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News.com.au
6 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Prosecutors call for PSG's Achraf Hakimi to face rape trial
French prosecutors on Friday called for Paris Saint-Germain star Achraf Hakimi to face trial for the alleged rape of a woman in 2023 which the Moroccan international denies. The Nanterre prosecutor's office told AFP that they had requested that the investigating judge refer the rape charge to a criminal court. "It is now up to the investigating magistrate to make a decision within the framework of his order," the prosecutor's office told AFP in a statement. Hakimi, 26, played a major role in PSG's run to their first Champions League title, the full-back scoring the opener in the 5-0 rout of Inter Milan in the final in May. Hakimi, who helped Morocco to their historic charge to the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup, was charged in March, 2023 with raping a 24-year-old woman. Hakimi allegedly paid for his accuser to travel to his home on February 25, 2023, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt while his wife and children were away on holiday. He denies the accusations. In Qatar, Hakimi was a cornerstone of the Morocco team that became the first African or Arab nation to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup.
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Sacred threads: Why fashion designers can't stop imitating Catholicism - ABC Religion & Ethics
When forty churchmen in red cassocks and sunglasses lined the Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome to flank the runway of Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Sartoria show, it felt like a cultural moment too surreal to be scripted. Beneath the looming Castel Sant'Angelo, once a papal fortress, models processed in bejewelled tunics, brocaded cassocks and mitre-inspired tabards. To call it theatrical would be an understatement — it was liturgical spectacle, reimagined for Instagram. And this wasn't just a one-off. From the Vatican-inspired looks at the 2018 Met Gala — titled Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination — to Chinese couturier Guo Pei's reliquary-themed gowns and Rihanna's unforgettable turn in a mitre, Catholic vestments have become a source-book for high fashion. But what does it mean when devotion becomes design? Can beauty, luxurious, excessive, sensuous beauty bridge the divide between the sacred and the secular? Rihanna attends the 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination' gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 7 May 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur / MG18 / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue) Is it simply appropriation? A cynical recycling of sacred signs for visual drama, divorced from belief? Or is it a homage, a kind of cultural veneration of forms that still resonate with meaning even in an increasingly secular age? Dolce & Gabbana themselves have long walked this path. Their 2022 Alta Moda line featured cherubs, crucifixes and cathedral embroidery; their Fall 2013 collection drew on Byzantine mosaics of the Madonna. In 2025, they took it even further. Alta Sartoria in Rome was not only an ode to ecclesiastical tailoring, it was Catholic iconography elevated to high art and turned into luxury commerce. Reaction, as always, was divided. Don Alberto Rocca, a Milanese priest and adviser to the designers, praised the show's sincerity: 'It's not mocking, it's about the spirit', he said. 'Otherwise, I would not be here.' Another priest, Fr Alberto Ravagnani, took to Instagram to defend the use of vestment aesthetics as a way of 'restoring lustre' to religious heritage. Yet others were less convinced. A theology student condemned the spectacle as a 'usurpation' of liturgical meaning for profit and entertainment. Catholic social media lit up with accusations of blasphemy, vulgarity and desecration. Why does this topic provoke such intensity? Perhaps because Catholic vestments are not just old clothes. They are visible theology. The stole draped across the shoulders signifies priestly authority; the chasuble speaks of charity covering all. Colours shift with the liturgical calendar: purple for penitence, white for resurrection, red for martyrdom and Holy Spirit. To translate these garments into runway fashion is to walk a fine line between symbolic power and aesthetic detachment. Priests' liturgical vestments. (Photo by John Greim / LightRocket via Getty Images) But fashion, too, traffics in signs. It plays with identity, status, reverence and rebellion. The power of a Catholic-inspired fashion piece lies in its layered ambiguity. Is it ironic? Reverent? Transgressive? Beautiful? Or simply lucrative? When Rihanna walked the Met Gala carpet in 2018 in a headgear resembling a mitre and silver-beaded robe by Maison Margiela, was she making a joke, a statement of cultural possession, or a tribute to aesthetic grandeur? What seems clear is that Catholicism offers fashion something rare in our visual culture: a unified iconography that is both immediately recognisable and endlessly rich. Unlike minimalist Protestant spaces or austere Zen aesthetics, Catholic visual tradition revels in abundance. Incense, gold thread, relics, processions. Everything is elevated, ornate, and designed to evoke awe. This is precisely what makes it so seductive to designers who traffic in fantasy. Taylor Hill attends the 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination' gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 7 May 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur / MG18 / Getty Images for The Met Museum / Vogue) But where does that leave belief? In one sense, these fashion shows are a paradox. As church attendance declines in some parts of Europe and the West, Catholic aesthetics are booming. Not in parishes, but in couture . There's something almost liturgical about the way designers like Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana choreograph their events: processions, symbolism, hierarchy, an audience watching with bated breath. If religion has retreated from the centre of public life, perhaps fashion has stepped in. Not as replacement, but as echo. Still, there's a danger in blurring the lines too far. Liturgical garments aren't just visual flourishes. They are consecrated for a purpose. To replicate them for entertainment or consumption risks stripping them of meaning. At its worst, this becomes 'devotional cosplay'. Pretending to be sacred while selling something very secular. Pope Leo XIV lays flowers at the Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary Salus Populi Romani in Rome on 25 May 2025. (Photo by Rocco Spaziani / Archivio Rocco Spaziani / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images) Yet this doesn't mean the line between fashion and faith is impenetrable. There's a long history of dialogue between the church and the arts. Think of the splendour of medieval reliquaries, the pageantry of Baroque altarpieces, or the richness of Gothic vestments woven in gold. At its best, fashion inspired by faith can open up a conversation about beauty, transcendence, memory and the persistence of the sacred in a post-religious age. Indeed, the fascination with Catholic aesthetics may say more about our time than about the church. In an era of digital overload and moral uncertainty, the forms of traditional religion still exert a pull. They offer not just visual drama but a kind of spiritual grammar — symbols of order, mystery, devotion and eternity. Fashion latches onto these not always because it understands them, but because it recognises their power. Interior of the Duomo di Milano. (Photo by gkuna / iStock / Getty Images) Perhaps that's the deeper story. The success of these religiously infused shows, despite (or because of) the outrage, reveals a hunger for meaning that art alone cannot satisfy. There's a reason why even in protest, the language used is one of sacrilege, desecration, reverence. These are not merely clothes. And perhaps that's why they matter. In the end, we don't need to decide once and for all whether this is tribute or travesty. That's too simple. The more interesting questions are: What happens when devotion becomes design? When belief becomes aesthetic? And can beauty — honest, challenging, provocative beauty — still serve as a bridge between heaven and earth? Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the UK and an Australian historian of Central Europe at the Australian Catholic University. He is general Editor of Brepols' East Central Europe series and president of the Australian Early Medieval Association.
News.com.au
12 hours ago
- News.com.au
‘No contact': Inside the alleged Beckham family ‘feud'
Brooklyn Beckham can't escape reports that he is feuding with his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, and these separate holiday photos certainly aren't helping things. The 26-year-old is the eldest son of the acclaimed soccer player and former Spice Girl (although once a Spice Girl, always a Spice Girl, right?), and it appears he has fallen out with his famous parents. Page Six reported that Brooklyn has been 'no contact' with David and Victoria since June 2025 due to a myriad of issues. The family, though, has been reportedly in on again/off again turmoil since Brooklyn married billionaire heiress Nicola Peltz-Beckham in 2022 after a whirlwind 8-month romance. The 26-year-old has been spending the summer on vacation in St Tropez with his wife and her family. The billionaire gang has been seen hanging out on an $85 million, 80-metre yacht called Project X that costs $1.2 million to charter weekly. They've been having quite the time. Brooklyn was seen parading around his hot sauce brand Cloud23 on a jetski, and Nicola found time in her busy schedule to post a nude photo on Instagram. Two days later, his parents and siblings arrived in St Tropez and boarded a separate $16 million yacht named Seven. Brooklyn and Nicola didn't join them. To increase the awkwardness, days earlier Brooklyn was strutting around on a ship double the size of the one his family boarded. Project X has a crew of 28, meanwhile, David and Victoria's yacht was half the size and typically has around seven crew members on board. The facts are that Brooklyn's just been on the same holiday as the rest of his family, but his version was just richer and fancier. He also didn't stick around to hang out with them, which seems odd. He runs a hot sauce company, but he isn't running out of annual leave or anything. So what happened? None of the Beckhams have spoken out over the alleged feud, but multiple insiders have spoken to various outlets, and the storyline is pretty similar. PageSix has reported sources claim Nicola is very 'sensitive' and that David and Victoria have always been 'loving parents'. Sources familiar with the other side of the story claim Brooklyn is leaning on his wife's family and moving away from the 'brand Beckham' focus to forge his own path. For instance, his hot sauce line doesn't feature his last name. The wedding that ended with Nicola in tears It is obvious that something has shifted, as before tying the knot in 2022, Brooklyn was close with his family. He was constantly seen hanging out with his entire family including his siblings, Romeo, 22, a model and soccer player, Cruz, 20, a musician, and Harper, 14. Back in 2018, David burst into tears when Brooklyn surprised him for his birthday and now Brooklyn appears to be avoiding the entire brood. It is hard to know when things fell apart but things did seem to become strained directly after his wedding, during which Nicola famously didn't wear one of her mother-in-law Victoria's designs. There was immediately speculation that there was some kind of feud, and Nicola has tried multiple times to squash rumours, but with little success. She did address it directly, telling Variety that she was going to wear a Victoria Beckham design, but it just didn't work out. 'I was going to do it and I really wanted to, and then a few months later, she realised that her atelier couldn't do it, so I had to choose another dress,' she explained. It is slightly hard to imagine that someone as powerful as Victoria couldn't get a dress altered in time for her daughter-in-law's wedding, but that was Nicola's explanation ENews has also claimed that tensions at their wedding were heightened because singer Marc Anthony, who was performing, called Victoria Beckham 'the most beautiful woman in the room', causing Nicola, the bride, to leave the room 'crying', though she eventually returned. Brooklyn's relationship with his family has reportedly been precarious ever since and this year things have really taken a dive. The 26-year-old didn't attend his dad's 50th birthday or wish him a happy birthday on social media, didn't shout out his dad on Father's Day, or acknowledge David being named in the King's birthday honours. He also ignored his mum and dad's 26th wedding anniversary and his mother's birthday, but did acknowledge his billionaire father-in-law Nelson Peltz's birthday. The alleged feud has also sparked a narrative online that Nicola is somehow 'controlling' Brooklyn. The heiress hasn't addressed the rumours, but liked a telling comment on her Instagram account. 'The fact people are in this comment section talking bs about someone controlling a GROWN man is absurd,' the fan wrote. 'The guy is an adult and can make his own decisions, leave them be and stop blaming women for everything.' Brooklyn's alleged 'falling out' with his brothers Meanwhile Brooklyn's relationship with his brothers appears to be fractured. Romeo, Cruz have been posting about their family holiday on Instagram, commenting on each other's photos. Not that Brooklyn would be able to see any of this because he unfollowed both his brothers on Instagram, although he does still follow his parents. The unfollow happened around the time that his younger brother, Cruz, debuted his new romance with Kim Turnbull in May. There were rumours that Brooklyn and Turnbull had previously hooked up. Cruz eventually took to Instagram and claimed Turnbull had 'never dated' his brother. This is all slightly irrelevant now, because by July their relationship was over, but even if that isn't true, there's still clearly tension between the brothers. Cruz made a public dig at Brooklyn on TikTok when he was being trolled over his music career in July. When someone asked him if he was going to 'stick with this job or become a race car driver next?' Cruz replied, 'Wrong, brother, mate'. Cruz's reply seems like a pretty clear jab at Brooklyn, who has had quite the career path, where he has dabbled in everything from photography, modelling, acting and, now, building a hot sauce empire.
