"Weekend Reading" is a weekly rundown of our favorite stories from around the web.
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Ralph Lauren is a Knight
"Ralph Lauren might be known mainly for his clothes that telegraph “America,” but now he is the first American designer to be recognized with an honorary knighthood. In a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, Prince Charles gave the traditional insignia to Lauren—who in the past has also been given a Key to the City of New York and the French Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur"

via: Vanity Fair

Chewy's Runaway IPO Blazes Path for J. Crew and Neiman Marcus
"PetSmart Inc.’s massively successful stock offering of Chewy.com, and the windfall it created for creditors, is stoking speculation that other deeply indebted retailers will stage sales of their own fast-growing units. Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. and J. Crew Group Inc. have already said they’re exploring strategic options for their booming side businesses, MyTheresa and Madewell. Should those assets be shopped or go public, stakeholders would benefit if the proceeds are used to pay down debt or bolster the balance sheets."

via: Bloomberg

Dior Does Dallas
"Since Christian Dior founded his namesake brand in 1946, the French fashion house has been a trailblazer in the industry. Dior's evolution and widespread influence is in part due to its list of incredibly talented creative directors through the years, which includes iconic names such as Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri. A recently opened exhibition, titled Dior: From Paris to the World, explores the legacy of Dior and these directors’ indelible mark on the prominent couture house."

via: i-D

How Gloria Vanderbilt Built a Legacy out of Denim
"Gloria Vanderbilt–the heiress, socialite, consummate interior designer, artist, and fashion icon–has died at the age of 95. She passed away on Monday morning at her home in Manhattan. 'Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman who loved life and lived it on her own terms,' her son Anderson Cooper said when confirming her death on CNN. 'What an extraordinary life. What an extraordinary mom. What an incredible woman.'"

via: W Magazine

Will Cool Clothes Make Young People Golf?
"Last Tuesday, as men in penny loafers descended on this golfers’ paradise, Stephen Malbon surveyed the backyard of a Spanish Colonial mansion and lit up a fat blunt. A hundred or so people had come to celebrate a collaboration between his apparel brand, Malbon Golf, and Beats, the headphone maker. 'There’s still a lot of people coming,' he said, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke as Kanye West boomed in the background."

via: The New York Times

Nostalgia for Nature at Men's Week
"More than a film director, a producer or an increasingly noted creator of interior décors, Luca Guadagnino yearns to be a gardener. 'I’d much rather do that than anything else,' he once said over lunch, adding that the prospects of pursuing gardening as anything more than a side hustle or hobby were dim."

via: The New York Times

The Wide Trouser, A Fashion Not Likely to Last, 1925
"Fashions, like rumours, are not easily traced to their source, and there seems to be no certainty as to the origin of the wide, baggy trousers so much in evidence in Oxford at present, which have attracted so much critical attention on all hands."

via: The Guardian

Ashley Biden Knows a Presidential Campaign is Coming. For now, She’s Talking Hoodies and Economic Inequality.
"Ashley Biden is taping this conversation. A publicist’s iPhone silently whirs away on the small, stylishly distressed cocktail table in the Hamilton Hotel’s swanky new bar, Society. We are here on Monday morning to discuss the staff uniforms Biden designed for the newly remodeled, rebranded hotel that had its formal unveiling the following evening along with drinks, a raw bar and a congratulatory hug from her mother, Jill Biden. As uniforms go, they are not particularly controversial. They are, in fact, quite nice: black suiting with linings printed with Washington streets and landmarks. White blouses have long, sweeping black scarf ties that can be knotted in a variety of ways so the staff can show off a little personal flair. There are also skinny faux-leather four-in-hands and an elegant black overcoat for the doormen when the weather turns cold."

via: The Washington Post

The Most Important Inventor in Watch History
"In 1783, one of Marie Antoinette’s guards and secret admirers devised a way to make her fall in love with him. He had no doubt noticed the queen’s obsession with Abraham-Louis Breguet’s watches, of which she owned several, so he reached out to the watchmaker with a brief. Well, not so much a brief as a plea for the legendary watchmaker to make something so spectacular it would win the affections of the queen. The forlorn lover had the right idea: Breguet eventually delivered the most complicated watch in existence at the time, built with many of his original inventions, including the perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and equation of time. One teensy hiccup: Breguet was given no timeline, and he spent 44 years toiling on his masterpiece. It was finished in 1827, 34 years after Antoinette was sent to the guillotine and four after Breguet himself passed (non-guillotine related)."

via: GQ

Prep is Back—But it's Completey Different Than You Remember
"Say the word “preppy” and it’ll very likely conjure images of John F. Kennedy, early aughts Vampire Weekend, and maybe your favorite Vineyard Vines-bedecked finance bro. Preppy is, after all, short for preparatory, as in school, as in East Coast WASP factories churning out Wall Street bankers and ‘80s teen movie villains. But while the word may come laden with more than a few negative connotations (at least for some), the style itself has exploded well beyond its elitist past."

via: Esquire

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