Dior store in Melbourne’s CBD ram-raided by thieves in balacavas on Collins Street
A Dior store in Melbourne’s CBD has been ram-raided by balaclava-clad thieves overnight, marking the second robbery along the city’s high-end fashion shopping strip in a week.
Police are investigating after a white four-wheel drive ute smashed through the Collins Street store about 3.20am.
Two men exited the vehicle and entered the store through the smashed glass window, armed with a crowbar or a similar weapon and yellow wheelie bins.
The ram-raid is the second to occur in a week on the fashion strip. (Nine)
A crime scene has been established on Collins Street. (Nine)
The pair loaded the bins with a stack of luxury designer items, including handbags.
The trio fled the scene driving east on Collins Street, north on Russell Street and were last seen travelling down Rathdowne Street.
A crime scene has been established as investigators work to value the items stolen from the store.
Thieves smashed through the shopfront’s glass window. (Nine)
The theft follows a spate of other robberies on the designer shopping strip, with Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta ram-raided last week.
Thieves also made off with about $75,000 worth of goods from fashion boutique Berluti last month.
Mike Shinoda, iann dior & UPSAHL l “Happy Endings” l Alternative Press
Last month, Mike Shinoda made history with his new single “Happy Endings” which features iann dior and UPSAHL. After its debut, Shinoda became the first major label artist to successfully launch a single through NFT Auction. All of the proceeds from the auction were donated to the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.
Now, the trio are raising money for another cause with their colorful new ’90s-inspired video for “Happy Endings.” Through the lively visual, donations are being collected for MusiCares‘ COVID-19 Relief Foundation.
For the “Happy Endings” video, Shinoda teamed back up with dior and UPSAHL. Directed by PIX3LFACE (Skrillex, the Used, Steve Aoki), the dynamic visual was shot in downtown Los Angeles and features some throwback cartoon animations that were hand-drawn by Shinoda.
Alongside UPSAHL’s strong emotional hooks and dior’s distinct vocals, Shinoda brings his own signature rhymes fans will instantly recognize. Together, the trio created a powerful genre-bending collaboration that flows together seamlessly all while set in front of an urban backdrop.
The new video was launched as part of MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Foundation. Through their partnership with the Recording Academy, the organizations aim to support musicians and artists struggling as a result of the global pandemic. Fans are able to donate through the “Happy Endings” YouTube video link or can direct their donations here. So far, the video has raised over $500 for the cause since premiering on Thursday.
Along with MusiCares, Shinoda, dior and UPSAHL also raised money for the ArtCenter College of Design with “Happy Endings.” Last month, Shinoda launched the new collab through NFT Auction, an avenue of selling digital art that has grown in popularity over recent months.
Non-fungible token (NFT) is a cryptographic token that is made up of unique information that cannot be interchangeable, unlike the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain and can really be anything in a digital form such as paintings and music. These days, the technology is largely being used to sell digital art, making all of this a new way of collecting.
For the “Happy Endings” auction, Shinoda collaborated with contemporary artist Cain Caser who created 10 animated artworks that were accompanied by a 75-second clip of the new song. The pieces were then sold through the online marketplace Zora.
Shinoda told Input Mag that the bids for the “Happy Endings” pieces really varied in price. One of the art pieces did sell for 5 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) which is equivalent to around $8,000. Meanwhile, the lowest bid was for a couple of hundred dollars. After the auction closed, Shinoda gave the winners a chance to resell the digital art pieces by announcing he would be personally signing art prints for them.
“As soon as the initial sales were over, I said, ‘Surprise, everybody who owns one as of tomorrow is going to get a signed, one-of-10 print of the art. So you have 24 hours if you want to resell it. But whoever owns it at this time tomorrow gets a print,'” Shinoda told Input Mag. “I kind of expected somebody to go to the person who only spent 200 bucks and be like, ‘I will give you $15,000 for that NFT that you spent 200 bucks on.’ I expected it to change hands. And it didn’t change hands.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mike Shinoda (@m_shinoda)
Although Shinoda is the first major label artist to successfully launch a single through NFT Auction, he certainly won’t be the last. Over the past few months, various creators have been getting more involved in the cryptocurrency art market.
Earlier this month, Grimes launched a cryptocurrency art collection that featured one-of-a-kind art pieces. She even included a few unreleased songs from her possible upcoming album in some of the digital artworks. In the end, Grimes‘ auctions grossed nearly $6 million in just 20 minutes.
As well, Kings Of Leon are the first band to ever release an entire album as an NFT. On March 5, the band put out their new LP When You See Yourself in the form of a non-fungible token. Meanwhile, Shawn Mendes also recently launched a collection of digital goods as NFTs.
Based on the past success of these NFT Auctions, it’s no surprise the tech is becoming more popular each and every day. In fact, Shinoda already has more artwork up for auction on Zora.
Dior RTW Fall 2021
If there’s an upside to digital fashion shows, it’s that no venue is too grand for fashion brands seeking to dazzle online audiences — and it doesn’t get much grander than the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, the sumptuous backdrop for Dior’s fall collection film.
The French house is no stranger to the castle, having staged an imaginary fashion show in its Baroque central gallery for a 2011 J’adore fragrance campaign starring Charlize Theron (alongside digital avatars of Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe). But this was an altogether more somber affair.
Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri had commissioned Italian artist Silvia Giambrone to design the set for her fairy-tale-inspired collection, which she hoped to stage in front of an audience. Since that proved impossible, the house transferred Giambrone’s 14 monumental mirrors, covered in wax and sprouting thorns, to Versailles, boldly thrusting a feminist statement into one of France’s most revered landmarks.
Chiuri said she was drawn to the work because it speaks of women’s love-hate relationship with their reflections, a theme also mirrored in choreographer Sharon Eyal’s edgy dance performance for the moody video directed by Fabien Baron, titled “Disturbing Beauty.”
“The mirror is an object that attracts us, but at the same time we have a repulsion because when we see our image, in some way it’s very hard to see ourselves — we see what people see about ourselves,” Chiuri remarked.
As pertinent as this observation was, the tension and conflict around self-image were not reflected in the clothes. To the despair of her detractors, and the immense satisfaction of her bosses at luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Chiuri is a resolutely commercial designer, focused on delivering wardrobe essentials that cater to women’s everyday needs.
This collection was constructed along pragmatic lines, with a focus on colorful patterns and opulent textures, ranging from patterned velvet to shimmering lamé and lurex jacquards.
Chiuri touched on a number of the codes she has established in her five years at Dior, themselves derived from the house’s archives — leopard print, checks and Cannage motif quilting among them — though she cautioned that the house’s heritage should be handled lightly.
“Everybody thinks that to have an archive is very useful, and that is true, but on the other hand we have to be careful because the archive can also be tricky to reference,” she said. “The risk is that you reproduce something that is really not a contemporary piece, but more a museum piece.”
But there’s a tomboy streak to Chiuri’s Dior woman that undercuts any semblance of nostalgia. She will take an archival design, like the rose-printed Soleil dress from 1952, and translate it into a short-sleeved jumpsuit in a chiné version of the same motif. Meanwhile, the prevalence of headscarves and hoods owed as much to literary references like “Little Red Riding Hood” as it did to 1950s chic.
“The 1950s silhouette is super Dior. I transform it all the time. For me, it’s not an easy silhouette, because I don’t feel like a 1950s woman. I’m a more boyish, 1970s woman, so for me to work a 1950s silhouette all the time is really hard work, because I want to make a 1950s silhouette that works with my sensibility,” Chiuri admitted.
Thus, a teeny-bopper outfit — white off-the-shoulder blouse and black circle skirt — was toughened up with chunky work boots; a leopard-print midiskirt dressed down with a black fleece hoodie. And what would Queen Marie Antoinette have made of the model in a plain sweater and jeans?
Among the schoolgirl looks riffing on an “Alice in Wonderland” subtheme was a laser-cut leather pinafore dress — the kind of outfit you might expect to see on Blackpink member Jisoo, who was recently named as Dior’s new global fashion and beauty ambassador.
Chiuri’s feminist reading of her fairy-tale theme came across as eerily prescient on a day when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were making headlines worldwide with their story of royalty gone wrong.
She closed the show with a trio of sheer evening gowns, including a harlequin-patterned dress with a seemingly endless train scattered with appliqué roses, but this was no textbook happy ending. Fleeing the castle in a dramatic red tulle gown, her princess ran into a murky dark garden — hopefully to write her own next chapter.