Brazil : Fashion brands sizzle at SPFW

Launching its 23rd edition, the São Paulo Fashion Week started on June 13 and concluded on 19 with highly emotional collections. The event displayed several major fashion brands with creative collections and innovative ideas.

2nd Floor

2nd Floor was born as a multi-label project, but it grew up and emancipated itself.
Indies pop parties were the tune of Ellus that had a message very well transmitted at catwalk.

The profusion of color that always pleases the crowd are the crucial point in this signature collection of Rita Weiner and Adriana Bozon, using an entire rainbow on very short airy looks for girls and leaner looks with low rise skinny trousers for boys. The beautiful printed bikinis presented an entirely striking appearance.

While, voluminous dresses and wide tunics failed to arouse much interest, strapless, short lean baby-dolls and multi-colored patchworks with short overalls wowed the audience. Satin Silks, ombrés, primary colors and tulles in frills, embroidered sequins were also displayed here.
Washed jeans in every imaginable color without any limits were matched with graphic prints, sequin patches or used in monochromatic looks for both genders.

Source :www.fibre2fashion.com

Fall fashion to feature 'happy' colors, shape-enhancing styles

Fashion this fall will be all about bright colors and fitted clothing.

Jess Hanebutt, Purdue and Fashion Institute of Technology alumna and founder of Rockin' B Clothing, offers these tips for putting together a stylish fall wardrobe.

Jackets. "Fitted and shape enhancing, featuring princess lines and lots of contrasting details, such as piping and buttons."

Fitted gloves. "Knitted in bright colors and bright prints. Think bright and happy colors!"

Cardigans. "Look for sweater cardigans featuring interesting knit patterns in bright colors, with a longer hemline to hips and hooded. These can be belted at natural waist over jeans with heels for a classic �night out' look."

Shoes. "Go for the classics � for both day and night. Think 1940s glamour for pumps, featuring Mary-Jane straps atop ladylike platforms with a rounded point toe. Bright colors like blue, grass green and yellow are perfect for warming up cooler ensembles. For walking to class, you can't go wrong with pretty flats or organically-styled moccasins in bright colors. And Chuck Taylor hi-tops by Converse never go out of style."

Jeans. "Jeans are still skinny, so buy them skinny in darker washes � darker fabric has a great slimming effect on legs. Flared legs and embellishments (pre-torn, pre-bleached) are out, so just don't go there! For the more conservative, consider buying basic straight leg jeans. Cuff them and wear them with heels or flats � no clunky Nike's allowed! Levi's, Lee, Paige Denim, Citizens of Humanity and Joe's Jeans are great brands to try out."

Dress Pants. "Wide-leg dress pants that fit higher on the waist are great for dressing up and can be paired with a tucked-in short sleeve blouse in a shocking color for a professional-yet-hip touch. Look for softer fabrics that feel cool to the touch � these are perfect for those hot August and September days."

For fall shopping in the Lafayette area, Collette and Juniper boutiques at Wabash Landing carry many new trends.

"We're getting in coats, more dresses and printed purses," said Susan Laurie, 17, a West Lafayette resident and employee of Juniper. "Lots of blue and black and patterns."

By ; Traci Gillig

Via : www.purdueexponent.org

Heat-Applied Graphics Offer Custom Fashion Opportunities

JULY 16, 2007 -- Decorated apparel trends ebb and flow to the rhythm of the fashion world, and the current season is no exception. Moreover, with their expertise in apparel personalization and customization, garment decorators have a unique opportunity to capitalize on this trend.

"Whether you are talking about casual wear or sportswear, more and more people — especially tweens and teenagers — are interested in creating custom designs for their clothing in the hottest colors and styles fresh off the runway," says Cara Cherry, a spokesperson for Stahls' ID Direct, St. Claire Shores, Mich.

According to Cherry, neon colors are big in the fashion industry right now, but instead of brightly colored garments, decorators are using heat-applied materials and inks. "Most of the new materials that Stahls' ID Direct has introduced in the past year have been geared toward female consumers," she says. "Customer demand had led the company to introduce new shades of pink, lime green, lilac, and seven new colors of glitter materials."

In addition to developing new materials and products that feature bright colors, Cherry says Stahls' has introduced thinner materials for heat application. Applying graphics, letters and numbers in non-traditional places also has become very popular, she adds.

"Placement across seams, underneath arms, across the shoulders, along the back of pants and vertically down the sides of garments has created a need for different types of heat-applied numbers and lettering in a variety of sizes and font styles," Cherry says.

While today's advanced heat transfer materials open the door to new markets using the traditional heat press found in most decorated apparel shops, a heat press also is a key component of the burgeoning new field of digital direct-to-garment inkjet printing. And for that application, heat press buyers should look for features that can facilitate the precise curing the new technology requires, such as digital time, temperature and pressure readouts, says Cherry.

Stahls' ID Direct will be among the companies showing the latest advances in heat-applied graphics equipment and transfer products at the fall Imprinted Sportswear Shows (ISS) and at ISS New England on July 19-21. In addition, the ISS New England conference offers instruction relevant to decorators interested in learning new heat-applied graphics techniques and how to make money with their heat press, including speaker Michael Kaminsky's popular "Today's Transfer Technology: Ramp Up Your Profit Potential." The show also offers new machine-specific clinics for people wanting to learn how to operate and maintain a heat press, vinyl cutter or sublimation equipment.

Via : www.impressionsmag.com

Jolie sends back fashion freebies

Angelina Jolie refused to accept freebies that were posted to her by a British fashion firm.

The Tomb Raider actress was unhappy when a company sent T-shirts for her four children to Prague, where she is currently filming new film Wanted.

A source close to Angelina told the Daily Star that she returned the items, but remembered to include a "nice thank-you note."

By ; Daniel Kilkelly

Via : www.digitalspy.co.uk

New Male Fashion Accessory Is Worrying Insurers

The latest male fashion accessory is providing insurance companies with an unwelcome headache, it has been revealed.

The rise and rise of the 'man bag' has led to 13.8 million British men regularly carrying the item, with total content value estimated to be in the region of £4.4 billion.

Unconventionally, it appears that men now have more valuable items on their person than women.

According to LV= General Insurance, men carry contents worth £319 in their man bags, compared with the £255 carried around by women in the handbags.

As a result, LV= General Insurance's Andrew Beard is concerned that not enough British men are taking care to ensure that the possessions they carry with them on a day-to-day basis are fully insured.

"Man bags have quickly become a mainstream accessory, helping men lug around their ever more valuable stash of gadgets and personal effects," he commented.

"British men and women now routinely carry around more than £10 billion worth of possessions - not to mention the cost of the bags themselves and any cash carried.

"Although most household insurance providers offer some personal possessions cover away from the home, people should check their policies to see whether they require additional cover for valuable items such as laptops, gadgets and even expensive pens.

"Finally, men and women should try to stay safe by not displaying the contents of their bags to thieves."

The LV= General Insurance poll shows that the most popular items carried around by men and women in their respective bag versions are pens and mobile phones.

However, men are more likely to transport literature than their female counterparts, while MP3 players also prove popular.

Women, on the other hand, are more concerned with their appearance - cosmetics, perfume and sunglasses are high on their list of priorities.

Significantly, men have a higher propensity to laptop carrying than women, which is the main cause of the content value discrepancy.

By ; Fool News Wire

Via : www.fool.co.uk

Paris Fashion: Sneak previews

The idea of next season's pre-spring collection snapping at the heels of haute couture, dreamed up a year ago, is now an established fact. And it works especially well for houses that have an intimate quality to their prêt-a-porter clothes.

Boudicca, whose design duo showed a couture line on the runway last season, this time around had a presentation - the better to show the textures of lace and the aquarelle colors of washed lilac, absinthe and palest blue. The dress was the focus for clothes less complex and dramatic than Boudicca's signature look, although slim black dresses with Japanese warrior shoulders and protruding pockets caught the familiar edginess.

At Cher Michel Klein, the designer said he had in mind clients leaving for Christmas holiday vacations when he designed colorful skirts and dresses with an American Apache Indian inspiration. For those thinking more of spring and summer in the city, jersey dresses, knee-length and lean, offered an alternative, with soft washed georgette dresses with draped skirts taking stylish fashion from day to night.

By Suzy Menkes

Via :www.iht.com

Paris Fashion Week: Lacroix and its 20th anniversary show

Lacroix staged its 20th anniversary show at this year's Paris Fashion Week. Lacroix's vision was to recapture the quintessence of women, the elegance that dazzled his childhood fantasies. His return to boyhood, produced a collection inspired by the fashion of the era - big hair and big hats.


Christian Lacroix - 20 years in the business. He presented a sumptuous collection that swathed the body in folds of rich velvet or puffs of feather light chiffon. Let's take a look at some of the highlights of each throught CCTV.com.

Models with hair mounted in huge coifs paraded in coats embellished with ethnic detail like silver studs, rustic embroidery and monkey hair trim.

Lacroix's vision was to recapture the quintessence of women, the elegance that dazzled his childhood fantasies. His return to boyhood, produced a collection inspired by the fashion of the era - big hair and big hats.

Karl Lagerfeld's Haute Couture display for Chanel on Tuesday should have been pure poetry amid a bucolic country estate that was home to Marie Antoinette and Napoleon Bonaparte. But pluvial seemed more fitting than bucolic, as rain threatened and models paraded under an already dripping awning.

The collection featured sequined shifts with full sleeves attached to the side of the body like tufted and feathered wings.

Via : /www.fashiongates.com

What's hot in fashion? Blowouts

Dior at Versailles. Fendi at the Great Wall. Luxury-fashion shows with an eye on the mass market try to outshine the fierce competition.

VERSAILLES, FRANCE — Even by Hollywood standards it was a blockbuster production: Dior's 60th anniversary haute couture show, held Monday night in the majestic Orangerie of Versailles. The longest runway in history. A procession of the world's top models wearing one-of-a-kind, decadent gowns. An A-list front row that included Charlize Theron, Kate Hudson, Harvey Weinstein, Sofia Coppola and Juliette Binoche. An after-party for 1,000 that transformed the gardens into a disco with roving musicians, tents with chandeliers and pans of paella the size of backyard trampolines.

It was an extravaganza the likes of which the fashion world has never seen. But before the first bottle of Veuve Clicquot had been popped, the pack was already buzzing about the next event in this season of escalating fashion fabulousness — Valentino's three-day couture event in Rome that kicks off Saturday with a party amid the ruins of the Imperial Forums.

A few days later, Versace will take over the grand La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. And in the fall, Fendi will host a runway show to top them all, with models strutting down the Great Wall of China.

What's next, Louis Vuitton on the moon?

As the $100-billion luxury fashion industry becomes increasingly crowded, and fast fashion chains such as H&M make competition for retail sales more fierce, fashion shows have become so elaborate, so ubiquitous, that to stand out at all you have to go to — well, Versailles.

Fashion weeks were originally created for designers so they could hold runway shows displaying their wares for store buyers, or in the case of haute couture shows, private clients.

Now, the majority of the buying is done ahead of time, and fashion shows are about getting as much media coverage as possible to build brand-name cachet and drive sales of more accessible designer goods such as perfume, handbags and sunglasses.

So, as exclusive as the Dior show may have seemed, and as much as haute couture — the made-to-order collections that are the pinnacle of fashion as high art — appeals to the growing class of millionaires, it was really more about courting the little people. The same people Marie Antoinette might have told to eat cake.

"It's about keeping the name elevated to drive the peripheral branding," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm. "And how do you garner attention from the media? Have a show at the Great Wall of China."

Although there are really only four fashion weeks that count in terms of influencing trends and attracting media attendance — New York, London, Milan and Paris — there are dozens of fashion weeks these days, in some of the most unlikely cities on the planet. The event marketing firm IMG, the world's largest producer of runway shows, started with a single fashion week in New York just six years ago. Today it holds "fashion week" events in Los Angeles; Miami; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Mumbai, India; Ngee Ann City, Singapore; London; Berlin; Lahore, Pakistan; Houston; and San Francisco.

But any city looking for publicity can hold a fashion week (witness Fashion Week Cleveland). Because fashion shows have become commonplace, luxury houses have to work harder to set themselves apart and establish their prestige.

"A company is able to secure its brand even further when they celebrate with an over-the-top event," says Ken Downing, senior vice president and fashion director of Neiman Marcus.

With the cost of flying in celebrity guests, hiring top models and stocking hors d'oeuvres trays with foie gras, these swank events are in no way moneymakers. Dior will not recoup its investment from sales of designer John Galliano's crystal-studded, bustle-back gowns shown at Versailles.

But it is not boutique and couture lines that make money. It's cosmetics and accessories. And that's where an over-the-top show can make a difference.

The rich may be getting richer, but it's not the upper market that drives brands like Dior and Fendi, Cohen of the NPD Group says. "It's the middle market reaching up to spend. And now the middle market is hanging in the middle."

More fashion-minded consumers are buying from mass retailers instead of high-end stores because the offerings are so darn good. The past three years of designer collaborations with chain stores have made good design affordable. This fall, the offerings include top names such as Vera Wang at Kohl's, Devi Kroell at Target and Roberto Cavalli at H&M. No one need spend more than $39.99 to get a smartly tailored jacket or a nice purse.

Retail consolidation has also upped the ante. With more designers competing for less selling space, it's a buyers' market. So luxury brands are fighting back by rolling out the red carpets and the runways, not only during the traditional fall and spring seasons, but year-round — all in an effort to build prestige.

The three-day Valentino celebration in Rome will feature an haute couture show and a retrospective exhibit of the designer's work debuting at Museo dell'Ara Pacis. There will be a dinner at the Imperial Forums, which date back to AD 135, where set designer Dante Ferretti has re-created the original structure of the Temple of Venus.

The space has never before been open to an event.

Among the guests expected for the weekend bacchanalia, which also includes parties for a book and fragrance launch, are Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Meryl Streep and the Trumps.

Then the private jets head north to Milan for a memorial tribute to Gianni Versace on July 15. A new ballet will be presented at Teatro alla Scala titled "Grazie Gianni con Amore," or "Thank You Gianni With Love," followed by a dinner at the Piazza Reale, the former royal palace. The ballroom and its original statues, crumbling relics of the destruction of World War II, will be lighted with 2,000 candles, and organizers are hopeful Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will come, since she's filming a short flight away in Romania.

Just six weeks later, the fall season begins with New York Fashion Week and Ralph Lauren's 40th anniversary celebration, which promises to be so dazzling, organizers won't even talk about it yet.

This latest round of fashion theater began in Los Angeles in May, when Chanel brought two Challenger 601 jets to Santa Monica airport, transforming a hangar into a futuristic terminal lounge for a runway show for 600 guests, including Demi Moore, Victoria Beckham and Lindsay Lohan, and an international cadre of magazine editors.

That kind of fanfare isn't unusual for a fall or spring runway show, but this event was orchestrated for its cruise collection, the line between fall and spring. Cruise collections, traditionally composed of bathing suits and warm-weather basics, were conceived in the late 1960s and until lately were shown quietly to retailers in designer showrooms. Now cruise collections, delivered in October, are complete with evening wear, designer appearances and runway shows.

"Fashion is no stranger to the extravagant," Downing says. "We will see more over-the-top events as companies continue to brand themselves. But these are also important milestones."

Speaking of milestones, he says, Neiman Marcus has one in October: its 100th anniversary.

"We will be expecting many designers to travel to see us in Dallas, and celebs and models," he says. "We've been planning it for some time."

Yes, but can they top the Great Wall?

By ; Booth Moore, Times Staff Writer
Via :www.latimes.com

Kate Moss Launches Her New Clothing Line At TopShop