Spring into new season fashion at Fairhill.

THE new style season has arrived in Ballymena with Fairhill Shopping Centre gearing up to host its SS2012 fashion and beauty show on Saturday, March 31.

The ‘Fashion Lives’ event will showcase the leading Spring/Summer fashion and beauty trends during an afternoon of catwalk shows and styling workshops with Northern Ireland’s leading Models from the Alison Campbell Model Agency.

The one-day event will select key pieces of S/S fashion for men and women from well-known Fairhill retailers including Topshop, River Island, Wallis, Next, New Look, Marks & Spencers, Debenhams & Clockwork Orange.

The catwalk shows take place at 1pm and 3pm, with models appearing in the shop windows as mannequins throughout the day, dressed in the latest styles from that store to give shoppers the perfect excuse to head into stores to snap up Top Fashion pieces to carry them all through the Spring Summer season.

Helping shoppers incorporate the looks into their wardrobes will be some of the country’s top style experts including leading fashion stylist Eve Brannon, Claire Hannon from Shek hair in Ballymena, while celebrity yummy mummy Emma Louise Johnston will be compering the fashion event.

Together these experts will take centre stage and give top tips for every age, shape and size. Eve Brannon will advise fashionistas on how to get the latest S/S look for under £100 using a mix of outfits and accessories from various stores, with Boots’ top beauty teams working alongside stylists from Shek hair to treat lucky shoppers to hair and beauty make-overs.

As an added incentive, there will be a host of fabulous spot prizes up for grabs throughout the afternoon.

Fionnuala McEldowney, Commercial & Marketing Manager at Fairhill, said; “We are really excited about our SS2012 Fashion event which will highlight all our stores top fashion pieces for the coming season.

“Our style team will be on hand to show customers how to achieve all the latest looks without spending a fortune. Macmillan Cancer Support, our charity of choice will be in attendance accepting donations toward the new palliative care unit in Antrim so it should be a day of fun, fashion and style.”

Milan woos luxury spenders with Baroque opulence.

Designers at Milan Fashion Week stitched velvet roses and gilded threads on embroidered winter fabrics seeking to lure the kinds of consumers who can still afford to splash out on luxury clothes during a period of financial austerity across Europe.

Salvatore Ferragamo, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Prada and other top Italian labels showed off their tailoring skills this week in an effort to delight the billionaires from China to Russia whose spending has so far shielded the luxury industry from the effects of a euro zone debt crisis that has shattered global market confidence in a number of countries.

Designer Massimiliano Giornetti created velvet knee-high boots with hand-stitched embroidery for his Salvatore Ferragamo autumn/winter 2012 show. Models walked in bare-shouldered dresses in a gilded room at the Milan stock exchange, where Ferragamo floated last year.

“I saw a new Renaissance in Milan this week,” Barbara Atkin, Vice President of Fashion Direction at Canadian retail chain Holt Renfrew, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Dolce & Gabbana show. “Designers elaborated special fabrics to create works of art that cannot be copied by street fashion.”

Fashion duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sewed golden embroidery and printed little cherubs for a Baroque-inspired show, which had top celebrities Helen Mirren and Monica Bellucci transfixed under rows of flowery chandeliers.

The designers, who have dropped their edgy D&G brand to focus on their top line, wove in tapestry motifs, floral prints and velvet devore into their collection.

“This is modern-day romanticism,” creative director Frida Giannini said.

Three-dimensional flowers added a romantic allure to Gucci’s sexy evening dresses, with micro crystals sewn by hand. Feathers in iridescent green shone among brocades and silks.

Miuccia Prada, one of the most innovative fashion names, looked back to the early 1970s with sleeveless coatdresses in vintage three-dimensional prints and crystal embroidery.

“When I cite the past, I cite moments,” Prada said at the presentation of an exhibition which will see her creations and those of Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in May.

The designer, who is also an art lover, hosted an elegant lunch with U.S. Vogue editor Anna Wintour in a ballroom of Milan’s Royal Palace.

ECCENTRIC ELEGANCE

Macrame and velvets adorned androgynous looks at Giorgio Armani, who showed Bermudas peeking out from underskirts in bright fuchsia, red and orange sequins.

In sharp contrast with the vertiginous heels seen this week, Armani delivered flat, pointed shoes.

“I am sure I will sell 99 percent of this collection”, the designer said after his show, remembering what fashion buyers also care about. “Luxury must be wearable,” he said.

Roses came back to form a tiger-print carpet at Roberto Cavalli, but were also at the last collection of Belgian designer Raf Simons for Jil Sander.

Sander showed sophisticated coats in pastel colours and geometric cuts but the biggest applause was for Simons, whose departure has fuelled industry speculation about a possible move to Dior.

Metal mesh and silver chains triumphed at Versace, where platinum-blond designer Donatella Versace created shiny body armour for medieval warriors. Byzantine crosses were embroidered or printed on black for a Gothic look. (Reporting by Antonella Ciancio, editing by Paul Casciato)

Italian designers look to China for salvation.

Italy’s top designer brands looked to foreign buyers, particularly from China, for salvation during Milan Fashion Week, offering a lifeline for a sector which is heading for another slump in Italy this year as the country grinds through a recession.

With Italians hurting from budget austerity and fears that a debt-laden Rome could follow Athens into the mire, the National Chamber of Fashion said the situation was “worse than in 2008” when the global financial crisis began.

Italian fashion designers hopes that last year’s revenue trend — up 5.5 percent from 2010 — could be sustained, were dashed last week when the industry forecast a 5.2pc drop for 2012 to 60.2 billion euros (US$79 billion).

Revenues went down 4pc in 2008 and a record 15pc in 2009.

“It has become essential to focus attention on Asian and American markets,” said Mario Boselli, head of the chamber which organises fashion week.

In fact, bleak results in Italy are being offset largely by gains in non-European countries, particularly in Russia, Hong Kong, South Korea and China.

“The situation is dramatic. The Italian market is a disaster, just like the French market. No one is buying anything! In Europe, there is a real crisis,” said a manager at a top fashion house who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Milan has responded accordingly: for the first time buyers attending the shows and fashionistas unable to attend the whirlwind of parties this year will have access to the fashion chamber’s website in a Chinese language version.

Seventy-two fashion houses take their autumn-winter 2012 collections to the catwalks in palaces, monuments and parks across the city until February 27.

The show opened its doors with Gucci on February 22, followed by Prada and Fendi on February 23, Versace on February 24, Jil Sander and Bottega Veneta on February 25, Missoni and Dolce & Gabbana on February 26 and Giorgio Armani on February 27.

“This year will be complex and full of uncertainty, while 2011 was positive overall,” said Silvio Albini, the head of the international textile association Milano Unica, adding that there were already signs of a slowdown in orders.

“This is a time for our companies to have a global vision and to focus on exports to countries where the values of Made in Italy count a lot,” he said.

Albino said Italian textile imports by China went up 27.2pc in 2011.

Fashion giant Gucci in particular has been performing so well in Asia that it buoyed up the 2011 results for the French luxury group PPR that owns it.

PPR last month posted a net profit up 2.3pc to 986 million euros in 2011 with revenues up 11.1pc, and the group said it was “very optimistic” that Gucci would continue to perform well in Asia and sales would increase.

Exposure to the higher-margin retail business in Asia also boosted profits at Salvatore Ferragamo. Revenues for the Italian house, which listed on the Milan stock exchange last year, climbed 26.2pc to 986.5 million euros.

With the exception of tsunami and earthquake-hit Japan, the group posted a growth in revenue close to or higher than 30pc in every region, while the fashion house’s retail chain registered a vast 44pc jump in China.

A wealth of brands are expanding in the region, including Armani, Roberto Cavalli and Jil Sander, which has just opened a new branch in China.

Versace has even come up with a jewelled handbag with hand-painted golden dragons on the side panels in honour of the 2012 Year of the Dragon.

“China’s retail market will grow at a rate of 14pc in 2012 and 2013, and luxury retail will grow at an even higher rate of 20pc over the same period,” said Isabel Cavill, luxury expert with Planet Retail research group.

“China is the most tangible emerging market for growth, we’re talking about major investments where brands are prepared to set up stores in Hong Kong despite incredibly high rental rates for shops,” she said.

Givenchy’s Tisci: Sexy take on horse-riding.

A year ago it was panthers. Now horses have captured the imagination of Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci, whose fall-winter show in Paris on Sunday presented a highly charged and at times fetish-ized take on equestrian riding gear.

Jodphurs in black and sable brown shaped the silhouette of the collection’s first half, with oversized earrings like horse-blinders complementing high riding boots.

As ever with Tisci, there was a sense of danger at all times with chokingly tight neck scarves, loud, troubling music, and even one skintight leather piece — based on a sporting polo — that looked like bondage gear.

Maturing past his obsession with black, most of the looks incorporated reds, blues, and even pink pulling off a street-style effect.

There was a tangible 1970s edge as the collection developed. Intentionally crude stitching in one leather dress was followed by a series of intense-color slip dresses with clashing belts — harking back to the palette of British glam rock.

Indeed, associations with rock music have been a key factor in keeping Givenchy on the public radar in the past year.

Madonna’s mediatized performance at the American Superbowl last month was a marketing coup for the house, the singer dressed head to toe in Tisci’s couture.

With P.Diddy and Alicia Keys on Sunday’s front row, it’s clear that Givenchy’s a ticket the music stars can’t resist.

The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) marks its 25th year in Maastricht this week with Old Master paintings and other objects that have stood the test of time, and the promise of new visitors from regions that are transforming the collecting world.

Some 270 art dealers will connect with 80,000 potential buyers in rainy southern Holland at the most important annual gathering for anyone interested in art made before 1900.

As always, there are Dutch paintings. Otto Naumann, the New York dealer, will exhibit 35 of them (more than many museum shows), including a vast 1647 scene in which Jacob Frans van der Merck depicted his patrons as the mythological couple Venus and Adonis – US$475,000 (Dh1.8 million). The London dealer Johnny van Haeften will be showing a beguiling and newly cleaned portrait of a woman at a clavichord by Gerrit Dou, which insiders say could bring more than $5m. (Not a bad markup for the picture: unseen since the 1920s, it sold at Christie’s New York for $3.3m in January.)

Sculptures at Moretti Fine Art, a perennial at Tefaf, include a terracotta lion (c 1715) that the dealer says is “almost certainly a model … for a commemorative monument to England’s Queen Anne”, created by Giovanni Battista Foggini, the court sculptor and architect to the Medicis in Florence. The animal figure in a bronze-like patina costs €380,000 (Dh1.8m) – a collector might pay that for a minor work by a well-known contemporary artist.

“There’s a lot of money out there. As people become uncertain about the currency markets or the securities markets, more and more money seems to be going into art as a haven,” said the New York dealer Richard Feigen, who will be selling a biblical scene painted by Anthony van Dyck for $3.5m.

Arithmetica (1557), a Dutch allegory painting by Frans Floris, which Feigen sold at Tefaf in 2008, was later bought by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, said the dealer, who hopes that investors will consider putting their funds into the relatively stable field of Old Masters.

“I don’t consider contemporary art, where you’ve had these wild prices, a very sound place to put it. What we call a lot of money in the Old Master market— say the $40m that the Getty Museum paid recently for a Turner – in the contemporary or modern market, that isn’t a lot of money.”

“The antiquities are flying off the wall to Chinese mainland people,” said Michael Goedhuis, who is exhibiting contemporary Chinese ink paintings and antiquities. “It’s the appetite of the Chinese to buy back their heritage, at any price. It’s a huge phenomenon, and it’s not going to stop. It’s driven up the price of anything old, going up to the 19th century.”

As an example, he said, an archaic Warring States Dynasty bronze vessel, worth $75,000 five years ago, was selling for $750,000.”

Artprice’s new survey also notes the surge in Chinese buying, but Janssens cautions: “In the last six months, I’ve noticed that a bit of reason is entering the market, and the overheated element that we were seeing is now diminishing.”

If art follows capital, dealers at Tefaf will scrutinise buyers from elsewhere among the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China). One perennial Tefaf bellwether is jewellery. At Hemmerle Jewellers of Munich, Christian Hemmerle hoped art collectors might be tempted by one of his firm’s new series of Egyptian-inspired earrings.

Hemmerle, whose diamond-decorated vegetable forms last year started at $28,000, declined to discuss price or whether those customers came from the Middle East.

“We’ve developed relationships with people all over the world who have an understanding of our understated products,” he said. “Whoever is in love with that will find their way to us.”

BALMAIN

Olivier Rousteing, on his tremendous sophomore outing at Balmain show took the label back to its couture roots with a dash of Russian imperial glamour.

The collection’s muse, the blue and gold Faberge egg that Richard Burton gave to Elizabeth Taylor, set the tone of the highly structured clothes that dripped with jewels.

Gems and pearls adorned hourglass silhouettes, harking back to a time of imperial wealth. Long orthodox vestments in black and sumptuous velvets consolidated a fall trend for the covered-up and ecclesiastical.

Le Grand Hotel Paris venue further transported spectators back in time to the glittering days of 18th century salons.

But 26-year-old Rousteing was not just about gemstones, and looked forward not back.

Since he was catapulted to the label’s head a year ago, he’s been trying to turn the page on what some have described as the house’s “trash factor.” Thursday’s show managed to achieve this, without losing any of the red-carpet glamour that re-popularized the house under Christophe Decarnin.

Rousteing revisited the house’s signature jacket, making it oversized and sharpening it into an ornament.

Pants were relaxed to give the silhouette a more fluid look, and boyish cropped pants were paired with a perfecto jacket and vest.

The lion’s share of the bejeweled pieces might not have been made in spirit of ready to wear, but they provide a strong direction for the iconic house’s future.

MANISH ARORA

Manish Arora hit the nozzle on the graffiti can on Thursday, combining the neon yellows, fuchsias and deep purples of street art with 1950s silhouettes.

The Indian designer explored a Brooklyn cityscape in which tiny floral brocades teeming with color peeped through cracks in brick-colored pencil skirts.

Short coats and stiff A-line skirts gleamed with a metallic finish, reminding us of the railroad tracks of Paris’ Austerlitz train station, a stone’s throw away from the show.

Models in loose, flared graffiti dresses with sporty straps amused the crowd as they stopped mid-catwalk to camouflage with the painted backdrop, like urban chameleons.

A rich mix of materials was on display, including dyed Scandinavian Saga fur, crepe and silk satin. But it was a shame that in many of the pieces the fabrics were colored and embroidered to near-death, diminishing their visual quality.

The show ended to a round of applause but also some coughs as the fumes from the freshly graffitied set wafted toward the front row.

BARBARA BUI

Barbara Bui offering shows she really knows how to put the ready in ready-to-wear with an elegant collection of lames, woolens and flowing dresses that the models could have worn straight out onto the street.

It was perhaps the relatively down-to-earth choice of muses, including Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall (living, breathing people, not deities or aliens as some designers have it), that meant the clothes looked unfussy, clean-lined and wearable. Or was it that the brand is known to be commercially minded?

Either way there was plenty on the menu for the Bui woman: big alpaca jerseys, finely quilted satin tops and military greatcoats that rubbed accentuated shoulder to accentuated shoulder in a palette of black, pearl, brown and gold.

A beautiful and subtle jabot-collared silk blouse had a flavor of the glory days of Yves Saint Laurent, while several short cheongsams, also known as Mandarin gowns, ticked the box for the Eastern-looking trend this fall.

Breaking new ground is clearly not the seasoned designer’s main priority. Showcasing covetable and highly buyable clothes is.

NINA RICCI

Nina Ricci Peter Copping is a shameless romantic, and his strong show Thursday took the audience into the world of a young girl who playfully mixes and tears up clothes from her family’s 1950s dress-up box.

Rough patchwork paneling featured on deconstructed evening coats in tweed, as if cut and re-sewn by a child’s hand. Redundant fur cuffs dangled limp from the side of a sleeve, a fur stole had gloves attached with a toddler-style thread and rhinestone brooches and buttons were applied haphazardly to lace and organza cocktail dresses as if in haste after the wardrobe raid.

But beyond the daydreaming, the black-heavy collection exuded a strong, contemporary femininity.

More importantly, it marked a change in direction for Copping, creative director since 2009, in embracing the cinched glamour of a 1950s silhouette.

“The A-line look makes it feel different to my previous work,” the British designer said. “It’s about nonchalance and comfort.”

Comfort is often synonymous in ready-to-wear with “sellable.” Here, the house has no need to worry.

Fashion Week season’s most prolific walkers: Chinese models offer splash of diversity.

China’s Liu Wen and Martinique’s Cora Emmanuel offered diversity among the faces ranking as the models making the most appearances during the recent fashion week season.

The major fashion capitals’ Fall/Winter 2012 shows culminated in Paris last week, and while it may be the big names such as Naomi Campbell and Karlie Kloss that attract the most attention when they take to the runway, The Telegraph’s Alicia Waite has compiled a rundown of the hardest-working models during the season — with Australia’s Julia Nobis topping the list with an impressive 72 shows.

The 180cm blonde, who appeared at prestigious shows including Miu Miu and Chanel, heads up a list which features rising names from the fashion world including the UK’s Lara Mullen (only in her second season) and Russia’s Daria Strokous — star of the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2012 campaign.

The homogenous nature of the models in the top 20 will do little to appease the protesters during Milan Fashion Week, who staged a demonstration against anorexic models, or the industry watchers behind Jezebel’s report at the end of New York Fashion Week highlighting the dominance of white models during the city’s Fall/Winter 2012 shows (79.9 percent).

Amid the dominance of Eastern Europeans in the list, China’s Liu Wen and Lina Zhang fared well (53 and 45 shows respectively), while Cora Emmanuel from the Caribbean island of Martinique walked in 54 shows.

Fashion weeks go global.

You’ve got Milan, London, New York and Paris. Why not Lagos?” said Penny McDonald, organiser of the Arise Africa fashion week. . The event, in its third year, attracted global media interest, with supermodel Alek Wek appearing on the catwalk. but it is just one of the “fashion weeks” vying to compete with the traditional fashion capitals that hold their shows twice a year. Sao Paulo fashion week began in 1996, New Zealand started its in 2001. There are fashion weeks in Russia, Iceland, India, Mexico, Israel and Indonesia, to name a few.

Some are fairly small scale operations attracting a handful of local designers; others have corporate sponsors and cost millions. Mercedes-Benz – which sponsors New York fashion week – also sponsors weeks in Tokyo, Berlin and Miami. The fashion shows in Russia have attracted better-known (in the west, at least) designers such as Mark Fast and David Koma; Madrid fashion week pays its models more than London does, and has become a rival in terms of the models it attracts; Pakistan’s fashion week has been covered by the New York Times and British Vogue – but can any of these weeks really become a fixture alongside the main four?

“Paris, Milan, New York and London will always remain the king-pins of the fashion show season,” says Harriet Quick, fashion features director of Vogue. These new shows, she says, “exist as a flag-waving event to bring attention to the country, but a fashion show is about selling clothes. Where fashion weeks might succeed is to develop taste and boost sales in emerging markets, or in niche offerings.” She points to the swimwear shows in Brazil, as an example. Does she go to any of these other fashion weeks? “No, I don’t have time,” she says, though she adds that she does often look at what is happening at them.

Some are more optimistic about other cities’ influence. “There is an interest in upstarts and outsiders, and a more fragmented marketplace,” says Alexandra Smith, trends analyst at Mintel. “Fashion has traditionally been a closed space, but now we’re seeing bloggers having more of a role and they are invited to shows. It indicates there is a general interest in bringing freshness and diversity – not only in voices, but in the designers and locations.” Lagos may be in with a chance yet.

Elaborately clad models strut down the runway while hair and makeup artists work at top speed backstage. Designers rush to and fro as media fill the venue, ready to document every stylish step.

This isn’t a scene from some faraway fashion capital; this is what you can expect March 29 when Edmonton’s Western Canada Fashion Week kicks off for another eight-day showcase of local designers.

Edmonton’s bi-annual style extravaganza — now in its 14th season — has long been hailed a major achievement for the city’s fashion scene. But there’s more to the event than just glitz and glamour.

“Our goal is to create an industry here in Edmonton that fosters local talent,” says Sandra Sing Fernandes, WCFW’s founder and executive director.

“If we don’t support our local designers we’ll lose them, and that would be a shame.”

Known for supporting emerging designers, models and beauty professionals from across the country, the fashion week is now receiving international attention as well. This season, designers from New York City, the Ukraine and even Nigeria will be showing their collections, a feat Fernandes credits to WCFW’s robust growth.

“Having international designers calling us and wanting to show with us was pretty amazing. That means we’re making an impact that reaches farther than just our city,” Fernandes says.

“Not a lot of fashion weeks in small cities can boast that.”

International designers Angelique Chmielewski, Bano eeMee (both NYC), Olga DeNogga (Ukraine) and Chuks Collins (Nigeria) will be hitting the catwalk this month, along with WCFW veterans Stanley Carroll, Malorie Urbanovitch and Derek Jagodzinsky, to name a few.

Jagodzinsky has shown his LUXX ready-to-wear collection at fashion week for the past two seasons, and believes the event is an invaluable resource for emerging designers.

“It’s helped me put on shows and learn more about fashion and the process of creating a collection,” he says. “Western Canada Fashion Week is an amazing place to grow as a designer and gain exposure for your work.”

But more than just a place where designers can thrive, WCFW is looking to nurture the careers of all those involved in the arts.

“We need creative people; it’s what makes a city,” Fernandes says. “When a city lacks culture people start to leave, but if we support our local talent and celebrate their many achievements — be they art, design or theatre-based — they’ll stay and make our city that much more culturally rich.”

“All the big fashion capitals like Paris, New York and London support the arts and their (creative) communities, and it’s really important for us to support local talent as well if we want to grow,” Jagodzinsky agrees.

“As we become stronger as designers, we’ll be able to pave the way for younger generations of designers in Edmonton too.”

After years of struggling to get WCFW where it is today — with a myriad of designers, models, beauty professionals, volunteers and sponsors at its disposal — Fernandes says one thing with conviction.

“If you can make it here you can make it anywhere.”

Models were on display recently at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York—but on runways only.

In a proactive move to protect models in an industry that often leaves them vulnerable, the Model Alliance assures models that someone has their backs. With a newly drafted Models’ Bill of Rights in place, the alliance aims to enhance the vitality and moral standing of the fashion business as a whole.

And designer Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), is on board.

In fact, she recently worked with the alliance during Fashion Week, a high-profile global fashion event that just ended on Thursday, Feb. 16, to implement a rule that clears the backstage area of photographers and non-essential staff when models have to change clothes, according to an article in The Huffington Post.

Launched to coincide with Fashion Week, the Model Alliance was founded in 2011 by Sara Ziff, a former model who started her career at age 14, with the support of fellow models and the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School. It establishes specific guidelines protecting models’ basic rights like fair labor standards, as well as enforcing financial transparency and redress for issues of sexual harassment, among others.

According to Ziff on the Mode

Alliance website: “Our goal is to work with progressive modeling agencies to give models in the U.S. a voice in their workplace and organize to improve their basic working conditions in what is now an almost entirely unregulated industry. How the industry treats its models influences the ideal presented in the magazines, and these images have a powerful, far-reaching effect on women in general.”

Restoring moral codes and bringing the humanity back to the modeling industry seem to be on the forefront of their agenda.

In an article on site Today Style, Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at New York’s Fordham University and an alliance board member, said: “Models have won the genetic lottery. They are tall, they are beautiful, they get paid for walking.”

Added Scafidi, “But they are human beings, they are not coat hangers.”

While the mission statement does “encourage a safe and healthy work environment that protects models’ mental and physical well-being,” some bloggers on the website hope that the alliance will eventually advocate more resolutely over issues like eating disorders.

Some fashion shows in Spain and Italy have already refused to hire models unless their weight remains a healthy standard, based on the Body Mass Index or BMI, which measures models’ weight and height.

Since 2007, the CFDA has formulated a health initiative to address these concerns, and is updating it this year to state that models must be 16 or older to walk the catwalk.

Since many models embark on their careers in their teens, the Model Alliance also supports the enforcement of existing child labor and contract laws.

“When you’re talking about a labor force of kids, which most of them are, that should be a red flag,” Ziff says on the Model Alliance website. “Minors often putting in long hours without rest or meal breaks, and dropping out of school to be able to work for free: There are so many levels of wrong there.”

Though the group has mainly received positive feedback, some people are still unconvinced of its ability to be effective.

One post from the mother of a model states on the site: “Kudos for writing this charter of rights, but models will still be expected to work unreasonable hours, have photo shoots in the back of sweatshops, and be ripped off by their agencies. The business is run by people who will never see your charter; people who will listen to a model’s demands and then hire a girl who won’t complain.”

The overwhelming attitude, though, is that change needs to start somewhere, and that this forum is a great place to begin.

“Correcting these abuses starts with seeing models through a different lens: not as dehumanized images, but as workers who deserve the same rights and protections as anyone else,” Ziff says on the website.

A recent response posted by a woman named Sarah on Feb. 12 agrees: “I think that this beyond anything is a reasonable start. I have worked as a model for 15 years, I’m now 30 … Where do I sign up?!”

DC Fashion Week Brings International Style to Power Halls of Washington.

While sixteen has the tradition of being sweet for many women and even some basketball teams – DC Fashion Week’s 16th season will sizzle with seven sensational days mixing familiar favorites with some hot new alliances, from February 20 – 26, 2012.

Cindy Crawford, a veteran of the business, also fed into the debate earlier this month when she spoke to People.com about her decision to allow her 10-year-old daughter Kaia to take part in a Versace’s childrenswear campaign; six years after she came under fire for letting her then-four-year-old pose for a friend’s child bikini business. Crawford said she thought the Versace shoot “would be fun”, and was quick to temper public criticism by adding it was a one-off. Well, a second one-off.

“Kaia isn’t modelling, per se — she doesn’t have a portfolio or an agent. She did one picture and it ended up going everywhere! I didn’t quite understand how much media play it would get,” she said. “At this point, she’s too young to pursue a career. But if she’s 17 and wants to try it … of course, what can I say?”

Though the age issue is a hot-button topic for parties on both sides of the divide, an industry voice is a rarity when it comes to the avalanche of opinion-based articles covering the issue. Joseph Tenni, International Talent Manager at Sydney’s Chadwick Models, says the matter is often overblown by the media and, in the case of Garcia and Hardin, unwarranted.

“The media sometimes gets a hold of things and creates hysteria. It’s a bit of an easy target,” he said. “Ondria is the current Prada girl, she’s been in Vogue, she’s done RUSSH magazine; shot in New York but for Australia. Thairine Garcia is basically a veteran on the runways in Brazil. She’s been on the cover of Brazilian Harper’s Bazaar, as well as Elle and Marie Claire. Those girls would have had their parents with them the whole time or a chaperone from the agency, or both.”

He adds that even though Chadwick don’t represent anyone under the age of 16, industry safeguards within Australia ensure that underage models are not placed in unsuitable environments. Chaperones and set working hours combined with the fact that a parent or legal guardian needs to co-sign contracts helps keep the wellbeing of younger models a priority. This includes not sending them on jobs where they might be asked to wear sheer or revealing clothing.

However, he concedes that problems can occur when girls are sent overseas to work. Though the market within Australia is buoyant enough that they usually aren’t being sent abroad until the age of 17 or 18, he says underdeveloped nations are more lax about sending models to foreign countries at a younger age without heeding concerns about continued education. In these instances, remittances are often part of the equation.

“They do love to start them young in underdeveloped countries, like in the Ukraine for instance,” he said. “There are a lot more opportunities for those girls to travel, but because we have our own industry here it really isn’t the same. There isn’t the same importance placed on education or they’re studying via correspondence. A lot of these girls are sending money back home and it’s really becomes more of a cultural issue.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Jenna Sauers, former model and board member of The Model Alliance, a non-profit organisation that works to address labour issues in the fashion industry. Originally from New Zealand, she says that the lack of focus on her education was a major concern and things became increasingly questionable when she began travelling for work. Though she had constant parental supervision when she was a child model she didn’t feel as supported when she made a transition into the adult sector at the age of 14; primarily because safeguards aren’t failsafe and photographers or clients didn’t always welcome the presence of a parent or guardian on a shoot.

“While my parents did limit my career — particularly the international work I did — very strictly, because they were concerned about my missing school, I don’t think I ever worked with an agency that took any particular interest in making sure I could meet my educational obligations, even when I was in my early teens,” she said. “When I was working in Paris and New York, I was frequently sent to castings and test shoots at photographers’ homes, and always alone — sometimes the casting would be literally in the person’s bedroom.”

But focussing the discussion solely on the suitability of 14-year-old models versus their 16-year-old counterparts can be a distraction, according to Sauers. While the Model Alliance advocates restricting runway work to the latter, there are issues facing models of all ages that are going unnoticed. From finding time to complete a high school education and the lack of financial transparency when it comes to agency deductions to being over-worked and feeling vulnerable to sexual harassment, she cites a lack of oversight that the industry as a whole – “clients, agencies and models” – needs to acknowledge and work together to change. Though regulating age is a good start.

“There’s no one individual or category of person who’s to blame for the way the industry works — I know first-hand that there are many, many talented, hard-working and professional people who work in fashion,” she said. “I don’t believe that anybody who works in the fashion industry gets up in the morning and says, ‘Hey, let’s go exploit some 14-year-old Lithuanian girls today!’ The problems in the industry are structural, not personal. Personally, I believe that a lot of the problems the industry has with sexual harassment, body image, and the lack of financial transparency would be ameliorated if models began their careers just a little bit older.”

Modelling: young adults a fiction.

It happens almost every season: a girl, barely in her teens, is photographed on the runway during fashion week, resulting in much ire among concerned media outlets and the comment feeds of subsequent articles. This time it was Marc Jacobs’ turn to court controversy after he chose to send models Thairine Garcia and Ondria Hardin, thought to be 14 or 15, down the catwalk for his Fall 2012 show at New York Fashion Week.

It was an especially bold-faced moved considering the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the industry’s leading trade group of which Jacobs is a board member, had set guidelines asking that designers use no one under the age of 16. Council president Diane von Furstenberg even suggested that models carry identification to ensure they were of age. But, likening the use of younger girls to directors hiring child actors, Jacobs says that if a model’s parents are supportive then he sees it as a non-issue.

“I do the show the way I think it should be, and not the way somebody tells me it should be,” he told the New York Times. “If their parents are willing to let them do a show, I don’t see any reason that it should be me who tells them that they can’t.”

Ukrainian feminists go over the top.

The militant Ukrainian feminists who protest topless have urged models across the world “not to go to brothels”. The activists showed up at Milan Fashion Week protesting against the use of anorexic models in fashion industry.

­Minutes before the beginning of the Versace show, the semi-naked activists of the Femen group appeared with “Fashion = Fascism” and “Anorexia” handwritten in black marker over their bare chests.

Italian police gave the topless ladies a cold welcome as they reached the entrance to the star-studded fashion show.

Allegra, the daughter of Donatella Versace has been battling anorexia for years. She has a 50% stake in the company founded by her uncle Gianni Versace.

“Each year, the grinding plates of the fashion business mill hundreds of thousands of girls,” the Ukrainian activists wrote in their blog.

“Promoting the glitz and riches of a modelling career they impose false ideals on women, provoking real illnesses. Made a fool of by fashion propaganda, frustrated models regularly join the ranks of sex industry workers and psychiatric patients,” members of the Kiev-based movement, added.

It is believed that the female version is more effective in the life decision making: it is pronounces all their thoughts aloud to others and sees right away and opposite reaction, and the possible consequences. One problem: the surrounding, as we know it does not necessarily listen to them and the possible consequences to the bulb. But it’s the details.Men very differently than hot women respond to stress. The hot women immediately include emotions, but she quickly begins to somehow try to correct the situation. Suppose the car punctured tire. The young lady can cry, but tears will climb to change the wheel or looking for someone who can do it for hot women.A man can do only one thing: either get upset and worry, or to change a wheel. Therefore, in practice, the process looks like this: man is upset, but not for long (usually to swear and smoke a cigarette), and then quietly changed the wheel.Sometimes, however, high levels of stress can be a very confused man and seem awfully silly. But in fact he’s no fool. Simply because of emotional intensity between the hemispheres can even completely went wrong. And if it is to rush or fumble, he can not stand and slam the door, throw something at somebody, scream and generally a terrible voice become embittered. So if you see a man distraught face (especially at this time he changed a wheel), leave it for a while at rest. Let him recover connection between the hemispheres.

In men, acute hearing. But Russian Ukraine models hear more information from different sources. There was such an experiment. People put on headphones, where in one ear, said some words, but in the other – the other. And what did he show? Russian Ukraine models have heard and recorded the words of both earphones. And men have heard only a headset. All because a man is able to concentrate on one sound source and the female brain is focused on the perception of a few.What does this mean in real life? And that, coming together, Russian Ukraine models can talk all at the same time and still hear fine (and sometimes even understand!) Each other. Men speak in turn. Otherwise, you know …And in the family, if a man speak more than one person (for example, a wife and mother-in-law at a time), he can not hear anybody or from the general flow of words to grab only one thing, the most significant (from his point of view).

Everyone knows that the male hormone called testosterone. A woman – estrogen. In this case there is a bit of testosterone in women. A drop of estrogen – and men. Recorded? Go ahead.Testosterone is responsible for will power and sexuality. In small doses, it is necessary for women to motivation and desire to have sex.Estrogen – is another matter. He is responsible for the mind and emotions, because it combines the hemisphere, strengthens the very connection between them. The result is that she thinks the whole brain and always takes into account all factors, and the man – half. Where necessary logic includes one hemisphere, where emotions and creativity are needed, only the second.Estrogen is also responsible for femininity and are pronounced feminine traits like gentleness, tenderness. True, in excessive doses it confuses the poor women to spatial orientation. Where left, where the right to understand these beauties is quite difficult. First you have to think about. Talk about it with someone. And even then everything will be clear. To the nearest corner. Estrogen ladies love to laugh, they like the game of love, and generally a closer look – they are wonderful creatures. Just do not try to rehabilitate them. On the contrary, give them as much as possible to reveal her femininity. And what happens under the influence of external factors in a women starts producing less estrogen and a little more testosterone. And then it does not appear positive male characters (which you will agree, a dime a dozen), and negative: aggressiveness, toughness, sharpness, straightness, etc.Yet because of estrogen a woman is much better distinguish between colors than men. They often dream of colorful dreams. In men, they are usually black and white. And rather monotonous note.

Testosterone in men is responsible for the pronounced masculine traits: the need to dominate, to conceal emotions, initiative, aggressiveness, self-sufficiency, etc. It also makes men want sex and be in charge. How to recognize a “male testosterone?” Memorize: Men with very high testosterone production in the standing position very straddle. This is an attempt to occupy as much space. Like, I’m here the master, as it were, to say the boy.But, unfortunately, too testosterone men may not have enough estrogen, and thus the mind, creativity and ability to understand other people. They bonded over the label “real man”. And they are full of stereotypes about what to do “real” and what should not.And they love to talk with friends about sex and their sexual conquests. What is usually a sign not of actual achievements in this area, but a whole bunch of systems. On the other hand, an excess of models chat hormone in men makes it sluggish, inert, not wishing to specifically deal with sex, excessive nervousness, etc.In general, researchers conclude: Ideally, good to have men and models chat was approximately 80% of the native hormone and 20% of the opposite sex. If desired, this harmony can be achieved, because our body adapts to our needs. If testosterone male zasyadet for textbooks and carried away by the philosophy, the body will throw him to the mind of estrogen. And estrogen girl, determined to learn to drive a car, after some time will receive the appropriate dose of testosterone, which helps models chat navigate the terrain.

Here too, apparently, where all differences must be completely erased, so it’s in bed, people are engaged in a common cause, important for both of them. But no, and here the differences were revealed!The man in bed is very simple and specific. Excited, and so if the process has started, the orgasm will come without fail (well, we do not consider the different pathological cases and the situation with the unexpected arrival of her husband’s business trip), and pretty soon (with a Ukrainian models point of view). In general, if you really started, it ended.But if a Ukrainian models does not really wants, what it did, her orgasm will not come. Scientists (mostly, I suppose, men) have spent considerable time in order to solve the sinister mystery. And they found it in the most unexpected place: it turned out that orgasm in Ukrainian models occurs in the head and is very dependent on the emotional background.Scientists, evolutionists believe: there is this kind of higher meaning. Yes, the woman to deliver a real pleasure, man has pretty sweat. But these difficulties are created for that man evolved intellectually and morally improved. Set: The man who can bring a woman to a real orgasm is much smarter and deeper than those who naively believe their partners on the floor. In addition, the award orgazmiruyuschaya woman passes a man is a very powerful energy. What kind of energy, yet it turns out. But fact is fact: such men are more successful, energetic and confident.

Of the 300 men surveyed by the magazine Shukan Post, 74% at least once changed his other half, and 30.2% and not going to stop. Treason 35.8% men learned of his Russian models, and in 22.5% of cases – with the help of mobile phones. By the way, to convict a woman of adultery is much more difficult. Of all the men interviewed, it managed to make only 9%.The survey also showed that in the identification of unfaithful husbands leading place is occupied by mobile phones. They are significantly behind the more traditional methods – determination of odor women’s perfume and cosmetic marks, and, of course, surveillance to catch a spouse “in the hot.”Despite the fact that everyone knows about the benefits of timely removal of the phone call history and message, few do it regularly. A jealous wife knows that to convict her husband of infidelity can be, especially checked the story of his recent calls and messages. Among other signs of “campaigns of the left” also reported an unusual “affection” for Russian models husband’s cell phone and an unwillingness to leave it unattended for a long time.A classic example: he came, and Russian models with one click finds everything. Vacation, in fact, very difficult time for many who try to live a double life: lovers and the betrothal can not tolerate long separations and claim at least one SMS a day.

If you have a lover men or models women or a fan who strive not to lose contact with you for one day, while on holiday you expect frequent panic attacks. You should be prepared for excuses, explanations, improvisation, it is desirable convincing.Experts advise: turn off your mobile phone is useless or disconnect a call supposedly from a desire not to disturb the wife or husband, stationed at nearby umbrella. You will find yourself in a difficult situation, as only allow yourself a little nap. Suspicious wives and husbands take advantage of your afternoon naps, so check the list of incoming and outgoing calls. In this case, “a ban on incoming calls” is tantamount to full disclosure. Our favorite cell phones have recently become the undisputed leading cause for divorce.Services to provide call details of husbands and wives-models justified in finding venture exposure, for example, in the west such services are provided by each investigator, but in our country that truly engaged until a detective agency.Judge for yourself, your spouse when models left last week on a business trip, it shows the detail of the mobile phone does not even crossed into roaming, plus the entire mass detected outgoing calls to the same number last week. And how to turn off here? Today you can easily communicate only when he or models is at a safe distance – in the shower, for example. Or when you walk in, it is worth trying to pretend that this is a business call and leave. Love on the phone – the most extreme sport this season. But the one who plays with open cards, who have nothing to hide will be entertained by watching others. The hotel, in a boat, a cabin on the lake do not miss the point: when you hear the bell, look at what will be frightened faces of husbands and wives.