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On this week's Season 12 "Project Runway" Episode, SHOES were The Star. The Challenge was to craete a look inspired by a pair of shoes. The designers went to the Marie Claire NYC headquarters in the fabulous Hearst Building where they got to "raid" the Marie Claire Accessories Closet. Well, they  really didn't get to choose willy-nilly. Instead,
the designers (except for last week's winner, Alexandria) had to play a
"Fashion History" game in order to pick the shoes.











One of my biggest pet peeves (I have LOTS!) is when so-called fashion designers (and students of fashion design) do not know their fashion history. Once, I asked a former student of mine to tell me which designers in the past were most influential, and she said (without blinking an eyelash I kid you not!) "Jessica Simpson!". Well, you can only imagine the "Nick Look" I gave to her. Shade doesn't even begin to describe it.




Moving on...during this episode, one thing occurred that REALLY ANNOYED ME: When Tim Gunn (who I love and respect greatly!) said that "this group is composed of THE GREATEST DESIGNERS in Project Runway history." We all know Tim has said this, like, in the last TEN SEASONS! And every time he says it, it's a bit disingenuous as well as knife-to-the-stomach to some other seasons that REALLY HAVE HAD some of the GREATEST DESIGNERS. Ask most die-hard "Project Runway" fans who have followed the show since it's inception and they'll tell you--without missing a beat--that this season ain't one of them. Just sayin'. Let's just skip to The Runway:






Kate Pankoke: Little Kate was "Safe" with this white blouse and black split-front ensemble she created for her red and yellow "Surrealist" shoes. I thought it was a bit of a mess. The blouse was way too tight and those pants were so 1998. She looked like a mistress of a Russian Oligarch.




Ken Laurence: Two words--Too Short





Alexander Pope: Two designers--Alexander (above) was one of them and Miranda was the other--were bitten by the PLAID Virus. The judges did not like Miranda's but thought Alexander's was OK. Go figure because I thought it should have been the other way around.




Alexandria Von Bromssen: Several things here--I thought those thigh-high gladiator sandals were TO DIE Fab. The outfit Alexandria made was OK--a soft-and-pretty counterbalance to those Gladiator Sandals. And finally (and most importantly), her model Ya SOLD THE LOOK and was really the reason Alexandria's outfit was one of the judges' favorite. Just sayin'.




Helen Castillo: Helen's all black very New York and Parisian Look was the Winner. No surprise there. It was VERY Alexander Wang for Balenciaga Fall 2013 (above, right), and "Fashion Folk" LIVED for that collection.




Bradon McDonald: The judge's Prized Favorite of the Season--Bradon--was heck-bent on using this bouillonné technique. The word means "bubbling" in French but it is also a pretentious way of saying "a Pick-Up" or "Puckering". He had these beautiful beaded gold flats as his inspiration, and he went 1982 Prom-Tacky. The top is tragique and that half-circle skirt is straight out of one of my Pattern/Draping class assignments.




Google "Jupe bouillonné" (Bubbled Dress en francais) and you'll see what I mean--it is the exact same techinique one sees in very tacky Prom and Wedding Dresses. The technique was used BEAUTIFULLY by....







Bradon just graduated from my alma mater--FIDM--and I had just seen his "Debut" collection back in March, and he's obviously very talented...




He showed several bouillonné looks which he also brought to the "Project Runway Season 12" Castings/Auditions in which I was a judge. So, in other words, I guess, this bouillonné thing is one of his "Bradon Bag O' Fashion Tricks". Toward the end of this episode, he realized that maybe he shouldn't have used it and kept it back in his "bag". While I thought for sure he had one of the worst designs, he was not the designer that went home. This was:




Miranda Levy: Yes, the other Plaid Girl, Miranda Levy. Miranda did a plaid high-waisted pleated pants with top and bolero jacket look for her patent leather red flats. I liked her look. I certainly didn't LOVE it. But to me, it wasn't the worst. I was happy Miranda didn't do yet another pencil skirt (that's Miranda's bouillonné!). The mitering (matching of the stripes) of the CF seam of her pants was done much better than Alexander's (the other Plaid Girl). But I did think the models hair was a tad too...

Shoe-In

I must confess, I'm a shoe-a-holic; I love
shoes. My two obsessions are YSL "Johnny Boots" and colorful suede
driving loafers from Florence Italy. I own three YSL pairs and about
four of the Italian ones. I get the suede loafers from a "secret" little
store in Firenze (and I am NOT telling anyone what the store is!). I am
only admitting this shoe confession to try and dispel the myth that
only women are OBSESSED with shoes. Lots of men are too. And to be quite
honest I think there are quite a few of us that are addicted to women's
shoes too! No surprise that some of the top designers are Christian
Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik and Brian Atwood. So right away, I was excited
about the challenge and interested to see if the designers could make
the shoes the star.



Justin...You're In!

Last week, the designers got to go GLAMPING. Alexandria won the
challenge (much to my dismay, since I liked Jeremy's bias-cut "love
letter" gown better), and Justin was out, almost. Tim Gunn used his save
and Justin was still in, not because (as Tim said) "he's one of the
nicest persons here," but because of his talent and that he needed "a
little more time" on the show. OK Tim, if you say so.



Shoe Krazee

For this week's challenge, it was ALL ABOUT SHOES: the designers went to
the Hearst Building and met up with Tim Gunn and Marie Claire's
Editor-in-Chief Anne Fulenwider. Anne announced that this week's
challenge was to choose a pair of FAB shoes from the Marie Claire
accessory closet and create a look inspired by those shoes. Before they
could pick, there was a fashion quiz they had to take. Alexandria did
not need to participate since...



Click HERE to continue reading my RECAP on MyLifetime.com's "Project Runway Blog" 

Google's Panoramio service has been redesigned and now looks just like a Google Maps extension. The new interface (codenamed "acrylic") is borrowed from Google Maps Views. You can go back to the old UI by clicking "Return to classic Panoramio".

"We've made photos the hero on the page while still keeping the important features that people enjoy. On the photo page, by far the most popular on the site, we've made the photo over three times bigger! We've also made thumbnails on the profile page and the world map significantly bigger. We know that Panoramio members have used the existing design for years, so the 'classic' version will still be available for a little while," mentions the Panoramio blog.



Panoramio has a lot of great photos from all over the world and it's an important source of high-quality photos for Google Maps and Google Earth. That's the reason why Google acquired the service back in 2007.

Adam Lasnik, a former Google Search Evangelist, is now Program Manager at Panoramio and his team launched Google Maps Views. "Many of the same people (including me!) work on both products, but Views and Panoramio currently serve different purposes: Views is a community for sharing photo spheres, while Panoramio is a community for sharing traditional photos," says Adam.

{ Thanks, Georg. }

If you use the stock Android keyboard, which is also available in the Play Store, you can change the look and feel of the keyboard. Google Keyboard has a few themes you can choose, but they're not available in the settings.

Here's a quick way to pick a different theme, assuming your device runs Android 4.0 or later:

1. you first need an application that lets you create shortcuts to app activities. Some apps that let you do that: Nova Launcher and Apex Launcher, probably the best Android launchers. The following instructions assume you've installed Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher, but you can also use simple apps like Activity Getter.

2. long press the homescreen and pick "shortcuts" and then "activities".



3. scroll to the Google Keyboard entry, expand the list of activities and pick "Android keyboard debug settings".


4. you'll create a shortcut for this activity. Tap the new shortcut and you should see this settings page:


5. tap "Keyboard theme" and pick one of the themes: Basic, Basic (High Contrast), Stone (normal), Stone (bold), Gingerbread. IceCreamSandwich is the default theme.


Basic:


Stone (normal):


Gingerbread:


6. use the shortcut you've created to change the theme.

{ via Android Police }

Remember the card-style redesign for Google mobile search? Google tests a similar interface for tablets:



There's more white space, top search results stand out even more, while Knowledge Graph cards and results from specialized Google search engines look like distinct sections of the page.

{ via Techno-Net }

It's hard to believe that a high-end smartphone can cost only $199 without contracts and carrier subsidies. Nexus 4 was released last year and its specs don't look that great when you compare it with phones like HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4, but Nexus 4 runs the latest Android version, it has a smooth interface and many developers use it to test their apps.

From $299 to $199, Nexus 4 managed to become the first high-end smartphone that costs less than $200 off contract. Google's previous Nexus phones used to cost about $529, but Nexus 4 changed all that. Google subsidized the phone in an effort to make the phone more affordable.




It's amazing to see how much has changed since 2010, when Google released the first Nexus device: Nexus One. Hardware has improved a lot, Android has a great interface, Android apps are better, Google built a content store, Android is the leading mobile OS and you can buy powerful phones and tablets for about $200 (full price).

Google has a new experimental service that lets you build Google Earth tours from your browser. It's called Tour Builder and it requires the Google Earth Plugin (you also get the plugin when you install Google Earth).

"Tour Builder is a new way to show people the places you've visited and the experiences you had along the way using Google Earth. It lets you pick the locations right on the map, add in photos, text, and video, and then share your creation. We originally created Tour Builder to give veterans a way to record all the places that military service has taken them, and preserve their stories and memories as a legacy for their families. But we also thought it could be a useful tool for anyone with a story to tell, so we made it available to everyone," explains Google.


Before creating a tour, you can check the gallery:



Tour Builder lets you add images and videos, import KML files, enable or disable some layers, add historical imagery. By default, tours are private, but you can share them with other people.



{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Google's mobile sign-in page has a new interface that uses the same slogan from the desktop: "One password. All of Google." It's a more crowded page that includes a silhouette icon, a list of icons for Google services like Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and a small "Create an account" link at the bottom of the page instead of the red "sign up" button.


Here's the old interface:


For some reason, the new sign-in page lacks the "stay signed in" checkbox.

If you search Google for music artists, actors, books, TV shows and you're logged in, you'll see a new "Remind me" button in the Knowledge Graph card. Click the button and "Google Now will remind you about new releases/movies/episodes on your phone or tablet".


Until now, you could add time-based and location-based reminders to Google Now. These new reminders are special and can only be added from Google search. You can manage them from the Google Search app on your mobile device: just go to Settings, My Stuff and select Reminders.


This feature was added last week, when the Google Search app for Android was updated.

There's a long list of sites that integrate with Google Now: Air Berlin, Air Canada, Emirates, Booking.com, Lastminute.com, TicketWeb, Ticketfly, Orbitz, CheapTickets, OpenTable, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Zillow and more.


There's nothing magic about integrating travel sites, hotel booking sites, event-ticketing sites with Google Now. You only need to add some markup to email notifications. "By adding schema.org markup to the emails you send your users, you can make that information available across their Google experience, and make it easy for users to take quick action. Gmail, Google Search and Google Now all already use this structured data. (...) Google Now brings users the right information at just the right time. For example, Google Now already provides updates to restaurant and hotel reservations or flight information received in Gmail. By marking up email notifications to your users, you can use Google Now to bring them similar updates about your services and products."

After an email confirming a hotel reservation, the Google Search app shows this card. Here are some examples of code that needs to be added to email notifications.


Google Now only supports schemas for event reservation, flight reservation, hotel reservation and restaurant reservation.

{ Thanks, Florian Kiersch. }

Google+ post pages look different: posts are now moved to the right and there's a huge box that shows the name of the page or author and the number of followers. The new layout encourages people to follow pages and Google+ users, but makes posts more difficult to read.



Here's an example of post from Gmail's Google+ page.