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On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

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Gmail Threatens Dropbox By Allowing Users To Send Files Up To 10GB (GOOG)

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

If you're a

Gmail

user, there's good news: You can now send files as large as 10 gigabytes.

If you're a Dropbox investor or employee, though, that's bad news.

The Web-based email service now integrates with Google's Drive storage system, according to ReadWrite's Jon Mitchell.

Users don't have to do anything to take advantage of this new feature. When you attach a file, Gmail will double-check that your recipients have permission to view the files in Google Drive.

ReadWrite says that if the person you're sending a file to doesn't have permission to view the file, then Gmail will prompt you to change the sharing settings without having to leave your email.

This is an obvious improvement to make to Gmail. But it's also a threat to services like Dropbox, Box, and YouSendIt that allow you to send and share files of various sizes. Since Dropbox's free plan starts users at 2 GB of storage—far below Google's new size limit—it's a real problem for the startup.

Don't Miss: Google Unveils A New Way To Compose In Gmail >

Fashion Roundup: Is Lena Dunham the next Carrie Bradshaw? Plus, Kristen Stewart at Paris Fashion Week!

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

Anne Hathaway got married to longtime beau Adam Shulman in a stunning Valentino dress! The actress got married in a Jewish ceremony last weekend, in spite of reports in the media stating that she would not marry this year, since she’s been so busy with The Dark Knight Rises and her new movie Les Miserables. (Refinery 29)

Taylor Swift covers Glamour magazine’s November issue. The teen star also answers questions inside,, revealing stuff she only tells her girlfriends. She talks about relationships, fame and money... (Glamour)

HBO ‘Girls’ star and creator, Lena Dunham, covers her first fashion glossie. She’s featured on the cover of ASOS Magazine. The talented writer is becoming somewhat of a fashion icon, after being on the cover of New York magazine, as well as attending the Met Costume Institute Gala. (Fashionista)

Avril Lavigne presents her Abbey Dawn Spring 2013 collection. This rock & roll clothing line is inspired by Avril’s own personal style and traveling experiences, mainly from Tokyo and Japanese styles. (Examiner)

Paris fashion show cancelled because of missing goods… Turkish designer Hakaan Yildirim was forced to cancel his show at PFW, due to mysteriously losing his Spring 2013 collection. Last November, the same thing happened to Marc Jacobs. (Washington Post)

Closing our list of weekly highlights, Kristen Stewart attended Balenciaga's Spring 2013 presentation at Paris Fashion Week. Showing up in high spirits, wearing a bold outfit with a neon jacket and black printed pants, she sat next to Anna Wintour and Salma Hayek in the front row.

Take a look:

Florence’s Fearless Fashion Fair: ModaPrima

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

Conjure up a large 19th century railway station in the heart of Florence, Italy, and you have arrived at the international fair for men’s and women’s clothing, ModaPrima Firenze.

This weekend, the Stazione Leopolda venue hosted it’s 73rd annual ModaPrima fashion fair featuring ready-to-wear collections and accessories for Fall 2013/14, with a focus on the bestsellers for Spring 2013.

The event has now become the international market’s famed trade fair for “fast fashion” and retailers; welcoming thousands of buyers from around the world to gush over luxurious Italian fabrics and designs.

Now in it’s second edition in Florence, ModaPrima showcased around 150 brands, produced by some of the best fashion firms Italy has to offer. Amongst those to take to the stands were names like Tendenze, Vezzo, Rossana & Co., Bianca Maria Caselli, Flyline, Ann Max, and many more.

Last year, the event saw over 1,500 buyers turn up, 700 of which came from nearly 50 different countries led by Japan, followed by Turkey, Portugal, Spain, and Russia amongst others.

Made in Italy

These days, the modern Italian woman is building a reputation for her fearless attitude towards fashion by boldly mixing colors and textures, much like their multi-tasking lives. One woman familiar with mixing fashion and work, is chic Italian blogger Eleonora Carisi, brains behind the sumptuously feminine JouJou Villeroy blog and owner of concept store, You You, in Torino, Italy.

The store, dedicated to young artists and her own collection “What’s Inside You,” includes several collaborations with Italian and international brands and represents the importance of giving a voice to local and emerging fashion talents.

Similarly, it is through exhibitions like ModaPrima that a platform is provided for smaller brands to reach out to an international market.

Mihara Yasuhiro

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

You can always hear the call of the wild in a Miharayasuhiro collection. Since Yasuhiro added menswear to his sneaker empire eight years ago, the label’s eponymous(ish) founder has been roaming the great outdoors, producing collections that merge a romantic notion of nature with an urban sensibility. The richly textured silhouettes are rooted in English tailoring, but executed in spliced-and-diced fabrics printed with painterly motifs from his homeland, and often presented alongside live performances by Japanese artists. For spring/summer 2013, Yasuhiro turned his gaze upon American rockers, transforming hard-as-nails leathers into something altogether more poetic to create an anti-hero outlaw.

This year, Yasuhiro is gracing the UK with two major events: a place in Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelites Victorian Avant-Garde exhibition, where his spring/summer 2012 womenswear film Ophelia Has a Dream by Paolo Roversi will be shown alongside Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia, and a pop-up store at London boutique Browns’s menswear store, the scene of our interview.

How did you approach the design of your Browns installation?
I wanted the room to give an insight into the work that goes into my clothes. So I wallpapered the space with images from the shoe factory I use in Tokyo, and the chairs in here are inspired by the workers’ chairs in the factory. I like the look of the chipped paint – you can see it’s been in use. Each chair represents a different stage in the work process and the craftsmanship and hours that go into making the pieces, like the camouflage and Japanese motif suits from AW12.

Could you explain your thoughts behind this idea of weaving in camouflage with traditional Japanese clouds and cherry blossoms?
My collection is called Inside Out, and plays on different aspects of that notion. There’s a Japanese expression that says your outside shows your inside, but I wanted to challenge this idea by creating pieces that show both – pieces where you don’t know which is which. The needlepoint prints are part of this idea and were done at an old obi factory in Tokyo. The flowers and waves are traditional patterns from the kimono, blended with camouflage to contrast the ancient and pure with the military connotations of modern amouflage. It’s also about what’s hidden. Camouflage is about hiding among the trees and flowers, but this camouflage clearly displays itself. So I was playing with the hidden meanings of an outfit.

Is the idea of man versus nature something you think about?
I find the contrast very beautiful. Tokyo especially is a very grey city – all concrete and asphalt – and the reality is that most fashion today is seen in a grey cityscape environment, so people become the nature element. I like to draw on nature themes in my work, but I also like to then do them in an all-grey medium, like the Japanese obi prints.

How much of your work process is an intellectual response and how much is an emotional one?
Good question. I think I’m more of a realist than a dreamer. At art college I was very caught up in the emotional side, and a lot of artists probably maintain that way of working. But as a designer, the practical can overtake the emotional. Patternmaking and production are quite unemotional. Everything for me starts with an emotional response, but I have to intellectualise my feelings. The point where I’m most emotional is when I have to explain a piece to the craftsman who’s going to make it. Then I tend to get very passionate. But a lot of the time it’s a hidden emotion.

Is there an idea or concept that you always return to?
The idea of ‘sublime meets ridiculous’ really fascinates me. For example, these two contrasting tartans on the jacket I’m wearing might seem ridiculous to some, but at the same time the expression is also very noble. I’m always looking at the clash between the two, and how things might change depending on the viewer.

You’ve collaborated with samurai guitarist Miyavi and Japanese design studio WOW for your shows. What is your secret to a successful show?
A show is such a fleeting moment. When you’ve worked on something for six months, day and night, you want that moment to make an impact. I’m interested in giving people something unexpected. I want them to leave with a story to tell.

Jun Inoue’s live calligraphy at your SS13 men’s show was striking.
Previously, I’ve been a bit against using certain aspects of Japanese culture in my work, and there was a time when I thought something like shodo calligraphy was too Japanese. I’ve had similar feelings towards the kimono. Living in Japan, you can feel very removed from all that nowadays. It’s like a costume from a bygone age that you can’t relate to, and it’s become almost a clich. But I’m seeing all this in a new light now.

So what do you think of non-Japanese designers working with the kimono?
It may look Japanese, but it’s not. But then, tailoring came from the west, and (Rei) Kawakubo and that generation of designers became famous for destroying tailoring. So I think about what western designers think of my tailoring. They might feel I’m destroying the concept of it, but I hope people can see I’m trying to retain the structure while making something new. Which is also why I’m now rethinking my views on aspects of traditional Japanese culture. There’s always more than one side to everything.

What part of Japanese pop culture inspires you the most?
Manga. I love it. I buy manga magazines every week, and my collection keeps growing. Manga is a very immediate and often critical reaction to what’s going on in culture and society right now, and a medium that reaches a huge amount of people. What do you hope to convey with your work? It’s quite simple, really. I want to see people happy. It might be impossible to change the world or the economy, but at least you can change how people feel.

Text by Susanne Madsen
Photography by Gareth McConnell

Taken from the December issue of Dazed & Confused

Dazed Digital’s Relaunch Night

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 27 November 2012

Last week, we took to East London's The Vault to celebrate the relaunch of Dazed Digital. An extension of the 20-year-old print magazine, the site is already an influential platform with huge creative output, across a variety of disciplines from fashion, art, music, photography and film. The new Dazed Digital site was re-launched last week with the addition of exclusive new monthly & weekly features, columns and takeovers - to bring more exciting, carefully-curated content to Dazed readers than ever before.

For the event, the prestigious record label 4AD who were celebrating their 33rd birthday, brought down some in-house talent, with a live performance from INC, and Daughter as well as a DJ set from cult new band Purity Ring. Sponsors Jameson and Peroni kept the drinks flowing, whilst London-based photographer Lydia Garnett shot the party pics throughout the night...

Why Investors And Voters Aren’t More Furious About The Fiscal Cliff Sham

On the spot LuxuryActivist - 25 November 2012

Debt limit is a term that creeps into the political lexicon every so often; it happens when America’s legal borrowing limit reaches its congressionally-set upper bound. Since the US nearly always runs an annual deficit, it has to confront congressionally-approved borrowing limits. Congress persistently acts in the worst interest of the country by using the debt limit as an excuse for brinksmanship confrontational politics.

The debt-limit debate is a charade. Everyone who understands it knows that. The US has been a borrower for nearly two centuries. It has never defaulted. But we do use this congressionally-introduced fiction to exacerbate political animosity. We are about to reach our debt limit again and witness another debt-authorization fight.

Fiscal cliff is another fiction. We do not need to have expiration dates on legislation, tax policy, or spending mechanisms. Congress designs them to mature immediately following a national election. Again, this is a charade created by the scoundrels that we elect to serve us in Washington. In fact, Democrats and Republicans agree on this one. They coalesce into a common threat to us by purposefully choosing termination dates that follow hard on the heels of elections. They exploit the short memory span of the distracted American electorate. Shame on us for having such short memories.

Now, we will witness both the debt-limit and fiscal-cliff debates; both charades are in play.

Why aren't Americans furious about this game that is being played at their expense? American voters don't want this charade, and they know the uncertainty caused by it is harmful to them.

We could chastise Congressional representatives, senators, and the White House and its advisors, each and every time they engage in these shenanigans. We don’t. American voters, CEOs, Wall Street investors, and the working public could make that chastisement a consistent, intense, and vitriolic affair. We don’t. Our so-called leaders could be told, "I am sick and tired of you manipulating the political process in order to create a crisis that hurts me. If this nonsense does not stop, you will not be able to convince me to be loyal to you because I am a Republican. You will not be able convince me to be loyal to you because I am a Democrat. You will not be able to convince me that you are responsible in the execution of your public office. Instead, you will have become my enemy. Therefore, I will vote you out. My most important political mission will be to get rid of incumbents like you who create a crisis when none is necessary.”

We could say that. We don’t.

Winston Churchill said, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Churchill also said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they've tried everything else." Sir Winston was correct.

We hope your Thanksgiving holiday was a good one. It provided America with Black Friday, football games, traditional turkey cuisine and our custom of familial gathering. 150 million of us moved around to visit the rest of us. We have enjoyed our uniquely American tradition. Now we must get back to business.

We will soon approach year-end, with its next round of holidays and celebration of a new year. Between now and then, we will watch the Washington charades play out. Will we remain distracted and voiceless as our lame and lame-ducked leaders continue these charades? Sad to say, this writer thinks we will be too silent.

Our greatness as a country is that we move on in spite of our government. We thrive, not because of Washington but by overcoming it. We succeed because half of our US economy is privately owned and independently managed. That’s right; over half the GDP comes from small business. The majority of jobs are created by those firms.

When it comes to publicly owned business, the US stock market realizes the world is not coming to an end. Market agents and investors recognize that the Federal Reserve's policy is firmly in place, that we will not permanently go over the fiscal cliff, and that we will not default despite the debt limit charade. Markets are beginning to accept that the Fed will keep interest rates extraordinarily low for a number of years.

During that time the US GDP will grow from the present level of $16 trillion to about $20 trillion by the end of the decade. The key drivers of that growth will be in services. But we will also see a “kick” coming from housing recovery and energy sector expansion. American growth will slowly morph from tepid to robust. Remember: this will take several years.

The recognition of these facts will send the stock market higher, maybe much higher, maybe very much higher. We have continued to be fully invested and are likely to be in that mode during an extended bull market run. We expect the S&P 500 Index to close above 2,000 before the end of this decade. The Index is about 1400 now. We expect the S&P 500 Index earnings to rise from the present level of about $100 to a level of $125-$140 by the decade’s end. Any surprise is likely to be on the upside.

If we are close to being right with our forecast, US stocks are cheap.

Now let’s move to a lighter note. After our recent "Tocqueville Affair" we decided to try to confirm the sources of quotes for those who are interested. Our assistant, Samantha Houston, confirmed the first Churchill quote on the following websites:

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/364.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu164161.html

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2089993 .

She confirmed the second quote on the following websites:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu135259.html

http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/You_can_always_count_on_Americans_to_do_the_right_thing_-_after_they've_tried_everything_else./60836/ .

David R. Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer