Women Site Online

Awards season fashion? Expect to see a lot of bland full-length gowns.

As Oscar season approaches, it’s worth remembering that the red carpet is to fashion what Twitter is to reasoned discourse – it dilutes it to a series of easily digestible and forgettable hits.

“Look forward to”? I’m sorry, Samantha, I think you must have mixed up your letters and sent the one intended for In Style magazine to me and vice-versa. Someone at In Style is doubtless now wondering why they were sent a letter full of sarkiness and references to 80s movies.

Unlike you, Samantha, I’m afraid I hate the red carpet. The red carpet is to fashion what Twitter is to reasoned discourse: it dilutes it to nothing but a series of quick, easily digestible and instantly forgettable hits that will be endlessly discussed within the shouty echo-chamber of commentators, and then repeats the whole process at the next awards event ad nauseum.

And just as Twitter reduces reasoned argument to a series of playground insults and point scoring, so the red carpet diminishes fashion to a series of full-length bland gowns designed purely to make the wearer look thinner and to keep her out of the dreaded “Worst Dressed” column in magazines.

That in itself is fine. Boring, obviously, but fine. All of you actresses want to dress in long beige dresses? Hey, whatever floats your boat, or yacht, I guess, in this case. What makes it not fine is the importance the fashion industry then places on the red carpet, which is depressing and hilarious because not very long ago it was the other way around.

All of, ooh, about 25 years ago, before the internet existed, and before celebrity fashion was deemed so important that it merited at least 27 weekly magazines devoted to this subject, red-carpet fashion hardly existed. Oh sure, celebrities wore nice clothes to events, and sometimes these clothes were so amazing they became famous in themselves (three words: Cher/Bob Mackie) – but neither the celebrities nor the designers saw the clothes as anything potentially career-making or breaking.

Things began to change in 1996 when Sharon Stone, of all people, wore a Gap polo neck to the Oscars (along with some other clothes, presumably, although with Stone you never know) and the store promptly saw profits soar. (Stone, always attuned to what gets attention, repeated the trick two years later when she wore a white button-down shirt from Gap to the Oscars.) The inevitable then duly came to pass.

Designer Karen Capili to show spring 2013 styles at MAGIC.

Karen Capili, one of the West Coast’s latest and most talked-about designers, will be showing her Spring 2013 couture and ready-to-wear designs at the 2012 WWD MAGIC fashion event in Las Vegas. Retailers can see her latest fashions designs at the Joken Style booth (No 75507) at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The MAGIC show runs August 20-23.

For Spring 2013, Capili will be focusing on floral lace, sequins, glitter, prints and beading for accents, and fabrics in bright colors to balance out a soft but noticeable look. She will show a variety of dresses for the upcoming Spring season, as well as designs for immediate delivery and Holiday 2012.

Capili will also be showing select outerwear that will be basic, yet fun-looking in funky colors and cut-inspired. Capili is known for her use of bright vivid colors from the 1980s, which she cleverly intertwines with Victorian-era designs to create unique pieces that reflect divergent time periods yet create a distinctive look that is bold and dramatic, yet also classical and formal.

“Spring 2013 will be inspired by brighter colors, more vivid designs and accents that complement but don’t dominate,” said Capili. “Functionality is a key component, and giving women designs that will stand-out while being easy to wear and coordinate with shoes and accessories.”

Detroit women ID’d amid probe of escort ads.

Authorities have identified three of the four Detroit women found dead this month in two incidents in Detroit, an investigator with the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday.

Three of the Detroit women have been linked to a website that accepts ads for escort services, police have said.

In the latest case, one of the two women found early Christmas Day in the trunk of a car that had been set afire was identified as Vernithea McCrary, 28, the investigator said.

The second victim remains unidentified, said the investigator, who asked not to be identified because he is not allowed to speak on the record to the news media.

The bodies of two other Detroit women found December 19 have been identified as Demesha Hunt, 24, and Renisha Landers, 23. They were found in the trunk of Landers’ Chrysler 300.

Causes of death for the four women were pending toxicology results, which typically take six to eight weeks to be completed, the investigator said.

The process of identification can be difficult.

“People hear of someone that is discovered that we bring down here and they call down here and inform us that someone is missing,” the investigator said. “They give us a description and then they come down if they can be viewed and are recognizable. If not, we ask them to bring a set of dental records for comparison.”

The deaths are being treated as the work of one person or group of people, Detroit’s police chief said Tuesday.

“At this point, we are working it as one case or one suspect or set of suspects,” Chief Ralph L. Godbee told CNN. “There are too many common links for us not to, at this point, work this as one single investigation.”

Among those links, he said, is the fact that three of the women had placed online ads dealing with “prearranged adult dating services” and posted on backpage.com, Godbee told reporters Monday.

“We felt it is imperative to alert the public that deciding to meet unknown persons via the Internet can be extremely dangerous,” Godbee said.

But a lawyer for womensiteonline.com, Steve Suskin, said it was not clear that his company’s website was involved.

“Our team has already provided the police with detailed information about the ads that the suspect or others posted on numerous web sites. Law enforcement authorities now have evidence that the investigation appears to connect to at least 30 different ads or other postings on at least 15 different websites, separate and distinct from ours,” Suskin said.

“We are not aware of the existence of any evidence that would indicate which of these many sites were used by the suspect to establish contact with his victims.”

Backpage representatives have been cooperating with police, the police chief said.

Postings on the escort section of the website cost $1. Referring to the advertisements on the website as “borderline prostitution,” Godbee said that his priorities lie elsewhere. “Right now, we want to get to the bottom of how these four individuals passed away, and who had a hand in their demise,” he said.

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