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Dior haute couture show in Paris is a masterful dance through time

Dior haute couture show in Paris is a masterful dance through time

PARIS (AP) — Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri delved into the storied archives of Christian Dior for her latest haute couture collection Monday, exploring the transformations of time.
The accomplished spring 2025 show — one of Chiuri's best in seasons — drew from the key silhouettes of Dior's iconic past designers, such as Yves Saint Laurent, and infusing them with her distinct contemporary vision.
The memory of fashion
The show was a commentary on how fashion serves as a lens for understanding time.
Key inspirations included the Trapèze line, originally conceived by Saint Laurent in 1958, and Christian Dior's Cigale silhouette from 1952, both updated with modern fabrics.
The looks: where past meets present
Chiuri's vision unfolded with flowing capes adorned with organza-crafted feathers, shimmering black coats embroidered with three-dimensional silver, and lace-trimmed tulle skirts that evoked a sense of playful nostalgia. Crinolines were reimagined as ethereal cages with embroidered branches, and moiré-tailcoat miniskirt ensembles added bold, modern contrasts to classic silhouettes.
A standout piece included a burnished silver gown shimmering with intricate embroidery, creating a sense of movement and transformation. Another highlight featured a cape of delicate petals that turned the model into a surreal flower-woman, blending whimsy with couture precision.
The show garnered a rare standing ovation from powerful U.S. Vogue chief Anna Wintour.
Stars among the petals
The show unfolded in the picturesque gardens of the Musée Rodin in Paris, attended by guests including actress Jenna Ortega, the star of Netflix's Wednesday, and Anya Taylor-Joy, known for her role in The Queen's Gambit.
Sports icon Venus Williams brought her commanding presence to the event, while Pamela Anderson and French actress and model Laetitia Casta were also present. Dior ambassador Kim Jisoo further underscored the house's international appeal.
Setting and artistry in harmony
The venue itself was part of the spectacle. The walls were adorned with a large-scale textile installation titled 'The Flowers We Grew,' created by Indian artist Rithika Merchant and translated into fabric by the Chanakya School of Craft. The artwork drew on stories of womanhood across generations, blending botanical motifs and universal symbols.
Dior's commitment to supporting women artists shone through, with this interdisciplinary collaboration highlighting the craftsmanship of Merchant and the Chanakya ateliers. Following the show, the public will have the chance to view the installation in the Rodin museum gardens from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2.

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‘Patience' review: A detective show that takes autism seriously
‘Patience' review: A detective show that takes autism seriously

Chicago Tribune

timean hour ago

  • Chicago Tribune

‘Patience' review: A detective show that takes autism seriously

A police detective in Yorkshire teams up with an autistic woman working in the records department in the British series 'Patience' on PBS. Patience Evans is content to be squirreled away, working alone amid all those file folders, but when Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf requests some information, Patience slips in another file that, at first glance, seems unrelated. But there are shared patterns between the two cases. Detective Bea (as Patience calls her) is intrigued and compels the young woman to leave the comfort of her solitary workspace to come out into the field and help her solve crimes. This new experience is at turns thrilling, distressing and overwhelming for Patience, depending on the moment. When she pushes through the discomfort, it's because she has a genuine curiosity and is a puzzle-solver by nature. And she . She's emotionally invested. Actor Ella Maisy Purvis is neurodivergent herself and I like that the show (adapted from the French-Belgian series 'Astrid et Raphaëlle') neither infantilizes the character nor treats her as a brilliant but robotic savant who cracks a case by simply scanning a room. She doesn't solve the crimes so much as identify important clues, patterns and other details overlooked by everyone else that help Detective Bea (Laura Fraser) piece together the bigger picture. Their pairing is awkward and tentative and involves a learning curve for both. Bea can be dismissive and sometimes terse, though she gradually becomes more thoughtful in her approach. For Patience, a sharp word or any deviation from her routine can be devastating and discombobulating. Sometimes she's willing to stray from her usual schedule, but she needs a minute to come around to the idea and it's on Bae to slow down, take a beat, and let Patience decide either way. 'Fancy a trip to the mortuary?' Bea asks one day when a new case is dropped in her lap. Patience pauses, wrapping her head around this unexpected change in plans, but then a small smile reaches her lips. 'Yes,' she says firmly. Bea and Patience carry the show, while the rest of the ensemble is just sort of there, not really adding much, aside from Bea's obnoxious and bigoted subordinate (played by Nathan Welsh) who is dismissive and sneering about Patience, both to her face and behind her back. I get the idea behind the character; sometimes you need a foil. But the guy has no redeeming qualities (until he suddenly comes around at the end) and I'm not sure what we're meant to think when Bea, as his boss, just smiles wanly instead of putting him in his place. The cases themselves are interesting enough and sometimes pivot around an amusing premise. When a best-selling crime novelist is found dead in his home, the police note that his door had been bolted from the inside and there are no other obvious signs of a break-in and Patience excitedly points out that it's a classic locked-room mystery! 'I just worry whether she can adapt,' a colleague tells Bea patronizingly, and she counters: Don't we have to ask ourselves the same thing? It's a process of figuring out one another's needs and processes and negotiating a way to work together that is respectful of Patience, but also effective at unraveling what happened. Bea and Patience both wear their nails cut short, with perpetually chipped nail polish, and it's a small detail but the kind of visual cue that subtly suggests a common bond, despite their differing temperaments. Less effective are the numerous flashbacks to Patience's childhood. I wish detective shows would abandon this trope forever, it's a time-filler that adds nothing. It wouldn't be accurate to say this is a new spin on the genre, since so many crime solvers — from Sherlock Holmes to Adrian Monk to Professor T — bear traits that could place them on the autism spectrum. But it is a series that aims to capture a less cliched, more multi-dimensional portrayal of autism that also includes a flirtation with a co-worker. An actual romantic subplot! 'I don't think we've ever had a TV show or film that's authentic and actually shows what it's like day to day in a workplace being neurodivergent,' Purvis has said in interviews, making an argument for more autistic actors and writers to be involved in these kinds of stories: 'The kind of perspective that comes from lived experiences can't be learnt, and so when you're casting for roles which have neurodiversity as part of their character it's really important that those voices are being heard and are actively in the room.' 'Patience' — 3 stars (out of 4) Where to watch: 7 p.m Sundays on PBS

A tale of two eras: Terri Lyne Carrington pays tribute to the revolutionary spirit of Max Roach on ‘We Insist 2025!'
A tale of two eras: Terri Lyne Carrington pays tribute to the revolutionary spirit of Max Roach on ‘We Insist 2025!'

Los Angeles Times

timean hour ago

  • Los Angeles Times

A tale of two eras: Terri Lyne Carrington pays tribute to the revolutionary spirit of Max Roach on ‘We Insist 2025!'

'The more things change, the more they stay the same,' French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr said in 1849. Nearly 200 years later, that is sadly true of the greatest protest songs. In 2025, songs like Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' and Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' are as needed for their messages as they were when they were written more than 60 years ago. So when Grammy-winning jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington set out this year to pay homage to one of her stick-wielding idols, the legendary Max Roach, by revisiting his seminal 1961 album, 'We Insist!,' it turned out to be more than a musical tribute. In the process of recording the album 'We Insist 2025!,' Carrington took time to reflect on how issues of inequality, racism and more that Roach fought against in 1961 are unfortunately just as prevalent today. 'Wow, I can't believe that this stuff is still relevant,' Carrington says. 'When we look at these examples of how things have shifted in some ways, but not in other ways, it can be very depressing, especially right now. When we started this record, the election hadn't happened yet. I thought I knew what was going to happen during this election, and it was still relevant. But now it's even more relevant.' Now 59, Carrington, who also serves as Zildjian Chair in Performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, is ready to pass along some of the fight for social justice to the younger generation. 'I do feel like it's a youthful game. I had an uncle that I would talk to when I was in my 20s, who has since passed. He would say that this is your fight now, and I would be mad at him, feeling like he wasn't doing more,' she recalls. 'And he would say, 'No, this is your fight now. I've done it, I've been there, I'm tired.' I get that sentiment too. I'm going to do whatever I do, but I'm relying on the younger generation and how pissed off I feel like they are and what that will do.' Among her many ventures to champion the jazz music she loves so much is A&R for iconic jazz label Candid Records, founded by the great jazz writer Nat Hentoff in 1960. So, she called on the younger generation to help share her vision of 'We Insist 2025!' 'I thought of calling the people that had been signed or were being signed to Candid Records because I do A&R for Candid. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to also shine a light on a lot of these artists, young people and progressive artists that are being signed right now to Candid. It's kind of like a family gathering; we all came together to pay tribute to this great artist and this great project,' she says. At the center of the next generation of jazz artists on the album is vocalist Christie Dashiell, with whom Carrington collaborates on the album. 'Somebody like Christie Dashiell was really important to the project, because I felt like the voice is so out front. It's what people relate to; the average ear relates to the voice the most,' Carrington says. 'I just feel like she perfectly embodies all these different areas of Black music traditions. That was really important, so I started there. What is the voice that's going to work with this idea?' Having toured with Herbie Hancock and played with giants as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, Carrington has a strong sense of jazz history and rightly sees herself as a bridge between the history and future of jazz. She made sure that bridge was strong on 'We Insist 2025!' by including trombonist Julian Priester on the record, who, at 89, is the last living musician who appeared on Roach's 1961 work. 'Jazz has always been about these kinds of bridges between generations. It's been such an important part of jazz. Mentorship, apprenticeships — it's an apprenticeship art form,' she says. 'So we did contemporary things with this music, but it wasn't so contemporary that there was no place for a Julian Priester. I think that the ability to be a bridge is important — pointing to past legacies, to the foundation of what we stand on, while trying to also point to the future or reflect the present is important.' As much as the album's original political message weighs in this turbulent current climate, and as much as Carrington wanted to make the record a vehicle for younger artists, the impetus for 'We Insist 2025!' was to pay tribute to Roach for the centennial anniversary of his birth. For Carrington, the heart of her interpretation was to honor the music and spirit Roach created on 'We Insist!' 'I had a history with reimagining projects in other people's work, and helping that legacy continue, but doing it in a way that also has my own identity involved in a way that really feels new, in a sense,' she says. 'The music is not new, but so many elements around those things are new. So I feel like it's reshaping these things a little, even though we didn't change the lyric content. By changing the music around the lyrics, it gives the lyric a different slant.' As one of the country's primary ambassadors of jazz music today, Carrington hopes the record will introduce new fans to Roach's considerable legacy while helping to revive the soul of protest music. To that end, she has discussed bigger plans with his family. 'I've talked to Max's son, Raul Roach, quite a bit about trying to collaborate by doing shows that would be expansive. Doing some of this music, maybe doing some other Max music, like some of the double quartet music,' she says. 'So we've talked about finding ways to continue this celebration of Max Roach and his artistry. There's a lot there as a foundation that can be expanded upon.'

Donald Trump's 'Les Miserables' Appearance Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes
Donald Trump's 'Les Miserables' Appearance Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes

Newsweek

time2 hours ago

  • Newsweek

Donald Trump's 'Les Miserables' Appearance Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump's attendance at a performance of Les Miserables at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, during which he received cheers and boos from sections of the crowd, triggered a wave of jokes and memes on social media. Newsweek contacted the White House and the Kennedy Center for comment on Thursday via email and online inquiry form, respectively, outside regular office hours. Why It Matters Following his second presidential inauguration in January, Trump fired most of the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, replacing them with allies and appointing himself as chairman. The president attended the show in Washington, D.C., against a backdrop of days of anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent. In response, his administration ordered 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. What To Know On Wednesday, the president and first lady Melania Trump attended the opening night of Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center. Other prominent figures in attendance included Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Footage of the event shows Trump receiving cheers and boos from the audience. According to CNN, one woman appeared to be escorted out after shouting, "Convicted felon, rapist!" Les Miserables is a musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel of the same name. It is set against the backdrop of the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, a failed insurrection against French King Louis Philippe that was suppressed by government troops. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arriving to attend the opening night of "Les Miserables" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on June 11. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arriving to attend the opening night of "Les Miserables" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on June 11. ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP/GETTY On X, Newsom shared a screenshot of an NBC News headline about the president's attendance, writing, "Someone explain the plot to him." The post has received more than 60,000 likes and 1.9 million views. User @BlueATLGeorgia, a pro-Democrat account with 39,000 followers, wrote: "Les Misérables is a story of social unrest, especially the June Rebellion, where young idealists rise up against inequality and government oppression. "Young people fight for justice, calling for reforms and dignity for the poor. The government responds to the rebellion with heavy force, resulting in bloodshed. Sound familiar?" A Michigan business called That Gay Guy Candle Co. wrote: "Trump's going to see Les Mis tonight? That's ironic." User @Betches_News told its 25,000 followers, "Trump and Melania watching Les Mis at the Kennedy Center tonight like." Below the caption, it shared a photo of a shocked woman asking: "Wait. Is this f*****g play about us?" User @toyjawn1 wrote, "Trump ... watching Les Mis ... with tickets upwards of the amount of an ordinary person's whole life wages," above a GIF of a man rubbing his face with an iron. During Thursday's performance, a number of drag performers sat below the presidential box in what one described as a "message of inclusivity." Before the performance, Trump attended a VIP reception with paid attendees. He told reporters that $10 million was raised for the Kennedy Center. What People Are Saying Kennedy Center Interim Director Richard Grenell, commenting on reports that some actors did not want to perform in front of President Donald Trump, said: "Any performer who isn't professional enough to perform for patrons of all backgrounds, regardless of political affiliation, won't be welcomed. In fact, we think it would be important to out those vapid and intolerant artists to ensure producers know who they shouldn't hire—and that the public knows which shows have political litmus tests to sit in the audience." Darlene Webb, a Trump supporter who was at the performance, told CNN about the jeers: "I just wanted to clap and yell over it, because at this type of performance I don't think it was good for them to do that, professionally." Cara Segur, Webb's friend, told the outlet: "Seeing some of the actors and actresses, it looked like they were singing at him, instead of just singing to the crowd. And it felt really powerful and I liked it." What Happens Next On Saturday, a military parade is due to take place in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. The day also marks Trump's 79th birthday. The "No Kings" movement has organized demonstrations against Trump across the U.S., with 1,800 events planned for Saturday.

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