LOVE YOURSELF: BAG LADIES AND THE RED CARPET‏

By Jenny Bridle

At the BAFTA awards on Sunday night, thousands of people seemed to lose their minds first over Tom Cruise’ apparently “puffy” face and then when British actor and comedian Stephen Fry joked that costume designer Jenny Bevan looked like a “bag lady” as she collected her award for Mad Max.

Even though Fry responded to the torrent of criticism that ensued by tweeting to, “the tragic figures who think calling Jenny Bevan a bag lady was an insult. She’s a dear friend and she got it. Derrr,” the backlash prompted him to delete his Twitter account.

After this petulant display from all sides about one man’s joke about a female friend’s appearance, people have moved on like they do on social media and now fashion watchers will no doubt be sharing photos and talking endlessly about how lots of other celebrities looked on the Red Carpet at The Grammy Awards. From what we’ve seen, there are no bag lady fashions so far.

Joan Rivers, bless her heart, is no longer here to remind us when celebrities need fashion policing. She often walked the line between nasty and helpful and could easily have pointed out a bag lady or three at one awards show or another and few would have batted an eye but now with social media everyone feels they have equally valuable opinions.

For fashion though, before the BAFTAs and the Grammys’ Red Carpet, there was New York Fashion Week and the two well-publicized shows of Kanye West and Rihanna.

After reading what seemed like a million tweets and Facebook posts and commentary on both of these shows, whose show was better, which line of clothes had more style, was more trendy, more fashion forward, it was a bit of a relief to see Kanye beg Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Larry Page for $1 billion investment to help him with his “ideas” and his personal debt of more than $50m. The request gave Zuckerberg a worldwide trending moment on his social media rival, Twitter, and, as with Fry, made a whole lot more people lose their minds.

All of the commentary on social media seems a little bit like clutter when you consider that here are two stars of the global music industry involved directly in the fashion industry. Kanye’s show at Madison Square Garden was more of a launch for his “Life of Pablo” album with fashion an add on. Rihanna’s clothing line looked much more wearable and she received a lot of praise for making her show all about the clothes.

For those of us who are into marketing, seeing celebrities involved with fashion is usually either a time for hand wringing or high fiving. But then fashion and style is like that: hot or not, yes or no, either you like what you see or you don’t and it’s instant. All these different opinions about fashion got us thinking about what fashion is and isn’t, and what style is, which one is more important, and who decides what is fashionable and what is stylish. Asking these types of questions can take you down a very long and winding road populated by the world’s greatest designers and another gazillion people who think they should have a say. To get away from these people who are just like us, we went looking for insights from the great designers. There’s nothing like commentary from those spend their time thinking deeply about how we look and what we want to portray by choosing the clothes we do.

With #StreetMarc, Marc Jacobs is currently running one of the most engaging social media campaigns going and results are are pretty amazing.

We've gotten so many amazing #StreetMarc submissions from people like YOU. Check them out! https://t.co/89gspY5GdQ pic.twitter.com/oj8jz7ihXL — Marc Jacobs (@marcjacobs) February 15, 2016

One more day to submit your #StreetMarc! Look at some of the incredible submissions so far: https://t.co/89gspY5GdQ pic.twitter.com/AZqx3rSRev — Marc Jacobs (@marcjacobs) February 15, 2016

Most of us would absolutely agree. It’s hard to know the exact numbers but reportedly the average person wears jeans for 3.5 days a week and we each own at least 8 pairs.

So, the next time you decide to dress for a night out — such as for a visit to Happy Wednesday at Happy Valley Racecourse here in Hong Kong — may you be inspired by some of the world’s best designers and wear whatever you want so you can be whoever you are.