During the fall and winter, she sometimes wears her striped, lightweight pullover sweaters from the summer with dark pants and a black coat or jacket, for example. Or, she'll use a lightweight, summery turtleneck as a layering piece during the winter, wearing it under a chunkier sweater or jacket.

The "Men's Collection" is an unusually comprehensive, soup-to-nuts line of everything from suits to shirts, socks, ties and shoes, manufactured at many of the same factories used by European designers but priced at about half of today's designer levels. Tom Ott, the Saks senior vice president overseeing menswear, refers to "the string episode," which occurred when the group ordered "hang tags" for the clothes, which offer tidbits about the make and origin with the slogan "Know What You're Wearing."

Chief Executive Wesley R. Card said the company's efforts to reduce costs and manage its inventories was successful in the quarter.

Gimp yarn - A yarn made of one or more strands twisted around a usually finer central ground yarn and overfed to form a clear spiral wrapping.

Quiz Answer - Some of the ways are 1. by weaving from two beams, with the ground ends at a higher tension and the ends for the puckering stripes woven at lower tension; 2. by treatment of cellulosic fabrics, particularly linen and cotton, with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) solution, which causes the treated parts to contract; 3. by using yarns having different shrinkage properties; these yearns maybe combined in the warp and/or the weft.

Quiz Question - What is undulating gimp yarn called?


(Daniels, PN and Denton, MJ, eds. Textile Terms and Definitions, 11th ed. Manchester, UK: The Textile Institute, 2002.)

Kirk Adams, SEIU's executive director of health care, and Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of government relations, met June 30 with President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to discuss the letter.

Shares of home-furnishing giant Bed Bath & Beyond have climbed about 18% over the past year, outpacing those of retailers Target, Wal-Mart Stores and J.C. Penney, each of which is in negative territory. But the stock appears likely to rise further.

Furiously sketching a tartan-plaid version for Christmas, Mr. Mizrahi suggested "a chocolate-crumb moment" to add some crunch and asked for the cheesecake to be "enrobed" in white chocolate dyed red, with green and navy plaid stripes. [...] the growth of collaborations with mid-American retailers, the rise of cable television, the birth of reality television and the Internet have created a surge of opportunities -- opportunities that happen to suit Mr. Mizrahi's persona.

Mr. Slama, who recently stepped down as creative director for the label, likes to swim in a pair of fitted trunks with a "boy short" cut:

[...] specialty retailer Charming Shoppes, of Bensalem, Pa., is revamping its core plus-size brands, with the help of new management led by recently hired Chief Executive and President James Fogarty, a turnaround specialist formerly with restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal.

Seersucker - A fabric characterized by the presence of puckering and relatively flat sections, particularly in stripes but also in checks.


Quiz Answer - The acronym SMARTextiles stands for Self-Monitoring, Adaptive and Responsive Textiles.#


Quiz Question - What are some ways in which a seersucker effect can be produced?



*(Daniels, PN and Denton, MJ, eds. Textile Terms and Definitions, 11th ed. Manchester, UK: The Textile Institute, 2002.)

#http://www.tx.ncsu.edu/research_industry/researchgroups/smarttextiles/

The company recently secured a deal with creditors -- many of them the landlords to whom it owed rent -- and has announced a plan to focus its stores on offering a comprehensive selection of sporting equipment.

Retail industry groups claim Wal-Mart made a political calculation recently when it endorsed employer-mandated health insurance, a key component of President Barack Obama's plan to expand health-care coverage to nearly all Americans.

Burberry, known for its raincoats and plaid, is focused on cutting costs and improving operational efficiency as it continues to gain market share across the board in the luxury sector, said Stacey Cartwright, the company's chief financial officer and executive vice president.

At the behest of Wal-Mart's board, headed by Rob Walton, the son of the company founder Sam Walton, the corporate communications department commissioned a reputation survey and found that Wal-Mart in just a short time had gone from corporate darling to demon.

Levi Strauss & Co. swung to a loss during its fiscal second quarter on a 3% sales drop as executives brushed off the chance of an initial public offering of stock.

Adult clothes aren't really necessities in an economic crisis, said Julie Hennessy, a consumer behavior and marketing strategy professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, adding that Carter's and OshKosh should do well during the economic downturn because they are "fairly basic brands in infant wear."

The retail industry's biggest trade group is launching a broad attack against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for supporting congressional proposals requiring employers to help pay for health insurance, an idea that has gained political currency thanks to the backing of the nation's largest private employer.

"If a favorable cycle for athletic footwear and apparel is developing, as Foot Locker's management implies, shares would have the potential to perform better than the stock market generally, and perhaps move up more than 50% in price over the next 12 months," says Bernard Sosnick, an analyst at Gilford Securities in New York.

Other Chapter 11 filings include auto-parts supplier Mark IV Industries, pharmacy chain Drug Fair Group Inc. and clothing stores Anchor Blue Retail Group Inc. With about 85 companies in the firm's portfolio and a strategy of buying ailing businesses few others will touch, Sun Capital executives say they expect failures in its investments.

U.S. retailers posted steep sales declines for June as soggy weather kept shoppers home and comparisons were tougher due to federal economic-stimulus checks spent in the year-earlier period.

Sites like Gilt have been a boon to high-end brands such as Diane von Furstenberg and Tory Burch, allowing sales of discounted merchandise in a controlled setting that is perceived to be more discreet and upscale than the typical off-price chain store, says Steven Kolb, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a trade group.

[...] a growing number of manufacturers are launching stylish shoes marketed as vegan and animal-friendly for women who don't want any animal products in their footwear. [...] thanks to advances in synthetic materials such as faux leather and faux suede over the past decade, they look more fashionable and feel relatively comfortable.

Analysts say the stock is cheap and could trade around $40 a share or better as the company gains market share, thanks to catchy promotions and expanded marketing.

The program is planned as a pilot that will begin this fall for nonfood items and encompass all 363 Asda stores in the U.K. There are no current plans to launch the program in the U.S..

Labels struggle to survive except as part of large, multiproduct fashion corporations with deep pockets and a global marketing machine -- or as niche players with low overheads and a cult following.

Scray - A curved trough in which fabric accumulates, either during a dwell period in a process, or whilst awaiting treatment.*


Quiz Answer - Balance is the relation of one section of a garment to another, particularly that of back and front lengths, with the aim of achieving a garment in harmony with individual posture.*


Quiz Question – What does the acronym SMART in the term SMARTextiles stand for?


*(Daniels, PN and Denton, MJ, eds. Textile Terms and Definitions, 11th ed. Manchester, UK: The Textile Institute, 2002.)

(Worried that men consider spandex in anything other than gym clothes to be for women only, it isn't advertising that detail.) True Religion, whose men's jeans sell for between $172 and $398, says 15% of the top-selling men's jeans in its own retail stores were "slim leg" jeans in the first quarter of 2009, up from 11% in the year-ago first quarter. NPD doesn't track sales by style. 7 for All Mankind, whose men's jeans sell for between $155 and $225, widened the thigh and elongated the distance from the crotch to the top of the waistband on the new skinny men's jeans it will start selling this month.

If its current efforts to tax online sales fall through, the state's revenue secretary plans to interpret existing laws to require companies that have marketing affiliates collect sales taxes.

Last fall, Viktor & Rolf released a video on its Web site rather than showing on a runway, and an increasing number of designers hold alternative presentations that they replay on their Web sites. [...] a few years ago, the magazine editors and retailers who attended runway shows closely guarded access to photos until the clothes were ready to show up in stores.

Sponsoring the Olympic team is less costly than sponsoring individual athletes, and less risky, because "you don't know how well they will do," says David Lauren, Polo's senior vice president of marketing, advertising and corporate communications, and founder Ralph Lauren's son.

Laurent Claquin, PPR's senior vice president of corporate social responsibility, said the company's plans to develop a separate social-responsibility division were in the works well before the WWF report came out. For corporate alliances with nonprofit groups to succeed, companies need to disclose how much money they are donating or risk allegations of "greenwashing" -- or paying lip service to environmental causes to promote their products, says Mike Lawrence, an executive vice president at Cone LLC, a Boston-based marketing agency.

In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans. Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, also signed the letter, along with John Podesta, who led President Obama's transition team and is chief executive of the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.

"If consumers don't spend money on their children during the back-to-school season, you can bet there won't be good holidays," said Paul Bingham, managing director of global commerce and transportation for IHS Global Insight, an economic forecasting and analysis firm.

[...] their non-food needs are largely met by specialist clothing chains such as Inditex SA's Zara or electronics retailer Darty, owned by Kesa Electricals PLC. Carrefour -- the world's second-largest retailer by sales after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- has struggled to blunt the inroads by these specialists.