Intl design schools come to India

Mumbai: Its not just the season of rain… but high design as well. If haute couture is your cup of tea, then your cuppa is already piping hot. Indian fashion students never had it this good. International design schools from all over are making a bee-line to India to set up their branches here. Schools such as the Raffles Design Institute and ModArt have already established their branches here. What is it that lures such institutes to set up their schools here?

A four-year course in Raffles will set you back by about Rs 12-15 lakh while a 3-year course in ModArt will cost you about Rs 10 lakh.

The schools are also planning major expansion. Raffles, for instance, is planning to invest $100 million in the next two years for expansion in India.

India’s $400 million fashion industry desperately needs new talent, and the state-run National Institute of Fashion Technology churns out only 1,000 students a year. The new institutes can fill a lot of the demand.

Fashion Trace jewellery from mine to store

New York: Wal-Mart Stores Inc is introducing a line of gold and silver jewellery that can be traced from the mine to store shelves as the retailer looks to sell more jewellery sourced from mines and manufacturers that meet its environmental and human rights standards.

Wal-Mart said the Love, Earth line, which includes a $69.84 sterling silver necklace and $48 hoop earrings, will be sold in its US discount stores, Sam's Club warehouses and online. A customer who buys the jewellery can log on to a website to see where their particular piece of jewellery was mined and learn about the suppliers' environmental programs.

"It's the first time ever that we, or any major mass retailer, have been able to provide customers with a way to trace the path of their product from the mine it was actually mined from to the shelf," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tara Raddohl.

Under Chief Executive Lee Scott, Wal-Mart has set goals of one day using only renewable energy and creating zero waste, and has challenged its suppliers to follow in its footsteps.

Last year, it released a report outlining the progress made in meeting the goals, and included a section on sourcing more sustainable products, like jewellery.

Special Occasion Dresses

Have an high profile event to attend or your first date is around the corner? Don't break your head for what to wear. Here are some of the examples you can choose from to wear for special occasion.

Corset Dress: Need an instant upper body lift? The corset dress will lift your breasts and whittle your waist, and look fantastic and edgy while doing it. You can choose a dress with a built-in corset for the bodice or opt for a separate corset top with a skirt. This look adds curves to slender figures and structure to fuller figures: it's great all-around for flattery.
Off-the-Shoulder Dress: An off-the-shoulder dress instantly shows lots of skin, but not necessarily areas you might be uncomfortable showing like the lower back or cleavage. The silhouette of the off-the-shoulder dress adds width to the upper half of your body, balancing your lower half. It's a great look for all but those with really wide shoulders.

Accentuate the look with a great necklace, strategically placed brooch or dangling earrings.

Popular Model

An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique and commentary can be found in magazines, newspapers, on television, fashion websites, social networks and in fashion blogs.

At the beginning of the 20th century, fashion magazines began to include photographs and became even more influential than in the past. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public taste. Talented illustrators drew exquisite fashion plates for the publications which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton which was founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception of the war years).

Vogue, founded in the US in 1902, has been the longest-lasting and most successful of the hundreds of fashion magazines that have come and gone. Increasing affluence after World War II and, most importantly, the advent of cheap colour printing in the 1960s led to a huge boost in its sales, and heavy coverage of fashion in mainstream women's magazines - followed by men's magazines from the 1990s. Haute couture designers followed the trend by starting the ready-to-wear and perfume lines, heavily advertised in the magazines, that now dwarf their original couture businesses. Television coverage began in the 1950s with small fashion features. In the 1960s and 1970s, fashion segments on various entertainment shows became more frequent, and by the 1980s, dedicated fashion shows like FashionTelevision started to appear. Despite television and increasing internet coverage, including fashion blogs, press coverage remains the most important form of publicity in the eyes of the industry.

Fashion Editor, Brooke Kelley said, "There's a misconception in the industry that TV, magazines and blogs dictate to the consumer, what to wear. But most trends aren't released to the public before consulting the target demographic. So what you see in the media is a result of research of popular ideas among the people. Essentially, fashion is a group of people bouncing ideas off of one another, like any other form of art."

Fashion

Fashion refers to styles of dress (but can also include cuisine, literature, art, architecture, and general comportment) that are popular in a culture at any given time. Such styles may change quickly, and "fashion" in the more colloquial sense refers to the latest version of these styles. Inherent in the term is the idea that the mode will change more quickly than the culture as a whole.

The terms "fashionable" and "unfashionable" are employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the current or even not so current, popular mode of expression. The term "fashion" is frequently used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour, beauty and style. In this sense, fashions are a sort of communal art, through which a culture examines its notions of beauty and goodness. The term "fashion" is also sometimes used in a negative sense, as a synonym for fads and trends, and materialism. A number of cities are recognized as global fashion centers and are recognized for their fashion weeks, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences. These cities are New York City, Milan, Paris, and London. Other cities, mainly Los Angeles, Berlin, Tokyo, Rome, Miami, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Sydney, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, New Delhi and Dubai also hold fashion weeks and are better recognized every year.