| |
|
 |
A blog of all sections with no images
|
Chanel across the Channel |
|
|
|
Chanel across the Channel
IT was a rainy night in London and the Christmas lights were shimmering in Sloane Square through the fogged-up windows of my cab before I arrived at a whitewashed warehouse to enter Chanel's parallel universe.
Here, in this pristine world, handsome men greeted me with big, black umbrellas emblazoned with white interlocking CC logos.
A bevy of beautiful black-clad girls handed out handwritten seating tickets to actors Emma Thompson and Rupert Everett, singers Lily Allen and Natalie Imbruglia, models Claudia Schiffer and Yasmin Le Bon, and the beautiful woman favoured by US Vogue, Natalia Vodianova, and her English aristocrat husband, Justin Portman.
The rollcall went on; hand-picked attendees included US Vogue's editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley, society girls Daphne and Jasmine Guinness, Charlotte Casiraghi (Princess Caroline of Monaco's daughter) and milliners Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy.
It was Karl Lagerfeld's Paris-London 2007-08 collection show that lured the world's fashion press to London last week.
The designer's vision was a melange of French chic and le style Anglaise, much loved for its quirkiness and eccentricity by Lagerfeld's predecessor Coco Chanel.
It's a style Coco learned from her English lovers, Boy Capel and the Duke ofWestminster.
So, just as in Coco's days, there we all were, French and English intermingling, heady with cocktails and being ushered into a vast space arranged in table settings like some Cote d'Azur drinks party. Our chairs, rather than elaborate salon numbers, were backed with English gentlemen's jacket hangers topped with gilded CCs.
Expectations were high, for this was the first of Chanel's unique Metiers d'Art collections to be held on English soil.
The series celebrates the breathtaking craftsmanship of Chanel's specialist ateliers, acquired by the house in 2002.
They include Desrues (costume jewellery), Michel (millinery), Lemarie (feather artisans), Massaro (a bootmaker), Lesage (embroidery) Goossens (silversmithery) and Guillet (floral design).
Special shows recognising their skills have taken place in Paris, Tokyo, New York, Monte Carlo and Sydney.
In a world where mass fashion and mass production are the norm - even in the luxury goods business - few houses such as Chanel and Hermes can make claim to continuing their fine craftsmanship heritage.
With his usual inventive and encyclopedic knowledge, for the London show Lagerfeld played with the high and the low, with popular culture and couture, and with grand historical and contemporary street looks. It began with a rock band fronted by Chanel model and muse Irina Lazareanu, who sang accompanied by musicians including Sean Lennon.
The music was rocky and charming by turns, and Lazareanu looked the part in a long black gown. As for her singing, let's just say maybe she shouldn't give up her day job.
Then out came Chanel's gorgeous girls sporting fabulous tousled beehives and black eyeliner a la Amy Winehouse with pale pouty Brigitte Bardot lips.
The references bounced about in a typically eclectic Lagerfeld way: gorgeous black organza dresses that were a touch Edwardian, puffed, ruffled beribboned and pintucked, with flashes of Tudor doublets and shoulder rolls, silvered shearling jerkins, purple and silver satin coats with full sleeves, tartans, chiffons and distressed English tweeds in a floor-length greatcoat.
Boys and girls walked out in a series of embroidered coats and tunics, encrusted with chunky stones and with punk safety pins and chains thrown into the mix. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Men, women differ when it comes to online shopping
Women edge out men in impulse buying
When it comes to making impulse purchases online this holiday season, men and women act differently, according to a survey conducted in the US by Harris Interactive for GSI Commerce.
Women are more likely to make impulse online purchases during the holidays based on limited-time offers, according to the survey. The Online Holiday Shopping survey was conducted online between October 19 and 23 among 2,818 adults 18 and over.
According to the survey, 55% of women ages 45 to 54 are more likely to make an impulse buy online based some type of limited-time offer such as a sale, rebate or free shipping. However, only 38% of the men in the same age group were likely to make an online purchase based on those criteria, according to the survey.
In addition, while 51% of the women ages 45 to 54 surveyed said they are influenced to impulsively buy something online if they can return it for free, only 36% percent of the men in the same age group said they would be swayed by the prospect of free returns.
And 59% of women -- compared with 54% of the men surveyed -- are somewhat or very likely to make an impulsive online purchase for something "perfect" for someone they know, according to the survey.
While men and women approach impulse buying differently, they're pretty much aligned when it comes to other online shopping habits, according to the survey. Thirty-four percent of both men and women surveyed said they usually shop at the Web sites of well-known companies, and 46% of women and 47% of men said they're more likely to shop at online retailers that have professionally-designed Web sites.
More women than men -- 46% to 34% -- said they are more likely to make a purchase at Web sites that offer convenient return policies. a rebum. |
|
'Friendly rootkits' a must for secure Web shopping?
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates have made e-commerce more secure, according to VeriSign, but a US security researcher reckons benevolent rootkits served by the retailer might do a better job.
SSL certificates are issued to merchants by Certificate Authorities to indicate to the consumer it is a legitimate business. The rootkit which Dan Geer, VP and chief scientist at security company Verdasys, has proposed would take over the security function of a customer during a transaction by placing it within the merchant's trusted environment.
Geer proposes that merchants ask their customers whether they would like an "extra special secure connection" prior to making a transaction. If a user says "Yes", the merchant could install the rootkit on a customer's PC to make the transaction safe.
"In other words, you should immediately 0wn their machine for the duration of the transaction -- by, say, stealing their keyboard away from their OS and attaching it to a special encrypting network stack all of which you make possible by sending a small, use-once rootkit down the wire at login time, just after they say 'Yes'," explained Geer in a special guest blog for ZDNet Australia sister site ZDNet.com.
The problem with SSL certificates, according to Geer, is that there is an assumption the consumer's PC is trustworthy, which today is untrue -- a quarter to two-thirds of the world's PCs are infected by some form of malware, he said, which is the result of human behaviour and means merchant e-commerce systems are "regularly kissing some infected machine on the lips".
Geer said PC infections -- like venereal diseases -- are a function of people's behaviour, so if a user says "yes", they are likely infected and would therefore benefit from the rootkit. Those that say "no" on the other hand are likely to be unencumbered by viruses and could therefore rely on standard encryption measures.
But the world is not black and white
Although Geer reckons his proposed method will have a positive impact on e-commerce safety, VeriSign's regional executive, Ed Elliff, said it would easily be undermined by other rootkit software possibly already installed on the user's PC.
"If you're talking about taking over a PC and installing a rootkit you should remember that you've got cybercriminals creating rootkits that intercept other rootkits," he said. |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
