Elle Canada

FEMALE CELEBRITIES are taking back control of their narratives, stating loud and clear that the industry has humiliated them, used them and broken them—and that they’ve had enough. They’ve been setting the record straight—for themselves and for others who will come after them. Many women in the entertainment industry—from Pamela Anderson to Megan Fox to Millie Bobby Brown to Britney Spears—are speaking out about how hypersexualization has affected the course of their careers. Emily Ratajkowski wrote a collection of essays entitled My Body in which she denounces an entire industry for its exploitation of women’s bodies while admitting to having participated blithely. “I will proclaim all of my mistakes and contradictions, for all the women who cannot do so, for all the women we’ve called muses without learning their names, whose…

SPA DAZE Create your own Nordic-spa-inspired moments at home this spring with Bastua, a limitededition collaboration between IKEA and Finnish design house MARIMEKKO featuring four exclusive prints in multiple colourways. “The collaboration encapsulates the sensations of endless summers and the simple and aesthetic beauty of Nordic nature,” said Henrik Most, creative leader at IKEA, in a statement. Available from March 1 in-store and online, the colourful 25-piece collection includes birch furnishings, robes, totes and towels, melamine trays, glassware and more. ikea.ca TAKE SHELTER As we weather the final gasps of winter, it’s the perfect time to find some indoor inspiration at Toronto-based painter Margaux Williamson’s show Interiors at Calgary’s Esker Foundation (January 21 to April 30). Williamson’s contemplative, dreamy tableaux depict how we interact with and organize our living spaces as both physical…

IN THE 2010 OSCAR-WINNING THRILLER BLACK SWAN, dancer Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman, quickly unravels her flawless choreography in one simple yet relatable statement: “I just want to be perfect,” she says, gazing emotionlessly at the camera. In our cultural lexicon, ballet dancers embody both discipline and passion, a duality that’s being explored in 2023 as we seek to address the tension between the demands of living an optimize-everything lifestyle and a desire to embrace the more fluid power of intuition. It’s an ongoing conversation that’s informing the fashion world, bringing a sense of whimsy to clothing this spring. OVER THE DECADES, EVERYONE FROM JEAN PAUL GAULTIER TO VIKTOR & ROLF—AND EVEN THE LATE DAME VIVIENNE WESTWOOD—HAS BORROWED FROM THE ICONOGRAPHY OF BALLET, WITH RESULTS RANGING FROM PRETTY TO PUNK. Fashion’s…

GROWING UP, MONTREAL-BORN MAHRZAD LARI always had his head in a magazine, admiring page after page of glossy editorials. “For me, fashion was a love language,” he says of that early obsession with clothing. But trying to find stylish pieces he could wear was a discouraging experience because they often didn’t come in his size. “It was very hard for me to not be able to buy the styles I was seeing in the magazines and have to live on the sidelines.” That changed when, as a teen, he saved up to purchase a pair of designer jeans that did fit him. “I felt so special, and I will forever remember that feeling,” says Lari. “It was one of the very rare times in my youth when I felt fashion was…

ALLOW US TO TAKE YOU BACK TO FEBRUARY 2021. We were in the middle of yet another COVID-19 wave, suffering through the winter and, to be frank, pretty bored. Suddenly, it felt like everyone was watching Ginny & Georgia, a sort of gritty, Gilmore Girls-esque dramedy about a tight-knit mother-daughter duo hoping to settle down in a new town. Netflix claimed that the first season was watched by 52 million households in just a month, and much of its young cast—including 24-year-old Toronto-based actor Sara Waisglass, who plays Ginny’s quirky, outgoing and unabashed BFF Maxine—were now under a huge spotlight. But just like the rest of us, they were stuck at home while it all happened. “Season one blowing up during the pandemic was honestly very helpful because I was…

WE OFTEN THINK OF KNITTING as an ancient but commonplace craft, generally used to create pieces that hold us snugly in a comfortable and familiar warmth. Swiss-born artist Cécile Feilchenfeldt, on the other hand, uses each stitch she makes to express a futuristic vision of something just out of sight and around the bend in her expansive imagination. Her fabrics are woven by hand with the help of a knitting machine, and they’re made up of unconventional materials such as paper, raffia and plastic as well as more traditional ones like cotton, silk and wool. Her creations might be considered more akin to wearable sculpture, especially given the fact that they’ve been featured in multiple solo and group exhibitions at museums around the world, and she has used the art…