Everyone's Wearing A Personality Hat At Copenhagen Fashion Week - Here's Where To Buy The Best
The rise and rise of flip flops, knitted hoods and, of course, the voluminous dresses that have dominated fashion's recent past – all went through Copenhagen Fashion Week's pressure cooker. And we're sure this season will be no different.
So, what are the style stars wearing today, that we're sure to be wearing tomorrow? Personality hats.
A term coined by Leandra Medine, personality hats are what they say on the tin: hats that bring a little personality to one's outfit, or that can be used to express one's own personality. Offering a wink to any ensemble, personality hats are as varied as their wearers, with pretty much any style of hat qualifying (including cowboy, boater – heck, even a bandana kind of counts). As of late, front-runners for most fantastical personality hat of 2025 are: pillbox, skull cap, sauna, cloche, bonnet and sailor styles. Fabricated in anything from straw to sequins, they can liven up even the dullest of clothing combinations, and hide a missed hair-wash day, to boot.
'I think that a personality hat quite literally makes you visible in a crowd – it's easy to spot someone with a great hat,' Ruby Redstone, a fashion historian, founder of concept store, MESS, and personality hat-wearer, tells ELLE UK. 'But I also am very fascinated by a cultural return to hats. They haven't been a big part of dress culture since the 1950s, and it's very exciting to see them coming back in a formal way.
'I'm sporting a pillbox hat right now, but my eternal favourite is a sailor hat because I love anything nautical.'
And it wasn't just on editors, buyers and influencers that we saw the personality hat at the SS26 shows; the runway was also awash with examples; Caro Editions featured polkadot, wide-brimmed boaters; Iamisigo paraded a host of magical millinery wonders; MKDT channelled The Flying Nun with surreal, wind-strewn scarves; as did Rave Review.
But, how to wear a personality hat? We asked Redstone her opinion: 'I like a personality hat that works in harmony with an outfit. I prefer to have one that matches the colours of my look so that it's not too distracting. I do still always want people to see my face before they see my hat.'
An easy way to transition your summer wardrobe into autumn, a personality hat may just be the humorous accessory your wardrobe is missing. Be brave, try one.
ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
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Time Magazine
a day ago
- Time Magazine
'Weapons' Breaks New Ground When It Comes to Kids in Horror
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Weapons. It's 2:17 a.m. in Maybrook, Penn., and the parents of Justine Gandy's (Julia Garner) first grade class do not know where their children are. Neither do the police, nor the Ring cameras affixed to the facades on several neighborhood homes, though at least the latter capture footage of kids bounding through their front doors, arms splayed like wings, into early morning's opaque embrace. No other evidence, nary a clue or a hint, of the little ones' whereabouts or motives is left in their wake. One moment, they're sound asleep in their beds; the next, gone without a trace or a reason. Weapons, the sophomore film from Barbarian director Zach Cregger, opens amid the fallout of this awful mass disappearance. The community's response is intense: panicked and bereaved mothers and fathers turn on Justine, indirectly a victim herself; misguided outrage blinds them to the real menace operating unimpeded in their midst. Cregger deliberately opens his audience's eyes over the movie's two hours, allowing them an omniscient view of events unfolding as individual characters experience the plot like gameshow contestants sticking their hands into the same mystery box: it's a mouse; no, it's a chinchilla; no, it's a tarantula. It's actually not at all what we come to expect. Cregger constructs a monster that shares DNA (and a fashion sense) with Pennywise the Dancing Clown from Andy Muschietti's two-part adaptation of Stephen King's It, but a very different modus operandi; around that monster, he spins a tale that fits right into horror cinema's broader child-centered niche, where kids punish their parents and subsidiary grownups, or are used to punish them, or are otherwise prey for an eldritch predator the adults are nigh helpless to stop. What compels movies like these varies, but typically is rooted in children's vulnerability or their parents' protectionary shortcomings. The world is a dangerous place. Parents are supposed to shield our young from those dangers. A quick glance at what the world looks like today suggests that we've dropped the ball, and horror films like It, as well as its contemporary peers, prod at that particular nerve ending: Jason Eisener's Kids vs. Aliens (2022), Eskil Vogt's The Innocents (2021), Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink (2022), Christian Tafdrup's Speak No Evil (2022) and James Watkins' 2024 remake, Samuel Bodin's Cobweb (2023), Roxanne Benjamin's There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023), David Hebrero's Everyone Will Burn (2022), and Demián Rugna's When Evil Lurks (2023). Of these, few end on what one might construe as upbeat notes; instances of young'uns overcoming their tormentors come with caveats. Weapons plays along the same lines in this sub-genre's sandbox, too, denying easy catharsis after wracking viewers' nerves with its combination of pitch-black humor, abject grief, and superbly conducted jump scares. Two films into his solo directing career, Cregger has established himself as an artist who uses convention as a whoopee cushion. (Technically, his first directing gig was the dramatically tonally distinct sex comedy Miss March, a joint effort between him and the late Trevor Moore, both of them members of the New York City comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know.) Weapons is his version of both/and reasoning: it is bleak, nihilistic, confounding, and deeply frightening, as well as hilarious, empathetic, and, by the end, optimistic, though optimism in horror usually amounts to table scraps. We take what we can get. Compared to Skinamarink, and most of all When Evil Lurks, the decade's best example of the 'kids punish parents' category, Weapons is a feast; there's light to dispel darkness in the climax, though Cregger adjusts the dimmer slightly to avoid illuminating the whole picture. Even once the movie's over, we still don't understand Gladys (Amy Madigan, terrifying in her cloying sweetness), the fiend responsible for the children's disappearance and all ensuant bloodshed. We don't know for sure what will become of them once they're freed from her thrall, despite the helpful voiceover from Cregger's anonymous narrator (Scarlett Sher) assuring us that some of the kids recover from the catatonia Gladys inflicted on them. We don't know where Gladys learned her witchcraft, or why, or from whom, or whether they might go looking for her. All of this is to say that we only have scant confidence that the kids will, in fact, be all right, though grant that Weapons makes no gestures toward potential 'what ifs' by the time the credits roll. Cregger maintains the film's self-containment. There will be no Weapons 2. (Hopefully. If there is: It will be titled Weapon$.) This is a hard tack away from the type of resolutions seen in movies like When Evil Lurks, which Rugna could just as easily have called When Evil Prevails: as that film draws to a close, brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomon) are left alive by the entity they spend the movie hunting, to serve as witnesses to the entity's birth as well as their own colossal screw-ups—their failure to act quickly enough, to heed common sense, and to listen to experts chief among them. Everyone who dies in the film—and everyone does die, including Santino (Marcelo Michinaux), Pedro's young son—does so because Pedro and Jimi act without thought given to consequences, much less to rationality. They know, in Rugna's fictionalized world where demons are real and possession is treated as a public safety issue in the same vein as house fires or robberies, that killing a person who is host to an evil spirit means spreading that spirit's influence like a virus; but they behave as if ignorant of this common knowledge. What vile carnage they provoke through their stupidity coheres into a metaphor for the incoming generation's judgment of the presiding one: When Evil Lurks is about the profound dereliction of duty by society's adults to properly safeguard the world, and them, from harm. In real-life terms, 'harm' could be climate change, gun violence, food insecurity, infectious disease, and trafficking, and Cregger uses Weapons to tap into the same anxieties we feel as parents every single day, because to be a parent is to live with fear. Mercifully—because that sounds like an awful way to wake up and go to bed every single day—fear is the beam on an emotional sliding scale. What we fear, and how much, and when, ebbs and flows depending on the day, the time, the last soul-corroding headline we read between brushing our teeth and taking our littles to summer camp. Sometimes, fear is just a sudden rush of recollection that you forgot the swim goggles while prepping your child's backpack—a venial sin rather than a mortal one. Other times, though, it's an electric arc that spurs our catastrophization: what if the bus flips over on the way to camp? What if he develops heat stroke? What if she slips beneath the lake surface and her counselors don't notice? What if a lunatic strolls up to the daycare and indiscriminately opens fire with the rifle he bought at Walmart? What if? The not-knowing that's intrinsic to parenthood is inverted in Weapons: something has happened to Maybrook's kids, but there's no 'if,' just 'what.' Archer Graf (Josh Brolin) knows that his boy ran away from home, along with his classmates, seen in the film's opening sequence, a pre-dawn frolic that, deprived of context, reads as liberating, and practically joyful. The film, of course, is no such thing, though we do return to a version of that sensation of freedom in the climax, when Gladys' spell is broken and Justine's class chases her down, feral and screaming, an outraged pack of hyenas pulverizing lawns, barreling through window walls, and tearing down fences in their pursuit. Well before these kids fall upon Gladys, Cregger makes it clear that she has used black magic for the sake of extending her life. She's terminally ill. Abducting the children abates her illness. (The mechanics of 'how' go unexplained, and that's for the better. It's magic. Enough said.) But where another movie, like When Evil Lurks, puts the burden of solving the problem on adults, who dramatically screw things up, Weapons gives that task to the youth, or one youth: Alex (Cary Christopher), Gladys' nephew, the only child in Justine's class who didn't vanish. He's been reluctantly serving Gladys, who holds his parents (Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera) hostage with magic, threatening their lives if he disobeys. In Weapons' frantic climax, Alex uses her magic against her, reclaiming what she's taken from him—his mother, his father, his friends—in a moment of righteous comeuppance. Catharsis is watching as a decrepit fiend is literally ripped to pieces by the same people they've subjugated and stolen from. In reality, the majority of us would settle for seeing the billionaires and corrupt elected officials currently driving the worst perils facing us, and our children, locked up and sent to prison; a collective sigh of satisfied relief was heard around the globe the day Harvey Weinstein received his life sentence. Weapons, being a horror film, comes with a few catches at the end, but that alone differentiates it from movies like When Evil Lurks and Skinamarink, where no catch is needed because the monster wins. Calling Weapons' ending a victory is perhaps somewhat generous, what with the matter of all the dead people left to account for, even Gladys. But the small victory that Cregger's characters eke out here sets his film apart from its peers in wicked style.
2 days ago
From Stephen King to New Jersey diners, History Press books cover local lore around the US
NEW YORK -- With deep knowledge of Stephen King's books and curiosity about their inspirations, writer Sharon Kitchens began a journey around Maine. As she learned about the real-life settings and people behind such fiction as 'IT' and 'Salem's Lot,' she arranged them into an online map and story she called 'Stephen King's Maine.' 'It was amateur hour, in a way,' she says. 'But after around 27,000 people visited the site one of my friends said to me, 'You should do something more with this.'' Published in 2024, the resulting book-length edition of 'Stephen King's Maine' is among hundreds released each year by The History Press. Now part of Arcadia Publishing, the 20-year-old imprint is dedicated to regional, statewide and locally focused works, found for sale in bookstores, museums, hotels and other tourist destinations. The mission of The History Press is to explore and unearth 'the story of America, one town or community at a time.' The King book stands out if only for its focus on an international celebrity. Most History Press releases arise out of more obscure passions and expertise, whether Michael C. Gabriele's 'The History of Diners in New Jersey,' Thomas Dresser's 'African Americans of Martha's Vineyard' or Clem C. Pellett's 'Murder on Montana's Hi-Line,' the author's probe into the fatal shooting of his grandfather. Like Kitchens, History Press authors tend to be regional or local specialists — history lovers, academics, retirees and hobbyists. Kitchens' background includes writing movie press releases, blogging for the Portland Press Herald and contributing to the Huffington Post. Pellett is a onetime surgeon who was so compelled by his grandfather's murder that he switched careers and became a private investigator. In Boulder, Colorado, Nancy K. Williams is a self-described 'Western history writer' whose books include 'Buffalo Soldiers on the Colorado Frontier' and 'Haunted Hotels of Southern Colorado.' The History Press publishes highly specific works such as Jerry Harrington's tribute to a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor from the 1930s, 'Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall.' It also issues various series, notably 'Haunted' guides that publishing director Kate Jenkins calls a 'highly localized version' of the ghost story genre. History Press has long recruited potential authors through a team of field representatives, but now writers such as Kitchens are as likely to be brought to the publisher's attention through a national network of writers who have worked with it before. 'Our ideal author isn't someone with national reach,' Jenkins says, 'but someone who's a member of their community, whether that's an ethnic community or a local community, and is passionate about preserving that community's history. We're the partners who help make that history accessible to a wide audience.' The History Press is a prolific, low-cost operation. The books tend to be brief — under 200 pages — and illustrated with photos drawn from local archives or taken by the authors themselves. The print runs are small, and authors are usually paid through royalties from sales rather than advances up front. History Press books rarely are major hits, but they can still attract substantial attention for works tailored to specific areas, and they tend to keep selling over time. Editions selling 15,000 copies or more include 'Long-Ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee,' by Lloyd Arneach, Alphonso Brown's 'A Gullah Guide to Charleston' and Gayle Soucek's 'Marshall Field's,' a tribute to the Chicago department store. The King guide, which has sold around 8,500 copies so far, received an unexpected lift — an endorsement by its subject, who was shown the book at Maine's Bridgton Books and posted an Instagram of himself giving it a thumbs-up. 'I was genuinely shocked in the best possible way,' Kitchens says, adding that she saw the book as a kind of thank-you note to King. 'Every choice I made while writing the book, I made with him in mind.' History Press authors say they like the chance to tell stories that they believe haven't been heard, or were told incorrectly. Rory O'Neill Schmitt is an Arizona-based researcher, lecturer and writer who feels her native New Orleans is often 'portrayed in way that feels false or highlights a touristy element,' like a 'caricature.' She has responded with such books as 'The Haunted Guide to New Orleans' and 'Kate Chopin in New Orleans.' Brianne Turczynski is a freelance writer and self-described 'perpetual seeker of the human condition' who lives outside of Detroit and has an acknowledged obsession with 'Poletown,' a Polish ethnic community uprooted and dismantled in the 1980s after General Motors decided to build a new plant there and successfully asserted eminent domain. In 2021, The History Press released Turczynski's 'Detroit's Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood That Touched a Nation.' 'All of the journalist work that followed the story seemed to lack a sense of closure for the people who suffered,' she said. 'So my book is a love letter to that community, an attempt for closure.' Kitchens has followed her King book with the story of an unsolved homicide, 'The Murder of Dorothy Milliken, Cold Case in Maine.' One of her early boosters, Michelle Souliere, is the owner of the Green Hand Bookstore in Portland and herself a History Press writer. A lifelong aficionado of Maine history, her publishing career, like Kitchens', began with an online posting. She had been maintaining a blog of local lore, 'Strange Maine,' when The History Press contacted her and suggested she expand her writing into a book. 'Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State' was published in 2010.
Elle
2 days ago
- Elle
Raffia Bags Are An It-Girl Favourite – These Are The 13 Best To Buy Now
Raffia bags have long been a summer mainstay, but they've felt particularly covetable this year. It's not just an ELLE UK hunch, either: Net-a-Porter customer searches for this accessory have increased by 240 per cent in the last three months. It seems we all want to get in on the laissez faire breed of elegance that finds inspiration in the wardrobes of Jane Birkin (when she wasn't carrying her namesake Hermès it was always something raffia or straw), Alexa Chung and every street style star with a Loewe on her arm. It's also worth considering that, perhaps down to the boho renaissance, or fashion's current penchant for natural textures – suede is back in a big way, too. Either way, the current fever goes way beyond the standard basket bag you take abroad once a year. In 2025, raffia has been reimagined for work (with sturdy leather-backed totes), for the city (think teeny tiny shoulder bags), for play (souped-up clutches for weddings) and of course for the beach (enormous hobo totes that'll fit everything but the kitchen sink). But what exactly is raffia? Helen Kaminiski, the Australian designer who's been working with this fabric in her accessories since 1983, explains: 'Although both straw and raffia are natural fibres, they are very different in their origin and attributes. Straw is the dry stalk of cereal plants such as rice, rye, corn, oats and barley. Since it is a by-product of grain harvests, it is inexpensive and plentiful. It absorbs moisture, can become quite brittle over time, and is a stiff fibre meaning it cannot easily be manipulated for fit or shape. Raffia, on the contrary, has a natural resin in its leaves which increases its longevity; it also makes each strand flexible and pliant but also wonderfully resilient and slightly waterproof, preventing it from cracking.' So that explains why the raffia has taken off in a separate entity to the beach-staple straw bag. And it also affirms that, although it is a natural fibre that will wear with age, raffia is well worth the investment. So perhaps you can afford to splash out on that investment after all... but if not, we've included affordable bag options from as little as £50. We're kicking things off with DeMellier's Capri bag because it's the kind of piece that'll see you through several seasons. The sustainable raffia (which took years to source, as most fibres are laced with plastic, founder Mireia Llusia-Lindh tells ELLE) is backed by tan leather for structure and a slick city vibe. Also currently spiking in searches on Net-a-Porter is Chloé's raffia bag. It's no secret the French fashion house is hot property at the moment and basically owns the boho aesthetic. Trend or no trend, this accessory is always a wardrobe mainstay. The Polène tote bag is our favourite in this edit. It's made from hand-crocheted raffia that has a unique knotted, honeycomb effect. Paired with the sculptural shape and overstitched tan leather, this tote will translate beyond the beach. M&S' oversized tote has a high-fashion silhouette. In jet-black raffia with a sculptural gold handle, this hobo bag has a cool, late-Sixties feel. We don't need to tell you that shell motifs and raffia are some of summer 2025's biggest accessory trends. So, why not tick two boxes in one with this Sensi Studio clutch bag? Another great beach-to-city option. Made from neutral raffia, this roomy tote is trimmed with black leather and topped with silver studs. Carry it in-hand or over the shoulder by switching between strap lengths. Scalloped edging and clever seams means Radley's tote is tapping into this season's obsession with all things shell. This raffia bag is unlined but comes with a sewn-in drawstring bag and cardholder so you can store essentials. The Loewe Paula's Ibiza collection has been going for eight years now. And, lest we forget, it's the collaboration that's launched many a basket bag. This season's version features different raffia weaves, rainbow stripe trims and leather accents. Khaite has reimagined its signature Olivia bag in soft raffia for SS25. If you don't do throw-it-all-in open beach bags, you'll appreciate the zip fastening on this one. A great evening option, Simkhai's bag is a simple but elevated take on the trend. Made from unlined raffia for a lightweight feel, it's topped with a twisted gold-tone handle that's a talking point all on its own. & Other Stories' tote is made from a woven raffia and piped in black for contrast. Choose from this shade or an on-trend chocolate hue. This Staud bag is the perfect summer wedding guest accessory, but it'll also work at al fresco dinners abroad. Made from cream raffia, it's dotted with irregular pearlescent beads to create a beautiful iridescent effect. Helen Kaminski knows raffia. In fact, the Aussie designer first came to fame back in 1983 when she launched a hat made of the stuff – her first bag came later in 1990. This Lipari style is crafted in a large bucket shape and trimmed with tan leather. Abigail Southan is our Senior Fashion Ecommerce Editor and has five years' experience as a writer and editor in the industry. Abigail has a BA in History from the University of Bristol and an MA in Fashion Journalism from Central Saint Martins. Abigail currently covers all things style and shopping across titles including Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Esquire and Red. On a daily basis, she helps readers buy better with how-to-wear guides, first-person product reviews and deep dives into the latest trends. Previously, Abigail has worked for The Sunday Times' Style and Fabulous magazine as their first ecommerce writer and was a founding editor of Sun Selects. She has also written for Net-a-Porter, I-D, Man About Town, Wonderland and 1 Granary, and has interviewed the likes of Paris Hilton, Dua Lipa and Christopher Bailey. You can follow Abigail on Instagram at @abigailsouthan.
