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Detroit During the past three years steampunk has grown in popularity in Michigan. A series of shows in a downtown Detroit warehouse turned art studio celebrate the style.

Hundreds of steampunk enthusiasts, and those looking to satisfy their curiosity, were expected to gather at District VII Gallery on Wight Street Saturday to dress up in Victorian costumes with a technological twist.

The events, the third held Saturday night, gives people the chance to dress up and play, said Kristine Diven, co-owner of District VII Gallery.

This gets people to play and forget their Detroit sorrows, she said.

Twisted Toys Mad Scientists: Victorian Steampunk Affair includes live performances, a robot-making station and a dress-up zone.

Most of our shows have been around art and technology and where they meet, she said.

Participants in the shows create robots from industrial scraps and recyclable materials. They take them home or put them on display at the studio.

Michael Wiggins, owner of the Phoenix Café, is host for the evening. Other featured guests include Steampunk Fabricators, creators of moded steampunk guitars, and Ringmaster Zeb, author of the childrens book Kingdom of Fools.

cwilliams@detnews.com

(313) 222-2311

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LOS ANGELES, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
Fifth Annual “Dress To Remember” Event Empowers High School Teen Girls

LA’s Prom Closet will celebrate its fifth annual dress event titled “Dress To Remember” on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at the Switzer Center in Torrance, Ca. The organization will be providing a selection of over 2,500 donated semi-formal and formal gowns to economically disadvantaged high school senior girls within the greater Los Angeles area. All pre-registered girls will participate in the daylong event that involves gown “shopping,” dress fittings, accessory selection and workshop participation ranging from college preparation to make-up application.

The 501c3 non-profit organization expects to help 200 girls attend their high school prom this upcoming season, continuing the organization’s mission to empower young women by showing them any obstacle may be overcome with some determination.

Since Spring 2008, LA’s Prom Closet has collected over 4,000 dresses and has changed the lives of over 600 girls through “Dress to Remember.”

LA’s Prom Closet works with school counselors, social workers and local families to provide the girls the courage and support to participate. The organization strives to promote self-worth and give young ladies the much-needed affirmation to stay in school and push forward. LA’s Prom Closet provides a stepping-stone for girls to realize their potential and the immeasurable opportunities that await them.

Follow LA’s Prom Closet on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/laspromclosetFollow LA’s Prom Closet on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LAsPromCloset

About LA’s Prom ClosetLA’s Prom Closet began in a closet, literally. Founder, Natalie Torres, decided to purge her wardrobe and give away clothing she no longer wore. While cleaning out her closet, she came across old formal gowns and bridesmaid dresses she had only worn once or twice. She was shocked to find that there was no place locally in Los Angeles to donate these dresses and knew there were many others out there with the same dilemma. Torres knew the social currency of these dresses for girls that might not be able to afford them, and thus decided to start an organization that would provide free gowns to girls who needed and deserved them. Enlisting several of her closest friends to help make her idea a reality, LA’s Prom Closet began and has since turned into a successful annual event.

LA’s Prom Closet is a non-profit 501c3 organization made of volunteers who rely on donated dresses, volunteer services and monetary donations to achieve its goals.

SOURCE LA’s Prom Closet

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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In “The Hunger Games,” Jennifer Lawrence plays a young woman named Katniss Everdeen who winds up as a contestant on a reality show where the difference between winning and losing is life and death.

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‘Hunger Games’ Fashion Fails to Impress Some Style Insiders

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Fashion plays a grave role, too.

Early on, a gold-eyeliner-wearing stylist played by Lenny Kravitz stresses the importance of appearance, telling Katniss that he’s not there just to make her look pretty, but “unforgettable.” Stanley Tucci, who portrays the blue-haired host of the televised games, looks like a cross between Karl Lagerfeld and Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy. And Elizabeth Banks plays Effie Trinket, one of Katniss’s handlers, whose pink wigs, pointy shoes and outré outfits made her a style icon with readers of Suzanne Collins’s novel, on which the movie is based.

But so far, fashion types have not been overly impressed with the movie, at least as far as the clothing is concerned.

The costumes “looked cheaply made,” said Joshua Jordan, a fashion photographer who has done campaigns for Anna Sui and Neiman Marcus. “You wanted it to bring you to an evil Thierry Mugler place, and it didn’t. It has nothing on the fashion business.”

Olivier Van Doorne, the head of SelectNY, a fashion advertising firm that makes commercials for brands like Emporio Armani and Tommy Hilfiger, agreed. While he liked the film, he said he found the outfits “ridiculous.” “ ‘Blade Runner’ gave a vision of the future you’d never seen before,” he said. “With this, there’s nothing new. It looks like a lot of recycling stuff Jean Paul Gaultier had done before.”

Comparisons to “Blade Runner” were brought up repeatedly. Released in 1982, Ridley Scott’s adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” took a similarly bleak view of the future, suggesting that technology and government would metastasize into something uncontrollable. With its sheer plastic raincoats, metallic dog collars and ’80s power suits with Grace Jones-like shoulder padding, the movie became a reference point for designers the world over.

Judging by reactions from the fashion set, “The Hunger Games” won’t have the same stylistic influence. Sally Hershberger, the celebrity hairstylist and frequent collaborator with the photographer Annie Leibovitz, also invoked the 1982 sci-fi epic as the yardstick against which the newer sci-fi film had failed.

As she saw it, the on-screen outfits looked “clownish,” like things you would see at a “costume party in Venice.” “It’s not a ‘Blade Runner’ moment,” Ms. Hershberger said. “This is not a fashion film. It looks too cheap.”

Lorenzo Martone, Marc Jacobs’s ex-boyfriend and a marketing strategist, said he didn’t find anything in “The Hunger Games” particularly groundbreaking. “I think they spent a lot of money but I don’t know if it was money well spent,” he said. “It just seemed like a tuneup of things we already have today.” Basically, he said, “I thought, ‘All this effort, and this is what the future looks like?’ ”

Paul Wilmot, the public relations guru who has worked for designers like Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein, simply called the film’s costumes “hideola.” (This did not appear to be a compliment.)

Still, some fashion designers had kinder things to say. The film’s costume designer, Judianna Makovsky, after all, cited Elsa Schiaparelli and Marie Antoinette as sartorial references, and called in outrageous Gaga-esque Alexander McQueen shoes for the movie.

Lionsgate, the studio behind “The Hunger Games,” started a Tumblr feed, Capitol Couture, devoted to the movie’s looks, with particular attention paid to those worn by Ms. Banks’s character, who bears a striking resemblance to Anna Piaggi, the eccentric Italian fashion maven, with fluorescent headpieces, turquoise eyeliner and fingerless lace gloves.

Alexis Bittar, the jewelry designer, said, “I just saw it and loved it.” The costumes, particularly those worn by Ms. Banks and Mr. Tucci, he said, were “tacky” and “over the top,” but that seemed intentional.

As he pointed out, in a totalitarian state where the rich commit all sorts of atrocities on the poor (including forcing them to fight for their lives on a show that resembles “American Idol”) it would not exactly make sense if you walked away envying the villains for their outfits.

“It would have been too much,” he said. “The total contrast worked.”

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The search for my senior prom dress wasnt a difficult one.

I like to think both my mom and I had learned our lesson the year before when, during my junior year, we endured a traumatic cross-county shopping trip that culminated in the buying of a hideous peach-ruffled concoction my mother pronounced lovely. I still have the photos that prove this was never so.

My senior prom dress, then, wasnt going to be found at the mall, or the bridal salon, then, so my mother had a grand idea: Lets have one made, she said.

Im not sure if she wanted to spare both of us another tense, awful shopping trip or, looking at me, her short, way-too-busty daughter and the dress styles of the day she realized that there was no way in hell we were ever going to find a dress that worked. Whatever the case, for once we agreed.

We chose a pattern we both liked (though now I realize the leg-o-mutton sleeves inspired by the Princess Diana styles of the time were maybe not the most flattering look for a busty girl) and beautiful, fire engine red fabric. Our seamstress cut the front a little too low for comfort (she was of the if youve got em, flaunt em school of thought), but the final product was a far cry from the pale peach hideousness of the year before.

Taking my own daughter, Emily, prom dress shopping proved just as challenging though no less successful. Emily was lucky enough to go to three proms two with her dear friend John, and then her own senior prom. For the first one, we found a stunning vintage gown from the 1940s. Lucky for Emily, who hates to shop, we found it online, at a vintage shop in Oregon and even more luckily, it fit her perfectly when it arrived. Bias-cut seafoam green satin, the slip dress and 40s-style hairdo were absolutely stunning and probably her favorite look of the three.

The following year was a different story. Deciding to go somewhat last-minute, Emily agreed to one trip to the mall and grudgingly tried on dresses her sister and I pulled from the racks. A few stores later, we had a winner, a tea-length A-line skirt with strapless top, all in aqua shantung, with a white satin belt. It also had a retro feel to it, so Emily went with 1950s-inspired hair for an overall look. It was another winner.

For her senior year, Emily wanted something different, more modern, so we started early. We chose a Saturday and decided we would make a day of it, heading to Portsmouth to look at dresses and taking in lunch. We even brought Sarah, then 11, along.

At our first stop, a trendy boutique, we had to wade through the size double-zero girls to get close to the dress racks. Not finding much to choose from, we asked the shops owner/manager for help. Taking in Emilys then size 8 body, she suggested we look at the mother of the bride section.

Thats the one place you might find a selection in her size, she told us.

Our trip quickly went downhill from there.

After a tense and hostile lunch, we ventured to another shop where a consultant was assigned to Emily and our experience took on a very different tone.

The consultant showed Emily where the long, straight pale blue gowns she was convinced she wanted to wear could be found, pulled those she wanted to try on and then swept her into a large fitting room. Assisting with every step of the trying-on process, the young consultant soon had Emily feeling better about herself and even enjoying the experience a little bit. It was like a scene out of Say Yes to the Dress.

While Emily waded through the straight ice blue gowns, I wandered into the front room, where I had been told all of the poufy dresses could be found. Since Emily was adamantly anti-pouf, Sarah kept warning me not to pull anything for her to try on. And while I had the best of intentions, a dark purple dress in the corner caught my eye. It called to me. A strapless mermaid-style, it had silver beading on the bust and layers of tulle in the skirt.

It was everything Emily said she didnt want in a dress and when I brought it in to the dressing room she watched, silently, as I hung it on the rack, but she didnt protest. And when she tried it on and stepped on the pedestal in front of the mirror, we all knew: this was the one.

I watched as all of the hurt and anger at the way shed been treated earlier in the day disappeared from her face. In this dress, she felt like a princess.

Local proms will be taking place over the next couple of weeks and I have a wish for every girl looking for the perfect dress:

May your dress-shopping experience be a good one, shared with people you love. And no matter your size or circumstance, when you finally find the dress, may you feel like a princess.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) A proposal that would prohibit students from dressing in an indecent manner at school has been signed by the governor.

Gov. Bill Haslam signed the measure this week. The legislation prohibits students from exposing underwear or body parts in an indecent manner that disrupts the learning environment.

A stricter version of the proposal failed to pass the Legislature three years ago. That measure targeted individuals who wear pants below the waistline and imposed a fine of up to $250 and 160 hours of community service.

Under the current legislation, school districts would decide a less severe punishment.

The Republican governor earlier this month cited coverage of the saggy pants bill as an example of what he called the medias failure to pay attention to substantive measures.

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