Day: 11/06/2022

The Only Way Is Up

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Your favourite winter wear brand will be more expensive. Uniqlo has announced in Tokyo that prices for their popular fleece jackets will be raised this year

If any brand has the muscle to brave higher material and production costs, it would be Uniqlo. But, the Japanese label has announced in Tokyo last week that prices of some of their products will without doubt go up during the autumn/winter season (after August, as the speculation goes. Uniqlo has not announced specific dates). According to Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese brand has pointed to “rising raw material prices such as clothing materials and distribution cost” that led to Uniqlo’s decision to raise prices. Clothing, like food, cannot escape inflationary pressures, and so brands succumb. Uniqlo is reported to be generally increasing prices by ¥1,000 (about S$10.30). Their popular ‘Ultra Light Down Jacket’ will be adjusted to ¥6,900 from ¥5,900 and the ‘Cashmere Crew Neck Sweater’ will go from ¥8,990 to ¥9,990. Their best-selling Heattech line, similarly, would not be spared the price hike, with the long-sleeved, extra-warm version soon retailing at ¥1,990, or ¥490 more than last year’s price of ¥1,500.

For Singaporeans, the increase is likely to be considered small, even negligible. The present urge (some even call it desperation) to travel is unlikely to abate, come the cooler and colder months of Q3 and Q4. We do not have concrete figures (Uniqlo does not reveal sale figures of individual items), but it is not immoderate to say that Uniqlo has single-handedly conquered the market for winter wear in much of Southeast Asia. When a puffer is needed, for example, the first stop is likely the home of the ‘Ultra Light Down Jacket’. We have seen in Hokkaido entire families, whether from Bangkok or Bandung, completely bundled in Uniqlo warm-weather wear, including scarves and gloves. Price increase in protective clothing, just as in air fare, will unlikely deter those bent on experiencing significant temperature drop. The travel bug, as we know, is often more prevalent than any other.

File photo: Zhao Xiangji for SOTD

Sort Of “Free The Nipple”

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Kylie Jenner confirms that this would be the Year of the Areola

Warning: The illustration that follows, the links, and the subject matter of this post may upset some individuals

Kylie Jenner exposed, and recomposed. Illustration: Just So

What’s the thrill? Frankly we don’t know. Perhaps it’s in the upsetting of the prudish or the religious that some women get immense kick out of? In an Instagram post four days ago, cosmetics queen and mother of Stormi Webster, Kylie Jenner shared a photo of her very self from the inframammary fold up, in a skin-coloured bikini top that sported photo-realistic nipples—yes, the pink punctuations on the mamma. We were advised not to use that image here, as it may be considered obscene, and may even run afoul of the decency laws of this nation (potential wearers, beware too). The above is an illustration of the image that Ms Jenner shared, but with the nipples removed to take away the possible titillating factor that some might find objectionable, or down-right offensive.

Whether it’s part of her optimization strategies to strengthen visibility or just creating content that deliberately do not conform to the general standard of propriety, modesty, or good taste, it is really hard to say. Nudity (or suggestion of nudity) is not really alien to the Kardashian/Jenner daughters. Kylie Jenner could easily pose topless, but she chose not to, possibly because she might risk a ban from Instagram for “violating community guidelines” (last month, Madonna did when she shared nude photos on IG). So she covered her breast, but on the bikini top, it was what could have been if she had gone without. In the comments, she wrote, “Free the nipple”. Naturally, she did not. She faked it. This was Instagram, not OnlyFans. She needed to block to bare.

The €140 swimwear upper-half is from the collaboration of Jean Paul Gaultier and Lotta Volkova, the Russian stylist/designer very much linked to Vetements and Balenciaga (where she is Demna Gvasalia’s face-not-obscured muse). The cheeky capsule, in fact, offered entire lengths of a woman’s body—full frontal—on the dresses. These are not the first such garments. Some months back, Glenn Martens created a slinky dress for the Jean Paul Gaultier X Project Y collab that sported a realistic half naked body that Bella Hadid wore with considerable glee (she would!). There was also the body-con, three-shoulder-strap version by Sergio Castaño Peña that Iggy Azalea donned to mark her 32th birthday. And, others that we have not been able to keep track. The skimpy bikini top Ms Jenner wore is apparently sold out, even if it allowed the wearer to be only partly in the buff. But that presumably does not matter. Free the nipple does, even if it—or both—is not at all hers.