fantasy bikini: April 2010

Friday, April 30, 2010

Least Influential List of 2010

I am cracking up over this list from Time.com
Here are a few of the entries

Dmitri Medvedev President of Russia
Yeah, sure he is.

Giorgio Napolitano President of Italy
He makes decisions, and Silvio Berlusconi ignores them. It's pretty funny.

Toll Brothers Homebuilders
That was a lot of McMansions you built. You'll totally get a segment on I Love the 2000s.

Greece
European country Hairy-chested, aggressive with women, charmingly backward — you briefly charmed us with that big, fat wedding. Then you spent so much more money than you made, you forced the E.U. to bail you out. It will be a long time before we watch a movie about you again.

Dick Fuld
The last CEO of Lehman Brothers ever That has to be hard to explain on a résumé.

Happy Friday

Horse Sense From Winston Churchill

In the spirit of the Kentucky Derby this weekend
a little horse sense from Winston Churchill

"There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man"

"It is not enough for a man to know how to ride, he must know how to fall"

Victoria Beckham Tattoo

Now Victoria Beckham reveals HEVictoria Beckham Tattooer growing cluster of tattoos, a new script inked underneath her Roman numeral tattoo.

Victoria Beckham Tattoo

Look at me: Posh points the way to her new tattoo, seen on the inside of her wrist as she launched her denim line at Saks department store in Boston last night
A sleek-looking Victoria struck a series of poses at the meet and greet for fans, and took the opportunity to fully expose the new tattoo as she pointed at the logo for her DVB denim range.
Posh arrived in Boston on Tuesday with the rest of the Spice Girls to continue their world tour, amid reports that their big reunion tour has run out of steam.

Victoria Beckham Tattoo

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Neiman Marcus - Is This Any Way To Market?

I have to say that in terms of marketing Neiman Marcus does just about everything right.
They have the stores, they have the goods and they have the sales staff.

Of course being too busy to go into the store, try on the goods and deal with the sales staff
I ordered this evening gown off of the Neiman Marcus website for the VRG gala.

On the website they had only one left in a size 4 and I snapped it up. I'd never bought an eveing gown online before but since I've worn Carmen Marc Valvo dresses in the past, I assumed it would fit. As it turns out the gown was cut a little large and I decided to return it.

Instead of sticking it back in the box and shipping it I decided to quickly pop into Neimans and return it in person and maybe see if there were any other dresses that I absolutely could not live without.

So there I was in the dress department waiting for someone to help me for more than 15 minutes. OK, so what's a little wait. I perused the racks and found a few fancy little cocktail dresses that had my name all over them...and god knows...I have the opportunity to wear fancy little cocktail dresses so often (not) but I am partial to them.

When a saleslady was finally available to help me she told me that because I had purchased the dress online I had to go to the top floor and return the dress to customer service. I was like really?

At any rate I trudged up the escalator with my long gown and returned it and then left the store to go back to my office.

So what's the issue?
If I had been able to return it in the fancy schmancy dress department, chances are that the sales lady would have been able to talk me into buying at least one other dress, and probably three, because there was an awesome sale and as I said before, I wear fancy little cocktail dresses so often, you know because my lifestyle calls for it...(not)
and because I just can't resist them at a good price.

Instead, she didn't didn't get the opportunity to up-sell me and Neiman's missed my business.

I ask you, is this any way to market?

Fancy Enough For You?

Well, since the Hermes cuff was such a hit
I thought that I would take it up a notch with this

20.36 Fancy Yellow diamond ring GIA VVS2 priced very well
Any takers?

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

New Fashion illustration

Jing Zhang hails from China but she has just (or is going to) wrap up her studies in fashion design in the UK. Her site presents an interesting insight into fashion illustration, as it has examples of her illustrations as well as her hands-on fashion projects.

fashion illustration

Lionel Messi 5 Top Pics

Lionel Messi has become the first Argentinian to win the Ballon d’Or, the FC Barcelona forward claiming the prize awarded by France Football (soccer) magazine for the European Player of the Year.
The 22-year-old eclipsed runner-up and last year’s winner Cristiano Ronaldo by a record 240-point margin. Messi earned 473 points out of a possible 480, a near unanimous verdict, in the poll of 96 journalists worldwide. The award caps a brilliant year for a player who helped Barcelona to UEFA Champions League glory – he scored nine goals in last season’s campaign including the second in the final victory against Manchester United FC – as well as to a Spanish league and cup double.

Lionel Messi

Lebron James Top Pictures

Another NBA season is beyond us, and now it’s that time of year again- where self proclaimed know-it-alls in the blogosphere use what little knowledge (bias) we have and crown the who’s-who of the NBA. Also, with the playoffs coming as soon as tomorrow (predictions coming soon) I’ll hand out my awards before the action gets too nailbiting.

Lebron James

Dancing With The Stars Does Beladora...Again!

Carrie Ann rocking the big Beladora rocks again.

Apparently Always Golden - Goldman Sachs

There's lots of good Goldman Sachs stuff on the net right now including Blankfein's statement and Senator Levin's questions. The Daily Beast has a nice aggregation of all things Goldman.
But I would like to share this eternal email from a young Goldman Sachs employee that made it's way to the net.
Goldman's 'Fabulous' Fab's Conflicted Love Letters

Fabrice Tourre and his girlfriend talked like a couple very much in love.
They emailed back and forth about how they wanted to curl up in each other's arms and how they looked forward to tender moments together. Tourre, a Goldman Sachs bond trader, also wrote in the emails of the impending collapse of the subprime mortgage market and how he was masterminding ways at Goldman to make money from it.
Little did they know that three years later these very personal emails written through Tourre's Goldman Sachs e-mail account would become part of one of the biggest investigations into the subsequent financial crisis.

"Just made it to the country of your favorite clients!!! I'm managed (sic) to sell a few abacus bonds to widow and orphans that I ran into at the airport, apparently these Belgians adore synthetic abs cdo2," Tourre wrote in June 2007.

Earlier in 2007, in an e-mail to a friend, Tourre shares his fears that the product he helped create is crumbling -- and he has a sense of humor about it.

"It's bizarre I have the sensation of coming each day to work and re-living the same agony - a little like a bad dream that repeats itself," Tourre writes. "In sum, I'm trading a product which a month ago was worth $100 and which today is only worth $93 and which on average is losing 25 cents a day ...That doesn't seem like a lot but when you take into account that we buy and sell these things that have nominal amounts that are worth billions, well it adds up to a lot of money."

The collection of e-mails also show that Tourre was not the only person at Goldman with confidence the subprime market was doomed.

Daniel Sparks, a former head of the mortgages department at Goldman, is also expected to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
"According to Sparks, that business is totally dead, and the poor little subprime borrowers will not last so long!!!" Tourre wrote in a March 7, 2007, email to his girlfriend.

Goldman is going to coast out of this situation quickly and, as usual, everyone at the top is going to get huge bonu$e$....but it amuses me the laxity with which the banker boys trashed their own deals in their business email. In a world where all electronic communication is monitorable, you would have thought that they would have been a little more careful...oh, but I forgot...why would they bother with a corporate culture of hubris.

But what I like best so far of the Goldman saga is John Hinderaker's Demonizing Goldman Sachs, an analysis of the testimony where the bankers outshone the Senators on every level, leading him to make this conclusion

I'm not a particular fan of either Goldman Sachs or Congress, but today's hearing confirms that, given a choice, I'd rather have Goldman Sachs regulating Congress than Congress regulating Goldman Sachs. Goldman's employees are much smarter, considerably more honest, and far more likely to have my interests at heart.

Oh Snap!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Spring Fashion Style 2010

Color palettes on the Spring runways were vivid. Think jewel tones with a bit of a push. This Spring’s fashionista is going to be a strong woman and reflect that in her color tones. Go bold with bright blues, fuschia, bold yellows and bright greens. These colors WILL dominate and add instant freshness to your outfit. What a way to climb out of the winter blahs!
When you are thinking garment structure, designs modeling futuristic motifs lead the packs on the runway. Look for eccentric cuts and lines, asymmetric shapes, and toned down metallics. Go metallic by night in matte golds and silvers, and let your bright colors dominate the days.
And if you like the asymmetry trend, you will be happy to know that one is not leaving any time soon. You will find this in tops, dresses, skirts, necklines, and even shoulder lines. The one shoulder dress is sticking around, and you know that is because it reveals just enough to maintain the balance between sexy and elegant. The beautiful thing about the one shoulder is there is NO figure this silhouette does not flatter.

Spring Fashion

Fashion Design Sketches 2010 Pictures

fashion design sketches

Oscar Fashion Style 2010

The dark eggplant taffeta Vera Wang dress she wore at the Oscars signaled a fashion moment (Vera Wang's spring runway was full of darkly romantic spring clothes: a fashion oddity for the season)
Keira paired the dress with a multi-colored Bulgari necklace from the '60s. Her lighter, strawberry-blonde hair, pulled into a high bow-enhanced ponytail, and smokey eyes were a series of disparate looks. But the end result was young and fresh.

oscar fashion

80s Fashion Style

Unfortunately, in the 1980s it was considered attractive for women to look like football players. No matter the age, females sported jackets, sweaters, and even T-shirts (yes, T-shirts) with sewn-in shoulder pads broadening their frames. Was a designer so short-sighted as to not include shoulder pads in their blouses – no problem! A whole sub-industry sprouted up for shoulder pads that could be easily Velcroed inside unfashionable wears. Some theorists point to the fact that the 80s were a decade when women were beginning to really assert themselves in the workplace as an excuse for this God-awful trend.

80s fashion

Laure Manaudou Biography And Images

Full name Laure Manaudou
Nationality France
Stroke(s) Freestyle, backstroke
Date of birth 9 October 1986 (1986-10-09) (age 23)
Place of birth Villeurbanne, France
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight 64 kg (140 lb; 10.1 st)
On 24 July 2005 at the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, Canada, Manaudou won the women's 400 m freestyle. Manaudou was under world record pace for the first half of the race. In the second half of the race, Manaudou was challenged by Shibata, her rival from the Olympics. Pundits were already predicting that Manaudou would eventually eclipse the world-record mark in the 400 m freestyle set by Janet Evans at the 1988 Summer Olympics. This would happen on 12 May 2006, as she broke Evans's world record of 4:03.85 during the final of the French championship in Tours with the time of 4:03.03.

Laure Manaudou