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Happy Belated Birthday Natalie Portman! (Photos taken from our final tutu fitting for Black Swan).

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Mexican Revolutionary Petra Herrera Posed as a Man to Fight for Her Country

In 1998, Disney released its Oscar-nominated film Mulan, an animated movie that followed the heroic adventures of one fictional woman who took her father’s place in the Chinese Imperial Army. In changing her name, training with the troops, and disguising herself as a male soldier, Mulan took actions that might be far from reality, but her story is eerily similar to that of a real Mexican heroine: Petra Herrera.

Unlike Mulan, Herrera’s story isn’t filtered through rose-colored lenses. There is no happy ending, few history books that remember her heroic actions. But Herrera’s valiance and skills as one of the Mexican Revolution’s most successful soldaderas are an example of the bravery and sacrifices women during this time made to change the history of Mexico’s politics — and should not be forgotten.

The year was 1910, and revolutionaries across Mexico were rising up to fight against elitist dictator Porfirio Díaz’s corrupt government. It would be a decade-long bloody civil war that would claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people. Herrera herself was killed during that time.

Continue reading

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Ann Bonfoey Taylor in Colorado, 1967.

Ann Bonfoey Taylor learned to fly a plane at age 12, competed at Wimbledon at age 19, and became an alternate on the US Olympic Ski Team at age 29.  During World War II, she trained pilots for the US Army and US Navy.  After the war, Ann briefly designed a successful line of ski wear.  She was also regularly featured in the high fashion magazines of the 1930s through 1970s.  

Ann passed away in 2007 at the age of 96.  Her clothing was donated to the Phoenix Art Museum. In 2011, the Phoenix Art Museum published Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor.

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Cindy Crawford wearing Marc Jacobs Fall ‘18 photographed by Nino Muñoz, styled by Sarah Gore Reeves for Harper’s Bazaar Taiwan

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Awesome article on women history!

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Charlize Theron wearing Marc Jacobs Fall ‘18 photographed by Mario Sorrenti, styled by George Cortina for Elle Magazine

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Margarita Robles de Mendoza (1896-1954)

Art by Axalendr (tumblr, deviantart)

Called “the most persistent Mexican suffrage activist of the 1930s,” Margarita Robles de Mendoza began her career in education.  She trained as a teacher in Mexico and qualified as an educational psychologist at Pomona College in California.  While living in New York, Margarita worked for the Mexican Secretary of Education and promoted education for Mexican-Americans in the southwest. 

In 1930, Margarita was selected as Mexico’s representative to the Inter-American Commission of Women. In the early 1930s, she wrote three Spanish-language books on the rights of Mexican women and actively campaigned for women’s suffrage.  A married mother of one, Margarita was particularly concerned with the rights of married women and apprehensive that policies designed to protect mothers in the workplace could hamper female economic empowerment.  In 1932, she published an open letter to President Calles demanding equal opportunity and voting rights for women.  In 1934, she founded a pan-American group called the Unión de Mujeres Americanas to promote women’s civil equality economic development. Margarita was often frustrated with the unwillingness of Mexican women to replicate the more militant activism that have proved successful in the US and the UK.  Despite her activism, Margarita was never able to truly galvanize the Mexican suffrage movement.

In 1939, a suffrage amendment passed the Mexican legislature but it still needed to be ratified by the states.  Neither major candidate in the 1940 election pushed for its ratification and would take until 1953 for Mexican women to win full voting rights.

Meanwhile, Margarita shifted her focus on foreign relations, serving as a high level diplomat in the United States.  She eventually retired to Mexico City where she died in 1954.

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The September issue has arrived—and Jennifer Lawrence stars on not one, but four covers! This cover, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, captures the star in front of Lady Liberty—a true testament to American Beauty.

View all four covers here.

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Mary Seng wearing our Fall ‘17 Snapshot Bag in Black 

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Mexican Pink : History

It all goes back to 1946 when fashion designer, among other things, Ramón Valdiosera showed his collection to the former mexican president Miguel Alemán. 

The president was so impressed with his collection that decided to send him around the world to improve Mexico’s image as a modern country. Valdiosera’s collection was inspired in the artisans handcrafts that identify Mexico so well. Many of the designs were in a particular shade of pink. But it wasn’t until 1949 that this shade of pink received its name. Ramón’s collection was exhibited at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York when a journalist asked him what kind of pink he had used. The response to that question was "Mexican Pink" 

Valdiosera's words trascended to mexican history, this color is now part of a tradition that is shown in clothes, handcrafts, architecture and even in the taxis. Mexican pink is now one of Mexico's emblematic colors.

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Dress for success

As part of my fashion course I have to post the perfect outfit for a job interview or first day at work. It should reflect your personal style, be comfortable, and appropiate. For this outfit I decided to include a blazer because I believe it makes me look professional and reflects my personal style. The stripes in it make it interesting but not too flashy. The palette of colors in this outfit is blue and white, these colors transmit committment to the job. The statement necklace shows my creative side and breaks the serious look of blazer and pants combo. For the shoes I choose a pair of silver flats which keep the outfit interesting head to toe without overdoing it. 

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Retail Marketing: Assignment

For this assignment I was instructed to look at displays at stores and write about one that I think it works. After my research I decided to write on this window display from Anthropologie. 

I am a huge fan of the Anthropologie windows, as many people I suppose... If it wasn´t so they wouldn´t have their own hashtag ( #anthrowindows ) or they wouldn´t sell them later online! I believe this display works because it reflects the essence of Anthropologie, it´s hollistic, eclectic, chic and stands out from the rest. Each display is carefully made by hand and all of the hard work that goes into creating escenarios like this one can be appreciated. The consumer gets a message of people that care and pay attention to detail. Specifically the craftmanship in the paper flowers evokes the spring in a non-cliché way. Also I think that assembleling two looks per display works in favor of the store. The people that walk by see this clothes and are intrigued because they have not been saturated by a full display of manequins. For these reasons I believe that this is a very compelling display. 

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My audience...

Hey there! As part of an assignment in my fashion course I was asked to research the audience I have in my social media. To complete the assignment I will describe the most popular posts and the time that my audience use a social network. The audience that I will analyse is from my Instragram account (@theiridescentbutterfly). 

The proper analysis...

Who visitis? 

Mostly my friends, but I have the occasional random visitor. 

Where they come from?

If this question refers to nationality, then the majority are mexican, but there are also americans and arabs liking my pictures!

What time of the day they visit? 

I haven´t noticed a regular pattern, but from my expirience they like the post a few minutes after it was published. Also when they see my profile and decide to follow they like past posts in a row. 

From this assignment I learned to pay attention to the kind of audience you have. Through a short analysis you can determine what are the keys to gaining more importance on social media. 

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Parsons x Teen Vogue | Assignment

Hi! Remember the signature bag mockup? I have done the real thing with one of the fabric proposals, I used the pink fabric called “Tergal stretch”. As part of the assignment I had to add stripes to the fabric, so I used organza ribbon. The style of the signaturebag had to be related to one of the visual styles I had identified in the other assigments. I choose the style Modern Ballerina so the fabric is pale pink with black ribbon forming the stripes. I also had to make the neccessary calculations to put a retail price on it. The picture of the final product and the calculations are shown below. I hope you like my signature bag. 

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Parsons x Teen Vogue | Assignment

Hey! Remember the fashion course? Things are getting interesting, for this assingment I am going to make a signature bag that should display a visual style. My choise is a theme called “Modern Ballerina”. First I had to make a mockup of the bag, this means that it is a practice of what the bag should look like. With the mockup I had to calculate the price of the item based on the cost of different materials. The picture of the mockup and the price calculations are shown below. The final product will be posted soon! 

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Parsons  x Teen Vogue| Assignment

Hello ! As I commented in an earlier post I am doing a fashion course online. For this assignment I went to a department store to try on clothes and write about the production standars. I started to choose different brands and the sizes xs and s in blouses and dresses. For pants I choose a size 2. Then I tried it all in the dressing rooms. The sizes that fit me were the 3 that I choose, but (and its a big but) there was a blouse in size xs that didn´t fit me because the arms were too tight. So I tried the same blouse in size s and it fit well around the arms, nevertheless the size xs fit me better on all the other places. As part of the assignment I choose a garment that fit me well and tried the other identical dresses in the same size. I noticed small changes at first like the shoulders and the length. The dresses were identical in general but by trying them on I noticed the differences. The print on the dress helped me to notice this small changes form one dress to another. The picture in the post shows this dress. 

With this assignment I learned that there can be some irregularities between two identical products. However, these differences don´t matter as long as the garment maintains the original design and the desired fitting. 

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Parsons x Teen Vogue | Assignment

Hi there! I am doing a Fashion industry essentials course online and one of my assignments is to write a blog about production costs. I have started by making a sample of the product. It is a long necklace made with fabric and wood beads (see picture). First I have to calculate the cost of the materials I used, the time it took to make it, and the profit I want to obtain ( Table 1) Afterwards, I was instructed to make another calculation if I want to sell many necklaces.That means sell it to the store by half the price in my first calculation. I can lower the price by reducing the amount of time it took to make it and buying the materials for a cheaper price.( Table 2) 

I learned from this assignment that there are a lot of aspects that determine the price of a product, not just the material. The production cost  often varies depending on where the product is being made, it is much cheaper to make a garment in Asia than in the U.S for example. Nevertheless it should always be considered that a fair wage is paid. I iked this assignment because I learned the depth of making a product and all the aspects considered to reach a final price.