If you thought your favourite characters and toys looked a bit different lately check out this article Heartless Doll: 10 Most Ridiculous Cartoon Character Makeovers by Andrea Grimes.

I was a Strawberry Shortcake fan.  My Dad purchased me a big Strawberry Shortcake Rag doll in America and I was rapt and my friends were envious.  Their Mums couldn’t just jump on the internet and order it online like they can now, so their child would have one to.  It was special.

I also owned all of those plastic smelly figures…… they are still in a container stored at my parents….and yes they still smell.  But Strawberry Shortcake definitely didn’t look like she does today.   The original Strawberry Shortcake, at left, looked like an actual cartoon character. I agree with Andrea Grimes, the new Strawberry Shortcake, at right, looks like that kid at school whose mom really wants her to be in pageants.

Two decades and marketers updated the looks and attitudes of kids’ favorite animated friends. Check them out at Heartless Doll: 10 Most Ridiculous Cartoon Character Makeovers.  They are thinner, sexier, sleeker–Rainbow Brites, ‘Berry Shortcakes and G.I. Joes?

I like my old Strawberry Shortcake and glad I was allowed to be a kid.

It was more of a surprise when I viewed the changes to Dora Explorer

and rainbow brite

Thanks to articles like Heartless Doll: 10 Most Ridiculous Cartoon Character Makeovers . They make you aware of these changes that evolve.

Check out the 10 makeovers featured

• Woodsy Owl
• Kool Aid Man
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Michelin Man
• Angelina Ballerina
• G.I. Joe
• Looney Tunes
• My Little Pony
• Dora The Explorer
• Rainbow Brite

Today I am dedicating my blog post to @claresmith75.

I love my Dunlop volleys, sneakers, havaianas and a few pairs of high heel shoes (black of course), but @claresmith75 is totally devoted to her shoes collection and love of shoes.

Thanks to springwise : Handmade shoes designed by Consumers

Launched in October, Shoes of Prey’s simple, online design tool puts bespoke shoes just a few clicks away for women wanting to design their dream shoes and have them hand-crafted to match their requirements. Customers choose the style, heel type, heel height, adornments and colours, and select from raw materials including calf skin, snake skin, fish skin, silk and more, which makes for a near infinite number of possible combinations.

Prices range from AUD 195 for ballet flats to AUD 300 for 4½-inch heels. International shipping is available, and the shoes take about six weeks to arrive. The service is backed by a generous returns policy which guarantees that if the shoes don’t fit, Shoes of Prey will remake them until they do; and if the customer doesn’t like the design, they can send the shoes back for a full refund or have a new design made for them free of charge.

Shoes of Prey, designed online by you:  Just click on start designing and start choosing the heel, toe, fabric, colour and embellishments.

Their expert craftsmen then make your shoes to measure, swaddle them in a soft dust bag and crisp new box, and ship them straight to your waiting feet.

Also available gift vouchers.

As a male you’ve got to remember: 14 February is Valentine’s Day. But don’t panic, we females don’t expect too much.

We just want you to appreciate:

Fashion – Shoes of Prey allows your loved one to design her own beautiful bespoke shoes.

Shoes of Prey has been featured in Marie Claire’s February 2010 issue (Australian edition). Yes, that’s the one with the naked Jennifer Hawkins on the front.

This is your chance to show her that you’re up to the minute with the latest women’s fashions – how good are you?

Check out their Website: www.shoesofprey.com

Contact: mike@shoesofprey.com

As you know I am a Superbowl ad freak so I was impressed to see Google’s ad at the Superbowl.  An ad for the geeks.

During the third quarter of Super Bowl XLIV, Google aired an ad called “Parisian Love,” featuring a Valentine’s-worthy romance spelled out in Google search queries….cool.

I then read the article in theage.com.au: Geek chic: Google debuts fashion line….not!

I class myself a geek, BUT, a chic geek.  Don’t think  I will be purchasing any……..well maybe if I have to,  a scarf.

article: theage.com.au: Geek chic: Google debuts fashion line

Google has gone techno-chic, debuting fashion designs inspired by the internet giant.

An “old-fashioned magnifying glass pendant” priced at $US200 was for sale online at googlestore.com, along with a $US300knit scarf in the firm’s trademark colors and “peace” t-shirts for $US85.

The pieces were the work of emerging designers who last year were asked to come up with “one-of-a-kind” items inspired in some way by Google, whether it be the firm’s colors, technology or mission.

The designs resulted from an annual fund-raising event by fashion magazine Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

“Last October, we transformed 10 of the finalists’ designs into iGoogle Artists themes,” Google product marketing manager Michaela Prescott said in a blog post, referring to the iGoogle personalised homepage that users can manipulate or design to their liking.

“While we loved seeing fashion meet iGoogle, we wanted to see these pieces in person – and wear them!”

Google had its favorite designs customised for “a broader audience” and will have them available for purchase “for a limited time”, according to Prescott. Proceeds will go to the Vogue/CFDA fund for nascent designers.

“Search is at the heart of everything Google does,” Waris Ahulwalia said of his inspiration for the sterling silver magnifying glass pendant.

He crafted a “1″ into the clasp of the pendant chain of 100 zero-shaped links to represent the “Googol” number on which the search engine’s name is based.

A Google Australia spokeswoman confirmed Australians could buy the pieces from Google’s online store.

Thanks to theage.com.au: Geek chic: Google debuts fashion line

Great article in the New York Times by Eric Wilson Bloggers Crash Fashion’s Front Row about bloggers now gaining the same importance as famous fashion editors.  Definitely a complete change from previous years.

NOT everyone thought it was adorable in September when a 13-year-old wunderkind blogger named Tavi was given a front-row seat at the fashion shows of Marc Jacobs, Rodarte and others.

Oh now, don’t misunderstand. She was totally adorable. You could have gobbled her up, with her goofy spark plug style — a Peggy Guggenheim for the Tweeting tween set. Her feet, in designer stockings, did not quite touch the ground. Within a matter of months, Tavi Gevinson, the author of a blog called Style Rookie, was feted by designers, filming promotions for Target, flown to Tokyo for a party with the label Comme des Garçons and writing a review of the collections for no less than Harper’s Bazaar. Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the designers of Rodarte, described her in the pages of Teen Vogue as “curious and discerning.”

Rather, it was what the arrival of Ms. Gevinson, as a blogger, represented that ruffled feathers among the fashion elite. Anne Slowey, who has spent decades climbing the editorial ladder to a senior position at Elle, dismissed the teenager’s column as “a bit gimmicky” in an interview with New York magazine. And in an instant, the subtext in her complaint was read by dozens of Ms. Gevinson’s fans as an example of the tension between old media and new, when one leapfrogs ahead of the other.

As a relatively new phenomenon in the crowded arena of journalists whose specialty it is to report the news of the catwalks, fashion bloggers have ascended from the nosebleed seats to the front row with such alacrity that a long-held social code among editors, one that prizes position and experience above outward displays of ambition or enjoyment, has practically been obliterated. After all, what is one to think — besides publicity stunt — when Bryan Boy, a pseudonymous, style-obsessed blogger from the Philippines, is seated at the D & G show in Milan between the august front-row fixtures of Vogue and Vanity Fair, a mere two positions to the right of Anna Wintour?

“There has been a complete change this year,” said Kelly Cutrone, who has been organizing fashion shows since 1987. “Do I think, as a publicist, that I now have to have my eye on some kid who’s writing a blog in Oklahoma as much as I do on an editor from Vogue? Absolutely. Because once they write something on the Internet, it’s never coming down. And it’s the first thing a designer is going to see.”

Perhaps it was to be expected that the communications revolution would affect the makeup of the fashion news media in much the same way it has changed the broader news media landscape. At a time when magazines like Vogue, W, Glamour and Bazaar have pared their staffs and undergone deep cutbacks because of the impact of the recession on their advertising sales, blogs have made remarkable strides in gaining both readership and higher profiles. At the shows this year, there were more seats reserved for editors from Fashionista, Fashionologie, Fashiontoast, Fashionair and others, and fewer for reporters from regional newspapers that can no longer afford the expense of covering the runways independently.

But it is somewhat surprising that designers are adjusting to the new breed of online reporter more readily than magazines, which have been slow to adapt to the demand for instant content about all things fashion. Blogs are posting images and reviews of collections before the last model exits the runway, while magazine editors are still jockeying to feature those clothes in issues that will be published months later.

So it is not without reason that some editors feel threatened, or that seasoned critics worry that they could be replaced by a teenager. The designers and publicists who once quivered before the mighty pens are now courting writers from Web sites that offer a direct pipeline to potential customers. Sure, magazines and newspapers have started their own blogs and tweets, but reading them, you often sense a generational disconnect, something like the queasy feeling of getting a “friend” request from your mother on Facebook. (From Glamour.com: “Dating Tips: Why It’s Important to Get That Number.”)

Sites that include readers in the conversation are thriving, in a sense democratizing the coverage of style, much as designers and retailers — with lower priced fast-fashion collections — have democratized fashion itself. Garance Doré and Scott Schuman, two photographers who have become stars online (and who are a couple off-line), have created popular blogs with the simple idea of posting images of stylish people and opening them to public comment. Now designers are seeking their advice on communications strategies and even design — Ms. Doré and Mr. Schuman have worked on projects with Gap.

Other sites have gained credibility along with traffic. Fashionista.com had 103,512 unique visitors in November, and Fashionologie.com had 27,125, according to the online tracking agency Compete. Jezebel.com (a saucy blog that includes coverage of fashion) shot ahead of Style.com (the Condé Nast fashion site) for the first time this fall with more than a half-million visitors. These are considered large audiences for dispatches on such trivial developments as models refusing to wear Alexander McQueen’s crazy shoes or that such-and-such designer is looking for an intern.

The personalities behind those sites, in turn, are becoming as famous as some magazine editors. Marc Jacobs named one of his bag designs after Bryan Boy, while Sephora asked Lauren Luke, whose makeup videos are an Internet sensation, to preside over beauty contests in its stores. Designers are thinking differently in response to consumers who want instant gratification. Doo-Ri Chung, for example, describing her new basics collection in The Financial Times this fall, said her customer has a “blog mentality, not a magazine mentality.”

“The old idea of reading a magazine and planning ahead, that’s not something that younger customers do,” she said. “It’s a different world, and designers have to adapt.”

Still, the popularity and novelty of such sites have raised concerns that their writers might be unduly influenced by designers or beauty companies. New guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission, announced in October, require blogs to disclose in their online product reviews if they receive free merchandise or payment for the items they write about. This bothered some bloggers, and reasonably so, since magazine editors commonly receive stockpiles of the same expensive goodies to review in their pages, and that practice is rarely disclosed even though magazines are beholden to advertisers for their livelihood.

Those guidelines also seem excessive at a time when magazines and newspapers are changing their tone to embrace the online culture. On several fashion sites last week, it was reported that Vogue is planning to feature a group of bloggers in its March issue, including Tommy Ton of Jak & Jil, Ms. Doré and, yes, even Bryan Boy.

Next time you plan an overseas holiday, don’t forget to budget for a ’shopping stopover.’   News.com.au featured a story about Stopovers boom as Aussies choose to ’shopover.’

Relax, break your journey and shop for great bargains.

STOPOVERS are becoming the hottest new travel trend with one in three Australians taking advantage of the opportunity to shop on the way back from their holidays.

Travel booking website travel.com.au has reported a 30 per cent increase in Aussie travellers booking a stopover in Asia, up from 18 per cent last year.

Australians are becoming travel savvy with the intention to go for “cheap and chic” shopping trips, or “shopover’s”, travel.com.au’s General Manager of Brand Lisa Ferrari said.

“We have been fielding calls from customers keen to extend their stay in Asia, with travellers intending to shopover during their long haul journeys,” Ms Ferrari said.

The benefits of taking a shopover include finding great deals and getting the chance to indulge in some relaxation.

“A shop-over is the ultimate solution when breaking up a long trip and they allow you to pick up some great bargains you can’t get at home,” Ms Ferrari said.

“There are great advantages when stopping over, not only will you eliminate the affects of jet lag – it allows travellers to see two destinations for the price of one flight.”

Ms Ferrari said with 2009 drawing to an end, Aussies are still making the most of the bargain airfares and strong Australian dollar by saving and spending in Asia.

The best destinations for “shopping over” are Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, according to travel.com.au.

News.com.au : Travel News:  Stopovers boom as Aussies choose to ’shopover.’

By Kate Schneider

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