Style Fix

Sports Illustrated 2009 Swimsuit Issue cover model Bar Refaeli joined Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte, Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas, Robert Buckley of Lipstick Jungle, and Frankie Delgado of MTV’s Bromance and The Hills at House of Blues Anaheim, California, on Wednesday, February 25, to judge “Walk the Walk,” a fashion design competition developed by skating clothing company Hurley. Hurley founder Bob Hurley and Rosemary Brantley of OTIS College of Art and Design also joined the celebrity judges.

The competition allowed artistically inclined high school student to express their fashion sense. Hurley collections were redesigned by high school students and paraded in front of the judges in theatrically staged and performed shows. The shows were modeled, produced, and produced entirely by local high school students.

Fountain Valley High School took home top honors, which came with a hefty $5000 donation to its art and music program. Gahr High School won a special design challenge and will see their two original head-to-toe designs featured in a future Hurley collection.

And Hurley is not stopping there for inspiring young, upcoming designers! This event also served as the launch of the Hurley Microphone for Youth t-shirt design competition. Now through March 30, aspiring designers and artists can submit their artwork at Hurley’s Web site for the public’s vote. The designer of the winning tee will be announced on April 1, 2009 on Hurley.com, will receive a prize of $5,000, and will have their design sold through Hurley’s online store.

Through all of their contests, Hurley hopes to inspire creativity and confidence among future generations.

Avon A and The Sak are going strong, bringing stylish readers another year of monthly prizes compiled of a designer bag and three new books through the Harper Collins Publishers’ Book in a Bag sweepstakes.

First up for January is a Silverlake Convertible Satchel in dark amber (shown here) with the Avon A (a division of Harper Collins) books The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl by Shauna Reid, Shop Smart, Save More by Teri Gault, and The Secret Currency of Love by Hilary Black.

After you enter, be sure to return next month for a chance to win another great bag and three books. The February Sak bag is the Pax Eco Canvas Yoga Bag with black trim and spring print that has birds, butterflies, flowers, and more. The three books will be Shelter Me by Juliette Fay, Confessions of a Beauty Addict by Nadine Haobsh, and What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Aspiring fashion designers have been given lots of opportunities lately, from reality shows to brand name contests, and now great online communities like US Trendy.

US Trendy is a revolutionary clothing company where the shoppers decide - and even design - what they want to wear. Budding fashion designers can upload their designs for other users to view. Users can then vote for their favorites, with the top-rated clothing being produced and sold.

The site also has constant contests for upcoming designers to enter, including the current Spring 2009 Design competition. The winning designer of this contest will get $3,000, and production, promotion, and sale of their clothing line on Us Trendy. There are weekly contests with $100 prizes.

Us Trendy founder Sam Sisakhti said, “I originally felt the need to create Us Trendy when I saw the struggles that friends of mine - aspiring fashion designers - went through to find viable career opportunities in the fashion industry, this coupled with the lack of viable outlets for fashion enthusiasts to express their voice in deciding the trends and clothing produced each season.”

Fashion designer wannabes, check out the great opportunities for exposure! Artists, models, and fashion enthusiasts can find a community there, too.

Women’s clothing group J. Jill held their third annual Nature of Compassion shirt design contest, and has announced the ten finalist. Now it’s your turn to help by voting on your favorite. Voting last now until January 19.

The winning design will be printed as a limited edition tee shirt as part of J. Jill’s summer 2009 collection. All profits from the sale of the winning design will go to the J. Jill Compassion Fund, a non-profit organization that supports community-based groups in their effort to help poor and homeless women get back on their feet.

The ten finalists’ designs are shown here. The design contestants are: Lauren Rader from Bethesda, MD; Sharon Grinspan from Germantown, TN; Toby Stevenson from Waxahachie, TX; Kimberly Viviano from Oak Park, IL; Chelsea Bester from Bellefonte, PA; Pamela Waclawski from Dunkirk, NY; AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt from Coconut Grove, FL; Brooke Everton from Lyndonville, VT; Hampus Bjorklund from Nashville, TN; and Debra Sweeney from Houston, TX.

Check out the first winner, from 2007, by clicking here.

She’s been dressing celebrities for years, but it wasn’t until her Bravo reality show The Rachel Zoe Project that this fashion stylist became a well-known name.

Aside from her show and her book, Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty, and Everything Glamour, you can discover what trends Zoe loves at online store Piperlime where she regularly selects her favorite shoes.

Need even more incentive to scope out Rachel’s picks? Piperlime is sending one lucky winner and a friend to Los Angeles to meet Rachel Zoe!

The $10,000 grand prize package includes:

** A three-day stay at the glamorous Roosevelt Hotel for the winner and a friend.
** Roundtrip airfare to Los Angeles for two.
** Transportation to and from the airport, and to meet Rachel Zoe.
** $2,000 each towards a shopping spree at Rachel’s favorite spots.
** $500 each towards Piperlime shoes.

To enter to win visit Piperlime.com from now until January 25.

If you have it in your heart to do good and help the needy, but not in your wallet, Piperlime has just the opportunity for you!

Piperlime regularly collaborates with charitable nonprofit Soles4Souls. Now, if you become a fan of Piperlime on Facebook you can donate without spending any money. For each person that befriends the shoes and accessories online store, Piperlime will donate $1 to Soles4Souls.

Soles4Souls collects new and used shoes of every variety, and distributes them to people in need. With the help of shoe manufacturers, retailers, and individuals, Soles4Souls provided more than 1 million pairs after the Asian Tsunami and hurricanes Rita and Katrina. The company runs based on a single, simple mission: “to impact as many lives as possible with the gift of shoes.”

Now go “Facebook” Piperlime and see that Soles4Souls gets another dollar to keep helping!

Want to snag a pair of Natalie Portman’s Te Casan shoes without feeling guilty for the splurge? What if I told you that a pair of Te Casan pumps worth $300 are currently up for auction with proceeds benefiting charity?

A celebrity-filled online auction, supporting upstate New York’s Farm Sanctuary, is going on now though Thursday, September 18. The Natalie Portman shoes shown here have a current high bid of only $150! Support a good cause and get a bargain all at once!

The auction also features artwork, lunches with celebrities, high-end jewelry, makeup lessons, private shopping events, haircuts by celebrity stylists, and much more.

Click here to check out the Te Casan pumps, or browse the all 68 items up for auction.

No matter how much you think you might know about the name behind the famous fashion house of Chanel, there is easily more to the story then you know. Coco is one of the stongest fashion icons in style history and has a definitive rags to riches story. Shirley MacLaine stars as Coco in the new Lifetime Original movie Coco Chanel: She Conquered with Style that debuts this Saturday, September 13 at 8 p.m. EST.

While you await the film, checkout My Lifetime’s Coco Chanel page dedicated to the movie, the designer, and your interest in it all. Read up about Chanel’s life journey from orphanage to icon status; enter to win a Chanel bag and $2,000; and see Chanel’s designs on the runway, on celebrities, and all through the years. Then, take the Coco Chanel quiz to see how much you’ve learned.

But don’t forget to tune at 8 on Saturday!

There are some things that happen in life that you would probably be okay with never knowing. But what fun would that be? Here are a few highlights from recent fashion news, all of which are entertaining and non-important but would make for impressive random knowledge at a party.

Michael Phelps’s mom, Debbie, has become the unofficial spokeswoman for Chico’s and, apparently, a fashion inspiration to women nationwide. Before heading to Beijing, Debbie went shopping at Chico’s for everything that she could possibly need to wear while cheering on her medal-winning son. She had been seen in the stands wearing Chico’s head to toe, and, according to the brand’s president, people have been calling the sophisticated (read: expensive) store asking how to get Debbie’s look. Seems Ms. Phelps read “How to Be a Stage Mom 101: Getting Yourself Equal Time in the Spotlight.”

Christian Audigier is launching a new line of clothing with a very interesting muse - Evel Knievel. The line, called simply Evel Knievel, will be unveiled on August 25 at “When I Move You Move,” a Las Vegas trade show at Caesar’s Palace. With an icon known for being a daredevil, but also usually seen wearing a flame-retardant, red, white, and blue biker suit, I have no idea what to expect.

In 2007, $1.82 billion was spent on costumes. That is sad, and it is the most interesting fact surrounding the design your own costume contest sponsored by Duck brand duct tape. Stick or Treat wants you to create a costume using duct tape as a connector, the fabric, or just an accessory. $500 goes to the winning entry.

After Natalie Portman was featured as a guest judge on Project Runway two weeks ago, and hostess Heidi Klum reminded the contestants that Portman has her own line of vegan shoes, people have been searching on the Internet trying to find Natalie’s footwear line with Te Casan.

First, I feel inclined to point out that Natalie helped design a line, under her name, for shoe company Te Casan. Rather than, as Heidi mistakenly announced, Natalie’s line being called Te Casan.

Phew. Now that that’s cleared up …

In passing, Heidi made mention of Te Casan, which is pronounced “Tay Ka-saan.” TV viewers that had never seen it spelled out, tried their best to sound out what Heidi had said. Enter the best popular Internet search term of the week: “Natalie Portman’s Take Us On shoes.”

An easy auditory misinterpretation, but funny none the less.

Some of Natalie Portman’s shoes for Te Casan are currently on sale.

Harper Collins Publishers has an ongoing, monthly, online drawing - Book in a Bag - for five random readers to win three must-read new novels, packed into a designer bag courtesy of The SAK.

This month, you can enter to win the Ashbury Leather Shopper shown here (click on it to see more details at The SAK), stuffed with three new fiction novels courtesy of Avon A books em>(an “imprint” of Harper Collins): The Safety of Secrets (2008) by DeLauné Michel, The Flirt (2008) by Kathleen Tessaro, and The Godmother (2007) by Carrie Adams.

After the lucky five win, and the rest of us mope about not getting something for free, be sure to return each subsequent month to Harper Collins Book in a Bag online to enter to win a new bag, with new books. Up next month will be the California Classic Crossbody in Teak from The Sak, with three more must-read books: It Had To Be You (1994) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, The Smart One (2008) by Ellen Meister, and One in a Million (2008) by Kimberla Lawson Roby.

Good luck … but not too much, because I want to win, too!

The second episode of Project Runway Season 5 airs tonight, Wednesday July 23, at 9 p.m. Eastern on Bravo. If you missed last week’s season premiere, you can catch it before the new episode, at 8 p.m.

Last week, contestants were given one of the favorite challenges of past seasons: to make an unconventional design from material purchased at the grocery store. This week, the teaser ad has Tim Gunn taunting audiences by saying that something “is a Project Runway first.” Natalie Portman is the guest judge.

If you are itching with anticipation and excitement, how about creating your own sketch or outfit based on last week’s challenge? Do so, and you could win a complete hair product collection from TRESemme. Alison Kelly (shown here), from Season 3, will host an online competition related to each episode’s challenge given to the designers. Check it out: submit your work, or just rate your peers’ work.

Season 5 of Project Runway starts this Wednesday, July 16, at 9 EST, on the Bravo network.

To get ready for the new season, Bravo online created some memories and flashbacks for the first four seasons. There are top lists - 12 Greatest Moments, most controversial contestants, craziest challenges - unseen footage including the contestants’ audition tapes, and much more.

Would you like a free haircut and style this weekend? All you have to do is be lucky enough to live in one of the ten cities nationwide that will be visited by a Paul Mitchell Mobile Salon.

Oddly enough, this random promotion is for an upcoming movie release - go figure. Adam Sandler wrote, produced, and starred in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan that will be in theaters June 6.

The connection between an Adam Sandler movie and free haircuts? The movie is about an Israeli commando that fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream of doing hair. Apparently, he also makes extra dollars by performing “special services” for his clients, in a back room.

Curious how this plot comes together, but also super jealous of people that live in one of these ten locales and can take advantage of a free Paul Mitchell ‘do:

* Belmar, NJ at D’Jais on Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

* Boston at EarthFest on Saturday, 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.

* Miami at South Beach, 12th and Collins, on Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. - 7 p.m.

* San Francisco in Golden Gate Park on Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

* Las Vegas at the Freemont St. Experience on Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. - 10 p.m.

* St. Louis at the Rib America Festival on Saturday and Sunday, 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.

* Los Angeles at the Venice Beach boardwalk on Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.

* Indianapolis at the Indianapolis Motorway on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, time TBA

* Seattle at the NW Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center on Saturday, 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.

* Chicago at North St. Beach on Monday, time TBA

With an opening day of Friday, May 30, the Sex and the City movie has just 10 days to go until it’s premiere. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get your tickets today!

Movie Web site Fandango is now offering pre-sale tickets to see Sex and the City next weekend at your local cinema center.

While you wait out the week and a half left, Fandango also has an entire Sex and the City page with pictures from the red carpet premiere of the movie, screen shots of the movie, related gossip and news, synopsis, critic and fan reviews, cast and crew info, and a contest!

At Fandango, you can enter to win a trip to New York City for you and three friends, including airfare, hotel stay, and a tour of all the Sex and the City hot spots around NYC.