YStyle Picks

Bleached streaks

MANILA, Philippines - Your go-to store for statement totes and quirky throw pillows is returning just in time for the holidays after undergoing a complete revamp: Bleach Catastrophe is returning to Greenbelt 5 under the name Bleach and will offer more than just clothing to its regulars. Following the success of their Bleach Home line, the store has rebranded itself as a complete lifestyle store where people can find home products and stationery with their signature aesthetic. Crafted themes to look out for include Love From Paris, Urban Rustic, Smothered In White and Curious Polka. Of course, their home line will be complemented by their best-selling items like T-shirt dresses, pocket tees, printed dress shirts, polos and statement canvas totes and pouches. That way, you can wear your style in and out of the house.

Raise the (price) roof

Though we don’t actually have H&M in the Philippines (yet), we applaud the Swedish retailer for taking steps towards addressing certain concerns that have arisen since fast fashion caught on, whether it’s landfills brimming with cheap, trendy clothing or the long-standing issue of poor working conditions of garment factory workers and their below-minimum wages. After launching their Garment Collection program earlier in the year (where customers could bring their castoffs, no matter what brand, to H&M stores, which they would then recycle and convert into new yarn), they recently announced their Fair Wage Living policy, which could raise their prices in order to ensure better wages for the factory workers who make their clothing. According to Bengt Johansson, CSR ambassador at Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, “H&M’s initiative to create a wage policy for the suppliers in their production countries is an important step to resolve one of the major problems in the textile and clothing industry: how to find models for decisions on fair living wages and stable conditions in the labour market.” While H&M announced that its price hikes will not yet be felt within the near future, already many are hoping that others in the textile industry may follow their example.

Race and retail

It’s been nearly two months since black college student Trayon Christian was arrested after buying a $349 belt from Barney’s because a sales clerk believed that he used a fraudulent debit card. While much has been said about the issue — including rapper Jay-Z's decision to continue his holiday partnership with the luxury department store — there are others like Reverend Al Sharpton who have taken real steps to ensure that racial profiling is discontinued by initiating the Customer Bill of Rights. “Profiling is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated,” the document states, according to a WWD report. “A person may be detained only in a reasonable manner and for not more than a reasonable time to permit investigation or questioning, provided an authorized employee has reasonable grounds to believe that the person so detained was guilty of criminal possession of an anti-security item or was committing or attempting to commit shoplifting on the premises.” The Bill will be posted in NY-based stores this week, although it will be voluntary and with no legal force. “We’re very cautious,” Sharpton said. “This is the beginning of a process. This is not a conclusion of a process. We intend to stay on this until we can guarantee that racial profiling and ‘shop and frisk’ becomes something of the past.”

Reel in the circus

According to Vogue.co.uk, there will be a new ticketing policy at New York Fashion Week, which will lead to guest lists being cut down by 20 percent. As told to The Wall Street Journal, IMG Fashion, which operates NYFW, will be implementing “a number of changes aimed at addressing a growing array of designers’ complaints.” Fashion editor Suzy Menkes famously echoed these complaints in T magazine earlier this year in a column entitled “The Circus of Fashion” wherein she wrote, “Today, the people outside fashion shows are more like peacocks than crows. They pose and preen, in their multipatterned dresses, spidery legs balanced on club-sandwich platform shoes, or in thigh-high boots under sculptured coats blooming with flat flowers.” With the new policy, it appears that many agree with her after all, since those affected by it are mainly bloggers and freelancers. “It was becoming a zoo,” Catherine Bennett, senior vice president and managing director at IMG Fashion Events and Properties, told The WSJ. “What used to be a platform for established designers to debut their collections to select media and buyers has developed into a cluttered, often cost-prohibitive and exhausting period for our industry to effectively do business.” It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out in the upcoming fall/winter 2014 shows.