Elie Tahari

Elie Tahari (born 1952 in Jerusalem, Israel) is an American luxury fashion designer of men and women's clothing. He has evolved a $500 million business, with a presence on five continents, in more than 6,000 US stores and in five free-standing boutiques.Tahari was born in 1952 in Jerusalem, the eldest son of a Persian Jewish couple. The family immigrated to Israel from Iran and lived then in the transition camp of Al-Qastal, now Mevasseret Zion. In 1953 - 1957 the family returned to Iran, then came again to Israel. As his parents divorced and his father remarried, Elie was sent by the Israeli social services into an orphanage ("Sde Hemed") in Rishon Lezion, later moving to Tel Aviv ("Maon Hayeled"). The following years of his youth were spent in Kvutzat Schiller and in an Israeli Air Force boarding school in Haifa.Tahari immigrated to the United States in 1971 as an electrician. Moving to New York he sought work in Manhattan's Garment District, sleeping many nights at a YMCA hotel, or on the benches of Central Park. In Manhattan he learned about the fashion retail business. His position selling clothing from a boutique in Greenwich Village introduced him to women's fashion. He began designing women's fashion inspired by the New York City nightclub scene.Throughout the 1970s, Tahari remained focused on women's fashions, and his designs were well received. He was one of the first fashion designers to open a boutique on Madison Avenue, in 1974.In the 1980s, Tahari turned his focus to the tailored suit.After his 46th birthday, he met his future wife. In a collaborative effort, this husband-wife team has tripled the size of the company in the last five years, and launched the Elie Tahari Collection. Tahari has attained the likes of Agyness Deyn, and to model his clothing.In the United States, Tahari has boutiques in , and Las Vegas. In the 2007 movie Enchanted, two characters are shown shopping at Tahari's New York City store.He and his former business partner Andrew Rosen co-founded fashion brand in 1997. Tahari designed the clothes and Rosen was in charge of marketing and sales. Elie Tahari sold his share of the business in 2003 and is no longer involved in the company.

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Fashion in the United States

Apart from professional business attire, fashion in the United States is eclectic and predominantly informal. While Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing, particularly those of recent immigrants, cowboy hats and boots and leather motorcycle jackets are emblematic of specifically American styles. Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably U.S. culture's primary contribution to global fashion. The country is also home to the headquarters of many leading designer labels such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. Labels such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Eckō cater to various niche markets. Another type of clothing worn throughout the United States by many types of people is the T-shirt. It can be plain and white, or colored with company logos or funny messages. T-shirts are arguably the most worn type of shirt in the United States. Dress norms in the United States are generally consistent with those of other post-industrial western nations and has become largely informal since the mid 20th century. Clothing in the United States also depends on a variety of factors including location, venue, and demographic factors such as ethnicity. Blue jeans are a consistent fashion trend among all classes. The western states are commonly noted for being more informal in their manner of dress than those closer to the eastern seaboard. Furthermore, individuals belonging to certain ethnic groups such as some Native American tribal members and individuals of Scottish descent may wear clothing to represent their ethnic identity at certain events. Conspicuous consumption and a desire for quality have also lead to a strong preference for designer label clothing among many in the middle and upper classes.Fashion norms have changed greatly from decade to decade. The United States has generally followed and in some cases led trends in the history of Western fashion. It has some unique regional clothing styles, such as western wear.The toleration for body expression that deviates from the mainstream such as complete body tattoos or nudism is strongly linked to the sub-culture and location in which an individual may find him or herself. Generally speaking the United States tends to be less tolerant towards nudity than Western Europe, even in more tolerant areas such as California. As stated above the tolerance shown for personal expression such as cross-dressing, piercing, etc... varies greatly with location and sub-culture and may be completely appropriate in one venue while being taboo.

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Sneaker collecting

A sneakerhead is a person who owns multiple pairs of shoes as a form of collection and fashion. It is often manifested by the use of shoes primarily made for sports, such as tennis or basketball, as normal everyday clothing. The birth of sneakerhead culture in the US came in the late 1980s and can be attributed to two major sources: basketball and hip hop music, whilst in Europe sneakerheads draw their inspirations from soccer, fashion, and a wider range of music styles.In the US, the boom of signature basketball shoes in the late 1980s provided the sheer variety necessary for a collecting subculture, while the Hip-Hop movement gave the sneakers their street value as status symbols.Often, sneakerheads started by buying shoes that are general releases, or just buying a pair of shoes that they thought were interesting. Some started by seeing a pair of shoes they wanted when they were a kid. If their interests increase over time, they have a potentially highly expensive hobby on their hands with sneakers ranging in price from around a hundred dollars to thousands of dollars for a single pair. Some begin to look for examples of everything. Others just look to collect all of the shoes of a particular set. Popular collections include Jordans, Dunks, Reebok Pumps, Nike Air Max, among others.

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Castro (clothing)

Castro (Hebrew: קסטרו‎) is an Israeli clothing company specializing in men's and women's fashions. Publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the company is valued at 70 million US dollars.The chain has 180 stores, with locations in Israel, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand, and Ukraine. Controlled by the Castro and Rotter families, who together hold 67% of the company's shares, the company's sales turnover reached approximately533 million in fiscal 2006.

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Plus-size model

Plus-size model is a term applied to a person who is engaged primarily in modeling plus-size clothing. Plus-size models also engaged in work that is not strictly related to selling large-sized clothing, e.g., stock photography and advertising photography for cosmetics, household and pharmaceutical products and sunglasses, footwear and watches. Therefore plus-size models do not exclusively wear garments marketed as plus-size clothing. This is especially true when participating in fashion editorials for mainstream fashion magazines.The requirements for female plus-size models are no different from those of other models, except for larger and differently proportioned bust-waist-hip measurements; the minimum acceptable height is generally no shorter than 5'9"/175.3 cmand they must have clear skin, good bone structure and a well-proportioned body.Synonymous and interchangeable with plus-size model is "full-figured model," "extended-sizes model," and "outsize model".

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Clothing

A feature of most humans societies is the wearing of clothing, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body. The primary purpose of clothing is functional, as a protection from the elements. Clothes also enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking, by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Further, clothes provide a hygienic barrier, keeping toxins away from the body and limiting the transmission of germs.Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and sexual differentiation, and social status. A uniform, for example, may identify civil authority figures, such as police and military personnel, or it may identify team, group or political affiliations. In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of , and social status. Clothing may also function as a form of adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.Throughout history, many materials have been used for clothes. Materials have ranged from leather and furs, to woven materials, to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics. Recent scientific research estimates that humans have been wearing clothing for as long as 650,000 years. Others claim that clothing probably did not originate until the Neolithic Age (the "New Stone Age")Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses), worn on a single part of the body and easily removed (scarves), worn purely for adornment (jewelry), or those that serve a function other than protection (eyeglasses), are normally considered accessories rather than clothing.

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Fashion Originators' Guild of America

The Fashion Originators' Guild of America was an organization created by the U.S. fashion industry in 1933 to try to prevent the copying of clothing designs. The Guild provided a registration scheme for manufacturers, who would then collectively boycott retailers if they were found to be selling copied items.It fell foul of the Federal Trade Commission, which issued a cease-and-desist order based on the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Guild appealed the FTC's decision in the U.S. Supreme Court in Fashion Originators' Guild of America v. FTC. In 1941, the Supreme Court upheld the FTC's ruling.

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