What's Out: the Fashion Trend

• JANUARY 29, 2010

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY

David Wolfe has been analyzing style trends for 41 years. But last week, Mr. Wolfe, creative director of the Doneger Group consultants, stood up in a room full of retail executives and told them: "There are no more trends. Everything is in style."

Even as the fashion press gears up for an orgy of trend-spotting at New York fashion week, which starts Feb. 11, many observers feel Mr. Wolfe is right: We've reached the end of the trend as the guiding stricture in fashion. The "must-have" currently being attached to certain styles—The trench coat! The one-shoulder dress! Metallics!—is little more than a marketing pitch.

The trench coat has been "in" for the past five years, and will be hot next year, too. Indeed, it's a safe bet that next month we'll see every possible length of skirt, width of pant and cut of blouse walk the runways—sometimes all in the same show.

Rather than fuss about skirt lengths or the season's silhouette, people now dress the way they see themselves, choosing looks that flatter their bodies and fit their lifestyles. Most of us dress with our social groups or professions, rather than fashion trends, using clothes to flash messages about who we are.

and much more here>>>

A New Look for a New Life

• JANUARY 22, 2010

Bye-Bye, Bottega: A Former Executive Purges Her Closet in Search of Deeper Transformation

• By CHRISTINA BINKLEY

Last week, Alicia Kan put her old wardrobe up for sale on eBay. "New Decade closet purge!" she tweeted to her 1,049 Twitter followers.

This sudden sale of Hermès scarves and Donna Karan dresses, at prices starting at $19.95, marks a new phase of Ms. Kan's life. Last fall, she left her job as a high-ranking communications executive, and, like many people in transition, she wants an image to match the new life she's pursuing. Out with St. John dresses and Armani suits. In with Y-3 hoodies and Hugo Boss motorcycle boots. "I want to dress like Blondie in the 80s," she says.

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Sally Ryan for The Wall Street Journal

After quitting a marketing job, Alicia Kan, 44, of Chicago decided her wardrobe no longer fit her new lifestyle.

Many of us have felt the desire to shed our skin, an urge that can be ignited by a new job, a change in marital status, weight loss, the arrival at midlife or just a new year. Post-divorce Madonna has returned to her vampy roots in Dolce & Gabbana, but her British Dame phase is still warm to the touch. Former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin has traded in his Wall Street pinstripes for the more yogi-like look of the New Agey spa owner that he is now. Even designers change their skins. Remember the chubby, dorky Marc Jacobs? His cut body and knee-revealing kilts today seem to be another man.

Tabloid stories suggest these celebrity transformations happen overnight. But reinventing oneself is an emotional experience. "Packing [the clothes] up for shipping is saying good-bye to a former life," says Ms. Kan.

For most people, it isn't easy to purge a closet, especially when it's full of items that were once meaningful. Christos Garkinos, co-owner of high-end Los Angeles consignment shop DecadesTwo, says he often has to coach people as they work up the gumption to relinquish items from their former selves to his boutique. And he often gets calls days later, when a client regrets having let go of an item.

One client, he says, sat on her bed>>>

If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe

by Ashlee Vance
Friday, January 22, 2010

provided by

Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was "12345."

Today, it's one digit longer but hardly safer: "123456."

Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks on Google's e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug.

According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like "abc123," "iloveyou" or even "password" to protect their data.

"I guess it's just a genetic flaw in humans," said Amichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers. "We've been following the same patterns since the 1990s."

and much more here>>>

Returns hit customer service

BY JENNIFER WEAVER • jeweaver@thespectrum.com • December 27, 2009

CEDAR CITY - The line of shoppers at the customer service desk in the Cedar City Walmart Saturday made it apparent exchanges and returns of items received under the Christmas tree were a popular errand of choice.

Walmart opened at 6 a.m. to accommodate the anticipated heavy consumer traffic. It also reserved two check-out registers for returns besides its three registers offered at its customer service desk. Store assistant manager Jeff Boring said a month of preparation preceded the busy shopping day for bargain hunters and returns/exchanges from people who didn't quite like what they got, the items didn't fit or the gifts received were damaged or broken.

"The day after Christmas is the heaviest return day of the year," said Dennis Baldwin, Walmart assistant manager. "Everyone knows that."

Nearly 1 in 5 people were expected to return a gift, according to a Consumer Reports poll. Spencer Lines of Mesquite was among those who anticipated taking an item back to a retailer. He returned a broken iPod television convertor to the Cedar City big box store and was happy to be able to do so, but not about the length of time it took him.

"I waited for 20 minutes to be told to go to the back of the store, and I did that, and was told to come back to the front of the store to customer service and a manager would help me but now I've been waiting for another 10 minutes," Lines said. "I'm just passing through town and this is frustrating."

Consumer Reports said some retailers are>>>

Huge Cruise Ships Prepare for Launch but Face Uncertain Waters

• DECEMBER 4, 2009

By MIKE ESTERL

PORT EVERGLADES, Fla. — Oasis of the Seas will make quite a splash Saturday when it embarks on its inaugural seven-day cruise in the Caribbean with some 5,400 passengers aboard.

Towering 20 stories above the sea and nearly as long as four football fields, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s newest vessel cost $1.4 billion to build and is about a third larger than any other cruise ship now plying the seas.

And, with its 13 retail shops, 21 pools and 24 restaurants, the ship offers the most outsized example of the cruise industry's bet that huge ships with amenities like multistory cabins and 300-foot water slides will help buck slack demand.

But Oasis, and several other super-sized ships that will launch soon, face stiff head winds. Cruise lines have been able to fill their ships during the recession, but only by offering steep price discounts. Yields—the amount they make on each passenger—are down about 15% this year amid a broad drop in consumer spending. Travel agents say they see signs of a turnaround in 2010 cruise bookings, but fourth-quarter demand has remained very soft. And while big cruise-ship companies are still booking profits this year, helped in part by lower fuel costs, their margins have shrunk.

Even some competitors say Royal Caribbean may have gone too far in the size race. Micky Arison, chief executive of Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise company, says his company looked at building a similarly sized ship earlier this decade but decided the profit margins weren't sufficient. There's a market for bigger ships, he says, but one as large as the 225,000-gross-ton Oasis risks having the feel of "a huge mall."

Still, Carnival is also bulking up. It launched the 3,650-passenger>>>

Retailers: New Strategies for this Holiday Season

November 13, 2009, 3:57PM EST

Stocked with "cautious optimism," early markdowns, and lower inventories, stores hope to avoid repeating the 2008 holiday sales debacle

By Esmé E. Deprez

As the holiday shopping season kicks into gear, retailers and industry experts are expressing "cautious optimism," a phrase that has become a ubiquitous stand-in for predicting good news in the current economic climate. Attracting consumers to stores through early promotions and discounts—as well as going into the season with lower inventory levels—are among the tactics retailers are adopting to deal with shoppers, who remain skittish about the future.

It's too soon to say if it's working. The U.S. Commerce Dept. is scheduled to report October figures for consumer spending on Nov. 25 amid expectations of a slight bump up from September's 0.5% fall. "We're looking at modest sales increases for the holidays and don't expect the degree of markdowns" that retailers needed to introduce late in the season to move product, says Brian Sozzi, a retail analyst at Wall Street Strategies.

Hoping to avoid a repeat of last year's holiday shopping results—often described as one of the worst on record—retailers will likely regard slender or stagnant sales as a success. Recent third-quarter earnings reports from major retailers have showed mixed results. Wal-Mart (WMT)—the world's largest retailer and regarded as a bellwether for the overall vigor of consumer spending—reported on Nov. 12 a revenue increase of 1.1%, while same-store sales dropped 0.4%. Revenue fell 3.2% at J.C. Penney (JCP), the company reported on Nov. 13, while same-store sales dropped 4.6%, although Penney improved its full-year profit and sales outlook with fewer discounted items on offer.

October statistics reported on Nov. 13 in the Deloitte Consumer Spending Index, which tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending, rose in October for the fifth consecutive month, to 4.1%, from September's upwardly-revised 3.6%. The calculation takes into account the tax burden (the percentage of income that one pays in taxes), which has recently been stabilizing; initial unemployment claims, which continue to drop from their March peak; real wages, up almost 5% from a year ago; and real home prices, declining at a slower pace.

Signs that spending has stabilized>>>

Hearst Signs On in Beauty Contest

• AUGUST 31, 2009

By SHIRA OVIDE and EMILY STEEL

Hearst Corp. hopes a new Web site and growing interest in the Internet among beauty-products makers will translate into a fresh source of advertising for the publishing giant.

In September, Hearst plans to launch a site called Real Beauty, which will focus on makeup, hair care and other beauty topics. The venture is an effort by Hearst to create a one-stop destination for consumers who want to research and buy beauty products. It will be competing with a vast field of more specialized beauty blogs as well as sites operated by various cosmetics brands and retail chains.

Daily Makeover

Daily Makeover, whose virtual makeover program, above, lets women try out beauty products and hairstyles, is among the new Hearst venture's rivals.

Hearst says the site will mix advice from customers with product reviews and information from its magazines, which include Cosmopolitan, Seventeen and Harper's Bazaar. Users of the site will be able to customize information so, for example, a woman with curly hair won't see articles about straight hair; she also may get discount offers from salons specializing in taming frizzy locks.

Beauty brands have been slower than other marketers to advertise online, largely because of concerns that the Web could never match the in-store experience of trying out beauty aids.

Companies spend about $6 billion a year to hawk personal-care products, a category including beauty, shaving and hair care, but only 3% is spent online, excluding search ads, according to TNS Media Intelligence, an ad tracking firm owned by ad giant WPP.

However, research released in May by>>>