it is a new fashion blog

The fashion industry has come a long way from its one-dimensional, and rather outdated, standards for women’s body image ideals. “Plus-size” is becoming more widely accepted in mainstream style spreads, with models like Ashley Graham, Tess Munster, and Candice Huffine emerging as fashion’s latest key players, dominating everything from print ads to runway. It finally seems like traditional beauty molds have been broken and that real change is underway — but we still have a lot of work to do. The most recent controversy? Danish magazine Cover featured an extremely thin model, which many are saying promotes an unhealthy body image for young women. Naturally, social media is already exploding with people expressing their extreme outrage at the spread.

According to E! Online, critics slammed the Danish magazine for promoting anorexia as a coveted beauty asset, sparking a Twitter debate from horrified spectators using#covergate, about the model’s shockingly emaciated figure. Danish Tax Minister, Benny Engelbrecht, expressed his appall claiming “I seriously thought that the fashion industry had understood that anorexia is a problem that should be taken seriously,” E! Onlinereported.

cheap formal dresses australia

In attempts to mitigate the heated situation, Cover founder Malene Malling took to Facebook to publicly apologize and defend the mag’s reputation for supporting diversity in beauty standards. “On the Cover we have, in all the years, worked to show an expanded beauty ideal, show that you can be beautiful in various ages and various sizes. We have always sought to work with healthy girls.”

With so much recent success in positive body image efforts within the fashion industry, it is devastating to know that unhealthy and unrealistic ideals remain in the mindsets of some. While it is argued that universal beauty should include a full range of all shapes and sizes, including some slender healthy physiques, the question remains — how thin is too thin? Setting limits on either end of the weight spectrum seems unfair, so it may be a while before we have a perfect solution… if we ever find one at all.

Lana Del Rey and Kathy Griffin have beef. At least, that’s what the Fashion Police star told host Seth Myers after an appearance on his show.

During a Wednesday night appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, comedian Kathy Griffin said she had an awkward run-in with singer Lana Del Rey at a benefit, who was angered that Griffin added her to the “worst dressed list.” Griffin was busy chatting up House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) when she spotted Lana out of the corner of her eye to say hello.

“She’s like ‘Acchhhh, I don’t think so,'” Griffin recalled while putting her hand into the air to imitate Lana’s reaction. “So you go through the rolodex, like ‘Oh God, why are they mad at me this time?’ So then Nancy Pelosi goes, ‘Oh my, did you put her on the worst dressed list?’ And Lana Del Rey, who I don’t know, is like, ‘Uh huh. She did. Yeah. She did.'”

Griffin continued, much to the delight of the audience.

formal wear canberra

“So Nancy Pelosi, like she has done for decades, was basically mediating between myself and Lana Del Rey. Nancy Pelosi, of all people, is like, ‘Oh Lana dear, it’s just a show where they show pictures and make little jokes, dear. Don’t be upset.’ And Lana Del Rey is like, ‘Acchhh, I don’t think so.'”

So did Griffin and Del Rey eventually make up? Not exactly.

“So I kept saying ‘I hear you’ [because] you can’t say you’re sorry.”

And Griffin isn’t the only celebrity who’s got beef with Lana Del Rey. As reported by theInquisitr, Lana was called out in Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth fame’s new memoir. According to Consequence of Sound, leaked excerpts from her memoir find Gordon ripping into Del Rey’s “feminism,” or lack thereof.

“Today we have someone like Lana Del Rey, who doesn’t even know what feminism is, who believes women can do whatever they want, which, in her world, tilts toward self-destruction, whether it’s sleeping with gross old men or getting gang raped by bikers. Equal pay and equal rights would be nice. Naturally, it’s just a persona.”

Gordon continues, getting intensely personal with her criticism.

“If she really truly believes it’s beautiful when young musicians go out on a hot flame of drugs and depression, why doesn’t she just off herself?”

Ultimately, Lana Del Rey has yet to officially respond to either Gordon or Griffin at this point. Maybe she’s too busy making new music to care.

Kathy Griffin likes to joke (or is she serious?) that, one year on her tax return, she put her profession as “Anonymous.”

Such is her multi-hyphenate stature: a stand-up comic, sitcom star, reality-show queen, periodic D-Lister and, now, host of “Fashion Police,” E! network’s rollicking red-carpet rip.

Griffin has retrieved the couture-critique mantle from Joan Rivers, who presided riotously in cahoots with her “Joan Rangers” until her death last summer.

“She obviously left very big shoes,” said Griffin.

“But we agree that it’s essential to comedy to be fearless and not be afraid to make enemies — certainly, in Hollywood! C’mon, we’re not talking about heads of state here.”

formal dresses short

As she spoke Friday, she was not in Hollywood but Manhattan, fresh from taping a “Fashion Police” special taking stock of New York Fashion Week. The show originated from the huge tent at Lincoln Center, where Griffin joined panelists Brad Goreski, Kelly Osbourne and Giuliana Rancic to pronounce unflinching verdicts on outfits worn by such A-listers as Rihanna (“Oshkosh B’gosh and bedazzled”) and Natalie Dormer (“these gloves look like a bad case of varicose veins”). Here’s a condensed version of the conversation that followed:

The Associated Press: Are you looking forward to your Academy Awards “Fashion Police” special? (It airs Monday at 9 p.m.)

Kathy Griffin: The Oscars are gonna be great! Other award shows, everybody’s just trying to out-crazy each other with their fashions. But for the Oscars, these men and women are trying to win an award they care about, while at the same time they know they’re being judged even more harshly on what they wear.

AP: Where will you watch the Oscars Sunday night?

Griffin: I haven’t decided whether to go to a party where I can get more material, or just watch at home, judging harshly in silence.

AP: Do you ever worry that you go too far with your fashion policing?

Griffin: I go too far most of the time. Later I think, “Oh, boy. I said that?!” Then I go, “Wait a minute! This is my job.”

AP: But what qualifies you to weigh in on their fashion foibles?

Griffin: I’ve been there! I’ve been on the worst-dressed list and the best-dressed list. I started with (the 1990s sitcom) “Suddenly Susan,” going to red-carpet events. I won two Emmys (for “My Life on the D-List”). I have a Grammy (for best comedy album). I’ve really been around the block. And I have really learned about fashion. I’m right there in the (Carolina) Herrera and the (Oscar) de la Renta.

AP: Are you still a D-Lister?

Griffin: It goes back and forth. You win an Emmy: A-List. You’re in an airport and someone says, “Hello, Miss Gifford”: D-List. I’ve been on all the lists, and I’ve learned that none of them really mean anything.

AP: Is it hard not to play favorites with your friends or really big stars?

Griffin: There is no one who’s off the table, no matter if I’m friendly with them or how famous they are.

AP: Or me?

Griffin: You are so on the table right now you might as well be a Kardashian.

AP: What’s the biggest challenge of hosting “Fashion Police”?

Griffin: Holding back on the four-letter words I use in my stand-up act. I have self-diagnosed Tourette’s syndrome.

AP: What if you had the chance to replace Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show”?

Griffin: That would be great. But God forbid they would let a woman do it!

AP: Gender reassignment seems popular these days.

Griffin: I will get one, if that’s what it requires. But I would love to see a woman at that helm.

AP: What would you prefer, hosting “The Daily Show” or replacing Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News”?

Griffin: I’m given to exaggeration in my act. I think I should host “Nightly News.” I’ve had a lot of training. I’ve been in the war zones of situation comedy as well as talk shows and reality shows. There’s no bombs that haven’t fallen on me in some way. And I was there when Osama bin Laden was shot. I was pointing and going, “Brian! He’s over here!”

Of all the honors accorded Sonia Rykiel over the course of her long career (including France’s Legion of Honor and an “Oscar” from the Fashion Group International), perhaps none is more conspicuous than le Club Rykiel on the menu of the Café de Flore, renowned as the gathering place for the surrealists, the existentialists, assorted intellectuals, local residents, expatriates, and tourists. As befits a sandwich named for a sparrowlike fashion designer, this one has no bread. Until recently, Rykiel could be found most days at a table for four at the crook of the L-shaped room upstairs: a pale woman dressed in black, her eyes rimmed in kohl. Her trademark wedge of red hair has prompted Marek Halter, one of several novelists she counts among her friends, to note a certain resemblance to Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh.

Today, her table is occupied by Julie de Libran, the designer appointed last year to steer the company that bears Rykiel’s name. She’s taller than Rykiel, with lavish, tousled blonde hair, and she, too, is hard to miss—dressed in torn jeans, spike-heel boots, a black sweater, and carrying a black Birkin bag. Even before her current position was announced, de Libran, 42, who served for six years as Marc Jacobs’s right hand at Louis Vuitton, had emerged as a cult style icon, her every sartorial choice breathlessly dissected on countless blogs. You could airlift her into Los Angeles, Milan, New York, London, or any number of other cultural capitals, and she would look at ease and chic, as if she belonged. Trilingual, de Libran speaks English without an accent—or, rather, with an accent that is singular and unplaceable, marked by intermittently British-sounding vowels and occasional Italian-stylerat-a-tat consonants. She is, in fact, the embodiment of a contemporary ideal—the globe-trotting citizen of the world—just as Rykiel was the embodiment of a popular ideal in her own time: the Left Bank Parisienne.

Residents of Saint-Germain-des-Près complain that their neighborhood has become a shopping mall, with fewer services and local businesses. In the single block of the Rue des Saints-Pères, where Rykiel lives and went to work every day for four decades, the pharmacy, the Irish pub, and theantiquaire selling chandeliers are gone, replaced by boutiques offering high-priced Italian handbags and the latest men’s wear. It was, in fact, Rykiel who planted the fashion flag, nearly a half-century ago, when her first shop opened its doors on the Rue de Grenelle in May 1968—and then temporarily had to close them while students took to the streets and workers went on strike in anti-establishment protests that paralyzed the country. The area then was best known as home to the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, to writers, artists, philosophers, musicians, and filmmakers, to jazz clubs, cellar bars, galleries, cinemas, and bookstores—but not to boutiques selling fashion. The stomping ground of the disaffected and the deeply cool, the Left Bank offered glamour of another variety: moody, bohemian, veiled by a Gauloise haze.

With no formal training, Rykiel got her start designing clothes she wanted to wear but couldn’t find, and selling them at Laura, the shop her husband, Sam, owned on the Avenue du Général Leclerc. In 1955, pregnant with her daughter, Nathalie, Rykiel devised a dress that flouted the convention of the time, when pregnant women camouflaged their bulging bellies. With its fitted bodice, flowing skirt, and flattering lines, it was soon in demand not only as maternity wear but even among women who weren’t pregnant. It was, however, Rykiel’s sweaters that solidified her reputation. Ribbed, with high armholes that made the shoulders seem small and the torso narrow, they hit at the hip bone, with a proportion that made the legs seem longer. They were an instant sensation; the English press dubbed them “poor-boy sweaters.” Audrey Hepburn bought an array, in a spectrum of colors.

From there, Rykiel branched out, creating the components of a wardrobe with what she called “clothes that have no shape unless they are worn.” Knits, without a bra underneath, followed the body. Jackets skimmed the torso. Culottes provided the silhouette of a skirt and the freedom of trousers. Marabou jackets delivered all the impact of fur but in soft, light, fluid shapes. Nathalie Rykiel, who grew up to work alongside her mother and eventually run the business, sums up the style as “sexy and comfortable—two words that had never been put together before.”

By the early ’70s, Rykiel had acquired an avid following in Paris and abroad, designing for a woman who was sensual, intelligent, and sexy. Her clothes were reasonably priced, and loyalists—Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, the Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, and Claude Pompidou among them—bought knit skirts and trousers to wear with the sweaters; versatile bags; cloche hats that framed the face; and a cult-classic fragrance called 7e Sens, whose devotees Nathalie describes as “addicts.” Joan Burstein, president of Browns, which introduced Rykiel to the U.K., remembers her clientele as “the most elegant, well-known women in London.”

In a business predicated on perpetual novelty, Rykiel was a contrarian. She refused to participate in trends or even to set them. One season she would present stripes, and then, not long after, she would present stripes again. And again. Her colors, too, recurred, so that the next season’s blue matched the blue from three years before. Because, of course, the thing about fashion is that sooner or later it goes out of style, and Rykiel wanted to make clothes that would last. While most designers presented their collections on sullen, haughty goddesses who posed in a spotlight at the end of the catwalk, Rykiel sent her models down the runway in groups, chatting and laughing, like friends having fun. The cast hardly changed from one season to the next, and the models became members of her extended family. Ever since the youthquake of the ’60s, designers had geared their clothes to teenagers and 20-somethings, on the assumption that older women, wanting to look younger, would wear them, too. Rykiel refused to play along, making clothes intended for no age in particular, as becoming on an 80-year-old as on a young woman of 18. In an era that proved to be a watershed for women’s rights, she demonstrated alongside feminists and signed numerous petitions, including the famous “Manifeste des 343 Salopes,” a declaration published in 1971, written by Simone de Beauvoir and signed by 343 “sluts” who had had an abortion, which was illegal in France at the time.

Rykiel came to be known as an avid proponent of the notion that a lively mind could be sexy. While other designers stacked their front rows with party girls and movie stars, Rykiel commanded a broader audience—not only actresses (Anouk Aimée, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Lauren Bacall) but also musicians (Gerry Mulligan, Leonard Cohen), politicians (Lionel Jospin, Jack Lang), writers and philosophers (Bernard-Henri Lévy, Pascal Bruckner, Nathalie Sarraute). In the tradition of the great salonnières, Rykiel entertained prominent thinkers from a variety of fields in her open-plan, loft-like Paris apartment, with its black lacquered walls, black carpet, low seating, silver bibelots, and myriad books. There were portraits of her by Andy Warhol and Cesar propped unceremoniously against the wall. Her shop windows became a platform where she showcased books—not coffee table fashion or photography books but novels, biographies, and collections of essays. Hours after the terrorist attacks on the staff of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, in Paris this January, the windows featured the paper’s back issues and the work of Jean Cabut and Georges Wolinski, two journalists among the victims.

A writer herself, Rykiel has published more than a dozen works, including a novel, a children’s book, an abecedarian self-portrait in which 400 of her favorite words serve as points of departure for observations about fashion and life, and an epistolary exchange with her friend Régine Deforges, an editor, publisher, and outspoken author known for her erotic literature. In 2012, in a book called N’oubliez pas que Je Joue (“Don’t Forget That I’m Playing”), she wrote a moving account of her long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, which she tried to keep secret until she could no longer conceal the symptoms.

Few people today, if asked to name designers who were innovators, would cite Rykiel, and yet she was undoubtedly ahead of her peers when it comes to ideas and techniques that have shaped the course of fashion history. She did away with darts and hems, turned garments inside out, and exposed the seams’ raw edges way back in the ’70s—before revealed structure became a hallmark of the Japanese avant-garde. She put straps inside a coat, as Helmut Langwould do in the ’90s, so that the wearer could take it off when she got warm and carry it like a backpack. She collaborated with 3 Suisses, a catalog selling affordable fashion, in 1977, some 20 years in advance of other designers’ “mass” commissions for Target and H&M.

Rykiel built her empire in her own image, based on her instinct, principles, and personality. “We never discussed concepts or strategy for the brand,” says Dominique Issermann, the photographer whose advertising images during the ’70s and ’80s articulated the Rykiel style in a series of indelible portraits of women dressed in black against a black background. “We were talking about women, imagination, beauty, and irreverence.” Rykiel has been compared to Coco Chanel, for the obvious reason that both were designing for themselves, producing the clothes they wanted to wear, convinced that other women would want to wear them too. But the parallels run deeper: Both were petite and created styles whose proportions weren’t scaled to a runway model’s long limbs. Both were advocates of the high armhole, which kept Chanel’s jackets in place when, as a test, the fit model would swing her arms. Both Chanel and Rykiel loved jersey, and they elevated knits to new levels of sophistication, enabling women to be both well dressed and free to move. Despite the polished chic of their respective styles, Chanel and Rykiel were radicals, out to overthrow fashion while operating within it. Each invented a formula of sorts, equivalent to a man’s suit and appropriate for any number of occasions, that would relieve women of the obligation to come up with a new outfit every day and enable them to get on with their lives. Issermann recalls meeting one day with Rykiel in her office, when the designer’s P.R. rep interrupted to remind her that she needed to leave for Venice. A car was waiting to take her to the airport. Rykiel put on her marabou coat and reached for her handbag. “But where is your suitcase?” Issermann asked. Rykiel shrugged and said she would buy a pair of tights and a toothbrush when she got there.

With her on-the-go brand of chic, de Libran’saffinity with Rykiel’s style runs deep. Her design sense combines American ease, Italian artisanal techniques, and the decidedly French notion that dressing well is a courtesy one owes to others. “People in France care,” de Libran says. “It’s the culture and the education. You don’t show yourself if you’re not put together.” Her mother wore Rykiel, and the clothes made such an impression on de Libran that she likens the experience of going through the company archives to being a little girl going through her mother’s closet.

Born in France to French parents, de Libran grew up in Rancho Santa Fe, California, where her father had gone to pursue his personal version of the American Dream. He opened French restaurants and bistros and sold French breads and pastries, while her mother worked as an interior designer specializing in French antiques. On trips back to Paris, her mother would shop for clothes at Sonia Rykiel, who was also one of her father’s favorite designers. This, it seems, was not uncommon. Any number of women who wore Rykiel in the ’70s and ’80s claim that the men in their lives liked to see women in her clothes. “Rykiel dressed for herself,” de Libran says. “But she also dressed for a man.” While Rykiel’s designs were never blatantly seductive or revealing, the slinky silhouette she pioneered “is very flattering, very feminine,” de Libran notes. “It gives a nice proportion to the neck and definitely makes you look longer and thinner.”

After high school in California, de Libran left for Milan to study fashion at Istituto Marangoni and later designed for Prada, where she worked directly with celebrities, creating one-off outfits for the red carpet and experiencing the satisfaction that comes with pleasing the woman who will ultimately wear the dress. Then, in 2008, she moved to Paris to work at Louis Vuitton alongside Marc Jacobs. Meanwhile, the Sonia Rykiel label was undergoing profound changes. After Rykiel retired, in 2009, the house failed to find its footing for a few years as it experimented with different creative directors. When Jacobs exited Louis Vuitton to focus on his own line, de Libran jumped at the opportunity to take the reins at Rykiel.

De Libran’s debut collection featured a procession of jumpsuits, which she loves “because it looks like you’re wearing an evening dress, but you have that different attitude of wearing a pant—you sit differently, you move bigger, you walk faster. It’s a little less proper. I like that strength.” She also used denim and leather, two materials Rykiel hadn’t much explored, as well as fox and mink knitted into double-face sweaters as light as a cardigan. The house’s signature stripes turned up on everything from fur chubbies to organza peasant dresses and a bikini; military-inspired gear was repurposed as chic urban wear. Even the tailored jackets exuded offhand ease over skin-baring tops, echoing one of de Libran’s favorite vintage Rykiel pieces that she inherited from her mother: a double-breasted jacket with gold buttons, worn with nothing underneath and Bermuda shorts. “I think it’s still super-relevant,” de Libran says. “It doesn’t look retro at all.”

As if to invoke the spirit that pervaded the brand’s early days, de Libran chose to present her debut collection at the Rykiel boutique, in the same mirrored setting Rykiel used for her informal shows in the ’70s. The models included Georgia May and Lizzie Jagger (whose mother, Jerry Hall, was a Rykiel favorite), as well as Instagram-friendly newcomers like Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. That night, instead of the usual fashion party, de Libran celebrated with a dinner in the upstairs room of the Café de Flore, to which only women, including her close friend Sofia Coppola, were invited. De Libran seems to genuinely enjoy listening to other women, discovering what they want, how they live, and how they see themselves. And unlike a number of designers who have taken charge of faded trademarks with no following and no notion in the public’s mind of what they stood for in the first place, de Libran finds herself with a sorority on her hands. Admittedly, there have been periods when membership was down, but the sisterhood is intact—and there is an entire new generation to recruit.

While many young designers take on subordinate roles to learn the ropes, preparing for the day when they open their own house, de Libran claims to have no burning ambitions when it comes to seeing her name on a storefront or a label. Though Rykiel herself is no longer a presence in the design studio, it is the style she created that will set the parameters in which de Libran works. “If people say, ‘It’s Rykiel,’ I’ll know I’ve done my job well,” de Libran says. “I really respect what she accomplished. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

What's in a colour? Everything if it's Le Dîner en Blanc: the all-white, style-coded epicurean event that makes its highly anticipated debut in Kingston on Saturday, March 7, at a top-secret location disclosed to diners at the ninth hour.

The imported conceptual experience comes ashore thanks to local organisers Leisha and Brett Wong, and Imani and Stephen Price, who, having heard about the event from family and friends and attended the Miami-hosted Le Dîner en Blanc iteration last December are eager to introduce the high-end, pop-up picnic affair, launched 25 years ago with just a handful of friends by François Pasquier in Paris, here on The Rock.

As jostling gets underway to secure tables at the hush-hush venue, and the city's chicest of boutiques now becoming hunting grounds to snag that perfect white wardrobe to score admiring glances, it's safe to say that the Kingston version of the event -- currently celebrated in 40 cities worldwide and 16 cities in the United States -- will leave quite the impression in its wake.

What's in a colour? Everything if it's Le Dîner en Blanc: the all-white, style-coded epicurean event that makes its highly anticipated debut in Kingston on Saturday, March 7, at a top-secret location disclosed to diners at the ninth hour.

The imported conceptual experience comes ashore thanks to local organisers Leisha and Brett Wong, and Imani and Stephen Price, who, having heard about the event from family and friends and attended the Miami-hosted Le Dîner en Blanc iteration last December are eager to introduce the high-end, pop-up picnic affair, launched 25 years ago with just a handful of friends by François Pasquier in Paris, here on The Rock.

As jostling gets underway to secure tables at the hush-hush venue, and the city's chicest of boutiques now becoming hunting grounds to snag that perfect white wardrobe to score admiring glances, it's safe to say that the Kingston version of the event -- currently celebrated in 40 cities worldwide and 16 cities in the United States -- will leave quite the impression in its wake.

Countdown-mode in full effect (just 20 days to go!), SO takes inspiration from the fashion dicates of Le Dîner en Blanc, and preps you for next month's most urbane event, offering cues about how to style and what to expect.

FASHION STATEMENTS

Glitz, glam, and on-point fashion moments dominate Hollywood's red carpets. Look no further than the star-gazing constellation of celebs for design inspiration.

FEMALE CELEBS

Considering an avant-garde look for your Le Dîner en Blanc Kingston date? Model Marique Schimmel shows a contemporary twist on the Victorian era in this Vogue Turkey editorial.

FILM & TV

Take a page from the stars of the silver and small screens, who feed our pop culture diet with stylish helpings of white wardrobe ideas.

Allen Leech, suited in cricket ensemble, plays Tom Branson on the hit PBS costume drama Downton Abbey.

Thinking of a family outing to Le Dîner en Blanc? The cast of the hit ABC comedy Modern Family, outfitted in white for a promotional photo shoot, gives style cues.

Countdown-mode in full effect (just 20 days to go!), SO takes inspiration from the fashion dicates of Le Dîner en Blanc, and preps you for next month's most urbane event, offering cues about how to style and what to expect.

FASHION STATEMENTS

Glitz, glam, and on-point fashion moments dominate Hollywood's red carpets. Look no further than the star-gazing constellation of celebs for design inspiration.

FEMALE CELEBS

Considering an avant-garde look for your Le Dîner en Blanc Kingston date? Model Marique Schimmel shows a contemporary twist on the Victorian era in this Vogue Turkey editorial.

FILM & TV

Take a page from the stars of the silver and small screens, who feed our pop culture diet with stylish helpings of white wardrobe ideas.

Allen Leech, suited in cricket ensemble, plays Tom Branson on the hit PBS costume drama Downton Abbey.

Thinking of a family outing to Le Dîner en Blanc? The cast of the hit ABC comedy Modern Family, outfitted in white for a promotional photo shoot, gives style cues.

Say what you will about playwright Marshall Pailet’s fascination with prehistoric creatures; that milieu has inspired musical theater properties that are about as singular as their subjects.

These include “Triassic Parq,” a 2010 spoof of the reptilian characters in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” and “Loch Ness,” an all-new show whose book Pailet co-wrote with A.D. Penedo.

In early 2013, Chance Theater took a flyer with “Triassic,” with mixed results. The company’s world premiere production of “Loch Ness” yields something richer, deeper and more self-assured while also offering the kind of quirky laughs typical of Pailet.

best formal dresses

Maybe it’s because this time around, our focus is on human characters who are flawed. Those flaws are on display because of how the characters choose to regard the loch-bound sea creature known as Nessie.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Thomas Westerbrook (Jackson Tobiska) has seen his wife, a mother to 12-year-old daughter Haley’s (Julia Cassandra Smith), disappear. Neither has done well in dealing with the loss, and it has damaged their relationship.

Having spent every last penny in trying to find his wife, scientist Westerbrook is forced to take the only commission offered him. Leana Callaghan (Angeline Mirenda) hires him to lead an expedition vessel onto Loch Ness, then locate and document Nessie’s existence.

The mission brings numerous dramatic conflicts to the fore that are given considerable weight by Pailet. At the helm as director, he’s careful to use the show’s laughs only as comic relief and not a goal in themselves.

That places more emphasis on the friendship that gradually develops between Haley, who feels alienated from her dad, and Nessie (Katie Brown), whose very existence has grown to legendary proportions.

As prominent are the show’s musical content and its visuals. The songs, through Mark Sonnenblick’s music direction, offer windows into the thoughts and feelings of the story’s characters. Kelly Todd’s choreography expands upon those elements without overshadowing them.

The songs in “Loch Ness” are certainly more engaging than those of “Triassic Parq,” and its characters are a lot more personable – eccentric and very human. Their flaws make for quirkiness that triggers audience laughter. Lending credence to the characters are some lyrics being sung in what sounds like authentic Gaelic.

Part of “Loch Ness’” dry humor is generated by the script, the rest by Pailet’s cast members. To wit, in Peter Pan fashion, Brown’s Nessie needs a human (read: Haley) to believe in her, prompting the Descartes-like statement “You think, therefore I am.”

The show’s visual aspects also take on added significance. Fred Kinney and Megan Hill’s scenic design combines the deck of the exploration vessel with the vastness of the lake itself. While the expected effect of the water’s fogbound surface is never fully realized, we’re still convinced we’re in uncharted waters both geographically and dramatically.

Kinney and Hill’s puppet design and Baxley Andresen’s puppet mechanics and fabrication bring life to Pailet’s focal non-human character. Brown may be the voice and personality of Nessie, but that guise is cemented by the life-size head, neck and tail of the mythical creature, operated throughout by Brown and other cast members.

No less vital is the script’s skillful handling of Westerbrook and Haley’s coming to terms with each other. In Jackson’s Westerbrook we see a stiff-necked martinet struggling as a single dad. In terms of hard-headed stubbornness, he finds he has met his match in Haley.

Mirenda’s Lady Callaghan is wealthy and self-possessed, her speech colored with a strong Scots brogue. Brown delivers a scarily vulnerable Nessie, and her lilting Scots accent is in fine contrast to Smith’s crisp British diction, while Matt Takahashi, as town constable Angus Ogilvie, plays his pungent burr for laughs. The outspoken Highlander called The Oiler (Corky Loupe) also uses Scottish inflections for comedic effect.

The show puts other colorful accents on display: well-educated British (Dr. Westerbrook, Haley and C.J.) and French (ship’s crew members Pierre and Éclair, played respectively by Keaton Williams and Gina Velez.

At its core, “Loch Ness” is about how Haley and Nessie bond, to the benefit of both, and Smith and Brown pleasingly underplay their characters. Their friendship allows Pailet and Penedo to explore the dynamics at work between two sets of mothers and their daughters: Haley and her mom, Nessie with hers.

Unlike much new musical theater, “Loch Ness” is a charming, pleasingly quirky, wholly original concept. Its fine staging at Chance shows that theaters taking a chance on a new, unproduced play can strike it rich.

Distinguished Young Women of Okaloosa County invites 7- to 12-year-old girls to “Boot Camp."

The Feb. 28 event is an afternoon of learning in a fun environment taught by young women in the DYW Class of 2015.

Participating girls can learn about table settings, fashion tips and trends, along with manners and etiquette. DYW's flagship program, “Be Your Best Self," challenges young women to learn the importance of setting goals and striving to reach them.

The girls will learn to be healthy, be involved in their communities, be studious in academic endeavors, be ambitious in setting goals and working to achieve them, and be responsible by living within their moral and ethical principles.

formal wear adelaide

Distinguished Young Women, formerly America’s Junior Miss, is the largest, oldest national scholarship program for female high school seniors.

It encourages self-confidence and the ability to effectively speak in public, perform on stage and build interpersonal relationships.

In addition, the program promotes and rewards scholastic aptitude, leadership and talent.

Okaloosa County’s third annual DYW scholarship program — Saturday, July 18 — is accepting registrations from rising high school juniors. Applicants must complete their high school diploma in 2016.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Distinguished Young Women of Okaloosa County Boot Camp. Download the registration form here>>

WHEN: 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28

WHERE: Niceville’s Generations United Fellowship Hall — formerly Niceville Assembly of God, 108 Highway 85 N., Niceville

COST: $35 per girl; includes a souvenir, a free ticket to the July 18 DYW Scholarship Program, social time and homemade snacks

'Unique, colourful, quality' is what the Tanzanian president looks for when it comes to his attire. These words are the motto of no company but Binti Africa, which has brought Tanzania's traditional clothes to Muscat Festival in Al Amerat Park.

Speaking to Times of Oman, Farida Amri Sadiq, a representative of the company, points to a poster showing President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete wearing a shirt designed by Binti Africa and proudly says that it shows the high quality of their products.

"We use traditional design and materials and produce a wide range of products," she says, adding that Tanzania is keen to introduce its art and culture to Omani people. Shanga sandals and different materials with Batik design also stand out at the pavilion with their special colours and patterns.

formal gowns sydney

The interesting point about Tanzania's section is its focus on women. While the Binti Foundation's passion is described as raising awareness for the empowerment of a girl child, another stall is raising money for breast cancer patients. While enjoying other pieces of art, accessories and foodstuff exhibited at the pavilion, the visitors can also learn more about Africa's finest safari destination.

One-quarter of Tanzania's surface area has been set aside for conservation purposes, and the country is home to the globally renowned Serengeti National Park and incredibly vast Selous Game Reserve. "And yet there is more to Tanzania than just safaris: There is Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru, respectively the highest and fifth-highest peaks on the continent, and Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika and Nyasa, the three largest freshwater bodies in Africa. Then, of course, there is the magical 'spice island' of Zanzibar, the highlight of a vast Indian Ocean coastline studded with postcard-perfect beaches, mysterious mediaeval ruins, and offshore reefs swirling with brightly colourful fish," reads a note by Gerald Bigurube, director general of Tanzania National Parks, printed in a booklet distributed to visitors. Representatives of Tanzanian companies participating at the festival are unanimous that one should visit Tanzania for themselves to truly appreciate the splendour of the numerous natural attractions in this land of beauty.

For J.C. Chandor’s period crime drama A Most Violent Year, the film’s costume designer, Kasia Walicka-Maimone, collaborated with Armani on the mix of archival, vintage and contemporary designer pieces chosen for Jessica Chastain’s Anna. The wardrobe choices (and Scarface bob) nail the character’s aspirations in turbulent 1981 New York.

But Anna’s voluminous white coat isn’t the only notable fashion choice in the stylish film. Sartorialists have also made note of the knee-length camel overcoat worn throughout much of the movie by her husband, beleaguered businessman Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac). With peak lapels, flap patch side pockets, cuffed sleeves and a half belt, the double-breasted “polo” coat style, Walicka-Maimone explains by phone from New York, is so-called because of its original use: British polo players wore it to keep warm between chukkas. In the early 20th century what had once clothed aristocratic athletes like the Duke of Windsor was introduced by Brooks Brothers to America and made its way into the canon of prep style. That make it an apt choice of coat by design, a detail that speaks volumes about the character.

red formal dresses australia

In A Most Violent Year, Morales “was on the path to achieve the American Dream, choosing the best of everything,” she explains in reference to her wardrobe choices. “He was influenced by that, though at times he takes things a little bit too far, so we pushed his costume a little further.” The white shirts have a faint shiny stripe, while the pinstriped ties are a little too glossy to be classic. “All are within [the] Ivy League vocabulary, but also with a past influence of quite a sophisticated culture, his own immigrant culture.”

The rest of Morales’s closet is just as impeccable. Walicka-Maimone created his entire wardrobe from scratch (including the coat), opting for a more structured look than the Armani silhouette of the era (see Richard Gere’s suits in 1980’s American Gigolo) to suit the character.

“He has no air of casualness in his attire,” she says with a laugh. The distinctive silhouettes – double-breasted, wide peak lapels and strong shoulders – “were inspired very much by 1981 [Nino] Cerruti, a style that was carried by Barney’s at that time,” she explains. The suits and coat were then custom-made by Martin Greenfield, the renowned Brooklyn clothier who has provided tailoring for clients ranging from U.S. President Barack Obama to the cast of Boardwalk Empire. “Martin and his fabulous young tailors really understand the period and can reproduce the styles. Contemporary suits now are made from very thin material,” Walicka-Maimone says. Plus, she adds, Greenfield “has a collection of classic fabrics from around the world that have more weight and more body. I think that’s why they tailored so beautifully – it just becomes armour. And then the way [Morales] wears his coat on top, it becomes almost a token of his achievements.”

The tan topper is also a nod, Walicka-Maimone acknowledges, to the camel coat’s popularity in 1970s fashion and costume design, from Ali McGraw inLove Story and Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were to the heavies in The Sting, Brando in Last Tango in Paris and, not least, the gritty crime dramas of the era that inspired Chandor’s film in the first place.

British department store Selfridges typically kicks off the year with it’s Bright Young Things exhibition of new design talent. But this year, the retailer is turning the concept on its head with the launch of Bright Old Things, a showcase of works created by “mature” designers ranging in age from mid-40s to 80s. According to a Selfridges release, the store acknowledges that ‘old’ is as subjective as it is irrelevant” and “it’s never too late to try something new.”

The exhibition will spotlight the work of designers, photographers, artists, musicians , entrepreneurs, an architect-turned-topiarist, and a YouTube star. Among the well-known and new discoveries names are retailer-turned-designer Nick Wooster, painter and former Sunday Times Fashion Editor Molly Parkin, artist Sue Kreitzman and Bruno Wizard, described by Selfridges as “the most famous punk you’ve never heard of.”

Photographer Todd Selby also shot each participant in their homes and studios.

red carpet dresses

Each was given a Selfridges display window facing Oxford Street, where millions of people pass each day. There is a Bright Old Things in-store shop at Selfridges and there are some special events in the works, including something planned for during London Collections: Men.

“One of the things we pride ourselves on is telling great stories. How better to start the year than by celebrating fourteen of them?” said Linda Hewson, Selfridges creative director. “As a centenary-old department store which has been successfully reinventing itself over and over again, it made so much sense for us to shine a light on the wealth of talent and experience harnessed by bright older creatives. These people can definitely teach us all a thing or two about growing old whilst staying young at heart and relevant.”