Sconty empire

UK music festivals: how to get the best-value tickets Events are setting out their stalls for this season – here’s a rundown of how much they cost, from £250 to free T ickets for what’s almost certainly Britain’s most expensive music festival – costing £250 each – go on  sale on Monday and are likely to sell out in minutes, despite the fact it’s only a one-day event and they haven’t even announced any of the acts. House Festival , taking place this year at Kenwood House in Hampstead, London on 5 July, has been dubbed “the poshest festival in the world”, and the decision to hike the price once again – tickets were £200 in 2014 – is unlikely to deter its well-heeled clientele. Organised by Soho House, the event is renowned for its big pop names – last year’s bill included Erasure, Dua Lipa and Rag’n’Bone Man – and that hefty price traditionally includes unlimited high-end food and booze  By contrast,  Liverpool International Music Festival ...

Bannon to address Front National as French far-right leaders seek unity Beset by political and personal rifts, and with her popularity in the post-election doldrums, Le Pen is facing opposition to her plan to rename the party in an attempt to improve its electoral chances. presidential election. Hours before the conference opened it was revealed Donald Trump’s former adviser  Steve Bannon  would be speaking on the first day of the event. The move is seen by the traditional wing of the FN, founded by Le Pen’s father in the 1970s, as a betrayal of the party’s heritage. The new name will be voted on after it is unveiled on Sunday. The surprise guest speaker Bannon was announced on Twitter by the FN deputy president Louis Aliot. He wrote: “Welcome to Steve Bannon who will address the FN tomorrow at our congress and will meet ML [Le Pen]. The people are waking up and taking their destiny in hand.” Shortly afterwards Aliot tweeted a photograph of him sha...

Burberry check reborn Before Christopher Bailey announced that he was leaving  Burberry , he was keen to make us feel nostalgic for the label’s historic past. And so, 15 years after the infamous beige check became an object of derision, and Burberry itself buried the print in the lining of its trenchcoats, he has brought check back. The renaissance has been achieved through a few factors: Adwoa Aboah in a checked baseball cap, a collaboration with Gosha Rubchinskiy and a series of plastic-y macs that have become an Instagram influencer favourite. Now there’s a mid-season collection that is check-tastic, too. Those trademark squares appear on see-through bags, dresses and macs, plus the kind of shirts and caps that will appeal to both long-term fans and more recent adopters in search of the perfect street style shot. The check is back and no one does a check like Burberry. Dive in.

Loq step up   Combine the surnames of Keren Longkumer and Valerie Quant and you have  Loq , a new footwear label designed in Los Angeles and India’s Nagaland, and built in Spain. The aim is “to redefine classics” and the results are a slick take on ultra-minimal Indian footwear, in pleasing tactile shades of khaki and cream. Think both simple and architectual. Longkumer and Quant met on a footwear course in LA in 2015; they now live in Nagaland and LA’s Venice Beach respectively, but their long-distance relationship provides umpteen references to keep their designs fresh.

Loewe Loses its heart to craft If two gongs at December’s Fashion Awards didn’t convince you of Jonathan Anderson’s impeccable taste, his craft range for  Loewe  will. It comprises 50 blankets, tapestries and shoppers made in collaboration with craftspeople in Japan, Togo, Peru, India and Spain. There’s a bag with imagery from the Andes and a blanket fashioned from Indian ribbon embroidery. On show at Milan’s design fair Salone del Mobile in April, the totes will go on sale later this year. Craft has never been so chic.  

Heron Preston keeps it real    Heron Preston is a man who lives life at breakneck speed. At 34, the designer, DJ and influencer is still relatively unknown by the wider fashion industry, but Kanye West, Off-White’s Virgil Abloh and Nike dot his CV. He launched his own line only last year, but has already persuaded the New York Department of Sanitation to collaborate with him on a collection using upcycled workwear. (Clearly quite the negotiator, he approached them,  W magazine says , with an email titled “Big idea”.) “It’s so weird but it makes so much sense,” he says. “There’s lots of similarities in what they wear and what I wear.” The   Heron Preston   aesthetic, as seen in his second collection, for S/S 18, is bold colour, graphic print and 90s details such as bumbags and high-waisted jeans. Things that could easily walk into the wardrobe of a young hypebeast. The buzz is because “people want things that come from a real place. That’...

My life in specs: ‘I have a great face for glasses’ M y first pair of spectacles, acquired at the age of 10, were based partly on a lie. I’d decided that glasses were needed for My Look, aka arty and in possession of a prescription – for shortsightedness or astigmatism, either would do – and I was determined to make it a reality. So I exaggerated my problems to the optometrist, lying mildly about what I couldn’t see. I got my wish and chose my frames. They were hideous: too-big aviators in a gold finish. My father, who had let me choose them, shrugged and asked if I could see better now. Yes, In the 25 years since, I have stopped lying about my vision, and my eyes have continued their (increasingly rapid) deterioration. I added contact lenses to the mix as a result of vanity because 1) my eyeliner game levelled up, and 2) prescription sunglasses are so ugly. But I feel most like myself with the comforting weight of spectacles on my face. Laser surgery is not ...