For decades, nearly everyone agreed with Taylor Swift. When most people struggle to put together an email, she wrote love songs and amazing take downs. She is winking clues inviting die-hard fans and pop rubberneckers alike to agonize over what was fact and what was fiction and sprinkled breadcrumbs. She won plenty of awards confront she left every time that her name was called. She had been observant and savvy, and when those qualities were squeezed into a Machiavellian cute by her critics, it looked to get.

Things have changed. The Swift that stands at 2017 is beleaguered and defensive, a figure fighting back issues she could have prevented. She stepped with Nicki Minaj along with her nemesis Kanye West when silence could have appeared best. She induced the Streisand effect by taking legal action on a blog post that attracted connections between her work and neo-Nazism, a decision that hastens a spotlight on her loyal apoliticism in an overheated climate. And to top it all off, she printed “Look What You Made Me Do,” a petty snarl of a lead single that jumped to No. 1 thanks mostly to utter anticipation. Watchers rejoiced if a Cardi B bumped her out of the top slot; Taylor sent blossoms.

It ends up “Look What You Made Me Do” was closer to a red herring than a sign of things to come, relief is granted how it neglected many of Swift’s generational presents. Her record, standing, is not a tuneless vengeance tour–it is an aggressive, lascivious display of craftsmanship, a which makes 1989 look to Swift’s full embrace of pop. (This is a trip that began the second the bass dropped on her 2012 tune “I Knew You Were Trouble.”) She abandoned story-line, effervescence, and wonderment. Say goodbye to walnut lattes and hello to whiskey on ice to Old Fashioned combined with a hand.

Una publicación compartida de Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) el 11 de Nov de 2017 a la(s) 1:01 PST

Her vision of pop, one she understands with the help of Max Martin and Shellback, along with Jack Antonoff, is incredibly best bass drops synths right out of a Flume single, stuttering trap percussion, cyborg backing choirs. Songs such as opener “…Ready for It?” And “Don’t Blame Me” are glittering animals held together by Swift’s existence at their center. Her curiosity in hip-hop and R&B is the most evident in her voice. Her performances throughout Reputation are distinguished by cadence and rhythm, not melody: she is trendy, conversational, detached.

These special skills might have been hiding in plain sight–listen to the decade-old “Our Song” and center on the manner she puts syllables while rattling off “Our song is a banging door!” –but they’ve not been highlighted the manner that they are here. “Delicate” is built around a muted heartbeat and a murmured query: “Is it cool that I said all that? Can it be chill which you are in my mind? ’Cause I know that it is delicate.” She stretches out that the titular blossom on “Gorgeous,” making it a fluttering prayer and allowing the remainder of the line fall out in its wake. She even manages to hang with Future on the eccentric, persuasive “End Game,” leaving bad Ed Sheeran from the dust: “I do not want to hurt you, I just began be/Drinking on the beach with you around me.” The old Taylor can not come to the phone right now–she’s posted up at a Cozumel cabana with her out-of-office answer: “I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I place ’em.”

Una publicación compartida de Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) el 7 de Nov de 2017 a la(s) 6:52 PST

Her writing has not been more dependent on functionality that’s dramatic or diaristic. For Swift, plunging head-first into pop has meant leaving behind the stories on 2008’s Fearless or 2010’s Speak Now and relying on snippets of imagery and detail. (“Getaway Car,” a sparkling Antonoff production that seems like an “Out of the Woods” retread, is a gorgeous and enjoyable outlier.) She awakens to some new and some characters: the brat, the swooning dreamer, along with the enchanting mature. The “Look What You Made Me Do” video was prescient in at least one respect: Reputation collects a half-dozen different facets of Swift and lines them up in a row. You leave the album with a brand new appreciation for her versatility, for the way the tough-talking schemer of “I Did Something Bad” and the infatuated android of “King of My Heart” may share the identical tracklist.

The girl who built a career on family-friendly romances such as “Love Story” and “Mine” now turns her gaze into the darker side of fire: obsession, jealousy, lust, the lack of control. A buff turns her bed “to a sacred oasis” on the featherlight “Dancing With Our Hands Tied,” and she intimidates her partner to split their name to her bedpost on “Dress,” a panting, shuddering highlight. Swift has not played with the Red, and she produces these lines with confidence and simplicity all. Even lesser substance benefits: “So It Goes…” is replacement-level trap-pop, but it’s difficult to shake the idea of her smeared lipstick, of claws, dug into a person’s back.

Whatever the situation, these songs are somewhat more powerful than the tracks that invite the listener to revisit Swift’s people spats. “Look What You Made Me Do” is the album’s nadir, and “I Did Something Bad” violates what you may predict Katy’s Law: the reference of “receipts” on your quasi-diss track renders it an embarrassment. Things somehow get less subtle: “Here’s a toast for my real friends,” she sneers on “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” just before faking a weepy apology and breaking into cackling laughter. Although she is shooting for campy villainy, it sparks as petulance. Every listener is finished this.

Standing is it’s full of turns and hooks of phrase. However, in committing to some superstardom, Swift has deemphasized the skill. The album ends with “New Year’s Day,” a spare, acoustic epilogue to get a record created with a lot of synths and computers. It is equal parts Lisa Loeb and Dashboard Confessional, and she awakens scenes which are rich with only a handful of lines: a resort lobby illuminates the quiet seat of a cab, with party detritus.

She lands the record’s first authentic knockout punch in the bridge: “Please do not ever come for a stranger whose laugh I could recognize everywhere.” It is a tiny universe in a dozen words, an economic marvel straight up there with old classics like “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful girl,” and, “You call me up again just to offend me as a promise/So casually cruel in the title of being truthful.” This tune is Swift at her finest–composing the kind of although not settling scores.

Una publicación compartida de Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) el 7 de Nov de 2017 a la(s) 11:53 PST

As Rihanna‘s profile grew towards the end of the decade, her image became arresting. With Umbrella and the album, Good Girl Gone Bad came to an appearance: a distinctive, provocatively heavy-lidded stance, bra tops, bondage straps boots and leather. Whips and riding crops became props.

The imagery’s violence was uncomfortable viewing by her boyfriend, Chris Brown, in 2009. It reached its peak in the movie for S&M, in 2011, where Rihanna wore a dress with the slogans “whore” and “slut” while binding against a wall with layers of clingfilm. The movie was banned in 11 nations. Rihanna told British Vogue that the appearance was “not me. That is just like a part I play. You know, like it is a bit of art, with all these textures and toys to play with.”

Rihanna’s shift from popstrel to controversy-baiting sex symbol caught the attention of the fashion industry. Within six months of the S&M video, she had appeared on the covers of US and British Vogue. In that year’s Grammys, she wore Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture. In Time magazine in 2012, Stella McCartney described Rihanna as “one of the coolest, hottest, most talented, most enjoyed, most listened to, most followed, most impressive artists at work today.”

#stunna

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But as her fashion connections grew to include an ambassadorship with Dior and collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, Rihanna pursued yet another career, as an actor. She starred in the film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and will appear alongside Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway and Mindy Kaling from the hotly anticipated heist film Ocean’s Eight next year.

Tom Ford has clarified Rihanna’s style as “daring, fearless, and continuously evolving.” That fashion has evolved beyond the sledgehammer sexuality of S&M to an exuberant take on fashion that combines a willingness to experiment with a strong sense of self. Where other actors stick doggedly to the look that the stylist has deemed appropriate for their “personal brand,” Rihanna has fun with her clothing.

In 2014, she wore a Swarovski-crystal fishnet bodysuit with matching turban to the CFDA awards, accessorized with a nude thong and a white fur stole. The next year, her Guo Pei dress for the Met Gala prompted an omelet meme. (Fashion observers, however, noted that Rihanna was among very few attendees to have honored the Chinese theme of the exhibition by wearing a dress with a Chinese programmer.) She has embraced the fashion of Vetements with puffa coats and luridly dresses, and helped turn Princess Diana to a hipster millennial crush by sporting her face on a T-shirt.

The past year has marked Rihanna’s transition from fashion plate. One year ago, she transferred her Puma show to Paris, using a collection entitled “Marie Antoinette Goes to the Gym.” This was followed, in March, by sending her models walking down the tabletops of the National Library of France in collegiate-themed streetwear. The Paris fashion week event, which had the air of the world’s most glamorous detention, garnered Rihanna’s most favorable reviews thus far. Her influence has been evident in other designers have followed her lead in casting her favorite version, Slick Woods, who has appeared in each Fenty series and is the face of Fenty Beauty.

@VogueParis on stands Dec.1 Cover #3 Shot by @jeanpaulgoudeofficial Styled by @aleksworo Hair by @YusefHairNYC Makeup by @stephane_marais_official Nails by @jennynails

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At the launch party for Fenty Beauty Rihanna, dressed in a custom-made Oscar de la Renta outfit, Rihanna emphasized the importance of inclusivity. “There has to be something to get a dark-skinned girl, there needs to be something for a pale girl … you want people to appreciate the solution and not feel like: ‘Aw, that’s cute, but it just looks good on her,”’ she told editors. Alongside the strikingly buzz-cut, gap-toothed Woods, Rihanna has chosen the hijab-wearing model Halima Aden as a Fenty Beauty ambassador. Rihanna “makes me feel hopeful for the future of the beauty industry,” enthused one reporter who attended the function.

Three days after the gravitas and business clout of her attractiveness launch, Rihanna took her catwalk bow after her Puma series with one hand in the air and her tongue sticking out. The world is taking Rihanna now, but women just wanna have fun.

Killin’ them with that glow. #KILLAWATT @fentybeauty has arrived!

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Prince Harry says he is “thrilled” after announcing he is to marry US actress girlfriend Meghan Markle.

The fifth in line to the throne will marry Miss Markle in spring 2018.

The couple, who have been dating since the summer of 2016, smiled as they posed for photographs outside Kensington Palace in London, where they will live.
Prince Harry said it had been a romantic proposal, while Ms Markle said she was “so very happy, thank you”.

Miss Markle, wearing a white belted coat, held Harry’s hand as they appeared briefly for the press at the palace’s Sunken Garden, and showed off her diamond engagement ring.
Asked by a reporter when he knew Ms Markle “was the one”, Prince Harry said: “The very first time we met”.

A TV interview the couple are giving to the BBC’s Mishal Husain will be broadcast at 18:00 GMT, London Time.

Kensington Palace said Ms Markle’s engagement ring was designed by Prince Harry and features two diamonds which belong to his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
At the centre of the ring is a diamond from Botswana, a country the couple has spent time together over the last year and a half. The band is made from gold.

@meghanmarkle via Instagram

The announcement, issued by Clarence House, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s official residence, said details about the wedding day would be unveiled “in due course”.
It said the couple will live at Nottingham Cottage in Kensington Palace, Prince Harry’s current home.

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh said they were “delighted for the couple and wish them every happiness”, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said.
Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, said they were “very excited for Harry and Meghan”, adding: “It has been wonderful getting to know Meghan and to see how happy she and Harry are together.”