Happy Holidays!

Our third annual edition of Holiday Bytes is finally here! Please click the image above to view the PDF. All of us at MBF Trend Consulting wish you happy holidays and a joyous new year. This is our last post of 2009. See you in the new year!

Global Plans, Local Actions

In support of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, there have been over 3,000 events going on worldwide in hopes of establishing effective solutions of the world crisis. Organized by community leaders and individuals desiring to seek change, people all over the world are organizing candlelight vigils, wall signings, and marches in their cities and local towns. Bornholm, a small Danish island of population 43,000, also recently developed a program to cut its emissions to zero by developing clean energy. They are burning straw for district heat, using wind power for electricity, and developing a biofuels plant and infrastructure for electric cars. Rome is also now the first European capital to launch a plan for energy self-sufficiency, using more wind turbines and solar panels.

In addition, Native Land, Stop Eject also opened in Kunsthal Chalottenborg, Copenhagen last Saturday December 5, and continues till February 21, 2010. From the perspective of nomads, islanders, and indigenous people, the exhibition gives them a voice to speak on how the climate crisis is affecting human migration in all parts of the world.

And to give you the latest update on the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the EU leaders have committed to 3.6 billion dollars a year until 2012 to help developing countries. And the two countries, Norway and Mexico, have proposed a joint model for climate funding, using both the incomes from the UN-allowances and from individual countries.

The call to urgency and immediate action is louder than ever. And as there are only a few remaining days left of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, we hope that the agreements are finalized and change is near. As the 3.6 million supporters of Avaaz says to the three key leaders, Obama, Hatoyama, and Merkel, “fund the fight to save the world.”

Noko Update

Noko Jeans planned to launch their sales this past Friday at the PUB department store in Stockholm. However, the store's manager, Rene Stephansen, stated he were unaware of the North Korean-made designer jeans and pulled them out of their stock as soon as he was informed, saying the store wanted to avoid possible controversy of having ties with the communist nation. Noko jeans were planned to be sold at Aplace, a retail space within the department store. A representative of Aplace stated that this decision was "a bit cowardly" but understood Stephansen's point of view.

Because of these complications, the launch was delayed up until today. Aplace will still carry the jeans, but only through their online store. And if you can't find any left there, you can also get them on the Noko website.

Although PUB pulled out the jeans to avoid possible controversies, we suspect that this act may have done the opposite and ignited a spark.

via: New York Times

"Made in North Korea"

Besides their leader's cultish personality and a never-ending threat of nuclear tests, there is very little we know about one of the world's most reclusive nations, North Korea. But to even remotely consider North Korea as a future hub of fashion is probably the last thing on all our minds.

A group of Swedish entrepreneurs, however, thought differently; and in 2007, Jacob Åström, Tor Rauden Källstigen and Jakob Ohlsson started Noko Jeans. Because there is so little known about North Korea, the members of Noko Jeans were interested in knowing more about the country; and Noko Jeans was their way of gaining access.

After a year of email correspondences, negotiations, and business trips to North Korea, they managed to seal a deal with the country’s biggest mining company to produce 1,100 pairs of two styles of jeans, expected to go on sale this Friday, December 4^th.

Priced at 150 Euros each and stitched with a "Made in North Korea" label, the team has designed limited straight-cut, dark-washed jeans, stark in its design to resemble the North Korean landscapes. With the launch includes a documentary of the company's trip to North Korea, exposing the world of it's rather transparent production method and further insight of an enigmatic nation.

As it is North Korea’s first denim product, it is likely that Noko’s first collection of jeans, Maneuvers in the Dark, will sell out in no time. However, although Noko has the cool, edgy look for a premium denim brand, it is still questionable as to whether their “Made in North Korea” tags will be embraced by their denim loving consumers. But even then, as North Korea may not have the best connotations, it’s isolated and somewhat secretive identity may work to Noko’s advantage, providing an unmarked territory as grounds to help spark a more positive association.

Noko’s website does not yet include the details of where you can purchase these jeans, but check back shortly and we’ll let you know as soon as we find out!

Via: Refinery29

Beijing: Where to shop

Going to Beijing, all the guidebooks urge visitors to shop at the markets, where stall after stall of vendors hawk camera batteries, fake designer bags, and gaudy cell phone accessories. To see the best of Chinese design, and find a few souvenirs actually worth carrying home, it's best to avoid those tourist traps.

The latest, brightest, and shiniest mall in Beijing is the Village at Sanlitun, which boasts an Apple Store, a Vero Moda, and a Uniqlo alongside Chinese brands such as b+ab, izzue, and G2000. Hidden in the basement, behind the cinema, is a sprawling design shop with housewares and T-shirts by local designers; while not named on the mall map, it's more than worth the trouble of finding it.

In the Gulou neighborhood, a pedestrian street called Nan Luo Gu Xiang has become a favorite of fashionable locals and expats alike, with its many bars and coffee shops, including the Pass By with its retro-Communist-style T-shirts. And don't forget the boutiques, with local brands such as NLGX and Plastered sandwiched between ironic, kitschy souvenir shops.

For Balenciaga and Alexander Wang, the place to go is Lane Crawford, which offers a concierge on every floor of their ultramodern department store, and plentiful shopgirls to assist in selecting items. They also stock Asian fashion designers such as Undercover, Commuun, and Toga whose wares are hard to find in the West.

Beijing: Eating and drinking

There's really no comparison between Chinese food in the United States or Europe and Chinese food in China. One is typically cheap, greasy, uninventive, and sometimes bland; the other is a smorgasbord of different cuisines, from Uighur to Sichuan to Cantonese, with an astonishing range of flavors and textures. In Beijing, the ever-present street vendors hawk all sorts of stuffed pancakes, roasted vegetables and nuts, and sweet or savory pastries, all for under a dollar; while restaurants range from tiny local dives to ultra-fine dining, with minimalist décor and maximalist prices, attentive waitstaff and jewel-like confections served in course after course. Beer is the usual drink with dinner, often Tsingtao or Nanjing.

The types of tea are innumerable; it's worth stopping by a tea shop to marvel at their selection, and possibly to buy gifts to bring home. In hipper neighborhoods, the abundant cafés offer bubble tea, along with wi-fi, espresso drinks, and a comfy couch for students or freelancers to lounge with their laptops. Unlike street vendors, brick-and-mortar establishments tend to charge something closer to Western prices; and Western chains, which include Starbucks and Coldstone Creamery, seem to charge about as much as back home.

Beijing: Architecture

After the blanket-thick smog, the second most striking thing about Beijing is the contrast between old and new. Construction sites are everywhere, and most of the city's old courtyard buildings, or hutongs, have been torn down to make way for mammoth, gleaming buildings that hardly even qualify as skyscrapers, since they're often as wide as they are tall. Many, if not most, of these structures house shopping malls, which provide an air-conditioned respite from the grimy air outside.

The remaining hutongs radiate out from the Forbidden City, and while some have been remodeled and gone upscale, in most of them life looks much as it has for ages: laundry hung out to dry, songbirds singing in their cages, old men playing games on folding tables, deliverymen on bicycles hawking handmade brooms and coal for fireplaces.

MBF exclusive: S/S 2010 runway report out now!

As promised, here's a preview of MBF's exclusive look at the Spring 2010 runway shows in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. We've broken it down for you by theme and specifics, so if you were wondering which colors, silhouettes, fabrics, prints, or embellishments are going to be big this season... look no further!

The full report is available for $300 as a high-res PDF; email news@mbf-trend-consulting.com to place an order.

Fashion goes digital with an LED gown

As a lower-powered alternative to conventional lightbulbs, LEDs have lately emerged from the stuff of blinking signs into many aspects of our daily lives. Times Square and Las Vegas are already famous for their flashing, colorful LED billboards, but lately we’ve been noticing a few NYC buses and subway entrances festooned with LED advertisements. As fashion channels developments in the world around us, it is no surprise that designers have been adapting this technology into their collections.

Hussein Chalayan tried it first, creating seemingly magical LED-lit dresses for his fall 2007 collection, and now, the Galaxy Dress, a new project from London-based smart textile company CuteCircuit, sparkles with more than 24,000 LEDs and 4,000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals. Its circuitry is hand embroidered on a layer of silk, creating a soft, fluid fabric. Although this dress is lightweight, ironically, the heaviest part is not the lights, but rather the 40-layer pleated silk organza crinoline.

The Galaxy Dress is still in its prototype stages, but demonstrates how clothing can create new forms of communication as technology pushes fashion into unmarked territories. Although it may not yet seem realistic to wear LED lit shirts or dresses as an everyday look, current developments like headphone wiring in snowboard jackets and solar-paneled laptop bags might have seemed crazy a few years ago, too!

via: Ecouterre

RTR update

Well, we snagged a password to the much-hyped Rent the Runway and after a good rummage around the site, we're simply underwhelmed. As it stands, the site carries 124 dresses and two jumpsuits by 27 (mostly contemporary) designers, and some of those dresses don't even appear to be in stock yet. Prices are about 10% of retail.

For anyone imagining they'd rent a Narciso, Thakoon, or Alexander Wang for their night out in Boise, be prepared for disappointment: the site's sizes tend toward the small end, its tastes toward the mainstream and girly, and some items don't even ship outside of New York.

Still, all the hubbub around the launch shows there's a market for this service, if they can just iron out the kinks. Here's hoping they can get it right before their adoring public gives up the dream.

Dresses by, from left, Hervé Leger, Richard Chai, and Proenza Schouler. Photos via Rent the Runway.