The Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) initiative says Bonprix, part of the German mail order and e-commerce giant Otto Group, was the largest buyer of its sustainable cotton in 2016, along with fellow German retailers Tchibo and Rewe Group.
The Register’s boys cross country preview.
O.C. BOYS TO WATCH
Alexis Garcia, Newport Harbor
Garcia made huge improvements as a sophomore and will challenge for the county’s top spot as a junior. Garcia was second at O.C. Championships, won the Sunset League and qualified for state. He was first-team All-County.
Anthony Grover, JSerra
Grover had an explosive debut season and will continue to see his stock rise as a sophomore. Grover was the top county runner in every Division 4 race and posted his best time of the season in a fourth-place finish at O.C. Championships. He was first-team All-County.
Stuart Kendall, Foothill
Kendall was one of the most consistent top runners in the county as a junior and will look to finish his high school career with a burst. Kendall was ninth at O.C. Championships and finished outside of the top 10 only once, 18th place at state. He was first-team All-County.
Jack Landgraf, Dana Hills
Landgraf was the county’s biggest running star as a junior, being named the Register’s cross county athlete of the year, and will try to keep Dana Hills on its championship perch. Landgraf was O.C. champion and South Coast League champion and led the Dolphins to a CIF-SS runner-up finish.
Adrian Vargas, El Toro
Vargas will be the leader on a strong El Toro team. El Toro returns six of its top seven runners with four seniors, including Vargas as pacesetter, from a team that was second in the South Coast League and third at O.C. Championships. Vargas was eighth at O.C. Championships and second-team All-County.
Dunkirk, as memorialized in arguably the best movie of the summer, foreshadowed the catastrophic events wrought by Hurricane Harvey in Texas. The Christopher Nolan masterpiece recounted the heroic events in May of 1940, when at the outset of World War II, the English citizenry rallied to the rescue of more than 330,000 British and French troops who were trapped on a beach in northern France. While some of those soldiers could almost see home across the English Channel, the shallow waters prevented their rescue by warships. Instead, it was a flotilla of nearly 700 civilian craft — the Little Ships of Dunkirk — that made their way from Ramsgate in England to assist with the rescue.
And so it was in Texas. In Houston, civilian volunteers created patchwork flotillas composed of dinghies, jet skis, rafts, and fishing boats in an effort to ferry hundreds of residents to safety. A health-care worker named Jeremy Sparkman told Reuters: “I usually just use this boat for drinking beer, but we come together when we need to — that’s what Texans do.” Indeed. And when the Harris County Department of Homeland Security asked for volunteers one day after the storm’s landing, hundreds of boat owners responded to the call, and supply soon exceeded demand.
The Texas flotilla was an American Dunkirk, minus the aerial bombardment. So just for a moment, can we celebrate the human spirit that we all watched play out in the Lone Star State?
Those like Adam Brackman. The 41-year-old bar owner in Houston commandeered a civilian boat — a 16-foot flat-bottom fishing boat — and set about rescuing neighbors.
“I made a post on Facebook and next thing I know I’m getting 100 texts an hour,” he told me. “When my boat captain wanted to call it quits at the end of the day I jumped on a bigger boat and helped them navigate.”
By day two, with the arrival of police and the Coast Guard, things were more orderly. But the distress calls didn’t stop.
Brackman was fortunate in that his own home was not damaged, he never lost power and had use of the internet, which he said was integral to relief efforts.
“Social media was a game-changer,” he said. “Without the internet, we would have seen multiples of the final death count. The walkie-talkie Zello app in particular allowed us to match boats with those who needed rescue. One of the most moving things was how friends saw what I was doing on social media and jumped in to help with their own trucks, boats, kayaks or computers.”
There are many like him to venerate: The first responders. Those who risked their lives for strangers. Neighbors who opened their homes to those who required shelter from the storm. Heroics to save the lives of pets. The many who undertook fund-raising tasks and the many more who responded to those calls. And those dozen or so whom CNN televised after they formed a human chain to wade into waist-deep water to save an elderly man whose SUV was submerged on the Houston interstate.
There was something missing from that dramatic rescue: No one asked the man how he was registered to vote nor requested to see his immigration papers. And for several days, there was similarly an absence of partisan rancor. Not even a trumped-up debate between the Democratic Houston mayor and the Republican governor of Texas over evacuation took hold. Instead, after the storm, politics immediately was secondary to saving lives and protecting property.
The wind and waters of Hurricane Harvey didn’t discriminate. They lashed Republicans, Democrats and independents. Young and old. The rich and poor, the black, white, Asian and Hispanic.
Here’s hoping its legacy is a reminder of all that unites us.
Michael Smerconish can be heard 9 a.m. to noon on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124. He hosts “Smerconish” at 9 a.m. Saturdays on CNN.
MISSION VIEJO – As discussions continue about the rising cost of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department contracts with South Orange County cities, Mission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Ed Sachs said during his closing remarks at Tuesday night’s Sept. 12 city council meeting that perhaps the time has come for cities to consider forming their own police force.
Sachs’ concerns centered around a lack of appropriate statistics, which he said are necessary for the city council to make appropriate decisions on how to protect the residents of Mission Viejo.
“I have no idea what it costs us per deputy to run a police service in this city,” Sachs said.
“If we’re not able to get those sorts of things…it may be time, in fact, to start a (joint powers authority) in South County and start our own police services,” he added. “We could contract out to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for SWAT or helicopters, or boat rescue.”
Sachs’ remarks come nearly one month after Mission Viejo announced it was taking the lead among and offering a memorandum of understanding with 12 other cities to conduct a study into the rising cost of the annual OCSD contract.
The other cities include Aliso Viejo, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Stanton, Villa Park and Yorba Linda. Some of those cities have already agreed to enter the memorandum of understanding. The rest are anticipated to vote by the end of September on whether or not to approve the collective study.
Over the last 10 years, costs for OCSD law enforcement services have risen on average by 33 percent. Some cities have seen their police services contracts rise by 25 percent over the last three years, including Aliso Viejo, Lake Forest and Rancho Santa Margarita.
Dennis Wilberg, city manager for Mission Viejo, said in August the city was in a very good position, “so I wouldn’t call (the contract) a hardship.
“We all agree, it’s good management and good practice to every so often take a look at the contract to see if we can create efficiencies,” he said.
But Sachs said a report, showing five-year projections, during the city’s budget workshop process revealed that if the costs continue to escalate at their current rate, Mission Viejo’s expenses could surpass revenues in three years.
“I can guarantee you that the police services contract will continue to escalate,” Sachs said. “What that means is we are unable to have some of the services that we need in this city and that our residents enjoy in this city.”
According to the contract documents, Mission Viejo is paying just over $19 million for police services in 2017-18, including $609,000 for regional or shared staff and $2.7 million in other charges and credits for bilingual staff, contract administration, enhanced helicopter response services, overtime and holiday pay, among others, according to the contract documents.
That contract between the city and OCSD was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, June 27.
O.C. supervisors also manage any benefit and pay increases to OCSD employees, Sachs said, adding the city has no input into that process, but the city is saddled with the bills from that process. He said the city rarely needs SWAT or helicopter rescue services.
“I’m not saying they’re not important,” he said. “I can’t look to a resident and tell them exactly what our police services cost in this city and I think every person should know full well what those costs are, but we don’t have that information.”
He also said he believes the council is getting erroneous data, or not all the data it deserves to make judgments on police services.
Theft, vandalism and disorderly conduct account for the highest number of crimes in Mission Viejo, according to OCSD data on its website.
“I would implore the city manager and other staff members to continue to press for the kind of information this council needs to make the appropriate kind of decisions on public safety for this city,” Sachs said. “It’s the No. 1 thing we think about every day. How do we protect the residents of this city? They pay taxes, they deserve the best police services money can buy.
“We claim over and over that we’re the safest city, but I have no idea,” he added. “I have no idea if that’s true or not.”
The Register’s girls cross country preview.
TOP O.C. GIRLS TO WATCH
Alyssa Bautista, Capistrano Valley
Bautista is part of the two-headed spear that leads Capistrano Valley. As a junior, Bautista had only two finishes outside of the top four including fourth-place at the O.C. championships, second in South Coast League and third at the CIF-SS Finals. She was first-team All-County.
Haley Herberg, Capistrano Valley
Herberg is the other half of Capo Valley’s two-headed front. Herberg collected five first-place finishes as a junior including the O.C. and South Coast League titles. Herberg fell back slightly in her final two races, which will surely give her motivation to close out her senior campaign. She was first-team All-County.
Sara Leonard, Canyon
Leonard is another of the strong seniors that will compete at the top in 2017. Leonard finished outside of the top three only twice, fifth place at Dana Hills and ninth at CIF-SS Finals. She took third at O.C. Championships and at CIF State where Leonard missed first by just 1.1 seconds. She was first-team All-County.
Ashley Messineo, El Toro
Messineo steps into the Chargers’ top spot to lead a young but experienced group. As a junior, Messnieo finished fifth at Sea View League, 14th at CIF-SS Finals and qualified for state. She was second-team All-County.
Nadia Tabrizi, JSerra
Tabrizi made huge leaps as a sophomore and has JSerra primed for team success in 2017. Tabrizi was seventh at O.C. championships and won the Trinity League. She was second at CIF-SS finals where JSerra took the Division 4 title and fifth at State. Tabrizi is coming off an injury, but the returning All-County first-teamer feels strong.
Sally LaPointe approached her spring collection in a very pragmatic way. “It was all about being direct, focusing on being clear and confident,” she said backstage at her show. In the lineup, a group of monochromatic white looks illustrated this. Clean, relaxed roomy pants and matching tops and tanks in cream which she then transitioned into similarly nonchalant looks in silver made for some breathing room before the statements looks made their way in. “I wanted to start off with a blank canvas and then build things up from there,” she explained. And build she did. Hand-cut leather fringed dresses and skirts, ultralight lurex and sequined wrap dresses dialed things up but were done with enough constraint that nothing felt overcharged. Not even the linear silver and black striped cape dress.
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.Read More…
The See By Chloé girl embarked on a South African adventure for spring. She packed lightweight parkas, cropped anoraks, textured cotton baggy overalls and practical shorts for adventurous hiking tours in the mountains. Her comfortable cotton dresses splashed with tropical patterns were embellished with sporty drawstrings and her crochet cotton sweaters were cut in loose silhouettes. The colors of the varied nature surrounding her inspired the dusty, gray-brown tone of her washed denim pants and skirts, as well as the light tie-dye effect of her T-shirts.
Despite her dynamic outdoor trip, she couldn’t renounce her signature Boho-chic attitude and she brought with her airy ruffled dresses worked in micro floral prints, as well as knitted frocks punctuated by eyelet details. During a stop in Cape Town she actually managed to express her urban attitude via cotton-linen blouses enriched with macrame lace inserts and chic minidresses featuring multicolor ruffled accents.
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.Read More…
Traditional Asian gardens were the inspiration for Jenny Packham’s beautiful spring collection of charming evening dresses. Exquisite wisteria and jasmine embroideries bloomed on floor-length dresses injected with a lively, joyful femininity. A chic Forties-inspired column frock embroidered with a lively, cute view of a Far Eastern park had a retro feel. The British brand’s upscale craftsmanship was evident in a gown with all-over embroidery, which created a multicolor graphic pattern inspired by a vintage Japanese kimono, while sequins mimicked delicate petals on a glamorous mini frock. Lee Ufan’s works featuring thick paint strokes on white canvas influenced the artsy decoration of a strapless turquoise ballgown.
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.Read More…
POTUS ex-wife Ivana Trump was front row and center at Zang Toi’s runway show Wednesday at Manhattan’s Skylight Clarkson Sq, the day after her youngest son, Erik, and daughter-in-law, Lara, welcomed their first child.
Trump refused to discuss President Trump, but she had family on the brain. “I’m coming out with a new book Oct. 10,” she said. “It’s called ‘Raising Trump.’” While the president is often censured by the press for childish behavior, The Donald, as Ivana called the president when they were married, isn’t the subject of the book.
“It’s about how did I raise my kids,” said Trump, who was wearing a purple dress and black blazer cinched with a floral belt and butterfly pin on the lapel. “I’m very proud of them. I can’t talk about it anymore. Oct. 10, the book is coming out.”
“I was a tough and loving mother who taught [my children] the value of a dollar, not to lie, cheat or steal, respect for others,” a blurb for the Simon and Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint, said.
“Raising Trump” is a departure from Trump’s earlier oeuvres; she’s written a self-help guide for divorcees and romance novels, “For Love Alone,” which got her in hot water. Donald Trump sued Ivana for
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
Read More…
Fashion week, above showing designers’ collections for the upcoming seasons, is a sensory experience. Designers seek to surprise, inspire and sometimes, shock. The New York Fashion Week spring 2018 season was no exception. Between animal protesters, massive party performances and hotly anticipated model debuts, these are the news stories that has the industry talking.
1. Ralph Lauren Invited Guests to His House in Bedford
Shades of red at Ralph Lauren’s show.
Giovanni Giannoni/WWD
For his fall buy-now-wear-now collection, Ralph Lauren invited the fashion crowd to his garage, which houses some of the most spectacular cars on earth ($40 million Bugatti, anyone?). As for the clothes, they included a nontraditional way to dress at night.
2. Animal Rights Protesters Disrupted Banana Republic’s See-Now-Buy-Now Show
Protesters held up signs at the Banana Republic show.
Stephen Lovekin/WWD/REX/Shutterstock
It was a typical fashion week show on Fifth Avenue — until it wasn’t. Presenting the Banana Republic x Olivia Palermo collection, the show was interrupted by animal rights activists protesting Palermo’s use of fur in her own life.
3. Rihanna Entertained Showgoers With Pink Sand and Bike Stunts at Fenty Puma
Rihanna takes a bow on a bmx bike.
Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock
The Park Avenue Armory featured sand dunes throughout, leaving attendees curious for what was
Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.
Read More…