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Mexico Fashion Week: Showcasing the work of contemporary designers and traditional artisans

t's easy to see why contemporary designers seek to evoke traditional Mexican handcrafts and folk art through their collections. Brightly-colored embroidery and intricate beading reflect skills passed down for generations, while the patterns themselves carry meaning far beyond modern print design. At the recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Mexico City, designers emphasized the collaborative nature of their relationship with local artisans, showing embroidered gowns and garments featuring historic emblems and motifs. These were clothes created with modern techniques, but infused with centuries-old tradition. Designer Lydia Lavín, for example, worked with artisans from the Huichol community, an indigenous group from Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range, to create gowns adorned with embroidery and beadwork.

Coachella: Why all music festival-goers look the same

ast weekend, Coachella, the internationally renowned festival, opened in Indio, California. It's here in the desert that, for the last 19 years, the world's most celebrated musicians have taken to the stage, but also where summer fashion trends are perpetuated. Take a quick look through this year's Coachella street style photos and you'll see a few recurring elements: fringe and cutoffs; gladiator sandals and desert boots; metallic bindi tattoos; Mexican-style embroidery and vintage-inspired anything. Do you get the feeling you've seen this all before? That's no coincidence: The initial obsession with the celebrities who graced Glastonbury in rubber boots, short-shorts and vintage fur in the mid-aughts has spawned a global fashion aesthetic that continues to thrive as modern festival-goers scour the shops for pieces that evoke the right aesthetic. "Fashion and nostalgia have always gone hand in hand, and when it comes to Coachella, it's that whole romanticism about having a music festival, open in the prairies, with a flower child look. It's a hippie look mixed with grunge elements," said Anupreet Bhui, senior editor for global street style at the trend forecasting agency WGSN, who monitors more than 20 festivals around the world. "It's more about the looks than the ideology. Let's not forget: it's the Instagram generation." Brands and retailers have clearly taken note, with Topshop, H&M, Adidas, Barneys and others dispensing festival-focused capsule collections and shopping edits.

Rihanna's Harper's Bazaar China cover sparks questions of cultural appropriation

Some social media users have heaped praise on the images, while others expressed concern about whether it's acceptable for a non-Chinese person to adorn themselves with items from the country's history and culture. "She snapped but...isn't....that...cultural appropriation?!?!" wrote one Twitter user, with "snapped" being a term for high praise. "Love Rihanna but we can't accept everything she does cause it's her," wrote another. The debate on cultural appropriation -- who can wear what, and under which circumstances -- has existed for years, though it has become increasingly high-profile. Just last month, Kim Kardashian West was accused of cultural appropriation after she launched a lingerie brand called Kimono -- also the name of a centuries-old Japanese garment. Several other models and designers have been called out for cultural appropriation in recent years -- Karlie Kloss for dressing like a Japanese geisha in the pages of Vogue, Gigi Hadid for being styled with an afro (also in Vogue) and Kylie Jenner for wearing cornrows.

What it means to be a mixed-race model in Japan

or 18-year-old model Rina Fukushi, Tokyo is home. But growing up as a mixed-race child in Japan wasn't always easy. With a Japanese-American father and a Filipina mother, Fukushi was one of a growing number of biracial individuals identifying as "hafu" -- a phonetic play on the English word "half." "I was teased when I was in elementary and junior high school because I looked foreign," she recalled in an interview with CNN. The term hafu was first popularized in the 1970s as Japan loosened its approach towards foreign residents, giving them better access to public housing, insurance and job opportunities. An increased number of US soldiers in the country also contributed to an upsurge in mixed-race marriages and biracial children. Despite increasingly progressive attitudes towards race in Japan, the country's immigration numbers have remained comparatively low. Foreigners and their hafu children often live as outsiders, a topic explored in the 2011 documentary "Hafu: The Mixed Race Experience in Japan."