Lifestyle Barometer: Your guide to what’s hot and what’s not this week from mental health awareness to the Met Gala

From Brazilian butt lifts to vegan pizza and the gaslighting, this is our guide to what’s hot and what’s not

Rihanna turned heads as a high fashion pope at this year’s fashion extravaganza (AFP/Getty)

Going up:

Designer collaborations

H&M has released the full lookbook of its collaboration with Moschino (H&M)

It seems designer collaboration season is officially upon us with the arrival of two brand-new collections.

After months of speculation, H&M unveiled the full lookbook for its highly anticipated collaboration with Moschino. According to creative director Jeremy Scott, the collection captures the “essence” of a typical Moschino collection but at a much lower price point from £25 to £300. The full collection will be available in stores and online from 8 November.

Similarly, Alexander Wang announced that it will be partnering with high street retailer Uniqlo on a new collection of underwear. The launch will mark 10 years since the last collaboration between Wang and the Japanese brand, and will launch later this autumn.

Mental health awareness

Lady Gaga has written a powerful essay about suicide prevention (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images)

Mental health problems can affect anyone but in a bid to show support and raise awareness of the topic, October 10 marked World Mental Health Day.

This week, a number of celebrities spoke out about their own personal struggles with mental health including former child actor Mara Wilson, who played Roald Dahl’s Matilda in 1996.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Wilson admitted to being “a very anxious child” and spoke openly about her work with Texas-based charity Okay to Say.

Lady Gaga also spoke candidly about her own experiences in a powerful essay alongside the director of the World Health Organisation (WHO). In the letter, Gaga urged society to place greater importance on the prevention of suicide, stressing that it should be addressed as “the most extreme and visible symptom of the larger mental health emergency.”

Met Gala

Katy Perry attends the Met Gala in New York wearing a dress by John Galliano for Maison Margiela (Getty)

This week the Met Gala – one of the biggest fashion events in the calendar – revealed the theme of next year’s extravaganza: “Camp: Notes on Fashion.”

The event, which will be co-chaired by Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, Serena Williams and Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, calls on guests to follow the specific dress code which matches the theme of the spring exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Curated by Andrew Bolton and Wendy Wu, the exhibition this time is framed around Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay titled Notes on “Camp”, which describes the concept as a “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration, style at the expense of content.”

Vegan pizza

Purezza’s pizza is topped with plant-based mozzarella, fried aubergine and vegan sausage (Purezza)

According to an esteemed awards ceremony, the “best pizza” in the UK is now vegan.

This week, the National Pizza Awards – an annual event honouring the best pizzas in the country – revealed that this year’s first place was awarded to Brighton and London-based chain Purezza for its Parmigiana Party pizza which is made using a plant-based mozzarella, fried aubergine and vegan sausage.

Waitrose’s home delivery service

Waitrose is launching a delivery service that allows drivers to put your shopping away (Getty) (Getty Images)

If you hate food shopping, chances are you’ve fantasised about someone trawling around the supermarket, lugging it all home and putting it all away for you, but what are the chances of that happening?

Well, thanks to Waitrose, pretty high actually. The supermarket has announced that it is going to be trialling a new delivery service that allows drivers to enter your home when you’re out so that they can put your shopping away.

So, how will it work? The service will give Waitrose delivery drivers access to the homes of customers that use Yale “smart lock” technology. Using a secure app, they will receive a temporary access code which will allow them to enter.

The entire delivery process will be filmed by a camera worn on the driver’s chest, with the customer then being able to request the video footage on the next working day.

Going down:

Lay ins

Research suggests that more than 8 hours of sleep could be bad for your brain (Andresr/Getty iStock) (andresr/Getty iStock)

With long working hours and late night phone Instagram scrolling keeping us awake at night, a well-earned lay in can be tempting but, according to new research, getting some extra shut-eye could actually do more harm than good.

In what is being dubbed as the world’s largest sleep study, a team of neuroscientists from Western University’s Brain and Mind Institute found that participants who got more or less than seven to eight hours sleep every night – the optimum amount needed to keep your brain performing its best – performed worse cognitively.

The two actions which were most strongly affected by a lack or over-indulgence of sleep were reasoning and verbal abilities.

Gaslighting

Seann Walsh has been accused of gaslighting his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Humphries (Rex)

Twitter users accused comedian Seann Walsh for gaslighting his now ex-girlfriend after calling her a “psycho” and “mental”.

Actor Rebecca Humphries shared an open letter on social media announcing the end of her five-year relationship with the Strictly Come Dancing star after pictures emerged of him kissing his married dancing partner, Katya Jones.

In the tweet, Humphries revealed that Walsh branded her a psycho after she raised concerns with him about his behaviour.

Twitter users were quick to criticise the comedian for his behaviour with many accusing him of gaslighting – a term used to describe a form of manipulation in which victims are manipulated to doubt themselves and their own sanity.

Brazilian butt lifts

The procedure draws fat from the back or stomach and injects it to reshape the buttocks (Getty) (Getty Images)

The number of so-called Brazilian butt lifts have more than doubled in the last five years but recent high profile cases which have resulted in death have highlighted the dangers associated with the procedure.

An operation that involves taking fat from areas of the body where it’s not wanted and transplanting it into the glutes to enlarge them, many chose to undergo a Brazilian butt lift for aesthetic reasons while others have it after losing lots of weight.

However, it doesn’t come without its risks. A 2017 survey of 692 surgeons from across the world investigated the rate of mortality among patients undergoing BBL. Throughout their careers, the surgeons reported 32 cases of death from a fat embolism – the leading cause of death in aesthetic surgery.

As such, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) has told its members not to perform the lifts, which it says are the “deadliest” cometic operation, until more safety information was available.

“Underweight” models

Nasty Gal claims the model is a healthy UK size eight (Nasty Gal/ASA)

A number of TV adverts for online retailer Nasty Gal have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over claims the model appeared “underweight”.

According to the ASA, 22 complaints were received over the ads, with people labelling them as “socially irresponsible” and describing the model as “unhealthily thin”.

After careful consideration, the ASA said that although the model appeared to be in proportion, specific scenes in the ad drew attention to her thinness due to the poses she struck and the angle of the camera – including a shot where the model’s “rib cage was visible and appeared prominent”.

In response to the decision to ban the adverts, Nasty Gal said that the model featured in the clips is a UK size eight and has a body mass index of 18.8, which is within the healthy range.