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How Far Can Activewear Run?

A leading fashion publication predicted that the only market direction activewear could go was up, what with more famous designers unveiling their own collections. How can makers distinguish their brands in a marketplace that’s beginning to feel more crowded with each iteration of casual and cool?

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Eyewear Revolution

More than a few eyewear companies, like Warby Parker, have taken the gamble – heresy of heresies – to offer consumers more of what they want for less. These so-called eyewear upstarts are placing realistic, yet far from ridiculous, prices on a complete set of glasses. Yet another example of the customer-centric business model gaining huge ground on the old product-driven one.

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GQ Spring/Summer 2014 Fashion Report

Spring and Summer 2014 fashions, a GQ report suggests, are all about bold – not necessarily screaming — colors, eye-catching accessories and a fair amount of cheeky snarl. As in Bieberesque, not Brandoesque, snarl. Consider these “must-have” items.

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Dos and Don’ts of Celebrity Travel Styles

The great artist Noel Coward once observed, “Why do the wrong people travel when the right people stay at home?” If you’re one of those traveling afar this summer, thank your lucky stars. And pay close attention to 10 dos and don’ts that reveal the travel habits and styles, rightly or wrongly, of America’s celebrities.

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Ready-to-Wear Goes Austere…and Weird

The news regarding London Fashion Week can only be summed up in one word: disturbing. Has the fashion world finally been tamed to cater more exclusively to bourgeois/nouveau riche tastes? Or have designers finally wised up to the idea that Seventies-style fashions (an oxymoron if ever there was one) can be used for inspiration but not as outright archetypes?

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Covering the Fashions of the Times

Take in some stories about Paris Fashion Week and you might start to wonder what filters are being used to discern noise from news. You could randomly spray paint a poncho, walk down any Paris street – and some self-appointed expert would write a blog post about it. Here’s a glimpse at how these kinds of events get covered. And why the coverage might perfectly suit the events themselves. Or not.

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Policing the Fashion Police

The Fashion Police blog looks to be an old-fashioned irreverent take on a world that’s long been known for taking itself far too seriously. The blog’s subtitle says it all: “Fighting crimes of fashion and solving style dilemmas.” But is the blog fashion ownage or failage? Could it be that the Fashion Police take themselves and their mission every bit as seriously as those they skewer?

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Dressed Up for the Tonys, and Still a Long Ways to Go

Why did 2013 Tony Award winner Andrea Martin, barely ten seconds into her thank-yous, make a point to say, “Carmen Marc Valvo gave me this dress — nobody else would. I just want to thank him.” Would you believe because Tony-nominated actresses – among the classiest performers anywhere, making them high-profile models for, well, class — don’t typically attract the kind of public attention that gown designers crave?

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Are Fashion Stars Overhyped and Overexposed?

In an age where fashions change quicker than spoiled-rotten athletes re-framing their ill-worded tweets, media exposure is a tricky game of guessing just how much nitroglycerin to use to get noticed. But not so much as to cause a deadly explosion. What’s the point of being a fashion star – like, say, Joseph Altuzarra — if no one knows who you are?

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