FROW News #114: Rihanna's Red Carpet Reveal, The Dress of the Summer & Studio Softness 💄🤍🧘♀️
The Met Gala last week reminded us why fashion still has the power to stop a scroll. Rihanna showed up in an unreleased bronzer, and yes, we clocked everything else that was going on too, but FROW doesn't do clickbait. This week the industry kept moving: Reformation's most coveted dress is back in white just in time for wedding season, NikeSKIMS launches its softest collection yet tomorrow, and there are some brilliant new beauty drops worth knowing about. The FROW News team, as always, has done the work so you don't have to.
NikeSKIMS' softest collection yet is built for the studio and everything after it🧘🏽♀️
NikeSKIMS has always understood that the best activewear doesn't announce itself. It just works. Studio Stretch, launching tomorrow, is the brand's softest collection to date: an 11-piece capsule built around Lycra Adaptiv fabric and Nike's Dri-FIT technology, designed for yoga and Pilates but made for wearing all day. Bras, tops, shorts, leggings and an adjustable scoop-back one-piece in neutral tones, Obsidian, Linen and Dark Roast, with minimal seaming, inclusive sizing from XXS to 4X and that second-skin feel Kim Kardashian describes as "almost like wearing nothing at all." The kind of collection that makes everything else in your activewear wardrobe feel like hard work. Prices from £59.99, available tomorrow (Thursday 14th May) at nike.com and skims.com.
Reformation's Sara Linen Dress is back in white, and this time it has a wedding to go to 🤍
Last summer, Reformation's collaboration with stylist Sara Walker became one of the brand's biggest hits. A fitted linen midi with scalloped trim and a belt-buckle detail that sold out faster than most people saw it coming. This summer it's back in white, because Sara Walker is getting married. The dress itself hasn't changed. 100% linen, column skirt, that same clean silhouette. But the energy around it has shifted entirely. Bridal without being overtly bridal, polished enough for a city wedding, relaxed enough for a summer afternoon. Reformation even curated a guest edit for everyone who won't be the one in white. Their own PR line is "sorry to all your other dresses", and they mean it. £278, available at thereformation.com.
Atelier Ninety Five just landed at Selfridges as its first and only retail partner 🖤
There's something quietly significant about a brand choosing Selfridges as its first and only retail partner. Atelier Ninety Five, the contemporary womenswear label built around structured tailoring and fluid femininity, has done exactly that. Founder Melissa Bell has spoken about shopping at Selfridges with her first pay cheque, and now the brand sits on the floor alongside some of the most established names in fashion. The edit is deliberately restrained: lace co-ords, sculptural draped jersey, satin tanks and linen trousers. Pieces chosen to tell the story of the brand rather than flood the floor. With sales up 52% year-on-year and both the suede bomber and oversized trench selling out on launch day, the brand has more than earned its place there. Prices range from £65-£150, available in-store and at selfridges.com.
Daisy and Away That Day just created the most considered jewellery and swimwear collab of the summer 🌊
Most jewellery and swimwear collaborations amount to a matching set and a press release. The Daisy and Away That Day collection is built around a genuinely smarter idea. The same sculptural motifs that run through the jewellery, drop earrings, hoops, necklaces and rings, all in 18ct gold plate and sterling silver with red jasper, reappear as bespoke hardware on the swimwear itself. The bandeau bikini and the earrings aren't just coordinating, they're speaking the same design language. Swimwear comes in Away That Day's Italian ECONYL fabric in black, espresso and ivory, letting the hardware do the talking. As Daisy founder Ruth Bewsey puts it, these are pieces you go to the beach in, travel in, live in. Prices from £79 to £139, available at daisyjewellery.com and awaythatday.com.
Jones Road Beauty just launched its fullest coverage foundation yet, and it still looks like your skin 💄
Bobbi Brown has built her entire post-Bobbi Brown career around the idea that makeup should look like better skin, not makeup. The new Jones Road Beauty Your Skin Foundation Stick is the fullest coverage product the brand has launched to date, and somehow it still holds true to that philosophy. A creamy, buildable stick packed with ceramides, squalane, shea butter and sodium hyaluronate, it blends effortlessly with fingers or a brush, leaving a smooth, natural finish that never settles into that flat, cakey finish foundation sticks are notorious for. As Bobbi puts it, the goal was coverage that feels like nothing. Available in 30 shades at jonesroadbeauty.com and Liberty London, £36.
Rihanna wore an unreleased Fenty bronzer to the Met Gala, and now it's almost yours 💫
When Rihanna shows up to the Met Gala wearing a product that doesn't exist in shops yet, you pay attention. The Fenty Beauty Sun Stalk'r Souffle Pressed Mousse Cream Bronzer was the centrepiece of her golden, crystal-studded look last week, applied by makeup artist Hector Espinal in thin layers to create a dewy, sculpted complexion that photographed like skin, not makeup. The formula is a pressed mousse. A bouncy, skin-melting texture that blurs and bronzes in one step, waterproof, transfer-resistant and designed to warm skin based on undertone rather than a one-size approach. The full look also featured the Shake N' Play Liquid Blush (£25) and Killawatt Freestyle Highlighter (£32), all worth bookmarking. The bronzer launches on Friday 22nd May, exclusively at Boots and boots.com, £32.
IG Credit: @FentyBeauty
ILIA's new mineral SPF finally solves the problem every mineral sunscreen has been ignoring 🌿
Mineral SPF has always had an image problem, and not without reason. The white cast, the tackiness, the finish that makes makeup pointless before 9am. ILIA's Sun Serum Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50 was built specifically to dismantle that reputation. A water-burst gel-to-water texture that absorbs instantly into skin, leaving a naturally blurred, non-greasy finish that sits happily under makeup without pilling or sliding. Extended-spectrum protection covers UVA, UVB, visible and infrared light, with 24-hour hydration and all-day oil control built in. Available in two shades, Light-Medium and Medium-Deep, that actually blend rather than sit on the surface. The SPF that finally makes mineral feel like a genuine choice rather than a compromise. Exclusively at Liberty and iliabeauty.com, £40.
Gisou's new hair perfumes smell like a tropical holiday, and they're doing real work underneath the scent 🍍
There's a particular kind of summer product that earns its place not because it's doing something revolutionary but because it's doing something simple exceptionally well. Gisou's two new Honey Infused Hair Perfumes are exactly that. Pineapple Pop, pineapple, coconut and vanilla, essentially a piña colada for your hair, and Coco-Cacao, coconut, milk chocolate and sandalwood, the golden hour version, are both powered by Mirsalehi Honey. A natural humectant that maintains hair's moisture balance, alongside argan oil for shine. They smell like the holiday you haven't booked yet, and the formula is doing real work underneath the scent. £20 each at gisou.com.
bareMinerals just launched a cheek and lip product that genuinely earns the multi-use claim 💋
The multi-use beauty product has a credibility problem. Too often it does two things adequately rather than one thing brilliantly. The bareMinerals GEN NUDE Dew-In-One Cheek and Lip Stick makes a compelling case for the exception. A creamy, skincare-infused colour balm with acai palm for hydration and mineral silica for a soft-focus blur, it delivers a buildable dewy flush that works just as naturally swept across cheekbones as it does on lips. Five shades from barely-there to a deeper berry, all dermatologist-tested and suitable for sensitive and acne-prone skin. The product that earns its place by genuinely doing both jobs well, and at £20, it's the kind of discovery that feels disproportionately good value. Available exclusively at Cult Beauty and rolling out to all major retailers from 20th May at bareminerals.co.uk.
The chef who won both MasterChef and Great British Menu just opened her first restaurant 🍽️
Nikita Pathakji is the first chef in history to win both MasterChef: The Professionals and Great British Menu Champion of Champions, and rather than take the obvious route, she's opened Maai on Clapham's Abbeville Road with her mother and sister. The menu is modern British with global influences, built around the dishes that made television audiences stop scrolling, including her now-iconic octopus takoyaki doughnut. Intimate, considered and exactly what a first restaurant from someone with this much to prove should feel like. Bookings open from 20th May at restaurantmaai.com.
The Frida Kahlo Exhibition on Screen arrives in cinemas from Tuesday 19 May, and it comes with the perfect excuse to go twice 🎨
Everyone knows Frida Kahlo's face. Far fewer know the full story of the woman behind it. Exhibition on Screen's award-winning film returns to UK cinemas from 19th May with new footage from the blockbuster Tate Britain and MFA Houston exhibition, offering an intimate look at her life, work and the symbolism woven through her most personal paintings. The timing is deliberate; the film lands one month before the Tate Britain exhibition opens, meaning you can watch it on screen and then go and stand in front of the real thing. The kind of cultural double bill worth planning for. Check listings and book at exhibitiononscreen.com.
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