Following on from the Red Dress show at New York Fashion Week each February, Christchurch, New Zealand will be running a similar show as part of Style Christchurch on November 6. Instead of bene?ting the Heart Foundation, the antipodean version will raise funds for the New Zealand Aids Foundation. Huffer, Koila McBride, Sonya Smith, Ruby, Sakaguchi, V&G, Gas, IPG, Stitch Ministry, MisteR and Emma Ford Swimwear are already con?rmed.
   ‘The Red Dress Collection theme Lost In Our Own Land looks at the descendants of those who forged our history in blood, sweat and tears. Guests will journey back in time to the early 1800s where the traditions of ancient M?ori values clashed with those of early pioneering settlers and colonialism,’ according to the of?cial announcement.
   The show is another initiative from Style Christchurch producer extraordinaire Andhy Blake, who promises to donate 100 per cent of the proceeds from the show’s auction and 10 per cent of ticket sales to the Foundation.

Avon Products, Inc. and Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon held a press conference in São Paulo, Brazil yesterday to celebrate the sale of 1·5 million units of Avon’s Women’s Empowerment Bracelet, the company’s first global fund-raising product.
   Joining Witherspoon at the conference were Nilcéa Freire, Brazil’s Federal Secretary for Women Policies; Ana Falú, UNIFEM Regional Director for the Southern Cone; domestic violence survivor and biochemist Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, one of the main movers in the fight against domestic violence in Brazil; and Luis Felipe Miranda, president of Avon Brazil.
   The bracelet was launched at the UNIFEM Global Summit for a Better Tomorrow in New York in March 2008. Proceeds go to the Avon Empowerment Fund. The first $500,000 from sales have already been matched by the Avon Foundation, with a total donation of $1 million for new grants by the UN Trust Fund.

I know all fashion magazines have this problem—the misuse of one’s name for less than scrupulous purposes—and I was disappointed to note one today that FHM had previously been a victim of.
   This was sent to us by the alert boyfriend of a model, who asked if a Bruce Williams worked for us.
   Let me publicly say for the record—and for Google search results—that there is no Bruce Williams at Lucire, and there is no Lucire office at 32 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London.
   Our number is not 44 7045 722-937.
   Mr Williams, this incident has been reported to the authorities.
   Part of the content of the email is below. If you see anything like this, report it to the police or an appropriate law enforcement agency.
   From what I understand, this scam is not British. It is probably African.

We are happy to inform you that you are one of the few people chosen out of the screening exercise performed for us by Model mayhem you have got the physical Requirement we need for ourLucire Magazine update (www.emonline.com) 11TH 13TH SEPT 2008 issue, We here by decided as a committee to offer you this pay Fashion job I will be very happy if you could send me more picture. My client wants to update her Catalog with her New Year release Fashion outfits and I’m interested in you for the professional shooting no nudity, fetish, bondage, escort and other adult content stuff. So if you are interested you can get back to me. The shooting will hold at a rented photographers studio very close to your location, which we would be responsible for your transport, feeding and accommodation allowance through out the photo shoot, the invitation letter would be mailed to you, all make up will be taken care of in the studio. …

You have 7 different Fashion outfits to cover, which would be provided by our client on the day of the shooting and the shoot is just for 3 days and you will be paid $1,450 for the whole project, the Job is Urgent so you are to get back to us as soon as possible so that I can arrange on how to get you the part payment. You would be paid the initial payment of $500 to guarantee your participation in the shoot, as part of our working policy and ethics of our company, we give part payment to any client before we proceed with any job and balance immediately after the work.

   I had hoped that Mr Williams providing the wrong URL, and not knowing how to write as a professional, would alert people to the fact that this has nothing to do with us.
   If any member of the public is suspicious about any such modelling request, or a stylist’s request—we have even seen some on forged letterhead—please contact us.

A gold sculpture (the maquette is shown at left) of supermodel Kate Moss, dubbed Siren, has been unveiled at the British Museum.
   The statue, weighing 50 kg, is the work of artist Marc Quinn. It is claimed to be the largest gold statue since those made in ancient Egypt and has been valued at £1·5 million.
   Quinn chose Moss as he felt she was the ideal beauty of the time.
   The statue will be displayed at the Nereid Gallery of the Museum. The presently untitled exhibition, on contemporary sculpture, runs from October 4 to January 25.

We alluded to Lucire being on cellphones, Blackberrys, Ipods and similar devices last week when this blog disappeared brie?y due to a technical glitch.
   Lucire has been on portable mobile devices for some time, if you count the many cellphones out there that are capable of sur?ng the web. These take the existing website’s code and modify it to ?t the smaller screens. But shortly, there will be a difference. In fact, anyone who has surfed in to these ‘Insider’ pages ?rst on a portable device will have noticed some changes already.
   I’m still waiting for the green light from one of our technological partners before telling you who it is, but I can say Lucire is now providing a class-leading, mobile service. 
   Rather than have your phones and portable devices converting our data, we convert the data for you.
   That means a streamlined download, along with properly targeted and designed advertisements, not the big ones that you might be forced to see on some services. You’ll get faster pages.
   All mobile users need to do is surf in to the blog URL (lucire.com/insider) rather than the main one to get our new version. You’ll see these posts, with the videos omitted (for now), plus access to text-only versions of some of our web articles.
   There’ll still be images from this blog, shrunk down to ?t mobile devices.
   But since a lot of you prefer sur?ng the regular website using your mobile devices, you will still have that option and not experience any changes for the most part.
   For the regular pages, keep browsing to the usual website (lucire.com) and they’ll work as they always did.
   Therefore, you can get quick news on the go on a mobile device now through Lucire, which will help you stay even more ahead of the Joneses. You can get research from the main part of the site to impress your friends. It’s up to you how you access this site.
   I was asked yesterday by a client, ‘But who will read it?’
   The answer is I do not know. But I do know that in 1997, when I was asked the same question about web magazines, few could de?nitively say who would read those.
   In 2001, when we ?rst launched a portable-device service with Plucker, very few read that. However, times have changed, as has the technology.
   I do know that the thirst for information is greater today than it has been at any time of human history, and Lucire can now do on cellphones what we do online and in print: keeping readers one step ahead.

Bond girl Caterina Murino, who played Solange in the 2006 James Bond ?lm Casino Royale, and was best remembered in a scene riding a horse along a Bahamian beach, joined other celebrities in the Chinese capital as the Beijing Olympics drew to a close.
   Murino, sponsored by Omega, jokingly talked about a James Bond ?lm scene in to Quantum of Solace (a good lead-up there, Caterina—you got us). The second video features miscellaneous views at Beijing—the gentleman on Murino’s left is Omega’s Kevin Rollenhagen. The ?nal video follows Murino visiting the Omega pavilion in Beijing.

We’ve heard from our friend Brad Green at Peace Love Life, which we featured a few months ago. To refresh your memory, Peace Love Life sells T-shirts where proceeds go to a charity in the place they are inspired by. They have also sold 2,000 shirts since they began the venture and there’s a redesigned website.
   Meanwhile, one of their customers, Michael Stack, is a civilian working at Camp Victory in Baghdad, says Brad. Ugandan Guards work security there and Michael purchased 50 Peace Love Life Uganda shirts as gifts to the men there. The Ugandan-themed shirt bene?ts Uganda itself: $10 from each sale is donated to Invisible Children.
   ‘Many of these men come from the parts of Uganda that have been affected by the war,’ says Brad. ‘Now in a way they work to protect us.’
   Michael’s images tell the story.

We apologize to readers for the loss of service on this blog for a few days. Lucire is planning a mobile edition and we had a glitch (caused by human error) in one of the lines of code. Please stay tuned as we do have news items to post up here from earlier days—there’s still a bit of tinkering to be done.
   Hopefully if the service is working properly, those sur?ng Lucire on their cellphones and PDAs will be arriving at this page ?rst rather than the traditional home page: we believe if you have the smaller screens to contend with, you will want up-to-the-minute news before they want the big glamour photographs on the traditional website home page. Please let us know in the comments what you think—it’s part of our extension into hand-held media and a new, exciting stage of our development.

There’s a small snippet about Jennifer Hawkins and the spring–summer 2008–9 lingerie range from Lovable over on Lucire’s fashion index page, but behind the scenes we were given a press-release Q&A with the former Miss Universe.
   These tips purport to come from Hawkins, and it’s likely the beauty queen endorsed them. In any case, the advice isn’t too bad. We’ve featured an edited selection below.

The Strapless Cocktail Dress
Q: I’ve got large boobs but I love this season’s eighties inspired prom dress, is there a way that I can wear one without worrying about it slipping down?
JH: The prom dress can look fabulous on almost any figure, as its [sic] gives you that classic hourglass figure. The key is to choose the right strapless bra that gives you enough support and doesn’t slip down round your waist after an hour or two. The secret is to look for styles that have an added “bone” inserted on the outside of each cup, giving the bra that extra stability.

The Halter-neck Frock
Q: I love halter neck dresses but I HATE not being able to wear a bra underneath them, what do you suggest?
JH: There’s a new generation of bras out there that convert specially into halter necks just for this kind of tricky situation!! Go into your local lingerie boutique or department store and get the experts to show you what’s available and how to fit them. These bras can look a bit complicated = lots of strap everywhere and a multitude of different techniques for different dressing requirements, but once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t tried one before. And they work wonders for a halter-neck dress …

The Silk Slip
Q: Silk and diamonds, a girl’s best friend! Or so they say. Silk’s supposed to be flattering, but I’m utterly confused about what lingerie to wear underneath as the fabric shows every little lump and bump. Jennifer, help!
JH: Body Silk by name, Body Silk by nature! The key to wearing silk is to find the smoothest, most seamless lingerie you can. Technological advancements in fabric cutting has given girls the perfect solution to this age old issue, with a whole world of beautiful discreet, ultra-comfy lingerie that can only be spotted if you’ve got X-ray vision. This said, there are a couple of pointers – make sure your undies fit perfectly (small ones cut unattractively into your skin) The same theory applies to your the bra.

   Lovable stockists are listed at www.lovable.com.au; needless to say, the company has a bra for each situation listed above, from the strapless contour bra available up to a 16E, to the Suddenly Shapely ?ve-way convertible bra, to the Ultraskin and Body Silk collections.

[Cross-posted] You’ve all heard the controversy over whether Red Chinese gymnast He Kexin is 14 or 16. A hacker has found documents in the Baidu (the Red Chinese search engine) cache that indicate she is 14. Some commenters have attacked the hacker, pointing out some potential errors in the search. A few point out that it’s really strange that of?cial documents relating to He Kexin are disappearing from Google and Baidu.
   Meanwhile, it was revealed that last year, the Xinhua news agency—a branch of the Chinese Communist Party—reported that He was 13.
   The Politburo has denied it ever gave the agency her age.
   It has emerged since that the People’s Daily, another arm of the Communist Party, reported in May that He was 14. I’m surprised this page has not been altered yet, while all the old spreadsheets have disappeared, and other articles have either been modi?ed or deleted from the web.
   Will the Politburo dare suggest that that it never gave the newspaper her age either? Has the journalist lately “disappeared”?
   One speech given by a leading Red Chinese of?cial last year introduced He as 13, to no subsequent corrections.
   I’m simply using the Red Chinese’s own of?cial mouthpieces to raise a question, because all this seems really contradictory: 14 before the controversy, 16 (in the same newspaper) after. What gives?
   As a Chinese person I am really delighted that the Chinese people have done so well in the medal stakes. The Olympics are one time I root for someone who is Chinese because I can put politics aside. But when it comes to things that put us all in disrepute, I can’t help but point to those that might be responsible.
   If it were not for any age limit, I say the Chinese athletes in gymnastics totally deserved their medals for some outstanding performances.
   The age question itself comes into fashion more than often—I stood by the choice of a 14-year-old winner, Elle Gibson, in the Cadbury Dream Model Search competition last year, because she was the best and I was con?dent of the management that she would receive. With less reputable agencies, I would be the ?rst to cry foul over a model who is too young. Some of those same concerns about exploitation drive my worries over He Kexin.
   I ?nd it sad that a teenager (14 or 16) has been caught up in this when she is an innocent party. I hope that He does not face any bans if she is found to be underage. If there is deception, the parties behind it need to dealt with.