Brand (ie: Miss Sixty and Rock & Republic) are hiring celebrities to sit on their fashion show front rows.
Rihanna and Dsquare designer
A-List
Rihanna ($100,000 or more)
Beyonce ($80,000-$100,000)
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen ($80,000 each)
Julianne Moore ($60,000)
Maggie Gyllanhal ($60,000)
Chloe Sevigny ($60,000 or more)
Jennifer Lopez (circa 2005: $80,000; circa 2010: $30,000)
Lindsay Lohan (circa 2006: $60,000; circa 2010; UNINVITED)
Colin Firth (pre-A Single Man: $5,000; post-A Single Man: $15,000)
Colin Firth
B-List
Blake Lively ($50,000)
Leighton Meester ($40,000)
Hillary Duff ($40,000)
Other Gossip Girl cast members ($25,000 a piece)
Jared Leto ($25,000)
Cliven Owen ($10,000)
Kristen Bell (unpaid, but airfare, makeup and clothing are taken care of)
C-List
Kim Kardashian ($35,000-$50,000)
Amanda Bynes ($25,000-$30,000)
Eliza Dushku (unpaid, but airfare, makeup and clothing are taken care of)
D-List
Paris Hilton (free or UNINVITED)
Jersey Shore cast (UNINVITED)
America’s Next Top Model Winners (free)
“Alexander McQueen, one of Britain’s most successful fashion designers, was found dead today at his home in London after committing suicide on the eve of his mother’s funeral.
Speculation mounted tonight that McQueen had been unable to come to terms with the death of his mother, who died on February 2 and whose funeral is to be held in East London tomorrow.
A spokeswoman for the designer said: “Mr McQueen was found dead this morning at his home. We’re devastated and I hope you understand that out of respect to his family and his colleagues we’re not going to be making any further statement.”
His death comes just days before London Fashion Week, which is due to open on February 19, and as final preparations were being made to unveil a spring collection in Paris
McQueen was one of six children born to an East End taxi driver. He left school at 16 and started his professional life as a tailor’s apprentice on Savile Row, where his clients included Mikhail Gorbachev and the Prince of Wales.
After spending some time working for Koji Tatsuno, he went to Milan to work for Romeo Gigli, then enrolled on his return at the Central St Martins School of Art and Design – where Isabella Blow bought his entire graduation collection and persuaded him to launch his career under the name Alexander McQueen – using his middle name rather than his real first name, Lee.
His early runway collections relied largely on the shock factor, but McQueen hit the mainstream when he was chosen to succeed John Galliano at Givenchy in 1996. He stayed with the fashion house until 2001 but left to concentrate on his own label which was 51 per cent owned by Gucci.
Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue, said: “Lee McQueen influenced a whole generation of designers. His brilliant imagination knew no bounds as he conjured up collection after collection of extraordinary designs.
“At one level he was a master of the fantastic, creating astounding fashion shows that mixed design, technology and performance and on another he was a modern-day genius whose gothic aesthetic was adopted by women the world over.
“His death is the hugest loss to anyone who knew him and for very many who didn’t.”
the designer Karl Lagerfeld had a more sombre reflection: “In his (McQueen’s) work, he always flirted with death. We don’t know the reasons but it’s proof that success and talent alone are not enough to make someone happy. But there was always a little dehumanised side in his work, I found. Like a sort of detachment from the world and reality. Fashion is like that… If you don’t have a solid stomach and your head screwed on, you are exposed to anxieties, to things like that.”
The article below points out the new un-tapped market and trend in the beauty industry. Women have been the object of sexual exploitation in the media since the invention of marketing. For the past decade or so, men are being used more in marketing to tap into the new market made available by the dispensable career-working woman.
As a result, we men are getting messed up with our self images in a similar way that most women have been experiencing for decades. With the new invention of “Metro-sexual” males in the 90s, there was suddenly more acceptance and more services catering to men unlike ever before.
Salons for men (not barbers); spas with menus for the man only (facial, manicure pedicure…); make-up for men (Jean-Paul Gaultier and some high profile cosmetice companies are coming out with lines.) The cosmedic industry has answered with cleansers and creams to an untapped market that has high potential and could be very profitable! After all, we’ve seen with track record in sales with the billion-dollar industry for women.
D&G ad campaign
“Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.” 1994 / Mark Simpson via wikipedia
Should men be using skin care or make-up / concealer / lip chap cream? An interesting question is this: Why is it a non-question these days when one asks these questions? In comparison, 30 years ago people would flat out have said “no” and laughed at you. Today it poses an interesting question and all due to the power of the Advertiser.
The article below lists some of the coming trends. We should start seeing these trends creep into North America markets in the coming year from Asian and Europe, who always seem to know how to be ahead of us on most of things.
notice how the woman are fully dressed and the guy is the sex object.
Men spend up for the sake of looks by: Naoko Fujimura
TOKYO: Japanese men are buying more cosmetics made specifically for them, even as salaries fall, unemployment rises and the population shrinks in Asia’s largest market for beauty products.
Mitsuru Yonekawa, a spokesman for Nissan who was named one of Tokyo’s most handsome men by a lifestyle magazine, has added a step to his morning grooming ritual to combat flaky skin.
‘‘I try to look neat so I won’t give a bad impression,” said Mr Yonekawa, one of 82 men featured in Hanako magazine last year. My skin is losing moisture. I didn’t need anything when I was in my 20s.”
Otsuka sold 993 million yen worth of UL-OS in the first six months it was on the shelves.
Sales of men’s skincare products in Japan jumped 17 per cent to 17.5 billion yen in 2008, compared with a 0.2 per cent drop industrywide, according to the most recent Trade Ministry data.
Japan accounted for about 10 per cent of the $US333.7 billion ($370 billion) global market for cosmetics and toiletries in 2008, according to London researcher Euromonitor.
Dsquared2 Ad Campaign
College students are more interested in moisturisers, cleansing scrubs and beauty salons than they are in cars, according to a survey last year of 1600 men and women by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, which wanted to find out why sales last year plunged 9.3 per cent to 4.6 million vehicles, the lowest level since 1977.
”More and more men are becoming feminised,” said Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments.
”Their desire for better looks is getting stronger.”
Toshihiro Nagahama, the chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute, said: ”More and more men from teens to the 30s are making a fashion statement.”
Otsuka, known in Japan for its sports and energy drinks, entered the men’s skincare market in September 2008 with UL-OS, pronounced ”uruosu”, Japanese for ”moisturise.”
”We aim to lure the middle-aged men who aren’t used to skincare products,” an Otsuka spokesman, Tadashi Kirai, said.
”There is more potential for the men’s skincare market because more than two-thirds of men have never done any care.”
If you are like me, when traveling, eating is one of the main things. It gives you a viewpoint on the locals and their culture. New York is one of the top metropolitan cities in the world. Because it is hard to do everything with the short amount of time most of us have for vacations, here is a link to The 38 Essential New York Restaurants, Jan. ‘10
“The only serious rule of engagement here is that a restaurant must be open at least six months to qualify for inclusion on the list, though strong consideration is given to neighborhood favorites over fancier destination” spots.” ny.eater.com
It’s a great move that Halston has asked Sarah Jessica Parker to be part of its brand. Taking on the role of Halston president, Sarah Jessica Parker of “Sex and the City” fame, will be over-seeing a newly announced Halston Heritage collection.
Mrs. Parker had a successful clothing line with Steve & Barry’s, but the company went under recently and left the Sex and the City starlet’s clothes line without a home.
Sarah Jessica Parker is known for he clothes and fashion sense from the hit TV show. Most fashion insiders are happy and waiting with anticipation…
“I think this is a brand new kind of business model, and it illustrates how serious I am about this position. I think it’s wonderful to feel invested in something. I tend not to just endorse something. I like feeling the stakes,” SJP said in a statement Wednesday. “I know I come to the company in a rather unorthodox way but I’m not the first to be president of a company without the traditional background.”
