Twenty-five years ago, in his pristine but sparse Manhattan apartment, viewers got ready with Patrick Bateman for the first time, meeting the often suited and sometimes blood-drenched fictional character through his intensive morning routine. In the 2000 film adaptation of “American Psycho,” Christian Bale plays the yuppie investment banker — and nighttime serial killer, depending on your interpretation — who, upon waking, dons a cooling gel eye mask for his puffy eyelids while doing 1,000 crunches in his white briefs. He details his subsequent nine-step skincare routine at length with added pointers. (Alcohol-based products are drying and “make you look older,” he offers). When his glistening herb-mint facial mask peels off, his real mask slips, revealing his unsettling stare. “There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory,” he monologues. “And though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.” Throughout the film — and even more so in the book, published in 1991 by Bret Easton Ellis — Bateman is obsessive over brands and consumer goods, rattling off his knowledge and judging others on their tastes. Today, his specter lurks online through the hyper-consumerist attitudes on social media that almost makes his character’s obsessive behaviors seem normal. Influencers chronicle their minute-by-minute early morning fitness and wellness routines or multistep nighttime skincare regimen that appear to involve a never-ending array of products. The “morning shed,” popularized on TikTok, can involve peeling off or discarding multiple hydrating skincare masks, wrinkle patches, chin straps, mouth tape, LED masks, hair rollers and body wraps, all apparently worn overnight, to start the day. (Last year, Allure called the trend “the prison of being perpetually hot.”) “It’s a very relevant film for now, and of course, it was (released) way before social media,” said Jaap Kooijman, an associate professor in Media Studies and American Studies at the University of Amsterdam, who has written and taught on the book and film versions of “American Psycho,” in a phone interview. “But it’s based on the same principle of the outside appearance (and) consumer goods masking being empty inside.” Pure performance The film may depict a serial killer, but it’s the display of the “serial consumerism” of the era — then limited to traditional media like print and TV ads — that has become a fascinating harbinger as consumers’ aspiration for products that align with self-worth has only seemed to grow. The film’s themes converge most directly in the “manosphere,” the increasingly persuasive corner of the internet pushing narrow and problematic views of masculinity. Bateman has often been held up as a cult symbol of the “sigma male,” an archetype for someone introverted and attractive who works hard, works out, has a good skincare routine, and also harbors contempt for women. Ellis’ original intentions with his novel have been continually debated, with many critics believing the book to be inherently misogynistic. But director Mary Harron’s take on Bateman, co-written with screenwriter Guinevere Turner, has been considered feminist by some, including Kooijman, in its critiques. “We’re still watching a serial killer, but it’s so over the top, and so well played by Christian Bale that it’s, you cannot take it fully seriously,” Kooijman explained. The same can be said of engagement-baiting online, where every trend is taken to extremes and context can be lost. Is it satire when a six-hour morning routine goes viral for dunking one’s face in iced sparkling water at 5 a.m. after pushups on the balcony? Or does it only become that when someone else responds with their version dipping their face into the bowl with each push-up? Bateman may have taken notes and ditched his gel mask. In any case, it’s all performance, something that “American Psycho” toes the line with as Bateman is increasingly revealed as an unreliable narrator. Bateman obsesses over the symbols of status — his business card typeface, the ever-elusive reservation at the notoriously exclusive restaurant Dorsia — but the reality of his day-to-day activities is unclear. His peers misidentify him, his outbursts to fiancé (played by Reese Witherspoon) and secretary (Chloë Sevigny) aren’t met with responses, and his chainsaw-wielding murders are cleaned up like they never happened at all. “His persona as a serial killer is just as real — or not real — as his persona as a consumer and his persona as a (banker),” Kooijman said. “They become interchangeable, and that’s the terror, or the dystopian factor of ‘American Psycho.’” Yet, while Ellis’ novel can be interpreted as a critique of the wealth and consumerism of New York in the ‘80s, a period of significant economic growth, it’s also presenting it, Kooijman said. “You could also read it as a celebration.” Because of that, Bateman’s purpose may have been lost on the fans who could benefit from the film’s point. After all, by the end he is a pathetic figure, confessing his most depraved actions only to be called the wrong name and ignored once again (not so much a hero of masculinity after all). Instead, many young men are circling around the same preoccupations that Bateman did, “looksmaxxing” to improve one’s jawline or skin but to an echo chamber of like-minded disaffected internet users, much like investment bankers showing off new business cards to one another to inflate their self-worth. The manosphere, after all, is intended for itself. “You can always be thinner, look better,” Bateman tells his secretary when he invites her over for the evening. Online, that message continues to resonate, as social media drives the insatiable hunger for more. In “American Psycho,” Bateman’s identity is a hollow assemblage of labels, products and condescending monologues — a blueprint for the experience of being online today. Like and subscribe to watch the mask slip.

LVMH lost its position on Tuesday as Europe’s largest luxury company in terms of market capitalization after being overtaken by rival Hermès due to investor pessimism after disappointing first-quarter revenue from the sector bellwether. LVMH, whose high-end brands include Louis Vuitton and Dior, jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. and beauty chain Sephora, missed expectations for first-quarter sales as US shoppers curbed purchases of beauty products and cognac while sales in China remained weak. LVMH shares dropped 7%, bringing its market capitalization down to €246 billion, compared to €247 billion for Hermès. While market valuations tend to fluctuate, Tuesday’s trading “does reflect diverging performance and investor sentiment about the two companies,” said Jelena Sokolova, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. Sokolova pointed to LVMH’s larger exposure to the lower end of the luxury spectrum, whereas the wealthier client base of Hermes allowed it to better weather an industry downturn. Hermès, which sells $10,000 Birkin and Kelly handbags, is known for its tight hold on production, sticking to a 6-7% increase each year. The overtaking in market cap is “quite telling of the post, post-Covid world,” with LVMH fashion labels enjoying a far greater market share than in the past, having gained ground on rivals during the post-pandemic boom, noted Flavio Cereda, who manages GAM’s Luxury Brands investment strategy. There will be “short term pain for sure” said Cereda, noting Vuitton’s focus more on middle-range luxury goods was an “the area of concern.” LVMH, down 7.2%, led share declines across the sector, with Gucci-owner Kering and Hermès down 2% and 0.3% respectively. Swiss-based Richemont, which owns Cartier, was down 0.7% while Italy’s Prada was down 4.2%. A 3% decline in LVMH’s first-quarter sales — well below analyst expectations for 2% growth — pointed to another difficult year for luxury companies following US President Donald Trump’s recent tariff announcements, which have sparked fears of a recession. The performance signaled “a more difficult trading environment for the broader luxury sector,” said RBC analyst Piral Dadhania, who lowered his organic sales forecast for LVMH this year to flat from growth of 3% expected previously, citing the first-quarter sales miss. Investors had been hoping the luxury sector would pull out of its slump this year, but trade tensions have raised concerns of a global recession. Improvement seen at the end of 2024 now seems an anomaly as LVMH’s key fashion and leather goods business, home to the Louis Vuitton and Dior brands, reverted to 5% sales declines, noted Deutsche Bank. Shares of luxury companies have traded lower since the end of March, with LVMH, Kering and Burberry all down 14%, Richemont down 13% and Hermès down 5%. Bernstein analysts recently lowered their sales forecast for the sector this year to a decline of 2%, against a previous forecast for 5% growth, a drop that would mark the industry’s longest downturn in over two decades.

In the year 2000, HBO advertised Ellen DeGeneres’ latest comedy special with a Botticelli reference. Perched inside a clam shell and surrounded by figures from the original painting, DeGeneres created her own “Birth of Venus” for the promotional print poster — subbing out nudity for a more signature white pantsuit. (Both HBO and CNN share the parent company Warner Bros. Discovery). Three years later, for a magazine advertisement, the now-defunct British car brand Scion decided to reproduce Damien Hirst’s controversial sculpture “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (1991) by suspending their XII model in a tank of seafoam green formaldehyde. In the same decade, there was a surprisingly artistic print artwork for the sixth season of the popular 2005 CBS TV show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”. In the ad, cast members gaze through the window of a neon-lit diner lifted straight out of American painter Edward Hopper’s seminal painting “Nighthawks” (1942). Each of the campaigns may appear to have little in common, but they reveal an unmistakable truth about the advertising industry: before digital marketing became the norm, overtaking print in terms of revenue and budget allocation, there was arguably more room for complex, creative and daring image-making. Jim Heimann, graphic designer, historian and the editor of the forthcoming book “All-American Ads of the 2000s” — available in the UK from April 14 and in the US a month later — is worried these might be the last of their kind. “Print is slowly disappearing. That’s a problem,” he said. ‘The material isn’t there anymore’ Like a skilled archaeologist, Heimann has spent his life hunting down and preserving American cultural relics, such as cocktail napkins collected while researching the country’s penchant for drive-in restaurants to travel brochures from the early 20th century. A fixture at Sunday flea markets for the last 50 years, Heimann finds they are a good location to scour for magazines — often the first thing to go following a home clearout, he said. He normally turns to eBay to source specific ads, despite the added cost, and takes care to cherry pick from across pop culture, selecting the most artfully designed campaigns for top movies, popular games and even beloved cereal brands, among others. With each decision, he’s thinking: “What would I want to revisit 20 years from now?” In 2000, Heimann was commissioned by Taschen to create a series of books that mapped the visual fluctuations of the advertising industry. He started with the 1950s, a post-war period often referred to as the golden age of capitalism in the US, sourcing John Wayne-fronted Camel ads, glossy Cadillac double-page spreads and kitschy lingerie illustrations. Then he went back to the ‘30s, the ‘40s and jumped forward to the ‘60s, following each decade until the last tome cataloging the Wild West of the ‘90s hit the shelves in 2022. This edition on the aughts, however, will likely conclude the collection. “We had a discussion about doing 2010 to 2020,” Heimann told CNN in a video call. “But the material just isn’t there anymore.” Chronicling the earlier part of the decade has proved difficult. As the book’s foreword by Steven Heller, former senior art director of the New York Times, reads: “Advertising did not change when the Times Square ball fell at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000, but the industry began its creative decline in the 2000s” — a period when digital advertising was starting to creep in. When Google launched its AdWords platform in 2000, small businesses could eschew forking out for expensive visual campaigns and instead promote themselves on Google’s search results page with text-based adverts. By 2001, television had surpassed newspapers in terms of ad revenue for the first time in the US. These developments mark “the end of a century of advertising,” said Heimann. Societal shifts For Heimann, ads offer insight into the values and aspirations as well as political and economic environments of a generation. On compiling them in the book, he explained: “We always have a staple of 10 categories, but we expand them according to the decades. For instance, in the 1940s we had to expand war-related ads. They were really predominant, all these companies that were no longer producing automobiles or tires were doing everything for the war effort.” In the aughts, many of the ads were focused on technology. “The tech world just blew up,” Heimann said. “Everything fell into that (category) consistently.” It was the 10-year-period that saw the invention of the first ever iPhone, the iMac, the iBook, the MacBook, the iPad, the iPod, iPod Nano and iPod Mini — and that’s just Apple. Heimann also found old Motorola, Blackberry, Sony and Nokia ads, along with a slew of brands that are no longer in existence. Amid a shift in societal attitudes towards sexuality and sexual freedom, the concept of “sex sells” became a common marketing strategy in the ‘70s — so much so that it would be difficult to tell the difference between a Dolce & Gabbana campaign and an ad for Durex, said Heimann. Sexual marketing imagery continues to be prevalent, despite advertising’s changing tides (see Jeremy Allen White’s racy Calvin Klein underwear campaign in 2024, which Heimann sought to collect but failed to find a print copy, even after searching through 15 men’s magazines at his local newsstand). In a Gucci ad from 2002, a topless male model is photographed side-on, undoing the monogrammed belt of his ‘G’ embroidered jeans — the leather strap in-hand creating a “sophomoric suggestion of an enhanced male appendage,” wrote Heller in the book. A Tom Ford menswear shoot Heimann preserved from 2008 shows an entirely naked female model grabbing the crotch of a suited man. “Females are always exploited,” he pointed out. “But to the extent of how they exploit women just becomes (implausible).” At least the French brand Sisley somewhat evened the score, with an advert of a nude man saddled up and being ridden by a fully clothed woman. Still, to Heimann, this level of sexualization is “toned down” compared to the material he has collected from the ‘80s and ‘90s. “Now, we’ve got this new era of hyper masculinity,” Heimann said, referring to Trump’s hypermasculine campaign messaging that called for a return of gender roles, as well as the rise of “manosphere” influencers such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, who push male-supremacist viewpoints and call for the subservience of women on platforms such as YouTube. “Where’s that going to take us?” he questioned. The future of ads Between the leaps in AI technology and the new US administration, Heimann has questions not only on what adverts in the future might look like, but also who might be making them in the first place. It’s unlikely advertisers will want to spend on an agency to deliver a campaign when they can create them using AI for a fraction of the price. A recent study conducted by the University of Oxford suggests that AI-generated advertising images performed more effectively than human-made ones, as long as the images used do not look like artificial intelligence. “Where will that creative world go?” Heimann mused. “It’ll have to play out, but it doesn’t bode well.” A fixation on cutting costs might only become greater in light of President Donald Trump’s anti-European initiatives and the recently announced 25% tariffs on imported cars among other products. “How do you sell a car that’s 25% more (expensive) than another car?” Heimann asked. “Who’s going to buy a Subaru (or) a Volvo (if they) charge 25% more than an American car?” For Heimann, advertisements of the last two decades have been selling a steady version of the American Dream. “In the ‘90s and the early 2000s, advertising still has that same cadence to it. The population looks the same, the automobiles look the same,” he said. Now, Heimann thinks that as America continues to evolve, more monumental changes will come in the years ahead. “I’ve been asked the question, ‘Did 9/11 affect advertising and how people perceived it?’ I think there was a little bump (in the road)… But I think what’s happening currently is going to be much more impactful,” he said.

When Zach Gilyard, an art director in Brooklyn, got his first tattoo as a senior in high school, he did what most teenagers do and didn’t tell his parents. But not for the reasons you might think — Gilyard’s father and older siblings are all heavily tattooed, and Gilyard, like his mother, thought he would never join them. But on a whim 2006, he got a winged foot on his ankle to represent running, and kept it hidden around his family. “It was not very me,” he said in a phone call, of getting inked. “I kind of liked that it was a bit of a thrill for me, because it was a time where I couldn’t control the situation. I was doing something permanent.” Twelve years and several tattoos later, Gilyard abruptly decided to reverse course shortly after beginning a black-ink traditional patchwork sleeve on his left arm, starting with a panther head on his shoulder. It was big and bold, as intended, but left Gilyard feeling unsettled. “I always had a bit of buyer’s remorse every time I got one. It would last a week or two, and then I’d be happy that I did it,” he said. But this time, the feeling didn’t subside. “I had it for maybe a month, and I freaked out about it — it sent me into a whole panic. I couldn’t explain why. I just didn’t want it, so I told myself in that moment that I was going to get rid of it.” Roughly a quarter of people regret at least one of their tattoos, according to a 2023 Pew Research study surveying nearly 8,500 people in the US, as well as a smaller, separate study conducted in Turkey published the previous year. But it’s only fairly recently that tattoo removal has become more reliable and widely available. (This writer can attest to that; in 2008, she had a self-administered teenage stick-and-poke lasered off. It was an ordeal.) Celebrities have often drawn attention for their disappearing ink: Angelina Jolie famously removed Billy Bob Thorton’s name after their divorce in 2003; Megan Fox lasered off her portrait of Marilyn Monroe; and Pharrell told British Vogue in 2008 he was trying an experimental alternative that involved growing new skin. Most recently, Pete Davidson appeared newly bare-chested in a Valentine’s Day campaign for Reformation while undergoing removals of some 200 tattoos, though paparazzi shots following the ad revealed he is still sporting lots of faded ink. In Gilyard’s case, he wasn’t lasering hundreds of tattoos, but it has taken more than half a decade and several thousand dollars to remove a handful of them, including the stubborn, highly saturated panther head. Now, that’s nearly gone, showing only a ghostly impression against the freckles on his skin. Other, smaller designs are even further along and barely noticeable to him, he said. “Results do vary, person to person, tattoo to tattoo,” said laser technician and tattoo artist Tim Goergen, who has been treating Gilyard at his shop, Gotham Tattoo Removal, in Brooklyn. Tattoo ink sits in the dermis layer, or second layer, of the skin permanently because ink molecules are “too big for the body to break down,” Goergen explained in a phone interview. Laser machines release fast pulses of energy that heat and break the ink down into tinier particles, triggering an immune response that processes them through the lymphatic system. (A recent study in Sweden has linked tattoos — and their removal — with an increased risk for lymphoma, though its authors said more research is needed.) Tattoos that are easier to remove are usually older, made of black ink, have finer lines, and sit closer to the heart where there’s better blood flow, he said. Goergen charges between $100 and $450 for an individual session, while Removery, a national chain, cites $100-615 on its website. It’s difficult to predict how many sessions a client’s desired results will take, whether that’s fading a tattoo for a cover-up or complete removal, Goergen noted, “because everybody’s different.” Amending ‘younger decisions’ Why people remove their tattoos is often as idiosyncratic as why they get them. Sasha Goldbas-Nazarian, who lives in Los Angeles, decided to start laser treatments when she met her now-husband, who shares her Jewish faith but comes from a more conservative, Iranian family. Interpretations of the Torah, as well as associations with the Holocaust, have led tattoos to long be considered forbidden or taboo within Judaism, though contemporary attitudes towards it have somewhat shifted. “When we first met, he didn’t believe that I was Jewish because I had tattoos,” Goldbas-Nazarian recalled with a laugh. “He was like, ‘I’ve never really met any Jews that have tattoos.’” He eventually offered to pay to remove her most visible tattoos, which she said were “younger decisions” made when she was in high school and college, including a star on her ankle done — unprofessionally — by her friend with a tattoo machine; a horseshoe and star on her upper back; and the initials “UWS” for New York’s Upper West Side, where she grew up, on her wrist. (Disclosure: This writer is a childhood friend of Goldbas-Nazarian, and a former colleague of Gilyard). Goldbas-Nazarian accepted, partly because her tattoos were faded and blurred and often invited questions, and partly because covering them with makeup for formal events had become a hassle during their relationship. But she didn’t anticipate how long it would take — or that it would be much more painful than getting tattooed in the first place, despite the fact that the laser sessions only last a handful of minutes each. “Even though (the sessions are) fast, it’s still really painful. And you can smell your skin burning a little bit, which grossed me out,” she recalled. She’s gone for the treatments on and off for years but has had to pause for an extended period while pregnant, per the medical spa’s policies, and as a new mom. She has no desire to rush back, either. “Honestly, even though I still have a lot of sessions to do, I’ve been putting it off just because of how painful it is,” she said. Freckles gone wrong Though tattooing might typically bring to mind large, custom artworks or small flash pieces, cosmetic tattoos have become popular for their ability to enhance facial features and makeup — a so-called “semi-permanent” option for people wanting to remove the daily hassle of filling in their eyebrows or adding beauty marks. But, cosmetic tattooing, which uses an alternative ink meant to produce a more natural finish on the skin, comes with its own set of challenges — as Z, who lives in the UK and prefers to go by her first initial to remain anonymous, discovered around three years ago. Her tattoos were tiny, resembling freckles across her forehead, nose and cheeks to replace natural ones she’d lost due to a rare side effect from a severe illness. She knew she would lose her hair during treatment, she said, but wasn’t aware that her complexion would drastically change. “Growing up, I had a face full of freckles — my nickname was actually ‘Freckles,’” Z said in a phone interview. “Then I got quite poorly, and basically my freckles and all my moles faded away. And so when I was well again, I felt really weird about my face, because it felt so bare.” After she came across a YouTube video of cosmetic freckle tattooing, she thought she would be able to get her freckles back. “But it went very wrong for me,” she said, explaining that the results didn’t feel natural. “You could tell that they were drawn on.” Unpleased with the outcome, she would cover them with makeup, but they still showed through. Cosmetic tattoo ink is meant to eventually fade, but it doesn’t always. It also runs the risk of turning into other colors such as pink or orange over time, or when treated with laser. Z said she did her research and requested regular tattoo ink, but she does not believe her practitioner honored that request. Having more melanated skin put Z at a higher risk of hypopigmentation, a loss of skin pigment, during her tattoo removal. “There is no guarantee of perfect removal for any skin type, but it does become a little bit tougher on darker skin types,” explained Jordan Butler, founder of JHB Tattoo Removal, who has been treating Z, and sees clients with a range of complexions. “A lot of people that have come in and seen me in the past… have been told that they can’t have (a) tattoo removal, that it’s not possible. It’s definitely possible in most cases.” Though better laser technology in recent years has improved results and lessened unwanted outcomes such as hypopigmentation, Butler and Goergen emphasized that the outcome does depend on a technician’s knowledge and care. Ink pigment colors are targeted using different wavelengths, and some (like the one that targets warmer shades) are more “aggressive” than others, Goergen explained. “It’s possible to strip natural melanin out of the skin with the red or orange or yellow (inks),” he said. That’s why patch-testing is crucial, Butler said, which he did extensively with Z. Her first session was painful, she said, but the discomfort has lessened over time — “now it’s barely anything,” she commented — and her healing has been straightforward. “I think we’re almost there,” Z said of her progress. “It’s so much better than what it was.” Looking for a fresh start Jayne Foo, a financial consultant based in Singapore, has experienced the more extreme side of recovery over the past few months as she’s embarked on the removal of around 70% of her tattoos, including one of her two full sleeves, a chest piece and a large stomach piece. And, for her 14,600 followers on Instagram, she’s documenting the entire laborious experience — open wounds, fluids and all. Redness, soreness and swelling are all common; but blistering can occur too, which Foo has experienced after both of her first two sessions. “I always knew I wanted to get tattoos, but as a young girl, I never had the money to get nice tattoos, so I just plastered anything I wanted on my body without thinking of how it would look in the future,” she told CNN in a phone call. On why she’s getting the tattoos removed now, she said: “I want a fresh start. I want to reclaim my skin.” That’s the message Foo also hopes to share with her social media followers as she embarks on the yearslong process. She’s not the first influencer to document it — and some have begun partnering with clinics to promote and show results. But videos on social media are often limited to the session itself, which can be deceptive due to “frosting,” which appears to immediately lighten the ink but is actually a temporary effect that occurs briefly (for about 15-20 minutes) when the laser hits the ink,before returning to normal. Foo’s videos show the hours and days following her treatments, during which she experienced large, intense blistering and extreme itching from the scabbing that followed, the latter for which she was eventually prescribed antihistamines. “The first time I had it done, my arm swelled up twice the size,” she recalled. “I wasn’t expecting that at all.” For the first few days of healing, she chose to remain indoors completely to minimize contact. “It’s just too much of a hassle to leave the house,” she said. “You have to be very mindful of your surroundings and you have to keep yourself clean.” Foo said she will continue to chronicle her treatments, as “it’s important to be real about it.” Accustomed to documenting many parts of her life online, including her fitness and travel, she also thought it would be “weird” to “suddenly not have tattoos” in her posts. Conversely, Gilyard has taken a more discreet route and has kept his removal process mostly private — including from his parents once again. Though, they eventually noticed his faded tattoos. “My dad finally looked at my tattoos one day and asked why they look like an old man’s,” Gilyard said. “My mother just asked me how much it cost, and asked me how much the tattoos themselves cost, and just said it was all a waste of money,” he laughed. “But I think she’s happy that some are going away.”

Even by the standards of watch boxes — typically oversized for the objects they hold — Chopard’s latest leather case, unveiled at watch fair Watches and Wonders, is strikingly large. But the grandeur is justified. Open it, and it reveals not one, but twelve L’Heure du Diamant watches, arranged like precious petals. Each piece features the same diamond-studded bezel, framing twelve different dials crafted from thin, round slices of hard-stones including apple-green jade, cobalt blue agate, cinnamon brown tiger’s eye, white mother-of-pearl, pink opal, onyx, carnelian, and more. The result is an elegant, unmistakably feminine collection with just the right dose of color and sparkle. “My father, Karl Scheufele, introduced exquisite goldsmithing techniques that enabled the use of hard-stone dials when he took over Chopard in 1963,” explained Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president and creative director, over a phone call. “By the late 1960s, Chopard was already creating bold, colorful timepieces with these beautiful stones. Reviving them now is our way of celebrating that joyful creativity — while staying true to our heritage.” Chopard’s latest creation may be the most eloquent example yet and perhaps the peak of the hard-stone dial craze that has been sweeping the world of luxury watches over the past couple of years. It’s evident at Rolex, which reimagined its beloved Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 36 in uplifting tones of apricot carnelian, sky-blue turquoise and shimmering green aventurine. The watchmaker also updated its iconic Oyster Perpetual collection with a 28mm style, debuting in lavender and a matte finish, a first for the brand. Gucci gave its avant-garde, hands-free Grip timepiece a bold new look in sandstone-hued jasper, while Dior’s Grand Bal Histoire Naturelle features sodalite, aventurine and aragonite. Chanel ventured into the cosmos to fetch meteorite for one of its elegant Monsieur watches. Elsewhere, Cartier’s elongated oval-shaped Baignoire watch has a mesmerizing, hypnotic dial featuring an irregular mosaic of mother-of-pearl, turquoise, and onyx stones. Colorful mood-boosters This year, Piaget is also making a colorful splash with hard-stone dials. In one model from the Hidden Treasures collection, a green-hued opal dial peeks out from an intricately engraved white gold cuff, its outer frame rimmed with delicate emeralds. In another piece, a lavish sautoir with a rope-like chain is adorned with a 17-carat pink tourmaline and a white opal of over 12 carats, and holds a dial made of fiery red ruby root — the raw base material to which rubies are attached. The dial’s vivid color is echoed by ruby root beads in juicy cerise and raspberry tones, interspersed throughout the chain. One might associate such colorful hard-stones with ladies’ watches, which have historically featured softer colors or delicate details, but they’re popular in men’s timepieces, too. Piaget recently reimagined its iconic Andy Warhol watch in four striking variations, each featuring a different ornamental stone: blue opal veined with iridescent green, warm brown tiger’s eye, vivid green meteorite, and silvery meteorite. “The distinctive shape of this case offers an ideal canvas for showcasing exceptional slices of ornamental stone,” says Jean-Bernard Forot, head of patrimony at Piaget. “At Watches and Wonders, we’re reintroducing the tiger’s eye on a white gold case — an exquisite pairing that magnifies the stone’s graphic, magnetic stripes.” At the end of last year, Hublot added a bold twist to its muscular Classic Fusion model, unveiling dials crafted from lunar meteorite, pink jasper, turquoise, sodalite and nephrite jade. Now, at the Geneva fair, Gerald Charles — founded by the legendary designer Gerald Genta, who was often dubbed the “Picasso of watchmaking” — presented the Maestro with a radiant lapis lazuli dial. “Lapis lazuli was chosen because it was Mr. Gerald Genta’s favorite stone,” explained the brand’s CEO Federico Ziviani. “We hold the rights to his original sketch, so this design is completely aligned with our brand’s DNA.” A revival of ’70s aesthetics But why has the world of horology fallen for colorful hard-stone dials? “Collectors love these dials because they bring individuality to a watch,” explained Scheufele, noting that each stone varies in hue, with unique streaks, inclusions, and shimmering effects that give every piece its own distinct character. The appeal also goes beyond aesthetics.“These stones aren’t just beautiful — they carry meaning,” Scheufele continued. “From birthstones to lucky charms, they hold an almost mythical energy. That emotional connection makes them irresistible.” Alba Cappellieri, head of the jewelry and fashion accessories program at Politecnico University in Milan, believes that collectors’ growing fascination with hard-stone dial watches is closely tied to the broader revival of 1970s aesthetics. This resurgence has been particularly visible in luxury fashion: see the flared trousers, long sautoirs and bold mix of colors and prints seen at the latest shows of Valentino, Chloé and Chanel. “The 1970s marked a break from modernist austerity, ushering in a more fluid, emotional, and decorative aesthetic,” Cappellieri explained, citing Emilio Pucci’s “palazzo pajamas” as a perfect expression of that era’s “relaxed yet sophisticated spirit, with kaleidoscopic prints and lightweight fabrics that drape naturally over the body.” Much like in the 1970s, current rising inflation and geopolitical tensions globally may prompt consumers to seek solace in color as a quick and uplifting antidote. “Saturated hues and vibrant combinations are taking center stage,” Cappellieri continued, adding that the appeal of hard-stones such as lapis lazuli, malachite and mother-of-pearl “goes beyond decoration” and “reflect a desire to celebrate nature and its uniqueness.” However, for all their visual appeal and seemingly effortless ability to inject color into a watch, setting a dial using hard-stones is a delicate and complex process. Despite being classified as “hard,” these stones are, in fact, fragile, explained Piaget’s Forot. “Opal dials are especially tricky — even after passing all the stress tests, the real moment of truth comes when the watch hands are applied to the dial,” he said. “There’s a tiny pressure at the center of the dial, and even the strongest slice can crack.” Still, the risk is worth it. “One glance at a hard-stone dial instantly evokes images of a hedonistic, flamboyant lifestyle,” said Forot. “You can almost feel the warmth just by looking at it.”

TikTok has withdrawn a controversial filter that allowed users to alter their photos to make themselves look heavier. Each AI-filtered video on the app follows the same pattern. It starts with an unedited photo of the user—usually slim—before the “chubby filter” trickles down the screen, altering the subject’s physique, while the song “Anxiety” by American rapper and singer-songwriter Doechii plays. As more and more of these videos appeared, a backlash built from users concerned about an implicit body-shaming message. People began commenting on them—“this trend is mean girl coded,” wrote one user, whose comment received more than 5,000 likes. TikToker sadiebass16 said in a video: “Imagine you’re just trying to exist on this app and you see thousands of people using an AI filter to have a body that looks like your body, shaming it and all the comments being like ‘ugh, imagine.’ A lot of people can imagine.” Luna, a health and wellbeing app for teens, also criticized the filter for promoting “body shaming and unhealthy beauty standards.” CNN has reached out to TikTok for comment. The company told the BBC it had removed the filter from its app and that it was reviewing videos that featured the filter, making them ineligible for recommendation and blocking them from teen accounts. TikTok added that the filter was uploaded by a company called CapCut, which is a separate entity but has the same parent company, ByteDance. A search Monday morning for “chubby filter” brought up no results on the phone app. However, a search on the desktop version still threw up some content. There are hundreds of filters on TikTok, and many are harmless—for example, adding bunny ears or a dog nose to a face. However, the app’s beauty filters have been widely criticized as damaging to users’ self-esteem. One such filter smoothes out wrinkles, supposedly returning users to their teenage selves but potentially playing into ageist beauty tropes. The chubby filter, critics say, reinforces the widely perceived connection between beauty and thinness. A TikToker who posts under the name SaffsStuff took the filter to task in a video that has received more than 100,000 views: “I don’t think it’s funny, I don’t think it’s light-hearted. I think it’s part of this bigger problem of diet culture and heroin chic really becoming a proper, proper trend on social media at the moment.” One small study from 2019 linked the use of social media filters with higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery, while researchers from Harvard Business Review found in 2021 that people with high confidence in their looks can actually be more unsettled by seeing “improvements” to their face than those who already had insecurities. TikTok announced last November that children under the age of 18 would no longer have access to beauty filters following a report it commissioned that investigated the impact of these effects on young people.

Kim Haberly’s dark blonde hair hangs behind her shoulders away from her face. Her almond-shaped eyes are faintly ringed by the yellow tone of an almost-healed bruise. There are two thumb-sized divots next to her hairline (barely perceptible until she points it out) from her recent temple lift, a cosmetic surgery that lifts the outer brow. Ironically, her swollen face looks plump and round despite her partial buccal fat removal — a procedure that extracts the soft pads of tissue found inside the cheeks to create a slimmer face. Still, she could pop to the store without raising so much as an eyebrow from on-lookers. It’s not until Haberly turns her face to the right and raises the camera close to her ear, displaying two freshly sutured incisions, that you might suspect she is fresh out of a facelift. “I’ve woken up really swollen today because I slept on my side,” Haberly told CNN over a video call from her hotel in Turkey. Last month, Haberly traveled over 7,700 miles from her home in Perth, Australia to receive one of the most invasive facial surgeries available: a deep plane facelift. The advanced lifting technique — which has become a favorite of specialist surgeons for its apparent longer lasting results — not only repositions the top layer of skin (known as an endoscopic facelift) but also the complex network of tissue and fibrous muscles below. At 37, Haberly, who also had a neck lift operation, is almost a decade more junior than the youngest average facelift candidate in Australia, and in the eyes of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), is at least a whopping 18 years ahead of schedule. Traditionally used to reduce signs of aging, the facelift is often associated with those in later life. In the US, almost 60% of facelift patients in 2023 were aged between 55 and 69, according to ASPS. Similarly Generation X, which encompasses those aged from 45 to 60, were the primary age group seeking out facelifts in Australia that same year, research from the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and Medicine shows. And although there is no published data on the average age of a facelift patient in the UK, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) recently reported the procedure is “more common among those 50 and above.” Yet, in the last few years, an increasing number of younger people have been seeking out the surgery — not as an anti-aging method but to finesse their features, having grown up in an extremely digital world where their physical appearances are constantly on show. According to the ASPS, the number of facelift patients in 2023 aged between 20-29 and 30-39 each jumped by 7% compared to the previous year, while those from the 40-54 age group grew by just 3%. Dr. Jonathan Zelken, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Newport Beach, California, who has performed a number of facelifts, has found that some of his clients in their 20s and 30s “want sharper jaw lines, sharper cheeks, sharper brows,” he told CNN over the phone. Rather than eliminate wrinkles, their goal is to enhance their existing appearance, Dr. Zelken explained. “​​It’s not a rejuvenation strategy. It’s a beautification strategy.” Mainstream appeal The first known facelift was performed at Berlin’s Charite Hospital over 120 years ago. In 1901, an intrepid German doctor called Eugene von Holländer was approached by a Polish aristocrat looking for smoother skin. With her hands clasped to the sides of her face, the well-to-do woman is said to have demonstrated her request by lifting the corners of her mouth and cheeks. But Holländer was initially reluctant to operate, given that no such operation existed. Ultimately, as he recorded in his 1912 medical paper, he fell victim to “the art of feminine persuasion” and readied his scalpel. While there is little public information about patient zero, including her name, Holländer’s notes of her “aging wrinkles” and “drooping cheeks” suggest she was around the age of a prototypical candidate. Over a century later, the surgery is breaking new ground once again. This time, with those under 40. It’s a controversial procedure, but Dr. Zelken is largely in support of the newfound interest from this burgeoning demographic, whose operations have produced some of his “favorite” results. “It’s almost like you are doing a filter for social media in real life by doing these procedures,” said Dr. Zelken, who was hesitant to share the cost of his work, but pointed to Southern California’s ballpark range of $30,000 to $100,000 per facelift. While he acknowledged that a 20-something year old looking for a facelift would be a “yellow flag,” he wouldn’t be deterred solely on that. “It’s hard to put an age minimum on this procedure,” Dr. Zelken reasoned. Even where there are no drooping cheeks or aging wrinkles, “you can achieve really attractive change,” he said. That’s also the opinion of some facelift patients. Emily Cipryk was 28 years old when she flew from Toronto, Canada to Istanbul, Turkey for a deep plane mid-facelift — a procedure that raises the tissue and skin around the corner of eyes as well as cheeks. “I really wanted to enhance myself, just to feel good about myself again,” she told CNN on a phone call. Cipryk’s previous job in financial technology during the pandemic meant she was on Zoom calls for hours a day, with her face constantly reflected back at her. “I partied a lot, from university until my late 20s, and it caught up with me… I just didn’t look good,” she said. Cipryk received a total of six surgeries at once, including a blepharoplasty, lip lift, a rhinoplasty and partial buccal fat removal, which cost a total of €13,000 (about $14,140). The process was entirely financed by her fiancé, who also traveled with her to Turkey. “I did six procedures at once so I could just get it all done,” said Cipryk. She noted that she was “very happy” with the results. While Cipryk’s procedures went well, she cautioned others to “be careful” when selecting a surgeon in Turkey. “People get ahead of themselves and think, ‘Oh, it’s so cheap, I can afford it.’ And they might go to someone who’s not even a real plastic surgeon,” she said. “I’ve heard of people going to a real estate agent to get a hair transplant (because) they’re not doing their research.” In 2023, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons published a joint statement with the Turkish Society of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons warning of a rise in “serious complications and even deaths” linked to the “significant increase in numbers of patients travelling abroad for aesthetic plastic surgery.” Online pressures Using plastic surgery to maintain a youthful and symmetric appearance is not a new concept. Cosmetic procedures were first popularized in the early 20th century by Hollywood actors concerned with enhancing their on-screen appearance. But with the advent of social media and and the popularization of selfies, the pressures once reserved for those on the world stage now affect many individuals. Catherine*, a 33-year-old from Southern California, spends much of her time on Instagram and TikTok. “I’m watching videos of girls who are in their early 20s that are Instagram influencers and also celebrities who get the best work done,” she told CNN over a phone call. “So, you’re looking at all these people who are a lot younger and they’re perfect, and you’re really chasing that, even though that’s maybe not attainable for the average person.” For Haberly, the desire for a facelift was partly born out of the rapid weight loss she achieved through semaglutide injections, which led her to drop about 15 pounds. Around three years ago, she started to notice loose skin around her jawline and began using sports tape — designed to support muscles and ligament injuries — to hide these areas. It also didn’t help that as part of Haberly’s job as a hair colorist, she would often film her clients’ coloring sessions and post them on Instagram. Despite not being the focal point of the video, Haberly would often receive disparaging comments such as “You look haggard, you look old.” Haberly recounted: “That was probably more when the camera was lower. I would always know when I was going to get those (comments) because I could see myself when I posted that video.” Ultimately, Haberly opted to undergo a facelift surgery, as she hoped it would “help the longevity of my career, which is really important.” How young is too young? Some surgeons are more wary of operating on younger patients. Haberly initially struggled to access the type of facelift she wanted in Australia — a country which requires a psychiatric test prior to a consultation with a cosmetic surgeon. She passed her mental health checks but was warned by local doctors on having a drastic procedure at her age. One surgeon offered an alternative, less invasive option that involved repositioning the skin rather than removing it entirely. Harberly was recommended by another doctor to wait until she was 50 for a facelift — but she didn’t want to reverse the clock, she wanted to pause it. “I want it now while I’m traveling the world and I’m out there and my face is everywhere,” she said. A similar sentiment was shared by Naomi*, a 45-year-old patient of Dr. Zelken’s who had a deep plane facelift last year. “I want to enjoy it now,” she told CNN. “I don’t want to wait until things get worse and worse… Let’s get ahead of it.” On why a facelift appealed to her, Catherine explained: “I went through eight years of school plus grad school. I think the stress starts to show on you.” She added that she also felt insecure about some “asymmetry” caused by a medically necessary neck operation in her 20s, and after years of consistent Botox and laser therapy, she wanted “something that was 100% guaranteed to give me a result.” Catherine’s operation, which took place at her local clinic and included a lower face and deep plane neck lift, as well as the extra expense of overnight monitoring from a nurse, cost between $25,000 and $30,000. However, there’s reason to be cautious, according to Dr. Kelly Killeen, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Beverly Hills. “The older population, they’re looking at the surgery because they want to restore something they had in their youth. Whereas younger people are sometimes chasing something that doesn’t exist,” she told CNN over a phone call. Face-tuning apps play a role in this, Killeen explained, pointing to facial laxity — a term used by surgeons to refer to looser skin — as an example that may seem unappealing but is expected with daily movement and neck function. “It doesn’t feel normal (to younger patients) because with the way people edit their photos and shoot their videos, you can’t sometimes see that celebrities have laxity in (physical) areas (that) bend,” explained Killeen, pointing to the neck and jaw as examples. Health and safety Whether young facelift patients encounter greater risks than those in their 50s and 60s is disputed from surgeon to surgeon. In Dr. Zelken’s view, surgery complications such as nerve damage or muscle paralysis could be felt more deeply by a younger patient, as opposed to someone older. One disadvantage of starting young is the higher likelihood of repeat operations, warned Californian surgeon Dr. Carl Truesdale. “Someone who is searching for a facelift when they’re younger are less tolerant of age in their face, so they’re going to be more sensitive to seeing age in their face when they’re older, right?” he said. The more surgeries that are performed over a lifetime, the higher potential there is for traumatized tissue, Dr. Truesdale added, noting that revision operations are inherently more challenging. He estimated that last year he turned down facelift operations for around 50 people under the age of 40, with the reason that they “don’t need it.” Determined to undergo the procedure, Haberly eventually scheduled a virtual consultation with a doctor in Turkey, communicating with a receptionist via Whatsapp and sending through photos of her face, pinching her skin and moving her head as directed. Her surgeon in Istanbul then sent through a procedure plan along with the price — $19,425 — and she flew overseas. When Haberly woke up the day after her surgery, the sensation in her body was unbearable. The swelling and bruising she went on to experience was underestimated by doctors, who weaned her off pain medication prematurely, leading to “excruciating pain” as a result, she said. “For two days straight, I was shaking (and) trembling,” Haberly recalled. Watching the clock on the hospital wall in a foreign country, minutes seemed to stretch into hours. “I remember saying to my mom, ‘What if I die from this pain? What if this pain never goes away?’” she said. By day five, Haberly didn’t require any more pain relief. “I’d never recommend anyone do this. But you know, pain becomes distant,” she said. “I can see how happy I’m going to be with the results.”

Millie Bobby Brown has spoken out against a series of articles criticizing her appearance during her ongoing press tour for the Netflix film, “The Electric State.” On Monday, the “Stranger Things” actor posted a video on Instagram where she called out the media for “bullying” and “tearing young women down,” and addressed each journalist that had scrutinized her looks by name. Over the past week, Brown has been the subject of several articles after she debuted a blonde ‘90s blowout while promoting her new film. While the platinum look, paired with ‘90s and Y2K-inspired ensembles, generated excitement among fans who hoped that it was Brown’s way of hinting at her role in a Britney Spears biopic, other publications criticized the actor for having “aged far beyond her years.” Brown, whose career in the entertainment industry began at 10 years old, fired back at articles that questioned the changes in her appearance as she matured. Among those she called out had headlines such as “What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face?” and “Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone’s mom as she guides younger sister Ava through LA”. “I grew up in front of the world, and for some reason, people can’t seem to grow with me,” said Brown on Instagram. “Instead, they act like I’m supposed to stay frozen in time, like I should look the way I did on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 1. And now because I don’t, I’m a target.” Brown, now 21, pointed out that the focus on her looks was not only cruel but reflected the unrealistic standards directed at young women. “The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, it’s disturbing,” she said. “The fact that some of these articles are written by women? Even worse.” She isn’t the only star who has fought back at judgmental comments made about their appearance in recent years. In 2023, Madonna similarly took to Instagram after photos of her performing at the Grammys went viral — sparking comments that she was “obsessed with plastic surgery” (the singer has never publicly addressed rumors of cosmetic enhancements). The 66-year-old musician wrote that “ageism and misogyny… permeates the world we live in,” adding that the world “refuses to celebrate women past the age of 45.” Brown’s Instagram video — which, at the time of writing, has 1.6 million likes, accumulated in less than 12 hours — has received an outpour of support from A-listers such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Sharon Stone, Matthew Modine and Winnie Harlow. Brown herself ended the post on a defiant note: “I refuse to apologize for growing up,” she said. “Let’s do better. Not just for me, but for every young girl who deserves to grow up without fear of being torn apart for simply existing.”

Yrjö Kukkapuro, a renowned Finnish designer whose postmodern style of chairs graced waiting rooms, offices and living rooms across Finland as well as collections in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has died. He was 91. His death Saturday at his home outside Helsinki was confirmed by his daughter, Isa Kukkapuro-Enbom, in an email to The Associated Press on Sunday, as well as a statement from Studio Kukkapuro, where she is the curator. The cause of death was not disclosed. “Almost every Finn has sat on a chair he designed — at a metro station, in a bank, at school, or in a library,” the studio said in a news release. “Yrjö Kukkapuro never stopped designing and coming up with new ideas. Until the very end, he pondered a concept of his new chair, the plan of which was clear in his mind. His assistant didn’t have time to make drawings of the chair.” In a career spanning more than 70 years, Kukkapuro’s chairs were lauded for their comfort, functionalism and ergonomics as well as their design, and featured names like Ateljee, Karuselli-chair, Long Chair and, his most famous, the Experiment. Designed in 1982, the Experiment chair was considered avant-guarde but ultimately became commercially successful and was seen as a key turning point for the postmodern style of furniture. The Experiment includes decorative, wavy armrests in bright colors, an upholstered back and bottom, and its signature angled seat despite the frame being flat on the ground. Although initial production ceased in the 1990s, European furniture design brand Hem sought permission from Kukkapuro in 2021 to reproduce it with minor adjustments to the scale and construction. “We are saddened by the news of Yrjö’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family,” Hem founder and chief executive Petrus Palmér said in an email to AP. “He was a furniture design trailblazer, and showed us that a non-conformist approach is the only way to achieve a lasting legacy.” The Experiment chair retailed for up to 2,399 euros ($2,479) on Hem’s website Sunday, where a description called it “timeless, bold, and as compelling today as the day it was created.” “In the Experiment Chair, Kukkapuro sought to add art to Functionalism, to satisfy romantic tastes alongside meeting essential needs,” the description reads. “The result is startling, authentic, a hero of twentieth-century design.” Kukkapuro designed his family’s studio and home to feature a wave-shaped roof and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Built in the late 1960s for him and his wife, artist Irmeli Kukkapuro, who died in 2022, it’s scheduled to become a museum next year.

For most of us, the chances of having Martha Stewart visit our garden is vanishingly small. Until now. After years of research, a highly fragrant pink and apricot hybrid tea rose named after the lifestyle doyenne has hit the market. In May 2023 Stewart decided to install a rose garden at her Bedford, New York estate and invited Danielle Dall’Armi Hahn, the owner of Rose Story Farms and author of “The Color of Roses,” to advise her. While Hahn was in New York for the garden build, the two began to discuss an idea over dinner. “I said, ‘Martha, what do you think about having your own rose?’. And she said, ‘Amazing, I would love that’,” explained Hahn. Creating a new rose is a massive undertaking — from inception to market usually takes years. So, while Stewart’s involvement in the project began a few years ago, the rose named after her has been around a decade in the making. The creation of a rose begins by considering “the traits you want” the flower to have, explained Consulting Rosarian (a certified expert in rose care) and independent hybridizer Christopher Huffer, before choosing your parent plants with those traits. Once the parents are crossed through the pollination process, seeds will form in rose hips (the seed pods of roses) with each seed having the potential to become a new rose. Then there are years of testing before a potential new rose can ever be sold commercially. Hahn is no stranger to working with celebrities. She and her father Lorenzo Dall’Armi collaborated with chef and author Julia Child when Child decided to pick the now iconic yellow rose to be her namesake. Stewart, meanwhile, already has a number of plants carrying her name including a begonia, a daffodil and an orchid. But to have a rose named after you is “a really big honor,” said Hahn. “And for people who love roses, it is the highest honor”. Finding the perfect rose to become Martha’s namesake was difficult according to Hahn, who visited various fields and looked at dozens of contenders. When searching for the right rose, there are a number of factors to consider, including color. Stewart has a “very defined color palette,” said Hahn, “but anything in like the medium-pink to peach, to apricot, even a creamy apricot, I think she would have been open to.” But the search ended when they came across a compact hybrid tea in Martha’s preferred color palette at Star Roses and Plants, an American horticultural company involved in plant breeding, distribution and intellectual property. What would become the Martha Stewart rose was first sent to the United States as a test rose called CP 15 8603 in December 2015, one of many sent by European rose breeding company Meilland International for evaluation. “On average, it’s maybe 150 codes (roses) we get from them every year,” Kristen Smith, a rose evaluation manager for Star Roses and Plants, told CNN. But Meilland is just one of the rose breeders the company works with. On average, it looks at close to 700 roses annually, according to Smith. After entering the US, roses are placed in a two-year quarantine period before testing begins. During the testing phase roses are reviewed for certain criteria, including growth and development in different weather conditions, as well as disease resistance. The rose that would become Stewart’s was placed at Star Roses’ testing fields in Pennsylvania and California. In 2021, as it became apparent that CP 15 8603 was special, the Star Roses team decided to patent it. “At that time, we hadn’t necessarily 100% decided to introduce it, but we knew that it was an important variety,” said Susan Bacus Morgan, marketing manager for Star Roses and Plants. “On average, it’s about five varieties that are going in to the catalog every year,” said Smith, meaning that on average less than 1% of the roses tested make it into Star’s portfolio annually. “It’s a really long and loving process to launch a rose,” said Morgan. “We want to release the very best.” While many people had a hand in finding the perfect rose to carry Stewart’s name, it was ultimately Martha’s choice. “Martha personally chose and approved the rose,” confirmed a spokesperson from a public relations agency that represents Stewart, in an email to CNN. “I am so happy that such a great rose is named after me and that many of you will be adding it to your garden!”, said Stewart in an Instagram post on her verified account last week. Stewart also thanked Hahn who “worked with me for two years to make this happen”. While new to the North American market, this same rose has been available since 2021 in Europe, where it is known as “Jean de la Fontaine.” “Oftentimes a rose introduced in Europe will receive a different name in America,” said Morgan. When choosing a name for commercial use, cultivators pick “something to catch people’s attention,” said Beth Smiley, publications director of the American Rose Society. “The Martha Stewart rose is going to attract a lot of attention”. There is no “financial benefit for having a rose named after you — absolutely zero,” said Hahn. In a statement provided to CNN, Star Roses said: “This rose has been named in honor of Martha Stewart, recognizing her extraordinary contributions to lifestyle, design, homemaking, and gardening… Our hope is that this rose will honor her legacy and serve as a source of inspiration for generations to come.” While there are only a limited number of Martha Stewart rose plants are available for pre-order, if you miss out this year, the variety is expected to be available at independent garden centers in 2026. As a repeat bloomer, you can expect the Martha Stewart rose to flower in flushes through the growing season. Smith said that while the rose has performed well in hot, dry climates like California, “it does get some leaf spot in areas that are more susceptible to fungal diseases, but it is better than older varieties of hybrid tea types.” But it’s the scent that’s the standout for this plant. “It’s not a traditional rose fragrance,” said Hahn. “It’s fruitier, it’s light, it’s luscious. You feel like you could eat it."