Fresh Off the Press: Latest Articles from The Citizen's Poste
A curated perspective on style, beauty, and cultural currents. From thoughtful trend commentary to insights behind the scenes, this is your front-row seat to the ideas and stories shaping modern fashion, culture, branding, and lifestyle.
The Illusion of Freedom: Why Menswear Still Plays by the Rules
The dance between freedom and control in fashion is ongoing — and it’s far from equal. Menswear can flirt with softness or absurdity, but it is still expected to remain legible, anchored in some version of seriousness. Womenswear can slip into spectacle, but that spectacle often becomes an obligation, a demand to stay endlessly interesting. Fashion keeps circling this question, never quite answering it. Are these boundaries finally breaking, or just learning to hide behind prettier fabrics?
Crafting Femininity: Dior, Gender, and the Future of Fashion
Historically, most creative directors and designers for womenswear have been male. Women have consistently excelled in both of these roles, Like Vera Wang and Vivianne Westwood, yet still seem to be undervalued in a profession where their own gender is the target market. The gender of the designer plays a significant role in shaping the design itself, and the value in designing according to lived gendered experiences is not to be overlooked.
The Male Gaze in Stitching
When Anderson picks up the thread and needle at Dior, he inherits more than just a brand. He stitches into a gaze. After all, fashion is more than just fabric. It’s power, storytelling, and a question of who gets to hold the needle.
The Wrong Shoe Always Fits (Even When It Doesn’t)
There’s something quietly reassuring about contradiction. The way opposites cling to each other, not despite their difference, but because of it… Chaos? Not quite. Disruption. Contradiction. Curiosity. It’s a tension fashion knows intimately, especially when it comes to what we wear on our feet.
Scarves, Sisterhood, and Style: Inside DAïA’s World
Some pieces aren’t just worn— they’re inherited. They live in drawers, on hooks, passed between hands and across generations, gathering memory with every fold. DAÏA, a brand built on scarves and storytelling, doesn’t chase trends or seasons. Instead, it centers heritage: personal, cultural, and communal. Founded by Yelissah Gabala, DAÏA reclaims the scarf as both adornment and archive: a way to express identity, honor lineage, and offer beauty that endures.
Sensory Seduction: Textural Marketing and the Blurred Lines Between Beauty, Food, and Fashion
There’s a reason you want to lick the lip gloss. Or press your thumb into the pleated folds of that lemon-yellow handbag. Or reach through your screen and pull the martini olive-shaped earring straight from the model’s ear. Lately, it feels like everything looks good enough to eat, and that’s exactly the point.
Birkinomics: How a Battered Bag Became a Status Symbol
With the original Birkin Bag, a prototype made specially for the late ‘70s-it-girl’ Jane Birkin, set to be auctioned off this July in Paris, discussions around the infamous Hermès handbag have resurrected. Let's start from the beginning, circa 1984. French film icon, Ms. Birkin herself, was aboard a flight from London to Paris when her distressed basket (her signature ‘shabby-chic’ bag) started to break, spilling its contents out in Air France’s first class area. Birkin’s wallet, keys, cigarettes, glasses, diapers, and business cards were scattered all over, catching the attention of the passenger seated next to her, the then executive of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas.
All eyes on Monaco: Where Quiet Luxury, Motorsport, and Cultural Capital Collide
More than just a race, Monaco is where legacy meets luxury. Crown jewel of Formula 1, the Grand Prix transforms the principality into an exhilarating mix of fashion, status, and spectacle for one unique weekend every year. From old money aesthetic to business opportunities, fashion has played a key role in Formula 1 over the past decades – and the biggest luxury and fashion brands are now scrambling to get themselves into the F1 paddock.
Gaurav Gupta’s Living Sculptures Emulate Fashion as Architecture
We recognize Gaurav Gupta for dressing the likes of Beyoncé, Cardi B, and Alia Bhatt in his neon yellow sarees, redefining Indian traditional dress, and Mugler-esque metal torso gowns that sculpt the body like armor. But Gupta is far more than a designer for celebrities; he is a visionary who approaches fashion as a sculptural form, blending tailored precision with fluid movement.
When Elegance Becomes a Cage: Why Cannes’ Ban on Nude Dressing Hurts More Than It Helps (If It Helps at All)
“Nude dressing” isn’t a scandal of modern vanity. It’s one of fashion’s oldest legacies. In ancient Greece, women wore translucent robes that flowed and clung to the body. In revolutionary France, sheer muslin gowns became symbols of liberation from corsets and control. In the 1920s, flappers danced in backless dresses. In the 1960s, miniskirts were weapons of protest. In the ’90s, Kate Moss wore a see-through slip—not to provoke, but simply because it was what she wanted.
Power, Performance, and the Office Siren Fantasy
There’s something undeniably alluring about the “office siren” aesthetic. The sharp lines of a tailored pencil skirt, the satisfying click of a sleek stiletto on tile, the quiet sheen of a neutral silk blouse unbuttoned just so. It’s eye catching. It’s powerful. It’s cinematic. It’s also maybe not the feminist serve we think it is. As an aesthetic that blends elton’s of fantasy with practicality in a uniquely internet friendly way, the “office siren” has lingered since it’s inception.
Tailored Legacies: Dandyism Reimagined at the 2025 Met Gala
The first Monday in May, also known as Met Monday, marked yet another iconic evening as celebrities, musicians, athletes, and fashion icons gathered on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year's Met Gala held particular significance, not only for its usual fundraising for the Costume Institute but also for the powerful theme of "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style." The exhibition explored the important role of clothing in shaping Black identities within the Atlantic diaspora, inspired by Monica L. Miller's book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.
Dressed to Speak: Power and Storytelling at the 2025 Met Gala
Every outfit is an argument. The 2025 Met Gala theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, was more than a celebration of garments — it was a celebration of narrative, identity, and power. This year, the red carpet wasn’t just walked, it was spoken through — each look stitching together centuries of cultural memory, resistance, and reinvention. From sharp silhouettes to radical reinventions of tailoring, the night embodied Black excellence in its most polished and personal form.
Let’s unpack how fashion told its story.
Superfine, Styled: A Study in Power Dressing from the 2025 MET Chairmen
Fashion, at its core, doesn’t clothe— it constructs. … This year, the study is sharp, layered, and rooted in heritage. The 2025 theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, invited not just garments and stunning visuals, but narratives to walk the red carpet. The event’s co-chairs A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, and Lewis Hamilton stand as case studies in how Black style is never just about aesthetics. It’s about legacy, visibility, and control over one's image in a world that has so often sought to dictate it.
Style Files: Six Creators Defining Taste in the Age of Algorithmic Style
Style inspiration is no longer only anchored to runways and campaigns. Increasingly, we're turning to inspiration that has been lived in and documented, almost like a visual story told through a window into someone's wardrobe. Enter: creator-led styling.
As fashion's landscape evolves into a space dominated by trends and troves of inspiration at the click of a button and one swift scroll away, I find it all the more special to come across creators who craft a resonant layer of depth to their looks. Following trends is only natural - we've all done it. In fact, it is all a part of the fun and is a great way to experiment and grow into your style.
Escaping the Algorithm: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Identity Through Style
Personal style is about intimacy. The circled hoops, the beloved red ballet flats, the leather jacket you thrifted on a cold, lucky afternoon—it’s the kind of closeness that feels like sharing headphones or whispering a secret you didn’t think you’d ever tell.
These seemingly mundane acts of connection tend to carry so much weight when it comes to exploring individuality—who we are without filters or references.
Tailored to Disrupt: Black Dandyism and the Met Gala’s Menswear Rebrand
Finally, the Met Gala is taking a dive into men's fashion, specifically from a historical lens into Black communities within Black Dandyism – a cultural protest combining fashion with individuality. Before now, the Met Gala has yet to focus on Black history, and often kicked menswear to the sidelines. This year’s theme is set out to reinvent typical men's fashion while also bringing Black culture to center stage.
The Sovereignty of Stillness: Inside the New Fashion Philosophy that Values Presence Over Performance
Fashion has never been louder—faster trends, bolder statements, more content. But some designers are choosing a different kind of power: the kind that doesn’t beg to be seen. Through restraint, presence, and radical clarity, they’re shifting the conversation from spectacle to sovereignty. Discover how Divyanshu Srivastava explores how designers like Maria Grazia Chiuri, Xu Zhi, and Camille Miceli are making stillness, control, and presence feel more powerful than spectacle:
A Family Affair: Power Struggles, Heritage, and Creative Egos in Fashion’s Royal House
This month, Prada announced its acquisition of Versace, uniting two of Italy’s most iconic fashion houses. Both brands boast rich histories and global influence, having shaped the luxury landscape for decades. But as they come together under one roof, a looming question emerges: what happens when power, heritage, and cultural ego collide in the name of fashion? Will Versace’s identity be preserved—or absorbed by Prada’s growing empire?
Tariffs And Totes: Fashion’s Reckoning With Global Politics
In April of 2025, the global fashion industry was rocked by a seismic political move as President Donald Trump unveiled one of the most aggressive trade tariff policies in modern history. Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, Trump announced a sweeping 10% tariff on all imported goods, with significantly higher rates on nations with which the U.S. holds a trade deficit. The fashion industry, already vulnerable after years of supply chain instability and inflation, became one of the hardest hit.