Design Art and Photography

New York—Jewelry hits the beach big-time in the 2008 edition of Sports Illustrated’s famous “Swimsuit” issue, with Lana Jewelry and Michael Spirito for Exhibitionist as two of the featured designers. Sporting everything from layered necklaces and cocktail rings to stacked bangles and drippy earrings, the beautiful models in their barely-there bikinis often take a backseat to bling. The is the first year for Spirito’s designs to be featured in the magazine and the second year for Lana Jewelry, whose “Petite Boheme Necklace” and “Affinity Ring” have their day in the sun.
(Full post Some swimsuit with your jewelry?…)

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Continuing in the trend of packing more and more resolution into pocketable point-and-shoot cameras, Sony broke news Monday of its new Cyber-Shot W300, a slim new digital camera that takes 13.6-megapixel shots. Like many cameras in Sony’s Cyber-Shot line, the W300 gets a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, which offers 3x zoom and benefits from Sony’s Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization. It also sports a titanium covering to resist scratches and fingerprints, and manages to fit both a 2.7-inch LCD and viewfinder on its back panel.
(Full post Sony W300 Stuffs 13.6MP into a Pocket Cam…)

London—Jewelry designer Stephen Webster will mark his foray into the women’s silver jewelry market with Christina Aguilera at the helm. The Grammy Award-winning singer will appear in Webster’s spring 2008 ad campaign wearing silver earrings, necklaces, cuffs and rings that she inspired. The campaign, which will break in the April issue of W magazine, is based on legendary Alfred Hitchcock films with Aguilera looking like a classic Hitchcock heroine.
(Full post Webster taps pop princess for silver campaign…)

The restaging of Bert Stern’s 1962 Marilyn Monroe photoshoot, using actress Lindsay Lohan, was shrouded in a ‘cloak of secrecy,’ according to . It has also emerged that Stern shot the pictures on film rather than use a digital camera and duplicated the original Monroe set, right down to the lighting he used 46 years ago. Lohan posed nude for the shoot, which took place on 5 February at the Hotel Bel-Air in California В– the location for the photographer’s famous ‘The Last Sitting’ pictures of Monroe, six weeks before she died of an overdose of barbiturates.
(Full post В‘Secrecy’ shrouded Lindsay Lohan’s Monroe shoot…)

Luminous Landscape have reviewed the new Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper, which offers extraordinary blacks, clean whites and a surface texture that is just like a true black-and-white silver gelatin print. “As soon as I started printing on it, I immediately noticed that all my prints looked significantly sharper, much more so than I had anticipated. I am sure that this is partly due to the smoothness of the surface, but I believe that there is something else at work here.
(Full post Epson Exhibition Fiber Review…)

Los Angeles—The music industry was singing the blues when it came to fashion at last night’s 50th Annual Grammy Awards, with crooners such as Rihanna, Beyoncé and Nelly Furtado donning blue-tinted gowns. In terms of jewelry, however, the stars hit a high note, with bold cuffs and drop earrings studded with diamonds taking first place as the top picks of the night. Though cuffs have played a major role in red-carpet jewelry-wardrobing for some time now, the latest incarnations of the trend reveal sculptural forms that diverge from the ubiquitous smooth, circular, wrist-hugging style.
(Full post Stars rock Grammys in cuffs, drop earrings…)

“Bob Marley’s Bed, Ocho Rios, Jamaica”. Taken by Annie Kaye
(Full post The Lion Sleeps Tonight…)

By Mary Wisniewski

New York—Although most fashion designers opt for jewel-free runway looks, Badgley Mischka’s Fall 2008 show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City today showed plenty of bling, with bold necklaces taking the lead.

Necklace looks specifically included layers and big, bold pendants.

Dangling earrings and daring bracelets—all designed by Badgley Mischka—also complemented most of the looks sent down the runway, which generally channeled high glam or a day out in the woods (think beaver and fox vests).

In terms of color, black, burnt-orange, chocolate-brown, evergreen, green-apple and purple popped up frequently on the form-fitting designs.
(Full post Badgley Mischka adds bold necklaces to fall fashion…)

Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs is one of those monumental undertakings not only because of the man who created this body of work, but because of the volume of his body of work, and the number of people he influenced. To try to pare this down to 40 (Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams) or in this case 400 photographs takes time, effort, and dedication. For those who may not know of Ansel Adams, or whom have only heard his name with relation to photography, he was the most honored American photographer of the twentieth century.
(Full post Book Review: Ansel Adams - 400 Photographs, Edited By Andrea G. Stillman…)

By Beth Braverman Hollywood, Calif.—George Clooney and Julia Roberts were not the only losers at the 65th Golden Globe Awards. Also among the disappointed were fashion houses, makeup artists, hotels and—of course—jewelry designers. The Globes appeared a lot less golden this year, as organizers did away with the red carpet and the traditional black-tie trappings. The annual ceremony, which kicks off Hollywood’s awards season, has served in the past as a harbinger of jewelry and fashion trends for the Academy Awards and the rest of the year.
(Full post Red carpet ripped out from jewelry designers…)