Over the summer, I was at dinner in Berlin with an eclectic group that included stylist and fashion director of 032c Marc Goehring. I was expressing my newly discovered interest in leather pants when he, an experienced wearer, offered to take me to the local fetish store, well known for its custom made leather pants. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time, but that conversation planted a seed that grew quickly. The signs continued—my fashion-forward friend Michael Martin-del-Campo bought an incredibly chic Helmut Lang pair that fit him perfectly. District Vision co-founder and known hunk Tom Daly strolled into Dig Inn on Prince Street (whatever) one night wearing a vintage black leather pair with a denim shirt and an old North Face. They all wore leather pants in different ways, but they looked great.

I desperately wanted to dip my toe in the water, but it felt a bit out of reach. My style was a little more simple, dad-like, and decidedly not flashy. Still, I rushed home and fired up eBay to start trawling the world wide web. I needed a pair.

Although I consider myself to be an understated dresser, I often find myself attracted to statement pants: orange single-pleat chinos from Noah, Realtree Camouflage track pants from Stussy, even a pair of custom floral double knee work pants from Pentimento Shop. The more I scrolled through eBay and looked at #inspo online, the more leather pants began to feel truly approachable. If there is a will, there is a way. I didn’t want to look like an auxiliary musician hired for a Sex Pistols Vegas residency starring a hologram version of Sid Vicious, or even worse, Jeff Goldblum trying to stay relevant. I wanted to look like myself, but with a cool new twist. I am not Iggy Pop.

I decided that if I wore black leather pants in place of my usual Levi’s 501s that they would work. I would look like myself—maybe slightly more fashion-forward, but not like a ’60s Jim Morrison or an ’80s Joan Collins. In my mind, I would be a slightly preppy coastal elite New York City transplant combined with just a pinch of New Romanticism. Like: imagine if Malcolm McLaren had starred in School Ties.

After weeks of searching, I found a pair in an odd place. Like Lindsay Lohan, I had not thought about the premium denim category since 2006. But one evening while scrolling through Google search results, I found a simple pair made by Joe’s Jeans. No logos, no weird buckles; just plain black, unadorned leather pants. It felt strange, but on screen they looked right. I took the plunge.

It’s time to Kiss and Tell! From firsts to worsts, we’re talking swapping spit all Valentine’s week long. In this installment, we’re going deep on what is a hickey, and how to get rid of one.

Ever found an angry, purple mark has popped up your neck after a particularly enthusiastic makeout session? We’ve all been there, left to wonder what is a hickey, anyway? How long will it last? And how do I get rid of it?

The truth is, hickeys are really no big deal. There’s never any reason to shame someone for having a hickey — like all forms of consensual sexual behavior, you don’t have to justify someone making out with your neck — but the paradox of the hickey is that it takes something private and creates a public, lingering effect. Nothing feels more right in the moment, but walking through the next few days with it displayed on your neck can be surreal. Suddenly, your private life becomes public. I was once a part of an act of passion, it screams, and now I’m just in math class.

Whether your goal is to avoid them entirely or simply give the best ones possible, here’s everything you need to know about hickeys.

1. A hickey is really just a bruise.

Hickeys are basically just broken blood vessels caused by sucking, which results in a bruise. Hickeys are most likely to occur on softer, more sensitive skin like the neck, shoulders, chest. This blood is generally dark red at first, but once it dries out it turns to a darker purple or brown color, creating the marks we know and love (or hate, whatever).

2. Hickeys can last as long as two weeks.

There’s surprisingly little research done on hickeys, but the general consensus is that they last about one to two weeks. How long the mark stays on a person is up to the harshness of the suction and the health of the person affected; the more intense the hickey, the longer it’ll stick around, while the healthier the person is (think: well-hydrated, good circulation, enough iron), the shorter the hickey’s time on earth.

3. You can’t “get rid” of a hickey, but you can speed up the healing process.

There’s no actual cure for hickeys, but if you’re in a rush and need this thing gone, there are a few things you can do to speed up the healing process. You can put an ice pack (wrapped in a paper towel) on the hickey the first day. Repeat throughout the day to slow blood flow to the area.

As soon as you get the hickey, you can also begin to apply aloe vera and vitamin E. This will help the broken capillaries heal more quickly, as well.

If you’ve had the hickey for two days, it’s time to try a warm compress. Applying heat to the hickey will cause blood flow to increase, which at this point can actually help. Note: if it’s before 48 hours, don’t do this — it could actually make the hickey bigger if you do it early on when the blood vessels are still healing.

4. Keep your hands off the hickey.

Other than applying heat or ice, try to leave the hickey alone. Never scrape, overly massage, or otherwise prod and poke at your hickey, which at the very least will just irritate the spot further and increase the hickey’s lifetime, but can also be seriously damaging, and even lead to scarring.

5. Deaths from hickeys are extremely rare.

The hickey-related death of 16-year-old Julio Macias Gonzalez was tragic and scary, but ultimately remains an outlier. Hickey-related deaths are few and far between, and, though tragic, are often more of freak incidents than something to prevent or worry about too much. Still, if you’re worried, avoid getting a hickey.

6. Hickeys can show up at any age.

The neck, the shoulders, and the chest are seriously sensitive to touch, meaning that being kissed there feels pretty incredible. When you’re newer to kissing and still fine tuning the Perfect Neck Kiss™, you’re more likely to be a little aggressive with your mouth, which is why hickeys tend to show up more on younger or newer kissers. With substantial practice and the right partners, your kissing will probably ease into a less hickey-centric mode, but if you’re someone who really appreciates a good necking, the occasional love bite can show up at any age.

7. Hickeys are seriously no big deal.

It’s totally easy to conceal a hickey if you so wish, especially if you have something memorable, like picture day, or a huge presentation. A turtleneck will do wonders for hiding a hickey, and you can even find a sleeveless version for warmer months. You can also apply a concealer that matches your skin tone. But ultimately, if you have a hickey that you were given in a consensual way, you just have a hickey, and it’s probably going to be gone in a few days, so try not to stress about it if you’re feeling worried. Likewise, if you’ve given someone a hickey they wanted, as long as you’re both committed to keeping the situation as respectful as possible, it’s all good.

This article was originally published in 2016.

Related: How to Kiss Someone

La nueva temporada de COS promete dar mucha guerra este año. La firma sueca presenta una serie de diseños para la primavera que podrían desfilar, perfectamente, sobre cualquier pasarela. Patrones trabajados al milímetro, interesantes juegos de volúmenes y una paleta cromática de ensueño son algunas de las características que definen las prendas de lo nuevo de COS.

Los modelos de la firma nos recuerdan a diseños que vemos en las colecciones de marcas de primera línea como Ulla Johnson, Balenciaga, Vetements, Carolina Herrera, Altuzarra, Erdem, Hermès o Victoria Beckham.

Los estampados nos transportan al universo de la firma americana Ulla Johnson y a la romántica Erdem. Los modelos más minimalistas se asemejan a la propuesta de la británica Beckham mientras que el estilo camisero podría ser parte de la colección de Balenciaga. Los diseños híbridos (al estilo Frankestein) se parecen a los de Vetements. Por último, los vestidos de vibrantes colores sólidos recuerdan a Carolina Herrera y las piezas de piel se asemejan a las de Hermès o Altuzarra.

Nos adentramos en su web para descubrir algunos de los vestidos de la marca que son una joya para las amantes de las últimas tendencias.

Vestidos camiseros

Los diseños minimalistas de corte camisero son unos de los más fáciles de combinar de lo nuevo de COS. Los vemos tanto de tejidos fluidos, como el lino, como de tejidos más rígidos como la piel. 

Vestido línea A con bolsillos. Su precio es de 89 euros.

Vestido camisero en color piedra. Su precio es de 99 euros.

Vestido camisero de piel. Su precio es de 390 euros.

Vestidos a todo color

Los diseños al estilo pop of colour son toda una explosión de cara a la próxima primavera. Colores como el fucsia, el azul pitufo o el melocotón prometen ser los reyes de la calle durante los meses de calor.

Vestido voluminoso en color fucsia. Su precio es de 79 euros.

Vestido con escote drapeado. Su precio es de 115 euros.

Vestido en rojo anaranjado. Su precio es de 89 euros.

Vestido con mangas abullonadas. Su precio es de 89 euros.

Vestidos estampados

Los prints vivos son perfectos para dar la bienvenida a la primavera y son una de las parte de identidad de una de las firmas más populares del momento: Ulla Johnson. COS presenta algunos modelos que son muy similares a los de la firma estadounidense.

Vestido con estampado en lavanda y lima. Su precio es de 115 euros.

Vestido de rayas con frunces. Su precio es de 99 euros.

Vestido estampado con drapeado central. Su precio es de 99 euros.

Fotos | COS, @cosstores, Instagram

There are certain wardrobe investments you make because they’re trendy and flashy and catch your eye, and then there are others you make that are on the more practical side. These items might not be the ones you’re jumping up and down with excitement to wear, but I guarantee they’re the ones that you wear most in your closet. I’m talking about wardrobe basics—pieces like white T-shirts and straight-leg jeans that make up the backbone of your wardrobe. Now, it might be tempting when cleaning out your closet each season to add some of these items to the giveaway pile to create room for the aforementioned trendy pieces, but trust me when I say that’s a mistake.

There are certain basic items that you should always have on hand and you’re all but guaranteed to miss them as soon as they’re gone. The exception to this statement is if the item is too worn out to the point that it’s not functional anymore (e.g., it has holes or permanent stains). Outside of that, though, it’s best to hold on to these pieces. From the third piece that always looks polished to the shoe style you’ll most likely wear for the rest of your life, below I’m outlining the five best wardrobe basics you should never purge from your closet.

More often than not, what the fashion world crowns an It piece and what we actually want to own are two very different things. As a digital fashion editor, I’m constantly scouring the internet to uncover these buzzy It pieces, and in doing so, I’ve become acutely aware of all the latest items to earn cult status. (I’ve even created a column to tell you all about them each month.) What I’ve learned is that more often than not, these “famous” items tend to not be the most wearable—all for the ‘gram, you know?

So I recently made it my mission to test-drive some of the most famous fashion items in person and give them my brutally honest review. Would those Bottega Veneta sandals be comfortable to walk in? Would those Gucci sunglasses look too over-the-top? I went out to a few retailers like Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue in search of these beloved garments I’d seen in street style galleries and Instagram feeds galore, and after hauling armfuls of options into my dressing rooms and snapping the pics to prove it, I can honestly tell you which items lived up to their hype and which ones simply didn’t translate as well in person.

From the sandals seemingly every fashion person owns to several Insta-famous dresses, scroll down to see the dressing-room shots of what I tried on, and find out which pieces are 100% worth it.

Fun fact: The first time we reported on long shorts was 12 months ago. We predicted their rise to the top in 2020 and clearly, we were right. Because of that, we’re kind of already in the future, but due to the existing success of this trend, we can once again assume that this style is here for the long haul. The runways set the trend for S/S 20 and now that we finally have some new street style imagery that’s educating us on all the fresh new ways to wear them right now. 

Ahead, we’ve rounded up a handful of the most stylish ways fashion girls are styling long shorts this year that are not only trendy but are easy to recreate. To prove it to you, we shopped out each look for you so you don’t even have to lift a finger.