Roberto Cavalli, the Italian fashion designer known for celebrating glamour and excess, has passed away at the age of 83. He gained fame in the mid-1990s with his unapologetically flashy and sexy designs, building a global lifestyle brand with celebrity admirers like Lenny Kravitz and Cindy Crawford. Cavalli's signature style, described as "molto sexy, molto animal print and molto, molto Italiano," remained essentially unchanged throughout his long career, and he skillfully reinvented his clothes for different eras, enjoying several renaissances.
Americans are spending record amounts on holiday shopping, but many are experiencing gift fatigue and stress. The pressure to buy gifts for everyone, including people they don't particularly like, has led to a sense of overwhelm. The abundance of gift guides and discounts from retailers only adds to the frenzy. A survey shows that a majority of Americans are worried about affording holiday gifts. The author questions the need for excessive gift-giving and suggests alternative ways to celebrate the season, such as making charitable donations.
A bride's wedding shower turned into a gift-grab when guests were instructed not to bring gifts but were presented with an extravagant display of expensive items. The bride and her mother were furious when guests didn't contribute as expected. The columnist suggests hosting a small-scale party to convey values and offer a "reset" for the bride, while emphasizing that the bride's attitude is her responsibility.
'John Wick: Chapter 4' is an epic of excess, testing the limits of its own formula with a running time of 169 minutes. While the plot revolves around the excommunication of Winston Scott and the goal to kill John Wick, the movie leans into the comic incongruity of the material. The final 45 minutes are a bravura attempt to top everything that came before, with sequences that feel bound for the pantheon. While the bloat around its edges is forgiven any time it's flexing its muscles in the arena of visceral, graceful, astonishingly blocked violence, it might behoove all involved to cut a little of that fat and cut to the chase.
