FASHION Magazine

While the thought of tiny fish dining on your feet may already be repulsive enough, according to recently released data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fish pedicures are actually just downright dangerous.

Public health officials first raised red flags about the new fad when fish pedicures, which hail from Southeast Asia, became popular abroad in 2008. The pedicures, which consist of basins or ponds filled with “doctor fish” that nibble away at the dead skin on feet, were deemed unsanitary. This led to bans in different states and provinces across North America, but no substantial amount of evidence has mounted up against the controversial pedis until now.

David Verner-Jeffreys, the lead researcher for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team on task, said the inch-long, toothless carp can carry harmful bacteria on their scales and in their waste, meaning that even the tiniest scrape could become a huge liability if it’s exposed to these seemingly harmless fish.

The potentially bacteria-laden fish coupled with water’s inherent nature as a breeding ground means these pedicures spell out serious trouble, especially for individuals with pre-existing conditions that weaken their immune systems.

If all this new evidence isn’t enough to deter you from trying fish pedicures, the fact that there’s already been a bad bacteria outbreak might just do the trick.

In April 2011, a batch of imported doctor fish from Indonesia to Britain caused an outbreak of Streptococcus agalactiae, which can cause severe ailments such as sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis. Other bacteria strains can cause serious gastrointestinal issues and skin or wound infections.

Perhaps the most chilling part about these bacteria is the fact that they are resistant to a number of drugs, putting fish pedicure clients at further risk.

The beginning and end of it is that a pumice stone is not only just as efficient when it comes to sloughing away dead skin, but a heck of a lot safer. Needless to say, we’ll be steering clear of these little fishies.

As we watched Mark Zuckerberg ring the bell on Wall Street Friday morning, we wondered: how is this going to change how we use social media? And, for those of us who are style-inclined: how is this going to affect the fashion industry?

Though Zuckerberg’s proclivity for hoodies won’t land him a “style icon” status anytime soon, Facebook evolving into a public company will definitely impact the fashion industry in many ways.

The social media giant, which currently has 900 million users worldwide, opened to the public with an initial public offering of $38 a share, making Facebook the most valuable company that’s ever gone public. With a total worth now of $104 billion (in other words, almost unimaginable amounts of money to invest back into the company), the ability to do more in terms of advertising, online shopping and other ventures has never been more feasible.

For fashion retailers in particular, Facebook going public probably means that they will no longer be limited to simply tallying one’s “likes” as a measure of success. Though the sharing and community aspects of Facebook are valuable to retailers in terms of brand presence, there are now more opportunities to create new social media–friendly e-commerce and advertising tactics than ever before.

Previous efforts with online shopping on Facebook didn’t exactly take off, forcing retailers like Gap to shutter their Facebook shops. However, now that there is an unprecedented amount of money in the bank, Facebook can begin to explore other means of social commerce that will provide shoppers with a more “seamless and convenient” shopping experience.

Think about it: Burberry, for example, has over 12 million “likes” on their Facebook page. Though they have advertised heavily on Facebook for some time now, if the social media network could provide the retailer with new, improved means of advertising and online shopping, Burberry could capitalize on their huge social media following in ways they never have before.

Though we’d need a crystal ball to accurately predict how everything is going to pan out now that the company has gone public, it’s probably safe to say that this will not only mean big dollars for involved parties, but new ways of shopping and interacting online for everybody.

After coming under fire for a swimsuit campaign featuring a darkly bronzed Isabeli Fontana, Swedish retail giant H&M has released an apology.

“We are sorry if we have upset anyone with our latest swimwear campaign. It was not our intention to show off a specific ideal or to encourage dangerous behaviour, but was instead to show off our latest summer collection,” they said in an email to AFP. “We have taken note of the views and will continue to discuss this internally ahead of future campaigns.”

Jean-Roch, the French singer/songwriter/producer, released the music video for his “Saint Tropez” single, and it stars none other than tastemaker supreme, Uncle Karl.

We were surprised that the Chanel helmsman would participate in such a hot mess, but the credits—tastefully done in giant gold letters atop fluffy white clouds—do in fact confirm that this video stars Karl Lagerfeld.  But wait… it gets better.  The video also features Snoop Dogg. That’s correct, the streets of Saint Tropez are apparently a place where couture—Chanel’s 2011 Cruise Collection was shown in Saint Tropez—meets Compton.

The video starts off with Uncle Karl wearing head to toe white and rocking his signature dark aviators. The designer (turned music video prodigy) greets Jean-Roch with standard European cheek kisses, and then says to the singer (who, judging by all those clouds, is presumably in heaven), “You were never told that Saint Tropez is Paradise?” Drop the beat.

It gets confusing as Lagerfeld and Jean-Roch proceed to marvel at the sights of Saint Tropez between shots of Snoop Dogg and Jean-Roch hanging with hot bikini-clad women. Sprinkle in a few dancing children, some wide angle shots and a few split screens, and the result is one confusing mess.  Regardless, the entertainment value is certainly there, and we know that we’ll be watching this video again (and again, and again).

Those still in doubt about the legitimacy of the blogging business may be whistling a new tune after hearing today’s news. Fairchild Fashion Media, a subdivision of Condé Nast that owns Women’s Wear Daily and Style.com (among other publications), just acquired the style-blog-driven media company Fashion Networks International.

FNI is best known for NowManifest, a curated blog platform that brings in 1.2 million unique visitors each month. The platform has a roster of A-list bloggers including Elin Kling, BryanBoy, Anna Dello Russo, Derek Blasberg and Rumi Neely (the site also hosts Industrie Magazine and Diesel).

Though there is still some resistance from traditional media purists who see bloggers as would-be journalists, the bloggers who make up the NowManifest clan are proving that blogging can mean big dollars and big exposure.

Perhaps the best example of a blogger-turned-brand is Elin Kling, who co-founded FNI along with business partner Christian Remröd. Kling has used Style by Kling, her personal style blog, as a launchpad for successful business ventures that most media personalities could only dream of.

Aside from running her blog and FNI, the lithe, blonde Swede also launched her magazine STYLEBY, collaborated with H&M on a well-received collection, designed the edgy minimalist label Nowhere and managed to squeeze in a big campaign for Net-a-Porter shot by none other than Patrick Demarchelier.

So what does this move by FFM mean for media as a whole? As Fashionista.com says, online media is obviously coming into its own more and more each day, and companies such as FFM are wising up to bloggers’ ability to drive this influx of traffic.

“FNI . . . is a great example of a new media company that fundamentally ‘gets’ the Internet,” wrote Hayley Phelan. “No doubt it’s this expertise (and ability to drive traffic) that FFM, a media company with a more traditional background, wants to harness.”

Though FFM’s acquisition of FNI definitely marks a new day in media, BryanBoy and Rumi Neely of Fashiontoast have both recently revealed that they found out about the deal less than 24 hours before it was announced. It seems odd that BryanBoy, Neely et al were not consulted about the negotiations (especially since NowManifest’s success is largely thanks to the contributing bloggers’ involvement), but both stressed that their content would remain solely their own.

As the age-old saying goes, first comes baby, then comes… maternity line? Reality TV star and fashion mogul Jessica Simpson is set to cash in on the recent birth of daughter Maxwell Drew, born just two weeks ago, with the launch of the aptly named Jessica Simpson Maternity Line.

The namesake maternity line marks the 24th product classification of Simpson’s nearly $1 billion empire. (The Jessica Simpson Collection already sells everything from shoes to lotion to sunglasses.) Altogether, it’s been a pretty profitable pregnancy: there’s her much-talked-about $3 million deal with Weight Watchers, and the first baby pictures of Maxwell were just sold to People magazine for $800,000.

Vidal Sassoon, the hairstyling genius responsible for overhauling the tease and set styles of the ‘50s, passed away in his Los Angeles home early this morning. Sassoon, who had styled such iconic manes as Twiggy, Mia Farrow and Mary Quant, has been hailed as the visionary who introduced “ready-to-wear” hair to women around the globe, and transformed the role of hair cutter into hair stylist. Sassoon had been battling leukemia since 2006.

Sassoon started his journey at the age of 14, when he worked washing hair and mixing hair colour. In 1954, he opened his own salon and spent the next nine years perfecting his hair cutting techniques and styles. In 1963 he earned the title “the founder of modern hairdressing” for the revolutionary bob and five-point cut, styles that stood in stark contrast to the beehive and bouffant that had preceded his esthetic. Hilary Alexander, fashion director of the Daily Telegraph, tweeted “Much sadness on death of the architect of hair, Vidal Sassoon. He banished the beehive, boosted the bob; most radical hair shift since 1920s.”

Sassoon explained his creative thinking behind this shift saying, “My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous… Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn’t have time to sit under the dryer anymore.”

It was Sassoon who was famously paid $5,000 (or so the story goes) to give Mia Farrow a pixie cut—the same pixie cut that her husband at the time, Frank Sinatra, didn’t like—for her role in Rosemary’s Baby. Today, you can still see Sassoon’s influence in the young Hollywood starlet set, including Winona Ryder, Michelle Williams and Emma Watson—women who fearlessly rock Sassoon-inspired looks and prove that short hair can be uber sexy with the right cut.

More than 50 years after its shuttering (and almost 40 years after the death of its brilliant founder), the house of Schiaparelli is set to relaunch just as its name once again reaches the prominence it had in the pre-war years.

To coincide with the opening of the Met Costume Institute’s retrospective exhibit Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, Italian business tycoon Diego Della Valle announced the official relaunch earlier this week. Though the brand has remained dormant, even since being acquired by the titan in 2006, Della Valle plans on giving the old house a contemporary update, saying that it “doesn’t have to get involved in the frenetic world of numbers, accounts and dimensions, but it just has to express itself at its best.”

Another day, another half-naked Rihanna picture hits Instagram. The “S&M” singer found herself splashed across the web once again after she posted yet another topless picture. Whereas the image has received a lot of attention from the blogosphere, pictures of Rihanna in various states of undress are hardly news anymore. In fact, we’d probably be more surprised if she had kept her goods covered.

By Kyla Parrish

A still-secret settlement has been reached between fashion heavyweights Linda Evangelista and Francois-Henri Pinault, who turned the Manhattan Family Court into an all-out battleground on which the two waged war last week over child support for their son, Augie.

Evangelista, the Canadian supermodel and former Cover Girl who is famous for saying “we [supermodels] don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day,” was seeking a record $46,000 in monthly child support from Pinault.  To date, the largest child support cheque in New York was awarded to Sean (P. Diddy) Combs’ baby’s momma Misa Hylton-Brim to the tune of $19,000 a month.

The Evangelista/Pinault child support case turned ugly as mud was thrown and both sides made allegations. Evangelista’s lawyer, William Beslow, claimed Pinault “suggested she terminate the pregnancy.” Pinault’s lawyer, David Aaronson, claimed that Evangelista was “trying to boot-strap herself into disguised alimony.” Aaronson continued by saying, “Most of the expenses [in Evangelista’s list of $46,000 a month in child care expenses] do not relate to Augie but they relate to Ms. Evangelista.”

We know what you’re thinking: does a five-year-old boy really need $46,000 a month in child support from his billionaire father? Evangelista seems to think so.  How else is the former Cover Girl supposed to cover the tab for 24-hour nannies and pricey chauffeurs—the chauffeurs are former NYPD cops, so at $16,000 a month they’re a steal—for young Augie?

After years of over-exposure to UV rays, Patricia Krentcil (better known as or TBM) is finding herself in a whole different kind of light—the spotlight. Krentil is facing 10 years in prison for second-degree child endangerment after allegedly bringing her five-year-old daughter into a tanning bed.

The whole debacle started after a teacher noticed a serious sunburn on the chubby-cheeked child who remarked she had gone tanning with her mom.  While TBM’s lips were saying her daughter’s burn was from a day of casual gardening, her football-coloured (and textured, for that matter) tan was saying differently.

Tom Ford’s scandalous just-released Spring 2012 men’s lookbook exposes the designer’s affinity for all things sexual (as if that were a surprise). While Ford’s spring collection is conspicuously absent, there is enough naked flesh to make even Dov Charney blush.

The lookbook features a somewhat sleazy male model (read: he wears sunglasses indoors while striking his best “Blue Steel” pose) and his oiled-up female consort. The lolz-y twosome reads newspapers, showers in tandem and plays a mean game of bottom-pinching (hey, it’s certainly got people talking).

While the clothes are almost entirely secondary, the lookbook does feature silky smoking jackets, robes and other Hugh Hefner–esque pieces. And then there are the boxers (or swim trunks—we can’t tell), worthy of a night at the Playboy mansion.

It’s no secret Ford loves gratuitous nudity—remember his men’s fragrance ads with the artfully placed cologne bottle?—but shouldn’t a lookbook feature just a few more looks? Either way, Ford seems to have a sex-sells formula that works for him. Just check out his eyewear campaign where a crow chomps on Freja’s exposed nipple.