In an era where jeans are stretchy and yoga pants are office attire, one might spare some pity for the men still confined to dress shirts.
Nearly 5 million people have now fled the violence in Syria. More have gone to Turkey than any other country. Desperate for income, many have sought employment illegally in the country’s garment industry. As many foreign brands making garments in Turkey know, factories often exploit the availability of this cheap labor.
A boom in cheap fashion is coming.
When Ronald Reagan died in 2004, Newsweek, Time, and People magazines all ran the same photo of the former US president on their covers. Shot in the 1970s by photographer Michael Evans, it depicted Reagan, grinning and tan, in a cowboy hat and denim shirt. The image captured the core of his folksy, populist appeal and became a key component of his successful 1980 campaign for the presidency.
Sometimes the symbolism of a public figure’s clothing requires a bit of unpacking to discern. This was not one of those times.
Thank you, Canada. Seriously, we needed that.
Thailand is running short on black clothing. On Oct. 14, the country declared a one-year mourning period over the death of its widely beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was the world’s longest-reigning monarch, and asked that for the first 30 days everyone cancel any festivities and wear black or white clothing. Black quickly became the more prominent choice as crowds of black-clad mourners thronged the streets and department stores filled their windows with anything black they had for sale.
Miao Deshun was a young factory worker when he was arrested in June 1989 with thousands of others in the massive pro-democracy protests that took place in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He was one of about 1,600 people who received formal prison sentences. His crime was allegedly throwing a basket at a burning tank, for which he was convicted of arson and received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.
Migraines are a painful and widespread problem. They afflict an estimated 1 billion people worldwide, including about 38 million in the US alone. There are all sorts of purported remedies for them, but a team of scientists in Italy has identified what it believes could be a simple way to avoid the debilitating headaches.
Donald Trump has been labeled a “bully” throughout much of his campaign for the US presidency. But after his operation recently suffered from mounting allegations of sexual assault following the release of a 2005 video in which he boasted about forcing himself on women, Trump has been trying to frame himself in a new light: He now contends he’s the victim.
Jet black has been one of the most popular new colors for the iPhone 7 ever since it first went on sale in mid-September. Despite it being incredibly easy to scratch, its popularity meant it quickly sold out, leaving many buyers waiting to get their fix.
Great writing isn’t only to be found in books. The Nobel committee recognized as much today (Oct. 13) by awarding American songwriter Bob Dylan its prize for literature, for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” He becomes the first musician in the prize’s 115-year history to win the category.
While much of Amazon’s sales volume is in diapers, blenders, and other unglamorous products, the e-commerce behemoth is also a fashion giant. Next year it’s expected to become the biggest apparel seller in the US, and it boasts an enviable customer base for higher-end brands: Penetration of its “Prime” membership program is greatest among upper-income households, and they are incredibly loyal repeat customers who like to shop for clothes.
E-commerce pioneer Amazon is already more than 20 years old, and yet many of the world’s big luxury brands are just now being pulled—kicking and screaming—into the digital age.
In the lead-up to the second US presidential debate tonight (Oct. 9), the electorate waited anxiously to see how Donald Trump would respond to video surfaced by the Washington Post in which Trump talked about forcibly kissing and groping women. By now the comments are familiar to many, including the part where Trump boasts he can grab women “by the pussy” if he feels like it.
If you’ve ever wondered how to integrate your sweatpants into your work wardrobe, you’re in luck. Recently Mr. Porter, the menswear site of the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, which bills itself as “the world’s biggest luxury fashion store,” published a video on how to wear sweatpants. It describes three different scenarios in which guys may choose to wear their sweats, including to the gym, for lounging around “the morning after,” and “during the week”—meaning to the office.
At first, it struck me as a gimmick: Nearly 30 years after Michael J. Fox strapped on auto-lacing Nike sneakers in Back to the Future II, the company has created a working replica of that shoe that a select few people can get their hands on.
To buy a bespoke suit isn’t just a cash-for-goods transaction. It’s an experience, too. You talk to your tailor about your style, and what the suit is for. You select your fabric, and maybe details such as the lining of your jacket. You have multiple fittings to make sure it’s just right.
The internet isn’t exactly a series of tubes, as US Senator Ted Stevens once metaphorically asserted, but neither is it just a nebulous cloud of 1s and 0s floating in the ether. There’s actual hardware behind it, and it’s very drab hardware—big metal boxes and wires, housed in cavernous, dystopian warehouses. (Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offered a glimpse of this world when he proudly released photos of his company’s giant data center last week.)
When Willy Wonka announced that the five children who found golden tickets hidden in his chocolate bars would get to tour his mysterious chocolate factory in Roald Dahl’s classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the world went bonkers. People started buying Wonka’s candy bars by the dozens. Veruca Salt got her ticket because her father forced his factory employees to stop shelling peanuts and start unwrapping Wonka chocolate bars brought in by the truckload.
What would Marie Antoinette’s life be like if she were alive now? She was a teen idol after becoming queen of France in 1770, at the age of 14. Today, she would likely document her life—and partying—on Instagram and Snapchat. Rather than the ineffably lavish gowns that became a target of the French people’s hatred for the monarchy, she’d probably wear lots of athleisure. Whether she’d work out in it, is another question.
For years, Nike has provided investors on Wall Street a unique way to gauge the health of its business. It reports ”futures orders,” which are a tally of goods it has committed to deliver to retailers in the next six months. The program lets retailers buy in advance at fixed prices, and Nike in return gets cash and a glimpse of sales in the months ahead. Perhaps even more than actual revenue, investors have used these orders to make decisions about the company.
Polyester and acrylic fabrics are used for all sorts of clothing, from dresses to gymwear. But they could be leaching upward of 700,000 tiny plastic fibers into the environment for each 13 lb load of laundry washed, according to new research from Plymouth University.
For more than a century, Levi’s 501s, the original blue jeans that launched the company in 1890, have only been made in one kind of denim—thick-woven “shrink-to-fit” cotton, dyed an indigo that fades and softens the fabric with each wash.
