ralph lauren

Some arena-playing rock bands travel less than young London’s designers. Those blessed by the British Fashion Council as part of the roving London Showrooms coterie have been on a whistle-stop world tour of late, hitting Paris, Hong Kong, L.A., and now, finally, New York, where they set up shop this morning to show their Spring wares to U.S.-based editors and buyers. To judge from the group assembled—including James Long, Thomas Tait, J.W. Anderson,wholesale Ed hardy Kids, Holly Fulton, Louise Gray, Marios Schwab, and milliner Nasir Mazhar—the journey may have tired them, but it didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. Almost every designer queried revealed he or she had picked up international stockists along the way; among the city’s reigning favorites, Long and Anderson drew the most attention, but even the youngest in the crowd can now boast increased U.S. visibility. Central Saint Martins grad Simone Rocha, who showed her first solo outing this Spring after a few seasons under the umbrella of Fashion East, now sells her vintage-lace dresses, fluoro tulle sheer layering skirts, and plastic raincoats at Opening Ceremony. Craig Lawrence, a 2011 NEWGEN winner who showed loose-weave knits and cropped, elasticized jumpers, is at several Henry Beguelin locations. Interested buyers were swarming, suggesting more reach is at hand for many present.

New categories and techniques were on display, too. Jeweler and sculptor Jordan Askill introduced pieces with ethical amethyst, sourced from a mine in Zambia, which he worked into silver pieces with his trademark swallows (below left). (A giant swallow cuff, which opened to reveal a hidden compartment, blurred the line between his two pursuits.) Also in the new collection were his first fine-jewelry pieces, with tiny diamonds surrounding a faceted, hand-carved swallow pendant. Holly Fulton had begun working with mother-of-pearl for accessories and real seashells for statement-making jackets; the trick, she confided, is finding shells of uniform shape. Tait, whose finely wrought, voluminous pieces suggest Couture shapes, had a surprising new footwear collaboration: a set of crisscrossed trainers he designed with Nike. (He was wearing a pair himself, as was a model; he had no plans to produce them, he revealed, but persistent interest on the part of buyers may change all that.) And Sibling’s Cozette McCreery was on hand to show off her knitwear label’s first official women’s line, Sister by Sibling. Women had been ordering small men’s sizes for so long, she said, that she and her co-designers, Sid Bryan and Joe Bates, decided finally to cut and knit for them. They were cropped neon and sequin leopard tops (left) and two complementary, sweatshirt-style sweaters emblazoned with the words LOVE and HATE. They’d sold, she said, about evenly, though she expected more interest in LOVE. Call it a knitted insight into the human race.
—Matthew Schneier

Photos: Courtesy of Sibling; Courtesy of Jordan Askill

President Obama fleshed out a new mortgage-relief plan Wednesday,wholesale Ed hardy belts, saying the steps he outlines would “help millions of responsible homeowners” and the US economy.

The proposal aims to bring lower monthly mortgage payments to as many borrowers as possible.

A key element: Where past refinancing initiatives have focused especially on Americans with so-called “conforming” loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, Mr. Obama is hoping to extend similar relief to loans underwritten by private lenders.

RECOMMENDED: How home prices are faring in six 2012 swing states

Millions of households hold these loans, and a refinance at today’s low interest rates can bring savings of $300 per month for typical families. More than one-third of them have balances larger than the home’s current value, which has made traditional refinancing impossible.

With the housing market still depressed, and overall consumer spirits still dampened by America’s debt overhang, many economists support the pursuit of new policies to help reduce foreclosures and stabilize home values.

“It would make a difference” for the housing market and economy, says Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight, referring to Obama’s latest initiative.

But he warns against thinking that the impact of Obama’s or other proposals would be enormous. Yes, the housing market and mortgage debts are central to the nation’s current struggles, says Mr. Newport, who specializes in housing. But no single policy is a quick or dramatic fix.

The president, in essence, acknowledged that point in a speech Wednesday in Falls Church, Va.

“The truth is, it’s going to take more time than any of us would like for the housing market to fully recover from this crisis,” Obama said as he unveiled details of new initiatives. “I’ll be honest – the programs that we put forward [so far] haven’t worked at the scale that we hoped.”

He said his administration’s efforts have helped nearly 1 million people refinance in the past two years. But the scale of the problem is massive. The nation now has about 30 million mortgages backed by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), mainly Fannie or Freddie, Newport says. About 3 million of those are “under water,” meaning the loan is now bigger than home value. Another 20 million or more have been underwritten entirely by private lenders. Some 35 percent of those, 7 million or more, are under water.

Obama’s argument is that as more families refinance at a low interest rate, incidences of default and foreclosure will diminish, helping to stabilize home values and restore consumer confidence. The families who benefit will also get extra cash in their pockets each month, which they can use to buy other things in the economy or to pay down debt.

The president’s latest plan includes several major elements:

Allowing more borrowers with GSE-insured loans to refinance through Fannie and Freddie. Obama outlined several moves toward “streamlined refinancing.”

Creating a new refinance program for non-GSE borrowers, through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Costs of the program would be covered by a new Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee on banks. This program, and the fee on banks, would require congressional approval.

As with Obama’s existing “refi” program, the new one for non-GSE loans is designed to allow many underwater borrowers to benefit. Participants must live in the home and be current on the mortgage. Availability would be more limited if a loan is deeply underwater (loan more than 140 percent of home value) or if borrower is unemployed.

A new initiative will aim to turn more foreclosed homes into rental properties. That’s better, Obama said, than having lots of vacant homes in a neighborhood.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving to make the mortgage application process simpler and more transparent. Obama held up a single sheet of paper designed to replace what are currently overlapping and complex disclosures.

One obvious challenge to implementing Obama’s new housing blueprint is that Republicans control the House of Representatives. They aren’t keen to create new mortgage-relief programs or what amounts to a new tax on banks – especially for a plan that results in only a modest boost.

Even if the Obama plans could be implemented in their entirety, new foreclosures coming into the pipeline from a large pool of already-delinquent borrowers would not be eligible for the Obama relief, for example. And if the refi boom helped 3 million households each save about $3,000 a year, the boost to the economy would still be quite small – on the order of 0.1 percent of gross domestic product, according to an estimate by Capital Economics, a research firm in Toronto.

Obama’s housing pitch represents part of a broader “blueprint” for the US economy, which he laid out in his State of the Union address in January. The blueprint is partly a set of policy proposals and partly a campaign platform, designed to show voters the president trying all possible ways to lift a weak economy.

Home prices have continued to edge generally downward even after the recession ended, although the number of delinquent loans has been gradually declining over the past year. Housing analysts say its possible home prices will stabilize by later this year.

RECOMMENDED: How home prices are faring in six 2012 swing states

Get daily or weekly updates from CSMonitor.com delivered to your inbox. Sign up today.

A YA romance from fan favorite John Green, a thriller from the creator of “Homeland,” and Jodi Kantor’s White House expose are the week’s most important reads.
With the holidays over, the slow pace of new book releases picks up.Topping the week are a new book about the Obamaseasily buzziest book of the new year, a thriller from Homeland creator Howard Gordon, two excellent YA novels,Wholesale Ed hardy bags, and a young screenwriter’s first novel explores growing up Muslim in Milwaukee..
our editor recommends

CONCORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) Republican front-runner Mitt Romney emerged on Sunday from back-to-back debates in New Hampshire a bit dinged but not seriously dented as rivals stepped up attacks to slow his march toward the presidential nomination.

Two days before voters in the small New England state head to the polls for the first 2012 primary election, Romney took heat on a number of topics: his record as governor of neighboring Massachusetts, the attack ads run by an outside group on his behalf and a suggestion he would wither in the face of attacks from Democratic President Barack Obama.

One by one, the contenders lined up to fire on the former venture capitalist in a surprisingly heated debate after they largely left Romney alone Saturday night. But there was little to suggest he had suffered any setback in New Hampshire, where he is heavily favored to win.

“Romney was dinged in the second debate, but not seriously wounded,” said Larry Sabato, political analyst at the University of Virginia. “Basically, the candidates firmed up their own individual base but I don’t think they took much away from Romney either in terms of Republicans or independents.”

Slowing Romney’s momentum has taken on new urgency in the face of polls showing he is also favored in the South Carolina primary on January 21, despite being seen as less socially conservative as his competitors in the church-going southern state.

Although Romney’s win in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday was an eight-vote squeaker over Rick Santorum, backing it up with a win in New Hampshire would be a feat never achieved by a Republican candidate who is not an incumbent, adding to a sense of inevitability about his candidacy.

The online exchange InTrade, which takes bets on the outcomes of events such as elections, now shows Romney with an 83 percent chance of winning the Republican nomination to run against Obama in the fall.

ROMNEY PAINTED AS MODERATE

And yet, the race for second continued to hold the Republican field in suspense, with Santorum, libertarian congressman Ron Paul, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman all vying for the spot.

Santorum, whose lackluster campaign caught fire in Iowa and who has pinned hopes more on the next contest in South Carolina, came out punching at Romney, even though he endorsed Romney in his 2008 run for the party’s nomination.

“If his record was so great as governor of Massachusetts, why didn’t he run for re-election,” said Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

Criticism of Romney zeroed in on whether the former governor of a moderate New England state would be the strongest candidate to fly the conservative flag against Obama in the November election.

Gingrich, hurt by a spate of negative ads organized by former Romney staffers, said Romney would “have a very hard time getting elected” and had policy positions that are not sufficiently different from Obama.

“There’s a huge difference between a Reagan conservative and somebody who comes out of the Massachusetts culture who essentially has a moderate record,” Gingrich said during the NBC/Facebook debate in Concord, New Hampshire.

But Romney defended himself as “a solid conservative” who was in politics on a detour from his business career as a venture capitalist. Acting like a front-runner, he kept his focus more on Obama than on his Republican rivals.

“I happen to believe that if we want to replace a lifetime politician like Barack Obama … we’ve got to choose someone who is not a lifetime politician, who has not spent his entire career in Washington.”

Gingrich bristled at Romney’s attempts to paint himself as a reluctant politician.

“Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” he quipped. “You were running for president while you were governor.”

HARD CHOICES OVER CANDIDATES

In the most tumultuous nominating process in the Republican camp in decades, it is hard to know what voters want – a flagbearer of conservative values or a serious challenge to a vulnerable incumbent trying to revive the sagging U.S. economy.

Sue Grant, 49,wholesale Ed hardy jeans, was one of those torn New Hampshire voters, “on my knees praying,” as she struggled to make a decision on her candidate. Romney appeared to be off her list.

“He does not make me warm and fuzzy,” Grant said. “I want somebody that is separate from the same old get along and go along wishy-washy.”

Santorum is running hard on his socially conservative credentials and used the spotlight again on Sunday to reinforce that message. He also emerged unscathed from an exchange about gay rights.

Santorum “has accepted the fact that he’s going to lose New Hampshire, maybe badly. He spoke more to South Carolina than to New Hampshire,” Sabato said.

Santorum has been riding a wave of popularity after a narrow second-place finish to Romney in the first Republican presidential nominating contest in Iowa last week.

Often in the news for negative comments about gays, Santorum managed to strike a conciliatory tone, saying “every person in America, gay or straight” should be treated with respect and that he would still love a gay son.

One of the biggest applause lines came from Jon Huntsman, who responded to a comment Romney had made about him in Saturday night’s debate in Goffstown, New Hampshire.

Romney had slapped Huntsman for “implementing” Obama’s agenda as U.S. ambassador to China, a post he held until April.

Addressing debate moderator David Gregory, Huntsman said: “This country is divided, David, because of attitudes like that. … The American people are tired of partisan divisions.”

“There are five candidates (with) a shot at getting double digits in New Hampshire and I think they all helped themselves today,” said Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

(Additional reporting by Sam Youngman and Jason McLure; Editing by Mary Milliken and Cynthia Osterman)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) And the year’s first Oscars go to …

Micro-voxels, the Pictorvision Eclipse electronically stabilized aerial camera platform, Stab-C Classic stabilizing heads and the ARRILASER Film Recorder.

Once again the Academy has announced the winners of its Scientific and Technical Awards, and once again the list of achievements being recognized by the Academy will sail right over the heads of those who aren’t attuned to the Sciences part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But for those in the know, the eight achievements chosen by the Academy have, in the words of the AMPAS press release, “a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures.”

The Sci-Tech Awards, as they’re dubbed, some in three versions. One awards the recipient with a certificate, one awards a plaque, and one, which isn’t given out every year, awards an Oscar statuette.

This year’s 27 honorees include three men who will receive Oscar statuettes for the design and development of the ARRILASER Film Recorder.

The Sci-Tech Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Saturday, February 11 — and, if history is any indication, will be hosted by an actress who has appeared in at least one special-effects-heavy movie.

From the AMPAS press release, here are this year’s honorees:

Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate)

To Andrew Clinton and Mark Elendt for the invention and integration of micro-voxels in the Mantra software.

This work allowed, for the first time, unified and efficient rendering of volumetric effects such as smoke and clouds, together with other computer graphics objects, in a micro-polygon imaging pipeline.

Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque)

To Radu Corlan, Andy Jantzen, Petru Pop and Richard Toftness for the design and engineering of the Phantom family of high-speed cameras for motion picture production.

The Phantom family of high-speed digital cameras, including the Phantom Flex and HD Gold, provide imagery at speeds and efficacy surpassing photochemical technology, while seamlessly intercutting with conventional film production.

To Dr. Jurgen Noffke for the optical design and Uwe Weber for the mechanical design of the ARRI Zeiss Master Prime Lenses for motion picture photography.

The Master Primes have achieved a full stop advance in speed over existing lenses, while maintaining state-of-the-art optical quality. This lens family was also the first to eliminate the magnification change that accompanied extreme focus shifts.

To Michael Lewis, Greg Marsden, Raigo Alas and Michael Vellekoop for the concept, design and implementation of the Pictorvision Eclipse, an electronically stabilized aerial camera platform.

The Pictorvision Eclipse system allows cinematographers to capture aerial footage at faster flying speeds with aggressive platform maneuvering.

To E.F. “Bob” Nettmann for the concept and system architecture, Michael Sayovitz for the electronic packaging and integration, Brad Fritzel for the electronic engineering, and Fred Miller for the mechanical engineering of the Stab-C Classic, Super-G and Stab-C Compact stabilizing heads.

This versatile family of 5-axis camera and lens stabilizers allows any standard motion picture camera to be fitted into the open architecture of the structure. The system can be quickly balanced and made ready for shooting platforms such as helicopters, boats, camera cars or cranes.

To John D. Lowry, Ian Cavon, Ian Godin, Kimball Thurston and Tim Connolly for the development of a unique and efficient system for the reduction of noise and other artifacts, thereby providing high-quality images required by the filmmaking process.

The “Lowry Process” uses advanced GPU-accelerated, motion estimation-based image processing tools to enhance image quality.

To FUJIFILM Corporation, Hideyuki Shirai, Dr. Katsuhisa Oozeki and Hiroshi Hirano for the design and development of the FUJIFILM black and white recording film ETERNA-RDS 4791 for use in the archival preservation of film and digital images.

Specifically designed for laser film recording and widely used in the industry today, the high-resolution FUJIFILM ETERNA-RDS 4791 film stock is an important step in protecting the heritage of the motion picture industry.

Academy Award of Merit (Oscar Statuette)

To Franz Kraus, Johannes Steurer and Wolfgang Riedel for the design and development of the ARRILASER Film Recorder.

The ARRILASER film recorder demonstrates a high level of engineering resulting in a compact,wholesale Ed hardy belts, user-friendly, low-maintenance device, while at the same time maintaining outstanding speed, exposure ratings and image quality.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) VH1 has decided to drop “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew” like a bad habit. At least for the time being.

While the cable network hasn’t outright canceled the series, which has run for five seasons since its 2008 debut, it has no plans for new episodes of the reality offering for the foreseeable future.

A representative for VH1 told TheWrap that “Celebrity Rehab” — which stars Dr. Drew Pinsky and a rotating cast of famous faces struggling to recover from substance abuse — “is not on the schedule currently.” Which doesn’t automatically spell doom, but it certainly doesn’t bode well.

While popular, the series has generated controversy, with some questioning whether the show fosters effective treatment. Last year, two former cast members died, with “Grease” star Jeff Conaway succumbing to complications from prescription drug use and former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr expiring at the age of 44, weeks after being arrested while in possession of unauthorized prescription drugs. Meanwhile, “Real Housewives” alum Michaele Salahi was removed from the Season 5 cast,wholesale Ed hardy belts, reportedly because she had no actual addiction (other than to fame, of course) to treat.

Luckily for fans of Pinksy, there’ll be no shortage of him on the airwaves. In addition to “Dr. Drew” on HLN, there’s also his CW daytime show, “Lifechangers,” which launched in September.

McALLEN,wholesale Ed hardy belts, Texas (Reuters) Police fatally shot a 15-year-old student armed with a pellet gun at a middle school in Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday after he pointed it at officers, police said.

Brownsville police received a call of a student with a handgun at Cummings Middle School about 8 a.m. local time Wednesday, department spokesman J.J. Trevino said.

The boy, eighth-grader Jaime Gonzalez, aimed at officers after they confronted him in a hallway, police said.

Police ordered Gonzalez to drop the gun, but instead he pointed it at the officers, who shot the boy twice, police said.

“The subject pointed the weapon at officers, which in turn, the officers had to use deadly force,” Trevino said.

The gun, a .177-caliber pellet pistol, resembles a Glock semi-automatic handgun, police said.

The student was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, said Cameron County Justice of the Peace Kip Johnson Hodge.

A preliminary investigation indicated Gonzalez assaulted a student before officers arrived and told witnesses he was going to “engage officers with the weapon,” a police news release said.

No other students, school staff or police were injured. Students were evacuated to a nearby high school and classes were dismissed for the day.

The Texas Rangers will assist city and school police in investigating the fatal shooting.

Brownsville is at the southern tip of Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.

(Reporting by Jared Taylor and Jim Forsyth; Editing by Daniel Trotta)