TREND FASHION: November 2010

2022 bid

www.qatar2022bid.com

While UAE gets ready to celebrate its National day on the 2nd of December, Qatar is also preparing for its own National day on 18th December - all over the corniche, lights and decorations are going up ahead of the big day but perhaps an even more exciting thrill is the decision day for the Qatar 2022 bid, which also happens to be tomorrow, 2nd December. So while UAE celebrates National day , Qatar will be eagerly waiting to hear who will be the host city for 2022. Good luck Qatar and Congratulations UAE on your 39th Birthday!

Play dough time: Fujitsu Project Task

Look what I made for my first project task -

Make something typical of the country you live in.

Like it?

Bluepearl (c) - play dough time

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography developed along with the new picture magazines. Confined at first to studio portraits of society women in their finery, it turned to professional models and professional photographers to enliven images and entice the reader. Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines hired full-time staff photographers—most notably, American Edward Steichen and Englishman Cecil Beaton, both one-time pictorialists. These photographers began to use elaborate lighting schemes to achieve the same sort of glamorizing effects being perfected by Clarence Bull as he photographed new starlets in Hollywood, California. Martin Munkacsi initiated a fresh look in fashion photography after Harper’s Bazaar hired him in 1934. He moved the models outdoors, where he photographed them as active, energetic modern women.

The Fashion Business

The fashion business comprises many different industries, from textiles and chemicals to apparel manufacturing and retail merchandising. The branches of the industry were once known as needle trades, but despite the name, sewing clothes with a needle and thread never formed more than a small part of the industry. Today’s fashion designers may use computers to create clothing patterns and envision a new collection.

Women’s apparel is the most conspicuous sector in the fashion business. Fashion designers working in this field may become famous, whether they are working in couture or ready-to-wear. Designers in the menswear or children's wear industries are generally less known. The apparel industries produce dresses, suits, coats, sportswear, and underwear as well as accessories such as shoes, jewelry, handbags, hosiery, gloves, and hats.

The great expansion of department, chain, and mail-order stores in the 20th century paralleled the development of the apparel industry. The retail business itself embraces the fields of marketing and merchandising. Fashion media, including magazines and broadcasting, require fashion editors, photographers, stylists, and many other professionals.

New York City has been the fashion capital of the United States throughout the nation's history, and Toronto and Montréal have vied for dominance in Canada’s fashion industry. For many years North American fashion was dependent on the creative leadership of Europe, especially Paris. Paris remained the international capital of women’s fashion from the 17th century until well into the 20th century. London was the capital of fine menswear from the 18th century until the 1950s. New York meanwhile became the capital of ready-to-wear men's clothing. Over the course of the 20th century, however, the fashion industries in the United States and Canada have moved beyond their dependence on Paris and London.

Today the fashion industries in North America are interconnected with the international fashion system. Textiles and apparel for the U.S. fashion industry are increasingly produced overseas where wages are lower than they are in the United States. The government has supported Canada’s fashion industry and apparel has become one of Canada’s most important industries and a major export. Alfred Sung is one of the Canadian designers who has gained an international reputation.

Most apparel manufacturers in the United States and Canada prepare for four selling seasons within the calendar year: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Efforts are usually concentrated on the spring and fall collections. Manufacturers show their new line to retailers six months before the garments appear in stores. For example, they generally introduce spring styles during September.

Claudia Schiffer

Dressed in the latest designer fashions, German-born supermodel Claudia Schiffer poses on a runway. Runway shows have become high-profile media events where renowned fashion designers such as Liz Claiborne, Calvin Klein, and Giorgio Armani introduce their collections.

Encarta Encyclopedia

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Many North American fashion professionals also visit foreign fashion markets. The most important European market is Paris. Fashion in Paris is designed and presented on two levels: the haute couture (literally “fine dressmaking”), the custom dressmaking established in mid-19th-century Paris by designers such as Charles Worth, and the prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear). The couture houses show their collections twice yearly: the spring/summer shows in January and the fall/winter shows in July.

Because relatively few people can afford couture clothes, the couture houses make most of their profits by licensing their names. Many more people can buy a bottle of Chanel #5 perfume, for example, than can afford a custom-fitted Chanel suit. Many couturiers also produce ready-to-wear collections that are sold at fine department stores or at couture boutiques around the world.

The French ready-to-wear industry has thrived since the 1960s. Fashion designers of ready-to-wear, such as Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler, are known as créateurs (creators), as opposed to couturiers. They show their collections in March and October.

Italy is France's most serious rival in the field of high fashion. Italy has long had couture houses, mostly in Rome; these houses show their collections one week before the French shows. More important, however, is the trendsetting Italian ready-to-wear industry, which is based primarily in Milan. Top fashion designers who head their own firms include Armani and the Missoni family. They coordinate their ready-to-wear collections with the French shows.

London was for many years the world's center of high-quality menswear, although Italy has overshadowed it in recent years by producing more innovative menswear. London also has a small couture industry and a lively ready-to-wear industry. Vivienne Westwood is probably Britain's most important designer today, although she has often chosen to show her collections in Paris rather than in London.

Germany, Spain, and a few other European countries have small fashion industries. The German designer best known in North America is Margaretha Ley of the fashion house Escada. In South America, Brazil is a major producer of shoes. Asia also has a substantial fashion presence, and the United States imports more apparel from East Asia than from any other area in the world. Designers from around the world, including Pierre Cardin of France and Calvin Klein of the United States, have used Hong Kong’s manufacturing facilities. So far, however, only Japan has produced fashion designers with an international influence. They include Hanae Mori, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo. Although fashion trade shows are held in Tokyo, Japan, in January and July, some Japanese designers prefer to present their collections in Paris.

People all around the world like to follow fashion, although their styles are not always Western. They may combine elements of international fashion with elements of their own culture's traditional dress, or they may choose to wear primarily traditional dress. In India, for example, where many women wear the sari, fashion magazines carry pictures of international fashion and also interpret the sari in terms of fashion. In this system, the colors and patterns of the sari change according to the latest fashion, and fashion designers, photographers, editors, and models promote the season's fashionable saris.

Intellectual property

Within the fashion industry, intellectual property is not enforced as it is within the film industry and music industry. To "take inspiration" from others' designs contributes to the fashion industry's ability to establish clothing trends. For the past few years, WGSN has been a dominant source of fashion news and forecasts in steering fashion brands worldwide to be "inspired" by one another. Enticing consumers to buy clothing by establishing new trends is, some have argued, a key component of the industry's success. Intellectual property rules that interfere with the process of trend-making would, on this view, be counter-productive. In contrast, it is often argued that the blatant theft of new ideas, unique designs, and design details by larger companies is what often contributes to the failure of many smaller or independent design companies.
In 2005, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a conference calling for stricter intellectual property enforcement within the fashion industry to better protect small and medium businesses and promote competitiveness within the textile and clothing industries

Media In Fashion

An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique, guidelines 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 of various fashion designs and became even more influential on people than in the past. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public clothing 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 1892, 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 Fashion-television 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 fashion industry.
However, over the past several years, fashion websites have developed that merge traditional editorial writing with user-generated content. New magazines like iFashion Network, and Runway Magazine, led by Nole Marin from America's Next Top Model, have begun to dominate the digital market with digital copies for computers, iPhones and iPads.
A few days after the 2010 Fall Fashion Week in New York City came to a close, The New Islander's Fashion Editor, Genevieve Tax, criticized the fashion industry for running on a seasonal schedule of its own, largely at the expense of real-world consumers. "Because designers release their fall collections in the spring and their spring collections in the fall, fashion magazines such as Vogue always and only look forward to the upcoming season, promoting parkas come September while issuing reviews on shorts in January," she writes. "Savvy shoppers, consequently, have been conditioned to be extremely, perhaps impractically, farsighted with their buying.

Fashion industry

The fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid-19th century, most clothing was custom made. It was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century—with the rise of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the rise of global capitalism and the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores—clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and America, today it is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold world-wide. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally. The fashion industry has long been one of the largest employers in the United States, and it remains so in the 21st century. However, employment declined considerably as production increasingly moved overseas, especially to China. Because data on the fashion industry typically are reported for national economies and expressed in terms of the industry’s many separate sectors, aggregate figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
The fashion industry consists of four levels: the production of raw materials, principally fibres and textiles but also leather and fur; the production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others; retail sales; and various forms of advertising and promotion. These levels consist of many separate but interdependent sectors, all of which are devoted to the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.

Clothing fashions

Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey or China frequently remark on the absence of changes in fashion there, and observers from these other cultures comment on the unseemly pace of Western fashion, which many felt suggested an instability and lack of order in Western culture. The Japanese Shogun's secretary boasted (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in 1609 that Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years. However in Ming China, for example, there is considerable evidence for rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing.
Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change (such as in ancient Rome and the medieval Caliphate), but then a long period without major changes followed. This occurred in Moorish Spain from the 8th century, when the famous musician Ziryab introduced sophisticated clothing styles based on seasonal and daily timings from his native Baghdad and his own inspiration to Córdoba, Spain. Similar changes in fashion occurred in the Middle East from the 11th century, following the arrival of the Turks who introduced clothing styles from Central Asia and the Far East.

The beginnings of the habit in Europe of continual and increasingly rapid change in clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated to the middle of the 14th century, to which historians including James Laver and Fernand Braudel date the start of Western fashion in clothing. The most dramatic manifestation was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment, from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing on the chest to look bigger. This created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers.

The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century, and women and men's fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally complex and changing. Art historians are therefore able to use fashion in dating images with increasing confidence and precision, often within five years in the case of 15th century images. Initially changes in fashion led to a fragmentation of what had previously been very similar styles of dressing across the upper classes of Europe, and the development of distinctive national styles. These remained very different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from Ancien Régime France. Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of early modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie and even peasants following trends at a distance sometimes uncomfortably close for the elites - a factor Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing fashion.

Ten 16th century portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats, and at this period national differences were at their most pronounced, as Albrecht Dürer recorded in his actual or composite contrast of Nuremberg and Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century (illustration, right). The "Spanish style" of the end of the century began the move back to synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the mid 17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a process completed in the 18th century.
Though colors and patterns of textiles changed from year to year, the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady's dress was cut changed more slowly. Men's fashions largely derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat or necktie.
The pace of change picked up in the 1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France as patterns since the 16th century, and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s. By 1800, all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they were): local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and then a badge of the conservative peasant.
Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations before, and the textile industry certainly led many trends, the history of fashion design is normally taken to date from 1858, when the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true haute couture house in Paris. Since then the professional designer has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of many fashions in street fashion. For women the flapper styles of the 1920s marked the most major alteration in styles for several centuries, with a drastic shortening of skirt lengths, and much looser-fitting clothes; with occasional revivals of long skirts forms of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since. The four major current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be Milan, New York City, Paris, and London. Fashion weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing collections to audiences, and which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion.
Modern Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's personality or likes. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start. People who like or respect them may start to wear clothes of a similar style.
Fashions may vary considerably within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation, and geography as well as over time. If, for example, an older person dresses according to the fashion of young people, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes of both young and older people. The terms 'fashionista' or fashion victim refer to someone who slavishly follows the current fashions.
One can regard the system of sporting various fashions as a fashion language incorporating various fashion statements using a grammar of fashion. (Compare some of the work of Roland Barthes.)

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked in the public eye with the term "fashion" that the more general term "costume" has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while the term "fashion" means clothing generally, and the study of it. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and its place in society, refer to the entries for clothing, costume and fabrics. The remainder of this article deals with clothing fashions in the Western world

"Following the Fashion" a December 1794 caricature by James Gillray, which satirizes incipient neo-Classical trends in women's clothing styles, particularly the trend towards what were known at the time as "short-bodied gowns" (i.e. short-bodiced or high-waisted dresses). This caricature satirizes the figure-type which is most flattered by high-waisted dresses, contrasting it with a body-type which was not flattered by the style -- as well as playing on the perennial struggle between attempts of the "Cits" (families of rich merchants in the City of London area) to imitate the stylish aristocrats of west London, versus the determination of the aristocrats to socially repulse the Cits, and consider them to be still unstylish.
Text in image:

"St. James's giving the Ton: a soul without a body" [i.e. bodice]
"Cheapside aping the mode: a body without a soul."

St. James refers to the palace of that name, and "giving the Ton" means setting the aristocratic style.
Cheapside was an area of the merchant district with a particularly lowly reputation.

My dazzling AH530

My LIFEBOOK AH530 arrived at work today leaving me smiling completely. I could not resist waiting until I get home, so i opened up right away at the office and most of my colleagues came over to see my new toy. There were "oohs" and "aahs" along with wonderful compliments.

The size took me by surprise cause it is much much bigger than my current 13.3 inch and while travelling with this big guy will become a bit of a problem, I do however believe it is a small price to pay for this really great piece of machinery. I love the dazzling jet black smooth operator look which does however make for messy finger prints. This made in germany laptop surprised me when I opened it up to see that it had an arabic spec keyboard. I love it even more now!!!! The additional number pad makes for good use when I have to complete reports so that was a great value add.

BluePearl (c) - my dazzling jet black LIFEBOOK

BluePearl (c) - my lifebook in it's box

BluePearl (c) - Letter from the LIFEBOOKTeam

BluePearl (c) - 2 star Green IT label And Intel I7 core processor

BluePearl (c) - My arabic spec keyboard with seperate numeric keypad

The spill protection is great for the clumsy like me as I often tend to love having my cup of tea close by, when I blog. I love the feel of the keys - smooth and yet easy to follow on. It's 39.6 cm featuring a 1.3 Mpx Webcam with digital microphone, Bluetooth and 11n WLAN.

Fujitsu's Green IT label to the right of the laptop is eye catching and re-assuring of Fujitsu's commitment to the environment. I love that my laptop is lighter on earth's health.

To see the more on this laptops spec, click here

A sad day

BluePearl's granny (mom's mom) passed away this morning.

انّا للہ و انّا الیه راجعون والله عالم

May Allah make it easy for her and grant her a place in Jannah, Inshallah

I am so glad I called her yesterday and told her just how much I love her.

وَهُوَ الَّذِي يَتَوَفَّاكُم بِاللَّيْلِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا جَرَحْتُم بِالنَّهَارِ ثُمَّ يَبْعَثُكُمْ فِيهِ لِيُقْضَىٰ أَجَلٌ مُّسَمًّى ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيْهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ ﴿٦٠

(60) It is He Who takes your souls by night (when you are asleep), and has knowledge of all that you have done by day, then He raises (wakes) you up again that a term appointed (your life period) be fulfilled, then (in the end) unto Him will be your return. Then He will inform you of that which you used to do.

A story about a LIFEBOOK and me

"We have chosen you to become one of 53 LIFEBOOK4Life Insiders! If you are still interested, please confirm your participation under the following link..." is what the e-mail dated 3rd November 2010 read. Did I just get accepted to test the new range of Fujitsu's LIFEBOOK's? Oh yes I did!

It was only a week ago, that I saw this advertisement pop up while I played my daily game of Monopoly online at Pogo and at which stage you had to select your needs for the laptop...and now wow! I got accepted...still breathing and re-collecting, awing myself with surprise, I clicked through and entered the LIFEBOOK blog where indeed all was very much a reality. As I wait for my laptop, the fun and challenge of testing these LIFEBOOK's will run over a 3 week period with everything being documented on the blog itself. So follow me and the other Insiders who will be sharing their impressions of a designated LIFEBOOK.

Thank you to Fujitsu and the Project Team!

Stay tuned as I uncover my new LIFEBOOK in the next few hours...

Fajr and still wide awake

I'm sleepless as they come, so let me just share my favorite verse from this mornings read

وإن يمسسك الله بضرّ فلا كاشف له إلا هو وإن يمسسك بخير فهو على كل شيء قدير

And if Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it but He, and if He touches you with good, then He is Able to do all things.

Have a fabulous Sunday...Eid Holidays are over. Its back to work for me!

Eid holiday moments

Previously I wrote a post about desert fun, so during this Eid holidays we were invited to one of the desert camps at Um Messaied. It was a well spent time there - the pictures speak for themselve!