Details Make Luxury Sunglasses

When you pour couple of hundred dollars on a pair of luxury sunglasses you often wonder "Am I paying for the name only?". Unfortunately today in many cases yes. Biggest expense line on the luxury brand business income statement is marketing. Ads in magazines, billboards, Internet, sponsoring celebrities etc. It's no longer manufacturing cost. How much it costs to manufacture a pair of Gucci, Dior, Tom Ford sunglasses that retail for $300 and up? Is it $10 or even $1? Of course, no one is arguing about operating expenses such as rent, salaries, delivery costs, also packaging, catalogs and promotional print materials. But when you look at some of the luxury sunglasses on sale today, you would really start asking yourself what am I paying for? 20 years ago glasses and sunglasses where hand assembled from dozens of parts. Little details such as temple decorations, combination in material, logo were so intricately made that eyewear was more of a jewelry. Today, only selected brand names are following the old school manufacturing. Tiffany and Bvlgari are among the few. Of course, being a jewelry company, it is expected of them. The rest would often have a few models that was a true hand work and art work. And this article is about such decorated sunglasses.

Dior Grandball	Dior Indinight 2	Dior Ondine
Gucci 3508	Gucci 4203	Gucci 3068
Roberto Cavalli RC595S	Roberto Cavalli RC653S	Roberto Cavalli RC601S
Bulgari BV6038B	Bulgari BV6059B	Bulgari BV6052B

Model World is Stepping up to Promote Health

Over the past 5 years fashion world has been put on the spot for promoting unhealthy lifestyle via using super skinny models. Mass media and press posted thousands of stories of "normal" humans being photoshopped to look skinnier, models dying of anorexia and young girls going crazy over the unspoken beauty criteria.

Should a Hollywood actress complain about her curvature being altered by the magazine, Internet is overflowing with cover stories regarding the fact. Should a model drop the line, just like Natalia Vodianova this week, about overeating, it again would become national news and great subject of debate.

But this year is indeed the one when fashion industry is really stepping up and taking action. Georgio Armani was the first to bann using models that have body mass index under 18. Just to give you an idea these would be models with height 5'8 (177 cm) who weight under 110 p (50 kg). While, still quite skinny such models will not die from anorexia according to the Ministry of Health.

Today Vogue magazine has announced that it will stop using models under age of 16. The magazine also issued  a short but powerful list of promises to fight for models rights by providing shorter shifts and better working conditions, to encourage clothing manufacturers to make clothing that will fit healthier looking models and to monitor modeling agencies that hire underage girls.

The documentary Girl Model has already generated a lot of buzz around the issue of young underage girls being mistreated and underpaid by modeling agencies, is scheduled to be released this year.

We will be watching for more actions from the fashion corporations and most importantly the results.