Blue

The Aussie and I headed to a vintage clothes shop in London at the weekend that advertised a mini-festival. A summery theme and the promise of cider and ice cream sounded right down my street. Sadly, when we arrived things were not as we expected, all long faces and an intimidating atmosphere. It seems like a strange emotion to have about a clothes shop, isn't it all just meant to be a bit of fun?

(Hawaiian sun dress - eBay, clinch belt - free with a magazine, leather jacket - Superdry, vintage satchel - eBay, sandals - New Look)

We had a magnificent day nevertheless and I was just happy to give my recently acquired Hawaiian frock an airing. Over to you Justine...

Source: http://roopaprika.blogspot.com/2010/08/blue.html

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Stores Now Selling Skinny Jeans For Babies And Toddlers (News)

Wsj.com: The idea of shimmying into a pair of skinny jeans makes many women cringe. Now imagine squeezing them up over a diaper.

Ava Lane, a smiley two-year-old who lives in Deland, Fla., has four pairs of skinny jeans. She received the first pair as a gift, says mom Christina Lane, who thought they looked so cute she bought more.

Babies and toddlers have big bellies, and skinny jeans are not for people with big bellies," says Ms. Lane, a 29-year-old museum marketing director. "But they still work."

Children's apparel, including skinny jeans for toddlers and kids, has been a rare bright spot in the beleaguered apparel industry during the recession and the recovery. Parents quickly cut back on purchasing clothing for themselves, but have continued to spend on their children.

Children's clothing sales are up 5.3% year-to-date, over the same time last year, according to MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, a unit of MasterCard Inc. that tracks sales by cash, check and credit card. Total apparel sales are up just 1.4%.

"It's more fun," says Ms. Lane of shopping for her daughter than shopping for herself.

Most recently, Ms. Lane bought two pairs of skinny jeans from Gap Inc., the country's largest apparel retailer, which sells skinny jeans in sizes as small as zero to three months. The company says skinny styles now make up 40% of its jeans offering for infant and toddler girls and 70% for girls at the kids division.

Skinny jeans—slim through the thighs and knees, and even slimmer through the calves and ankles—are popping up in pint sizes at mall stores including American Eagle Outf***er Inc.'s 77Kids and Little77 divisions as well as J. Crew Group Inc.'s Crewcuts. Several denim players, including True Religion Apparel Inc. and Levi's from Levi Strauss & Co., also make skinny jeans for kids.

People tend to put their kids first," says Mark Breitbard, executive vice president of GapKids and babyGap. "They'll pass on something for themselves to make sure their kids are still looked after." The company doesn't segment sales within its lines, but Mr. Breitbard says the kids' division "has maintained its brand health in a much more consistent manner" than the adult division.

One factor behind the company's skinny-jeans-for-kids strategy: The popularity of adult-styled kids' clothes after the debut of its kids and baby collaboration with Stella McCartney last November. It was originally intended as a one-time partnership, but the line was so popular that a second launched in March. Some of the pieces, such as a gray sweater dress, were miniature versions of Ms. McCartney's ready-to-wear line.

The mini-me mentality has trickled into Gap's other designs for kids and baby. On shelves now, shoppers will find motorcycle jackets and ankle boots. "People love trend take-downs," says Mr. Breitbard. "Fashion-right clothes are really adorable the smaller they get."

Translating a trend for the wee set isn't as easy as shrinking a pattern. Gap's new product piggybacks off its adult counterpart, 1969 denim. The overall goal was to make the kids' denim look more like the adult product. The similarities: Gap lined the inside of the waistband with blue oxford-shirt-type material, added a blue rivet near the right front pocket and the same detailing on the back pockets.

There are a few differences. For example, the "top block"—the top half of the pant covering the area from the waist to about the thighs—of the baby version needs to allow room for a diaper, so it takes up an astonishing half the pant. Other Gap jeans feature inseam snaps for easier diaper changing, but not the skinny styles.

Gap tests all its products, including babyGap's Mini Skinny and GapKids Super Skinny, in a special "fit room," where designers observe the product on the body, in action, says Jennifer Giangualano, head of design for GapKids and babyGap. The retailer also solicits feedback from parents who are there watching their kids. "It doesn't matter how cute it is," she says. "If they can't crawl around and move, it doesn't get out of the fit room."

Old Navy, a lower-priced division of Gap, also takes care when designing skinny sizes for little boys and girls, says Michelle DeMartini, senior vice president of Old Navy kids and baby design and merchandising. "We sent our teams out to playgrounds, not in a stalking way, but just to kind of watch the consumer," she says. For skinny jeans, "we talked for a long time about how much stretch, what should that feel like?" she says. "Adults might want to forgo comfort for fashion, but children will not."

When applied to children, the "skinny" label sounds a tad odd. As comedian Stephen Colbert said during his Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report": "Thank you, the babyGap. I say, 'You are never too young to worry about the size of your fat'" bottom.

At babyGap and GapKids, prices for skinny jeans range from $19.50 to $39.50. Gap's marketing campaign for its kids and baby denim is "Born to Fit." The retailer features skinny jeans on its mannequins, which caught the eye of Sarah Coffey, a 32-year-old school counselor from Minneapolis. Ms. Coffey recently bought her 2-year-old daughter, Sebryna, her first pair of skinny jeans at babyGap. Before she committed to the purchase, she hauled Sebryna into a dressing room to check the fit.

"She's not skinny, so I wouldn't have necessarily thought to buy skinny jeans but I was inspired by the display," says Ms. Coffey. It featured a mannequin clad in gray skinny jeans, a striped tunic, plum-colored cardigan and silver ballet flats. Ms. Coffey bought the entire outfit. She does not wear skinny jeans herself.

But she says she might in the future. Children's clothing fills an important spot in the life cycle of some trends: After reaching young women, fads often swing downward to tots, and then back up to their parents. That's because many moms are more willing to be fashion-forward with their young children than with themselves, Ms. DeMartini says.

The children's department is "a safe place for the mom to start the trend on her child," says Ms. DeMartini. "She can vicariously live through that child." Ms. DeMartini dressed her kids—ages 2, 8 and 10—in skinny jeans long before she tried them. She says that eventually, her own wider-leg jeans started to look "weird," prompting her to experiment with skinnier styles.

And while many moms won't wear unflattering "mom jeans," they also won't squeeze themselves, or their children, into skinny jeans. "I have pretty normal-sized kids," says Nora Leibowitz, of Portland, who does not wear the style. "That means they're not skinny in any way." Ms. Leibowitz, a senior policy a***yst for the state specializing in federal health reform, says comfort is her main goal in dressing her 5-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins.

Gap isn't letting up. In recent weeks, jeggings, a hybrid of jeans and legging, hit GapKids stores. In the pipeline: Jeggings for babies.

Source: http://jinesis.blogspot.com/2010/08/stores-now-selling-skinny-jeans-for.html

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History of mannequins in fashion design - a look back shows that they are more than just a Dummies

Go through all the stores, and will spend several mannequins models the latest fashions. While continuing to come to this visual representation of staples have for granted, have a rich past and mannequins plans, going back in Egypt. Whereas developed as mannequins over the years, we can see that they have not only the ideal, there should be similar against, but how we live. No wonder historians, dealers, fashion, and studentsas characters from their long life fascinating.

and East. Ages the ancient tomb of Tutankhamen was opened in 1922 as king, one of the treasures were found, believed in a trunk-like life, the world's first costume brand. In fact, put the dummy its functional role as a dress form through the centuries. Were realistic facsimiles of kings and queens, so that tailors and seamstresses could not create clothes, the rulers have been created with infiniteFittings, or even worse, threatens his modesty touching their bodies.

French aristocracy. In the 18th century in France was the fashion, and "fashion dolls" were created as a capital to show the French fashion designer in the world. These early mannequins, fashion represents the ideal of the court, presented about a dozen centimeters of life. Were abroad, so people could see what were the French envoysCopy styles. Marie Antoinette was known that Austria dolls to send to their mothers and sisters have been updated with what is in vogue at Versailles.

The industrial revolution and the windows. Mannequins has a great leap forward in the development of electrically lit streets and large glass windows and glass. Suddenly, walking the streets and had to receive the fantasy worlds in shop windows, a popular pastime. The firstDummies were created for this purpose wax and wood. Were extremely heavy, weighing 200-300 pounds, reinforced with steel legs, so that they remain standing. With glass eyes, false teeth and real hair, took the ideal of female mannequin large breasts and small waists, make life situations, how to give a toast at a dinner. The art of fashion merchandising was born.

influence of Hollywood. Until '20, had dummiesExpressions of wood, which is why they were called "dummies." In the era of silent films, but there was a greater emphasis on face and body. With the popularity of Hollywood movies purchased mannequins, features realistic and animated facial expressions that mirror those of famous stars like Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino. In order to complete his movie star looks, her in a letter of intent, were exposed as fictional situations with cocktails at the Country Club

TheGaba Girls. In the 30 years began mannequins are made with plaster, the weight is reduced by about twenty-five pounds. And thanks to a former soap factory, a sculptor Lester Gaba, reached a new level of realism. His life-size figures were used as the Gaba Girls, "the most famous of which was named Cynthia. Cynthia Gaba presented as the latest celebrity in New York, pop culture and the doll was a sensation. He took her to nightclubs and the opera, and Cartier and Tiffanyalso lent her jewelry.

World War II with the arrival of World War II, life changed. And so are dummies. Mannequins how careless people have been replaced with heavy, those no-nonsense. But when the troops back, dummies, the public sector in promoting the public to be happy again. The dummies woman wearing bright smile, while the men were relaxed and comfortable, both internal display, suburban bliss.

FiberglassPlastics. Since '50 he withdrew from mannequins, brittle, fragile plaster of fiberglass and plastic solid. Because production and sculpture were not yet refined, the new mannequins less realistic and takes an abstract quality. They actually celebrated surrealism, with molded hair and anatomical inaccuracies. The dummy was Pop Art.

The women of the revolution. In changing roles of women in the '60s began, mannequins representedthe shift. On the one hand there was the hostess (or would-be home), mannequins with bouffant look and hope. The other extreme was the active, confident women posing, casual and confident. The decade also gave us the mod look - lean, leggy mannequin figures by Twiggy embodied.

Real life. The 70s saw the introduction of Black, Asian and Latin models, that the growing ethnic mix in the country. The reflection of the turbulent decadeMannequins began with facial expressions of pain, anxiety and stress. In 80 years the country has lost "physical" and mannequins were followed by running and jumping poses.

Modern Day When it comes to dummies are now out of the old rules, and everything goes. Mannequins are different colors, crystal, without head, back and without any form of abstraction. In reality, the realistic figures of recent decades hour look very scary. There is no form "idealprobably because it is no longer a consensus on a vision of ideal beauty.

Although we know that mannequins, fashion design and have always been linked, it is fascinating to see what these "dummies" have shown us how the history of civilization and culture.

Source: http://fashiondollsreviews.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-mannequins-in-fashion-design.html

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Profile

Something about profile shots of Sigrid, especially sitting at IKEA, wearing a cute outfit...

... reminds me of various paintings by Carl Larsson, my favorite painter, of his own children in profile.

Source: http://shimmycocopop.blogspot.com/2010/08/profile.html

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