Portal4Fashion.com

Here is some cool candy as a fashion statement from www.AdaptiveOD.com

She sure looks good in this picture.  I wonder if she has had too much collegen because she looked kinda gross on America’s Smartest Model and the fact that she made it past the first week made that show look D-U-M-B!

Harper’s Bazaar UK has named who they believe to be Britain’s five most original dressers. Included on this years list is Rosie Oddie, singer from band The Odd Squad and 22-year-old daughter of Bill Oddie. Angel of the North sculptor Antony Gormley’s daughter Paloma, 22, is also named.  The magazine hails the duo for their “luxe eccentric” style, and has photographed them for the latest issue of Harper’s. Also named in the list is beer heiress Daphne Guinness, who the magazine described as “a walking work of art”, cross-dressing Turner Prize-winning potter Grayson Perry, and fashion empress Amanda Harlech.  I am not sure I agree with this list but most of those named would make my top 10.

Sports goods maker Puma appointed fashion designer Hussein Chalayan as its creative director in a bid to vault its style status to the next level marking itself out from rivals like Adidas.  Puma, the world’s third largest sportswear maker, made the announcement during Paris Fashion Week where Chalayan presented a critically acclaimed womenswear collection for fall 2008.

“We want to be different, that’s the idea behind this. We don’t want to be mass market and selling to discount stores, we just want to keep a premium,” Puma Chief Executive Jochen Zeitz, told Reuters in an interview at the presentation.

Chalayan is famous for his thought-provoking designs, would bring his use of new technology and provocative point of view to Puma, Zeitz told a news conference.  Zeitz is credited with turning Puma into a lifestyle brand and making it one of Germany’s best-known exports.

Collaborations with designers are a regular feature in the cut-throat retail industry as the world’s biggest brands seek to differentiate themselves and lure in ever-pickier consumers. Puma, has already worked with edgy, top rated designers Alexander McQueen and Jil Sander.

Meanwhile German rival Adidas has seen its business boosted by its long-term collaboration with Stella McCartney, whose top end fashion house is owned by Puma parent company PPR.

Bernstein Research analyst Marco Giovanelli said the deal was a signal Puma was aiming to move upscale in fashion terms.  If anyone doubts the logic of marrying high fashion with sports gear look no further than the price tag on some of the new basketball runners.

Paris Fashion Week is known for boasting the world’s oldest fashion names but the spotlight focussed on a couple of newcomers — Phoebe and Euan, aged 7.
 
The pair, from a primary school in England, were enlisted by Vivienne Westwood, the grand dame of British fashion, along with 34 of their classmates to paint bugs, plants and snakes all over her collection.

The theme? Ecological crisis. “It was just brilliant, and she was very nice and helpful,” said Euan Bonser a working with Westwood who erupted to fame in the 1970s fomenting the punk movement and dressing the Sex Pistols.

Phoebe Ackroyd, seated beside him on the front row, also in her school uniform of green sweatshirt and grey trousers, said the experience of painting dots and dashes on dresses, jackets and a pith helmet left her wanting “to be a model.”

Fashion has always been a vehicle for politics for Westwood, who, most recently in 2005, joined forces with British civil rights group Liberty with a series of T-shirts and babywear with the slogan “I am not a terrorist” to draw attention to the preservation of civil liberties post-September 11.

Monday’s collection, titled “Chaos Point,” was no different. Her vision was a group of freedom fighters trying to avert the planet from ecological disaster and included one model on stilts “distinguish the characters and their clothes,” Westwood said.

Phoebe and Euan found their way to the front row of the world’s premier fashion event because of their teacher, Madeline Bell, 25, who had her class write to Westwood after she taught them about the designer in a lesson on “Great Artists.”