Ditching the Purse for a Leaner, Meaner LIfestyle:
“I never realized how much I hated carrying a purse until this week when a service person ripped off some money out of my wallet — about 200 bucks . . . I started thinking about how many hours I have spent guarding that purse. Not only me, but a number of women are constantly clutching their bags to their sides . . . I have always watched guys with envy for the way they have so little to carry around. “How do they do it?” I wondered . . . Where do you put extra things that you need? Do you carry a man-purse or a briefcase, which really is just a man’s version of a purse?”
“I Was Escorted Out Of Target!”:
It sounds like a bad title for a worse dime-store novel, but it’s actually the hilarious anecdote of a young girl who wandered into Target to try on the Jovovich-Hawk collection, only to find herself engaged in battle with a sunburned dressing-room attendant sporting a serious attitude problem — “He looked at me. Looked through the hangers and spit out that I had FIVE hangers. To which I explained (realizing my mistake) that I had mistakenly put the bikini top and bottom on one hanger. It was supposed to be on two. Hence the extra hanger. MA’AM you have FIVE hangers. “I know, I just explained it to you.” MA’AM YOU HAVE 5 HANGERS! D’uh. I know. I’ve just explained to you why that is. I started to chuckle. I mean DDDDDUUUUUUHHHHH!!!!!”
Her experience ended up a little like this:
Layoffs on Wall Street Hit NYC Retailers Where It Hurts:
“Although Wall Street accounts for only 5% of the city’s employment, it has fuelled more than a third of its recent economic growth . . . ‘The revenues that Wall Street firms receive then enable enormous bonuses that have helped fuel the luxury real estate market in the New York metro area,’ says James Parrott from the Fiscal Policy Institute . . . ‘All of that for the last few years has been moving up, and has been expanding and increasing demand and jobs and now we’re at the point where that is starting to unwind and go into reverse’ . . . from street vendors to legal services, from real estate to restaurants, the pinch has already started.”
The Top Ten Films that Influenced Fashion:
“American Express Red recently conducted a poll asking top names in the fashion industry ~ Stella McCartney, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Lulu Guiness, Philip Treacy, Oswald Boateng, Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen, John Rocha, Michael Kors and others ~ to name the films they thought had had the most influence on the world of fashion. Not surprisingly, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was the unanimous choice for #1.”
The movie that launched a thousand LBD’s:
H&M Sees a Silver Lining in the Recessionary Clouds:
“Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), the Swedish fashion giant, bucked the doom and gloom surrounding the retail sector today by reporting a 19 per cent jump in profits and its strongest sales growth for five months . . . H&M put its success down to “well composed” collections and a larger online offer but noted that it had been investing more in price promotions over the new year . . . but analysts assert that its combination of inexpensive yet trendy clothing is striking a chord with shoppers.”
CBGB’s Punk Ethos Succumbs to the Gentrification of John Varvatos:
“Just checking in on what remains and what is vanishing still of CBGB’s, I found the new John Varvatos store making headway, having installed what look like arched French windows in the old club’s not-so-French-windowed space . . . CBGB’s back alley, Extra Place, is parked end-to-end with German engineering as it prepares to undergo its luxury transformation. The Ramones used to hang out back here–but this weekend, Marky Ramone was watching American Idol on HDTV instead.”
Memories:
Ferragamo Hopes to Reinvent Itself as a Luxury Power Player in the East:
“Ferragamo’s strategy is an audacious one. The brand has a highly respected heritage but compared to Dior and Vuitton, Ferragamo is currently a bit player in the luxury field. But in the virgin shopping malls of China, the company sees no reason why it cannot reinvent itself as a premier league name . . . ‘Most western people can only remember the names of five or six Chinese cities, even though there are 20 cities with more than five million people. In the same way, most Chinese people can only remember five or six western brand names,’ says Michele Norsa, CEO of Salvatore Ferragamo. ‘What is fundamental is to establish ourselves soon.’”
It’s Fall 2008 collection was a splashy, glittery, high-glam affair that took its cues from Tom Ford era Gucci:
