Fashion

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Ali Mohammadi -- or Ali M., as he likes to be called -- spends most of his salary on trendy clothes, haircuts, and expensive skincare products. He is just one of many Iranians for whom fashion -- besides being fun -- has become a form of protest against the country's strict Islamic dress code.


"I just got a new haircut and had my eyebrows shaped," Ali M. says over the phone from Tehran, jokingly but with a hint of pride in his voice.

In recent months, Iranian authorities have cracked down hard on Iranians who violate the dress code, which requires women to wear the head scarf and prohibits men from wearing short-sleeve shirts or ties. But that hasn't stopped legions of women and men from dressing as stylishly as they can. In fact, the more the authorities try to enforce the code, the more it seems Iranians want to push the boundaries of personal fashion -- even at the risk of fines and imprisonment.

Police often detain people with “improper clothing and haircuts,” but Ali M. says he couldn't care less. And he says there are millions like him, picking up on international fashion trends from satellite television channels, glossy magazines, and foreign travel.

Ali says he and his fellow Iranian "fashionistas," many of whom dress modestly in public but turn on the style at private gatherings, want to wear the latest designer labels and hairstyles. “I usually watch Fashion TV, World Fashion and other satellite channels,” he tells RFE/RL. “My favorite brand is Dolce and Gabbana (D&G). When I buy clothes, I try to follow the D&G style. Sometimes I buy this brand. Actually, yesterday I bought a pair of shoes from D&G’s limited edition. They are silver-colored with red lines on the seams.”

Ali M. works as the Tehran representative of a well-known European company that sells skincare products and perfumes. He says he can afford to purchase goods in numerous chic boutiques and get his hair done at salons where prices start from $100 per haircut.

Their Hearts' Desires

Tehran is full of trendy boutiques and shops offering Western-style clothes, including skimpy tops and figure-hugging trousers -- even though such items are forbidden. Ali M. says many well-known firms, such as Christian Dior or Armani, have branches in Iran where they sell their comestics. However, they don’t directly sell clothes, which instead are often specially ordered through private shops.

Apparently, nothing can discourage Iranians from trying to dress fashionably -- not the restrictive laws, not the morality police, not even exorbitant prices for designer labels.

According to Ali M., those "who cannot afford to pay $600 for a pair of designer shoes, can easily find an exact replica of the designer label for $60. The same goes for dresses, tops, and coats."

In interviews, some Iranian women say they lead double lives when it comes to clothes and fashion. One Tehran woman told RFE/RL: "We get dressed modestly for work, but privately we follow our hearts' desires -- opting, for instance, for sleeveless tops, plunging necklines, and short trousers."

Iraj Jamsheedi, an Iranian independent journalist, says many Iranians, especially urbanites, are increasingly frustrated with authorities meddling in their private lives. "Many people ignore the rules as much as they can, simply to protest this and other social restrictions," Jamsheedi says.

"Official decrees have failed to change people's dress sense. In many instances, the dress restrictions have had the opposite effect -- people's clothes have become more [liberal] than before. It is a sign that people are resisting these decrees."

Undeterred Youth

Neelofar, a 23-year-old Tehran resident, says she was detained by the morality police in a shopping center last summer. She was wearing "an overly short pair of trousers and showing too much hair under a loosely tied colorful head scarf."

Speaking to RFE/RL, Neelofar says she was taken to a police station along with a couple of other dress-code offenders. The police officers called Neelofar's parents who brought a "proper overcoat" for their daughter and gave a written pledge that Neelofar would never violate the law again.

Neelofar, however, had different ideas. "I didn't obey [the dress code] too much after the incident," she says. "But I wasn't detained anymore, maybe because I don't walk in the streets too much -- I usually travel by car or bus. Usually, [detention] happens to people who walk in the streets."

Jamsheedi regards the drive to enforce the dress code as part of a larger effort to control society. "The situation in Iran is not simple," the Tehran-based journalist says. "A social uprising could break out any minute. The authorities want to prevent any such upheaval by tightening their grip on people's lives."

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Pershion is an online gallery, introduces young Iranian fashion designers/artists. It also presents news and information about Iranian fashion designers all around the world.

This online gallery is created for designers and artists who work in fashion field or their art works are somehow related to fashion art. Pershion team was founded by Hassanali Zad and Atoosa Mozaffari on January 2002.

http://www.pershion.com/pershion_main.html

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[corleone]

im a fashinable person i tink

How did you rate the Fashionable person? From shoe they are wearing? from cloth? or rating falls under brand.

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Hollywood fashion maven Mr. Blackwell in a coma

Mr. Blackwell, the fashion maven whose annual "Worst-Dressed" list can be the bane of Hollywood celebrities, is in a coma after falling at his home, his partner and manager said on Thursday.

Richard Blackwell, 85, has been at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles since Saturday, Robert Spencer said.

The former actor and fashion designer was moving his hands and blinking on Thursday and seemed to be coming out of his coma, he said.

Blackwell has issued his "Worst-Dressed" list for 48 years, and it has become watched around the world as much for his quips about the stars' fashion as for who made the list.

Last year he named Spice Girl Victoria "Posh" Beckham the worst-dressed star and said: "in one skinny-mini monstrosity after another, pouty 'Posh' Beckham can really wreck-em."

In the No. 2 spot was soul singer Amy Winehouse and just behind was diminutive actress Mary-Kate Olsen who, he said, "resembles a tattered toothpick trapped in a hurricane."

For 35 years, Blackwell had his own clothing line. He also was a costume designer who worked with Hollywood stars such as Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell.

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This fall’s New York Fashion week is shaping up to be a busy one for the multi-talented Justin Timberlake. Not only is the singer scheduled to play at the annual Fashion Rocks concert on September 5, but, as WWD reports, Justin will also be at the Roseland Ballroom a few nights later while models take to the runway in the newest William Rast collection — Justin and partner Trace Ayala’s successful denim line. Timberlake has already become the face of the line with their . With celebs like Jessica Simpson and Jessica Biel already loving their William Rast jeans, this is sure to be one of the hottest tickets of the week and one of the most star-studded audiences. To see more of N.Y.C. Fashion Week.

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Liv Tyler, Ginnifer Goodwin and hockey star-fashion intern Sean Avery join other actors and style makers like Georgina Chapman of Marchesa, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Clemence Poesy and others for Gap’s Fall 08 ad campaign. Centering on a “Create Your Own” theme, the black and white images, shot by fashion photographer Mikael Jansson, feature each style star wearing Gap designs in their own way. Liv Tyler keeps it casual in a boyfriend cardigan from new creative director Patrick Robinson’s first full collection for the brand. Look for the ads in the September and October issues of national magazines, Gap stores and billboards.

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Joe Hyneck has created a solar purse and a solar necktie that the wearer can use to charge a cell phone or an iPod.

The PhD student in mechanical engineering at Iowa State University created the solar tie by imbedding thin-film photovoltaic cells in the fabric. He says it works really well, but not as well as the solar handbags he has made for women.

"I have two solar purses," he told ENS in an interview, "and I'm currently testing them, to nail down final data about how fast they charge things and how durable they are."
The solar purse can charge a cell phone or an iPod. (Photo courtesy Joe Hyneck)

Hyneck is now in contact with potential distributors for the solar handbags, but not for the solar necktie.

He has only one solar tie, which is sitting folded on a shelf in his home office.

"It was just a concept idea. We made a jacket with that print and we had extra fabric so made a tie out of it," he said.

"A tie is a challenging thing to charge from," Hyneck said, "there's not a lot of real estate on it to place solar panels on."

The solar fashion designer says in the future he will try to make use of the newest high efficiency solar photovoltaics now being developed - if they lend themselves to his designs.

"Engineering is all about tradeoffs," Hyneck said. "Higher efficiency solar panels are more rigid and fragile. Flexible solar panels are more durable and take less material to make, but they are lower efficiency."

Hyneck got the original inspiration for incorporating solar panels into clothing and accessories when he worked at a solar panel manufacturer in Ames, making solar panels that work with military applications.

"I thought consumer stuff would be a good application," he said. "Using technology, I could make an ecological statement with a solar handbag that could keep up with the electrical needs of one device at a time - a cell phone, an iPod, or a Blackberry."

When it reaches the market, the 6" x 12" x 3" solar power

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Acerbic fashion critic Richard Blackwell dies aged 86

THE acid-tongued fashion critic Mr Blackwell, whose withering comments on celebrities' dress sense reduced generations of rich and famous to tears, has died at the age of 86.

Richard Blackwell, who was born Richard Sylvan Selzer, died today of complications from an intestinal infection, publicist Harlan Boll said, according to the Associated Press.

He went into hospital in August with the complaint.

The former child actor and fashion designer was famous for the biting criticism of his annual Ten Worst Dressed Women list of worst-dressed Hollywood stars and celebrities in which no one was safe from his barbs.

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With the future of "Project Runway" still unclear, Bravo has found a couple of projects that could take its place.

The network has given a series pickup to "The Fashion Show," which like "Runway" is described as a fashion-design creative competition series. One difference between "Runway" and "Show" is that the winner of the new series -- who will have their designs sold by an unspecified retailer -- will be chosen by viewers; a panel of judges selects the winner on "Runway." Casting is underway.

Bravo insists that "Fashion Show" is a new project. Still in development is the similarly themed "Fashion House," a competition series based on a British TV format that was announced in July.

The network also is developing "Celebrity Sew-Off," in which celebrities compete in a design competition to determine who has the ability to launch their own clothing label. The contestants will each be paired with an expert.

"Runway," which recently wrapped its fifth season on Bravo, is the subject of a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed in April by network parent NBC Universal after producer the Weinstein Co. said it was moving the series to Lifetime.

Meanwhile, Bravo also has four other new arts- and culture-themed projects in development, including "Fashionality" (working title), which features four "eclectic New York tastemakers" who explore topics related to pop culture and fashion via field pieces, round-table debates and interviews; "Double Exposure," a docu-series revolving around art and fashion photographer Markus Klinko and his partner and former girlfriend Indrani; and "Polo," a docu-series about polo players and their significant others.

Bravo also confirmed "The Dubai Project," a docu-series following a group of American and Brits living in the United Arab Emirates city.

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In his movie Fashion that released this week, Madhur Bhandarkar plays himself in a cameo. The frame catches him sitting in the front row of a fashion show, while characters whisper in awestruck tones that he is there researching his latest project—the fashion industry. This self-congratulatory pat on his back is possibly the least irksome part of Bhandarkar’s three-hour-fifteen-minute-long movie. Watching it in PVR, model Sonalika Sahay and designer
Vineet Bahl protest vehemently about the movie and Bhandarkar, who has built a reputation as a hard-hitting filmmaker doesn’t dumb down to appease the audience.

“It is very clichéd. He has strung together a few sensational events and tried to filter an opinion through them,” says Sahay. Sahay’s ire is directed at the screenplay of the movie—the story of three models: a small-town beauty pageant winner, played by Priyanka Chopra, who makes it big very fast, a supermodel played by Kangana Ranaut who is addicted to drugs and alcohol and a second-rung model, Mugdha Godse, who figures out how to hold her own in the big, bad world of modelling. Bhandarkar’s disclaimer at the beginning of the movie that all the characters and events are fictitious doesn’t ring true as a doped-out Ranaut lands up on the footpath a la Gitanjali Nagpal, and Chopra’s character descends into the allegedly murky side of fashion —dope, alcohol and rehab, much like England-educated Shivani Kapur did a couple of years back.

“Bhandarkar should have given the movie a broader perspective. This whole thing about small-town girls losing their heads in modelling is so insulting. I’m from Bihar and let me tell you, exploitation is a matter of choice,” says Sahay. “There’s a nicer side to the industry as well, like friendships and creativity.”

The stress on supermodels and showstoppers throughout the movie, says Sahay, is also dated. “It’s something that used to happen in the initial stages of the industry. We are way past those days when a show was only about the showstopper. The only believable bit about the movie is Mugdha, probably because being part of the industry, she knows how it works and makes it look a little more credible,” she says.
Designer Vineet Bahl agrees in part with Sahay. While he is impressed with the histrionics of Chopra and Ranaut, his grouse is about the male characters, most of whom have been stereotyped as gay designers and exploitative agency owners. “Bhandarkar could have done without...