Minggu, 30 November 2014

PSA: Steam joins the Black/Cyber discount blitz with “Exploration” sale


On Wednesday, online computer gaming store Steam unveiled an expected holiday-themed sale, complete with deep discounts on recent hits and indie standouts alike. In typical Steam fashion, this year's 'Exploration' sale ties into a recent change on the storefront, but instead of highlighting collectible badges or community features, the sale focuses on customized sale offers based on September's 'discovery' update.


As of press time, the exact link to a user's customized sale page is hotlinked incorrectly if loaded within the Steam app, so fans will want to click here to see what games Steam thinks you want the most. That link includes some very random guesses in the top roll of links, along with a convenient gathering of unpurchased games from your wishlist, discounted DLC for games you own, and 'tag' links for sales in your favorite genres.


More harrowing for your wallet is the store's new endless scroll feature, which continues to generate sale after sale after sale if you move downward on its main page. As Steam store veterans will tell you, you may want to tag a beloved game on your wishlist if its sale price on an early day is kind of low. Chances are, it will receive an even bigger discount before the sale officially ends on December 2. The sale's most interesting launch specials include massive cuts on 2014 games like The Evil Within, Watch Dogs, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Goat Simulator, but Steam claims to have cut prices on 1,860 games already. Get to scrolling.


Jumat, 28 November 2014

VIDEO: Novis Collection at New York Fashion Week Spring Summer 2015

Related:Novis,


Catch the highlights of the amazing Novis Spring Summer 2015 collection presentation during New York Fashion Week. FashionOne host Katie Marie Stosic featured an exclusive interview with lead hair stylist' Frank Rizzieri, lead make-up artist' Janell Geason, nail artist' Kim D'Amato, designer' Jordana Warmflash, stylist' Damien Vaughan Shippee, actress' Morgan Saylor and singer' Olivia Somerlyn.


Label's designer Jordana Warmflash was inspired by Pop artist Tom Wesselmann, while designing her happy and bright looks. Model's appear on the runway in bold, textured jacquard knits, like jacquard sweaters, banded Bermuda shorts and creative plaid skirts in zesty pattern. Check out the fresh and youthful collection presented on the runway of Novis SS15!


About Novis:


Jordana Warmflash is an old soul who embraced fashion at a young age. Her unique blend of uptown and downtown sensibilities reflects her upbringing amidst the cultural vibrance of New York City.


When Jordana was 14, her mother sparked her love of craftsmanship by teaching her to sew on her family's old sewing machine. Jordana's passion for the design and architecture of clothing matured during her time at Washington Universty in St. Louis, and her early career at Zac Posen, Peter Som and Alice + Olivia.


In 2012 Jordana launched NOVIS, which celebrates her whimsical and irreverent approach to elegance.


In 2014, NOVIS received the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award.


The name NOVIS is an homage to Jordana's grandmother, Gwen Novis Warmflash. Jordana is inspired by a refined and courageous woman who, like her grandmother, is confident in her own eccentricities. Jordana has long been devoted to constructing the perfect dress. Her garments are timeless, impeccably detailed and untouched by trend. NOVIS is defined by precisely tailored silhouettes and luxurious textures that call out to be touched, and worn with a wink.



FashionOne

VIDEO: Novis Collection at New York Fashion Week Spring Summer 2015

Related:Novis,


Catch the highlights of the amazing Novis Spring Summer 2015 collection presentation during New York Fashion Week. FashionOne host Katie Marie Stosic featured an exclusive interview with lead hair stylist' Frank Rizzieri, lead make-up artist' Janell Geason, nail artist' Kim D'Amato, designer' Jordana Warmflash, stylist' Damien Vaughan Shippee, actress' Morgan Saylor and singer' Olivia Somerlyn.


Label's designer Jordana Warmflash was inspired by Pop artist Tom Wesselmann, while designing her happy and bright looks. Model's appear on the runway in bold, textured jacquard knits, like jacquard sweaters, banded Bermuda shorts and creative plaid skirts in zesty pattern. Check out the fresh and youthful collection presented on the runway of Novis SS15!


About Novis:


Jordana Warmflash is an old soul who embraced fashion at a young age. Her unique blend of uptown and downtown sensibilities reflects her upbringing amidst the cultural vibrance of New York City.


When Jordana was 14, her mother sparked her love of craftsmanship by teaching her to sew on her family's old sewing machine. Jordana's passion for the design and architecture of clothing matured during her time at Washington Universty in St. Louis, and her early career at Zac Posen, Peter Som and Alice + Olivia.


In 2012 Jordana launched NOVIS, which celebrates her whimsical and irreverent approach to elegance.


In 2014, NOVIS received the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award.


The name NOVIS is an homage to Jordana's grandmother, Gwen Novis Warmflash. Jordana is inspired by a refined and courageous woman who, like her grandmother, is confident in her own eccentricities. Jordana has long been devoted to constructing the perfect dress. Her garments are timeless, impeccably detailed and untouched by trend. NOVIS is defined by precisely tailored silhouettes and luxurious textures that call out to be touched, and worn with a wink.



FashionOne

6 Black Friday Deals So Crazy You Won't Believe They're Real

Black Friday deals on TVs, tablets, toys, clothing, and jewelry come as no surprise. But how about Black Friday promotions featuring guns, giveaways of cats and dogs, and the requirement to strip down to your underwear?

Here are a half-dozen downright bizarre Black Friday deals:


Free Cats & Dogs At least one Humane Society (in Oregon) is waiving the usual $50 adoption fee on cats now through December 1. In addition to free cat adoptions, the shelter is knocking $50 off normal dog adoption fees, which generally run $100 to $350. Other humane societies around the country are hosting Black Friday pet deals such as free dogs if they're black and at least six months old ( Kansas) and a promotion of $5 to adopt a cat 5+ years old and 50% off the adoption of rabbits, guinea pigs, and other small animals (in Massachusetts).


Buy a Car, Get It Free If It Snows on Christmas A car dealership in Chicago has a sales pitch that's tempting for those who like to gamble-and that could wind up being extremely costly for its promoters. The deal is that all customers who buy a new Buick or GMC automobile at the dealership on Friday or Saturday will get full refunds on their purchases if it snows six or more inches on Christmas. The dealership is calling the promo its 'White Friday' sale.


Guns & Ammo It may not be what your family expects to find under the tree or stuffed in stockings on Christmas morning, but guns have come to be hot sellers on Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season. Last year, the number of FBI background checks conducted for each firearm purchase on Black Friday was nearly triple that of a typical sales day. Why are guns hot sellers during this period? Largely for the same reasons that so many other items are hot sellers right about now-because stores have big promotions to attract customers. Walmart is discounting all firearms by 20% for its Black Friday sale, while gun enthusiast websites are filled with firearm and accessory deals-weapons, targets, ammunition, and more-from a wide range of retailers around the country.


Wait Outside in Your Underwear, Get Free Clothes Among the many early Black Friday sales that have popped up this week, probably the strangest took place on Tuesday at Desigual in San Francisco: As the Consumerist pointed out, the first 100 shoppers waiting outside the store wearing nothing but their underwear received free tops and bottoms from the Barcelona-based fashion retailer.


Buy a Car, Get a TV The first ten customers to buy new cars at a Toyota dealership in Missouri received free flat-screen TVs thrown into the deal on Black Friday. What's more, the first ten people in the door at the dealership on Friday were handed $25 gift cards for ham-no car purchase required.


Loans and Online Bank Accounts Everyone else feels comfortable glomming onto Black Friday for sales and marketing purposes, so why not financial institutions as well? The Utah Community Credit Union, for instance, is advertising 'BLACK FRIDAY DOORBUSTERS!' in the form of auto, home equity, and personal loans with supposedly great terms. Capital One 360, meanwhile, is hosting a Black Friday Sale, with bonuses like $100 for new savings and checking accounts and, depending on how much you invest, $150 to $1,250 bonuses for those opening a new online trading account or IRA.


Bear in the mind that even if these offers are truly good deals, taking out a loan or opening a new bank account is certainly not something you decide impulsively because of some flashy promotion. For that matter, no one should go adopting a pet or buying a gun on an impulse either.


Now in its 20th year, the woefully inept Boston Fashion Week could use a ... - Boston magazine's Boston Daily (blog)

Content


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Now in its 20th year, the woefully inept Boston Fashion Week could use a serious makeover.


By Joseph Gordon Cleveland

When you think of Boston fashion, maybe you think Newbury Street. Or the luxury brands Bottega Veneta, Chanel, Valentino, and Hermès, all of which have recently invested big bucks to make a big mark here. Or the celebrated local independent boutiques that have thrived-Riccardi, Alan Bilzerian, and Louis-now considered among the nation's leading independent retailers within their niches. You're in good company. When asked about the city's fashion scene for this story, Project Runway 's Tim Gunn said, 'I think of Boston as being very sophisticated, a very elegant city.' Comparing Boston with other similarly scaled cities, he says, 'Fashion-wise, this is an A-plus-plus-plus. I mean it sincerely. Boston gets it.'


I'd agree. I began my fashion career in Boston some six years ago, first as a producer for Styleboston, a lifestyle program that aired weekly on WCVB. During my nearly four years with the show, I interviewed industry heavyweights-Zac Posen, Joe Zee, Cynthia Rowley, and Christian Siriano, to name a few-and local up-and-comers. I've covered the industry in the Improper Bostonian, Boston magazine, and Coup Boston.


In short, I've made it my business to know the business. And while the volume and quality of Boston's fashion talent continues to impress, in my role as an ersatz designer confidante, I've also been privy to countless criticisms of the annual October event dedicated to showcasing their work.


If you're one of the familiar few who attends Boston Fashion Week, perhaps you enjoy its stacked calendar of soirees proffering free cocktails. Perhaps you enjoy sitting among the puffed-up faux-cialites while a questionable remix of a song popular five years ago begins its incessant throbbing. But if you're not one of those people, allow me to let you in on a little secret: You're not missing much.


Christopher Muther, the Globe's longtime fashion columnist, had a lot to say about Boston Fashion Week's failings during his many years on the beat. His offhand comments now amount to a precious catalog of wry observations, including: 'With just a handful of single-designer shows on the schedule, but parties at every turn, there were times that the week felt like it was more about fizzy drinks than fashion' [September 2008]. 'Scan through the 22-page schedule and events include Dr. Bill Adams offering a seminar on nonsurgical cosmetic procedures or a lingerie chain store putting models in teddys [sic] and parading them around and through the aisles' [October 2009]. 'Designers' collections were often lost in the crush of partygoers who were more interested in getting to the bar than looking at clothes' [April 2011, the first year of a two-year partnership between BFW and Boston magazine]. 'Boston Fashion Week went back to feeling like a smattering of hit-or- miss parties' [December 2012]. 'Without a central location, Boston Fashion Week flopped around the city and into random hotel lobbies, restaurants, and clubs' [January 2014].


It's not all terrible, of course, but for every polished designer-every Luke Aaron or Daniela Corte, for example-there's an equally enthusiastic army of amateurs sending a sad parade of models teetering down a makeshift runway. Here you'll witness inexperienced nymphs wearing clothes so poorly constructed that seamstresses sometimes need to sew them into the garments five minutes before showtime. Behind the scenes, near-naked women in dime-store stilettos clumsily stomp their way into silk or chiffon, taking out a seam in the process. And flitting all about are the self-described 'designers,' who can neither sketch nor sew, fussing over their stapled and Scotch-taped 'visions,' fulfilling all the egomaniacal tropes they absorbed from watching Project Runway reruns.


Together, they form a confederacy of self-congratulatory dunces more interested in their own celebrity than in their craft.


The truth is that Boston Fashion Week has been so ineptly run since its start that, 20th anniversary or not, there's little to celebrate. The Globe acknowledged this year's milestone with a mere 55 words. And Muther? He changed his beat to travel early in the year.


All of which begs the question: Why can't the city's biggest fashion event get its act together? Turns out, I wasn't the only one confounded by the sad spectacle.


If there's one fashion-world truth out there, it's that it's a fiercely competitive industry. 'You have to be relentless,' says Daniela Corte, a leading local designer with a Newbury Street boutique. Getting attention from the media is more than half the game, which is why designers put on these shows in the first place. Even designers in New York City, America's undisputed fashion capital, once struggled to snatch press and buyers away from their competition in the far-more-established fashion capitals of Paris and Milan. Back in the '20s and '30s, the pages of New York-based Vogue were filled almost exclusively with French designs-that is, until fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert launched 'Press Week' in 1943, an exclusive runway calendar event that finally brought together U.S. designers, buyers, and fashion journalists.


Press Week was such an efficient model that by the early '90s, American designers commanded considerable international clout. But along with that distinction followed Press Week chaos: More than 100 brands were spread out across the city each season, forcing buyers and journalists to spend the week scrambling between events. After a catastrophic Michael Kors show in which the venue (a rundown loft space) literally fell to pieces, Fern Mallis, then the executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)-the industry's most formidable not-for-profit trade association-recognized that the week needed standardizing and streamlining. In response, she spearheaded the single-venue format that continues to this day.


After witnessing New York's new centralized setup, Jay Calderin-a former designer who's now the director of creative marketing at Boston's School of Fashion Design-returned to create a Boston parallel: a weeklong, multi-event schedule that would bring together the design community in celebration of local talent. He launched the first Boston Fashion Week in 1995.


Unlike New York's event, however, BFW was to be, by Calderin's own description, an inclusive 'civic initiative.' Events would be held at venues throughout the city, independent of one another, and would be open to the public. Calderin's adaptation was convenient, given his limited resources. In New York, Mallis's role as the head of the CFDA gave her the credibility to convince top designers to participate while ensuring her access to the myriad partners, sponsors, and media outlets critical to success; the most Calderin could hope for, those first years, was to wrangle a motley cast of characters into participating. He was creating something from nothing.


Fortunately, there was plenty of talent in Boston worth celebrating, including the late Alfred Fiandaca, an acclaimed couturier who, during his 50 years in business, designed for Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, Joan Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, and Ann Romney. Other local designers included Denise Hajjar, David Josef, and Daniel Faucher, who have maintained ateliers in the Boston area for decades.


If all he wanted to do was cultivate buzz, Calderin's egalitarian approach initially made sense. Calderin limited his responsibility to publishing the calendar, leaving BFW's success to the individual event coordinators who had volunteered to participate. Some shows might be great; some might bomb. As long as people came, it didn't really matter.


Unfortunately, this laissez-faire approach does little to bolster the commercial needs of those industry professionals willing to participate in the event. Fashion shows are astronomically expensive to put on, so if they don't generate press coverage and orders, why bother? For years, designer Daniela Corte's shows were considered the highlight of Boston Fashion Week- blockbuster affairs with top-notch production values that cost Corte upward of $35,000. She'd grown her brand from a closet-size shop into a two-story boutique on a prime block of Newbury Street, offering ready-to-wear retail on the first floor and a by-appointment atelier for custom designs on the second.


But Corte, frustrated with the week's scattered schedule, lack of press attention ('We don't even have that many people writing about it. At least write about it!' she says), and, most important, lack of buyers, now skips BFW altogether. 'A show is successful if you attract buyers,' she says. 'It's all about the sales.'


Like Corte, the lack of buyers at BFW turned off Marie Galvin, the celebrated South End milliner. Though she put on shows in events past, she says, 'I realized after a number of years during Boston Fashion Week that I had become an entertainer at a nightclub. I had to make a business decision to stop doing shows.... There wasn't an official hosting venue to attract potential buyers looking to place orders. It was financially fruitless and exhausted all my energy and resources.'


Speaking to me in October after wrapping up his 20th Boston Fashion Week, Calderin said that while his group handles most of the press around Boston, he relies on 'joint efforts with the many PR agencies in town that are involved in the week by way of individual events being produced by their clients.' He emphasized that the event 'is not a business. It's basically a civic initiative. The idea is to get people to step up and do, not just talk. For people to come together and say, How can we pool our resources? How can we engage other people to support the effort and ultimately present something that's really representative of what's happening in town?'


'What's happening in town?' I asked. Calderin paused for a moment, then answered, 'Every year it's totally different.'


In fact, one of the things that's happening is Luke Aaron, a designer the Globe dubbed 'the closest thing to a fashion phenomenon that Boston has seen in years.' Aaron set up shop in 2011 in a richly appointed North End showroom, offering his collection of gowns, dresses, and separates-all handmade in the States. He exudes the calm, confident polish one expects from a focused professional.


Aaron's BFW presentation this year was similarly confident and certainly polished. His eight-look collection was well edited and sharply tailored, offering a new take on his architectural silhouettes, and the venue-the Union Club-made the perfect host. 'It's all about craftsmanship, quality, execution, and fabric. And it was all there,' gushed Elisha Daniels, a personal stylist at Neiman Marcus's Boston store.


Yet for all its polish, it's difficult to know whether Aaron's show gained him much in the way of economic or brand engagement. 'Who was at that show that's actually going to get him into Barneys or Neiman Marcus?' Daniels asks. 'Who was at that show that actually ordered a dress?'


Yes, where are those elusive buyers? Boston's independent retail community is fairly small, and, by all accounts, it shouldn't be difficult to engage. Jane Schlueter, a co-owner of the Beacon Hill boutique Dress, explains away her BFW absence almost apologetically, saying she and her business partner, Martha Pickett, support the event but that 'it mainly comes down to bad timing. Because BFW occurs so late relative to the other shows, it often coincides with the tail end of completing the next season's orders, which is always a frantic time for us. Budgets for the next season have already been booked with some deadlines up to four weeks before BFW, leaving little to nothing open for additional orders.'


David Chum, the Boston designer featured on the ninth season of Project Runway, sums up BFW's failure to focus on business thusly: 'You can't have a fashion show without the fashion. The community needs to understand this and support us. If we're being treated as entertainment, then maybe we should start charging a cover for entry into our shows.'


At the very least, Boston's designers deserve more consistency, a problem that's haunted Boston Fashion Week since its launch. New York Fashion Week's calendar is controlled by CFDA, which selects designers who are likely to take their productions seriously, keeping the quality of the week at impossibly high levels.


Yet Calderin dismisses the idea of curating the shows. In Calderin's opinion, what makes Boston Fashion Week unique 'is that we've kept a certain amount of integrity when it comes to [BFW] being about the local talent.' BFW has always welcomed 'anybody who wanted to do pretty much anything. We wanted to make it very open.'


In this case, Calderin seems to be mistaking inclusiveness for integrity.


A free-for-all creates one big mess of a problem: Student designers and recent graduates (more and more the bulk of the week) end up regarding their work not as a marketing tool but as entertainment, the big party Muther often referenced in the Globe. As a result, established designers, cautious about brand positioning after building their companies from scratch, are increasingly wary of BFW's amateur-hour shenanigans, so they opt out altogether.


Boston's shows are so uneven that the city's fashion reputation is virtually being held hostage by Calderin's fashion-family get-together. Rachel Moniz, the general manager of the Liberty Hotel and creator of the hotel's long-running Fashionably Late series, intimated as much when she told me that in recent years, 'we haven't done anything in terms of sponsorship, and that's been by design.'


The ultimate irony is that BFW may not be as inclusive as Calderin contends. MassArt is the only Boston-area institution to enjoy continuing status as a CFDA-participating school, but MassArt's students are often overshadowed at BFW by Calderin's own students from the School of Fashion Design. Case in point: BFW's annual inaugural event, the Launch, is intended to showcase work coming out of Boston-area fashion programs. This year, four of the five designers at the Launch attended or currently attend the school that employs Calderin. I asked him about the submission and selection process, and then about the curious absence of Erin Robertson, an absurdly talented MassArt student who beat out designers from the nation's top 20 schools to win the CFDA/Teen Vogue Scholarship in 2013. Her work had been praised by industry titans like Eddie Borgo and Lela Rose, not to mention a crew of Teen Vogue editors.


Calderin blanked at her name.


One person paying close attention to Boston Fashion Week's failings has been Rosanna Ortiz. After working for years in marketing and PR in Boston, she grew frustrated with the BFW scene, one she describes as a 'glorified cocktail event.' In response, she founded Providence's StyleWeek in 2009.


StyleWeek would be different. Modeled after New York's event, StyleWeek is a single-venue series of shows vetted by a production team to ensure the event presents salable collections to attendees. All aspects of the show-from hair and makeup teams to models to seating to guest check-in-are handled by the StyleWeek team.


From the start, Ortiz understood that to execute StyleWeek and sustain it, she'd need a lot of support. She hounded then-Mayor David Cicilline until he granted her a meeting, then she stressed the economic angle: As a trade event, StyleWeek had the potential to bring tourism dollars into the city-and grow the local economy by helping Rhode Island businesses. The city of Providence supports StyleWeek through a modest grant.


Unlike Boston Fashion Week, StyleWeek holds two events per year: one in the spring and one in the fall, mirroring the industry-standard show seasons. Its shows tend to run in advance of the prominent fashion weeks-New York, London, Milan, and Paris-so designers can get their wares in front of buyers before they've committed their cash elsewhere.


StyleWeek has become an economic engine in its own right: 'It's a very serious fashion week now that includes respected and emerging designers,' says Cicilline, now a state representative. 'The economic impact has grown tremendously, in terms of the number of people participating.' He says that StyleWeek has 'put Providence on the map in terms of a place that people start to think about when they think of design and fashion.'


Steven Kolb, CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, agrees that the exorbitant cost of shows demands that designers, even the big ones, get some kind of return on investment. 'Press exposure is a benefit and, in the case of the fashion capitals, buyers buying is key,' he says. The regional shows, he says, are most effective when presented as 'consumer events' supported by marketing designed to drive sales, particularly when in-season collections are shown.


In March 2013, Alison Tomisato, the marketing and public relations manager of the W Boston Hotel, worked with Ortiz and her team on StyleWeek Interim, a three-day Boston test run of StyleWeek's model. For Tomisato, the difference between Boston Fashion Week and StyleWeek was clear: 'StyleWeek tends to be press and industry with room for the community, as available. But that front row is very much occupied by press and industry because there are buyers there; they're people who can really make or break these designers' careers, and the purpose of that is to further the growth of the fashion industry in New England,' she says, concluding, 'It's a very targeted approach.'


Chum agrees: 'StyleWeek is centralized and focused. The whole city knows it's happening because it's in their faces everywhere they go. Every time I've participated, I've been a little surprised by the amount of local media coverage I get in New England. They really drive the event for the designs and do what they can to help us get the media coverage and business we need.' Kolb has noticed, too: '[Because of] the close proximity to New York and prominent creative institutions...StyleWeek has the authenticity, enthusiasm, and creative energy to connect emerging talent with retailers and press in an effort to celebrate style and fashion in the [Northeast].'


But Ortiz is realistic. She doesn't promise designers that buyers will be clamoring for their garments. Instead, she says, 'A lot of young designers think that after that fashion show, that's it...I don't have to do anything; I'm going to get buyers; my phone is going to be ringing. But that's when the work begins! Designers have to make sure they have their look book and their line sheets and get out there and call the people who attended. They have to work!'


There's hope yet, if not for boston Fashion Week, then for those Boston designers who plan to build or grow their businesses here. In January, Daniels will assume her role as codirector of  Fashion Group International's Boston chapter, alongside industry veteran Nash Yacoub. Together, they hope to realign the Boston chapter with a commerce-focused mission, offering professional development and education through programming that will include monthly conferences and panel discussions to help designers and industry professionals-whether in PR, beauty, photography, or design-with all different facets of the business.


Daniels is also quick to acknowledge Calderin's work over the 20-year history of BFW: 'His heart is in a great place, but it's a certain place, and it's not about the business of fashion. I give him credit, we all do. He picked up a baton that probably nobody else wanted.'


And then there's StyleWeek. In April, the organization will launch a Boston expansion that's been in the works since its three-day test run at the W Boston Hotel in March 2013, bringing with it a laserlike focus on the business of fashion.


That commitment to the business of fashion is precisely what Boston Fashion Week, despite its myriad iterations, has failed to deliver...for 20 years. For the sake of Boston's fashion-forward denizens, it's time for Calderin to pass this responsibility into more-capable hands.


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The Write Notes



Merry and Bright







VIDEO: ALVARNO Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid S/S 2015

Related:Alvarno,


FashionOne brought us to the runway show of ALVARNO where duo designer Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejon unveiled their collection for Spring Summer 2015 during the Mercedes-Benz Madrid Fashion Week 2014.


The collection was inspired by the works of Victor Vasarely. It has lots of prints, cuts, embroidery and geometric patterns. They used materials such as jacquard, geometric jacquards, printed silks, neoprene, honeycomb neoprene, leather, suede and cotton. In this show, they also presented their first collection of Alvarno Handbag, belts and shoes.


About ALVARNO:


A French man in Madrid and a Spaniard in Paris: Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejón have two brilliant careers in the international fashion business. They have worked together in Paris, New York, London and Milan as a studio director or personal assistant to Karl Lagerfeld, Alexander McQueen and Oscar de la Renta. Today, Madrid becomes the capital of these designers' style: pure, lumious and sophisticated.



FashionOne

6 Black Friday Deals So Crazy You Won't Believe They're Real

Black Friday deals on TVs, tablets, toys, clothing, and jewelry come as no surprise. But how about Black Friday promotions featuring guns, giveaways of cats and dogs, and the requirement to strip down to your underwear?

Here are a half-dozen downright bizarre Black Friday deals:


Free Cats & Dogs At least one Humane Society (in Oregon) is waiving the usual $50 adoption fee on cats now through December 1. In addition to free cat adoptions, the shelter is knocking $50 off normal dog adoption fees, which generally run $100 to $350. Other humane societies around the country are hosting Black Friday pet deals such as free dogs if they're black and at least six months old ( Kansas) and a promotion of $5 to adopt a cat 5+ years old and 50% off the adoption of rabbits, guinea pigs, and other small animals (in Massachusetts).


Buy a Car, Get It Free If It Snows on Christmas A car dealership in Chicago has a sales pitch that's tempting for those who like to gamble-and that could wind up being extremely costly for its promoters. The deal is that all customers who buy a new Buick or GMC automobile at the dealership on Friday or Saturday will get full refunds on their purchases if it snows six or more inches on Christmas. The dealership is calling the promo its 'White Friday' sale.


Guns & Ammo It may not be what your family expects to find under the tree or stuffed in stockings on Christmas morning, but guns have come to be hot sellers on Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season. Last year, the number of FBI background checks conducted for each firearm purchase on Black Friday was nearly triple that of a typical sales day. Why are guns hot sellers during this period? Largely for the same reasons that so many other items are hot sellers right about now-because stores have big promotions to attract customers. Walmart is discounting all firearms by 20% for its Black Friday sale, while gun enthusiast websites are filled with firearm and accessory deals-weapons, targets, ammunition, and more-from a wide range of retailers around the country.


Wait Outside in Your Underwear, Get Free Clothes Among the many early Black Friday sales that have popped up this week, probably the strangest took place on Tuesday at Desigual in San Francisco: As the Consumerist pointed out, the first 100 shoppers waiting outside the store wearing nothing but their underwear received free tops and bottoms from the Barcelona-based fashion retailer.


Buy a Car, Get a TV The first ten customers to buy new cars at a Toyota dealership in Missouri received free flat-screen TVs thrown into the deal on Black Friday. What's more, the first ten people in the door at the dealership on Friday were handed $25 gift cards for ham-no car purchase required.


Loans and Online Bank Accounts Everyone else feels comfortable glomming onto Black Friday for sales and marketing purposes, so why not financial institutions as well? The Utah Community Credit Union, for instance, is advertising 'BLACK FRIDAY DOORBUSTERS!' in the form of auto, home equity, and personal loans with supposedly great terms. Capital One 360, meanwhile, is hosting a Black Friday Sale, with bonuses like $100 for new savings and checking accounts and, depending on how much you invest, $150 to $1,250 bonuses for those opening a new online trading account or IRA.


Bear in the mind that even if these offers are truly good deals, taking out a loan or opening a new bank account is certainly not something you decide impulsively because of some flashy promotion. For that matter, no one should go adopting a pet or buying a gun on an impulse either.


Harrogate Spring Water signs sponsorship deal with British Fashion Awards


Harrogate Spring Water has struck a deal with the British Fashion Council to become the Official Water Supplier of the 2014 British Fashion Awards.


The deal to supply bottled water to the 2014 British Fashion Awards aims to enhance Harrogate Spring Water's premium position and stylish appeal to consumers and is part of its largest marketing campaign to date, which has included a full brand re-fresh and the introduction of the striking, new diamond bottle design.


The 2014 British Fashion Awards, taking place on December 1st, celebrates the best of British designers, creative and models in the international scene and Harrogate Spring Water will be providing water for some of the biggest names in the fashion world, including Tom Ford, Victoria Beckham and Vivienne Westwood.


The partnership includes providing Harrogate Spring Water's dazzling glass bottles (still and sparkling) for the VIP awards ceremony dinner, and supplying the 330ml 'Baby Harry' hand-bag sized bottles in the goodie bags, to help keep guests hydrated in style throughout the night. The deal will also see Harrogate Spring Water branding being present on all collateral and marketing surrounding the event. The sponsorship follows the original British bottled water brand picking up the Gold Medal for 'Best Dressed' at the annual industry British Bottlers Institute Awards, where it was commended for its classic and understated branding and elegant bottle design.


James Cain, managing director Harrogate Spring Water, said: Our national marketing campaign has really demonstrated a step-change in behaviour for Harrogate Spring Water.


It has helped consolidate our position as the No.1 premium British water through developing partnerships with well-respected national organisations such as the ECB and British Fashion Awards.


Being associated with the 2014 British Fashion Awards is a particularly appropriate fit, as Harrogate Spring Water's innovative bottle design has been recognised for its stylish appeal. We really think it's the must-have accessory for every occasion and the perfect way to maintain healthy hydration.


Jenico Preston, Head of Sponsorship at British Fashion Council, said: It's no secret that water is the world's beauty elixir, making Harrogate Spring Water a fantastic and fitting addition to the British Fashion Awards, one of the most dazzling evenings on the global fashion calendar.


Destiny, Watch Dogs And More Discounted In Xbox Live Black Friday Sale


Now that Thanksgiving is over for another year and we've ate our body mass in turkey sandwiches, all eyes are trained across the Internet to take full advantage of those enticing Black Friday deals. And to get in the holiday spirit, Microsoft has unveiled its huge promotion for Black Friday, with discounts on a variety of Xbox Live titles that are set to continue throughout the weekend. For a detailed rundown on the reductions, check out the gallery below.


Encompassing both Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles, the limited sale slashes the asking prices of some of this year's biggest releases, including Watch Dogs and Bungie's shared-world shooter Destiny, which are available for 33% and 10% off, respectively. If triple-A experiences aren't your cup of tea, though, fear not: there are an abundance of smaller titles up for sale too.


Chief among those is Battleblock Theater and Ubisoft's excellent World War I puzzle title, Valiant Hearts: The Great War which are each available for 50% cheaper than normal.


Microsoft has since stated that these promotions will run until Monday, December 1. So, even if you don't get an opportunity to take advantage of the discounts today, they'll still be available throughout the course of the weekend.


Bear in mind that these offers are, as always, only available to those who own an Xbox Live subscription. So, without further ado, check out the list of discounts in the gallery below.


Kamis, 27 November 2014

Black Friday: Steam Sale Begins with Big Discounts on Watch Dogs, Counter ...


Steam's 'Exploration Sale' has begun, offering big discounts on a range of PC games.


Running until Tuesday 2 December, the Autumn sale currently features Watch Dogs at £19.99, Counter Strike: Global Offensive at £5.99 and Goat Simulator at £3.49 - all 50% off.


Other deals include indie survival game Don't Stave for £2.74 (75% off), fantasy role playing game Lords of the Fallen for £17.99 (40% off) and Shinji Mikami horror The Evil Within for £11.89 (66% off).


Rounding off the featured games also include Sid Meier's Civilisation: Beyond Earth is £20.99 (30% off), The Long Dark is £7.49 (50% off) and Company of Heroes 2 is £7.49 (75% off).


Steam sales always get the PC gaming world in a spin with multiple week-long sales offering huge discounts on digital releases. A winter sale typically takes place in late December as well.


In total there are 5,663 games on sale across the digital distribution platform.


A number of shorter term offers are set to end at 8pm GMT this evening (Thurs 27 Nov), including the exceptional The Stanley Parable for £2.99 and brilliant FTL: Faster Than Light for £2.09 - both 70% off.


The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is on sale at £8.99 (40% off), along with The Wolf Among Us Season 1 for £6.45 (66% off) and beat-em-up Injustice: Gods Among Us: Ultimate Edition for £3.74 (75% off).


Further details can expected across the weekend.


Black Friday UK Deals: John Lewis Discounts Include Tablets, Cameras, TVs and Speakers Tesco Black Friday Deals Discount TVs, Games Consoles, Coffee Machines, Toys and More Black Friday: GAME Begins Deals on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Wii U Titles Black Friday 2014: Sainsbury's Deals Include Discounted TVs, Kindles and Dysons UPDATE: Prices Revealed - Asda Black Friday Deals include Xbox One, Beats Headphones and 40in TV Black Friday Best Buy Tech Deals - $1 Samsung Galaxy S5, iPad Minis, 4K TVs and More

Rabu, 26 November 2014

Steam 'Exploration Sale' begins: Watch Dogs, The Evil Within

Steam has kicked off its autumn 'Exploration' sale, which will discount hundreds of games between now and early December.


Highlights of the current deals include 50 percent off Watch Dogs, 66 percent off The Evil Within, 30 percent off Civilization: Beyond Earth, and 75 percent off indie hit Don't Starve.



Among today's daily deals include The Wolf Among Us, FTL: Faster than Light, Injustice: Gods Among Us, The Stanley Parable and Dead Island.


According to the Steam Store home page, a grand total of 1862 games are on sale across the entire store.


The Steam Exploration Sale will run from today, November 26, until 10am Pacific Time (6pm GMT), December 2.


Reading the Subtleties of Islamic Fashion


THERE ARE SO MANY fashion weeks these days, from the Big Four (London, New York, Paris and Milan) to Tokyo, Rio, Miami and Abu Dhabi, among others, that I often think I could pass the year going from one to another, the way John Cheever's Swimmer stroked his way across the pools of the suburbs.


But even to a jaded observer, a fashion event took place last week that seemed - well, not like the other ones: the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was not the only one who found it confusing.


'Islamic fashion festival? Just doesn't make sense,' one young Muslim girl tweeted.


But that, it turned out, was precisely the point.


Founded nine years ago by Dato' Raja Rezza Shah partly to combat received stereotypes about Islam, the festival is part of a wider movement within a slice of the Muslim world - most often Muslims living in minority contexts, or non-Arab Muslim majority countries - that has seized on fashion as a means to reshape the cultural narrative. Or at least how it is seen.



As Reina Lewis, a professor of cultural studies at the London College of Fashion and the author of 'Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures,' to be published in 2015, said in a phone call: 'Every time there is a moral panic in the West about Muslims as a civilizational Other, whether it is about the jihadization of young men or whatever, it is illustrated with a picture of women wearing the hijab or abaya, shrouded in black.'


To combat or replace a fashion image - even one that seems effectively an anti-fashion image - what better tool than fashion itself? Clothing is, after all, essentially a common language, and hence a potential shortcut to global recognition.


Simply consider the words of the designer and blogger Dian Pelagi, whom The Jakarta Post called 'the unofficial poster girl for the introduction of Indonesian Islamic fashion to the world' and who specializes in rainbow-tinted tie-dyed chiffons and silks combined with African detailing that also just happen to cover the head and body. 'I think that if Islamic fashion can gain traction in America, it will change people's perceptions of Islam and Islamic fashion,' she told that newspaper.


Similarly, the festival, which began in 2006 and has grown into a thrice-yearly event (most recently a four-day showcase for 26 designers from not only Malaysia but also Singapore, Indonesia and Pakistan), has as its official goal: 'To build an updated visual and cultural reference from which Islam can be related to the modern world through the creative arena of fashion divorced from political, economic and social strife.'



This is not entirely altruistic. The Muslim clothing and footwear market was estimated by Thomson Reuters at $224 billion globally in 2012 - 10.6 percent of total global expenditure in the sector, and the second biggest market in the world after the United States ($494 billion in 2012) - and the news agency projects it to grow to $322 billion by 2018.


Clearly, the ability to capture a chunk of that market is a meaningful lure, and Malaysia is competing with Dubai and Indonesia for the position of 'capital of Islamic fashion,' Dr. Lewis said. ('Islamic fashion' being a broad umbrella term also known as 'Muslim fashion' or 'Muslim modest fashion' or sometimes simply 'modest fashion,' depending on whom you talk to and what country you are in.) Adding a positive spin to the commercial imperative clearly adds to its allure.


'It's part of national branding strategy and development,' Dr. Lewis said.


The marketing opportunity, religious and national, and the chance to position Malaysia as a leader in the field has probably not been lost on the government. Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak, is the patron of the event. Still, the commercial and promotional drivers should not negate the effort to emphasize the shadings of gray (and pink and yellow and blue) involved.



'There is this crisis where Islam has probably been given a bad name by extremists, and I want to show modest dress does not have to mean somber, or boring or so complicated,' said the designer Calvin Thoo, one of the names who showed last week during the festival and who has been participating in the event since the beginning. Mr. Thoo's collection featured not just long sleeves and skirts and high necks, but also peplums, chiffon halters, beading on shoulders and arms and lace cutaways, all in jewel tones.


Likewise, his fellow festival participant, Nor Aini Shariff, the designer of a line called Jarumas, focuses on what might be termed 'haute batik.' And over all, most of the clothes on display during the festival were marked by their saturated colors, from jade to rose, sapphire, crimson and white, as well as elaborate draping and headpieces. They were modest in coverage, but not aesthetic ambition.


But where the festival may differ most from traditional fashion collections, as well as the competing fashion weeks of Dubai (founded in 2005) and Jakarta (founded in 2008), is that it was conceived not just as a commercial venture, but also as an unofficial outreach program, and has traveled to London, New York, Monaco and Singapore, among other cities. In addition, each catwalk show is treated as a charitable fund-raiser. (Each day benefits a different nonprofit organization, like the breast cancer charity Pink Unity.)


The festival is not alone, however, in seeing fashion as potentially more than simply a way to make a statement about a silhouette. There is a growing awareness in a diverse array of cultures and countries that it may be a useful communications tool. Consider Colombia's InexModa, which has been part of an effort to change the national story from one of drug-running to one of design, or Zambia's fashion week, conceived to move the conversation from poverty to creativity and pride.


Whether such sartorial strategy will work is another question. In the case of Islamic fashion, the festival organizers are, not surprisingly, positive. ('I believe I.F.F. has managed to bring the message that Islam does not equal to terrorism; an easy example is we are still invited around the world,' Dato' Rezza wrote via email.) Dr. Lewis is more measured.


'I don't want to suggest this approach will end global friction or war,' she said. 'But alongside the depiction of Islam as a religion of peace and universal values, the depiction of Islam as part of contemporary consumer culture is an effective way to convey the message they live in the same world as everyone else.'


I shop, therefore I am (like you). In its seeming innocuousness, it may be a more potent message than it sounds.


Thank God: Kendall Jenner Was Not Bullied by Models at Fashion Week


Earlier reports indicated that Kim Kardashian's teenaged sister Kendall Jenner was bullied by the other models at fashion week this fall. But Kendall, who has quickly become successful in the fashion industry for you know, whatever reason, told that no one hates her because she is rich and beautiful.



Teen fashion model and Kim Kardashian sister Kendall Jenner learned some important lessons at New... Read more Read more


Bullying 'has never happened, ever,' she said. 'I would see rumors of girls bullying me backstage and putting cigarettes out in my drink, and none of that has happened. Everyone's been really cool to me. I've never had one girl be mean... so far.'


Well, maybe not to your face, Ken.


Regardless of whether or not she has any detractors, Kendall does have one very important fan: her sister's husband, Kanye West. She told ,


The other day Kanye hugged me and was like, 'Yo, I'm really proud of you.' And I was like, 'REALLY?!' It's so sweet to hear that.


Sounds like everything's coming up Kendall!


[ Photo via Getty]


Steam Fall Sale Begins: Watch Dogs for $30, The Evil Within for $20, and more


As early reports indicated, Steam's Exploration-themed Fall sale kicked off today, and will last through December 2.


Unlike last year's Fall sale, this one will will not include any flash sales, with some deals lasting for 48 hours and others for 24 hours.


Here are some highlights available for the next 48 hours:


If you're looking for more great prices on games, keep an eye out for our regular roundups of Gaming Deals, and GameSpot's roundup of Black Friday sales, which will be posted tomorrow.


Filed under: PC

'Dancing with the Stars' Finale Caps Strong November for ABC


While NBC has won a third straight November sweep in adults 18-49 and CBS prevailed yet again in total viewers, the big takeaway from the four-week ratings period was a strong showing by ABC.


The Alphabet, whose ' Dancing With the Stars ' ended its latest edition Tuesday with the show's best in-season numbers in two years, retained all of its year-ago 18-49 audience during the month while its rivals were down double-digits, according to Nielsen 'live plus same-day' estimates for 27 of the sweep's 28 nights.


And by holding steady in same-day numbers - a big accomplishment these days due to ever-increasing levels of time-shifted viewing that is done in the days after a show's initial telecast - ABC leap-frogged CBS for second place in adults 18-49.


It also opened up a bigger lead on its rivals in non-sports numbers, with its average through Tuesday (2.1/6, even with last year) putting it half a ratings point ahead of the 1.6/5 rating for both CBS (down 16%) and NBC (down 6%). Fox ran fourth (1.3/4), down 19% from last year, and Univision (1.1/3) was fifth.


While ABC doesn't get a boost from NFL ratings like its rivals, it does benefit in November from the three-hour telecasts of both the 'CMA Awards' and the 'American Music Awards.' But it wouldn't have finished on top in non-sports numbers without impressive performances from its entertainment series.


The Alphabet has the season's hottest new series in drama ' How to Get Away With Murder,' which has been virtually matching its big 'Scandal' lead-in on Thursday nights and pulling ahead in DVR playback. The shows, along with 'Grey's Anatomy' in its new leadoff position on the night, helped ABC win all four Thursdays in adults 18-49 in a November sweep for the first time in at least 23 years (pre-dating the 1991 start of Nielsen's electronic database).


And while rival nets have struggled to get anything going in comedy of late, ABC has garnered good numbers Wednesday night with newcomer 'Black-ish.' And 'The Goldbergs' has blossomed into the the best-looking sophomore half-hour, building on its 'The Middle' lead-in by an average of 20% and outperforming last year's 'Back in the Game' by more than 40%.


In between the two young comedies, 'Modern Family' (TV's No. 2-rated laffer) seems to have been revitalized in its sixth season.


Overall, ABC could claim six of the top 15 broadcast entertainment series in 18-49. That list includes Sunday's ' Once Upon a Time,' whose 'live plus same-day' average in November was up about 25% from last year.


NBC had broadcast's No. 1 overall series in 18-49 with 'Sunday Night Football,' but was hurt some by airing 'The Blacklist' only two times. Also, the decline of 'The Voice' was noticeable and it had a trickle-down effect since it occupied about 15% of the net's schedule.


A standout for NBC is 'Chicago Fire,' which on average beat its broadcast drama competition in the Tuesday 10 p.m. hour and helped kickstart a two-night, three-show crossover event that helped bring season highs for Wednesday's 'Law & Order: SVU' and 'Chicago PD.'


CBS once again had primetime's No. 1 comedy in 'The Big Bang Theory' as well as the most-watched entertainment series in ' NCIS.' Its declines are due in part to the loss of Monday anchor 'How I Met Your Mother' as well as the clunker that was the 'Hollywood Film Awards,' which occupied one full Friday night (0.5/2 in 18-49).


Among newbies, 'NCIS: New Orleans' and 'Scorpion' have both performed about as well as can be expected. And Sunday's 'Madam Secretary,' while a modest performer in adults 18-49, has done well in adults 25-54 and its upscale skew has made it both a good fit with 'The Good Wife' as well as attractive to advertisers.


Fox had a rough November, with rookies 'Red Band Society,' 'Gracepoint' and 'Mulaney' all averaging less than a 1.0 same-night rating for the month.


On the plus side, 'Gotham' has lived up to its early promise - ranking No. 2 among all new series in 18-49 - and been one of the steadiest performers of the past six weeks. And 'MasterChef Junior' has helped improve Tuesday's opening hour.


CW held steady in adults 18-49 for the month (0.6/2) while edging up in total viewers. Tuesday newcomer 'The Flash' has become the net's top-rated new show since 'The Vampire Diaries' in 2009.


NOVEMBER SWEEP STANDINGS(All programming; live plus same-day through Nov. 25)

Adults 18-49 NBC 2.3/7 (down 12% from last year) ABC 2.0/6 (even) CBS 1.8/6 (down 18%) Fox 1.3/4 (down 24%) CW 0.6/2 (even)


Total Viewers CBS 9.69 million (down 5%) NBC 8.26 million (down 1%) ABC 7.94 million (up 1%) Fox 3.87 million (down 22%) CW 1.62 million (up 4%)


**************************************


Looking at Tuesday's ratings action, 'Dancing With the Stars' averaged a 2.9 rating/9 share in adults 18-49 and 15.8 million viewers overall from 9 to 11 p.m. to stand as the No. 1 show on the night in both categories. It was up half a ratings point in 18-49 and about 2 million total viewers ahead of its year-ago finish for the show's top-rated finish to a cycle since the fall of 2012.


And in total viewers, no unscripted telecast has done a better number since an episode of 'The Voice' last February.


Elsewhere, CBS placed second on the night, with 'NCIS' (2.4/8 in 18-49, 15.7 million viewers overall) pulling ahead of NBC's 'The Voice' (2.3/7 in 18-49, 9.2 million viewers overall) in 18-49 for the first time. Last week, the music contest won by a tenth, but it came down a few more tenths last night to hit the show's lowest firstrun rating of the season.


'NCIS,' like 'The Voice,' was down from last week as both shows may have been impacted by ABC's special 'Dancing With the Stars: Road to the Finals' (1.9/6 in 18-49, 11.25 million viewers overall). 'NCIS: New Orleans' (2.3/7 in 18-49, 14.2 million viewers overall) was able to match last week's number, and 'Person of Interest' was up (1.7/5 in 18-49, 8.9 million viewers overall) to edge ahead of NBC's 'Chicago Fire' (1.6/5 in 18-49, 6.0 million viewers overall).


The 9 p.m. comedy battle between Fox and NBC was a tight one, with the former having the demo edge both with 'New Girl' (1.3/4 in 18-49, 2.8 million viewers overall) over 'Marry Me' (series-low 1.1/3 in 18-49, 3.8 million viewers overall) and 'The Mindy Project' (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.3 million viewers overall) over 'About a Boy' (1.0/3 in 18-49, 3.1 million viewers overall).


Fox's 'MasterChef' (1.5/5 in 18-49, 4.0 million viewers overall) was down a tick at 8, and CW's 'The Flash' (1.4/4 in 18-49, 3.4 million viewers overall) and 'Supernatural' (0.9/3 in 18-49, 2.2 million viewers overall) were on par with last week.


Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: ABC, 2.6/8; CBS, 2.1/7; NBC, 1.6/5; Fox, 1.3/4; CW and Univision, 1.1/3; Telemundo, 0.5/2.


In total viewers: ABC, 14.3 million; CBS, 12.9 million; NBC, 6.2 million; Fox, 3.3 million; CW and Univision, 2.8 million; Telemundo, 1.3 million.


Darren Wilson Reveals He And His Wife Are Expecting A Baby

Posted:



ABC aired more footage Wednesday of George Stephanopoulos' interview with Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on 'Good Morning America,' in which he announced that he and his wife are expecting a baby.


Wilson got married on Oct. 24 in Overland, Missouri, just two months after the Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.


The interview, which marked the first time Wilson has spoken or been seen publicly since the shooting, was taped Tuesday, and ABC first aired some clips Tuesday evening.


In the interview portions that aired Wednesday morning, Wilson told Stephanopoulos that his wife, Barbara Spradling, is pregnant -- and that the two of them hope to move on and live a 'normal' life.


'I just want to live a new life but that's not possible,' he said. 'Things will be different. There'll be a new normal, but we'll find it somehow.'


As Wilson and his wife prepare to welcome a new life sometime next year, the parents of Brown continue to grieve and mourn the loss of their son.


Wilson claimed that Brown's death and the reactions from the community will not haunt him, saying instead that 'it was just something that happened.'


When asked if there was anything he would have done differently, Wilson said no.


Earlier reports suggested that Wilson would resign from the police force, but he explained in the interview that he is still considering whether to take that action.


'We don't know that yet,' he said.


'That was the job of my life,' he said. 'I pictured being there -- my only goal was being promoted to sergeant. I love being on the road as a police officer.'


Wilson also described his dream goals and said his future aspirations are to teach police officers about the practice.


'I would love to teach people and give people more insight on uses of force and anything, anything that I can get out of this career I've had thus far and of the incident,' he said. 'More insight, more knowledge, whatever the cause is for.'


As for the ongoing protests in Ferguson and beyond that have activated more than 2,000 National Guard troops, Wilson says his thoughts are with the officers.


'I pray for safety of the officers and everyone else,' he said. 'Those officers have an incredible task ahead of them, and I just don't want to see them get hurt.'


When asked if he felt remorse over Brown's death, Wilson said, 'Everyone feels remorse when there's a life lost.'


However, he claims to have a clear conscience over it all: 'The reason I have a clean conscience is because I know I did my job.'


See more on Wilson's interview here. More On Ferguson From HuffPost:

Brown's parents appeared on NBC's 'Today Show' Wednesday morning and said that Wilson's comments add 'insult to injury.'


'When you have people of color be killed they try to demonize and play on the stereotypes, and they try to put the police officer who killed our children on a pedestal,'' family attorney Benjamin Crump told host Savannah Guthrie. 'It's just not right, and we have to fix this system.'


Photographic Evidence Reveals 'First Year Law Student Could Have Done Better Job' 61 Arrested Ferguson Smolders After Night Of Fires Protest Locations Americans Deeply Divided Police Chief: 'Worse Than The Worst Night We Had In August' What You Can Do Darren Wilson Interview Darren Wilson Could Still Face Consequences Timeline Students Protest Photos Of Darren Wilson's Injuries Released Shooting Witness Admitted Racism In Journal Peaceful Responses Show The U.S. At Its Best Reactions To Ferguson Decision Prosecutor Gives Bizarre Press Conference Notable Black Figures React Jury Witness: 'By The Time I Saw His Hands In The Air, He Got Shot' Thousands Protest Nationwide


See more on Ferguson in the liveblog below:


As soon as I could hear the smashing glass I heard many protesters yelling 'don't do it'


- Jim Dalrymple II (@JimDalrympleII) November 26, 2014


WATCH LIVE: Group of #Ferguson protesters light dumpsters, other items on fire in #Oakland: http://t.co/VFCHYKuEsn http://ift.tt/1vgnRut


- ABC7 News (@abc7newsBayArea) November 26, 2014


!!!!! RT @kron4news #Oakland Protesters Shut Down I-580 In Both Directions #FERGUSON http://t.co/HM6EmRkJeL


- m_x (@soit_goes) November 26, 2014


Protesters have put up the barricades they took from @LAPDHQ on the 101 fwy. #KTLA #Ferguson http://ift.tt/1vgnTmi


- Nidia Becerra (@nidia_b) November 26, 2014


Protestors at 8th & Broadway in #Oakland start fire in 2nd night of demonstrations.@NightBeatTV 10p @KBCWtv #Ferguson http://ift.tt/1ASH0r4


- Veronica De La Cruz (@VeronicaDLCruz) November 26, 2014


Read more here. -- Amanda Terkel

HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reports:


decision not to indict Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson for killing unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown. But the protest in Boston had a twist: Marchers stopped at a local jail to stand with the inmates there.


According to the Boston Globe, approximately 1,400 people marched to the South Bay House of Correction. Protesters were reportedly chanting, 'We see you,' and 'Black lives matter.'


Read more here.

HuffPost's Matt Sledge reports:


The fires from a night of chaos were still smoldering in Ferguson, Missouri, on Tuesday as residents, protesters and the public looked forward to what happens next.


The grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown left the 18-year-old's family 'profoundly disappointed.' But Brown's family, Ferguson residents, police and other officials also looked forward -- to a likely long process of continued protests and reverberating legal actions.


Was attacked and robbed at gunpoint at the memorial.


- Marcus DiPaola (@MJDiPaola) November 26, 2014


All reporters: PLEASE DO NOT GO TO CANFIELD MEMORIAL. Was attacked and robbed at gunpoint.


- Marcus DiPaola (@MJDiPaola) November 26, 2014


MT '@PowerU305: #FERGUSONEVERYWHERE RT @xathern: Miami Dade Police Department #IndictTheSystem #ShutItDown http://ift.tt/1uEta3i ''


- OBS_StL (@OBS_StL) November 25, 2014


Alfonso Ribeiro wins 'Dancing with the Stars' season 19 finals

'Dancing With the Stars' 2014: Alfonso Ribeiro Wins in Season 19 Finals. (Photo: ABC News)

NEW YORK (ABC News) - After a hotly contested finale in which only a few votes separated the final three contenders, actor Alfonso Ribeiro emerged the winner of season 19 of ABC's 'Dancing With the Stars' tonight at the conclusion of the two-part finale.


Ribeiro and his partner Witney Carson beat out 'Duck Dynasty' star Sadie Robertson and her partner, Mark Ballas, and 'Pretty Little Liars' actress Janel Parrish and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, to claim the coveted mirror ball trophy.


Ribeiro appeared elated as he hugged Carson, and he was in tears as he talked with the show's co-host, Tom Bergeron.


'I cannot believe this,' he said. 'I've wanted it forever ... I don't even know what to say. These are happy tears.'


Carson was beaming.


'He's one of the most hardworking people I've ever met,' she said of her partner, telling him directly: 'You deserve it.'


Robertson, who earned second place, thanked God for carrying her through to the finale of the competition and said Ribeiro deserved to win.


Parrish, who took third place, appeared emotional but smiled through tears at her partner.


'I honestly am just so lucky to be here standing next to him. You were my trophy the entire season so I'm happy,' Parrish told Chmerkovskiy.


After their two performances yesterday on the first night of the finale, Ribeiro led the pack with a perfect score of 80, followed by Robertson with 78 points and Parrish with 77 points. YouTube star Bethany Mota, who had made it to the final four competitors, was sent home yesterday during the first night of the finale.


With less than a day to prepare, the top three couples were assigned a fusion challenge in which they had to create a new dance routine that combined two contrasting dance styles. They performed the routines tonight for points from judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba, Julianne Hough and Bruno Tonioli.


The three finalists all earned perfect scores of 40 each for their fusion dances - Ribeiro for his cha-cha/Argentine tango, Parrish for her foxtrot/paso doble and Robertson her samba/quickstep.


The points were added to the judges' scores from last night for a two-night total of 120 for Ribeiro, 118 for Robertson and 117 for Parrish. Those scores were combined with viewer votes from last night for a final grand total.


How They Performed Throughout the Season


Ribeiro has been fan favorite this season, and delighted the ballroom audience and viewers when he performed 'The Carlton,' the quirky dance performed by the character he played on the hit TV sitcom 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.' The 43-year-old danced his way to the finals despite having suffered groin and back injuries during rehearsals.


Judges had high praise for Robertson's improvement throughout the competition. The 17-year-old reality TV personality became another fan favorite from the moment she took the stage in the season premiere to perform a cha-cha that impressed the judges. A high point for her came several weeks into the competition when she performed a 'Ducky Dynasty'-inspired samba that featured a cameo from the men in her famous family.


Parrish, 26, started the competition well and kept on improving, her scores placing her at or near the top of the leaderboard for much of the competition. Her jazz routine in week three resulted in the first perfect score of the season, but she recently injured her ribs during rehearsals and it showed in her performance last night.


The competition started 11 weeks ago with 13 stars -- including actor Antonio Sabato Jr., comedian Tommy Chong, Olympian Lolo Jones and NASCAR legend Michael Waltrip - vying for their chance at the mirror ball trophy.


Tonight's two-hour show included live musical performances from Jennifer Hudson and Gorgon City, Nick Jonas and Meghan Trainor. Stars who had been booted from the dance floor during this season also returned to wow the ballroom audience with new routines.


Viewers also got to see an encore performance of Mota's freestyle after Twitter fans picked it as the freestyle they most wanted to see again.


Calmer night in Ferguson as heavily armed police prevent repeat of violence

A show of force by police and the US national guard in Ferguson, Missouri prevented a second night of widespread rioting by early on Wednesday.


While smouldering sections of the town remained shut down as potential crime scenes, extra troops in camouflage and heavily armed police officers in riot gear appeared determined to prevent a repeat of Monday night's scenes of looting and arson.


That unrest, leading to dozens of arrests, followed the decision by a grand jury not to charge police officer Darren Wilson for shooting dead Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, on a residential side-street in Ferguson on 9 August.


After they were accused of being caught flat-footed on Monday, law enforcement officers responded swiftly to shut down reports of criminal activity. 'I think generally it was a much better night,' St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said at a 1.30am press conference. He said officers showed restraint and some protesters had been 'out there for the right reasons'.


Police shot teargas canisters and pepper-spray at a boisterous crowd outside Ferguson's city hall, after windows on the building were smashed and a police car outside was partly burned. Officers seized a molotov cocktail at the site, said Belmar.


In all, police made 44 arrests, Belmar said, including four for the felony charges of unlawful use of a weapon and assaulting police officers. Police also seized two pistols and collected items such as rocks, tent poles and plastic bottles full of urine that they said were thrown.


National guardsmen took at least one demonstrator into custody at the Ferguson police headquarters, where several people were arrested in the latest nightly clash. The actions were a significant expansion in the responsibilities of the volunteer soldiers.


After Missouri governor Jay Nixon ordered in 700 more troops on Monday to bring the total to 2,200 since he declared a state of emergency last week, the soldiers were also lining streets, guarding businesses and utility stations around the town.


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A car was burned, and gunfire heard near the site of Brown's killing, Belmar said. A group tried to loot a Walgreens pharmacy that was robbed and torched on Tuesday. Others smashed store fronts and threw stones at police cars after being forced away from the police department


Shortly after midnight, as a crowd that had been hurling rocks at a glass shop front melted away, one police officer could not contain an emotional outburst.


'You call this peaceful protest?' he shouted at them. 'No families can get to shop. No baby food. There's no milk. They can't even go to work tomorrow. They've got Christmas coming up and Thanksgiving. All these people protesting ruined everything - everything in this city. Twenty-five years I've been in this city and this is terrible.'


When women tried to shout the police officer down, he shouted back. 'Yeah, whatever,' he said. 'Destroy our town.'


Yet incidents were kept isolated and brief by police and troops arriving in high-speed convoys and ordering people to leave. Reviving a tactic used during unrest after Brown's death in August, officers simply declared demonstrations illegal and cleared the streets. Volunteers and members of the clergy also intervened to de-escalate tensions during standoffs at the police headquarters.


As Ferguson residents and business owners attempted to count the cost of Monday's damage, police chiefs appeared to concede that they had underestimated the potential for such unrest - despite having had three months since Brown's death to prepare.


Belmar said that he and colleagues had not 'really envisioned how bad last night was,' adding: 'I think that was a scale that fortunately is seldom seen here in this country'. Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri state highway patrol said: 'None of us could have imagined that last night was going to be what it was'.


The activity was condemned as unacceptable by Nixon during a press conference earlier on Tuesday to unveil his expansion of the national guard's mission in Ferguson. 'No one should have to live like this,' he said. 'No one deserves this.' President Obama said in Chicago that he does not 'have any sympathy' with those who resorted to violence.


At a press conference on Tuesday morning, lawyers for Brown's family sharply criticised Bob McCulloch, the county prosecutor who oversaw the grand jury system, and said that the criminal justice system was systematically failing young black victims of police violence. They called for a 'Michael Brown's law' that would see all officers forced to wear body cameras.


Anger over the grand jury's decision was further inflamed on Tuesday when Wilson made his first public appearance since the shooting. He told ABC News in an interview that he could not have done anything differently on 9 August and the incident would have been the same if Brown had been white. 'The reason I have a clean conscience is 'cos I know I did my job right,' said Wilson.


Selasa, 25 November 2014

Forget NY and Paris, Africa Fashion Week Soars

The growing trend of Fashion Weeks across the African continent challenges the notion that global fashion starts in the northern hemisphere

The scene could come from any of Europe or America's frenzied fashion shows, but for two key differences: the models are mostly black and the designers all African. Welcome to Fashion Week Africa in Johannesburg, an annual event that offers a sharp rebuttal to the idea that international fashion begins and ends in the northern hemisphere. 'When it comes to fashion design, Africa is the next frontier,' says Precious Moloi-Motsepe, a women's health doctor and wife of South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe who founded African Fashion International, which organizes the event, in 2007.


Now in its sixth year, Fashion Week Africa-which recently picked up Mercedes Benz's sponsorship in a sign of its growing prominence (the company also sponsors fashion weeks in Australia, Russia and Mexico)-is a showcase for Africa's top designers. Headlining designer David Tlale of South Africa makes regular appearances at New York's fashion week, while Mozambican Taibo Bacar and South African Hendrik Vermeulen wowed audiences in Milan and Rome earlier this year.


Chesapeake man finds his lost dog listed for sale in a Craigslist ad

Virginia Beach, Va. - A 22-year-old Virginia Beach woman was arrested on Sunday after fraudulently taking a lost dog, listing it on Craigslist and being caught attempting to sell it.


The owner of the 3-year-old Siberian Husky named Nikita says she escaped from their yard near Taylor Road in Chesapeake on Saturday morning around 10:00 a.m.


Jessica Colleran, 22, of Virginia Beach, fraudulently picked up Nikita later that day after she was listed on a 'found dog' Craigslist ad. Colleran told the finder of the dog that she was the owner, according to Chesapeake Police.


After taking Nikita, Colleran took her to a location in Portsmouth and then posted a Craigslist ad listing her for sale.


The owner was contacted after several people spotted the Craigslist ad, which featured a picture of Nikita and a description stating that she needed to be re-homed due to issues with a landlord.


The owner tells NewsChannel 3 that he called Colleran and pretended to be interested in buying the dog. He agreed to meet her on Sunday in a park in the Cradock area of Portsmouth.


Portsmouth Police and Chesapeake Animal Control accompanied Nikita's owner to the park to meet Colleran and officials were able to scan Nikita and verify her identity and ownership.


Colleran was taken into custody and charged with obtaining property under false pretenses. She is currently being held in the Chesapeake Correctional Center.


Senin, 24 November 2014

CHINA FASHION WEEK S/S 15

It's always a great experience covering a fashion week. I enjoy running from one show to the other. Carrying my camera, the lenses and a small ladder with me from one venue to the other. There's always this mystery about the show. The lightning, the designs, the music the hairstyle, the make up and even the pace of the show itself. They all become one the moment the first model steps into the runway. And I specially enjoy this feeling of trying to grasp the best shot for each design.


This Spring Summer 2015 edition of China Fashion Week was bigger than ever. With eighty-three fashion designers taking part in the event and a total of sixty-six fashion shows. I've picked up some pieces from some of the most interesting shows at the China Fashion Week.


See all the designers and images on Style By Asia' link it to :


http://ift.tt/1uyViVl


In collaboration with


Networks, cable channels deck their schedules with holiday offerings

Fresno BeeNetworks, cable channels deck their schedules with holiday offeringsFresno Bee3, KSEE: Clips from past seasons of “Saturday Night Live.” • “The Polar Express,” 9 p.m. Dec. 3, ABC Family: Young boy takes a special train ride to the North Pole. • “Peter Pan Live!,” 8 p.m. Dec. 4, KSEE: Allison Williams plays Peter Pan in this live ...

Live +7 Ratings: ABC Claims 3 of the Week's Top 5 Biggest Broadcast Gainers in ...


via press release:


Please note: ABC's entire Wednesday line-up was pre-empted for the CMA Awards, Castle was pre-empted for a Countdown to the CMA Awards special, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pre-empted for a Marvel: 75 Years, From Pulp to Pop! Special and Forever was pre-empted for Election coverage.

among Adults 18-49, Despite a number of its programs being pre-empted during the week, ABC still had 3 of the week's Top 5 biggest broadcast gainers with CBS and NBC having just one apiece, while also claiming 4 of the Top 10 ( the most for any network for the 7th week running): How to Get Away with Murder


Matching its largest playback gain this season (+1.0 rating points), ABC's grew to a new season high L+7 rating in Adults 18-49 (2.3 rating).


In the final Live + 7 Day ratings, HTGAWM (5.0 rating - #3) (4.7 - #4) shot up to the week's Top 5 highest-rated broadcast programs among Adults 18-49(from #8 and #7, respectively, in the L+SD numbers) and solidified their ranks as the Top 2 broadcast dramas of the week.


· (3.6) ABC's Once Upon A Time grew to a 3.9 rating with Adults 18-49 to emerge as Sunday's #1 broadcast entertainment series, beating Fox's The by 3-tenths of a rating point. In the L+SD ratings, Once Upon A Time trailed the Fox animated show by 5-tenths of a rating point among young adults.


Season-to-Date TV Playback (9/22/14-11/9/14):

Based on L+7 ratings for the first 7 weeks of the 2014-15 season, ABC is the #1 non-sports network among Adults 18-49 (2.8 rating) in the L+7 numbers, holding double-digit advantages over CBS (+12% - 2.5), NBC (+17% - 2.4) and Fox (+33% - 2.1). ABC grows by +0.9 rating points over its Live + Same Day Adult 18-49 rating (1.9 rating in L+SD to a 2.8 in L+7) in the non-sports averages, making the Net the #1 biggest actual gainer in TV playback this season. Growing to a 2.8 L+7 rating among Adults 18-49 in the non-sports numbers, ABC is even year to year (2.8 for 9/23/13-11/10/13), while CBS (-11%), NBC (-14%) and Fox (-13%) all posted double-digit losses.


Based on TV playback data for the 2014-15 season, ABC's How to Get Away with Murder (+2.2 rating points) (+2.2) share the #2 spot among broadcast gainers in Adults 18-49.


(+1.8). The ABC showis also ABC's HTGAWM is the season's biggest gainer for any freshman series among Adults 18-49 (+2.2 rating points), topping the L+7 gain of Fox's Gotham the season's #1 broadcast drama and #1 new TV show in the young adult demo (5.3 rating).


Among Adults 18-49 in the L+7 ratings, ABC has the #1 show on Wednesday with Modern Family (5.7 rating), the Top 3 series on Thursday with HTGAWM (5.3), (4.8) and 's (4.1) and the #1 show on Friday with (2.5).


(+61% vs. +57%), DWTS (+21% vs. +19%), Several ABC's returning series are seeing bigger percentage gains among Adults 18-49 from L+SD to L+7 this year than last: Last Man Standing (+58% vs. +46%), Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (+82% vs. +65%), (+30% vs. +22%), Modern Family (+63% vs. +48%) and (+83% vs. +65%).


Source: The Nielsen Company, as dated. Based on regular, original telecasts only. Season-to-Date DVR playback ranker includes programs with 2 or more telecasts.


Minggu, 23 November 2014

Last


LONDON - The festive season is approaching. The year's main art fairs are over, but London's galleries, antiques markets and salesrooms still offer a hunting ground for the gift-challenged. Vanessa Curry, an art consultant advising private collectors since 2007, offered some last-minute holiday shopping tips to Palko Karasz.


Q. Based on what you have seen this year, what do you think the trend will be this holiday season?

A. Increasingly we're seeing great examples of design - fine art crossover work reaching great prices but also a high level of interest from collectors and people who just want something beautiful for their home. For example, Lalique continues to get great prices.


Prints and editions by blue-chip artists continue to have great appeal and I think increasingly so, because the prices of unique paintings are so high for blue-chip artists that the editions and prints market is very strong.


Lalique is very solid as an investment but also, if you choose the really modern, architectural works, I think they stand the test of time in terms of modern design and interiors as well.


Q. There are a number of sales at the big auction houses in London this December. Which ones would you recommend?

A. Quite a fun one that is going on at Christie's is the 'Sporting and Wildlife Art' sale on Dec. 10. If you have a dog lover in your family there are some great, and some of them very humorous, paintings of dogs. Lot 3, for example, is a great small painting and the title of it is 'A High-Maintenance Chihuahua,' from 1886.


'Un Moment de Perfection,' (at Christie's, on Dec. 3) has a lovely Cartier Art Deco vanity box with compartments for powder puff and lipstick.


There has been a surge of interest in these boxes, which are completely usable and attractive as ever. This is a special one that has all the hallmarks you could ever want to find in such an item.


On a more serious note, on Dec. 9 at Sotheby's there is the 'English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations' sale.


There are some really lovely illustrations, for example from A.A. Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh,' amongst other pieces. The illustrations for 'Winnie the Pooh' are by E.H. Shepard. It's 50,000 pounds to 70,000 pounds estimate (or $79,000 to $110,000) so we're not talking cheap here, and that is the original ink drawing from the book.


It's something that will stand the test of time, because Winnie the Pooh continues to be as liked today as it was yesterday.


For the men in the family there is a 'Fine and Rare Wines' sale at Bonhams, New Bond Street, on Dec. 4. There is also a 'Fine Clocks' sale on Dec. 10 at Bonhams, and often what you get with that is little travel clocks, which I think are very useful but also continue to be saleable and much loved.


Q. And on the antiques scene?

A. I would really recommend going to Grays antique market on Davies Street in Mayfair and also Alfies in Marylebone.


For men, if you are just looking for a piece like some cuff links, a travel flask or a nice walking cane, these markets would be absolutely fantastic for that.


Similarly, for women, they have not- highly priced beautiful pieces of jewelry. If you have £300 to £400 to spend you can absolutely go to one of those antiques markets, speak to a dealer who has a wealth of experience and be able to find something that's unique and special and probably with a story - which for the same amount of money you won't find on the high street.


Sometimes buying a gift is also about its accompanying story, that goes beyond walking down Oxford Street.


Q. Are these sales put together specifically with the holidays in mind?

A. I think that it's thought about, for sure. I mean a Tiffany sale in New York just before Christmas - I've bought Tiffany on behalf of clients for presents just before Christmas, so other people must have the same idea.


The auction houses now are trying to place themselves as dealers. Over the past two years, they have been presenting themselves as the go-to for consumers directly, not just the trade.


Which is a huge problem for the galleries and dealers: What the art dealers feel is that they're being squeezed dramatically out of the market. Of course people know that potentially you might be able to buy at a cheaper price at an auction house because it doesn't include the dealer's commission. But, by that, you don't get the same level of relationship and expertise that you might from a gallery or dealer.


A top art dealer or gallery will have expertise in excess of an auction house - and that is what you're missing out on by buying directly from auction.


Q. What about emerging art, or if you want to buy presents with philanthropy in mind?

A. There is a fantastic gallery sale linked to a charitable organization, happening right until Christmas, run by Studio Voltaire. They are a not-for-profit contemporary art studio and gallery. They exhibited at Frieze and they are known internationally for their work in terms of supporting young, emerging, highly thought-of artists: but also in terms of their sponsorship and charitable projects.


Studio Voltaire has a large number of items donated from contemporary artists and the artists they support. They have those items at the 'House of Voltaire' biennial temporary shop in central London.


FineCell Work is a charity that provides training in embroidery to prisoners in U.K. prisons. The work the prisoners produce is then sold, and it is stunning. I just commissioned a cushion for a client as a gift.


Q. Is there something for all budgets?

A. I think there is a whole spread of prices, values and qualities in the arts and antiques market in London.


For example, Didier on Kensington Church Street are dealers of fine jewelry that is produced only by artists such as Picasso, Dalí and designers such as Lalanne; and they have pieces going from a few hundred pounds to hundreds of thousands of pounds.


From there, you will find pieces that are not only by blue-chip names and absolutely in iconic style of that particular artist, but also you're getting something which has a good potential as an investment.


They have pieces from medallions through to rings and ornate jewelry, going beyond just paying for something pretty: It's more about investing in art but it's also very gift-worthy.


Q. Is there a risk of running into higher prices than during the rest of the year?

A. I think that if one looks desperate on Dec. 23, then potentially yes. But I think that, at auction houses, you can never tell who the overbidder and the underbidder is. But if you walk into galleries, and you don't look too desperate - and you've done a bit of background research in terms of what the kind of price level should be and what the quality of the item is - then any decent art or antiques dealer will happily enter into a very honest conversation. And I would be surprised if a reputable dealer would seek to get more money just because it's the before-Christmas rush.


Q. Have you seen any surprising or extravagant gifts with your clients in past years?

A. Just last year, mid-December, my client contacted me - his wife absolutely loves ornate glass and jewelry - and we bought a Tiffany lamp, mid-December, for £100,000. With another client, also last year, mid-December, we bought a piece of prewar, rare Lalique for £15,000.


Also we bought a piece of silver from Adrian Sassoon, and that was about £25,000. I think that they don't seek to be extravagant but if you have made your money from potentially nothing, then you want to show your appreciation to your family.


Jumat, 21 November 2014

Official: Ferguson grand jury still reviewing evidence


Activists, authorities and the family of Michael Brown called for calm as a grand jury drew closer to an announcement in the Ferguson police shooting. But it was unclear whether the panel was still at work or when it would render a decision.


Earlier Friday, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch told reporters that jurors were reviewing evidence as they weigh whether to indict officer Darren Wilson.


Five hours later, Ed Magee declined to say whether the panel was still meeting.


The time, date and place for a news conference announcing the decision has not been decided, Magee said.


Wilson, 28, reportedly told the grand jury that he feared for his life on Aug. 9 as Brown, who was 6-foot-4 and nearly 300 pounds, came at him. Witnesses said Brown was trying to surrender and had his hands up.


The shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old black man by a white police officer led to protests, some of which turned violent. Demonstrations have continued for more than three months, though the number of protesters has dwindled and violence has become uncommon.


There were signs of rising tension.


Protesters were arrested Thursday outside Ferguson police headquarters for the second night in a row after around 40 demonstrators blocked South Florissant Road. One of the three people arrested pushed an officer and was hit with pepper spray, according to St. Louis County Police spokesman Brian Schellman.


Calls for peace and restraint emanated from several quarters, including President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and civil-rights leaders and business owners.


The most emotional appeal came from Brown's father, Michael Brown Sr.


'Hurting others or destroying property is not the answer,' Brown said in the video released by the group STL Forward. 'No matter what the grand jury decides, I don't want my son's death to be in vain. I want it to lead to incredible change, positive change, change that makes the St. Louis region better for everyone.'


Holder issued a general reminder to police to prepare for demonstrations and to 'minimize needless confrontation.'


His video message did not explicitly mention Ferguson, but it did reference demonstrations over the past few months that have 'sought to bring attention to real and significant underlying issues involving police practices.'


'I know from firsthand experience that demonstrations like these have the potential to spark a sustained and positive national dialogue, to provide momentum to a necessary conversation and to bring about critical reform,' Holder said in the video.


'But history has also shown us that the most successful and enduring movements for change are those that adhere to nonaggression and nonviolence,' he added.


Eddie Hassaun of the civil rights group Justice Disciples urged protesters not to be confrontational and for police to follow suit.


'We're looking for the action on the other side to be equally as committed to peace in the streets and peace for the demonstrators,' Hassaun said.


City, county and state leaders on Friday announced a 'rules of engagement' agreement between police and roughly 50 protest groups. The pact is aimed at preventing violence on both sides.


Obama also urged Ferguson to keep the protests peaceful, saying all Americans have the right to peacefully assemble to speak against actions they regard as unjust. But, he said, using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to the rule of law.


The president commented in an interview with ABC News scheduled to air Sunday. The network released his comment about Ferguson on Friday night.


The civil rights organization Advancement Project said more than 70 protest actions are scheduled around the country, including occupying government space in Washington and a gathering at police headquarters in Chicago.


Concern about the aftermath of the announcement prompted one school district to call off classes for Monday and Tuesday. The Jennings district includes some students who live in Ferguson. It had previously planned to close for Thanksgiving starting Wednesday.


Antonio Henley, owner of Prime Time Beauty and Barber Shop in Ferguson, said concern about the pending announcement is hurting business.


'It's been rough, especially these past few weeks leading up to the decision,' Henley said. 'Our business has been cut in half because the people in the community are afraid to come around.'


The FBI has sent nearly 100 additional agents to Ferguson to help law enforcement agencies, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the FBI plans.


Fashion Houston designers green it up for spring


Photo: Dave Rossman, Freelance


Spring blossomed on the runway for the fifth annual Fashion Houston, the city's answer to New York Fashion Week, at Wortham Center.


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Man Performs At

Posted:




A Florida man is facing multiple charges after police say he performed an at-home C-section on a dog and cut a puppy's ears with scissors as a part of an illegal dog breeding operation.


Lazaro Ruiz, 26, was arrested at his residence in Homestead on Monday, months after police began getting reports of dog abuse, the Miami Herald reports. The investigation began in January, after disturbing videos started appearing on YouTube, according to Local 10.


Warning: Some viewers may find the following video disturbing.

In one video, Doberman puppies were fighting over raw meat in a bathtub.


A different home video depicted someone cutting four puppies out of a pit bull's womb.


Authorities were led to Ruiz last week, after a woman told them she had purchased pit bull puppies from him and witnessed him injecting a mysterious drug into the leg of a female pit bull that was giving birth, the Miami Herald reports.


Police say they set up a fake puppy purchase at Ruiz's home. When they apprehended Ruiz, he allegedly fought back, breaking an officer's finger. Officers said that Ruiz's tattoos matched those of the man seen performing the C-section in the video.


Three adult dogs and one puppy were rescued from the home. Parts of the puppy's ears had been cut off using scissors.


'You can liken it to actually removing your own ear,' Jacquelyn Johnston, of animal rescue group No Paw Left Behind, told WSVN. 'It's going through cartilage. It's going through a lot of blood vessels. There's an extensive amount of bleeding.'


All four rescued dogs are in the care of Miami-Dade Animal Services and are expected to be put up for adoption.


Ruiz was charged with animal cruelty, unlicensed practice of veterinary medicine and unlicensed sale of animals. He is out of jail on bond.


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