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From boots to booties and slippers, Uggs are insanely cute (and comfortable), but they might be a little too expensive for some shoppers. If you’re on a budget, you can find Ugg dupes for less than $50 at Amazon.
For example, this best-selling women’s slipper is a knockoff of the Ugg Tazz Slipper ($130). It looks nearly identical to the Tazz — at a fraction of the price.
The “comfy clog” as one shopper called it, is available in brown, beige and black, and you can wear it inside or outside. Similar to the Tazz, the slipper features a braided rib design, a tumbled leather upper- and a 1.5-inch platform sole.
INPAKSA Women’s Platform Slippers
$49.98
$69.98
29% off
The faux-fur slipper is lined with cozy material to keep your feet warm, dry, and comfortable in the cold weather. It’s available in sizes 5-10 but some of the customer reviews suggest sizing up for the better fit.
“Very comfortable for both indoor and outdoor,” reads one customer review. “They have similar quality but less expensive than famous brands. It will be perfect if they can arrive earlier.”
Another shopper wrote, “This platform slipper exceeded my expectations! Super soft and warm inside and definitely cute enough to wear out of the house!”
Amazon has a decent selection of Ugg slipper dupes, such as these $50 booties, which are similar to the Ugg Tasman Clipper ($109.95). The dupe is available in chestnut, beige and black.
Metricfalcon Women’s Slippers Short Ankle Boot
Looking for a fuzzy alternative to the Ugg Scuffette II ($95)? Dearform’s Fireside Slipper is $49.95 at Amazon but if you’re looking for a cheaper option, the fuzzy slippers below are on sale for $19.99 (reg. $35.99). And you can get them in 10 different colors, including the chestnut, apricot, black, coffee, wine, grey, leopard, and two shades of pink.
Litfun Women’s Fuzzy Memory Foam Slippers Fluffy Winter House Shoes Indoor and Outdoor,
$19.99
$35.99
44% off
Divorce is never easy on the children. And when the two people splitting up are the most famous reality TV star in the world and one of the most well-known rappers on the planet — whose every move is dissected and chronicled by the tabloids — things get even stickier.
Kim Kardashian dives into that uncomfortable talk in a new GQ cover feature, in which she looks back at the lessons she learned from her father, O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian, and dissects how he still inspires her to this day.
Kardashian and her ex, Kanye West (who now goes by Ye) first filed for divorce in 2021, completing their split in November 2022 after marrying in 2014 and having four children together. The GQ piece explores how Kim’s approach to the split was informed by the difficult divorce Robert Kardashian went through with wife Kris Jenner, something eldest daughter Kourtney said she knew about through the couple’s “whisper arguing. My parents never fought my whole life, so it was traumatizing when they did,” she said.
Kim, then nine-years-old — around same age eldest daughter North is now — never heard their fights, though, and when they called in the girls for a family meeting she said she “felt it.” She remembered her parents being “open” with them about the divorce, something she said she’s tried to keep in mind for when her children might ask her about their parent’s split.
“Ultimately, what matters is that kids feel loved and heard,” she said. “You want to be sensitive because they’re just kids, and it’s hard to go through no matter what age. You have to make sure that you only go to a level that they can understand. It’s okay to show a vulnerable side. You never go to a negative side.”
That said, restraint doesn’t completely alleviate the emotional difficulty of divorce, which, in this case, was compounded by Ye’s 2022 public meltdown, in which the rapper went on a series of hateful antisemitic rants and disturbing public pronouncements about Nazis that effectively melted down his once formidable $1 billion music and fashion empire.
“Just because I know how to manage my stress well doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the emotions,” Kardashian said. “If I’m sad, of course I will cry and feel it.”
The writer asked Kardashian’s sisters and a longtime friend how she’s changed since the divorce and they all pointed to a renewed confidence. “Not that she wasn’t confident before,” said younger sister Khloé, “but it’s a different assurance that she has in herself. She knows she can do it on her own. She knows the power that she has within herself, as opposed to thinking the power was in someone else’s hands.”
Childhood friend Allison Statter added that Kim was “scared” to break up with Ye, “‘Cause deep down inside she wanted her family to stay together. And because she was like, ‘I don’t know what life is going to be like on the other side of this.’ I was just so proud of her.”
The piece also touches on how Kim was influenced to launch a men’s version of her SKIMS shapewear line by her dad’s sartorial taste and interest in menswear. “This man had style,” Kardashian said of her father, who exclusively wore Gucci when he began dating Kris Jenner.
He always wanted to look cool,” she said, remembering him coming in to visit her at the trendy Encino, CA store Body when she worked there as a teen. “Diesel was one of the brands we carried. They had a cool pair of jeans. They were wax-coated. My dad’s office was really close by, so he’d always stop in. He said, ‘I have to have those.’ I got them for him. He would wear them with just a black T-shirt and a loafer,” she recalled.
Her self-made dad’s entrepreneurial spirt, and insistence that his kids learn a work ethic, has been passed along to Kim’s kids. As an example, she says North sets up a lemonade stand at the end of their street most weeks and hangs out for hours, using a clever sliding-scale payment method: $2 for randos, but sometimes $20 for people she knows. “I’ll get calls from my friends saying she charged them $20 for a lemonade. She’ll grab their $20 and say, ‘I don’t have any change’,” Kardashian said.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Just in time for the holidays, Lainey Wilson‘s limited-edition Stanley cup was released on Tuesday (Nov. 14). The country star teamed […]
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
It’s time to re-up on cold weather staples like gloves, coats and beanies. Winter doesn’t arrive for another month, but the seasonal chill is already creeping in and regardless of whether it’s snowing, windy, raining or just a bit chilly, the right hat will help you keep warm.
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Finding a decent winter hat doesn’t have to take a lot of work. If you’re looking for something simple and affordable, consider a beanie. It’s functional, foldable and budget-friendly. In fact, you can find beanies on sale at Amazon for more than 40% off select brands.
Carhartt Men’s Cuffed Beanie is currently No. 1 on Amazon’s best-selling skullies & beanies list. The hat is made from acrylic, stretchable rib-knit fabric, it’s long enough to cover your ears and available in over 30 different colors including black, brown, green, heather grey, charcoal and brighter colors like fire red, atomic blue, bright orange, bright lime and pink glow. Did we mention it’s on sale? You can get a Carhartt beanie for $16 at Amazon (20% off the list price).
Carhartt Men’s Knit Cuffed Beanie, Black, One Size
$16
$19.99
20% off
Based on the reviews, shoppers love Carhartt beanies. From the “high quality” material to the warmth, comfort and even cuteness, shoppers made sure to note all of the great things about the beanie which scored a 4.8 out of 5 stars at Amazon and a whopping 152,698 customer ratings.
As one shopper wrote, “If you’ve ever owned a Carhartt product, you know exactly what you’re getting. It is functional, comfortable, and built to last. It is a simple, no frills, warm hat. If you have never owned anything by Carhartt, you are missing out, especially if you live where the weather gets bad in the winter. I hate buying things every two or three years because they wear out, and that does not happen with Carhartt.”
The holidays are coming up, so if you need a cheap gift, you can give a beanie away as a stocking stuffer, White Elephant gift or Christmas gift.
Looking for an even cheaper knit hat? The Timberland Short Watch Cap is on sale for $11.20 at Amazon (reg. $20). It comes in 18 different colors including black, orange, grape leaf, heather grey and wheat.
Amazon’s limited deal ends soon, so act fast before it price goes back up again. And for more shopping recommendations see our roundups of best winter coats, crewneck sweaters and Uggs boots to rock for winter.
Timberland Short Watch Cap, Orange, One Size
$11.60
$20.00
42% off
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Not every space is granted a the luxury of a built-in fireplace, and as the weather cools down, the heating bill […]
Who needs a metronome when you have your newborn baby’s heartbeat? That appears to be Travis Barker‘s line of thinking based on a new video uploaded to TikTok on Thursday (Nov. 9).
“Practicing to my babies heartbeat 🥁,” the blink-182 drummer captioned the post — which featured him beating a drum pad with a rapid rhythm based on the sound of his newborn’s heartbeat. Barker sits in what looks to be a hospital room or doctor’s office, with medical equipment all around him in the clip, driving home the recent arrival of his latest bundle of joy.
On Nov. 4, sources confirmed to People that Kourtney Kardashian had given birth to her first child with husband Barker. A baby boy, the couple’s first child joins Kardashian’s three elder children from a years-long relationship with reality TV personality Scott Disick: son Mason, 13, daughter Penelope, 11, and son Reign, 8. Barker has two older children from a previous marriage to model Shanna Moakler: son Landon, 19, and daughter Alabama, 17, as well as stepdaughter Atiana.
In the days leading up to their baby boy’s arrival, Barker visited the One Life One Chance podcast to reveal that he and Kardashian had chosen to name him Rocky Thirteen Barker. “I was like, ‘He’s going to come out of my wife’s vagina doing front kicks and push-ups,’” Barker quipped, also confirming that his wife was due on Halloween or “the first week of November.”
That projected due date happened to include two very special milestones for Barker. In addition to the birth of his baby boy, the 47-year-old rocker collected a bevy of new Billboard chart achievements. On the Billboard 200 chart dated Nov. 4, Blink-182’s One More Time bowed at the summit with 125,000 equivalent album units.
With that lofty debut, the pop-punk icons now have a Billboard 200-topping album for each decade of the 2000s so far: 2002’s Take Off Your Pants, 2016’s California and this year’s One More Time. The new set also features two back-to-back Alternative Airplay No. 1 hits in “Edging” and its title track, cementing the One More Time era as something of a third career wind for the beloved rockers.
Check out Travis Barker’s heartwarming new TikTok below:
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
While the original PlayStation 5 was released back in November 2020, Sony just released a new generation refresh of the gaming console, which drops on Friday, Nov. 10.
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Priced at $499 at Walmart, and $499.99 at Amazon, Best Buy and Target, the new PS5 “Slim” has just about the same specs and features as the previous model, such as 4K gaming with HDR (High Dynamic Range) picture quality for vivid colors and deep black levels, up to 120fps (Frames Per Second) with 120Hz output for buttery smooth action, backwards compatibility with PS4 games and more. However, it’s more than 30% smaller by volume and 18% lighter.
Best Buy
PS5 Slim – Call of Duty Modern Warfare III Bundle
This is the disc edition of the console and it comes with a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive that’s detachable to make it even slimmer when not in use, while the console retains its white look and feel with a new four-panel design that makes it more customizable. The top two panels are glossy, while the bottom two are matte.
Walmart
PS5 Slim – Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Bundle
The new Sony console comes with four USB ports (two front-facing USB-C and two rear USB-A) for expansion, inputs and peripherals, as well as HDMI out and Ethernet ports. It also includes 1TB of on-board storage, which is increased from the previous model’s 825GB SSD (Solid-State Drive).
Inside of the box, you’ll find a Sony PS5 DualSense wireless controller, an HDMI cable and an AC power cable. While it comes with a horizontal stand, it doesn’t come with a vertical stand, as the photo above would suggest, unfortunately. It’s sold separately for an additional $29.99.
The new PS5 Slim model is bundled with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (digital download) at Target, while Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is included with the console at Walmart. And since Modern Warfare III and Spider-Man 2 have a $69.99 value each, it’s like getting the game for free when you buy the console.
The Sony PlayStation 5 Slim model (Disc Edition) bundled with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 comes out on Friday, Nov. 10. It’s available for $499 at Walmart and $499.99 at Target.
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Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best over-ear headphones, wifi extenders, laptop deals and more.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Seeing double? It’s not just you — Olivia Rodrigo is becoming a fan of herself in the latest commercial for Sony […]
While there’s no shortage of fans celebrating their musical favorites digitally, tangible tributes – from friendship bracelets to Etsy creations – seem to be making a comeback lately. With that in mind, a Midwestern biostatistics teacher has found a particularly novel way to honor her musical icons while going against the digital grain.
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But be warned: This fan art is a bit seedy.
Since 2021, Marta Shore, a biostatistics lecturer at the University of Minnesota, has spent her free time painstakingly recreating classic album artwork using everything from quinoa to chia seeds to flax to barley to wild rice. It’s called crop art, and at the 2023 Minnesota State Fair, Shore displayed three plant-based recreations of 1983 pop classics: Madonna’s self-titled debut album, Donna Summer’s She Works Hard for the Money and Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual.
“1983 was the year I really started listening to music outside of what my parents would listen to,” Shore says. “I still have a lot of these [albums] on vinyl.”
Crop art has become more than just a hobby for the university lecturer – it’s helped her connect with her students, too. When classes went virtual during the pandemic, Shore noticed that her students perked up when she made an offhand comment about her unusual hobby. “They just loved seeing me make and share something about my life besides statistics,” she says. Weekly updates about her Megan Rapinoe crop art helped them to “feel more connected to me and each other” during lockdown, she opines.
Soon, Shore invited her students – people studying to be epidemiologists, pharmacists, health policy wonks and more – to vote on what she should create next. The winner was RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio uttering her catchphrase “Not today, Satan,” which she then rendered in all organic plant material. “Sixty percent of my students wanted that one,” Shore, ever the statistician, recalls. “And [after that] they were even more invested.”
The benefits went beyond getting students to pay more attention. Several of them reached out to Shore to share that she inspired them to dust off their own creative outlets, helping their mental health in the process.
Cyndi Lauper
That’s certainly a benefit the statistician can relate to. While Shore says formal meditation doesn’t work for her, she can disconnect while doing crop art, which requires “just enough attention that my mind doesn’t wander, and just enough physical activity that I don’t get antsy.”
Sometimes she puts on headphones and listens to the album whose art she’s recreating; other times, she puts on a “comfort show,” like Parks and Recreation or The Other Two, and zones out while affixing bits of oat, quinoa and corn to a spray-painted board.
It began in 2015 when her daughter, then a kindergartener, was invited over to a friend’s house to try out the agriculture-centric folk art. Shore struck up a friendship with the girl’s mother, Jill, and learned the ropes herself. Eventually, she submitted a piece for inclusion in the Minnesota State Fair, the second-largest state fair in America, which features an annual crop art wall in the Agriculture Horticulture Building.
“My first piece was not great, but it got up on the wall, which made me feel really good,” she says. “I’d never really made anything artistic before. I mean, I’m a little math nerd.”
Buoyed by the success, Shore kept gluing seeds to boards, growing as an artist and learning about textures and perspective (she says her older daughter, who took a summer course at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, helped her figure out how to render the shadows on the cover of Lauper’s debut). “I print out the image from the album and trace around the edges,” Shore, who now teaches a crop art course on the side, explains of her go-to starting point. “White chia and white quinoa are really good for white; wild rice, canola and poppy are really good for black.”
“There’s a fair amount of trial and error as well,” she says. “I was originally going to make Madonna’s hair out of white quinoa, which I did and hated. Then I was like, ‘Oh, corn silk looks like bleached hair. Maybe I’ll try that instead.’”
She estimates that “for each piece, I do rip up 20 to 30 percent of it,” with her crop art pieces typically requiring 40 to 50 hours of work spread out over the year. “Donna Summer took me by far the longest because for the yellow background, that seed actually comes in about six different colors. So I picked out all the yellow.” She laughs. “My husband had thoughts. ‘Do you really need to go to this extreme?’”
But for her, the meditative activity isn’t an extreme at all. “I just love Donna Summer so much that there was joy in doing it. It felt like a labor of love.”
Donna Summer
After each Minnesota State Fair, some of the crop art pieces find a permanent home in her office (including her 2021 recreation of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On album, which won fourth place at the fair in 2021), while others are given away or repurposed for future projects.
Shore is already prepping for the 2024 Minnesota State Fair, working on a recreation of Dolly Parton’s 1974 album Jolene — which she calls “one of the most important albums ever released” — while soliciting her students to vote on which Dolly quotes will accompany the album art. (Given that LP’s yellow-heavy background, let’s hope she finds a seed that doesn’t require hours upon hours of sorting). And considering that next year marks the 40th anniversary of an album famously associated with the Minneapolis venue First Avenue, it’s a given that the Minnesota university educator will be tackling Prince’s Purple Rain.
“It’s a busy album cover, for sure,” she says, clearly excited by the challenge. “I’m going to try using dried flowers on the sides. There’s a lot of smoke rising [in the cover photo]. I’m already thinking about how I’m going to do that. With seeds? With some sort of plant material over a background? I haven’t figure it all out yet.
“[With crop art] you get to do your meditation and produce this cool thing that you can show people,” she continues. “You have to do it because you really love it. So when I do it, I try to choose things I really love.”
Marvin Gaye
Madonna
In Nicki Minaj’s latest cover with Vogue, the Queen MC revealed her thoughts on body positivity and why she denounces the movement — if it comes at the expense of “unhealthy bodies.”
“I’m not in favor of body positivity if it means unhealthy bodies,” she told the publication. “That’s bull. It’s not believable, so let’s stop pretending. Recently, I had to get a breast reduction, and actually I love it. I used to want a bigger butt, and now I look back and realize how silly that was. So — love your curves, and love your non-curves. There’s nothing wrong with any of it.”
Earlier this year, Minaj spoke about her decision to get breast reduction while on an Instagram Live with JT of City Girls. “If I tell you what size my t–ties was, I can promise you, once nature did what they had to do for [my son] Papa Bear, it’s no way your boobs right now are still able to look like that and be all sexy and cute and stuff like that in your dresses,” Minaj said. “Trust me. You did not have the size that I had.”
Elsewhere in her interview with Vogue, Minaj spoke about mom guilt and how she’s been trying to overcome those issues. “Well, if I’m going to have mom guilt regardless, I might as well continue doing the only thing I know how to freaking do, which is make music,” she said.
Minaj is making inroads on completing her fifth album, Pink Friday 2, the sequel to her 2010 debut effort. Dropping in December, Minaj released the project’s first official single, “Last Time I Saw You,” which she described to Vogue as a “happy-sad” song.
“I’m not saying I want this to be a sad song. Actually I want people to feel happy when they hear it. Happy-sad,” she said. “Then again, look at Adele. That woman has made me cry a million times, yet I want more.”
See photos from her Vogue cover story below: