11
October

From Arket to Agolde: I Just Tried On 2024’s Best-Selling Jeans

By avi maxwel / in , , , , /

The best pairs of jeans are the ones you want to live in and wear again and again – and they get better every time you slip them on. However finding the “perfect style” can be hard, given there are so many different silhouettes, cuts and washes available, plus sizing can vary depending on the brand.

The options are endless, and so to help you with your search, I spent a day changing-room hopping to give you insights on the best jeans you can buy right now. Yes, the options seem endless, but after trying on countless pairs of varying shapes, sizes, and cotton compositions, I’ve realised that the pool of exceptional, stand-out styles is much smaller than you’d think. The age old technique of trial and error has turned me to the classics such as Levi’s, Citizens Of Humanity and Agolde, as well as more contemporary iterations from the likes of Arket, Uniqlo and Ganni. Vintage stores are worth visiting too: Unlike off-the-rack styles, vintage denim offers worn-in appeal, as well as unique details like rivets, stitching and patches that give jeans a beautiful lived-in quality.

My top tip is to always take a change of shoes to the

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08
October

Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion by Charlie Porter review – style revolution | Art and design books

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , , , , , , /

When Virginia Woolf invited TS Eliot down for a country weekend in 1920 she concluded with “Please bring no clothes”. This was not a suggestion that “Tom” should arrive in East Sussex naked. Such a possibility was unlikely anyway since at this point the poet was still working as a buttoned-up clerk at Lloyds Bank. Eliot was famously wedded to his three-piece suit to the point where, Woolf joked, he would have worn a four-piece one if such a thing existed. What she meant by “bring no clothes” was that at Monk’s House they did not dress for dinner, change for church (there was no church), or worry about getting their best clothes grubby in the garden. This was Bloomsbury, albeit a rural version, and the clothing conventions to which the rest of upper-middle-class society had returned after the first world war had no place there.

Fashion journalist Charlie Porter is spot-on with his suggestion that the way the circle thought about clothes was part of a wider revolt against the late-Victorian society in which its members had been raised (Woolf was born in 1882, Eliot six years later). Choosing not to wear black tie for dinner or gloves “in

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06
October

Coalition by popular sites meant to battle fake reviews. Who’s not part of it?

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , , /

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — “I looked at a lot of the reviews online on Google, looked at a bunch on Yelp, just kind of tried to do due diligence on it,” said Las Vegas homeowner Chris Hove, who found out the hard way that reviews he partially relied on to pick his pool builder were fake.

“To do something like that is extremely shady,” Hove said.

After he left his review, he started looking more closely at others.

“I noticed numerous reviews that were very recent that were talking multiple praises, five stars, how great they were, and I thought, ‘this is kind of funny, completely contradicts my experience and my neighbors’ experiences.'”

The internet is littered with fake reviews.

It’s become such a big problem that companies who typically compete are instead coming together to try to ensure customers get a more honest picture when deciding where to spend their money.

The platforms now banding together will battle fake reviews like those we exposed with Greencare Pool Builder in Las Vegas.

The newly formed Coalition for Trusted Reviews will establish best practices for hosting online reviews and work to detect and call out fakes.

Chris Hove says it shouldn’t

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04
October

Amazon turns to AI to help customers find clothes that fit when shopping online

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , /

After recently turning to generative AI to enhance its product reviews, e-commerce giant Amazon today shared how it’s now using AI technology to help customers shop for apparel online. The company explains it’s now using large language models, generative AI and machine learning to power four AI-powered features that will help customers find clothing that fits — an ongoing challenge when shopping online and the leading cause for apparel returns.

According to a study by Coresight Research, the average return rate for clothing ordered online is 24.4%, which is eight percentage points higher than the overall online return rate. In addition, retailers and brands said online returns had grown over the past two years. Often, that’s in part because today’s consumers will buy an item in multiple sizes or colors and then return those that don’t work out, as the process of home try-ons and shipping items back has become easier.

To address this challenge, Amazon has introduced AI into the online shopping experience in four ways: in personalized size recommendations, a “Fit Insights” tool for sellers, AI-powered highlights from fit reviews left by other customers and reimagined size charts.

With the personalized size recommendations, Amazon Fashion used AI

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30
September

Record online deals on toys, electronics and clothes coming this holiday season

By avi maxwel / in , , , , , , , , /

By Matt Egan, CNN Business

NEW YORK – Online shoppers will be offered record-setting discounts this holiday season as retailers attempt to entice inflation-weary consumers to buy, according to projections released Thursday by Adobe Analytics. And the company predicts the strategy will work, with online holiday sales climbing almost 5% above last year.

Retailers are poised to offer up to 35% off listed prices this holiday season, with the deepest discounts applied to toys, electronics and apparel, Adobe said in its annual holiday forecast.

The company expects consumers to seize on these deals, and spend aggressively even as concerns about rising costs and the health of the economy continue to linger.

Consumers will likely spend $221.8 billion via online shopping between November 1 and the end of the year, according to Adobe. That would represent solid growth of 4.8% year-over-year, an acceleration of the 3.5% growth in 2022.

So what will people be buying? Adobe says the hottest sellers this season will include LEGO Minifigures, Kanoodle 3D, Barbie the Movie products, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Madden NFL 24, iPhone 15 models and Birkenstock Bostons.

Where are the deepest discounts

Discounts for toys are seen peaking at 35% off listed

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