Fashion News
Madonna sued over Material Girl clothing line
23 Aug, 2010
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Madonna has been hit with a lawsuit over her new \"Material Girl\" fashion line for teenagers by a California clothing company that says it has been using the name since 1997.
L.A Triumph filed a lawsuit against the pop superstar in the California Central District court on Thursday, just two weeks after the Madonna line went on sale in Macy's.
The company said in its suit that it has been \"continually selling similar clothes in similar retail outlets at similar price points under their Material Girl brand since at least 1997, and Madonna and her newfound company do not have the right to trade in the same space under this brand.\"
Madonna teamed up with her 13 year-old daughter Lourdes to design the 1980s inspired clothing line, which borrows from the pop star's punk-girl style when she rose to fame in the 1980s and earned the moniker, material girl.
\"Gossip Girl\" star Taylor Momsen is the face of the brand.
L.A. Triumph wants the judge to rule that Madonna's use of \"Material Girl\" creates \"deception\" in the marketplace. It is also asking for Madonna and her company to turn over all the profits from their line.
Macy's on Friday declined to comment on the litigation. Madonna's spokeswoman could not immediately be reached.
Source: reuters.com
Finding Themselves at the \"Eat Pray Love\" Premiere
16 Aug, 2010
New York – The journey of discovery that is \"Eat Pray Love\" finally ended at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York on Tuesday, Aug. 10, as the film of the best-selling novel premiered.
Both the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, and her on-screen persona, Julia Roberts, smiled for the cameras and greeted the men that helped make the cinematic version of Gilbert's quest for spiritual meaning come to life. There was Javier Bardem, whose appearance in \"Eat Pray Love\" comes late in the flick, as our heroine finishes her quest in Bali; Billy Crudup, who plays Gilbert's first husband, whom she leaves behind in New York City; and Richard Jenkins, the American that helps her understand the spiritual path while in India. Writer-director Ryan Murphy, who also happens to produce and create the television show \"Glee,\" joined in the festivities as well, both at the theater and the after party held at the Metropolitan Club.
Roberts, who showed off her ultra-slim physique in a black mini-skirted suit, insisted to reporters at an earlier press conference that she actually did gain weight during the \"eat\" section of the film, set in Rome.
\"Ryan keeps telling people that I put on ten pounds!\" she chuckled. \"It was a little less than that, but I loved every pound. And everyone said, 'Oh, it's going to drop right off in India,' but I didn't get that memo. That didn't happen.\"
However much she may have gained on the shoot, it is gone, for the 42-year-old actress looked as slim as ever, perhaps because of the spiritual effects that the journey of the movie had on her. She reportedly has embraced Hinduism, and explained that her personal journey through the vagaries of Hollywood stardom has taken her to a place of calm enlightenment.
\"I definitely knew that my life would continue to evolve until I found that place where I could fully occupy and live in, which is the home that I have now,\" Roberts, the married mother of three, explained.
\"I think that if you've gotten to a place in your life where you have found a capacity to eat and nourish yourself, and love and nourish your life in that way, that somewhere along the way you've figured out your own identity and how to pray and relate to an energy or a creation that's more than you. Otherwise you can't accomplish those other things.\"
Others on hand from the film included Christine Hakim, Mike O'Malley, Arlene Tur, Jennifer Salt, T.J. Power and David Lyons. Fans of the book who joined the party were Phylicia Rashad, Shaun Robinson, Gail Simmons, and Josh Brolin.
Source: www.fashionwiredaily.com
Industrial Design Meets Shoes
09 Aug, 2010
New York City – Martha Davis may not yet be a household name when it comes to shoe design. But in the world of industrial design, her specialty of 20 years, she made her mark in a way that has since affected millions of women: dial pack birth control packaging for Johnson & Johnson. Now she hopes to change the lives of millions more, but this time, with her shoes.
It's Davis' keen industrial designer eye for a clean, functional and modern product that makes her such an intriguing shoe designer. She has a product designer's understanding of problem solving and the nuts-and-bolts knowledge of the mechanics of elegant design.
As a devoted consumer of shoes herself, Davis, whose studio is currently based in San Francisco, felt she couldn't quite find what she was looking for - a shoe that was practical, understated and unique, but not intimidatingly radical.
\"I wanted to get back to making things,\" she said, \"so I decided to give shoes a try.\"
So she booked a trip to Italy, took a shoe design course in Milan and now two years and four collections later, Davis is making comfortable, yet highly stylish shoe that fuse traditional hand-made Italian shoemaking techniques with a distinctive modernist design and a bold color sensibility.
The result are shoes that leap into the future. Wedges have an almost spaceship-like aerodynamic curve, and the glove leather she uses is so soft and molds so perfectly to the foot that the shoes wear as though they were custom made.
Even within the limitations of doing such a small run in a factory, Davis has also managed to tweak the design of the heels to create a signature wooden heel that is sculptural and sleek, and never clunky. It's slim and narrow from the side, but sturdy and strong, giving the wearer a sense of perfect balance. There are no unwearable skyscraper heels here - these are shoes that are meant to be worn from day to night. This type of careful attention to structure makes Davis something of a \"shoe architect.\"
Not surprisingly, architecture has been a source of inspiration for Davis. For her fall collection, she focused on classic mid-century architecture with its \"simple, yet textural\" qualities. A block of gritty, industrial cement, for instance, is represented in the form of a textured metallic boot. Davis succeeds in making the Modernist movement, usually associated with severity, look more feminine. And while there's this slice of the past in the design, they never look discernibly retro.
For Spring 2011, Davis designed a range of styles that satisfy a range of sandal season scenarios, whether a person wants to cover up a certain part of their foot (an open-toed wedge with soft, bubble-thick laces, for instance) or bare all (a strappy high-heeled sandal with a simple center knot). And a ruched sandal that wraps around the foot and ankle like a bootie also looked surprisingly delicate and pretty.
Inspired by Cubist artists like Picasso, Alexander Calder and Joan Miro, Davis was namely interested in \"the way they played with color, form, volume, line.\" She pointed to a spongy, tube-like sandal strap and explained: \"It's like a drawing or a sketch.\"
Also new for Davis is a men's collection. For now, it's one style in a range of her modernist color palette, from cool grey to a luscious orange, based on a simple slip-on design that a friend of hers brought back from Japan years ago that quickly became his favorite pair of shoes.
Though current distribution of the Martha Davis collection is limited to a few stores in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Japan, along with direct orders, expect to see Davis explode on the footwear market very soon.
Source: www.fashionwiredaily.com
The \"Salt\" Premiere Shakes Up Hollywood
04 Aug, 2010
Los Angeles – Collective sighs of relief echoed down Hollywood Boulevard as Brad Pitt joined his superstar partner Angelina Jolie at the massive premiere of her new action flick \"Salt.\"
Jolie looked gorgeous as always in a skimpy black beaded minidress, but Pitt looked stunning after months of sporting a mountain man grizzle of facial hair that obscured his handsome visage.
But that's no more, and as Hollywood's golden couple crossed the street in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Monday, July 19, to greet the masses of fans gathered there, the fight was on to get a photo with the beautiful pair. Genially signing autographs and posing, both Pitt and Jolie were all smiles.
The duo had left their six children at home for the night, for Philip Noyce's violent CIA spy thriller \"Salt\" is rated PG-13, but a surprising family member was on hand for the celebration. Jon Voight, Angelina's long-estranged father, walked the red carpet with his son James Haven, Jolie's brother, thus proving that the three have made peace with the past and are all finally getting along as a family.
And speaking of family, at an earlier press event, Jolie explained what made her decide to take on the physically challenging title role of Evelyn Salt.
\"I'd just had babies and I'd been at home for a year and a half when I decided to do 'Salt,'\" she recalled. \"I felt like it was complex enough and all those wonderful things, but I also knew that it would be really good for me to jump around and get active after that time. It's important to do something that kind of gets you out of yourself, gets you physical and strong.\"
Also making the glittery scene on the red carpet and at the elaborate after party were Liev Schreiber, Jolie's co-star in the film, his life partner Naomi Watts, and action fans including Antonio Sabato, Jr., Kristin Cavallari, Sharlto Copley, Charlotte Ross, Amber Heard, Gretchen Rossi, Oscar Nunez and Mary Jane Rajskub.
Source: www.fashionwiredaily.com
New York to implement clothing recycling program
16 Jul, 2010
NEW YORK – Here's the truth about fashion: It changes quickly. So what do you do when you're stuck with a closet full of barely worn shirts, dresses and shoes?
Starting in September, New York City will launch one of the largest textile recycling initiatives in the nation. The aim is to make it easy to donate clothing, almost as easy as throwing it away.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans pitch almost 10 pounds of socks, jeans, shirts and sheets per year, per person. In New York, where 190,000 tons of textiles entered the city's landfills in 2008 alone, the plan would place 50 collection bins in high-traffic areas.
\"I moved three times in the last five years, and each time I ended up throwing away clothes,\" says 25-year-old Tracy Feldman. \"It is just too hard to haul it all over the city. If there was a bin on my block, I wouldn't hesitate to recycle them.\"
The city is taking bids for a 10- to 15-year contract with a nonprofit company that will be responsible for the bins. Goodwill Industries International is one of the companies bidding on the contract.
\"There has not been another program like this that we know of,\" said Goodwill spokesman Alfred Vanderbilt. \"We think they are being very creative and we hope this sets a new standard.\"
A Goodwill Industries survey of 600 adults in the United States and Canada found that more than half of people who donate clothing say they wouldn't go more than 10 minutes out of their way to make a donation.
Robert Lange, the director of the Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling in New York, said his department discovered the same problem.
\"You can open a black bag at the landfill and see what looks like new clothing,\" he said. \"It is easier to throw it out than recycle.\"
Not all used clothing can be recycled into usable clothing — take those old, stinky sneakers and torn clothing. But that doesn't mean those items can't be donated. While Goodwill is mostly looking for clothing that can be resold, there are ways to recycle even the old tattered pieces.
At Wearable Collections, a New Jersey-based textile recycling company, almost half of donations are good for resale, according to the owner. The other half is split nearly evenly between being used for rags for businesses like the automotive industry and being broken down for insulation. Less than 5 percent of the total is unusable and goes to the landfill.
Officials say that if New York's campaign is successful, it could lead to a nationwide movement to recycle clothing.
Not only would that clear up some room in the nation's landfills, it could also create jobs, said Brenda Platt, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance based in Washington, D.C. She profiled 20 textile recycling companies and estimates that the industry creates 85 times more jobs than landfills.
Wearable Collections has been offering free bins to apartment buildings and dorm rooms throughout the East Coast for the last few years. The company's employees collect the bins as often as once a week, and tenants never have to go farther than their lobby to get rid of old clothing.
Adam Baruchowitz, the owner of Wearable Collections, is enthusiastic about city governments and charities working together. \"I think it is going to raise the consciousness of textile recycling, which is a good thing for us,\" Baruchowitz said.
And if all goes as planned, New York may be just the beginning.
\"If this is as effective as it can be, it will influence other locations,\" Lange said. \"We will be leading by example.\"
Source: ap.org