Versace show in Beijing

news from Beijing…

DONATELLA VERSACE will jet to Beijing next month to celebrate the first ever Versace fashion show to be held in China.

The event – which will also incorporate an auction and dinner – will be a charitable affair to benefit the Jet Li One Foundation, with which Versace has cemented a year-long partnership. The fashion house will support the foundation’s work opening children’s centres for post-trauma and psychological relief in China’s Sichuan province, which was devastated by an earthquake in May. The first is due to open in San Jiang next month.

The catwalk show – which will be held on November 13 in a newly developed luxury area, the Beijing Legation Quarter, located next to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City – will present both the Versace women’s and menswear spring/summer 2009 collections.

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Olympic fever hits world of designer fashion

more olympic fashion

Athleticism won’t be the only thing on display in Beijing. The world’s top designers, from Polo Ralph Lauren to Gucci to Alexander McQueen, are getting involved in the Games, taking advantage of the opportunity to kick-start or expand their business in the booming Chinese market.

The designers will also be able to attract attention from people of several other nations, as the Summer Olympics are expected to draw over 4 billion viewers worldwide, the largest audience ever to watch the Games. And about 3 million domestic and overseas visitors are expected to be traveling to Beijing. This creates an enormous global outlet for designers to showcase their work.

In Pictures: Gold-Medal Fashion
In Pictures: Beijing’s Top Shops
In Pictures: World’s Best Malls
In Pictures: Shopper’s Guide
In Pictures: Shops In Hotspots “This is a different kind of Olympics,” says Tony Alcindor, vice president of public relations and marketing at Ports 1961, which is outfitting four of NBC’s Olympic commentators. “It has become a global mission for sports and fashion to come together to do something good, despite the political drama surrounding the game

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Which Olympians Could Be Anna Wintour’s New Arm Candy?

i really had to laugh when i read this article

The looming dawn of another September Fashion Week means one important thing: ‘Tis the season for Anna Wintour to widely grin while squiring her tennis crush Roger Federer around town. We fully support her fascination with the dreamy Swiss ace, but can’t help wondering if Anna’s love is real, or whether her affections will drift thanks to Olympics mania and all its attendant delectable man-torsos. In this first week alone, we’ve spotted tons of spry, decorated — or soon-to-medal — athletes who’d make stellar Fashion Week arm candy. So pay heed, A-Dubs: If Roger cancels on you, or you’re just feeling frisky, here are some excellent potential heirs to his throne.

James Blake, tennis: If Lady Bobbington wants to swap one ace for another, what better candidate than super-hot, Harvard-educated Blake — who surprisingly knocked off Federer in the quarterfinals today? And who cares about a gold medal when front-row seats to Oscar De La Renta are on the line?

Jonathan Horton, gymnastics: The U.S. team’s surprise bronze came mostly thanks to his inspiring routines and enthusiasm. Anna could use that kind of fire in her life. Or her purse — if she can’t score wee Jon a seat, A-Dubs could just tuck him away in her handbag. He wouldn’t even need a makeover: The way menswear is going, Horton’s regulation elastic-waist stirrup pants are probably runway-bound.

Park Tae-Hwan, swimming: The Korean suffered an embarrassing disqualification at the Athens games when he just 14, but has already won a silver and a gold in Beijing. Clearly, someone with such capacity to bounce back after adversity can handle Anna’s slings and arrows. Also, he’s deliciously buff and barely legal, which ought to get her some column inches in “Page Six.”

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Olympic-sized fashion

I love “castro” !

Castro’s latest collection has just had its unveiling – all sharp white suits and natty striped polos teamed with specially designed trainers. Not quite what you’d expect from a major fashion house gearing up for the winter season, but this is not an ordinary launch – this is the Castro Olympic Collection.

The Olympic delegation’s official uniform.
Photo: Courtesy/Dudi Hason

The pieces – white suits for both men and women, with the option of a three-quarter-length pant – have the dignity “of something that has to represent a nation” but at the same the flavor of the house of Castro. “It’s all about the cut and how it looks,” says designer Assaf Biton. “The colors were inspired by the national flag.”

The process of producing the uniform is the antithesis of how the company works to produce the fashion collections that are sold through its 130-plus retail outlets. Sportsmen by nature have non-standard physiques, and as such every athlete has to be fitted and tailored individually, resulting in a process that takes up to 18 months. In some senses, this detailed kind of work has more in common with the humble beginnings of the company which lay in the dressmaking business belonging to the mother of founder Aharon Castro.

But the business has changed dramatically in its almost 60 year history. The Castro of 2008 is a lean, mean fashion producing machine with state of the art logistic centers in both Israel and Holland, a global manufacturing base and a sophisticated retail and marketing team adept at tapping the pulse of the fashion forward Israeli shopper.

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Luxury Menswear Brand CANALI to Provide Attire for NBC’s Coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games

Again olympics and fashion

Italian luxury menswear design label, CANALI, has partnered with NBC Sports to outfit the on-camera talent for coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The CANALI/NBC partnership was spearheaded by 19-time Emmy Award-winner, Bob Costas, who returns for his 7th Olympics as the Primetime Host. CANALI, known for offering refined and sophisticated, tailored items worked with each sportscaster at individual fittings to compose both customized and camera-ready wardrobes.

NBC personalities each received several complete outfits including suits, sportswear, and accessories. Items range from custom made suits to ready to wear separates.

“We are proud and excited to have been selected by NBC Sports and the Olympic Games,” said Elisabetta Canali, Global Director of Communications. “We worked closely with NBC and each Olympic broadcast anchor to find the right fabrics and styles that would make them feel comfortable and pleasing to the eye.”

CANALI will outfit sportscasters including Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jim Lampley, Bela Karolyi, Matt Vasgersian, Bill Patrick, Fred Roggin, Jimmy Roberts, Al Trautwig, and Tim Daggett. The on air talent will wear CANALI for the entirety of the three weeks of Olympics coverage

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The Olympics of Fashion: Canada vs USA

I know you want to see more olypmpic fashion,here we go :

Since I recapped the style on parade of the Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, over the weekend I’ve been tracking fashion writers around the globe as they weigh in on Parade of Nations style (so far, the French stand atop the podium). In his own audio slide show discussing the fashion hits and misses, New York Times style writer Eric Wilson’s singles out Team Canada, because he was “most startled” by our attire. “It’s hard to look at the images of athletes wearing ball caps and messenger bags and, uh, jackets and shorts and to not think that someone is trying to sell something here,” Wilson elaborates. Hit tacit implication being that with that much merch, Canada sold out.

Right. Because virtuous Polo Ralph Lauren, the first-time Team USA licensee, is only trying to sell Olympic spirit, not stuff. (Not here, nor here, nor in its choose-your-own-country and Big Pony collections.) Even amidst the red, white and navy blue, Polo’s signature brand shorthand of player and pony is hard to miss on most articles of its preppy Olympic Games Collection, especially when in some cases it’s supersized–by several inches. It’s been buzzed about elsewhere for being writ vulgarly large, especially on the otherwise dapper navy blazers American athletes wore on Friday (made available as a replica to consumers for the sum of $695 but alas, already sold out – not that they’re selling anything).

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Fashion Makes Few Waves At Olympic Opening Ceremony

That´s what i expected when i saw the first pictures:

At the Olympics, countries rise and fall, athletes smash world records and progress, generally, is made. Not so, when it comes to the fashions that are trotted out during the opening ceremony’s Parade of the Nations.

Year after year, the look of many of these national uniforms seems to fall in one of three categories: 1. Festive national costumes. 2. Suits with a flight-attendant flair. 3. Tracksuits.

It’s curious that more memorable fashion statements aren’t made. Friday’s event drew an estimated live global audience of at least two billion people, making it possibly the most-watched event in television history. And although many delegations flash across the screen in just a few seconds, those seconds can have great impact . Viewers have taken style cues from the looks they see during the ceremony. In 2002, shoppers stormed the flagship stores of Roots, which outfitted the U.S. team for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, clamoring for the $19.95 fleece berets the athletes wore. (The retailer ended up selling more than a million of them.)

So, why not seize upon this moment to make a memorable, fashion statement?

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Who won gold in the fashion Olympics?

I´ll skip the Olympics for many reasons but this is a fashion blog so let´s stay to fashion:

Say what you will about the opening ceremony, but the parade of nations that followed made the Chinese, in their elaborate historical costume, look like an army of supermodels.

First up: the Greeks, proud originators of the Games and self-proclaimed inventors of Western civilisation, wearing dodgy white tailoring with nattily folded black handkerchiefs tucked into jacket breast pockets. To say they looked wide would be an understatement.

But not as wide as many of the other athletes – presumably the weightlifters were out in force – nor as wide as the kipper ties and Seventies lapels that suggested the event was locked in a time warp. Butlins Red Coats, Just William school blazers and the type of characterless, brass-buttoned jackets that air stewardesses have to wear, rubbed shoulders with migraine-inducing Hawaiian shirts, nasty acrylics and bad casuals that wouldn’t be out of place at a bowling party in Hastings. Whatever else, this motley crew amply demonstrated the perils of dressing to look like one’s flag. Never have so many virulent shades made it in to one place, at one time.

Noble members of the Ukraine 2008 Olympic team, for example, stand up and be counted. It is simply not socially acceptable to wear a turquoise blue and canary yellow jacket with a turquoise blue and canary yellow striped tie to match, however fervent any national pride may be.

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Beijing Olympics 2008: Chinese fashion police crack down on style horrors

Isn´t that ridiculous?Are there no other,more serious problems?

Fashion police at the Beijing Olympics have ordered men to steer clear of white socks with black shoes and advised women to shun leather skirts.

Residents of the city should also shirk embarrassing public displays of affection and fighting over who settles the bill after dinner and avoid garlic.

Rules produced by Chinese officials on what to wear and how to behave stretch out over 36 pages in official booklets and cover nine web pages. They go from general tips, like combing hair appropriately for age to minutiae details such as women with thick ankles wearing darker stockings to disguise their imperfections.

Women get specific fashion advice to avoid common fashion faux-pas, such as matching the length of their skirt to their age and not wearing more than three colours in their oufit. Men on the other hand seem to get more basic advice, including not sporting pyjamas in public, not going out with a bare chest and not rolling up their trouser legs.

While some style recommendations do not need explanations – fat people should avoid horizontal stripes – other tips have their reasoning spelt out: “Clothes should not be too small, otherwise this makes people feel you are unreliable” .

The how-to in the style stakes has been handed out by the Capital Spiritual Civilisation Construction Commission. Beijing will be under the spotlight during the Olympic Games and the Commission are keen that the city’s 15 million residents dress and act impeccably.

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