It fits naturally into the history of the fashion house, echoing Mademoiselle Chanel's passions. She was one of the first women to take on horse riding, dancing and golf, and started creating for her collections as early as the twenties.

Designing Brand-Building Stores
High-end fashion labels like Prada and LVMH look to inventive architects like Frank Gehry to set themselves apart. Critic Raul Barraneche explains

In an age when star architects like Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry have the global brand recognition of high-end fashion labels like Prada or Issey Miyake, it's only natural that both sides join forces. In fact, Koolhaas has designed shopping emporiums for Prada, and Gehry collaborated on store design for Miyake. But do such fashionable stores really translate into increased and sustained brand visibility?

Inspired by 1970?s spirit, the Bay bag has a retro feel with zippers and a multiple pocket luggage identity. It is made of sensual leather and comes in a variety of shapes including: classic satchel, tote, and long strap messenger. The newest version comes with quilted leather and stitching repeated on the front of the bag. The strong identifying details of Bay include: Chloe metal plaque, big ergonomic leather zipper pulls, and padded stitching. The Bay is available in: black, mocca, tan, and ecru.

The Bay joins Chloe?s recent hits the Tracy bag, Edith bag, Betty bag, Paddington bag, Silverado bag and the Bracelet bag, as one of the key pieces in Chloe?s growing accessories line.

Enrique Loewe was born in Germany in 1829. He founded a concern in 1846 in Madrid, Spain, which sold luxury leather bags and other accessories. He died around the turn of the century, but the Loewe house continued after him.

In 1947, Loewe entered the fashion sphere when it acquired the rights to sell Christian DIOR New Look dresses in Spain. By the 60's, it had begun to design its own fashion collection, using draping and gathering as well as producing classic working shirts in velvety suede.

In 1997, Loewe modernized its image by appointing Narciso Rodriguez as it's house designer. After 4 years, in 2001, Rodriguez left Loewe to design for his own house alone.

Silver Rain was inspired by the alpine glaciers at the top of the world where the purest of rain transforms itself into silverized ice crystals. In the spring these ice crystals melt and drop to the ground, 1000 feet below. For those who have seen this occurrence...it is described as "the silver rain" of the Alpine Valleys.

This water is so pure that when the sun glistens...it appears silver. To find in nature a sculpted form, a single raindrop, that pleases both the eye and the touch was the quest; and to fill it with a fragrance of natures' most elegant ingredients was a phenomenal achievement.

The Gucci group is one of the leading multi-brand luxury goods companies with brands as Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Bedat & CO, Boucheron, Gucci, Sergio Rossi, Stella McCartney and Yves Saint Laurent.

The enabling technology for the store is radio-frequency ID tagging (RFID).

All merchandise has its own RFID tag. When scanned and detected, immediate access is provided to a database where there is rich stream of content for every garment, shoe, and bag. This is in the form of sketches, catwalk video clips, and color swatches.

There is also up-to-date information on every item, such as what sizes or colors are currently available. This enables the sales associate to spend more time attending personally to a customer, and less time chasing to the stock room to check for available items.

An RFID tag is also part of a PRADA customer card. Customer preferences are stored on the database, and only the customer card provides access. This information is used to customize the sales experience and further enhance the service provided to the card-holding customer.

The building is owned by the French luxury empire of Jean Louis Dumas and is the corporate headquarters and retail store of Hermes Japan, a company famous for its upscale hand bags and apparel. The 6,000 square meter (65,000 square feet) building contains shopping space, workshops, offices, exhibition spaces and multimedia areas all topped by a roof garden. A recess that divides the long facade in two forms a courtyard which provides access to the subway two levels below.

Located in the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo, one of the most exclusive and expensive shopping areas in Japan, a block away from the colorful Sony Building of the same proportions, designed by Ashihara Yoshinobu in 1966, and amongst the circus of signs and neon lights, the thin, tall but elegant building (45m long by 11m wide or 148ft long by 36ft wide) stands out like a piece of well-crafted jewelry; classical yet innovative. Its facade, made entirely of specially designed and fabricated glass block 45cm by 45cm (17in by 17in) each, is both aesthetically pleasing and technologically innovative.

Maison Hermes
5-4-19 Ginza
Chuo-ku
Tokyo
Japan

Vicoria´s Secret Underwear collection 2007

Caught a look at these shoes over at Jungle Life and thought they were pretty tight. I'm not that big into shoes to be honest, but I've always liked Royal Elastics. At this point I'm basically looking for anything that's not Nike. The one pair of AF1's I owned seriously fell apart right away and I wasn't even being rough with them...

Anyway, they took their inspiration from Andy Warhol's famous pop-art works, and for the most part it's resulted in a great effect. Not so sure about the blue one, but the rest are tight, especially the camo one pictured first.

Check them out at Royal Elastics, http://www.royalelastics.com