#i just hope it sells really well so doll companies will make more fashion packs

[fishylife]

Ngl that hairmazing walmart exclusive fashion pack with 35 pieces looks pretty fun

[biofunmy]

Black Friday 2019: What You Need to Know

In the age of e-commerce, Black Friday can feel like an anachronism. But don’t be fooled. The Friday after Thanksgiving remains enormously important — at least symbolically — to the retail industry. And millions of shoppers will still be out in stores, working off that turkey and stuffing by racing to find the best deals.

Many others will simply stay at home, content to cruise the internet to do their shopping. Whether it’s in stores or online, our reporters will be covering it here, with a little help from our friends at The Wirecutter.

Shopping has become easier, and more fun

It’s hard to think of a better time to be a shopper. There’s one-day delivery, online purchases with in-store pick up, even $17 cocktails served while you shop for shoes.

Retailers are trying to be all things to all shoppers, but it is proving to be a tough and, some say, unsustainable way to run their business. The more money retailers invest in new initiatives to boost sales, the more their profit margins seem to shrink.

Amazon is driving a lot of this pain, as old-school retailers try to catch up with the online giant, which sets the standard for speed and convenience.

— Michael Corkery

Online sales start strong. ‘Frozen 2’ toys, L.O.L. Surprise dolls and laptops are hits.

Let’s get real: Black Friday shopping, online and in stores, really starts on Thanksgiving and lasts all weekend. So it will be awhile before we know how the retail sector did this year. But one early indicator was positive: Shoppers spent $4.2 billion on Thursday, about 14.5 percent more than on Thanksgiving 2018, according to Adobe Analytics.

Adobe, which tracks purchases made on thousands of websites, said the top-selling items online were toys and products affiliated with the movie “Frozen 2,” L.O.L. Surprise dolls and toys, Amazon Fire TV products and Apple laptops.

Separately, the software company Salesforce projected that online sales would reach $7.4 billion in the United States on Friday alone, about 16 percent more than last year, and $40 billion globally, about a 24 percent increase.

The company found that more people had started their Black Friday shopping early by looking for deals online on Thanksgiving, and 60 percent of those digital orders were placed on mobile phones.

At Costco, the website was slow so the store extended one-day online deals intended for Thanksgiving into Friday. “The website is currently experiencing longer than normal response times,” Costco wrote in a banner across its home page. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”

— Jacey Fortin

Hoping for Gucci in the bargain bin? You’ll have to wait a bit longer.

When Barneys, the iconic Manhattan department store, was sold for pieces last month, it marked the end of an era in New York retailing. It also set the hearts of consumers racing, as talk of an unprecedented liquidation sale swirled. What sorts of deals could be had on cashmere? Would Gucci be in the bargain bin?

Alas, consumers have since been disappointed. Barneys’ liquidators — led by B. Riley Financial’s Great American Group — have largely limited the discounts to just 5 percent or 10 percent off the chain’s luxury wares. Twitter has been rife with incredulous shoppers. “I just checked out Barneys New York closing down sale and socks are $97,” one user wrote. Another remarked that they needed more than 10 percent off, noting, “This is like a rich folks sale.”

This week, however, B. Riley said it would deepen discounts at Barneys beginning on Wednesday, for an average of 30 percent to 35 percent off items throughout the weekend. It promised additional promotions for in-store shoppers. There’s a chance that will spur sales — though shoppers may continue to wait for even bigger discounts during December, as the liquidators will have to offload all of the inventory at some point.

— Sapna Maheshwari

Some shoppers are done already

People who get an early jump on their holiday shopping inspire both envy and awe, and there has been even more early shopping this year.

During the first week of November, consumers had completed 24 percent of their holiday shopping, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation. It was the highest level in the history of the trade group’s survey, and up 16 percent from a decade ago.

For the retail industry, it means that the all-important holiday shopping season is getting longer, and Black Friday’s importance is increasingly fading.

— Michael Corkery

How to not get fooled by bad tech deals

Black Friday offers an avalanche of tech sales, and many aren’t worth your time, either because of the quality of the item or a discount that isn’t very exciting.

TV doorbusters, for example, are usually filled with low-quality, off-brand products, or even stripped-down models from top brands that are only available for the holidays. But that doesn’t mean all TV deals are bad deals. The Wirecutter Deals team has found large high-end models from last year at a bargain. We’ve also seen nice discounts on well-regarded midrange sets for everyday viewing or gaming.

While many people are hoping to snag Apple products for a steal, only select product lines are exceptionally priced. Surprisingly, some of the newest models are being discounted, though the reductions are meager. The best deals we’ve seen have been on older model watches. In general, you’re more likely to see discounts on Apple tablets and accessories from big box stores, but if you see a too-good-to-be-true price from a third-party site, it’s likely a refurbished unit with a shorter warranty and no quality guarantee.

In the world of gaming, consoles, controllers and subscription plans have seen strong discounts, as have tech accessories like wireless mice and keyboards. But before you get swept up in the hype and marketing language, we always suggest comparison shopping to ensure you’re getting the best deal on the best products.

— Nathan Burrow

Black Friday in France: Sales and a backlash

Thanksgiving is just another Thursday in Europe, but Black Friday is a bone of contention: embraced by some and rejected by others as an alarming invasion of American consumerism.

Black Friday sales can be found in many countries, from small stationers to major chains to car dealers. In Britain, many retailers, like John Lewis & Partners, a source of appliances and furniture, started offering Black Friday discounts days ago. Curry’s PC World, an electronics retailer, has a “black tag” event claiming savings of up to 50 percent.

On the rue Vieille du Temple in the Marais district of central Paris, nearly every boutique within a one-block stretch is plastered with signs promoting “Black Friday” in English. While France has been slower than other European countries to join the trend, retailers forecast 6 billion euros in sales this year around the event.

In some cases, something is lost in translation. In Germany, the “Friday” is often dropped in signs promoting a “Black Sale” or “Black Week.”

But a backlash has been gaining steam. In France, lawmakers this week proposed to ban some Black Friday promotions starting next year, citing misleading pricing tactics and the rising environmental cost from the delivery of millions of packages.

Élisabeth Borne, the French environment minister, warned of “a frenzy of consumption” in which people are encouraged to buy products they don’t need.

“We need to consume better, not more,” she added.

Parisian authorities also asked the government to allow cities to slap a so-called eco-tax on Amazon and other delivery platforms to make e-commerce players pay for pollution and rising delivery traffic.

Protesters from the Extinction Rebellion movement and other environmental groups held “Block Friday” demonstrations throughout France. Many of the events were aimed at Amazon, with some banners saying “No to Amazon and its world.”

— Liz Alderman and Stanley Reed

Is a short holiday season ‘the fright before Christmas’?

How did the week of Thanksgiving become so entwined in consumerism?

It may have started with Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 32nd president of The United States was so eager to jump-start the economy in 1938 that he moved the holiday’s official date up a week in order to create more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It was a bold move — and unpopular. The nation had been celebrating Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November ever since Abraham Lincoln declared the day a federal holiday following the battle of Gettysburg.

Roosevelt reversed course in 1941 and returned Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of the month, where it remains.

The holiday’s late arrival this year is worrying retailers since it means there are 26 shopping days before Christmas, six fewer than last year.

The abbreviated shopping period is one of reason Morgan Stanley analysts labeled their 2019 holiday retail outlook “The fright before Christmas” and are expecting a less than stellar shopping season.

— Michael Corkery

Santa’s list is packed with everyday items

Black Friday may be known as the raucous kickoff to gift-giving season (especially this year, as Christmas and Hanukkah overlap), but some people aren’t actually shopping for loved ones.

Instead, Wirecutter readers’ lists seem squarely rooted in everyday products. Some of the items our readers have asked us to look out for deals on: baby gates, electric toothbrushes and a garage door opener. And the retailers know this. The Wirecutter Deals team has found excellent pricing on everything from shower curtains to fly traps to computer cables that don’t exactly scream gift. Though, perhaps, nothing says “I love you” like a dongle.

— Annemarie Conte

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2ryQ08p via IFTTT

[badass-girl-101-blog]

Sneak peek from Don't Look Back, coming in January to Wattpad

I was sprawled on my bed reading one of my favorite books. I had the radio playing softly in the background, and my window was open, a slight breeze shuffling the papers on my desk.

Someone knocks on my door and i yell "come in" without looking up. "Jade! The next young man will be here in twenty minutes, while your sitting in shorts and a tank top reading one of your romance books! " my mother scolded.

I finally look up at her. "I'm not marrying him. Or any other guy you throw at me for that matter. I'm not interested in getting married. I'm eighteen for goodness sake." I say slipping a bookmark inbetween the pages and placing the book on the bed next to me.

"You must get married. You've come of age that you need to start a family. We must have heirs you know." She lectures. I roll my eyes. She says this everyday.

"Its not the old days. People don't get married at the age eighteen. The only time you get married at eighteen is when you and you're boyfriend have an accident and you end up being pregnant. Do I look pregnant?" I ask waving a hand down my really skinny body.

My parents are very..... controlling. They want stuff done their way. They are also the owners of the top business in the world, Diamond's Manufacturing.

They basically make everything stores sell. And they own a ton of well know companies, and they expect me to be perfect.I

At age two i was expected to sit quietly and play, age three I was writing and reading a little. Age four i was reading stuff like The American Girl Doll books. Age five i was playing three different instruments and had voice lessons, six i was horseback riding. Age seven i was helping my mom write her books -she writes books about parenting so people's kids are like me, and business books-By going through and fixing misspelled words, adding those missing commas and capitalizing the I's.

As I got older, I realized this wasn't how other kids were growing up. I was a stay at home kid. I had tutors come to the house, and teach me eight different languages, math and all the other necessary classes.

I think the first time i saw another kid that wasn't my parents' friends' kids was one day at the airport. I was twelve, and we were, of coarse, flying first-class but i saw a couple kids, running around, yelling and laughing, playing something that they had to yell "tag! You're it!" When you push someone else.

I thought it was a weird game. Why were these children running around yelling? Shouldn't they be sitting quietly, their legs crossed at the ankle and smiling politely? Running was a very naughty thing to do.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I haven't seen the outside world. I was in my own little bubble. Of course, I've traveled the world. I've seen Paris, Egypt, London, Basically everywhere.

I was thirteen when i started to ask about these things. Things that my parents weren't too happy about. "Can i go to a real school?" "Can i have a sleepover?" Stuff a normal teen should be doing, i was just learning about it.

It was a whole new world, and i was planning on discovering everything i could about it. I began buying millions of books. And they did answer some of my questions.

Though, are there really vampires? Mom says there aren't any, but she also said that running will make you break every bone in your body, so i don't trust her very much.

But they are very controlling. They have a list of "worthy" men, all of them my age, but in tight suits, don't expect you to speak unless you're spoken to, and speak without a word of slang. Very old-fashioned.

You should have heard the lecture i got from my parents when i said the word "dude." It was very amusing.

But they expect me to pick one guy - sorry young man-to marry, and have kids. Sorry, not happening.

"I sure hope not." My mother says glancing at me as she fixes a few figurines on one of my shelves. She thought they were hideous, the Pop! Figurines from different movies and books. She shakes her head in disgust at my room.

I've been trying to live a normal girls life. I had posters from movies i like, there were tons of shelves dedicated to books, my laptop wad on my desk, along with papers from school and random notes. I had my room in a light purple and grey scheme, lavender comforter, grey walls. A grey rug, and done pillows, with a light purple bean bag sitting in the corner.

She originally had it with white walls, and a few ballerinas, because she wanted me to dance. I wasn't graceful enough for it, and i quit. I prefer horseback riding. Mom doesn't know that i do all the work myself.

Kit Kat is a thoroughbred. Very energetic, which is good because we often go riding on the beach early in the morning or late at night.

"Why do i have to do this? Why can't you have another kid, one who does exactly what you tell him or her to? I'm not interested in getting married at the age eighteen." I complain and mom raises her eyebrow.

"Don't complain it's....." " Very un-ladylike. I know i know. " i groan, finishing her sentence.

Mom walks over to my closet, head high and moving gracefully. She begins sorting through my closet, pulling out a few things. "This..... This and this shall do." She says piling some on the bed. It was a long white skirt, with a brown belt with a flower buckle. There was also a light blue shirt.

Way to girly girl. "This isn't my style. I'm not girly like you." I say gesturing to her long pink dress and silver high heels. She glares at me. "You will wear this, and that's final." She says and walks back out. I study the clothes in front of me, then head back to my closet. Black leather jacket, black loopy choker and my ear cuff.

They basically killed me when they saw it, but it was a simple hoop on the side of my ear so it's not like i did anything really bad. Like get a tattoo. They sound cool, but all those needles pushed into my skin... I shudder. No thank you.

I get dressed, and add a pair of ankle high black boots. Now to sit and wait. I probably should put on some makeup, but I'm too lazy.

I flop back onto my bed and pick up my book again. I hear the doorbell ring and roll my eyes. Time to reject guy number twenty-seven.  I think and sit up. Two minutes later someone knocks on my door.

"Jade. Theres a man here to see you." A voice says through the door. I stand up and open the door, revealing Bethany, or Beth as she prefers to be called. Beth is one of our maids, and one of my friends.

"Do I have to go?" I whine and Beth chuckles. "I am afraid that you have to." She replies and glances at my outfit.

"Nice touch." She says approvingly. I smile a thanks. "What does he seem like?" I ask. "He's tall, skinny, nicely cut brown hair, and very.... Stiff." She says and I groan.

"I swear I'm going to run away." I mutter and Beth chuckles. "I'll come with you." she says and disappears down the hall.

I take a deep breath and glance at the stairs with hatred. I know they didn't do anything, but they lead me to torture.

I begin walking down the stairs and then walk into the parlor. He's sitting strait in his seat, no emotion showing on his face.

"Hello Mr...." I begin, then realize I don't know his name. "Miss Jade Diamond. I'm Henry Bentley." He says formally and stands up, bowing slightly.

I glance over him. He's way to stiff, it reminds me of my father. "So...." I say unsure what to talk about. "The weather is nice today, isn't it?" Of course I say something about the weather. These things are so awkward.

"Yes indeed. I see your mother's garden is coming along nicely." He says awkwardly. He keeps looking at my outfit. He's probably not sure what to make of it. I inwardly smirk.

"Yes, she's very proud of her garden. The gardener has done a good job." I respond.

----------

Henry had finally left, after a very awkward conversation. Mother and Father walked in, and they look horrified at my outfit. "What on earth are you wearing?" She screeches.

"What you gave me, plus a few of my own touches." I say rolling my eyes.

"I don't know why you have such stuff in your closet!" My father says.

"Anyways, what do you think of Mr. Bentley?" she asks. I shudder and shake my head. " no way in hell. " I respond and they once again, look horrified, this time at my speech.

"Young lady! You talk nicely, and don't use such horrid words!" Father yells.

" That's it, you're marrying Henry! " Mother states.

"What? No! You can't do that!" I yell and glare at them. " Oh yes we can. You will be married in two months. One week before thanksgiving. " they say firmly.

"I'm not getting married to him!" I yell and they give me an angry disappointed look. "don't yell, and he was the last suitable man. Now go to your room." Father growls and I turn around, stomping to my room. Childish -yes, but they hate me stomping. 'It's not lady like.'

I slam my door shut and flop on my bed. someone opens my door and slips in. "You okay?" Beth asks. I groan and shake my head.

" No, I have to get married to that jerk. " I grumble and she sighs. "Tell me about it."

I sit up and look at her. "Well when I walked into that stupid parlor he was sitting there looking like a freakin cruel king or something. Face with no emotions, and sitting up like a freaking pole.

Then we started talking about weather, then the business. Once he left, i got yelled at about my clothes, then told i had to marry that freak."

" Well then. I don't know what i should say. " Beth says looking at me sadly. I hop off my bed, and lay on the floor next to my bed and then pull out a big stack of boxes.

I set pine up, and begin throwing my clothes into it, not bothering to fold them. "I do, let's start packing."

[biofunmy]

Back to Basics for a Designer Whose Business Got Too Tight

Scott Sternberg would prefer you not call him “quirky,” as has happened many times before. It’s “a word people like to use for me a lot,” Mr. Sternberg said, “which I don’t love.”

So we will not repeat the offense, further than to note that, while Mr. Sternberg may not be quirky, there he was, in all his Peter Panish youthfulness, with his penchant for stripy shirts and Polaroid film, seated in a geodesic dome of his own design as vintage monitors played the funny little videos he creates, ruminating about utopia.

If Mr. Sternberg has a quirk — let’s say for a minute that he does — it is for ginning up not just clothes (which he does) or videos (which he does) or even geodesic domes (which he has, for his label’s first-ever pop-up, in the SoHo branch of the furniture seller Design Within Reach), but also an entire world in which all of these things come together, with its own rhythms, cadence, colors and meticulously designed aesthetic.

Mr. Sternberg, 44, is what is usually called a fashion designer, insofar as he is in the business of making and selling clothes. If you know his name, it is most likely that you remember his former label Band of Outsiders, which, from 2004 to 2015, had a profound impact on the way stylish American men dressed, squeezing them into slim shirts and skinny ties and Sperry Top-Siders: prep-school style in quotation marks, self-aware and self-effacing.

Mr. Sternberg thinks of himself less as a designer or a creative director than as a world builder. He and Band of Outsiders parted company, and his new brand, Entireworld (aha!), is less exclusive and less niche; a collection, essentially, of basics. It is clothing considered from the bottom up — one if its founding garments was a pair of underpants.

Now with a few more staples to round it out, Mr. Sternberg hopes for nothing less than to dress the entire world. A year into its life, the question is: Can he?

The Entireworld world, a fantasyland in Disney colors (Disney World is an acknowledged influence), is a cheerful, welcoming one. Mr. Sternberg’s Band of Outsider tailored jackets could once run $1,800 or more; Entireworld’s T-shirts are $32.

The same sensibility — Mr. Sternberg’s cinematic adorable — animates both. Many of the same friends who posed pro bono for guerrilla Polaroid ad campaigns are now in Instagram videos, singing, mugging or prat-falling: Jason Schwartzman, Kirsten Dunst, Andrew Garfield, Spike Jonze.

Over a series of interviews beginning in April 2018, at its inception, and continuing through Entireworld’s first year, Mr. Sternberg explained his vision of this world and how it was built on the ashes of its predecessor. In so doing, he offered a view into the tectonic shifts in the fashion industry, the instability of the high-fashion, runway model he left behind and the traditional gatekeepers who perpetuate it.

Mr. Sternberg had been featured in every fashion magazine, won the industry’s top awards, hosted Anna Wintour and Kanye West at his fashion shows. Still, he said at a public conversation at Design Within Reach with Deborah Needleman (the former T Magazine editor), “the fashion system can feel like jail.”

Band of Outsiders did $15 million in wholesale business its height, but Mr. Sternberg, overstretched and under-resourced, who sought and received investment, couldn’t keep up with the immense pressure to grow. He found out that his last hope for additional funding passed on the morning he opened the first Band of Outsiders shop in the United States, in SoHo. (The first-ever store had opened in Tokyo.)

He received a loan from CLCC, a Belgian fashion fund, for $2 million, but soon clashed with his new backers. Ultimately, Mr. Sternberg’s company defaulted on the loan and Mr. Sternberg himself walked away from the Band. CLCC assumed ownership, and Band of Outsiders continues without him, with a new design team in place. Mr. Sternberg called their first collection “a disaster.”

The challenges of designing and producing collection after collection of men’s and women’s wear are significant, and Band of Outsiders eventually grew to encompass several lines. The collections were well received but also vulnerable to the whims of trend and timeliness, and the vagaries of inconsistent production.

Even Band’s signature slim cuts were in part a self-fulfilling prophecy: After an initial run of shirts were (correctly) snug, other orders arrived from the factories in similar style. “Everything just came in a little bit small,” Mr. Sternberg said. “I’m not kidding.”

Band’s cuts — like those of Thom Browne, whose shrunken suits were a more conceptual foil to Mr. Sternberg’s easier Americana — helped convince curious young men to embrace a snugger silhouette. But that fit made democratizing and expanding the brand nearly impossible. In any case, high-fashion esotericism had never been Mr. Sternberg’s intention.

“That’s just not me,” he said. “That’s not how I see my legacy.”

If fashion is by definition exclusive, Entireworld is inclusive; fashion segments the world into groups of like-minded (and like-dressed) cohorts, but everyone wears underwear. In a video announcing the creation of Entireworld last year, Mr. Sternberg faced the camera and, as his face dissolved into a montage of stylish men and women (Mick Jagger, Sade, The Dude), acknowledged his past failings and vowed to take a different tack.

“I started thinking about what it would be like to create something more democratic this time, without compromising anything about the design or quality,” he said. “About the stuff we live in every day.”

But now, instead of staging fashion shows and courting the fashion press, instead of depending on the patronage of department stores and boutiques, Mr. Sternberg’s Entireworld is sold primarily from its own website.

Mr. Sternberg runs the entire business out of a bland commercial office building in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, from where he conjures a utopia only he can see. He is the man behind the curtain. Entireworld, and the thousand tiny windows onto it offered on Instagram posts and its cheeky, sunny website, is Oz.

Of course, the thing about Oz is that the man behind the curtain is pulling the levers, working to convince you to buy a $32 T-shirt from him, rather than a $10 three-pack from Hanes. He will tell you that his feels better, fits better and wears better; he will not be wrong.

But a basic is a basic, and to many, the difference is hard to parse. Mr. Sternberg is under pressure to make Entireworld so appealing that even its basics have ineffable magic that coaxes credits cards out of wallets.

Mr. Sternberg has to capture that market with less of the support he once enjoyed. “Have we captured the attention of traditional media outlets the way I expected to, the way I did at Band? Eh,” he said, giving a grunt of not-really. He has skipped the fashion shows and presentations he once staged. As a result, Entireworld has made a smaller splash.

But those who love it — those who may be rising to replace the old gatekeepers — have vouched for it. “Basically have not taken this sweatshirt off since I got it last week,” Leandra Medine, better known as the Man Repeller, posted to her Instagram not long after the label’s debut.

At Design Within Reach, Mr. Sternberg had his first real-world test, hanging racks of Entireworld clothes among Alexander Girard dolls and Man Ray chess sets and Hans Wegner chairs. Pegged to New York’s NYCxDesign programming, the Entireworld shop stayed open for 11 days, and customers came away with hot-pink sweatsuits and cotton sweaters.

“It was definitely something we had never done,” said Kim Phillips, the head of public relations and events for Design Within Reach. “It was sticking my neck out there for sure.”

Mr. Sternberg called the experiment gratifying. “An idea like this, I really believe more than ever has a place, especially when I see the sales and repeat sales,” he said. “I think the real challenge is — I know the real challenge is — that the amount of capital it’ll take to get where we need to getis formidable.”

To start Entireworld, Mr. Sternberg raised $1.5 million from a group of private investors, and he has sought further investment to grow and scale it. Within its first year, he said, the company has sold more than three quarters of its initial inventory and reached more than $1 million in sales without paying for any advertising.

Numbers like these, while impressive, mean Entireworld is dwarfed by many of its competitors, limited by finite capital but not in an ideal position to attract more. “There’s a real disconnect,” Mr. Sternberg said, between his values and the goals of the investors he is hoping to attract.

“Investors want a return, and they want a return in a certain amount of time,” he said. “I understand all these things, clearly, but they still don’t change my view that sticking to my guns in terms of what this is and what it should be shouldn’t bow too much to the pressure of what investors think it should be right now.”

And while the signs have been good — Ms. Phillips said that she and Mr. Sternberg were talking about the pop-up traveling to other Design Within Reach locations, and sales continue to climb online — the economic reality of keeping a fashion business afloat is a chilly reality intruding into utopia. The world isn’t Entireworld, yet. But Mr. Sternberg said there had been no question of not trying his hand in the rag trade again.

“Unfortunately not,” he said with a laugh. “I am an entrepreneur by birth. I am at my most ebullient, excited, energetic when there’s a big challenge and a huge bucket that needs these ideas to fill it out. It’s painful. It’s not easy. There’s just this unexplainable, probably illogical urge to do this stuff.”

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2R5I735 via IFTTT