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Paris to Name Street After Sonia Rykiel

PARIS — The Sonia Rykiel show in Paris on Sept. 29 promises to stop traffic, quite literally.
The city has agreed to block circulation on a stretch of Boulevard Raspail on a Saturday night for the open-air show, which is set to kick off with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo unveiling a plaque renaming the central alley of the boulevard after the flame-haired designer, who died in 2014 at the age of 86.
It coincides with the house’s 50th anniversary and is the result of a two-year effort by Nathalie Rykiel, who wanted her mother to have a permanent memorial in the neighborhood that she embodied for legions of women inspired by her charismatic personality and revolutionary designs.
“I absolutely wanted a place in Paris on the Left Bank to bear Sonia’s name. It felt like something important, symbolic, that reflected who she was, and City Hall was extremely supportive of the idea,” Rykiel told WWD. “What’s beautiful is that it ties her name to Paris forever.”
The Allée Sonia Rykiel, which sits between the Rue du Cherche-Midi and the Rue de Rennes, is a stone’s throw from where Rykiel lived and worked. “It was absolutely the ideal spot. On top of that, it’s where

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Why a Former American Apparel Designer is Banking on Slow Fashion

LOS ANGELES — Eliana Gil Rodriguez is taking a very measured approach to her new fashion label in a bid to perhaps counter social media’s impact on the industry.
Gil Rodriguez, a former American Apparel designer, earlier this year launched her namesake line with an eye on closet essentials, focusing on an edited release for the market. A one-piece swimsuit, retailing for $250, is her top-selling item at the moment.
“I’ve been designing for a really long time,” she said. “I was at American Apparel for almost a decade. Basics was in my blood, you could say. I really grew up around it. I’d been wanting to start a line for a few years but was feeling absolutely disenchanted about what was going on in fashion. We were learning so much about our impact on the environment, but fashion was getting faster and faster and faster to keep up with the cadence of social media. So I took a break to work on other projects and did some consulting.”
That time away, she said, made her realize what was missing in the marketplace.
“I kind of realized with American Apparel’s decline and just the marketplace in general I was having a hard time finding basics,”

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