Welcome to News Bites, BoF's regular feature of the stories that get the industry talking.

Agent Provocateur co-founder Serena Rees is to launch a new label, BoF can exclusively reveal.

The label, named Les Girls Les Boys, is designed to be worn by both men and women and will be a largely gender-fluid collection of intimates, underwear and streetwear — an offering that promises to take wearers from "bed to street."

"There is a real need for an open-minded brand with a more diverse story to tell," said Rees, who was inspired by the way her children and stepchildren dress and share clothes.

Les Girls Les Boys | Source: Courtesy

"Les Girls Les Boys is for the customer who treads their own path, are proud of who they are and proud of who they love. The idea of ‘bed to street’ is core to our brand philosophy – blurring the boundaries between inside and outside. This is the new sexy."

Certainly, Les Girls Les Boys is the antithesis of Agent Provocateur's risqué aesthetic, a contrast that reflects a cultural shift over the past decade. Rees believes her new brand's identity speaks to the way consumers want to engage with their sexuality, the same way Agent Provocateur did in the late '90s and early-to-mid '00s.

Les Girls Les Boys' briefs, bodysuits, joggers and pyjamas will be accessibly priced, within the £20-120 ($25-143) range for the first season. The 100-piece debut collection will go on sale globally on September 1 via the label's own e-commerce platform, as well as launch stockists including Selfridges, Nordstrom, Shopbop and Zalando.

The launch of Les Girls Les Boys marks Rees' return to fashion a decade after selling Agent Provocateur, which she co-founded with then-husband Joe Corre in 1994. Rees was awarded an MBE in 2007 for her contribution to the British fashion industry. — Tamara Abraham

Nordstrom gets Goop-y for its latest pop-up concept.

Goop is getting the Olivia Kim treatment. The retailer’s vice president of creative projects has teamed up with Gwyneth Paltrow, the lifestyle brand’s founder and chief executive, for her latest Pop-In@Nordstrom, an ongoing series of themed concept shops that are flipped every four-to-six weeks.

While Goop has hosted pop-up shops before, Pop-In@Nordstrom marks the first time it will have a presence within a national retailer. “Our pop-ups have been an incredible opportunity to really connect with our readers and shoppers across the country,” Paltrow said. “This partnership with Nordstrom allows us to provide that experience on a heightened level of scale, touching new markets and shoppers in the process.”

Gwyneth Paltrow | Source: Courtesy of Goop

Appearing May 12 through June 25 at eight major Nordstrom locations across the US and Canada — including Vancouver, Los Angeles and Chicago — the partnership is just the latest in a series of initiatives from Goop that underscore Paltrow’s ambitions for scaling the brand. Along with a string of product launches — from skincare to apparel to most recently, supplements, which hit $100,000 in sales just one day — and a deal with Net-a-Porter to sell Goop Beauty, the company announced last week that it would begin publishing a quarterly print magazine with Condé Nast.

Paltrow has homed in on the wellness space in particular, capitalising on Goop's readers’ — and the media’s — obsession with its delightfully unorthodox remedies and advice. In fact, the brand’s “In GOOP Health” conference, which takes places on June 10 in Los Angeles, is programmed with aura photography, crystal therapy and sound baths, with appearances from the likes of Cameron Diaz, Lena Dunham and Dr. Alejandro Junger.

It’s no surprise then, that Kim made wellness — which many consider the new epicentre of luxury — the focus of Goop’s Pop-In. Each shop, merchandised like a living space, will be furnished by 1stDibs and feature products hand-picked by the Goop team across a spread of categories, from apparel and accessories to beauty and home. (Hero items include an $85 medicine bag — which garnered a serious waitlist when first introduced on Goop.com and is filled with "magically charged" stones including clear quartz and chrysocolla — as well as a $65 Hemsley & Hemsley "spiralizer," a kitchen gadget that turns vegetables such as zucchini and sweet potatoes into noodle-like spirals.)

"We love how Goop has created a lively community around everything from zoodles to zen," Kim said. "They have a way of conveying wellness concepts so they are not only easy to understand, but also adopt and make a habit into a ritual." — Lauren Sherman

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