The Perfect Swimsuit for Your Figure

We can’t all wear the same style swimsuits because unfortunately, we all have different shaped bodies. And as much as I would love to pull off some sexy, exotic swimsuits I see on the runways, I have to come to terms that I am not that tall, nor that skinny – so I have to find a swimsuit that fits my shape, not someone elses. Keep reading to see which swimsuit best suits your figure!

Problem #1: Small Bust
We’re not all blessed with a bountiful bust, so we have to make do with whatever we have. To hide a small bust, wear swimsuits with padding (just make sure they look ok once you get wet!), ruffles to add more volume, and prints to distract from the problem area. Also, make sure the colors work in your favor too! Pair a dark bottom with a bright top to make it work.

Problem #2: Large Bust
If you find that you’re spilling out everywhere, you may need to rethink your swimsuit. Did you know that swimsuits actually run 2 sizes smaller than regular clothing? So with that in mind,  choose a swimsuit with a built-in bra or an underwire to avoid spillage. Stay away from bandeaus, keyhole, string bikinis and demi-bra styles.

Problem #3: Belly Bulge
One of the most common swimsuit problems is the belly bulge. Choose a plunging-halter suit which will draw the attention away from the bulge. You can also go with something that has a pattern or some sort of detail at the mid-section to draw the eye away. You can also look for swimsuits with built-up tummy control as well as tankinis. But just stay away from the bikinis.

Problem #4: Thick Thighs
To hide thick thighs, go for swimsuits with a high cut on the leg, which will make your legs look longer and slim your thighs. Also, stay away from shorts as they actually tend to make your thighs and butt look bigger. Instead, draw the attention away with a colorful or embelished top. Also, you can mix your bikini pieces by putting the darkest on the bottom and the lighter color on top.

By: http://styletips101.com/

Fashion Tip: How to Avoid Dragging Your Pants

When buying a pair of dress pants, you’re always stuck with the dilemma of weather you should get shorter or longer pants. Shorter, so you can wear them with your flats, or longer, if you wear them with heels.

Zakkerz are magnetic strips you can use to create a temporary hem when switching from heels to flat shoes.

Just roll your pants up to the desired length and attach two strips to each pant leg. The handy Zakkerz keep the new hemline in place until you’re ready to switch to heels again.

By: http://styletips101.com/

How to Wear Orange

For a lot of people, orange is a hard color to pull off. Surprisingly though, orange is a very flattering color since it instantly adds a natural glow to your skin tone. This spring, designers lit up the runways with a range of vibrant tangerines, neon oranges and amped-up corals that looked yummy and wearable all at once. But if you’re not used to wearing orange, it can seem a little tricky. So here’s how to make sure you’re wearing the right hues at the right time.

If you decide to wear orange near your face, such as a top, a hat or accessories, pick vibrant shades of mango for olive-to-dark skin tone. If you’re a little paler, opt for more muted orange shades such as a sunset color. When trying on garments at the store, just hold up the item near your face; if it makes your eyes pop and brightens up your face, you’ve got a winner. But if it makes you look pale or drab, put it back!

Also, when you’re wearing statement colors such as orange, you have to be able to stand out, and not your clothing. Don’t let the garment take over you, YOU should take over the garment and wear it confidently.

If you want to sport a crazy neon orange but you’re afraid it will look bad against your skin tone, grab something that is away from the face such as a belt or a pair of shoes. Also, rememeber that you can transition slowly into a new color by taking on a few pieces that have just a hint of orange. After which, you can gradually progress

By: http://styletips101.com/

Top 10 Ways to Hide a Tummy Bulge

There is nothing more annoying than trying on a million different clothes only to realize that the problem is not the clothes, but your bulging tummy. It can be hard to find things that hide your tummy but at the same time looks good too, so here are your top 10 ways to hiding a tummy pouch.

#1.  A Banded Top

Banded tops are shirts that have a band at the hemline which is great for covering a tummy bulge.

#2.  Wrap Dresses and Shirts

Wrap dresses and wrap shirts are excellent for hiding your tummy pouch. Choose them in colorful patterned styles since the eye will be drawn eye from the problem area.

#3. Shapewear

Shapewear is another great way to help hide your trouble spots, although they can be a little uncomfortable to wear at times. Stick to shapewear only when needed though!

#4. Get the Right Fit

Stick to your size and your body structure. Wearing something too small and too tight will only accentuate the problem and wearing something that is too large for you will only make it obvious that you’re trying to hide something. Instead, stick to a happy medium: your true size!

#6. Wear a Fitted Jacket

Don’t cover up in a big jacket…it will only make you look bigger! Instead, try a fitted jacket that enhances your silhouette and nips at the waist.

#7.  Empire Waist Tops

Empire waist tops are great for hiding a tummy bulge since it nips right under the bust and hangs straight down all the way, hiding that unwanted roll of fat that you hate so much.

#8. Avoid Pants With Waist Detail

Put away your pants/jeans that have a lot of waist detail such as lots of pockets, bows, belts, etc, since this will only bring attention to the tummy area. Instead, stick to really plain and simple flat front pants with little or no detail at the waist.

#9. Select the Right Fabrics

Tight, stretchy fabrics will only accentuate your tummy. Instead, opt for more free-flowing fabrics such as cotton which will not cling to your body.

#10. Never Tuck Your Shirt In

I’m not sure if anyone still tucks their shirt in, but if you do – please stop now! Tucking your shirt in is a major no-no, especially if you’ve got something to hide! Let the shirt flow over the pants, which will elongate your torso and hide your tummy. If your shirt is too long (too big), then it’s just not a good fit for you!

By: http://styletips101.com/

The Alchemist: How Alexander McQueen Transformed Fashion Into Art

The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened its doors, at long last, to one of its most highly anticipated exhibitions: "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty." Even in its first few weeks, this show has broken attendance records. Organized by curator Andrew Bolton, the retrospective celebrates one of the fashion industry's most important designers, the late Lee McQueen, founder and creative director of the label Alexander McQueen. His unprecedented designs marked a critical shift not only in fashion design, but in the reception of fashion as a form of installation, performance, and art.
Nearly 200 items are featured in the exhibition, which spans the 19 years of McQueen's career that was cut short in February of last year by his suicide. Rarities from his graduate collection at Central St. Martins are displayed alongside work from the unfinished final collection of 2010, his swan song. While "Savage Beauty," on view through July 31, showcases the designs within the context of the label, it is clearly homage to the man himself, and the creative intuition that produced one of the most innovative visions of contemporary fashion.
Despite the commercial aspirations of the show — "Savage Beauty" was funded almost entirely by the label whose clothing it features — it is nevertheless difficult to look at a single one of the designs without being mesmerized, intrigued, or provoked into some response, oftentimes confusion. No designer has better embodied Yves Saint Laurent's incisive dictum that while fashion is not exactly art, it requires the creativity of an artist in order to exist. McQueen's originality and genius derived from the fact that his tremendous talent as a designer was matched by his capacity as an artist.
His technical training as a tailor's apprentice on Savile Row formed the basis for the attention to craftsmanship and expert tailoring that have become synonymous with the label's aesthetic. At the same time, fashion served him as a medium to explore complex ideas. Despite his background as a tailor, he was able to see beyond the garment itself and its construction, and as a result his understanding of fashion extended far beyond clothing. Each piece had an individuality about it, but was nonetheless part of a sustained vision that governed the aesthetic of a collection as well as that of the final runway presentation.
His Spring/Summer 2001 collection, for example, was based on avian imagery (which he revisited frequently) and the gothic aesthetics of a mental institution, with garments including extraordinary pieces such as a dress with taxidermy eagles protruding from the shoulders as though in flight, as well as head bandages and embellished, asymmetrical jackets that were vaguely reminiscent of nurses' uniforms. Models paced around inside of a boxed, mirrored room clawing at the glass walls as though trying to escape from their asylum-like runway. In the final moments of the presentation, the walls of another box within the faux psychiatric ward collapsed to reveal a startling tableau vivant inspired by the Joel-Peter Witkin photograph "Sanitarium": a reclining, masked nude breathing through a tube and surrounded by fluttering moths.
Other presentations included snarling wolves, life-sized chess boards, and rain pouring down over models as they walked the runway. The famous showing of his Spring/Summer 1999 collection featured two automated robots who shot a model clad in white with sprays of green and black paint.
The artistry of McQueen's artistry vision is also seen in his love of an idea over (or at least as much as) its product. Many of his designs had little or nothing to do with fashion, and their translation into clothing design was far was from obvious or literal. Plato's account of Atlantis, Darwin's "Theory of Evolution," Lucien Freud's paintings, films such as "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," and elements of 19th-century Victorianism (McQueen would refer to himself as the Edgar Allen Poe of fashion) were incorporated into his designs. Historical events were of great influence as well, and one of his early collections, "Highland Rape," was based on what McQueen called the "rape of Scotland" by the British Empire during the Jacobite Risings and the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Another source of inspiration that McQueen drew heavily on throughout his career was Medieval and Renaissance art, specifically Flemish painting. His last collection, presented posthumously, was unofficially titled "Angels and Demons," and the references to the work of Botticelli, Hieronymous Bosch, Jean Fouquet, and Hans Memling were clear both materially and in concept. New textile technologies were used to photograph the paintings and weave their images into jacquard fabrics and embroideries that were cut into highly tailored garments. Moreover, the collection mirrored a theme present in the works McQueen was focusing on: death and the afterlife. In a way, it is this set of source images for his last collection that best illustrate McQueen's view of fashion. Major characteristics of Flemish painting include highly detailed imagery, sumptuous colors, and fantastical narratives that often focus on the grotesque, and McQueen's work offers an aesthetic that values and masterfully combines all of these aspects.
The innumerable tributes to the designer since his death aim both at commemorating his contributions to fashion and securing his legacy. It is somewhat difficult as a result to keep sight of the man beneath the weight of so many accolades — commercial as well as critical — and in a sense, there is little need for these displays of recognition; Lee McQueen's legacy was ensured long before his death. One of the most important aspects of this legacy was the nature of his vision, which related fashion to art in a way that few designers, or artists, have been able to do. McQueen created a new class of designer, and in so doing expanded the field for those to come.

Beauty industry honors Fergie and her fragrance

Fergie's life just got a little more glamorous — in undertones of tuberose and leather — with her win of a Fifi award from the perfume industry for her scent Outspoken.
The Fragrance Foundation presented the Black Eyed Peas singer with the honor Wednesday night for new celebrity fragrance of the year at a splashy Lincoln Center ceremony.
Outspoken is Avon's most successful fragrance launch to date. The prize, Fergie said in a telephone interview, along with the yellow BCBG Max Azria gown she wore to pick it up and all the trappings of fame, are just icing now that she's realized her biggest aspiration — her success as a solo artist.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I think all this would happen," she said. "My goal was a solo album. It was my dream since I was a little girl, and I went down many roads to get there."
Fergie, 36, said she enjoys all the glitz, glamour and wardrobing, especially playing around with beauty products to create different looks. At home, though, she tones it down — a lot — and usually doesn't wear any makeup at all.
Perfume is different. She's always been a fragrance fan, she said, wearing for a period as a teenager the men's cologne Drakkar Noir because it reminded her of an old boyfriend, and Dior's Poison because she linked it to lyrics of a favorite song.
Outspoken is a floral with notes of iced berry, tuberose and a base of leather. A second perfume Fergie has created, Outspoken Intense, will be available in October. One of the key scent notes is kumquat. One whiff and she's transported to her backyard growing up in Southern California, she said.
"My dad grew them. He taught me how to peel them. They're very, very small."
Fergie plans to use her new role in the beauty industry to ask questions of other designers, perfumers and celebrities. "I'd love to know what all their inspirations are."
Oscar winner Halle Berry and Mary J. Blige were among the other Fifi winners.
"The celebrity category in fragrance is no longer an `add on' as it was once considered, never knowing if it would last or not. Today, it is a major segment of fragrance marketing and our hope is that the celebrities, who chose to have a fragrance or endorse one, take it as seriously as their latest album, film or book by supporting it in the same way," said the group's president, Rochelle Bloom.
Hall of Fame nods went to Issey Miyake L'Eau d'Issey and Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male for men, and Bombshell by Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works Twilight Woods received consumer choice awards.
Berry was named the top fragrance celebrity for her work promoting and embracing the "world of fragrance over a period of time," according to the Fragrance Foundation.
Mary J. Blige and the cosmetics company Carol's Daughter were honored for their direct-to-consumer approach.
The following were named fragrance of the year in their respective distribution categories: VS Bombshell and Banana Republic/Republic of Men (specialty brand); Halle by Halle Berry Pure Orchid and Herve Leger Homme (broad appeal); Gucci Guilty and Blue de Chanel (luxe); and Balenciaga Paris and Tom Ford Azure Lime for Men (specialty luxe).

Prada to make Hong Kong debut on June 24

HONG KONG (AFP) – Italian luxury fashion house Prada will make its market debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange on June 24, in a highly anticipated offering aiming to raise up to $2 billion.
In the latest move by high end fashion companies to tap the huge Chinese market, the family-owned giant plans to start bookbuilding for institutional investors on June 6 and start its public offering eight days later.
The firm will price its deal on June 17, Dow Jones Newswires quoted a term sheet as saying, and it is planning to use proceeds to expand its sales network, increase floor space, repay bank loans and supplement working capital.
A Prada spokeswoman in Hong Kong told AFP she had yet to receive any official statement from its Milan headquarters and could not confirm details on the IPO.
The company reportedly received the approval from Hong Kong's market regulators last week for its plan to sell 20 percent of its shares. The move would value the group at up to eight billion euros ($11.3 billion).
The group, which includes the Prada, Miu Miu, Church's and Car Shoe brands is 95 percent controlled by the Prada family and executives.
Prada announced in January it would make its first public listing on the Hong Kong bourse in a sign of Asia's growing appetite for designer goods, especially to capitalise on the cash-rich mainland Chinese markets.
China is the world's fastest-growing market for luxury goods.
It is forecast to be the world's top buyer of products such as cosmetics, handbags, watches, shoes and clothes by 2015, according to consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Prada will join a slew of other luxury fashion brands also eyeing a listing in Hong Kong, including US upscale handbag maker Coach and luggage maker Samsonite.
Prada's listing plan comes as second-hand luxury handbag retailer Milan Station made a successful debut in Hong Kong Monday, with its shares soaring as much as 77 percent after its IPO was oversubscribed by more than 2,100 times.

Bear Hugs and Big Smiles at the "Kung Fu Panda 2" Premiere

Los Angeles – A beaming Angelina Jolie held hands with Brad Pitt and led the celebrity charge down the long red carpet on Hollywood Boulevard early on May 22. It was a bit overcast in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, but that didn't stop Jolie and Pitt from delighting in the spectacle of the "Kung Fu Panda 2" premiere, appropriately held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
The sequel to the 2008 animated hit that is set in ancient China brings back much of the star-studded vocal cast from the first film, from Jack Black to Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, Dustin Hoffman and James Hong, and they all joined their leading lady for the celebration. Asian acrobats wowed the huge crowd of fans massed behind barricades, a huge paper dragon danced the length of the carpet and massive brightly colored Chinese lanterns lined the walkway while two giant Po pandas handed out big bear hugs.
Other famous fans of the lazy panda turned kung fu expert that came out for the premiere festivities included Camryn Manheim and her kids, Marcia Gay Harden with her family, Danny McBride, Nancy O'Dell and Cedric the Entertainer.
But it was Jolie, Pitt, Black and Hoffman who jumped right into the adoring crowd, signing autographs and posing for photos, then greeted the new vocal talent to "Kung Fu Panda 2," including Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Haysbert. It's a routine the leading actors have been repeating a lot lately, as Jolie, Black, and Hoffman also premiered the new comedy last week in France at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was there that Jolie explained the simple reason she's been ready and willing to lend her voice to the character of Tigress in the films.
"At the end of the day, we're all just big kids and we love to do these movies, it's a great deal of fun," she said. Plus, having six children "from ages two to ten" didn't hurt, either. "In so many ways, I did it for them."

Anger as Seoul allows fur in Fendi fashion show

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea's capital city will allow Italian fashion house Fendi to feature fur in a show next week, organisers said in a U-turn Monday, prompting a vow from campaigners to disrupt the event.
A spokeswoman for Fendi's public relations company told AFP that fur would be part of the show on June 2 but could not say how many such items would be featured.
The event will be staged on a newly built island on the Han River, which the city of Seoul wants to promote as a landmark.
The Italian firm said last week that city officials had threatened to cancel the event unless all fur items were removed from the catwalk.
The city government said pressure from animal rights groups had rendered the show too controversial, and Fendi had described the short notice as "difficult to understand... in light of the months of preparation and cooperation".
But in a statement Monday, the fashion house said that now "all terms have been mutually agreed" for the show.
The Rome-based company originally planned to present 40 pieces from its autumn/winter collection including 20 fur items.
A Seoul city official said Fendi pledged to "redesign" the lineup to reduce the number of fur items displayed by its models.
"They promised to make the show more acceptable to the public... and we have our international credibility to consider. So we accepted the offer," said the official, who declined to be named.
"The show will go on as planned."
The South Korean group Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth vowed to launch a campaign to boycott Fendi products after the city's change of heart, and called for protesters to picket the June 2 show.
"Let's go together to let many people know about the brutal nature of Fendi, which has cruelly sacrificed fur animals for nearly 100 years," it said.

The Golden Thread – International Contest for Young Designers in Lodz, Poland

The
19th Edition of The Golden Thread Contest took place during Fashion
Philosophy Fashion Week Poland in Lodz on the 6th of May and was
organized by Lodz International Fashion Fair.
The
Golden Thread is the most prestigious fashion competition in Poland
which has opened doors for successful carries of many young fashion
passionates.
Nearly
170 young designers from Poland and Europe entered the competition this
year. Eventually the jury has choosen 22 collections with fresh and
creative ideas for the final show. The competition was held in two
categories : Prêt-a-Porter and Premiere Vision. Winner of each category
got 20 thousand zlotys (5 thousand Euro) prize founded by the President
of the City of Lodz.
The Golden Thread in Prêt-a-Porter category went to the graduate of Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design www.ksa.edu.pl
Monika Jaworska for her collection “Modus Vivendi”. Oversize,
decontsruction and transparency created a very special atmosphere of
this women’s collection inspired by men’s clothes. Another graduate of
Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design – Agnieszka Kowalska was awarded
The Golden Thread in Premiere Vision category for her picturesque
collection “Szalapot” which was inpired by history of Don Kichot.
Agnieszka Kowalska has also won the Grand Prix of the 11th competition
for Young Fashion Designers Habitus Baltija 2011 that took place in Riga
a few weeks earlier.
Hopefully both young designers will contribute with their creativity in progress of Polish fashion industry

Michael Sheen Gushes About His Gal at the "Midnight in Paris" Premiere

Los Angeles – Now that "Midnight in Paris" stars Michael Sheen and Rachel McAdams have brought their real-life romance out from under wraps, Sheen cannot quit talking about his gorgeous girlfriend.
"She is amazing," he gushed to reporters on the red carpet Wednesday, May 18, at the Los Angeles premiere of their new film, a fantastic new Woody Allen comedy set in the always-romantic City of Light. McAdams, who has been traveling with Sheen, Allen and Owen Wilson, the film's leading man, for the last week, bouncing from the Cannes Film Festival premiere to a star-studded New York City unspooling, didn't make it to the L.A. premiere, which was hosted by the American Film Institute. But that didn't stop Sheen from singing her praises, saying, "She's the most wonderful person I know."
Wilson joined Sheen for the photo op at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Theater, and gushed a bit himself, about his new baby boy; then both actors waited to hear their first laughs inside the packed venue, then slipped out. But their co-stars Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy stayed for the after party, where champagne and French pastries were spread throughout the lobby of the Academy Awards' home base and accolades were ringing in the air for their performances as the snooty parents of McAdams' less-than-appealing character.
The idea of Oscar nominations for the movie being a distinct possibility filled the air, too, as celebs and VIPs chattered noisily about the comedy. Jackie Collins, Lucy Punch, Max Adler, Sybil Danning, Aiden Turner and Jacqueline Bisset joined the crowd in raving about how funny and clever Allen's latest film is.
Talk of an acting nomination for McAdams, who plays Wilson's nasty fiancee, swirled, and the irony of Allen being an inadvertent matchmaker came up too. For it was on his 2008 feature "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" that Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem began their romance, which developed into their marriage and a new baby; and Cruz won an Oscar for her performance in that movie.

A Sophisticated Chanel Cruise in Cap d'Antibes

Cannes – "It's the other side of the Cote d'Azur," explained Karl Lagerfeld of his latest Chanel cruise collection, staged in impeccable splendor at the Eden Roc hotel in Cap'Antibes on France's Mediterranean coast.
One year ago, Lagerfeld presented Chanel's previous cruise collection just 30 miles away in St Tropez, a posh hippie moment where the runway was the dockside. On Monday, May 10, he move the locale to a beautiful walkway between the storied hotel - the preferred resting place for mega movie stars during the Cannes Film Festival - and its famed rock pool, and the Spring 2012 collection was one of tony, haute sophistication.
Models marched into crimson rays of the setting sun before an audience that included Princess Caroline of Monaco, Blake Lively, Clemence Poesy, newcomer actress Marine Vacth, Chanel ambassador Anna Mouglalis, rock star Vanessa Paradise and Rachel Bilson, star of the recent Lagerfeld photographed Magnum ice cream commercials.
In case the classily elegant message was not clear, the couturier attired pretty much the entire cast in nearly 100 pieces of fine jewelry, eschewing literally boxes of costume jewelry that lay in boxes in the temporary Chanel studio in the hotel.
"It makes sense you see, since sea water tarnishes costume jewelry but has no effect on real diamonds. So if any of the girls fell in the water, well, we'd have nothing to worry about," Lagerfeld said with a laugh.
From Chanel swimsuits embedded with literally millions of dollars worth of diamonds or evening columns with pearls peeping through chiffon, to sparkling bracelets almost like mini Coliseums to brooches that looked like small emerald explosions, this was possibly the most extravagant runway show in terms of high-power jewelry ever staged in fashion.
"It's highly sophisticated jewelry for a highly sophisticated crowd. They had to be real stones, the audience is certainly not fake," said Lagerfeld, in a preview with FWD the day before the show.
As the shadows lengthened on the slanting catwalk, guests lounged about on terrace lounge chairs beneath white parasols as some 50 models marched through the beautiful garden.
"This is place is amazing! I wonder can I move here?" joked Chanel's brand model Lively, attired in a copper top and black satin mini, as she chatted with fellow thespian Poesy.
Lagerfeld revealed that he was inspired by cinematic glamour and the sort of movie stars that used to stay in the Eden Roc - stars like Rita Hayworth. The largely ecru, white and black collection had a wonderful poise from pleated dresses with embroideries, and crystals tinged cocktail dresses. The designer boldly opened with sleek suits in canary yellow or lavender, paired with some dashing new linen boots with open toes.
A slick middle section of graphic black and white swimsuits, worn with jaunty boater hats with tweed trim, segued into a marvelous finale of cocktail dress sewn with pearls and tulle dresses trim with more sparklers.
The exotic evening's most evocative moment was quite possibly the screening of the latest Lagerfeld for Chanel movie, a 30-minute opus titled "The Tale of a Fairy."
A tale of model Kristen McMenamy and muse Lady Amanda Harlech playing sisters fighting over their inheritance - a beautiful villa nearby - in a setting of gilded playboys and beautiful women indulging themselves, the finely acidic script film did seem very apt for the event.
"I expect a few people will be shocked," chortled Lagerfeld, referring to the film's most memorable moment, when Chanel model Freja Beha Erichsen appears topless and seduces Mouglalis into a memorably evocative kiss.

Cardin, in search of buyer, makes splash in China

The deck of a decommissioned Soviet aircraft carrier docked on China's coast seems an unlikely place to make a fashion statement, but to Pierre Cardin, the backdrop made perfect sense.
The feisty 88-year-old French designer, who has said he wants to sell his massive style empire, unveiled a romantic 2011 collection on the ex-battleship in an ode to peace -- and perhaps to attract deep-pocketed Chinese investors.
Dozens of male and female models strutted down a catwalk lined with fighter jets in everything from shimmery silver flight suits to sassy mini-dresses in bold colours with keyhole cut-outs that recalled the couturier's 1960s heyday.
In a bit of theatre to end Friday night's 30-minute style parade, a model in a red sequined jumpsuit emerged from a helicopter that landed on the deck and took Cardin's hand for a curtain call, to the applause of hundreds of guests.
"If you want to be a great designer, pretty dresses are not enough," Cardin told reporters before the event in the port city of Tianjin.
"You must provoke your audience -- amaze and even surprise them."
During a career that has spanned more than six decades, Cardin has certainly been a trailblazer -- he was one of the first designers to bring Western style to Asia and one of the first to develop brand licensing.
Earlier this month, he told the Wall Street Journal he was ready to sell his label, as long as he retains artistic control -- and gets the one billion euros ($1.4 billion) he insists the company is worth.
"If they don't have the means, they don't have the right to buy it. Simple as that," an unapologetic Cardin told the press conference.
The designer said he had so far received several offers for his label, including from Chinese buyers, but declined to offer any specifics on who may be in the running.
When asked if he would be keen to see his company fall into the hands of a Chinese firm, he replied: "China -- why not?"
Analysts say it could be a perfect fit.
"Right now, Chinese investors are deep-pocketed and they're looking to acquire Western brands that they can bring back to China," Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai, told AFP.
"It's too difficult to build a brand from scratch."
Sam Mulligan, director of the Shanghai-based market research firm Data Driven Marketing Asia, agreed.
"The big market for this brand in the future is going to be this market. If there is a company that would understand this market better than an European company, it would be a Chinese company," Mulligan told AFP.

In 2009, Cardin sold 32 textile and accessory licenses in China to Jiangsheng Trading Company and Cardanro for 200 million euros -- evidence, perhaps, of the brand's enduring cachet in the country of 1.3 billion people.
Rein explained that as the French designer, who first came to China more than 30 years ago, had "defined the initial taste of luxury for many consumers" in the country, the brand still has "fairly good resonance".
Officials at Pierre Cardin would not give the company's total revenue figures for China, but say they see about 20 percent annual revenue growth in the world's second-largest economy -- the fastest-growing market for luxury goods.
Cardin, whose name now adorns hundreds of products worldwide from shirts to bottled water to furniture, says he has no regrets about how he has run his business and will continue to bring his singular style to the fashion world.
"There are very few people who have the freedom I have -- to own 100 percent of my company. I have a lot of freedom," he said.

Film stars, models share Cannes charity catwalk

Fashion rolled out the red carpet for charity in Cannes on Monday, with a star-benefit a benefit runway show that saw A-listers including Naomi Campbell, Jane Fonda, Rosario Dawson and tennis man Novak Djokovic strut their stuff for a good cause.
Campbell's Fashion for Relief charity organized the show and an auction that followed to raise money for the Japanese Red Cross to aid victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami there.
Scores of celebrities, in town for the Cannes Film Festival, turned out to support Monday's event, while a small army of models donated their time, walking in red carpet-ready looks from Lanvin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel, Valentino and a host of other top labels.
From her front-row perch, Ivana Trump hailed the decision to hold the show in Cannes during the 12-day-long film festival here as "a brilliant choice.
"All the rich people are in town for the festival, people in movies and in fashion, so they can reach into their pockets and give money to help," said Trump, looking elegant in a black minidress with a bedazzled dipping neckline. She said she hadn't yet seen any movies but planned to spend the final six days of the prestigious cinema showcase shuttling between her homes in Cannes, Monaco and Saint Tropez while attending some select films.
Another audience member, designer Peter Dundas — whose label Pucci has long been considered an iconic brand in Japan — said he'd turned out for Monday's event because "Japan's disaster is our disaster.
"More than ever, we can't think that just because something happens on the other side of the world it doesn't concern us. Of course it does," he said.
Editor-in-cheif of Japanese Vogue Anna Della Russo said the "it's in the Japanese character to be really strong and optimistic" but "they really do need help."
Asked whether she thought the disaster would affect the Japanese's notoriously extravagant sense of style, the envelope-pushing style maven exclaimed, "I hope not because they're so crazy about fashion like me and I don't want that to change."
In addition to the flock of professionals — both from the current herd of young girls that rule today's catwalks to industry veterans, led by Campbell herself, in a long lean black number — models also included tennis champ Djokovic and Grace Hightower, who's married to the president of this year's Cannes jury, Robert De Niro.
At age 73, Fonda looked divine in a shimmering second-skin gown, while Dawson rocked a floor-length burnt orange number. The crowd devoured both, showering them in applause.
None of the nonprofessional models had any problems, but one of the hottest models of the moment was undone by her oversized meringue gown. She fell once and then again and again and again — four times in a single passage — before falling again her next time out, in a sundress and towering platforms.

Naomi shared in common Campbell and Adriana Karembeu, models

Today, like every year from 2005, the model Naomi Campbell supports a beneficial fashionable parade under the name of " for Fashion Relief " ("Fashion for the aid ", in a free translation). This appointment, that knows to combine glamour of the rutilantes stars of the cinematographic panorama, the matchless frame of the French Blue Coast and the pure beauty and lasts, looks for to collect bottoms that, in this occasion, will destine the victims of the devastating earthquake of Japan of the past 11 of March, and which they will arrive through the Red Cross. Campbell is counted AP, proud, that from his first edition the parade has managed to reunite a total of 4.5 million pounds, that is to say, the nothing despicable number of more than 5 million euros.
Adriana Karembeu, the stunning Slovakian model and ex- woman of the French soccer player Christian Karembeu, on the other hand, the past sent Saturday, moneybox in hand, to collect bottoms in the first day of the 77 collects of the French Red Cross in Nize, not very far from Cannes. This collects annual, that began Saturday, will last until the next one. The blond model, considered the most attractive woman of the world in 2006 by a well-known masculine magazine, tries of this form to concienciar and to make see the work of the Red Cross in the fight against the poverty.

New Creative Director at Chloé

After months of half-hearted denials, Chloé announced Monday morning — on Twitter — that Hannah MacGibbon, its creative director, is leaving the company. Ms. MacGibbon, you may recall, was rumored to be on her last legs at Chloé even before her last runway show in March. She has worked with the company for 10 years, and was named its creative director in 2008.
In a statement released Monday, Ms. MacGibbon said, “I will always have a deep affection for Chloé and am very grateful to the company for having given me this opportunity.”
Apparently, the company was just waiting to have its replacement lined up to make an announcement. Clare Waight Keller, who left Pringle of Scotland this year, will become creative director of Chloé on June 1.

More information: http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/

Prince William and kate fashion! - A Star Turn for a Lady-in-Waiting

SHE has uttered barely a word in public and given precisely one interview, in which she divulged that a party she had organized had an Ibiza theme and “really good music.” Yet the moment she appeared in her slinky Alexander McQueen bridesmaid’s sheath at the royal wedding last month, Pippa Middleton, the bride’s little sister, became a global phenomenon.

Hers was the rear that launched a thousand blogs. “Pip Pippa Hooray!” wrote the Daily Star. “Her Royal Hotness,” the Daily Mail christened her. Swooning Twitter users from both sides of the Atlantic made her a trending topic. Someone started a Facebook group devoted to appreciating the Pippa posterior (it now has more than 160,000 members).

Not since Elizabeth Hurley stepped out with Hugh Grant at the premiere of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” in 1994, wearing a dress held together by a prayer and some safety pins, has a single garment achieved so much for someone supposedly playing a supporting role in someone else’s big moment.

And now the world wants to hear about Pippa. How old is she? (27). Is she unattached? (No, she has a boyfriend, Alex Loudon, a hunky Old Etonian businessman.) So she’s totally unavailable? (Unclear; she is not engaged, as far as anyone knows.) Does that mean that she got together with Prince Harry during the reception? (No.)

The attention of the restless, hungry British news media has already shifted. Kate Middleton, now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is being demoted by the tabloids from Hot Engaged Babe to Married Woman Who We Wonder if She Is Pregnant. Meanwhile, Pippa gets the saucier role: Foxy Unmarried Woman Who We Wonder Who She Is Sleeping With.

For now at least, everything she wears, every place she goes, every man she dates will be scrutinized every which way by hordes of eager celebrity watchers.

“Every magazine in the Western world now wants her on the cover,” said Kate Reardon, editor of the society magazine Tatler. “She will be having job offers hurled at her. How she exploits these opportunities is going to be very much up to her. There are many people in her situation who, within weeks, would be falling out of nightclubs and hanging out with celebrities, and getting a huge head about all this.”

Judging from past behavior, it seems unlikely that Pippa will become overly celebritized. She has been in the public eye ever since her sister began dating Prince William, but has maintained a silence that would impress the Sphinx.

Extremely slender, smiley and perma-tanned, Pippa has often been spotted out and about wearing form-fitting jersey dresses, her hair glossy. She likes a good party and a hot new nightclub and has been a persistent paparazzi favorite.

But like her sister, she has somehow always managed in photographs to exude a kind of serene delight, creating the impression that whatever she is doing, it is harmless, expensive, exclusive fun. Even a photo that leaked this week, showing her dancing in a bra and skirt with a man wearing only his boxer shorts, seems tame in comparison to past royal-family indiscretions. (Remember Harry in that swastika armband?)

Pippa, real name Philippa, is the second of the three Middleton children (the youngest, James, was the one who read from the Bible in such ponderous Pinterian tones during the wedding service). She grew up in Berkshire and, like her sister, went to Marlborough College, a boarding school in Wiltshire.

She attended the University of Edinburgh (her sister went to the University of St. Andrews), where she studied English literature and, according to the British newspapers, found boyfriends from among a large pool of well-heeled schoolmates.

When she graduated, she moved in with her sister in a house in Chelsea their parents bought for them; the two were often photographed at the same parties with the same crowd of royal-approved friends. The tabloids called Pippa the foxier, livelier of the pair. In 2008, Tatler magazine praised her looks, her vivacity and her good connections to declare her its No. 1 Society Singleton for the year.

Her jobs have included starting Party Times — a Web site devoted to children’s parties — for her parents’ party business, and working for a London events planner. She is said to be hyper-organized, to have taken charge of many details of the royal wedding and late-night reception, and to be a close and supportive sister, despite the tabloid convention that in any pairing of similarly aged women, one is invariably trying to outshine, upstage or outmaneuver the other.

Over the years, there have been catty murmurings. Someone once apparently dubbed the Middletons the Wisteria Sisters, meaning that they were “highly decorative, terribly fragrant and terrific (social) climbers,” explained the Daily Express. Others, citing her supposed affinity for friends with money and titles, spoke snobbishly of Pippa’s social “ambition,” British code for the verboten practice of trying to rise above oneself.

Last week, several old photographs of Pippa wearing various humorous outfits, including a dress made of toilet paper, surfaced in the newspapers. But as has happened with the whole family, Pippa’s friends have generally closed ranks around her, freezing out the news media even as she and her parents have avoided publicly trading on their royal connections.