Taylor Swift has reportedly expressed her gratitude to the truck drivers working on her Eras Tour by giving each of them a $100,000 bonus. The 33-year-old singer is currently on her record-breaking tour which has earned an estimated $300 million in gross revenue, as per Pollstar. Last year, Billboard estimated that Swift's tour would gross $590 million over the course of 52 tour dates. With this huge financial success, Swift has used the fortune to reward her truckers who are responsible for transporting her equipment and staging around the country. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Each of the 50 truck drivers were given $100,000 each ahead of Swift's show in Santa Clara on Saturday, which adds up to $5 million in total for the "end-of-the-tour" bonuses, both TMZ and Entertainment Tonight reported. Plus, bonuses were also handed out to other people on her tour crew such as her band members, dancers, lighting and sound technicians, caterers and others. Though the amount paid to the other members remains unclear, TMZ reported that it was a "very generous amount." Altogether it is thought that The Eras tour could be the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning a massive $1 billion in sales. It's been a record-breaking year for Swift who also became the first woman to have four albums in the top 10 of the Billboard charts. She also became the first female artist in history to surpass 93 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Elsewhere, tickets for Swift's Eras Tour LA shows are on sale for $11,000, while the singer also sparked a meme frenzy with an August post. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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As well as introducing groundbreaking garments for women, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel embodied her brand in a way no other designer had done before, a new exhibition highlights. Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto – at London’s V&A Museum – traces the life and work of the famed French designer, who was born in the Loire Valley in 1883 and taught to sew by nuns in the orphanage to which she was sent aged 11, when her mother died. “Before her, designers weren’t really known,” says Oriole Cullen, curator of modern textiles and fashion and the V&A. “Their names were known, but they weren’t visible figures within society.” Starting out as a seamstress and cabaret singer, before establishing herself as milliner, Chanel later turned her focus to couture fashion and began designing casual clothing for women, inspired by the menswear of the era. “The Chanel brand as it stands [today] is really based on these ideas that she ushered in 100 years ago,” Cullen says, which is where the exhibition title comes from. “The meaning of that is really about a template that Gabrielle Chanel set out at the very beginning of her design career and came back to, reimagined and reinvented throughout her long career of sixty years.” Bringing together nearly 200 outfits, the show features items from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910, to the showing of her final collection, two weeks after she died in 1971. Signature designs on display include little black dresses, tweed suits and quilted leather handbags – the most iconic of which is the 2.55 bag. “The 2.55 has never really gone out of fashion since she designed it in 1955,” Cullen says. “That is fascinating in terms of high fashion, that an object can stay the course for such a long time and still be relevant.” Part of the upper echelons of French society, Chanel initially relied on wealthy lovers, such as French ex-cavalry officer Etienne Balsan and English polo player Arthur Edward ‘Boy’ Capel to fund her boutiques. Later becoming a celebrity in her own right, she amassed a personal fortune, thanks to the success of her fashion, accessories and cosmetics lines. “The perfume Chanel No5 was introduced in 1921, but then introducing make-up in 1924 and skincare in 1927, she was really ahead of her time,” Cullen says. “It’s something she was doing because she was designing for herself.” Chanel is credited with helping to liberate women from the constricting corsets and long skirts that were de rigeur at the turn of the century, and for popularising softer textiles, such as jersey. “She cuts her garments with high armholes, so you can lift your arms over your head,” Cullen continues. “She thinks about fabrics that are practical, and skirt lengths you can move in.” The exhibition – which was originally staged at Paris’s Palais Galliera in 2020 – highlights the brand’s UK and Ireland connections via British Chanel Limited. “This was an umbrella company set up in 1932 to work with an array of British textile manufacturers,” Cullen explains. “From lace in Nottingham, cotton velvets from Manchester, wools from Huddersfield, and also voiles and silks from Carlisle. “One of the other companies she worked with was the Old Bleach Linen Company, which is based in Randalstown in Northern Ireland.” Split into 10 sections, the exhibition concludes with a recreation of the mirrored staircase from Chanel’s Paris atelier. “Gabrielle Chanel used to sit at the top of the stairs when she was having presentations,” Cullen explains. “The models would descend and this faceted mirror would reflect back the audience’s faces to her, so she could read the mood in the room.” Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto opens at London’s V&A Museum on September 16. Tickets available at vam.ac.uk/chanel. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live 6 times Kate has worn London Fashion Week designers Pro-gamer Jukeyz ‘died for two minutes’ after cardiac arrest which left him ‘scared to sleep’ Young people not snowflakes or wasters, says curator of rebellious fashion exhibition

Charlize Theron knows she may be looking a bit different these days, and she's perfectly fine with that.

Since it was announced last night that Sinead O'Connor has died aged 56, people have been remembering her life. The Irish singer's family announced the death "with great sadness" on Wednesday evening (July 26). The cause of death was not made public. O'Connor wrote a memoir and lines from it feel heartbreaking now, knowing she has died. The book, written in 2021 is called Rememberings. The closing lines look towards life after the coronavirus pandemic and read: "Then between albums and tours, I'll have an occupation. Not be sitting round for a year at a time with nothing but idle hands. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter "Because of the virus, it feels like the end of the world and the beginning of another. "Maybe a better one." The Grammy-winning singer shot to international stardom in 1990 with the hit ballad Nothing Compares 2 U, and released 10 studio albums between 1987 and 2014. A 2022 documentary about O'Connor, called Nothing Compares, was set to be aired on television for the first time by Sky on 29 July. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

When a statement announcing the sudden death of Lil Tay, a 15-year-old viral rapper who rose to fame as a nine-year-old on Instagram, was posted to her account earlier this week, it led to an outpouring of grief and sorrow. But that has given way to confusion and relief in equal measure, after TMZ reported that she is now very much alive. In a statement from Tay’s family, she said: “I want to make it clear that my brother and I are safe and alive, but I’m completely heartbroken, and struggling to even find the right words to say. “It’s been a very traumatizing 24 hours. All day yesterday, I was bombarded with endless heartbreaking and tearful phone calls from loved ones all while trying to sort out this mess.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Lil Tay rose to fame as the “World’s Youngest Flexer” who rapped and showed off a lavish lifestyle across social media aged just nine, garnering 3.2m followers on Instagram. However, the account went dormant in 2018 after a video was posted online in which she appeared to be coached by someone off-camera, whom many suspected was her brother Jason. Tay was also reportedly caught in the middle of a custody battle between her parents, Angela Tian and Christopher Hope, which had been going on in court since about 2018, around the same time the influencer’s account went dormant. The account resumed briefly that October with bizarre and concerning activity, including a video of the girl crying that was posted and then taken down. The posts were later scrubbed, but led to allegations of abuse by her father, amid the custody dispute. In 2021, activity briefly restarted on the account, with several posts accusing Christopher Hope of physical and mental abuse and of stealing all of Lil Tay’s money. Hope denied the allegations and sent a cease and desist letter to Instagram. An unsigned statement posted to the account on Wednesday said the star’s death at 15 was “sudden and tragic” and “entirely unexpected”. It also said her older brother, Jason Tian, who had at one point been in control of her account, had also died, and that both deaths were under investigation. Both Lil Tay’s father and former manager had refused to confirm or deny her death, with the latter calling for “cautious consideration” in handling the news. Speaking to Insider, her father, Christopher Hope, declined to comment on the Instagram post and declined to answer whether his daughter was alive. Her former manager, Harry Tsang, also declined to confirm or deny her death. “Given the complexities of the current circumstances, I am at a point where I cannot definitively confirm or dismiss the legitimacy of the statement issued by the family,” Tsang told Insider on Wednesday. In a follow-up 24 hours later, Tay was thanking Meta for helping to get her Instagram account back, and had removed the fake death statement. She said: “My Instagram account was compromised by a 3rd party and used to spread jarring misinformation and rumors regarding me, to the point that even my name was wrong. My legal name is Tay Tian, not 'Claire Hope'.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

In a quest for a new BFF, Swanky attempts a bestie upgrade by considering Bonang as the new Annie in 'Young, Famous & African' Season 2