Now, President Donald Trump has ordered the loophole closed as part of new tariffs, starting with packages from China and Hong Kong. It could have the effect, probably unintended, of putting a dent in global airfreight emissions linked to the fashion industry.

Last year, 1.36 billion packages entered the United States through that loophole, which is known as the de minimis exemption and allows goods worth less than $800 to enter the country without tariffs. The largest source of shipments under the exemption was China, and most of those packages crossed the ocean by plane, according to data from Customs and Border Protection.

And that means a lot of planet-warming emissions: Flying a package across the sea is 68 times more carbon-intensive than shipping it by ocean freight, according to the Climate Action Accelerator, a nonprofit group based in Switzerland.

A $23 Billion Business

Many countries allow shipments below a certain value to cross their borders untaxed. In Europe, the threshold is 150 euros ($170). In Argentina, it’s $400. Since 2016, when Congress last increased the de minimis exemption in a bipartisan vote, the U.S. has drawn the line at $800.

These policies help simplify the customs process for small packages and prevent bottlenecks at the border. But the U.S. exemption has also opened the door wide for foreign e-commerce platforms to compete on price with domestic retailers like Amazon and Walmart.

That’s helped Shein to carve out a U.S. niche in low-cost apparel. The company gets another boost from “haul” videos on social media, in which buyers show off their purchases. And Temu, an e-commerce platform that encouraged customers to “shop like a billionaire” in a Super Bowl commercial last year, was the most-downloaded app in Apple’s U.S. app store in 2023 and 2024.

Annual de minimis shipments to the U.S. have increased nearly tenfold in the past decade or so, rising to 1.36 billion in 2024 from 140 million in 2013. According to estimates from China’s national customs office, small packages sent to the United States were worth about $23 billion last year.

President Joe Biden announced a crackdown on these shipments last fall, citing concerns about health and safety compliance, potential contraband like fentanyl, and intellectual property rights.

Trump also briefly ordered an end to de minimis exemptions in February, but reinstated the rule a few days later amid concerns about implementation. He announced the end of the exemption again in April as part of his broader tariff package.

The new rules will be phased in over the coming weeks, with the steepest levies to take effect June 1. The Trump administration has proposed fees of up to $200 per package or 120% of the package value, with the carrier choosing which option to apply, on shipments from Hong Kong and mainland China.

A Billion Packages, Plus Greenhouse Gases

Before the pandemic, airfreight was largely used for perishable goods, said Josh Archer, a senior global corporate campaigner at Stand.Earth, an environmental nonprofit group. That was in part because shipping by air, while more expensive, is faster than shipping by sea. But Amazon’s introduction of one-day shipping changed consumers’ expectations about how fast their packages should arrive, and other retailers ramped up their use of air cargo to compete.

Airfreight emissions grew by 25% between 2019 and 2023, according to Archer’s research.

In 2024, more than 1 billion packages entered the U.S. via airfreight under the de minimis exemption, or roughly eight per household. Last year, Cargo Facts Consulting estimated that Temu, Shein, Alibaba.com and TikTok were flying the equivalent of about 108 Boeing 777 cargo planes full of packages every day.

“It’s just been an absolute explosion in the sector that we don’t really have a solution for decarbonizing,” Archer said.

Neither Shein nor Temu responded to requests for comment.

What’s Next?

Trump’s abortive attempt to close the loophole back in February offered a glimpse of what might happen.

After he announced the end of the exemption, sales on Shein started dropping. Three days later, they were down 41% compared with the same day a week before, according to a Bloomberg Second Measure analysis of credit and debit card data. Temu saw similar, though smaller, declines in sales.

The change may shake up e-commerce even if sales don’t take a hit: Companies could shift to sending much bigger shipments to U.S. warehouses by ocean freight rather than mailing individual packages on demand. That could mean lower tariffs, with a potential side benefit of lower emissions, too.

Temu is already doing this, and has said about half the products ordered in the U.S. are delivered from domestic warehouses.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Claire Brown/Gilles Sabrié
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post How Trump Might Unwittingly Cut Emissions From Online Shopping appeared first on GV Wire.

“There has been an unexpected groundswell of support,” said Sarah Harrelson, the founder of Cultured, who has worked on publications her entire career, including InStyle and Women’s Wear Daily.

The first issue of Cultured, which combines the fashion and art worlds, appeared in 2012, when Harrelson was living in Miami, where she had worked for Ocean Drive magazine and started a magazine supplement for The Miami Herald.

“I think back now, and I was 38 and creatively bored,” she said. “I wanted to do something for myself and not have to heed the rules. Publishing had gotten formulaic.”

Independently produced print magazines with an emphasis on fashion are experiencing a boomlet of sorts, making waves for their striking design and high-quality production. There is Cultured but also L’Etiquette, Konfekt and Polyester, to name a few that line the racks of Casa Magazines, the West Village periodical store, and magCulture in London.

No longer seen as disposable or a relic of a dying industry, these magazines are regarded as high-end products. “It’s a luxury experience of sitting back and getting a single viewpoint coming to you that you didn’t know you wanted,” said Penny Martin, the editor-in-chief of The Gentlewoman, which could be said to have pioneered an indie print resurgence when it began in 2010.

Búzio Saraiva is the associate publisher of nine independent magazines, including Holiday and Luncheon, and the founder of Nutshell & Co., a company in Paris that works with other similar magazines.

“People behind independent magazines create material meant to last,” he said. “Someone will collect them, and then someone else will buy one at a flea market and make a moodboard out of it.”

Saraiva thinks of these magazines as vehicles for stylists, photographers, celebrities and writers to show off creativity in a way they might not be able to do in mainstream magazines. “It’s a lab,” he said. “It’s R&D for the creative industry. I see people taking pictures now that we shot 10 years ago. Not everyone is triple-checking to see if they’ve offended or please everyone.”

At first glance, independent magazines use a lot of the same celebrities that magazines owned by Hearst or Condé Nast work with. “A lot of time it’s the same cover and talents, but the interviewer or the photographer can be completely different,” said Joshua Glass, who started the food and fashion magazine Family Style in 2023. The spring 2025 issue has Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover interviewed by curator Klaus Biesenbach and photographed by Brianna Capozzi.

A major difference, Glass said, was creative independence. Like many other indies, Family Style is majority self-financed. “I’m beholden to my own moral integrity, my peers and the people I employ,” he said.

“We are in the black,” Glass added. “We’re not flying private jets or taking town cars. We are extremely lean, and we do things in ways that are modest.”

Magazines like Cultured and Family Style generally rely on ways to stay afloat that are quite similar to those of mainstream print publications. They have advertisers who are happy to pay a cheaper rate for a smaller magazine with a younger audience.

Here, a field guide to 10 of the new crop of fashion-leaning print magazines.

Notes on Beauty

For the first issue, spring 2025, Inez and Vinoodh photographed Julianne Moore for the cover with red rose petals stuffed in her mouth. There are stories on ancient wellness rituals and an essay about a writer deciding to forgo cosmetic treatments.

AFM

The A is for “A,” the “M” is for “Magazine,” and the “F” stands for something unprintable. Issue 001, with the theme “pursuits of happiness,” came out last fall, produced by the dating app Feeld, which proudly declared that more than half of its contributors were on the app. Feeld is one of a number of companies, including Mubi, the movie platform, and Metrograph, the movie theater, producing print spinoffs for their companies.

Heroine

What if a fashion magazine was almost entirely photos of fashion? The fall 2024 issue of Heroine has short interviews with actors Finn Bennett and Noah Jupe, but the highlight is model Alice McGrath, photographed by Fabien Kruszelnicki and wearing a great deal of Celine.

Cultured

The most recent issue has several covers, including one with Cristin Milioti holding a lit cigarette, photographed by Chris Colls. The theme is art and film, and it has interviews with director Luca Guadagnino, Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres and painter Torkwase Dyson.

Konfekt

Konfekt bills itself as “the magazine for sharp dressing, drinking, dining, travel and design.” It’s based in Zurich and often has a middle-European bent. Issue 17 includes profiles of a chef in Georgia (the country) and a calligrapher in Paris, and an interview with Serbian-born fashion designer Dusan Paunovic.

L’Etiquette

Based in Paris, L’Etiquette puts an emphasis on personal style and the art of getting dressed. There are separate editions for men and women, and they’re perennially sold out on newsstands. Online, panels of fashion world denizens choose their favorite It bags, which turn out to be delightfully quirky and under the radar: an L.L. Bean suede tote, say, or a tiny Balenciaga shaped like a croissant.

Polyester

Polyester has a playful energy and a pop visual aesthetic reminiscent of 1990s magazines. Heroes to a certain kind of fashionable feminist are covered, like the winter 2024/2025 cover star Sofia Coppola or Chelsea Fairless and Lauren Garroni, the hosts of the “Every Outfit” podcast.

Patta

The namesake magazine of an Amsterdam shop, Patta has gained a cult following for its coverage of music and streetwear. The magazine takes a global view of culture with an emphasis on African-European connections. Its spring-summer issue has an interview with Congolese-born director Baloji and an article on the rising EDM scene in Lagos.

Holiday

Every edition of the midcentury magazine Holiday was dedicated to a different city. Writers included Truman Capote and Joan Didion. Fast-forward to spring 2014, when Holiday was brought back by the design studio Atelier Franck Durand. It still picks a city for each issue, the fall-winter one being New York. There is a vintage flavor in a reprint of the Joan Didion essay “Goodbye to All That,” but it also has Tommy Dorfman and Marc Jacobs in conversation.

Unconditional

“Made by Women, for Women,” Unconditional says, and the female gaze is apparent. Articles include a piece on lymphatic drainage practitioners in Paris and a profile of designer Rachel Scott of the fashion line Diotima.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Marisa Meltzer/Sara Naomi Lewkowicz
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post The Revenge of the Niche Fashion Magazine appeared first on GV Wire.

Prada said the addition of Versace’s “highly recognizable aesthetic … constitutes a strongly complementary addition” to its portfolio, which includes the Prada and Miu Miu fashion brands. It said Milan-based Versace offered “significant untapped growth potential.’’

The final value of the deal will be adjusted at closing, expected in the second half of the year. It will be funded by 1.5 billion euros in new debt and has been approved by the Prada and Capri Holdings board of directors.

“Versace will maintain its creative DNA and cultural authenticity, while benefitting from the full strength of the Group’s considerable consolidated platform, including industrial capabilities, retail execution and operational expertise,’’ Prada said in a statement.

Versace, founded in 1978 by the late Gianni Versace, has been owned since 2018 by Capri Holdings, which includes Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo.

Capri Holdings paid $2 billion for Versace, but had been struggling in the recent era of “quiet luxury’’ to position the stalwart of Italian fashion with its sexy silhouettes and loud patterns.

Last month, Capri Holdings named Dario Vitale as creative director to replace Donatella Versace, who assumed the role after her brother’s 1997 murder. Vitale came from Miu Miu, the stunningly successful youth-driven brand in the Prada Group.

Versace was given the new role of chief brand ambassador in the shakeup, which was widely viewed as setting the scene for the long-rumored Prada sale. Miuccia Prada acknowledged the group’s interest on the sidelines of Milan Fashion Week in February.

The post Prada Agrees to Buy Rival Fashion House Versace in a Deal Valued at $1.4 Billion appeared first on GV Wire.

The firefighter jacket, a variation on the three- or four-pocket chore coat that features weighty metal clasps in place of buttons, has emerged as a curious, clangy spring jacket trend.

Adrien Brody, pre-Oscar win, wore a firefighter jacket in British GQ. Supreme, the streetwear agenda-setters, offers one in glossy cowhide for close to $1,000. Instagram-marketed brands like Ronning in Britain target early adopters with waist-length clasp jackets for about one third of that price. Vintage dealers, reporting increased interest, offer them for even less.

When worn, firefighter jackets are part fidget toy, part ASMR doodad. Those metal clasps lock together with a pleasing click, like a seatbelt on a roller coaster. As the owner of a vintage version from the nearly forgotten Italian label Energie (purchased for around $175 at 194 Local, a New York vintage shop), I can tell you that those closures are pleasing to idly toggle as you, say, contemplate how to write a spring jacket story.

(As is perhaps obvious, it’s those shiny clasps that lend the coat its name. Authentic firefighter’s jackets feature metal clips that are easier to fasten than buttons or zippers while wearing gloves.)

Firefighter Coats Have Been Around

Still, firefighter coats have been around well before the term ASMR was in use. A 1979 article in the St. Joseph Gazette in Missouri includes a photo of a man in a $150 metal-clasped “fireman’s jacket” from the defunct men’s label Hunter Haig. “Firemen take risks,” the accompanying article read. “That’s why they need a coat that can take the roughest treatment in the worst weather.”

(Vintage dealers today will tell you to never buy a genuine used firefighter’s jacket, which may have, if not carcinogens soaked into it, then at least a smoky odor.)

Through the 1990s, jackets with gleaming clasps were common at mainstream-leaning labels: Liz Claiborne, Isaac Mizrahi and Structure, all of which are, if not shuttered, then shells of their former selves. It was Ralph Lauren, though, who was most closely associated with the style. Liam Gallagher, the Oasis frontman, was wearing a color-blocked version from the brand back in 1994. Photos of him in the blue-and-white coat still cycle around the internet.

“Ralph definitely made them way more wearable,” said Matt Roberge, a vintage seller in Vancouver, British Columbia, who sells a $350 denim firefighter’s jacket with a corduroy collar and a $250 washed-out-to-near-pale-blue model, both from Polo, both decades old.

“I found a fireman’s jacket in a vintage store a few years ago, and I wanted to update it,” said Sigurd Bank, the founder of Mfpen, the Scandinavian label that produced the tri-clasp jacket Brody wore in British GQ. Mfpen’s version (now entirely sold out on its site) came in a washed denim fabric, with corduroy panels on the back. For the clasps, Bank used an Italian manufacturer who made closures for authentic firefighter outfits.

The Embrace of Barn Coats Is Upon Us

If the firefighter’s jacket is becoming popular, it’s doing so in the wake of a broader trend: the embrace of barn coats. Barbour and J. Crew have collaborated on a barn jacket, now nearly sold out. The GQs and Vogues of the world are hailing them as the coat of the moment. L.L. Bean is importing a heretofore only-in-Japan lightweight version of its 100-year-old field coat design. And designer labels like the Row and Auralee have brought the barn to the boutique with four-figure upsells.

“I had reached barn coat fatigue,” said Jalil Johnson, the writer of fashion newsletter Consider Yourself Cultured in New York.

Johnson, instead, went searching not for a barn jacket clone, but a cousin. He took to duffle coats, the very Anglo, rope-closed wool overcoats, but he did acknowledge that firefighter jackets were another contender in the barn-jacket-but-just-off-enough contest.

“It is a continuation of all these jackets we’ve seen, but it’s more interesting because of the hardware,” Johnson said.

And that, in the hairsplitting manner of micro-trends, makes it worthy to shoppers. “It goes no deeper than ‘I like these clasps,’” said Kiyana Salkeld, a product designer in New York who owns a pair of firefighter coats from Brut, a French label riffing on vintage workwear.

They are, she said, similar enough to the J. Crew barn coat she’d worn for 15 years to slot effortlessly into how she already dressed. The clasps were sturdy and reassuring but not so heavy as to distract.

Said Salkeld, “It’s just nice to have a slightly different version of the same thing that you had previously.”

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jacob Gallagher/Mfpen
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post These Jackets Are Fire appeared first on GV Wire.

On Tuesday, a listing surfaced on eBay purportedly offering Melania Trump’s wedding dress for sale. You know, the one designed by John Galliano for Dior couture, reportedly costing more than $100,000, worn by the first lady at her Mar-a-Lago wedding to Donald Trump and featured on her only Vogue cover, in February 2005.

The dress, priced at $45,000 by a woman who identifies herself as Svjabc1 and is in Massapequa, New York, is described as being “made of duchesse satin” with “a figure-hugging silhouette, a 90-meter voluminous skirt and embroidered with 1,500 Swarovski diamonds.” According to the listing, the seller bought the dress from Melania Trump for her own wedding in 2010 for $70,000. It does not come with any proof of authenticity, other than 21 photos highlighting its billowing train and diamanté embroidery, which are juxtaposed against the famous Vogue cover, presumably to show the similarity.

Dress Weighed 60 Pounds and Took 550 Hours to Complete

The magazine story, which described the soon-to-be Mrs. Trump’s search for her gown during the couture shows, also contained many details about the dress that made news at the time and have resurfaced with the sale, including the fact that it weighed 60 pounds and took 550 hours to complete.

Almost immediately the news was embraced by numerous outlets, proclaiming, “You Can Buy Melania Trump’s Wedding Dress” (The Spectator) and “How Much Would You Pay for Melania Trump’s Wedding Dress?” (The Cut). As of Wednesday morning, the listing was being “watched” by 224 people.

Leaving aside the fact that the seller acknowledges on the listing that she made “a few changes” to the gown — more satin, more embroidery and straps — which means it no longer looks identical to Melania Trump’s gown, there’s another problem. Designer Hervé Pierre, the first lady’s longtime stylist (he made her inauguration gowns in 2017 and 2025), said of her wedding dress, “I stored the gown myself in Palm Beach.”

And then added, “Two years ago.”

They Need to See the Dress in Person to Authenticate

Neither the first lady’s office nor the seller responded to multiple requests for comment. Dior likewise declined to comment on the dress, noting that it was a policy not to discuss interactions with couture clients. A spokesperson pointed out, however, that a couture gown always comes with a label and a number. To authenticate it, he said, they would need to see the dress in person.

Pierre said that the wedding dress he stored in Florida for the first lady had a label on the side as well as a ribbon with a reference number. In the multiple close-ups of the gown for sale on eBay, none shows a label.

Alexis Hoopes, the vice president for fashion at eBay, said the company was founded on trust and referred to its widespread Authenticity Guarantee policy, which covers watches, handbags, jewelry, streetwear, sneakers and trading cards, though she acknowledged that the guarantee program did not extend to “the item in question.”

The listing first came to attention through Liana Satenstein’s Substack, Neverworns. Satenstein said she became aware of it through a friend, Patricia Torvalds, who was looking for a vintage wedding dress and had been corresponding with the seller. According to Torvalds, the seller, who has been on eBay since November 2021, has moved 119 items and has a positive feedback rating of 98.8%, said she had sourced the dress through another friend, who claimed to know Melania Trump.

Seller Said Label Taken Out

According to eBay messages between the two women that were seen by The New York Times, the seller said the label was taken out when the dress was altered by the seamstress and never replaced. (She also has a number of other items listed on eBay, including a diamond wedding band made as a replica of the one Trump wore on her wedding day.) She said that she was getting a lot of messages from people curious about the gown and its origins. Nevertheless, the listing is still up.

Where the dress may actually have come from is unclear. Often, when a well-known figure gets married in a public way and the gown is featured in a magazine like Vogue, it will be copied by any number of bridal designers and offered for sale. The original dress was inspired by a look from Galliano’s “Empress Sissi” Dior couture collection in February 2004, so it is possible that a sample was sold.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Vanessa Friedman
c. 2025 The New York Times Company

The post The Mystery of Melania Trump’s Wedding Dress and an eBay Sale appeared first on GV Wire.

The hat designed by Eric Javits shielded the first lady’s eyes as her husband was sworn in Monday for the second time. Javits said dressing the first lady has been one of the greatest honors of his career.

“My art background gave me an edge in bringing harmony and balance to the face by creating hat shapes that would flatter and enhance every kind of face,” he said in a statement. “In this specific case that was not difficult to do, in that Mrs. Trump is blessed with great bone structure, beauty and a wonderful sense of style.”

Trump Jokes About the Hat

Trump, speaking in Emancipation Hall after the swearing-in ceremony, joked about his wife’s hat nearly blowing away. The first lady had held onto her hat as a military helicopter taking off with Biden generated wind.

“She almost blew away,” Trump said with a laugh. “She was being elevated off the ground.”

In a departure from 2017’s sky blue cashmere dress and gloves by Ralph Lauren, this time, Melania Trump paired a muted navy silk wool coat with a navy skirt and an ivory silk crepe blouse underneath, all by independent American designer Adam Lippes.

“The tradition of the presidential inauguration embodies the beauty of American democracy and today we had the honor to dress our first lady, Mrs. Melania Trump,” Lippes said in a statement. “Mrs. Trump’s outfit was created by some of America’s finest craftsmen and I take great pride in showing such work to the world.”

Her first inauguration ensemble drew comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy’s style. Kennedy also famously wore a pillbox hat for her husband’s inauguration in 1961. But dressing the first lady became a point of political contention in 2017, with some designers saying they would not dress the incoming first lady — typically a coveted opportunity. Some social media users pushed to boycott Ralph Lauren at the time.

Fast forward to 2025, and Ralph Lauren was the designer of choice for departing first lady Jill Biden, who chose the designer for her parting look. She opted for a monochromatic purple, from her coat to her shoes and gloves, to mark the transition of power.

Ralph Lauren did not return a request for comment.

The post What Melania Trump Wore to the Inauguration — Including the Hat appeared first on GV Wire.

■The jockstrap celebrates its 150th birthday, having evolved from a practical athletic accessory to a fashion statement.

■Invented in 1874 by C.F. Bennett, the jockstrap was initially designed to protect bicycle messengers in Boston.

■Bike Athletic, the company behind the jockstrap, has sold over 350 million jockstraps worldwide.

NEW YORK — Happy 150th birthday, dear jockstrap. How far you’ve come from your modest but mighty days of protecting the precious parts of bicycle messengers as they navigated the bumpy cobblestones of Boston.

Invented for that purpose in 1874 by C.F. Bennett, who worked for a company now known as Bike Athletic, the strappy little staple of yore has become a sex symbol of sorts with a reach well beyond the athletic world.

The Jockstrap’s Evolution

Fashion designers have fancied them up for catwalks and store shelves. Kristen Stewart recently pulled on a Bike jockstrap for the cover of Rolling Stone, earning barbs from some conservatives. Some athletes, both recreational and professional, still reach for one. And the jockstrap owes a debt to the gay men who have embraced it since the 1950s, when a hyper-masculine aesthetic in gay fashion was in vogue.

“They’re very coquettish. They reveal, they conceal. It’s like a push-up bra,” said 53-year-old Andrew Joseph in New York.

While many athletes and others with a need to keep things safe and secure have traded out jockstraps for compression shorts and other teched-up alternatives, Joseph draws from his extensive collection to don one every day.

Sean McDougle, 55, a queer nudist-naturist in upstate New York, owns about 40 jockstraps.

“There’s a certain feeling of freedom,” he said. “I remember as a child the first time I wore one and thought, what is this thing? They give you this thing, you know? But the look and feel is just somehow really alluring.”

The Jockstrap Swagger

Jockstraps are all things to the people who love them. For some, they’re just utilitarian, part of the gear for sports and exercise. But for others, they’re comfy little secrets under clothes. They’re cheeky, two ways, with their butt-exposing leg straps and wide waistbands and pouches peeping out from shorts and trousers. And they’re worn with or without leather gear at one of the world’s numerous bars that host jockstrap nights.

To date, Bike Athletic has sold more than 350 million jockstraps worldwide. Tom Ford, Versace, Calvin Klein, Thom Browne, Emporio Armani, Tommy Hilfiger and Savage x Fenty have put out jockstraps.

Browne included them on the runway for his spring/summer 2023 menswear collection. So did the French label Egonlab. John Galliano showed fur coats and jocks in 2004. Four years later, Miuccia Prada had black, red and blue jockstraps peek out over waistbands of her menswear collection. Niche sellers are all over the internet and in queer boutiques.

“It’s evolved almost into kind of male lingerie at this point,” said Alex Angelchik, who bought Bike Athletic with other investors in 2019. “From the ’70s through today, it became kind of a cult favorite within the gay community and expanded to the metrosexual urban community.”

Today, about 70% of Bike’s customers are gay men, he said. The company’s top seller is a jockstrap that’s been around since the beginning, the No. 10. It’s the one Stewart wore in the March issue of Rolling Stone. Kim Kardashian got there first, showing off a jockstrap in the September 2022, Americana-themed issue of Interview magazine.

Overall, Angelchik said he sells several million dollars worth of jockstraps a year, primarily in boutiques and Urban Outfitters stores.

A Short History

Like so much in fashion, the jockstrap had obvious antecedents (the medieval codpiece among them), said Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

“Once it came in, it had the potential to become an eroticized piece of male underwear, which was unusual because it was really women’s underwear, predominantly, that became eroticized because women were thought of as, you know, THE sex and things were seen from the sort of heterosexual male viewpoint,” she said.

“But this period, in the late 19th century when the jockstrap was supposedly invented, was right when women’s lingerie was becoming much more elaborate,” Steele added.

Working out of Chicago, inventor Bennett set out to solve a problem in Boston for its so-called “bicycle jockeys” when they rode on the city’s uneven streets. In that day, “loose britches” were the norm, offering little in the way of support.

From there, the lowly jockstrap found massive success as the men’s underwear industry grew.

The slip-in cup came later, as the little piece of fabric and elastic moved into the sports world, around the 1920s. Now, some compression shorts also can accommodate a cup, and help with chafing.

“I guess the biggest change is when I started playing, we had steel cups. In fact, I still have a couple of those around the house and my grandkids didn’t know what they were. Now they have made things a lot more comfortable for the players,” said baseball’s Bruce Bochy, the Texas Rangers manager who guided his team to a World Series championship last year.

Nostalgia is in play, Angelchik said.

“When I first bought the brand, I talked to a lot of my cousins and friends, guys that were in their 50s, 60s, some of them in their 70s. I was shocked how many of these guys kept their jockstraps from high school and college, and still had them in a drawer or somewhere in a box,” he said.

The variations of jockstraps today are endless, said Timoteo Ocampo, a Los Angeles-based designer who sells them online and in boutiques around the globe. His company, Timoteo, puts out men’s underwear, swimwear and other clothing.

“There’s detachable fronts, zipper fronts, colors,” he said. “Some companies are doing diamond chains on their jockstraps. … People get very creative. It’s more personal and showing who they are and being proud of that.”

A Debt to Gay Men

Mark Mackillop, an actor-singer-dancer in New York, is a jockstrap enthusiast. In 10 years, he has raised nearly $400,000 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, a nonprofit serving those in need in the theater industry around the U.S.

He’s done that primarily through the auctioning of underwear, jockstraps included, for the organization’s annual Broadway Bares. Broadway Bares is a burlesque-esque show that features, you guessed it, jockstraps, along with other gear and lots of peekaboo nudity. Mackillop, who is gay and the show’s top fundraiser, also performs in it, wearing a jockstrap.

“Things like Kristen Stewart wearing a jockstrap are making them more mainstream,” he said. “But I know gay men are the reason that there is a jockstrap industry in the underwear world today.”

Bike Athletic is the largest sponsor of the Atlanta Bucks, a rugby team that plays under the International Gay Rugby umbrella. Another sponsor is the Eagle bar in Atlanta, where there are frequent jock events.

“There’s definitely an integral history between Bike and the gay community,” said the team’s president, Jonathan Standish, who’s also a player. Do he and his teammates prefer jockstraps?

“A lot of people, me included, will do both. We wear jockstraps as a way to have support without having too much fabric, and put compression shorts over to take care of chafing. I have thick thighs,” he laughed.

The post Gird Your Loins! Jockstraps Are Still Holding Up After 150 Years appeared first on GV Wire.

What started off as a passion project to repurpose and reuse old clothing turned into the start of a small growing Central Valley business for Xitlaly Ocampo.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and with a calling to live more sustainably, Ocampo began to teach herself how to mend, restitch, and upcycle her own old and thrifted clothing.

‘Restitched’ is now Ocampo’s small, part-time business in which she flips thrifted clothing into popular clothing trends and iconic dress pieces.

However, it’s not just her creative alterations that have made her business stand out. After finishing her full-time job, Ocampo spends hours making Instagram reels, and TikTok videos promoting her work with iconic one-of-a-kind costumes and beautiful gowns.

“I offer a variety of handmade items,” said Ocampo, who lives in Visalia. “I’m starting to become known without trying as the girl that makes the purple Selena costume. That one is very popular.”

Pandemic Is Catalyst for Starting a Business

Prior to the pandemic, Ocampo was gifted an old second-hand sewing machine from her best friend, but after attempting to create one simple design, she failed miserably and decided to let it go.

However, in the early months when the pandemic hit, Ocampo found herself with a lot of time on her hands and began teaching herself the basics by viewing YouTube videos and sewing tutorials online.

At first, Ocampo started off small by making face masks — a much-needed item at the time,

But as she began to make one piece after another, she became inspired to create items out of her comfort zone much like the infamous maroon one-piece set that the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla wore to her last concert before being murdered.

Here’s to a new generation keeping her legacy alive ?? #selenaforever
Made by yours truly ??‍ pic.twitter.com/pnA9aKiMgk

— Xitlaly Ocampo (@XitlalyOcampo) August 12, 2020

“I have another Selena costume that I’m doing, where it’s like the little black bolero and then it has a cow print sleeves and then the skirt,” said Ocampo. “So that one, obviously, is a super simple upcycle.”

Watch: ‘Restiched’ Offers Sustainable Clothing Options

Teddy Bears in Quinceañera Dresses Are a Hit With Gen Z Crowd

Ocampo has created several iconic dress pieces following the Selena costume like the infamous Billy Jean jacket by Michael Jackson and tons of costume-friendly outfits for kids including Quinceañera dresses for teddy bears.

@restitchedbyxo First time doing this type of project & I loved that I got to reuse dresses that people wouldn’t normally thrift because of the stains. ?? #upcycled #quinceañera #quince #quinceañeradresses #thrift #latinamade #latinabusiness ♬ Quinceañera – Banda Machos

In Mexican culture, when girls turn 15, they are often thrown an elaborate Quinceañera celebration that involves a formal ceremonial dance. In some instances, young women are gifted a toy such as a doll or a teddy bear donning a Quinceañera dress that is supposed to mean that will be their last childhood gift.

It can also symbolize saying goodbye to their youth and if they have younger siblings or cousins, the toy is often passed down to them during the ceremony.

Ocampo says the teddy bear Quinceañera dresses have been some of her most requested items, especially among the younger generation.

Restitched Offers Something For Everyone

While Ocampo is super proud of the attention she is receiving for her upcycled costumes, she also focuses on services to those interested in reusing and repurposing their old clothing.

“I try to offer a lot of alterations just because it’s the heart of my business and the reason why I started it,” said Ocampo. “I wanted people to look at sustainability as something that not only rich or elite people have access to, like in reality, the people that are the most sustainable are the ones that have so little because they reuse and get so much use out of their things.”

Restitched doesn’t have a website, but Ocampo offers an online form that interested customers can fill out for requested services and to receive a quote.

“I don’t have a specific website yet just because I am small and I’m still kind of trying to wrap my head around everything and how I want it to be laid out and how I want the customer experience to be,” said Ocampo. “Because I also think that’s a really big part in people actually saying, OK, yes, I want you to do it.”

Ocampo’s Journey Into Sustainability

Ocampo says she was just as clueless as others about the impacts of plastic on the environment.

It was only after she started working for a marketing agency in Fresno as a social media coordinator for the City of Fresno’s Department of Waste that she began to realize how much waste cannot be recycled.

“So when I left the agency, I just felt like such a big passion for that and I really just started reshaping my mentality,” said Ocampo. “It started slowly with like reusable produce bags. So instead of going to the supermarket and getting the plastic bags that everyone will put their fruit and their veggies in, you can use actual cloth ones.”

Ocampo began to reuse her produce bags over and over again and then realized that she didn’t have to stop at produce bags, she could reuse anything she used.

She took baby steps in learning about the different types of plastics that can be placed in the recycling bin and what goes in the trash can, then she began switching to less harmful cleaning products.

Now, Ocampo only uses natural cleaning ingredients like vinegar, water, alcohol, essential oils, and baking soda.

“So that really just inspired me to continue to really look at what I can do to create my home,” said Ocampo. “To kind of live the example that I want to be set for my kids and future generations.”

Fast Fashion Harms Garment Workers

Now that Ocampo is busy creating many of her handmade pieces, it’s helped her have a deeper appreciation for all clothing and custom items.

“I was like the worst fast fashion buyer,” said Ocampo. “I would love going to Marshalls and I would love going to Forever 21, all of those places because it is cheap and it’s so readily available.”

However, it wasn’t long after becoming deeply invested in the environment that through her research Ocampo figured out how much fast fashion hurts the environment and many of the garment workers who make the clothing.

“I started learning about fast fashion and how terrible it is for the planet and for the actual garment workers,  the people that make it,” said Ocampo. A lot of us, when we go buy an item, we don’t think it’s handmade. Every piece of item we wear, even jewelry is made by someone. It’s not made by a factory.”

According to the UN Environment Programme, the fashion industry is the second-biggest consumer of water and is responsible for 8-10% of global carbon emissions – that’s more than what international flights and maritime shipping emit altogether.

While Business Insider, reports that fashion production comprises 10% of total global carbon emissions, even the simple action of washing clothes releases up 500,000 tons of microfibres into the ocean each year, the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.

In addition, many garment workers are severely underpaid and at least 80% of them worldwide are women of color reports The Guardian.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 62, also known as the Garment Worker Protection Act, making California the first state to require hourly minimum wage for garment workers.

“A lot of the times they’re women of color, too, which obviously I identify with and I was like this isn’t what I want my money to support which is why I slowly started transitioning into thrifting and upcycling,” Ocampo said.

Business Information

Customers wanting alterations or other Restitched services can fill out a request form here.

You can also find Restitched on Instagram and Tik Tok.

The post Want Selena’s Purple Outfit? ‘Restitched’ Has It and Sustainable Clothing Options appeared first on GV Wire.

KMonet wants to put Fresno fashion on the map.

As the owner of Styles by KMonet, a local online boutique, she has collaborated with 10 other local brands and designers on a show Sunday (Jan. 9) at Full Circle Brewing Company.

At least 30 models from the Fresno area will take to the runway. Besides the runway show, the event features local R&B, soul, and hip hop performer Brian Cade.

The goal: Provide an opportunity for fashion entrepreneurs to network with other local, designers, creators, and artists.

“That’s why I named it the ‘No’ Fashion show because it’s everyone that’s in the fashion industry in Fresno and were available to volunteer their time,” said KMonet.

Fresno’s Fashion Potential

KMonet grew up in Fresno fascinated with clothing. As a little girl, she would cut tops and jeans out of magazines to create unique stylings.

After moving to the Bay Area for college, KMonet studied business and then dabbled in retail management and visual merchandising.

Now that she is back in Fresno, KMonet says she has big plans to bring fashion to the city where she grew up starting with hosting her first fashion show.

“When we think of Fresno, the models here, they don’t get opportunities like this and they’re just as excited as the brands are,” said KMonet. “I was researching the last time a fashion show was here in town, and it was only one brand and they didn’t even give the accessibility for other brands to be a part of it.”

COVID Can’t Stop Fashion

“I have always thought about the what-ifs, especially in the world we’re living in right now,” said KMonet about staging the event during the pandemic. “You just never know. So I make sure to have backups. We have over like 15 backup models that will be there just in case.”

KMonet says the local brands have met on Zoom weekly to plan out the event, setting COVID protocols, including requiring masks and spacing out seats.

Participating Local Fashion Brands

Local fashions brands Celfie Ready, King Kulture Clothing, House of Morri, DED, Dos Fashions, Haus of Essentials, NLC Glam Studio, and Human First will show their clothing.

House of Francisco will close out the show with ballroom gowns.

More Information

The show is 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Full Circle Brewing Company, 712 Fulton St.

The Styles by KMonet website is here.

The post Fresno’s Passion for Fashion Goes on Display at Downtown Event appeared first on GV Wire.