If you aren’t familiar with SSENSE, it’s the online epicenter for buying luxury brands and high-end streetwear. Founded by the three Atallah brothers, the goal was to take away the obstacles and headaches that could arise from purchasing high-end fashion and democratize the latest, coolest brands.
More than any other platform right now, SSENSE does curation right. They’re painfully aware of which pieces from new collections are a fit for their audience. They show you what’s relevant and hot right now — prioritizing pieces you’ll genuinely like rather than what’s just being pushed by the brand. Now, SSENSE carries brands of all price points from Adidas to Versace.
Another highlight: SSENSE is known for its brand diversity. They often highlight Black-owned brands and showcase collections from people of color and lesser-known designers. To close out Black History Month 2024, SSENSE is teaming up with none other than ESSENCE: a pairing that makes perfect sense.
ESSENCE, the lifestyle publication geared towards Black women, is helping feature three designers and artists: Bianca Saunders, Mowalola, and Stanley Raffington. The series will showcase their designs and tell their story.
According to SSENSE’s site,
“The two brands are turning ESSENCE’s “In The Studio” print franchise into a video series hosted by Lynette Nylander. The series will spotlight the achievements and creativity of Black designers who have significantly impacted the menswear realm. With three episodes, each featuring a distinguished designer, the series offers exclusive insights into their creative processes and journey,”
Meet The SSENSE X ESSENCE Feature Designers
Bianca Saunders
Bianca Saunders
British GQ
Bianca Saunders’ clothing embraces masculinity in womenswear. Her jackets will always be a bit oversized, or the style will mimic a classic streetwear bomber that could have been borrowed from boys like Jeremy Allen-White and Jacob Elordi — a girl can dream.
“The essence of Saunders' clothing lives in the details, which point to how she subverts ideals often associated with menswear.”
Finding the intersectionality between workwear and streetwear, Saunders clothing is genderless and trendy. Some of her signatures include layered shirts, tucked waists, and somewhat minimalist designs.
@babyboyflame Buying Black: @Bianca Saunders #streetwear #menswear #blackownedbusiness #fashion #fashiontok #fashiontiktok ♬ Oldschool - Cookin Soul
Mowalola
Mowalola
Joyce NG
Mowalola, a highly sought after designer whose pieces have been worn by the likes of Rihanna and Naomi Campbell, is a bit of an icon in the fashion world. Her mantra for fashion is “do what you want to do” and that’s exactly the kind of energy Mowalola’s clothes give off.
Much like Bianca Saunders, Mowalola is known for her gender bending designs. Inspired by cinema, many of her collections revolve around movies. And this is on full display at her cinematic runway shows.
She brings an edge to her designs through textures like leather and intentionally placed cutouts. She’s not afraid to make public commentary on race and gender, making her runway shows incredibly popular.
“The British designer has shifted the cultural zeitgeist with her boundary-pushing collections inspired by the world around her.”
@i_d Replying to @JAC So are we! #ferragamo #maximiliandavis #tiktokfashion #mfw #mowalola ♬ original sound - i-D
Stanley Raffington
Stanley Raffington
ESSENCE
In a world where the Chanel black-and-white aesthetic hails ever-popular, especially amongst those emulating Old Money Style and Sofia Richie’s closet, it’s hard to find designers who aren’t afraid of a bit of color…enter Stanley Raffington.
Often incorporating Rastafarian colors of red, yellow, and black as an ode to his Jamaican roots, Raffington isn’t going to shy away from any hue. He quickly rose into fashion prominency when Madonna and FKA Twigs attended his show, which included 3D printed accessories.
Constantly inspired by his Jamaican roots and the nostalgia of past trends, you will see lots of Y2K nods in Stanley Raffington’s clothing. He’s embraced tech in the fashion world by utilizing 3D printing in many of his designs and runway shows, and he’s not slowing down now.
@yungstanz Process behind my 3d printed curve bag. Taking inspiration from the architecture of Zaha Hadid, mixing new technology with natural materials and craft. Available now exclusively at @SSENSE ♬ Never Lose Me - Flo Milli
COVID-19 Part 5: Massachusetts Tops New York in Number of Daily New Cases Per Capita
A doctor at Harvard Medical School updates us on the outbreak.
By Anthony Lee, MD
Faculty, Harvard Medical School
As we make our way through this pandemic, the large number of cases in the United States has caught our attention and prompted much discussion. In Part 5 of this series, we see Italy, Belgium, and Northern Ireland continue to reliably decline in the number of daily deaths. In these countries, tracking the number of cases is no longer of interest as we assume that the pandemic is on the mend. However, as these countries begin easing lockdown measures, this assumption may change.
Regarding numbers of daily new cases and daily deaths, countries have been adding discovered deaths from homes, nursing homes, and other care facilities at various points in time. These countries include Belgium, the UK, Ireland, and the US. On various web sources the data has all been adjusted. Cases that remain "probable" are excluded here as they are not confirmed to be COVID related.
As explained in Part 4, it is the case density (cases per 100,000 people) that matters and not the total number of cases. The higher the number of cases per 100,000 people, the more dangerous the location. An example would be riding in a subway car. If a location in question has a high case density, it is more likely that riding on a subway car in that location will have more passengers on it who are infected compared to riding in a subway car in a less densely infected location.
In Figure 1, we know that for cases per 100,000 population basis, the NYC and NYS curves are very steep. When plotted with other locations, the plots of the other locations are squashed significantly to obscure meaningful information. Therefore, the plots of NYC and NYS have been removed to better understand what's going on elsewhere.
However, for the rates of change chart, NYC and NYS plots were left in, as they didn't substantially squash the other plots. Also, note that within the last week, US and NY data (cases and deaths) were updated (values increased). This reflects all dates from early March, shifting their curves a bit leftward.
On the left of Figure 1, one can see that Massachusetts is experiencing the largest surge in cases experienced so far, and Massachusetts is now the epicenter of case growth. But to maintain a perspective, New York State still carries 29% of all cases in the US and 9.5% of all cases in the world, but this is slowly decreasing. By contrast, Massachusetts carries 5.6% of all cases in the US and 1.8% of all cases in the world, and this is slowly increasing.
On the right of Figure 1, Massachusetts has surpassed NYC and NYS in the number of daily new cases per 100,000 population. Comparing the shapes of the plots between NYS and Massachusetts, they seem to be similar. This may indicate that Massachusetts may have also experienced its peak number of new cases, although it's too early to tell.
Sweden is on a surge that seems to be higher than the previous one. The UK and Ireland seem to have a decreasing number of daily cases. But the UK may be under-testing as their deaths per 100,000 population are higher than that of Ireland (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 shows that Italy's maximum daily deaths occurred on 3/28, 19 days after lockdown and this continues to trend downward. In Ireland, the maximum daily deaths occurred on 4/25, 29 days after lockdown and 14 days after their peak number of daily cases. In Northern Ireland, the maximum daily deaths occurred on 4/23, 27 days after lockdown and 5 days after their peak number of daily cases (not shown in the charts). Sweden is on its 5th surge, possibly the largest so far.
As the majority of cases and deaths in NYS occurred in NYC, it would be expected that the peak numbers of daily new cases and daily deaths would occur at about the same time. This happened on 4/9-10, 23-24 days after social distancing began.
For "The Rest of the United States" (US minus NYS or US-NYS), the maximum number of deaths is unclear as the curve has been relatively flat with a few very small peaks that may be statistically insignificant. We do know that the maximum daily new cases occurred on 4/24, 38 days after the start of social distancing.
Massachusetts is on its 6th surge, which may be the largest so far in terms of daily deaths. Referring back to its plot in Figure 1, the peak number of daily new cases occurred a week ago. And we know that deaths follow cases. We are hopeful that this surge will mark a subsequent decline in the number of daily deaths.
After 44 days of social distancing, the question must be asked: Why are we still surging in daily deaths? Also, from Parts 1 and 2 of this series, Massachusetts began social distancing at the same time as New York. However, we had a much less number of cases at that time, giving us a 2-week head start advantage over New York. Yet we are experiencing a pattern similar to New York, but delayed by 15 days.
Perhaps our close proximity to New York may explain this in part. It could also be explained by a possible longer latency time between being infected and expressing symptoms. Our policy is to test only those with symptoms, so this may make sense.
Sources of data: Worldometer.com, Spectrum News NY1, New York State Department of Health, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, HSC Public Health Agency