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We
share the Hosiery Story this Month, (to long to print here), so
click and enjoy the story.
History and terms of
Stockings & Hosiery
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Christian Dior
Christian Dior (1905-1957) was born in Normandy,
France. At his parents' insistence, he studied political science. After
military service and several years of indecision, he returned to Paris in
1935 and began his design career by selling sketches. His hat designs were
initially more successful than his dress designs. But he concentrated on
his dress designs and was hired by Robert Piguet in 1938. During the war,
he served in the South of France, then returned again to Paris in 1941 and
worked for Lucien Lelong, a much larger design house. In 1946, he was able
to open his own house, backed by textile manufacturer Marcel Boussac.
 For
his first collection in 1947, he created the extremely popular "New
Look", which featured rounded shoulders, a cinched waist, and a very
full skirt. Dior created an opulent clothing style which contrasted the
severe living conditions of post-war France. After the war, he helped to
re-establish Paris as the capital of world-fashion . Dior became the last
great dictator of style in the 1950s. Each collection throughout this
period had a theme - classic suits, ballerina-length skirts, the H-line in
1954, and A- and Y-lines in 1955.
Together with his partner Jaques Rouet, Dior was the pioneer for license
agreements in the fashion business. Already in 1948, he decided to arrange
licensed production of furs, socks, ties, perfumes, and clothing in
regionally seperate production centers. Thus spreading the brand name
quickly around the globe.
In 1953, he hired Yves Saint Laurent as an assistant. After Dior's sudden
death in October 1957 in Italy, Saint Laurent became head designer and
introduced the trapeze dress in his first collection for the house. When
Saint Laurent was called for military duty in 1960, Marc Bohan took over,
remaining until Gianfranco Ferre became designer in 1989. Ferre is to be
replaced by the end of 1996.
After much talk about possible successors of Ferre, it has been confirmed
in October 1996, that John Galliano will take his place as chief designer
for Dior. Galliano, known as the current enfant terrible of the fashion
business was responsible for Givenchy for two seasons before switching to
Dior. It is believed that Dior's parent-company LVMH wants rejuvenate
Dior's appearence, hoping it will create an equally astonishing run on
Dior products like Tom Ford created for Gucci. Indeed, Galliano's appraoch
to fashion resembles Dior's intention when he started in 1947. In contrast
to Chanel for example, Dior established a romantic and very feminine look,
which emphasised luxury rather than comfort. Galliano, as Dior's
successor, creates an equally feminine style, blending today's freedom of
expression with the reminiscence of past opulence ownership.
Since 1990, the Christian Dior S.A. belongs to Europe's biggest luxury
products manufacturer, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), which is owned
and operated by Bernand Arnault through the investment company Financiere
Agache. The company is listed at the Paris stock exchange. The Christian
Dior S.A. itself holds 42% of the LVMH assets and is the holding company
for the fashion brands Christian Dior Couture, Kenzo, Givenchy, Christian
Lacroix, and Louis Vuitton. The group achieved in in 1996 sales worth of
32.35 billion Francs ($6.33 billion).
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Aniston Settles on Topless Pics. Whoops!
The pleasure of viewing Jennifer Aniston
topless could cost you a whopping $550,000.
 Put
your wallet away. That's not an offer, it's the amount awarded the Friends
star in a settlement with a man accused of circulating pics of her
sunbathing sans bikini top, her publicist said Thursday.
The dispute stems from a 1999 incident, in which an overzealous "stalkerazzi"
climbed Aniston's neighbor's eight-foot wall and, using a telephoto lens,
snapped shots of thesp "reclining topless in her backyard, wearing
only her panties," according to a lawsuit filed against a magazine
that published the shots.
The intrusive snaps appeared in two American skin mags, which Aniston sued
in 2000 just days after tying the knot with hubby Brad Pitt. She settled
with Celebrity Skin and High Society in 2002 for undisclosed damages.
The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly,
and lie about your age. (Lucille Ball)
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UK: French Connection Logo "Offensive" - Police
Fashion label French Connection has come
under fire from police in Hertfordshire over its ‘FCUK’ logo.
A retail outlet in Bishop’s Stortford was this week ordered by police to
remove its “offensive” window display after complaints from the
public.
Allegedly, one shop worker was even told she would be arrested if the
offending ‘The Joy of FCUK’ T-shirts were not removed from the window.
Authorities said they were not being heavy-handed, however, but merely
acting under public order laws.
“We have a duty to respond to complaints of this nature,” a
Hertfordshire Police spokesman said.
He added that the same powers could be used against people wearing the
T-shirts in public.
It is not the first opposition French Connection has faced since
introducing the ‘FCUK’ logo in 1997, with some US chain stores
boycotting the range because of pressure from family groups, and a juror
in north Wales being relieved of her duties for wearing a
“distracting” T-shirt.
French Connection spokeswoman Lilli Anderson said, “We’re sorry if
anyone is offended by the T-shirts.”
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Pamela Bravo, nude model with her body
painted, participates in a ceremony marking the beginning of a campaign,
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in front
of the Catholic cathedral in Santiago, Chile.
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New-wave lingerie ads tell it like it is
- tits 'n' all
Before you decry the macho male who dreamt up the ad, the honor goes to
two women from the George Patterson Bates agency: writer Mel Coenen and
art director Marie Mansfield, the creators of the Tim Tam ads promoting
"sisterhood" and the genie who banishes an unwitting boyfriend
to Vladivostok.
It's not so much sex sells as truth sells. The "Planet Patts"
duo said the Lovable ad was realistic and humorous, and their mission was
to inject some honesty into an often false advertising world.
"Advertising tends to use a language that is a little false - very PC
- and we decided to cut through the bullshit and actually say what people
think," Ms Coenen said. "People are confusing the ad with being
sexist when it's really honest."
Ms Mansfield said the Lovable ad was not meant to disempower men, but
depict how they think: "They wouldn't say 'nice boobs' or 'great
bosoms'."
Even in France, Thong Ad May Be a Buttock Too Far
Sex is used to sell everything from pizzas to soap powder in France, but a
lingerie ad showing
three scantily-clad pole-dancers is proving too in-your-face even for the
French.
In a rare move, a French advertising sector association has called on
underwear manufacturer
to withdraw a billboard campaign
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Iraqi men gaze at posters showing nude women outside a cinema in
Baghdad, where films portraying sex and violence have been popular since
the fall of Saddam Hussein
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. . . . . . . Corsets,
The early years (Article
#3)
(There has been so much interest in this article, we
have carried it over).
Corsets have existed for centuries and can be traced
back to Greek and Minoan times. However, when the subject of corsetry is
mentioned many people immediately think of the tight lacing that is
associated with the Victorian era, and the horror stories of practices
that took place at that time in order for women's shapes to be molded to
the accepted norm. Stories abound of daughters being forced into tight
laced corsets, in order for them to have a slim waist, and of the severe
corseting that took place. Examples include girls having to lie on the
floor whilst their mothers tightened their corsets, and of corset lacing
breaking under such pressure. Stories of figure training have been
reported, with girls being laced into tighter and tighter corsets in order
to achieve the figure that was demanded by society. Anecdotal stories
abound of women being so tightly laced that they fainted, and in addition
there are stories of women having ribs removed surgically so that their
corsets could be fastened even tighter. I have also read that the rule of
thumb was that a girls waist measurements before she was married and had
children should be the same as her age in years.
Whether these stories are true is unclear, and many of them are
probably the result of male sadomasochistic fantasies that were associated
with this period. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that the
garments found in costume museums rarely have waists less than 20 inches.
Tight lacing is in itself difficult to define, but a working definition
appears to be any distortion of the natural waist over two inches.
Whether tight lacing was commonly practiced is unclear even though
there are photographs that clearly show the practice did take place on
occasion. These extremes were probably very rare and and there is some
evidence that the practice has also been exaggerated. Extreme tight lacing
e.g. reducing the waist to less than eighteen inches was probably
practiced by very few people and was not as common as the fetish oriented
literature from that time would suggest.
However what is certainly true is the observation that the corset was
viewed as an essential garment for women to wear, and teenage (and even
younger girls) were also forced to wear such garments as a matter of
propriety. In some cases women were expected to wear these garments at all
times, and the concept of figure training discussed earlier, could mean
that a girl would sleep in her corsets, to have them tightened the
following day and into the desired figure was obtained.
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"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
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