Notch has scored another high-profile cover girl with actress Priyanka Chopra. Chopra talks about why she hates singing live and her concern for her father’s health, and gives advice to her younger sister Parineeti Chopra. The magazine can be found via www.notchmag.com, or through its presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
We’re absolutely loving One Luv’s latest jewellery collection, Through the Eyes of Yves Saint Laurent, comprising miniature glasses. They are a tribute to the late designer’s trade-mark eyewear, and actually open and close like real specs. The designs are available in 18 ct gold-plated, or can be had with rose gold, silver or black. They retail for A$70, come with a long belcher chain, and measure 45 by 40 mm when open. If you’re a discerning fashionista, or you know of one, then we think these are the cleverest jewellery item for discerning fashionistas that we’ve seen in ages. There’s more at www.oneluv.com.au.
In travel news, the Cranleigh Boutique has launched a distinctive boutique house in Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District, with appointments and gadgets galore. The décor is not what most of our non-UK readers might associate with Britishness—it’s more over the top of what you’d typically find in our pages.
However, the three-storey house, called the Hideout, impresses on the toys and amenities. It features a cocktail bar, a super-sized air spa bath for two with underwater lighting, a 65-inch hidden cinema screen, a three-dimensional smart TV with internet and Apple TV access, Sono’s music, and Netflix movies (with 150 DVDs). The first floor has a king-size four-poster bed and luxury bedding, while the third floor has an open-plan cinema lounge, fully equipped kitchen, a 55-inch Sony smart 3D TV with a Blu-Ray DVD player, Bose surround-sound system, mood lighting and balcony.
Cranleigh Boutique owner Stephen Hargreaves’ aim was to create the best accommodation experience for two people in the UK. It retails at between £400 and £500 per night, with a two-night minimum stay. It can be booked by the night all year except for weekends. Additional services including continental breakfast and daily maid are available, as well as free use of luxury leisure facilities. More can be found at www.thecranleigh.com/property/111/the-hideout.aspx.
Finally, in the main part of the site, we’ve gone Parisian: Lola Saab looks back at the prêt-à-porter collections for autumn–winter 2013–14, while Stanley Moss checks out two very different boutique hotels. Jack Yan writes about the BMW 3-series Touring launch between Auckland and Paihia, while Sopheak Seng checks out Wellington label Mondegreen’s latest collection. Elyse Glickman headed to the pre-Oscar suites, while Eva Mendes launched a collection for Vogue Eyewear in Los Angeles.
Babies ’R’ Us UK has announced a collaboration with Heidi Klum, which sees a range of baby products exclusive to the chain.
The Truly Scrumptious by Heidi Klum range has arrived at stores as well as the Babiesrus.co.uk website.
The range has already launched in the US and Canada, and has been well received there. It is particularly colourful and includes floral prints. Clothing items include bodysuits, two-piece sets, and accessories such as socks and hats. A stroller joins the range in May, retailing at under £130.
In a release, Klum, who has four children. calls the project ‘one of the most exciting and fulfilling’ that she has worked on.
Meanwhile, while publisher Jack Yan was covering ID Dunedin Fashion Week, US west coast editor Elyse Glickman was at Vogue Eyewear’s launch, at which Eva Mendes was guest of honour, promoting the latest line with her as spokesmodel. You can read that story here, and Elyse’s pre-Oscar suites’ write-up here (with her earlier Grammy one here).
In London, Elina Lukas has checked out Anna Popovich’s spring 2013 collection and notes some additional shows at London Fashion Week; we return to Sundance after nine years, thanks to Lola Saab; and Stanley Moss is in Vicenza, in the Veneto, in our latest travel special.
Since Cheryl Cole always gets additional readers for the British tabloids, she’s the subject of further speculation again—that The X Factor supremo Simon Cowell will offer Cole her old judging job back on the American version of the franchise.
Cole was heavily promoted in the British press when she went to the US for its version of The X Factor in 2011, only to be quietly dumped. One episode had Cole start the show and her replacement, Nicole Scherzinger, end it.
A rift had been reported between Cole and Cowell in the British press in subsequent months, but neither would offer an official comment on what had happened.
Since then, Scherzinger, and her replacement, Britney Spears, have left the show. L. A. Reid is also leaving The X Factor USA.
Cole’s legal team has filed suit against The X Factor USA producers Blue Orbit, claiming she is owed the equivalent of £1·4 million. Blue Orbit claims that Cole lacks standing in the case.
Kate Upton returns to the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, unveiled Monday evening.
Upton, who made her first appearance in 2011, and took the cover in 2012, has become one of the most recognized faces in modelling since her cover. Most recently, she appeared in a Superbowl TV commercial for the Mercedes-Benz CLA in the US. She has also appeared in advertising for Skullcandy and Abbot & Main in the last 12 months.
Upton, 20, follows in the footsteps of SI models, including Kathy Ireland, Elle Macpherson, and Christie Brinkley.
The Swimsuit Issue’s shoots took place on all seven continents, with Upton’s cover photo taken in the Antarctic summer.
Upton only learned of the editors’ choice for the cover on Friday.
Inside, however, it may be former Miss Alabama Katherine Webb who will take much of the limelight. The girlfriend of Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback A. J. McCarron, Webb is known to many American football fans.
Webb was relatively unknown till one month ago, until she merited a mention by an ESPN sportscaster during the BCS Championship game. Recent reports indicate Webb is moving to New York to pursue a modelling career, propelled by her sudden fame.
She joined Upton in unveiling the cover during CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman.
Since it’s awards’ season in Hollywood, celebrity hairstylist David Babaii has been hard at work again, this time working on Nicole Kidman.
At the Producers’ Guild Awards (top), Kidman had a fringe and a half-up, half-down do. Babaii used IT&LY Hairfashion’s eco-friendly, cruelty-free Purity Design Line. He began with blow-drying, with a mixture of IT&LY Pure Water Drops and Pure Fluid Experience. Then, using a medium round brush, he created the soft curls and fringe. He swept the hair to one side for the side part for the fringe, then back-combing the crown and drawing the sides into a pouf at the back. He used the Pure Water Drops for the soft curls at the back and the nape, before finishing with IT&LY Pure Definition Hair Spray for misting.
At the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards (above), Babaii gave Kidman a straight look. A small amount of IT&LY Pure Water Drops were warmed in his hands before it was applied to her hair. After drying her hair, he used a large, round brush to straighten. He sectioned her hair first, into top, sides and back, first drying the nape area. He created a centre part and finished with the IT&LY Racing Red Professional one-inch digital iron. Meanwhile, to those of you following us on RSS, Tiffany Fernando was at BMW’s Ladies’ Press Day and improved her confidence behind the wheel thanks to the experts. You can read about her experiences here. Publisher Jack Yan, meanwhile, interviewed Miss TEEN 2012 Aleisha Robertson (right), one of the first New Zealanders to win an international beauty pageant title in years. Is the tide turning positively for pageants in New Zealand?
Above An earlier photograph of Stella McCartney, receiving the British Designer of the Year Award, presented by Salma Hayek.
At the Elle Sverige gala at Stockholm’s Grand Hotel last night, designer Stella McCartney took home the H&M and Elle Conscious Award, given out to those actively working on sustainability and fashion.
Hennes & Mauritz, which is the principal sponsor of the gala, sponsors both the Conscious Award and the newcomer award.
The newcomer award was won by Common Affairs, a Swedish menswear design duo.
‘Stella McCartney is a modern woman and designer who shows that exclusive fashion, sustainability and responsibility obviously belong together, and are an important part of a sustainable future for our industry,’ says Catarina Midby, fashion and sustainability coordinator at H&M and a member of the jury for the H&M and Elle Conscious Award. ‘There is a consistent collection and lifestyle, and a clearly communicated vision that inspires her most conscious fashionistas with clothes and accessories that are gentle on animals and the environment, with the highest level of fashion.’
The newcomer award has been given out since the first gala in January 1998. This year’s prize is Kr 25,000.
Common Affairs draws on its duo’s experiences at design school in London and working in Paris. ‘Together they create a modern metropolitan collection for men but which girls also like to wear. It is well tailored, simple and minimalist with clear sporting influences, cool and functional at the same time, and Swedish-produced with responsibility for people and the environment,’ says Ann-Sofie Johansson, head of design at H&M and chair of the jury giving out the H&M and Elle newcomer award.
Reports from Venezuela indicate that Vittorio Missoni, his wife Maurizia Castiglioni, two friends, whom Italian media have identified as Elda Scalvenzi and Guido Foresti, and two crew have gone missing after their plane disappeared from radar on Friday morning. Search and rescue operations are continuing. The reports have been confirmed by the Missoni company.
The plane, a Britten-Norman BN2 Islander, disappeared in the area the Los Roques archipelago. Its last known position was 18½ km south of Los Roques.
The Missonis were in Venezuela on holiday. Family members have gone to Venezuela to await news, say Italian media.
The Missoni company was founded in 1953 by Ottavio ‘Tai’ and Rosita Missoni, the parents of Vittorio, Angela and Luca, who now run the firm. Vittorio manages the business’s commercial and manufacturing side. It has sales of around US$100 million annually.
The company celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
Five years ago, an aeroplane carrying eight Italian passengers disappeared in the same area, with the wreck never found.
Top The new look for Lucire’s web edition home page. Deeper and cleaner than before. Since this screen shot was taken, we’ve made even more improvements.
Leading a redesign is always exciting, especially when there are more quiet news days at this time of the year.
If you’ve surfed through our home page, or if you’re a Lucire Facebook fan who got word of it in one of our statuses last night, you’ll notice we are phasing in a new look. Only a few pages have it at the moment—we want to iron the bugs out and get feedback before it appears more widely—but we thought we had better get a few pages looking “more 2010s” and give you the sort of reading pleasure you had when you first visited the Lucire website in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The changes are numerous, but here are the highlights:
first of all, we’ve made it easier for you to share to your social networks, and made those sharing buttons bigger if you’re browsing on a smaller screen. We haven’t optimized the feature pages for mobile yet, but the new look will make its way to these news pages, which, as many of you know, are. We’ll go from there;
bigger type. As screen resolutions improve, the sizes we had specified type at in the 1990s and 2000s seem rather small. So we’ve addressed that;
bigger pictures. It’s a recognition of better bandwidth these days. However, we haven’t forgotten that a lot of the planet isn’t on broadband, so we’re glad to note that the basic HTML files for the new pages are actually smaller by 1 to 2 kbyte and we’ve optimized the images for downloading where we can;
fewer ads. We know they can be annoying. With the new look, we’ve largely retired the 160 by 600 skyscraper size. We’re hoping that despite fewer ads, you’ll be encouraged to visit more, so what we make from advertising should balance out;
comment forms. Finally! While you’ve always been able to send your feedback, and comment on news articles, we haven’t built in any forms for individual feature stories. That will change with 2013 stories going forward;
and, on the home page, an animation! This is just us having fun. But we think you might like the top stories in a slideshow. It’s nothing new for a lot of our competitors, and we’re playing catch-up there. Now that we have caught up, we hope you like the first five we’ve chosen.
In addition to the home page, the ‘Volante’ index page has changed to the new look, as have two articles: Sarah MacKenzie’s 2013 BMW X1 first drive and Elyse Glickman’s 2013 Chicago dining guide.
There are other little changes, such as the disappearance of the callouts, or pull quotes, and much more noticeable ‘continued’ links for multi-page articles. The links to Digg have gone, too.
We’re still considering whether to remove the descriptions of each article from the home page, leaving only a byline, to make the look even more streamlined.
It’s a familiar feeling. At the end of 2002, a similar redesign helped usher in the New Year for Lucire, with the first article on designer Megan Tuffery and her residence at the time, Bruxelles. Until then, there were some lavishly designed stories, and ‘Megan Tuffery’s Brussels’ was created to partly standardize the Lucire look and bring in some more lessons from print. Looking at the page now won’t be entirely representative, since it links to a stylesheet that has since been edited. However, if you do, think of much lower resolutions and much narrower browsers—1,024 by 768 pixels was the norm—if you want to re-create the effect.
Interestingly, this latest redesign may be the first where web and cellphone viewing habits have driven the thinking more than old media.
Back in 2002–3, that new look was also considered clean—but such is the nature of technology and changes that things get added, cluttering things up. We wonder how long the 2013 look will remain before it, too, needs a serious overhaul. Two years? Less?
For now, please enjoy our latest efforts—and look forward to these news pages eventually following suit!—Jack Yan, Publisher
Since Cheryl Cole always gets additional readers for the British tabloids, she’s the subject of further speculation again—that The X Factor supremo Simon Cowell will offer Cole her old judging job back on the American version of the franchise.
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