L'Oréal Hosts Runway Show For Women’s Rights During Paris Fashion Week

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Beauty giant L’Oréal Paris paid tribute to women’s rights movements during a public show as part of Paris Fashion Week, with a theme that honoured women’s empowerment and diversity. The event was hosted at the Parvis des Droits de l’Homme, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first established.

Developed as a bold feminist statement, the show, Le Défilé L’Oréal Paris, strayed away from the form of a typical fashion show, instead, intending to highlight the brand’s belief in self-worth and self-expression. The event was broadcasted in 30 countries, with a backdrop of the Eiffel tower defining the panoramic set-up.

Now in its fourth edition, Le Défilé L’Oréal Paris welcomed 26 of the brand’s global ambassadors and spokespeople, including Katherine Langford, Helen Mirren, Camila Cabello, Amber Heard and Soo Joo Park. Alongside the cast, 20 dancers and performers took to the stage, with L’Oréal’s global makeup director Val Garland and her team on hand to create looks for the diverse range of individuals involved.

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Looks on the runway were provided by 19 brand partners, with the likes of Balmain, Elie Saab, Giambattista Valli, Mugler and Pierre Hardy lending luxury and ready-to-wear pieces for the show. The multiple collaborations united the beauty and fashion worlds into one stage for the global occasion.

The show falls in line with the brand’s ‘Stand Up Against Street Harassment’ outreach programme, developed in 2020 as an initiative striving to educate the public on how to approach the subject of street harassment.

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Snapchat Introduces Tool To Help Young People Run For Office

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"If Snapchatters want to make sure that the issues they care most about are represented by leadership, then they need to run," a Snap executive said.

Trinity Sanders has big plans once she graduates from high school.

First, Sanders, who is from upstate New York, wants to go to college and then law school to become a civil rights lawyer. From there, she wants to run for office to become a U.S. senator.

To help her achieve her political goals, she said, she might look to an unlikely resource: Snapchat.

Snapchat released a tool Tuesday called Run for Office to help young people who have political aspirations learn what steps they'll need to take to run in local elections.

"I know that there's many people that I personally use Snapchat with, so to be able to do it right from our phones, yeah, sign me up," said Sanders, 17.

Run for Office will help eligible Snapchat users, many of whom skew younger, find local races they are eligible for that pertain to their interests, the platform said.

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"If Snapchatters want to make sure that the issues they care most about are represented by leadership, then they need to run," Sofia Gross, Snap's head of policy partnerships and social impact, said

The tool will walk them through what they'll need to do to become candidates. Users will also be able to nominate friends who they think would be good fits for particular offices.

Gross said young users are politically active, especially with voting.

"We've seen how passionate they are about the issues they care most about," Gross said. "And so we feel helping them run for office at the local level, where they can understand how to make a difference on the issues they care most about, is a natural next step in their civic journey."

The Run for Office tool will be available as a "mini," a utility that can be used directly without leaving Snapchat. The tool is powered by BallotReady, which curates information from election websites across the country.

When users click on the tool, they'll be asked whether they want to get started or whether they want to nominate a friend.

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Next, users will enter their ZIP codes so the app can find races in the their areas. Then they will select issues they are passionate about so the app can narrow down what races would be good fits. Examples include issues like immigration, jobs, the economy, social services, drug policy and more.

After users select their interests, the app will show them available offices that pertain to those interests in their areas and whether those races are at the local, county or state levels. Once users select an office, they will be given a brief description of the role and whether the races were contested in the last election.

From there, the app will show them the requirements to run, including rules like age and location. Once users have made their choices, they will then have the option to team up with organizations who have partnered with Snapchat and run the political gamut.

Some of the groups that partnered with Snapchat include the conservative group Run Gen Z, the Democratic women's group Emerge, the veterans and national leaders group New Politics and the progressive group Run For Something.

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Halsey Ends Up A Bloody Mess In New Live Video 'I Am Not A Woman, I'm A God'

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With the release of her fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, in late August, Halsey transformed into the kind of bold, forward-thinking artist her earlier work suggested she was trending toward. Aided by emphatically moody but never oppressive electronic and atmospheric orchestrations by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, one of the LP's standouts remains the insurgent "I Am Not a Woman, I'm a God."

In the latest video for the energetic track — filmed live, directed by Dani Vitale, and released via YouTube on Saturday (September 18) — Halsey sings the track in a pretty straight-ahead fashion, decked out in a white dress and standing amid a dazzling display of multicolored lights. If it were just this scene for three minutes, it'd make for a pretty compelling clip.

But this is Halsey, so there's a twist. In this case, it's a ton of blood.

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Around halfway through, she starts getting splattered with dark cherry-colored fake blood, and by the time the song ends, it's dripping down into her mouth, creating a haunting Greco-Roman statuesque silhouette of violence. A pretty cool visual!

Contrasted with the song's regal yet ominous original visual, which finds Halsey claiming her power, this new version complements the inner turmoil of the song's lyrics quite nicely. "Every day, I got a smile where my frown goes," she sings in the first version. "A couple bodies in the garden where the grass grows."

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It's a huge accomplishment in Halsey's career as a visionary artist, which is why it came with a short film to accompany its release. This latest "I Am Not a Woman, I'm a God" clip is not part of that, but you'll get lost in it anyway.

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This French Pianist Has Been Playing For 102 Years And Just Released A New Album

Colette Maze, now 107 years old, began playing the piano at age 5 and defied the social conventions of her day to embrace it as a profession rather than as a pastime. Her son first arranged for her performances to be recorded when she was in her 90s. She has just released her sixth album.

Colette Maze, now 107 years old, began playing the piano at age 5 and defied the social conventions of her day to embrace it as a profession rather than as a pastime. Her son first arranged for her performances to be recorded when she was in her 90s. She has just released her sixth album.

PARIS — Colette Maze welcomes me warmly into her apartment on the 14th floor of a building overlooking the Seine River. From her flowered balcony, she has a view of the Eiffel Tower. She offers me a whiskey or a cognac — along with a hearty laugh, as it's 10:30 in the morning.

It's that humor, a sense of optimism and her beloved piano that have buttressed and comforted this centenarian through an often difficult life. Maze has just released her sixth album at the age of 107.

While she lives alone, on this day her 71-year-old son Fabrice Maze has joined us. Colette sits down to play her Steinway baby grand — one of two pianos she owns — with her gray tabby cat, Tigrou, stretched out on the carpet near her feet.

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Across the room is the Pleyel piano she received on her 18th birthday. Maze began playing at the age of five. Her grandmother played piano, and her mother the violin. She remembers concerts at their grand Paris apartment when she was a child.

But Maze, born on June 16, 1914, says her mother was severe and unloving. So she turned to music for the affection she lacked at home.

"I always preferred composers who gave me tenderness," she says. "Like [Robert] Schumann and [Claude] Debussy. Music is an affective language, a poetic language. In music there is everything — nature, emotion, love, revolt, dreams, it's like a spiritual food."

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Tunedly Announces a ‘Masked Music Discovery Platform’ to Judge Music By Its Merits

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Tunedly wants music to stand on its own merits with the first masked music discovery platform. The idea is to give everyone a level playing field that doesn’t depend on name recognition for tracks to get noticed.

The following was created in collaboration with Tunedly, a proud partner of Digital Music News.

“The problem with existing music discovery services is that they replicate existing inequalities in the music industry,” says Chris Erhardt, CEO, and Co-Founder of Tunedly. “Unsigned artists are at a disadvantage because it’s not a true level playing field, and they are judged on more than just their music.”

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Tunedly’s solution is an app that strips all identifying information from an artist so music can be judged on its merits. Tunedly is an online recording studio that connects songwriters and other music professionals with music publishing services. The company was originally founded in 2016 and launched in 2017.

Tunedly initially focused on making professional music production services as accessible as possible. It has created over 6,000 songs for over 2,000 songwriters across the globe. And while making the online recording studio accessible to songwriters is still a priority, Tunedly is shifting its focus into music publishing and music discovery.

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Tunedly says its platform gives unknown songwriters and artists a chance to compete with industry pros. Users can submit their professionally produced music to the platform for free, regardless of where they produced the songs.

Tunedly does not show names, photos, videos, or streaming numbers to listeners. They have no clue if they’re hearing a song written by Ed Sheeran or a bedroom artist halfway across the world. Tunedly listeners who like the music do so because they enjoy the track – not the artist.

Tunedly tracks listener behavior like upvotes, downvotes, and skips internally. It will sign “Quarterly Top Songs” from unsigned artists, offering them sought-after publishing deals. All songs signed to a Tunedly music publishing contract are administered through Tunedly’s partner, Spirit Music Group.

Spirit Music Group was founded in 1995 and was quickly established in the music industry. SMG owns a catalog consisting of 1,000s of songs from artists like Garth Brooks, Keith Urban, Mariah Carey, and more.

“We’re excited about this platform because both independent and established artists can benefit,” says Myléne Besancon, Co-Founder, and CMO of Tunedly. “We want them to achieve their dreams, and it’s a privilege to help them reach their goals. Our collaboration with Spirit Music Group means signing their songs with Tunedly places them in very capable hands in the music industry.”

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