“Project Accessory” seeks fashion’s next big name
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lights, camera, accessorize!
“Project Accessory,” the latest spinoff of the long-running hit reality show “Project Runway,” pits 12 unknown designers against each other for a shot at becoming the next big name in fashion.
It debuts on Thursday on the Lifetime television network.
“This is the biggest money maker in fashion,” executive producer Rich Bye told Reuters of the accessories business.
“When they came to me with this idea,” he added, “my first thought was: ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this before?’ It seemed like a ‘no brainer.’”
Bags, belts, jewelry and shoes are among the mainstays of the accessories business, which rakes in an estimated $30 billion a year in the United States alone, according to the Accessories Council. The New York-based nonprofit group represents designers, retailers, publications and suppliers in the accessories, eyewear and footwear industries.
“Project Accessory” gives TV audiences a close-up glimpse of what goes into making those items that “can make or break a look,” said Ariel Foxman, editor-in-chief of InStyle magazine and a judge on the show.
“Fairy Jobmother” brings tough love to U.S. TV
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Call it post-recession reality TV. What the world needs now, it seems, is love, tough love from “The Fairy Jobmother,” a new television show that is the latest British import for U.S. audiences.
Hayley Taylor, 43, a former hairdresser turned career coach, stars as a tart-tongued Mary Poppins with a clipboard who visits the home of one unemployed family per episode to help them get control of their personal lives and find jobs.
“Nobody likes to be told the truth,” Taylor said in an interview with Reuters. “But it’s tempered with compassion … if a house is totally out of control, then it follows that the person feels out of control.”
In her role as “Fairy Jobmother,” which debuts Thursday on Lifetime Television, Taylor tells one young, unemployed couple with two kids that they must clean up their home, which means getting rid of dog feces on a carpet pad in the bedroom.
Executive producer Stephen Lambert calls Taylor’s advice “classic tough love” but adds that “she cares about them a great deal.”
“It’s that combination of push and warmth,” Lambert said, that endeared Taylor to British TV audiences and, in his opinion, will strike a chord with American viewers as well.
The hit British import makes its U.S. debut at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.6 percent and the economy is struggling to emerge from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In the UK, the jobless rate is 7.8 percent.
Broadway actor Rob Riley talks football and fitness
What do football and fitness have to do with a life in the theater? For Broadway actor Rob Riley, the answer is simple: “Passion.”
Riley is appearing on Broadway in “Lombardi,” a new play about Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach. The actor talked about football and fitness while he waited on line in New York City on Saturday morning to enter the Hot Body Model Search contest sponsored by the Wilhelmina modeling agency. (One man and one woman will be chosen winners of prizes that include a five-year Wilhelmina fitness modeling contract and a magazine spread in either “Shape” or “Men’s Fitness” magazine.)
“I play Dave Robinson, an outside linebacker,” Riley told Reuters, talking about his new Broadway gig. “He’s a Lombardi guy — he’s smart, he’s really articulate and he understands what it takes to win.”
The role is a natural for Riley, who played football in high school and for Lehigh University. “My high school coach was a lot like Lombardi. He had that fire and passion to get you to give the best of yourself.” Riley, who said he has “just turned 30,” stands 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 190 pounds. He gave the women contestants a little eye candy when he pulled off his shirt — all the better to show off his chiseled abs and his 31-inch waist. His career so far has included some TV work and “a little bit of modeling.”
To stay in shape, “I work out four times a week. I do a lot of weights, a little cardio, some muscle definition. I watch what I eat.”
After a few more poses for the photographers, Riley had to wrap up the interview and head for midtown Manhattan. “I’ve got two shows to do,” he added, referring to the Saturday matinee and 8 p.m. performances.
Reem Acra: Brides just want to have fun
Not everyone would be able to pull it off – pairing bunny ears with bridal gowns that evoked the Hollywood glamour of iconic movie stars. But Lebanese fashion designer Reem Acra did just that at her Fall 2011 bridal show on Sunday.
“I loved the ears,” said buyer Dorothy Kelly, who together with her daughter owns J.J. Kelly Bridal & Formal Wear in Oklahoma City.
After the show, the designer said her chosen headpieces were meant to add some levity to an often-stressful day.
“It sends a message that we need to have fun,” Acra told Reuters. “You can be beautiful on your wedding day and still have your personality show — and have fun!”
Footnote: Hugh Hefner was nowhere in sight. But Reem Acra’s Fifth Avenue showroom in New York City is in the same building as Playboy Enterprises.
Next Stop: Beirut
Acra will return to her roots in Lebanon in early November with the opening of her first Reem Acra franchise boutique in downtown Beirut, where she was born.
Nikki Blonsky rocks at plus-size NY fashion show
NEW YORK (Reuters) – She barely stands 5 feet tall even with her black stilettos.
But actress Nikki Blonsky — famous for her 2007 star turn in “Hairspray” and more recently as a rebel teen at fat camp in the TV drama “Huge” — made a big splash on the red carpet at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday.
The occasion was a plus-size fashion show featuring styles sold online by OneStopPlus.com, which caters to women who wear size 12 and up. A capacity crowd watched styles in colors like mauve, aqua, cream, citrus green, blue, peach and coral.
About 62 percent of American women are in the plus-size camp, experts say.
As a blitz of cameras flashed, special guest Blonsky posed on the pre-show red carpet in a black jacket with sequined tank top and tight jeans.
She was joined later by leading plus-size model Emme and actress Gabourey Sidibe, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role as an obese teenager with an abusive mother in the 2009 movie “Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”.
Blonsky, 21, looked as comfortable as if she were still a teenager back in her own bedroom at home on Long Island, where she grew up belting out show tunes and dreaming of an acting career.
Fashion exhibit pays homage to NY style icons
By Jan Paschal
NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters Life!) – Fashion may be for followers but style is original is the message of a new exhibit which gives a glimpse into the closets of 81 women who made their mark on Manhattan.
“Notorious & Notable: 20th Century Women of Style,” which opens on Tuesday during New York Fashion Week, includes fashions and jewels worn by glamorous newsmakers such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
“We’re not saying who is notorious and who is notable,” said Judith Price, president of the National Jewelry Institute, which collaborated on the exhibit. “We’re leaving that up to the beholder.”
But she added that the exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York honors “women who put their thumbprint on New York fashion.”
In addition to fashion icons, the exhibit also pays homage to women who were prominent in society, politics, business and the arts and who represent New York’s history and cultural diversity.
A turn-of-the-century black silk gown worn by the wife of J.P. Morgan Jr. is shown across the runway from Congresswoman Bella Abzug’s floppy hat and early 1970s maxi coat.
Coming Attraction: Sex and the Silicon Valley
Samantha gives a whole new meaning to the personal computer in one outrageous scene in the movie that opens on Thursday.
The bold PR exec Samantha, portrayed by actress Kim Cattrall, is shown multitasking in ther Times Square office — on the phone with a client and working on her Hewlett-Packard computer with one hand, and applying a hormonal cream to her menopausal self with the other.
Judging from the audience’s laughter at the world premiere in Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall, this will be one of the sequel’s most memorable scenes, especially for “Sex and the City” fans of a certain demographic.
Another HP product, designer Vivienne Tam’s “Butterfly Lovers” laptop, gets a nanosecond of screen time with Samantha in another scene. Blink — and you might miss it. Cast members in the Radio City audience on premiere night included Chris Noth (Mr. Big), John Corbett (Aidan) and Liza Minnelli (herself).
Director Michael Patrick King told the audience that the movie had made one of his dreams come true: “To write the words, ‘enter Liza Minnelli,’ and she does!”
After asking Minnelli to stand so the audience could spot her, he added: “And I have to say that Liza Minnelli is a very good ‘Sex’ partner.” He went on to thank a long list of VIPs, including the writer Candace Bushnell, whose column about the lives of single New York women became the basis for the hit HBO TV series and the first movie that came out in 2008.
At a party in Lincoln Center, the new home of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, an HP exec was asked how the Silicon Valley company, known for its PCs and printers, happened to get involved with “Sex and the City.” Satjiv Chahil, who was HP’s senior vice president of strategy and marketing for the personal systems group until his retirement this month, says the movie partnership and product placement evolved through its collaboration with Tam.
Forget lights. See your name in jackets, bags, dresses…
For the self-promoting designers out there who have always dreamed of having their own initials printed on fabric, a la Louis Vuitton, Fendi or Coach, Hewlett-Packard has brought you a step closer.
“Anyone could design their own fabric” with HP’s new TouchSmart notebooks and PCs, said Emilio Sosa, an independent designer and contestant on Lifetime television’s reality show ”Project Runway”. Sosa won Thursday night’s episode, in which the designers were challenged to design their own textiles using the computers, and then use it to design an outfit.
“To me, branding is so important,” Sosa said at a champagne brunch on Friday morning. ”That’s why I went with my initials and a heart on a bright blue background.” He used a cotton sateen to make his printed fabric, which he used for a slim halter dress, paired with a black jacket.
“In just 24 hours, I went from concept to printed fabric,” added Sosa, who plans to make his debut with a collection at New York Fashion Week in September. “With sketches, you have to FedEx them to a factory in the Orient.”
The HP TouchSmart tm2 notebook ranges in price from $699 to $899, while the desktop version — which can also be used as a television — goes for $1,599 and up.
At NY Fashion Week: LVMH invests in next-gen artisans
Inside a loft at Milk Studios , the DJs pumped up the beat and Champagne flowed as Renaud Dutreil talked about the future of fashion. As the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc, the North American arm of the world’s largest luxury goods company, Dutreil has a lot invested in the subject.
The scene: A preview show mobbed by photographers and beautiful people.
“Louis Vuitton was an artisan,” Dutreil told Reuters, referring to the French company’s founder. “He worked with his hands. It’s important to transmit this value proposition to the next generation. They are the Web generation.”
On the runway: Some of the most whimsical styles shown during the Fall 2010 season of M.A.C. & Milk Fashion Week, the downtown cousin of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. Both wrapped up late Thursday night.
Paper dress anyone? (That “cone bra” bodice reminiscent of Jean-Paul Gaultier is you.) These clothes won’t be sold at the mall. They’re the work of local master artisans, who were matched with 23 teams of students at Parsons The New School For Design in a student competition. LVMH and Parsons sponsored the contest.
Check out this video of Mr. Dutreil keeping an eye on the runway and some of the most inventive styles:
The idea? The master artisans worked with the design students to show them the intricacies of their crafts. A leather worker, a bespoke suitmaker and a custom metalworker were among those who gave their time and talent to this project. The students created clothes and documentary films inspired by the artisans’ craft and “the world of LVMH,” which includes luxury handbags and luggage sold in Louis Vuitton stores and the company’s boutiques inside such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue .
Bold NY Fashion Week accessories for urban warriors
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Women’s accessories will be big and bold for fall 2010 with designers at New York Fashion Week showing body armor-like jewelry, gauntlet gloves, militia boots and bags big enough to tote the day’s survival gear.
Designers ranging from emerging talents DANNIJO and Prova to runway veterans Ports 1961 and Custo Barcelona and couture favorites Badgley Mischka showed accessories combining megawatt glamour with practical luxury.
“Each season, accessories seem to become more and more important because it’s less expensive to buy accessories than to buy new clothes,” said Ruth Finley, publisher of The Fashion Calendar since 1941.
While women’s accessory sales fell 11 percent to $37.5 billion in 2009 during the worst U.S. recession in decades, market research firm the NPD Group forecasts growth of 2 to 3 percent this year.
“The key is that accessories have become the new primary outfit and the outfit has become the accessory,” said NPD’s chief retail industry analyst, Marshal Cohen.
“The urban warrior around the world” is the woman DANNIJO had in mind for fall, said Danielle Snyder, who launched the jewelry line with her sister, Jodie Snyder, in March 2008 during the recession. Since then, sales have grown from just one retail account to more than 90 stores worldwide.
DANNIJO’s stacks of bangle bracelets in bright blue and black stingray leather and dark gold and silver metals, plus “messy” chain necklaces, appeared on the Luca Luca runway with designer Raul Melgoza’s lean fall clothes.
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