Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 9, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba C2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMTUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2024 Country star Wallen jailed after chair thrown off roof MORGAN Wallen was booked into jail early Monday morning for allegedly hurling a chair from the sixth-floor roof of a downtown Nashville bar and concert venue — the latest in a string of public incidents for the red-hot country music star. Wallen faces three felony counts of reckless endangerment, as well as a disorderly conduct charge, accord- ing to Nashville police, who posted a grinning mug shot of the 30-year-old chart-topper on X (formerly Twitter). The chair crashed onto the Broadway strip, not far from two police officers. Officers reviewed video showing Wallen “lunging and throwing an object over the roof” of Chief’s bar, a new honkytonk in Nashville’s enter- tainment district, according to an arrest report obtained by WTVF. He was seen laughing after the incident, according to witnesses described in the report. Wallen “is co-operating fully with authorities,” his attorney Worrick Robinson said in a brief statement to the news station. Chief’s, which just opened last week, is a venture from Wallen’s friend and fellow country superstar Eric Church. (It’s a few blocks from where Wallen has plans to open his own downtown Nashville bar later this year.) Church and Wallen recently went into business together when they teamed up to buy the Field & Stream retail brand and relaunch the print magazine. Wallen has exploded into main- stream popularity over the last few years, with 2023’s One Thing at a Time and 2021’s Dangerous topping Bill- board charts and setting records. But his rise has been accompanied by a series of public incidents. He was arrested at a different Nashville bar for disorderly conduct in 2020. Wallen issued a public apology afterward, then released a photo of himself smiling next to the bar’s own- er, Kid Rock. Wallen apologized again after social media videos showed him partying without a mask in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, an incident that briefly disrupted his plans to per- form on Saturday Night Live. His career looked to be in serious jeopardy for a time in early 2021, after TMZ published footage of Wallen calling a friend the N-word outside his home. Wallen’s record label swiftly suspended him, he was banned from awards shows, and hundreds of radio stations dropped his music. But the singer’s career recovered after he issued a statement to “sin- cerely apologize for using the word” and promised to “do better.” When the Washington Post covered the launch of Wallen’s headlining tour a year after the scandal, many fans were eager to forgive him, if they thought he needed forgiveness at all. It wasn’t immediately clear what penalties Wallen could face after Monday’s arrest. He was released after posting a US$15,250 bond, according to WTVF. The station noted that his next court appearance is set for May 3, the same day he is scheduled to play at Nashville’s stadium. — The Washington Post AVI SELK EVAN AGOSTINI / INVISION FILES Morgan Wallen is due in court May 3, the same day he’s scheduled to perform in Nashville. Once a pariah of fashion, the one-time status symbol is making a comeback T HE premise at the heart of fashion is that something that looked hideously out of date just a moment ago is suddenly the only thing that looks correct. Still, a few ideas seem destined never to make their return: fashion shows that appropriate garments from other cultures, heroin chic, the bizarre fad in the 1910s for the hobble skirt that made it nearly impossible for the wearer to walk. You would think that fur might be included on that list, given that it has inspired multiple protests on the run- way from organizations such as PETA, even leading anti-fur activists to throw a tofu pie at Vogue editor Anna Win- tour for sporting it. Yet the controversial material seems to be making a comeback. It may no longer be the faux pas it recently was — or, shall we say, fur pas. Several years after Gucci banned the use of animal fur on its runways — and nearly three years after its parent company, Kering, did the same for all of its brands, including Saint Laurent and Balenciaga — the status symbol appears to be having a revival. Michael Kors, Prada, Simone Rocha, Miu Miu and Saint Laurent, to name a few, all included fur or a fur-like mate- rial in their latest collections. Some designers have found work- arounds that give a fur look without the use of traditional animal fur. At Prada, patches on cocktail dresses that appeared to be caramel mink or fox were in fact shearling, which is con- sidered more ethical because it’s a by- product of the meat industry. Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu collection also includ- ed faux fur in the form of chubby coats that referenced the mid-century style of elegant Milanese women, which is celebrated by Instagram accounts like @sciuraglam. Mrs. Prada’s furs struck right at the tension between shoppers’ desires and designers’ ability to deliver on them. When asked backstage whether the Miu Miu fur was real, she grinned. “Noooo!” she said, laughing. “Shear- ling, shearling, shearling!” But it looked like “the old family fur coat,” said a reporter. “Yes — that was the intention.” Saint Laurent, whose creative direc- tor, Anthony Vaccarello, has designed without fur since Kering announced the ban in September 2021, looked to “a collection of Mr. Saint Laurent’s, but I didn’t want to do in fur, because we don’t do fur anymore,” he said backstage. Instead, he used feathers gathered together to create a puffy, fluffy jacket. Demna, whose label, Balenciaga, is also under the Kering umbrella, has gotten especially creative in his approach to creating fur-like looks and textures, using silk and feathers, and even hand-painting linen to look like fur. Why fur now? It is possible that, as shoppers con- tinue to be drawn to classics deemed “quiet luxury,” they see fur as an en- during symbol, like an Hermès hand- bag or scarf, a tweed jacket or a pair of straight-leg jeans. A vintage fur is of- ten more affordable than its new faux counterparts: A Gucci faux fur coat is selling on Farfetch for US$5,100, while the RealReal has a number of second- hand furs for about one-tenth of that price. And with a vintage fur, there is less concern about the welfare of the animal, because it is long dead. More immediately, designers are realizing that, although faux fur may solve the problem of animal cruelty, it comes with its own issues. Jane Fran- cis, an assistant professor of fashion at the Parsons School of Design who describes herself as an advocate for sustainability, said that “imitation or faux fur is problematic in a different way. It’s non-biodegradable. It’s fun- damentally made from plastic.” Some designers, such as Stella McCartney, are investing in research for plant- based faux furs, “but we are not at that stage yet,” Francis said, so some de- signers see real fur as the more ethical alternative. Yves Salomon, the Paris-based furri- er who has made fur coats for decades and supplies several fashion houses with furs, said in a recent interview that our recurring attraction to fur “is very simple: It’s beautiful. When you are wearing a fur coat, you feel differ- ent. And you have an emotion,” he said. “A fur coat, first of all, is glamorous. It makes men and women more open, more beautiful somehow.” He com- pares the emotional reaction with that inspired by jewelry. Francis echoed that sentiment: “It’s a really complex and difficult conversa- tion” to discuss fur in fashion, she said. “Fashion brands are always striving for something beautiful, and seductive, and desirable. And natural fur abso- lutely has that, because it comes from an animal, and animals are fundamen- tally beautiful.” A FTER the “low point” of several fashion brands banning fur three or so years ago, Salomonbegan seeing more women on the streets of Paris in the beginning of 2023 wearing “extreme fur: coats to the knee, coats to the feet, foxes, huge fur coats,” he said. “And that was not really coming from us, honestly. That was coming from the young people with a lot of TikTok (followers).” The “mob wife” esthetic, celebrating the gleeful excess of mafia-adjacent style on TikTok, embraced furs as a touchstone of its look. And on TV, the much-discussed debut of Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. the Swans in January revived an interest in mid-century styles like full skirts and cocktail hats — garments that are of- ten accompanied by fur coats or stoles. Salomon said that many younger consumers see real fur as the more sustainable alternative to faux fur, which is made of plastic and oil. “It is not a secret that fur is the most sus- tainable product of the whole fashion industry,” he said. “Because you can recycle fur, right? You can recut an old coat, you can buy a (new) coat and in five years, you can remake it. You can have a fur for life.” He also said that brands such as Louis Vuitton and Dior — which are part of LVMH, which has not instituted any kind of rules around fur — have seen a lot of success with the material, especially in menswear. Salomon has spent the past several decades developing practices to ensure that his furs are sourced ethically. Every coat has a number that allows Salomon and the purchaser to trace the fur to the farm from which it came, some of which are run by Indigenous communities in Canada, but most of which are in Europe and independently audited, “so we can be sure the animal welfare is respected.” What that means, Salomon says, is “the animal is living in a proper space. It means that there’s no injuries, no ill- ness, and that the food is correct, and the animal doesn’t suffer.” Salomon said that this is essential to the quality of his coats: “The condition of the fur is directly connected with the way the animal is treated.” He pointed to the recent Bloomberg exposé about Loro Piana’s vicuña cash- mere, which comes from a community whose workers are not paid a living wage, according to the report. “It’s very important to protect the Native communities which are [making a] living from fur,” he said, such as the Inuit of North America. Fur coats also require a kind of craftsmanship that Salomon hopes to shield from decline — a concern that many fashion leaders in France have about specialties such as lacemaking, leatherwork and even hand-sewing. “We feel that protecting craftsmanship is a key issue today. We feel that fur must be part of the fash- ion world. And we give all the possible assurance that it is done in a proper way, and we can prove it.” F RANCIS emphasized that “fur is 100 percent biodegradable. So, therefore, yes, in effect, it is completely sustainable and com- pletely ethical.” But in the past 30 years, “awareness has been raised and animal cruelty and animal rights issues that are absolutely relevant and critical to this conversation.” “I think if we can return to a slower, more sustainable and circular system of fur production, as it was historically before it became, I guess, commod- itized,” she said, “I think that would be a better future if we were more mind- ful of our fur production and honoring the beauty of that material.” Still, some younger designers see fur as fundamentally untouchable. In a collection shown in Paris, the millen- nial-aged designers of Vaquera, Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee, put gruesomely faux fur on wraps, gloves and jackets in a collection themed around the obscenity of contemporary wealth. “We like a kind of gross fur, because fur is gross,” Taubensee said. “Fur is a classic symbol of wealth and fanciness, so it’s fun to subvert that a little bit and make it gross,” DiCaprio said. “Especially real fur is like -” he continued. “Disgusting,” finished Taubensee. “The idea of cutting and sewing that — whew!” DiCaprio said. “Cutting and sewing the faux fur is also disgusting,” Taubensee said. DiCaprio agreed. “It’s in your nose, in your bed at home, you’re hooking up with someone and you’re pulling faux fur out of their mouth. It’s a lot. — The Washington Post RACHEL TASHJIAN JONAS GUSTAVSSON / THE WASHINGTON POST Prada dresses in the Fall 2024 collection used shearling in place of fur. JONAS GUSTAVSSON / THE WASHINGTON POST A furry experience makes a debut at a Michael Kors show in February. Fur flying again ARTS ● LIFE I ENTERTAINMENT ;