Changing colours

Fabrics that change colour - sounds pretty cool eh? One American company has moved into this market with aplomb and four years from their inception are starting to make waves with their garments.

Their catalogue includes T-shirts that glow for up to eight hours, hoodies that sprout designs when exposed to cold, and could add bikinis that change color in water - the mind boggles.

The company made the jump from glowing necklaces to color-changing fabrics and they now work with a variety of clients, including Sears, Kmart, and Honda, according to Clayton, vice president.

'People have a big fascination with things they don't comprehend.' Karl Clayton said. 'Touching a piece of fabric that instantly changes color always results in a "wow."'

Space is cool

The news Red Dwarf is to return is certainly welcome - life on planet Earth sure is tiresome right now, what with recessions this and global warming that. What could be better than a bit of escapism in outerspace - although the synopsis for the show is that they do make it back to earth...doh!

However, it does show that space is cool (again). We knew this was the case already though, what with our Design Innovation Challenge that asked people to come up with new uniforms for crew in the new Star Trek film. On March 12 the winners of this, and all the other categories, will be announced at the lavish surroundings of the Park Lane Hotel - you can buy tickets here.

Keep an eye on your postbox because shortly the latest issue will be arriving which contains not only a special supplement with information on all the shortlisted entries to the awards, but also images of the entries to the Design Innovation Challenge (they are definitely worth seeing) and also news of our fabulous, top-notch celebrity hostess for the night...watch this space!

Footwear stores bitten by Crunch

The next issue of Company Clothing features an overview of some new footwear products available on the market and underlines the innovation and drive of this area. However, the news coming from the high-street is not so good with the announcement that both Barratts footwear and Priceless have gone into administration.

Poll Results:

We asked you: Do you wear Hawaiian shirts? The results were:

Yes, it's all I own - 14%
Never, don't you know who I am? 28%
Only if I was in Hawaii, sipping a cocktail, playing the ukulele would you get me in one of those. 42%
It's a leftover from a party. 14%

So, it seems, you're not fans.

In other news the technical blight which hampered our efforts to bring you blog posts last week looks to be over, so now you can check back daily for your Company Clothing blog fix.

Friday fun (and an apology)

First of all, sorry for yesterday disappearance, and today's late show: we've been affected by some interweb issues making the blog off limits. We're back now though, with a fun, silly story, perfect for the last hour of a Friday.

An 84-year-old women has been knitting hundreds of woolly breasts that pregnant women can use to practice breastfeeding. It all came about when her daughter went to her birthing classes: "I went to a breast feeding training course and was told about how these things are useful but that they were difficult to get because the pattern is hard to do.My mum is good at knitting so I gave her the pattern and she was able to do it. It has just built up from there."

What a nice story. Enjoy the weekend!

2 cents worth

So yesterday was pretty historic then. What little opinion we would add merely concerns the clothing on display, which understandably, was smart, upstanding, and very respectable - which is as it should be. Doesn't Obama look good though in his suits. Our statesmen, while never looking bad, rarely look good in them like he does. But perhaps we're all just peering through a haze of misty-eyed optimism that will soon dry up.

For a fantastic satellite image of the crowds from yesterday, click here. Trust us, it's worth it.

Fashion fighting

Fashion designers are often portrayed, in lazy Hollywood movies mostly, as highly-strung, fiery artiste types, who demand perfection from everything and everyone, darling. Well, a spat between Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana, has done little to dispel this image. Claiming that Dolce & Gabbana had 'copied' his design for a pair of trousers, Armani said, 'Now they copy, later they will learn.'

Of course such an affront to their talent could only be met with a deliciously witty barb and so D&G's rapier reply was thus: 'For sure we have much to learn - but certainly not from him.' Ouch! It continued: 'Armani has never been a source of inspiration for us and we stopped seeing his shows years ago.' Well meow...However, they really were saving the best for last: 'As Picasso used to say - copying from others is inevitable but copying from oneself leads to sterility.'

Quoting Picasso to discredit an accusation of copying - that's your flair and thunder artiste genius on show.

Feet of the seats

How many times do you see those posters telling you not to put your feet on the seats on public transport? Quite right too. But what if your feet are the seats. Or to put it more accurately, you're wearing shoes that have the design of the tube's seats as their pattern.

That's the potentially mind-boggling situation that could occur should you choose to wear a pair of these shoes. There's a pattern from each line - Victoria, Piccadilly, Metropolitan - and so forth, and the gallery section of their website shows how the shoes are made.

We were hoping to end this blog entry with a funny pun on a tube station that had a reference to footwear but the nearest to any form of reference on the underground we could come up with was Archway - which is pretty poor. So we decided against it.

A universal truth

Pride and Prejudice has become a mainstay of the British public conscious, possible in part due to that scene in the BBC's adaptation many moons ago. The story certainly inspired one couple who married in the very same clothes that were used in the BBC series - with the groom even being introduced as Mr Darcy. If you had to get married as fictional character who would you choose. Homer and Marge Simpson? Victor and Margaret Meldrew?

It's a scarf, no it's a dress, no it's a...

Multi-functional garments are always popular - they save you wadedrobe space, can be adapted for the situation, and just seem cool. This one - the scarf that also be used as a dress - is a great example of just how far these inventions can go. It's called, The Magic Scarf. Catchy.

As the image on the right shows, it's so versatile it can be used as a dress or a muff. And don't worry if you don't like the colour, it comes in 100 different options. Phew.

Dogs in clothes - cute or cruel?

The animal kingdom now. Dogs in clothing is not a rare sight - in fact we've covered it before with Hattie the High-Vis dog - but the RSPCA has reminded people that dressing dogs in clothing could constitute cruelty. There is a huge market of clothing for dogs out there and many people love their pets to a degree where they do indeed take advantage of these clothes to dote on their pet - but is it cruel?

Lynn Williams, founder of dog charity Happy Dogs is quoted in the story and said: 'People love their pets and the retail trade has latched on to that. To see a little dog dressed up in boots, I think, is a little over the top. I have an extreme love of the dog, but I don't like to see them dressed up as little human beings. I don't think they like it either. It's unnatural.'

This seems a farily considered outline of the debate but what do you think? Should we dress animals in clothing - is it just a bit of fun or should it be condoned?