is that no helmet is actually cool, chic, or fashionable. However, some are aesthetically better than others. I didn’t want an overly designed helmet, so that knocked out anything with an unusual shape, too much color, or a pattern. I found myself drawn towards darker solid colors (black, navy) and sleeker designs. They felt less offensive and more in line with my (all black) wardrobe.

What I also learned in my research rabbit hole is that if you are going to get a helmet, which, again, you should, it should have MIPS technology (a.k.a. Multi-directional Impact Protection System). MIPS helmets look the same on the outside, but are internally built on a “slip plane” and are designed to better protect your brain from impact. If you’re clunking around in a helmet it should be an effective one.

I eventually settled on a collapsible helmet from Overade that served my ultimate goal: it is there when I want it, the size of a grapefruit when I don’t, and inoffensive looking in-between. Below, 9 options for pleasing and safe helmets.

Michèle Lamy and Ghetto Gastro Are Cooking Their Way Through Lockdown

Michèle Lamy’s longstanding role as business partner and creative collaborator to Rick Owens may have secured her status as one of the fashion world’s most beloved eccentrics. But an oft-forgotten fact is that back in the late ’90s, when the pair lived in Los Angeles, Lamy not only worked as an artist and designer but was also a successful restaurateur. (Her cult French restaurant, Les Deux Cafés, was established in 1996 on Las Palmas Avenue, and remained open until the couple moved to Paris in 2004.)

While the restaurant’s farm-to-table Provençal cuisine was a hit, it was Lamy’s knack for hospitality—as well as her distinctive approach to decor—that ensured the restaurant kept up a booming trade. “One thing not many people know is that, on my mother’s side, my grandfather was a famous chef in Lyon,” Lamy tells Vogue over the phone from Paris, where she and Owens are currently working from home. “I’ve always found that the gathering of people together is just as important as the food being served.” It’s these instincts that make up one of her many roles as a key collaborator for Owens, acting as, in her words, his “eyes and ears out in the world,” always on the hunt for interesting figures to bring into their creative orbit.

One such find is the Bronx-based culinary collective Ghetto Gastro, to whom Lamy was first introduced in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. “We were introduced through our friend Samira Cadasse, and Michèle told Samira that she wanted to do something with us in Paris,” explains Jon Gray, the collective’s CEO and cofounder. “Then, the Bataclan terrorist attacks rocked the world. Michèle had the vision to organize a gathering to promote love and uplift spirits, which is how we came together and first did ‘Thanksgiving for Peace’ at her and Rick’s home.”

The Thanksgiving dinner not only brought together a motley crew of Lamy’s neighbors and friends, but marked the beginning of a long and enduring friendship. Further collaborations with Ghetto Gastro have taken place everywhere from intimate dinners in the Bronx, to parties on a barge in Venice during the city’s Biennale art festival. “We all know Michèle’s aesthetic is A1, but I’d say we collided on a vibrational plane,” Gray continues. “From day one she’s treated us like family, and making magic is natural for her. She’s the ultimate curator.”

And while they currently find themselves on opposite sides of the world, the pair are continuing their conversation with a little help from Instagram Live, with Lamy appearing this past weekend on Ghetto Gastro’s quarantine cooking series, Gastronomical Cribs, chatting with both Gray and his collaborator Pierre Serrao. The ongoing series has featured an eclectic lineup of the team’s friends and collaborators, from Naomi Campbell to Tony Hawk to Samin Nosrat, with Gray and Serrao chatting to each of them while they cook one of their signature lockdown dishes.

On the menu for Lamy was a classic French dish of honey and mustard chicken with a tomato salad, garnished with fresh greens from the small herb garden she tends to on a terrace of their home. (You’ll have to watch until the very end to get a sneak peek of the terrace, but due to a Wi-Fi issue, you can enjoy a glimpse into both their industrial-style kitchen and the leafy garden area Lamy retreats to for a better signal.) The conversation touches on everything from why boxing is the perfect form of exercise during lockdown, to an upcoming perfume collaboration Lamy is currently working on. “I feel like we’re all more busy now than we were before,” Gray notes.

On this, Lamy agrees. “We were just constantly on the move, almost like a hamster in a wheel. It’s the first time in our 15 years of living in Paris that Rick and I are alone in this house or together for so long.” The conversation also brings to light a side of Lamy that is often overlooked—her razor-sharp sense of humor. “Do you still love each other or are you ready to kill each other?” Gray asks. “A little of both,” Lamy adds, with a laugh. “On a more serious note,” she continues, “we are always running all over the world, going here and there. But staying put, you really start to look at how the world works, and this time it’s not going back to usual—nature is a lot stronger than us, and it should be a lesson.”

It’s clear that behind the industrial, gothic-inflected glamour of Lamy’s signature aesthetic lies a deep reverence for the natural world. It’s reflected not only in the Rick Owens furniture collections, of which Lamy is producer—the use of unorthodox materials like bone or petrified wood, or even the bulbous, organic shapes of some of their more avant-garde designs—but also in her day-to-day life. It isn’t just the herbs for the meal that were grown on their terrace, but also the honey cultivated on their roof, where Lamy has been beekeeping for a number of years. “The bees have been disappearing from the countryside, but they are absolutely necessary to our world and there are no pesticides in the city, so it’s the perfect place,” Lamy explains. “Every year we have up to 50 kilos of honey, which we mostly give to our friends and collaborators.”

Clearly there’s enough left over, however, to add a little sweetness to tonight’s chicken dish, which Owens brings out to the garden for Lamy to serve and proudly presents to the camera. “Et voilà!” Lamy exclaims, to a grinning thumbs-up from Gray and Serrao. Et voilà, indeed.

A Wildly Imaginative Designer’s Advice on Reworking Old Jean Shorts

A certain amount of craftiness is built into the impish brand Lou Dallas’s DNA. New York–based designer Raffaella Hanley works primarily with deadstock fabrics, often hand-sewing together delicate, whimsical garments that look like grungy approximations of fairy-tale garb. There’s a handmade feel down to the dyes Hanley uses; she’ll often color her creations with pigments made from turmeric and other natural materials. Her mother originally taught Hanley how to wield a needle and thread when she was in the fourth grade—her mother had her own children’s fashion line at that time. “She made me and all my friends velvet bell-bottoms,” Hanley said.

While in self-isolation in her New York City apartment, Hanley has been getting back into her crafts roots. Now that she has an abundance of free time, she’s been making seven-layer Italian cookies, hand-sewing sweaters that she had originally planned on getting factory-made, and making masks that have the very same homespun charm as her official Lou Dallas designs.

But she’s also had time to flip through crafting books (that she stole from her mother) as inspiration for new projects, like the one that she’s now sharing with Vogue: Hanley shows her process for using patchwork, embroidery, and sequins to transform an old pair of jeans.First, she searched for inspiration from photo books, like street style images from the late Bill Cunningham. Then, Hanley chose a pair of blue jean shorts as her canvas and chose some other pieces of clothing to serve as patchwork fabric. (“Everyone gives me their clothes that they don’t know what to do with anymore, and it’s honestly driving me nuts,” Hanley said, an unexpected outcome of being associated with upcycling.)

Then she chose the stencil for her patchwork fabric from some quilting books she had lying around. “I’m a Pisces, so I found a silhouette of two fish, but I think they look more like sharks,” Hanley said. If you don’t have any more formal materials at home, though, she suggests making your own stencils by searching online. “You can just Google black silhouettes of objects and print it out on your printer,” Hanley said, whether it be the shape of an animal or a flower. The only guideline is to keep the shape relatively simple.

Next choose the placement—a key step. Once you have your homespun stencil ready, Hanley recommends pinning down the two different fabrics and trying it on to see how it looks. “You can just lay it down and place it, but I think it’s better to put it on before you go for it, because you’re inevitably going to want to change something,” she said.

Once it’s all set, start sewing. After stitching floral fabric in the shape of two little sharklike fish onto her jean shorts, Hanley went over the outline with embroidery floss. She created some freestyle flowers with the thread too. “Embroidery floss is great because you can add more detail that way and you have more color choices,” she said. As a final flourish, Hanley sewed in some sequins.

For Hanley, the process of embarking on a simple patchwork project tapped into the same youthful spirit she’s been tapping into during social distancing and documenting on her Instagram. She’s been covering her face in temporary tattoos and dressing up as different alter egos, like the fishnet-wearing housewife who styles her apron-dress backward. “I was honestly really happy [with the final product]—I found it to be very fun,” Hanley said of the process of making her sequin-covered shark patches. “I was really happy, because these shorts were so boring before. It’s been fun to just spend time being kind of silly.”

Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz Are Fashion’s Favorite New Couple

Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz are the newest couple on the fashion scene. The pair started quietly dating back in January and have made a few rare appearances together since, including sitting front-row at Saint Laurent’s fall 2020 show in Paris last month. Considering Beckham is the child of fashion royalty (David and Victoria Beckham, that is) and Peltz is an actress and model, it’s no surprise the two have already started blending their unique fashion senses with very interesting results.

Spotted in New York City yesterday, Beckham and Peltz embraced matching fits that made for the ultimate street style moment. Peltz wore a leather zip-up jacket with Balenciaga’s logo plastered onto the front, styling it with straight jeans and Prada’s chunky Monolith creepers. She also wore small rectangular shades. As for Beckham, he complemented her by wearing practically the same thing: a black bomber jacket, white tee, and similar light-wash jeans. His finishing touches included crisp white sneakers, a sleek shoulder bag—love a man with a purse—and a Saint Laurent tote bag.

It’s not unusual for couples to start dressing alike. Famous duos such as Justin and Hailey Bieber, Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson, and Miley Cyrus and Cody Simpson have all stepped out wearing his-and-hers fits. But there’s something innately cool about Beckham and Peltz’s approach: as though they simply rolled out of bed and happened to be wearing the same thing. Keep your eyes peeled for their next boyfriend-girlfriend statement.

Exclusive: Balenciaga Is Returning to Haute Couture

Now this is something to get the front rows at today’s Paris haute couture shows talking: Balenciaga, which hasn’t produced a couture collection since Cristóbal Balenciaga himself shuttered his atelier in 1968, is returning to couture. Artistic Director Demna Gvasalia’s couture debut will take place in July for the fall 2020 season.

“Haute couture is the very foundation of this house,” Gvasalia said in a statement, “so it is my creative and visionary duty to bring couture back. For me, couture is an unexplored mode of creative freedom and a platform for innovation. It not only offers another spectrum of possibilities in dressmaking,” he continued, “it also brings the modern vision of Balenciaga back to its sources of origin.”

Cristóbal Balenciaga occupies a special place in the history of haute couture. Christian Dior referred to him as “the master of us all,” and undoubtedly the Spanish designer was a master of silhouette, construction, and drape. The regal elegance of his clothes defined his era, and it’s no coincidence that he closed his doors in ’68, just as the changing mores and styles of the time were ushering in the new prêt-à-porter system.

Half a century later, Gvasalia is rebuilding Balenciaga’s couture foundation. Since his arrival in 2015 the Georgian designer has made a study of the house founder’s couture silhouettes. His spectacular first collection included suit jackets that slouched forward and puffers that shrugged back, both inspired by pieces he discovered in the archive. Fall 2017 concluded with a series of dresses lifted with very little in the way of modifications from Balenciaga’s iconic couture creations of the 1950s, and fall 2018 used a high-tech computer-enabled process for moulding suits into recognizably Cristóbal-ish shapes.

But this is something different. The house is establishing a dedicated team devoted only to couture and it’s replicating the original salons at Balenciaga’s historical address at 10 Avenue George V. “This project was possible due to the success of the creative vision of Demna Gvasalia as well as the exceptional results of Balenciaga these past few years,” said Cedric Charbit, President and CEO of Balenciaga, in the same release. In conversation, Charbit added, “We’re a French house, we belong to Paris. We have to do our job so Paris couture, the craftsmanship, the people, the houses… we have to keep this alive.”

There’s honor in renewing French tradition, of course, but Charbit sees the business potential of returning to couture, too. “We already have requests for couture,” he said. “So we know there is a customer. She’s there.” What’s more, couture’s made-to-measure methods jibe with the culture’s growing concerns about excess and waste in the fashion industry. “What I feel is right about couture today is the approach is sustainable,” said Charbit. “We don’t make things that won’t be kept forever. It’s also sustainable in the way that we treat each other. I feel that most of the luxury brands today have become brands only and they’re no longer houses. I like the maison concept. When you’re a maison you’re a family. All of us, we’re missing this. I’m glad we’re bringing back that link.”

The Balenciaga announcement comes at a pivotal moment for couture. On Friday, Jean Paul Gaultier took to Twitter to say that his spring 2020 couture show, scheduled for this Wednesday, would be his last. Under ordinary circumstances, Gaultier’s news might’ve prompted concern about the place of extravagantly expensive one-off tailleurs and gowns in a fast fashion world. Now, though? Gvasalia’s influence not just on the look of fashion, but also on how brands operate has been tremendous. He might just spark a couture renaissance.