Fashion Clothing & Fashion Weeks

Can men rescue the holiday shopping season this year?

Retailers hope so. Many stores have remodeled, expanded their men’s departments and added new products and new gifts in an effort to keep men spending through the downturn.

Bloomingdale’s renovated and expanded the men’s tailored clothing floor at its New York flagship. Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Macy’s say they’re carrying more men’s goods this holiday season. J. Crew this month opened its second men’s-only store, in Paramus, N.J., just months after opening its first, in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. In recent months, designer men’s-only stores have opened in London, from Dolce & Gabbana and Lanvin, and in Los Angeles, from Salvatore Ferragamo. Cheap-chic retailer H&M added a higher-priced men’s collection in September.
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courtesy:www.ajc.com

As Paris Fashion Week, the iconic leader of Haute Couture and Pret a Porte comes to a close, the stage is being set for the first ever Fiji Fashion Week.

In the sunny isles of Fiji, Donalesi (Donna) Whippy wipes her entrepreneurial forehead as she watches local models strut their pace in rehearsal for the big day. The challenge is about which model wears what? After all, it is not about the model, but how best they can make an outfit, painstakingly designed look good for the buyer. For Donna it is but one of a long list of tasks to be done.

Somewhere in the back of her head, she has listed under ‘Things to do: confirm sponsors, talk to set designer, confirm budget, ticket sales, confirm design for catwalk, prep MC, schedule workshops, press releases, running sheets, after-parties …,’ and the list goes on.
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courtesy:www.fijitimes.com

Restaurants in downtown Phoenix usually have to win over fans.

Often they’re small, independent nightspots - artsy bars and restaurants tucked into historical homes, or slick nightclubs retrofitted into old brick buildings.

But when Hanny’s the restaurant moved into the old Hanny’s department store at First and Adams streets, it represented the first destination restaurant to open downtown. It’s near Sky Lounge, Bar Smith, PHX Nightclub and Majerle’s Sports Grill.

Foodies, nightlife insiders and neighborhood residents have been waiting for Karl Kopp to open Hanny’s. The owner of Scottsdale’s ever-fashionable AZ88 originally announced plans three years ago. Almost two years after the first proposed opening date, the soft opening was the first week of November.
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courtesy:www.azcentral.com

The new hit from the “I Kissed a Girl” sensation, “Hot N Cold,” features Perry in a video that contrasts a lush wedding scene — with Perry up on the altar and her parents in the congregation — with examples of the vampy-chick persona, such as shoving around her lover in an alley, the singer played in the “I Kissed a Girl” video.

In real life, Perry has had to navigate opposite ends of the musical spectrum as well. The 24-year-old began her career as a teenage Christian music singer under the name Katy Hudson, but when that attempt fizzled, she reinvented herself as Katy Perry, using her mother’s maiden name and slicker dance-pop grooves.

The result: a No. 1 single with “I Kissed a Girl,” a bit of protest from conservative groups (and, rumor has it, her religious parents) and the possibility of being nominated for a Grammy as best new artist when the nominations are announced Wednesday night.
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courtesy:edition.cnn.com

The biggest sale of the year for the Westfield Service League Thrift and Consignment Shop will happen on Saturday, Dec. 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Proceeds from the sales in both shops are donated to local charities throughout Union County.

Thousands of holiday items will go on sale in the Thrift Shop. In addition to the new items, there will be thousands of holiday gift items, including toys, clothing and bric-a-brac, and decorations available during the sale. Due to the large amount of items for sale, the shop racks and shelves will be replenished throughout the day of sale.

The Consignment Shop, located upstairs from the Thrift Shop, also will be having a sale for the holidays. New clothing and brand labels will be marked at 75 percent off in the sales area.
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courtesy:www.mycentraljersey.com

Brian Hill spent his youth washing windows, sorting hangers and looking after customers at his family’s vancouver clothing store, Hills of Kerrisdale. His experience there led him to open Aritzia LP in 1984. As CEO, Hill has pursued vertical integration with in-house labels, and has built Aritzia into one of Canada’s most popular clothing retailers for young women. He took the company national in 1999. Now Hill aims to make Aritzia a North American player.

Biggest Lesson: We don’t operate in a vacuum. We’ve always gone out and done our research. You have to listen, you have to get all the facts, and you have to be rigorous. But at the end of the day, you have to make decisions based on what you think is right for your business, not on what other people tell you.
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courtesy:www.financialpost.com

The grand opening of gently used children’s clothing store Tiger Lily’s will be held in Lindsay on Saturday, Dec. 13.

Owners Shannon Marren and her sister Sarah Marren will be offering free Tim Hortons coffee and donuts and face painting for children. Door prizes will include a gift basket and shoppers can draw a ballot for a discount at the time of purchase.

The sisters quietly opened their small store at 4 1/2 Cambridge St. N., across from the Fire Hall, last month. They got the idea for the shop, named after Sarah’s 18-month-old daughter, while having dinner at their mother’s last spring. Shannon was job hunting at the time. She had spent 10 years working for Xerox Canada in Toronto and then worked for a local car dealership, but was thinking of owning her own business.

Sarah had worked at Tim Hortons, then had been a single, stay-at-home mom for the past four years with her two children.

As clients of the Victoria County Career Services in Lindsay, they went through the Ontario Self-Employment Benefit program. “I learned how to be a business owner,” Sarah told The Lindsay Post. “I had no idea about this stuff before.” Shannon added that she learned marketing through the program.
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courtesy:www.thepost.ca

While the global economy continues to falter, one bright spot for U.S. exporters has been the demand for second-hand clothing, according to Eric Stubin, president of Trans-Americas Trading Co.

“After one of the most difficult second quarters in recent memory, many U.S. exporters—including secondhand clothing exporters—were strategically planning ahead for third and fourth quarter accounting for continued lack of space and equipment,” he said in an interview with LM. “However, most of us did not experience these anticipated difficult conditions.”

Instead, said Stubin, more available containers and chassis has made it easier for exporters to mitigate the impact of a stronger dollar and keep goods flowing.

“As president of SORT, (Shippers of Recycled Textiles Shipper’s Association), I know our members’ businesses were among the first to feel the effects of a currency shift,” he said. “Our products became more expensive for our international clients, many of who sell our clothing in pegged to the Euro and various Latin American currencies.”
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courtesy:www.logisticsmgmt.com

This year, Fillmore Street is celebrating the holidays not only with lights and decorations, but also by giving back with the Goodwill Holiday Stroll.
On Dec. 6, certain boutiques will offer discounts to anyone willing to donate clothing and other items to Goodwill. Other consignment stores will provide drop off bins for people walking with heavier loads. And now that the holiday decorations are up, most merchants are hopeful that there will be more foot traffic.
“The neighbors seem to like it,” said Patti Hayes, who has worked on and off in the family-run store, Fillmore Hardware & Variety, since 1961.
This is the second year that Hayes has seen the Fillmore Merchant Association sponsor the lights on the street. Each business pays around $150 to have the lights put up outside their store. For shops without trees, like Hayes’ store, accommodations are made so they can still participate.
“It was nice of them to offer to put it on my awning since my tree is so tiny,” Hayes said.
The lights went up on Oct. 28 and most shops are finding a positive reaction from the community. Some of the good feelings could also be because the lights are energy efficient, making the holiday stroll a charitable and environmentally-sustainable event.
Robin Nedzi, store manager at the Next to New shop, said she believes the lights will bring people from the neighborhood who might otherwise walk down Union Street.
“It looks festive,” Nedzi said. “I think it’s more enticing to stroll down the street when it looks unified and festive.”
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courtesy:www.thewesternedition.com

With turkey dinners and family gatherings out of the way, Americans all over the country made their way to discount super centers, malls and family owned stores to take advantage of holiday deals Friday morning.

Black Friday is generally considered to be the start of the Christmas shopping season, and what Americans spend on that day is typically a marker of just how well they are fairing economically. Still, with a faltering economy, predictions for Black Friday seemed somewhat gloomy in comparison to years past. The National Retail Federation predicted that up to 128 million people nationwide would hit the stores on Friday morning. That number was down a full 7 million from last year’s prediction of 135 million Black Friday shoppers.
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courtesy:www.pasoroblespress.com