A Nordic Mythology Inspired Shoot with Missy Dress Design Gowns

It's always an immense pleasure to feature this lady's designs – I'm talking about  the inimitable Missy Dress by the way, one of the New Zealand's most talented independent British designers and a highly recommended member of our wedding directory, Little Book For Brides.

Jo's designs carry the most beautiful bohemian signature and the two gowns used in this particular shoot are full of the kind of hand-crafted detail I adore Joanne for. But who better to talk you through these images than the designer herself.

I love working with the Norwegian creative team Missy Dress – they have such a particular aesthetic, both dreamy and intricately detailed, that resonates so perfectly with my style.

I adore this atmospheric coastal styled shoot they organised early last summer using my gowns. Missy Dress (the Day Dreamers) are a creative partnership between photographer Mona and stylist Barbro, and they also have the talents of an extended network of other collaborators to call on, as in this shoot where Mari provided the gorgeous flowers. The location was an area near the tiny charming town of Stavern, where Missy Dress are based.

One beautiful summer afternoon, Missy Dress took these lovely fey creatures (fraternal twins) to the beach where they grew up, for a shoot with a couple of my very own Missy Dress gowns. The pale caramel coloured embellished tulle ‘Lotis' dress and the custom tinted wisteria French lace ‘Langtry' style.

The results are just gorgeous, with a hint of wild Nordic mythology about them; long hair and languorous poses evoking the havsrå of the deep fjords and coastal shallows.The havsrå (sea wife) can take many different forms, but often appears atop rocky outcrops as an incredibly beautiful woman with long flowing hair. They can foretell the future, thus there is often a mysterious air of melancholy about them.

Coty Selects R/GA to Lead Creative Duties on Its New Hair-Care Brands Clairol and Wella

Beauty giant Coty has picked R/GA to handle creative marketing for its recently acquired hair care brands Clairol and Wella after a creative review.

Effective immediately, the agency will lead efforts to promote Clairol in the U.S. and Wella worldwide. Its consulting practice will also handle other unspecified brand strategy duties.

"Appointing R/GA will bring a new level of creativity and excitement to the Wella and Clairol brands," read a statement from Coty svp of retail hair color and styling Rosa Ajjam, who called the news "a key part of our strategy to reinvigorate the retail hair category." She added, "R/GA shares our bold ambitions and we're confident that they are the right fit for the brands."

R/GA global chief strategy officer Barry Wacksman said, "The beauty category overall and the retail hair category in particular are ripe for disruptive innovation. R/GA is incredibly excited to work with Coty on its ambitious transformation of the venerable Wella and Clairol brands."

The agency once included brands like L'Oreal among its client roster, but has not produced any major campaigns in the beauty space for the past couple of years.

This review began after New York-based Coty finalized its merger with P&G's specialty beauty business in October 2016, thereby acquiring the aforementioned brands in addition to cosmetics staples like Cover Girl and Max Factor, fragrances including Hugo Boss and Gucci and other assorted hair care products.

WPP's Grey had been lead creative agency on both Clairol and Wella before P&G and Coty finalized the merger late last year. In February, Grey officially resigned from its duties on all brands involved in the deal including Cover Girl a few days before that brand went to Droga5. At the time, several parties claimed that budgetary concerns may have played a role in the decision. A Grey representative declined to comment.

According to the latest numbers from Kantar Media, P&G spent approximately $40 million on paid media promoting Clairol in the U.S. in 2015, $25 million in 2016 and $7 million in the first quarter of this year. Most campaigns for Wella are based in Europe, and global spending totals for the two brands were not available at the time this story went live.

More Health Problems Reported With Hair And Skin Care Products

We rub, pour, sprinkle and spray them all over our bodies, so you'd hope cosmetics would undergo serious safety oversight before they get into our hands. But in fact, the cosmetics industry is largely self-regulated, with no requirements for approval before going on the market. And once on the market, there are few systems in place to monitor the safety of personal care products.

"You can start making a cosmetic and start selling it the next day without any kind of permission from the FDA," says Steve Xu, a resident physician in dermatology at the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University and author of a study on problems with personal care products published Monday.

If you suspect that a product has resulted in an "adverse event," such as a rash, nausea, stress, or even death, you can report it to the manufacturer or tell the Food and Drug Administration. And while that might get you an apology and some coupons, there is no guarantee that your case will be investigated, or that a manufacturer will report it to the FDA.

Last December the FDA for the first time publicly released data collected by its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition on adverse events related to food and cosmetics since 2004. Before, someone would have had to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency to gain access to reports of safety problems.

Hair care products, skin care products and tattoos were most commonly reported as the source of problems, according to the analysis by Xu and colleagues at Northwestern, which was in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The most common complaints, according to Xu, were hair loss or breakage and local skin irritation. Baby products, personal cleanliness products, and hair care and coloring products were found to have the highest proportion of serious adverse events, including serious injuries, hospitalization and death.

From 2015 to 2016, the number of reported adverse events more than doubled. This leap, Xu says, was driven largely by complaints of hair loss and skin irritation associated with WEN by Chaz Dean Cleansing Conditioners. In 2014, the FDA announced that it was investigating WEN products.

Although the FDA had received only 127 complaints about these products by that time, the manufacturer had received about 21,000 complaints, according to the FDA. Unfortunately, manufacturers have no legal obligation to report adverse events to the FDA. So the FDA has asked the public to submit complaints about WEN conditioners directly to the agency. Many of the 2016 complaints, says Xu, were a direct result of that call to action. The agency also welcomes reports on problems with other personal care products through its online MedWatch system.

Guthy-Renker, the marketing company behind WEN products, said in a statement to NPR after the story published, "We welcome legislative and regulatory efforts to further enhance consumer safety across the cosmetic products industry. However, there is no credible evidence to support the false and misleading claim that WEN products cause hair loss."

In an editorial also published in JAMA Internal Medicine, former FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf and his co-authors say there needs to be better premarket assessment and postmarket surveillance of cosmetic products. Substantial improvements to cosmetics regulations, they say, would require more support for the "chronically underfunded" FDA, mandatory registration of cosmetic products, and modernization of cosmetics oversight, based on systems the FDA already has in place for drug and device monitoring. With these changes, they write, "we can achieve the high levels of safety people in the United States have a right to expect."