Dress For Wedding

Mustering up the energy and enthusiasm to exercise when winter sets in can be hard work. Whether it’s the cold weather or a diary full of social events there's no doubt working out takes a back seat.

Fortunately, there are plenty of online workout programmes and video streaming sites that make it easier and more convenient to exercise wherever and whenever you want. But with hundreds of online workouts, deciphering the good from the not so good can be a job within itself. So here are the best virtual fitness classes to sign-up to now…

Best for every possible type of yoga

Movement for Modern Life has a yoga class for every level and requirement, including a ski series to help you strengthen your core before hitting the slopes. Whether you have five minutes or 20, there's a class that will suit you and an array of different instructors too, so it’s very hard to get bored.

Best for improving your grace and poise

Former ballet dancer Mary Helen Bowers trained Natalie Portman for her role in Black Swan and has more than a handful of A-list clients. Ballet Beautiful classes use a range of barre and dance techniques to strengthen your core, lengthen your limbs and improve your posture. For those who can’t make it to either of the New York studios, you can buy a bundle of classes to stream wherever you are in the world.

Best free online workout class

If you don’t want to spend money on working out, or if you’re travelling and can’t get to your usual class, Sweaty Betty’s online workout videos are a saving grace. The brand regularly teams up with fitness studios and trainers, including Body by Simone and 1 Rebel. Whether you want to do barre or boxfit, Sweaty Betty offers a range of different workouts.

long bridesmaid dresses | coral bridesmaid dresses

Ivanka Trump Separates Personal Social-Media Accounts From Those of Her Brand

Ivanka Trump, facing criticism about conflicts of interest as her father ascends to the White House, has separated her personal social-media messages from those of her lifestyle brand. The Ivanka Trump editorial team said in a message this week that the future first daughter will only be using her Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts for personal messages -- rather than brand-related news. Newly created IvankaTrumpHQ accounts will deliver content from her business, which spans women’s apparel, jewelry and footwear.

Her company drew flak after sending a “style alert” to journalists last week promoting a gold bracelet that Ivanka Trump wore during an interview on CBS Corp.’s “60 Minutes.” The piece was part of her jewelry collection.

“This is an unprecedented time for our company and we are being intentional in how we move forward, working hard to ensure we’re creating the best possible community for our readers,” Ivanka Trump’s editorial team said in a note posted to her website. “We’ve been listening to the feedback we’ve received, both positive and not, and we’ve been taking it into consideration as we plan for the future.”

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will give control of his companies to his children, who are also part of his transition team. His daughter’s business previously raised questions in July when it tweeted a link to a dress sold at Macy’s, urging followers to “Shop Ivanka’s look” from her speech at the Republican National Convention.

Her latest personal tweet was about her son’s bake sale: “Don’t cut in 1/2 a recipe’s suggested amount of sugar when baking banana bread,” she wrote on Tuesday. “I did, and the result is not pretty!”

blue bridesmaid dresses uk | pink bridesmaid dresses

What is the Real Impact of Black Friday, Cyber Monday Shopping?

China's Singles Day and the American version, Black Friday (or maybe more accurately, Cyber Monday) each last just 24 hours, but the environmental impact of such shopping extravaganzas persist for years, according to reports.

Couriers and delivery firms handled more than one billion packages during this year’s Singles Day, up 35% from last year; Alibaba's logistics arm, Cainiao, alone will deliver 657 million packages. U.S. sales and their corresponding shipping commitments are not expected to lag too far behind relatively, and the same can be said for the carbon footprint associated with such shopping.

The e-commerce aspect of these massive shopping days as distinct from the practice of traditional brick-and-mortar retail seems to give way to more environmentally sound practices. This is something Amazon happily (and very biasedly) touts on its own website: "Online shopping is inherently more environmentally friendly than traditional retailing. The efficiencies of online shopping result in a greener shopping experience than traditional retailing." But is that entirely accurate?

The answer, experts say, depends on a host of variables, including the type of vehicles used for deliveries, the distances driven, the number of products per shipment, the rate of product returns, and the environmental cost of the packaging.

DELIVERY

Consider the actual delivery of online-purchased goods. As CNN Money noted earlier this month, a delivery truck, for example, packed full of Amazon.com packages and following an efficient route, consumes far less fuel per package than an individual consumer does if he were to drive to the brick-and-mortar store to make a single purchase. That is not a uniform rule, though.

The Logistics Research Center at Heriot-Watt University conducted a carbon audit of conventional versus online shopping in 2009. They found that while "neither home delivery nor conventional shopping has an absolute advantage, on average home delivery is likely to generate less [carbon] than the typical shopping trip." But Jason Mathers, a senior manager at the Environmental Defense Fund, says that is far less true if the deliveries are rural, with stops father apart. He says that delivering online purchases by truck in rural Connecticut, for instance, is "hardly the greenest way to shop."

As researchers from the University of California, Davis, the University of Delaware, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found in recent years, with consumers' increasing reliance on e-commerce shopping, transportation emissions are on the rise. They suspect that online shopping and delivery services are a primary contributor to increases in transportation emissions over the past several years despite the incentives for delivery services to find the most efficient routes to keep fuel costs (and emissions) down.

PACKAGING

Also worth considering: The packaging materials, a significant amount of which consists of cardboard and various types of plastic. While cardboard is highly recyclable, the vast amount of it that is being used and disposed of, it is hardly sustainable.

According to a February 2016 New York Times report, entitled, E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard, 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States alone, and e-commerce companies were among the fastest-growing users. Moreover, even though recycling is a markedly positive initiative, it requires water and energy consumption, and transportation of the materials to recycling facilities, which generates emissions.

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

Still yet, there is shoppers’ insatiable urge to consume growing amounts of products, and on shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this largely takes the form of electronics. The Consumer Electronics Association has noted in the past that roughly 75 percent of Americans buying gifts during the holiday season will purchase consumer electronics, including laptop computers, iPads, smart phones, and televisions.

The unique characteristics of electronics production, consumption, and disposal make these mass-shopping days particularly problematic. Demos, an American public policy organization, cites a number of electronics-specific elements namely, the short product life-spans and rapid turnover in consumer electronics; design and materials complexity, global supply chains, and insufficiently regulated recycling and e-scrap markets; and the high toxicity of many materials used in electronic devices, and the adverse health and environmental impacts of poorly regulated e-waste disposal, materials salvage, and recycling-for-reuse as some of the most pressing aspects of such widespread consumption of these products.

And this is something Apple can attest to. When the tech giant analyzed the carbon cost of an iPad, it found that transportation and packaging ranked low on the list amounting to just upwards of 10 percent. With this in mind, the Environmental Defense Fund’s Mathers notes that if environmental sustainability is your goal, the channel through which you buy-online or from a brick and mortar store-is relatively irrelevant.

Consumers wanting to be eco-friendly, he says, should instead focus on other issues, particularly when it comes to electronics. “Ask yourself: Do I really need to buy this, at all? If not, you've saved yourself and the planet heap of carbon right there. If yes, do you really need to buy it new? Buying a product used, he says, will save energy, no matter whether you buy online or in a store.”

white bridesmaid dresses | green bridesmaid dresses

Abandoned fishing nets, waste from production and the fluff of carpeting are set to be used in forthcoming collections from Gucci. This isn’t just another artistic expression from creative director Alessandro Michele, but rather an attempt for the brand to further its sustainable footprint.

Those aforementioned waste materials are used to in the creation of ECONYL, a nylon fabric created by Italian textile producer, Aquafil. The fabric is part of a closed loop production cycle: it’s woven entirely from found waste and is, in turn, 100 percent regenerable. According to the company, ECONYL can be created over and over again, without posing any threat to quality.

That might explain why Gucci, the purveyor of furry leather slides and a $28,000 off-the-rack dress, has decided to use ECONYL in the production of their men’s 2017 outerwear. According to Aquafil, they are the first luxury brand to utilize this fabric, which was created in 2011.

“Gucci is at the forefront of sustainable good practices, and the high quality of ECONYL is able to replace the traditional material in Gucci’s luxury fabrics without any compromise in quality,” said Giulio Bonazzi, the CEO of Aquafil. “Gucci would never accept something below its superior standards.” The flashy Italian label isn’t the first to use this new nylon; early adapters of the sustainable textile includes Levi Strauss Co., Speedo and Volcom. Pro surfer and ocean enthusiast Kelly Slater even used ECONYL in his debut range, Outerknown.

Gucci’s parent company, Kering, has a strong sustainability mission. They openly publish details on their goals for manufacturing greener goods, including “leather traceability and responsible gold sourcing to water pollution, chemical use and carbon emissions.” The collections released by brands in the company’s portfolio are 99.8 percent PVC-free and by 2020, will be produced without the use of any hazardous materials.

This is hardly the first time Gucci has been acknowledged for going green. The brand notoriously swapped out PVC for polyurethane, a much less harmful material, in their iconic Dionysus bags in 2015 (though they were chided by Washington Post‘s Robin Givhan for keeping quiet about the change). In 2013, they worked with Livia Firth on a bag made entirely from leather sourced sustainably from the Amazon and in 2012 they released a range of shoes in biodegradable plastic. The list goes on, with eco-friendly totes, sunglasses and t-shirts being offered by the brand over the years.

While Gucci is still known for using fur, leather and other animal by-products in their designs (hello, this isn’t Stella McCartney we’re talking about), at least the fashion giant is setting an honorable, and green, example for the rest of the design world.

http://www.queeniebridesmaid.co.uk/vintage-bridesmaid-dresses

http://www.queeniebridesmaid.co.uk/pink-bridesmaid-dresses-uk

It’s easy to get lazy in winter. Just get a padded jacket and voice some pithy thoughts about the election and you’re set until spring, right? Wrong. It is possible to be cool in winter. All you have to do is pretend it’s 1996, dry-clean that suit you never wear, get a baseball bat and buy everything in XL. Or hell, even XXL. Just let us be your guide …

Suit up

For a long time, it felt as if suits had been killed off the casualty of casual dressing. But when Tom Ford talks, we listen. Apparenty, the designer and film director wore suits and boots on the set of his new film Nocturnal Animals, proclaiming he felt “weak in trainers”. Take note: smartening up is totally that strong-arm emoji.

Buy everything in XXL

The oversized trend is this season’s overarching look. It can be seen from Topshop to Balenciaga, from menswear to womenswear, and, because of its flexibility (you can apply it to coats, trousers, jumpers), it probably won’t peak. Fashion has caught on, though, so if you want an oversized Raf Simons jacket, expect to pay upwards of £3,000 (even Topshop Unique’s tent-like pink padded jacket is more than £100). Our tip is to buy everything in XXL. Comically oversized. Better still, try menswear XXL.

Show logos

Granted, fashion tends to yo-yo on this one (sometimes it’s no logos on bags, sometimes it’s big logos on hoodies), but when it comes to underwear, in this post-capitalist, post-consumer, post-post world, logos are deeply cool. As long as they’re worn with a smidge of irony. And if flashing your Calvin Klein waistband feels a bit trite, try a designer name (Christian Dior) on your bra strap (like Bella Hadid) while saying something pithy about post-consumerism.

Wear Old Skool Vans

Yes, Frank Ocean wore Vans to the White House, and the popularity of the “Damn Daniel” meme saw a 30% spike in sales. But sorry, Frank, those aren’t the right Vans. The Old Skool the black ones with the squiggle down the side, yours for £52 are worn by the frow and on the catwalk for Off-White. They also date back to 1977, which provides that stamp of authenticity.

Don a Caballero hat

Everybody knows Prince’s Purple Rain look. Now it’s time to explore the rest of his fashion oeuvre. Enter the Caballero hat. Prince wears one in the bath in his 1986 black-and-white film Under the Cherry Moon, set in an unspecified era that is possibly the 1930s. Feel free to wear one, too.

Do Gucci on a budget

Love the new Gucci look but can’t afford the four-figure prices? Silken Favours is your friend. Set up by former model Vicki Murdoch in 2012, its designs include cowboy shirts with parrots, and blouses with leopards as standard. They might be £265 and up, but they are worth the investment. Not for wallflowers.

teal bridesmaid dresses | bridesmaid dresses