Super Fashion Meets Super Nature In Florence

When it comes to ideals of physical beauty, no place has impacted art history more than Florence. This city is home to both Michelangelo’s David statue and Botticelli’s iconic painting The Birth of Venus. What had originated here, continues to resonate everywhere else. While Milan takes its semiannual spotlight on the fashion weeks circuit, Florence shines throughout the year thanks to the Pitti Immagine series of influential tradeshows and one industry’s top fashion schools. Since 1986, Polimoda has been attracting global talent to the riverbanks of Arno. Its graduate showcase gathers brand headhunters, style scouts and influencers for a glimpse of what the future of fashion could look like. This year, the audience needed reassurance that there would be a fashion future, after all.

The 2019 theme, Supernature, examined the relationship between nature and technology. Twenty students were selected to present their six-piece collections in front of a jury of experts, ranging from director of Vogue Italia and L'Uomo Vogue Emanuele Farneti and A Shaded View on Fashion Film Festival founder Diane Pernet to Alexander McQueen’s communications and marketing director Paolo Cigognini and "dangerously creative" German photographer Sven Marquardt. Sustainability was a common theme in many of the collections, as the emerging designers no longer see a career path in fashion and protecting the environment contradictory. From the incorporation of eco-friendly materials to taking a stand on environmental issues, many participants expressed nature’s beauty through efforts to preserve it.

Inspired by the island of Favignana off the coast of Sicily and its ancient tradition of sustainable red tuna fishing, Claudia Novara made her collection from broken kitesurf tails. Meanwhile, Valentine Tinchant drew inspiration from the Ethopian Daasanach tribe and worked with Resinovo, an eco-friendly material made from 95% recycled resin used in car windshields. About 15,000 recyclable metal rings, pictures of babies holding guns and phones were worked into the garments to ironically bring awareness to several social issues. Multifunctionality was important for Ketty Lin whose collection of interchangeable garments and detachable pieces criticizes the inundation of disposable products and obsolete technology that is harming the environment. Firmly believing that designers need to be mindful of their impact on the environment, Violetta Bretschneider turned to alternative leather made from fruit scraps: kiwi, peach and persimmons. "I wanted to create new fabrics because I think we cannot go forward like this," she said. "I think we have to study how to produce clothes faster with sustainable fabrics."

Despite Tariffs Uncertainty, Dollar General And Dollar Tree Show They're Still Operating In A Sweet Spot

No-frills dollar stores are proving their appeal, at least in terms of enticing low-income and other bargain-hunting shoppers.

Dollar General, the leader in the space, and Dollar Tree both saw their shares jump Thursday after they reported better-than-expected sales. At Dollar General, fiscal Q1 comparable sales, a closely watched performance metric that excludes the impact of newly opened and closed stores, rose 3.8% in the quarter that ended May 3. That followed 29 years of straight annual gains.

"We operate in the most attractive sector of retail," Todd Vasos, Dollar General’s chief executive officer, said on a conference call Thursday, adding that independent research showed the company had gained market share. "Our core consumers continue to come in more often and spend more. We are (also) attracting the higher-end consumer."

In fact, he said, those who "make a little more money" than the chain's average low-income shoppers represent the fastest-growing customer segment for Dollar General.

At Dollar Tree, same-store sales rose 2.2%, the 45th straight quarterly increase. Growth was led by its eponymous chain as the retailer attempts a turnaround at Family Dollar, its lagging acquisition.

Dollar General shares shot up 7.2% to close at a record high. Dollar Tree stock closed up more than 3%.

At a time when retailers including Victoria’s Secret and Gap are shrinking their physical footprints and others like Payless ShoeSource are liquidating, Dollar General, which had nearly 15,600 stores as of May 3, is still expanding.

The company has said it plans to open 975 stores this year and remodel or relocate 1,100 stores.

"Amidst a sea of uncertainty across retail, particularly in both apparel and at the high end, we prefer the low end today," Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Grom said in a report.

Couple wins dream home in fundraising lottery

The 2019 Rotary Dream Home Lottery offered a variety of prizes last Friday to raise proceeds for Rotary Club of Grande Prairie community projects.

The titular prize went to local couple Dwayne and Sandra Van Schaick, who had previously won a GMC Terrain in the 2018 lottery and a sports car in Edmonton's Full House Lottery.

"We're tremendously excited and happy to look at it. It's beautiful," Sandra said. "We're always getting a rough time about how lucky we are."

Kris Podolski, president of the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie, outlined several initiatives the lottery proceeds would support, such funding sport groups and playgrounds. The club also plans on building a Wellness House next to the new Regional Hospital, renovating the D-Coy Armouries and constructing four Habitat for Humanity homes.

"Those are just a few places where the money goes and I hope that you feel good about your purchase of a ticket and that it's really giving back to the community," Podolski told spectators during the lottery draw at the dream home.

The Van Schiacks have been buying tickets since the lottery began 26 years ago.

"We've had family members ourselves who've needed assistance at some point, whether its health or otherwise, and it's a great cause and we support a lot of things in the community," Sandra said.

The Carriage Lane home is valued at $1.4 million and has a modern farmhouse design with sliding barn doors. Features include a three-season sun room, a wine room, a wet bar, and an 18-foot indoor slide into the lower-level gym area.

The Van Schiacks said they hadn't yet committed to moving into the dream home.

"We want to have a look but it's looking pretty promising," Sandra added.

Lottery proceeds also go to over 20 groups who helped sell lottery tickets, including the Big Brothers Big Sisters Association of Grande Prairie, Special Olympics Grande Prairie, the Nitehawk Alpine Ski Team, PARDS Therapeutic Centre, the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre Aboriginal Head Start Program, the QEII Hospital Auxiliary Association and others.

Europe moves to kill the American supersonic dream

Europe brought supersonic passenger travel to life, but now that the U.S. is trying to bring it back, the Continent says no thanks.

Almost 16 years after the last Concorde flight flew from New York to London, the U.S. — egged on by startups at home — wants an updated regulatory framework to put supersonic planes back in the air and across the Atlantic.

American negotiators this month put forward a proposal in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal to revise international rules for supersonic travel. But Europe wasn't interested, pushing back legislation that could have allowed the speedy return of supersonic air travel.

European representatives were concerned about the greater noise and emissions that may come from supersonic jets, according to officials at the meeting. They also fretted about the adverse effects of water vapor at high altitudes, which works as a greenhouse gas.

In Europe, governments are under pressure to cut emissions, and noise complaints keep airports from expanding. Beyond environmental concerns, Europeans still have vivid memories of the Concorde Flight 4590, which crashed soon after it took off from Paris Charles De Gaulle in 2000, killing all 113 people onboard and speeding up the aircraft phase out.

We love our pools, and this one especially

I want to tell you about a difficult place that I visit regularly since moving to my suburb in the inner fringes of a large Australian city. The place is a gym, and I like it in the winter because there is a steam room there, a good place to zone out and think about the day. In the summer, the place is best known for its appended outdoor pool.

The gym sits above the pool in a pale alien sphere and, occasionally, at the pool, you see a sunglassed person peer up and say searchingly: “Oh! There's a gym up there.”

The pool itself is famous. It's been immortalised in films, in rare things – famous novels – and even rarer things, famous newspaper articles from the 1980s that are still sometimes photocopied and taught in university classes today. Recently, I saw footage of this iconic pool in the museums of two different capital cities, in two separate art exhibitions, exhibiting simultaneously. We love our pools, and this one especially.

I love this pool very much and need this gym very often, and as with all things we need and love, I take special licence to scrutinise its workings to a level perhaps unwarranted. This essay is a short appreciation, but some of my appreciation takes the form of complaint. As such, I choose to leave the pool – the place – anonymous, in the vain hope that there is room, in our searchable society, to keep certain details undigitised and unnamed.

I think of this hope – I think of the undigital, the primordial – because the pool in question moves towards the modern only lurchingly, as if some inner amphibious brain is always pulling it home. If upkeep is strong, then facilities are creaky. If repairs occur, they are involved and counterproductive, suggesting that outside forces conspire to fix the pool in space and time. Members of its public embrace the ahistoric vibe. For every thirtysomething who discovered the pool in his twenties, and remembers, while he squeezes a swim in between work and sleep, how easy it used to be to laze around this pool all morning, there's at least one old-timer who has circled back around to this twentysomething fantasy and experiences it as daily life. It is always a lone man, and each of these lone men haunt the pool at odd hours, sitting in white plastic chairs, never reading, barely talking, just eking out the day with the same contented smile on each distinctive face.

In the newspaper article I'm thinking of, the pool is described as both a microcosm of society and a leveller thereof, all the classes mixing in their bathing suits. This only makes it especially delicious that the pool is literally stratified. The pool has steps, levels: a famous stack of bleachers, which becomes very crowded on a sunny day. It is up for grabs whether lying on the top row feels like you're exposing yourself to the community or parcelling yourself away. Little balconies, incidentally, overhang this pool, but only once have I seen a face peering through the windows with the rippled look of strangers behind reflecting panes. Never once have I seen anybody on the balconies, some of which are festooned with nautical souvenirs.

Steve Lovett chasing down a boxing dream

Life under boxing's bright lights can be exciting. It can be lonely too.

Stressful, thrilling, draining, addictive. Highs and lows come with the territory of a life inside the squared circle. Fighters both love and loathe the physical and emotional toll they put themselves through for just one night.

But Steve Lovett is an unabashed dream chaser. He wouldn't change a thing.

Lovett (17-2) will return to the ring against Reagan Dessaix (15-1) for the World Boxing Association Oceania light heavyweight title at Tweed Heads' Seagulls Rugby League Club on Saturday night.

For Lovett, this one has been a long time coming. His last opponent pulled out just days before they were supposed to dance in May. When the chance to fight on home soil popped up, he jumped at it.

He has been training under boxing icon Ronnie Shields in Houston since 2014, but for this camp he whisked himself away to train under a man that has been exactly where Lovett wants to go.

Lovett has been training on home soil with the man that unified a glamour division of his time in Australian boxing legend Danny Geale.

Amidst the humour of mashing potatoes with a hammer during tongue-in-cheek cooking videos that label him "America's worst cook" and dancing to AC/DC in the gym under the guise of a "fair dinkum feet wizard", Lovett's end goal has never wavered.

For the record, Lovett can cook - he was once a contestant on The Great Australian Bake Off. He can dance as well. Neither of those abilities can hold a candle to his skill in the ring.

A trip to Las Vegas to watch fellow Australian Jeff Horn attempt to defend a world championship on boxing's biggest stage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena earlier this year - coincidentally at the same venue Lovett first competed at on United States soil - just fuelled the fire for the 33-year-old larrikin.