A Japanese fashion show titled "Tokyo Style - Harajuku Streets" will be held at noon Feb. 15 at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith.

The show, slated for the Reynolds Room of the Smith-Pendergraft Campus Center, will include contemporary fashion styles popular among young people in Tokyo, according to Yoko Kowata, Japanese program coordinator at UA Fort Smith.

"The contemporary part of the fashion show features Harajuku," said Kowata, "which is an area around Tokyo's Harajuku Station. It is the center of Japan's most extreme teenage cultures and fashion styles."

Kowata, who said the event is free and open to the public, tiffany bracelet that Harajuku has become a fashion capital of the world because of its renowned and unique street fashion.

"Prominent designers and fashion ideas have sprung from Harajuku and incorporated themselves into other fashions throughout the world," she said. "Harajuku fashion consists of elements primarily from America and Great Britain and spans all tiffany cufflinks of popular fashion including clothing, makeup and hair styles."

The fashion show, which also includes more traditional Japanese fashions, is a collaboration between public school students in Fort Smith and the Japan Club at UA Fort Smith and is one of the activities coordinated on campus through the Office of International Relations, which provides various programs of study abroad as well as exchange programs.

"This is a great opportunity for all students to get a glimpse of Japanese fashions and culture, so we hope many students will take time to see what is included," said Kowata.

Kowata, who came to UA Fort Smith this year, is seeking to enhance the understanding of Japan by expanding outreach programming in the region. She teaches Japanese culture and language on campus and gives Japanese cultural presentations at public schools and tiffanys organizations in the community.

Kowata is here through a partnership with the Japan Outreach Initiative, which was designed and is funded by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP) and the Laurasian Institution. The CGP's mission is to promote collaboration between Japan and the United States to fulfill shared global responsibilities and to enhance dialogue and interchange between Japanese and U.S. institutions and individuals. The Laurasian Institution is responsible for monitoring the progress of the coordinator at UA Fort Smith and those in other states.For more information please contact: Sarabjit Jagirdar.

It's an irony of love, war and shopping that the hunter can get captured by the game. In this particular case, the hunter is a mass-market retailer, an outfit that prides itself on matchless V.I.P. service; the game is one exuberant customer whose tiffany necklace is hard to ignore -- in fact, impossible. It's a story of retail therapy on steroids.

Let me explain.

Blair Sabol is possessed of a style engine that has run in high gear since her debut on the New York fashion scene in the 1960s wearing a white Courreges dress and matching go-go boots. Nowadays, Blair, who wrote about fashion for The Village Voice in its heyday, is an enthusiastic shopper from McCain country -- a gated community in Arizona. When she moved to the Southwest, she fell into the "Mabel Dodge/Santa Fe" look. "I walked into J. Crew the season it looked like Bollywood," she recalls. "I was surrounded by mandarin orange, peony pink. Shiva, the God. When you're my age, honey, color is the elixir of youth. J. Crew took me in. And I never left. "

I'll say. She just about moved in.

Blair found the J. Crew personal shopper of her tiffany in Jerry Falwell country: Lynchburg, Va. Rachel Allen is a customer-service rep who knows how to separate wheat from chaff, fix glitches, track discontinued items; who relates to Blair's everyday struggle in dealing with aging parents and sympathizes with the daily grind of doctors and supermarkets. Blair and Rachel talked and talked, and talked some more. For 22 months, Blair had a companion of sorts, out there in cactus country. It may be company policy to treat all customers equally, but there are customers in this Orwellian world who are more equal than others.

Rachel and Blair experienced better living through chemistry. Blair, who embodies the theatrical flair of Auntie Mame, gives good phone: she's charming, congenial, bitingly funny, and she spends, spends, spends. Ever since Cameron Silver snarfed up her seminal collection for his boutique, Decades, her sartorial staples have included piled-on bracelets and necklaces, yoga pants and stacks of J. Crew's vividly colored cashmere cardigans over camis.

Like Wagnerian opera, this is better than it sounds.

Rachel understood the look immediately. I ask tiffany note who she thinks Rachel looks like, based on their many phone conversations.

"Betty White," she answers. "Maybe not in looks, but that's who I channel."

Rachel Allen recently turned 50 and has four children and six grandchildren. She is much younger than Betty White, and probably nothing like Auntie Mame. She does know Blair's bra size, and what the doctor said about Blair's biopsy. Rachel's Southern lilt belies a steel magnolia. She can sass with the best of them but is always polite and comes off like kindness personified. To say the two got on well is an understatement.

"A year ago I started having this fantasy of meeting that voice that sold me so many clothes, that Wizard of Oz behind the J. Crew curtain," Blair says. "You don't know what it's like to have the luxury of lying in bed at 7:30 in the morning with a cup of chai, thumbing through catalogs, picking up the phone and talking to someone who's going to make my day. After almost two years of this, I made a decision.

" 'I think I have a surprise for you,' I said to Rachel on the phone, 'I'm going to come to Lynchburg. I'm flying into Washington, D.C., and could easily stop over, pick you up and we could get a cup of coffee.

In "A Single Man," you play Charlotte, a wealthy, aging English glamour girl who is attached to, and may be in love with, her gay best friend, George. Their complicated relationship is one of the centerpieces of Tom Ford's movie, which chronicles a day in the silver pendants of a grieving professor in '60s Los Angeles. Your character is reminiscent of Ann-Margret in "Carnal Knowledge" -- did that influence you?

No, I wasn't thinking about Ann-Margret. A lot of the character began with a particular vocal choice: she's someone who is very wealthy, very educated and kind of a party girl. There's this way of speaking among these women where you don't know whether they're posh or hammered all the time. So, that's where I started. Then I listened to very early Julie Christie, to get the early-'60s kind of sound, and then I listened to some very modern British party girls. That's how I came up with Charly's sloppy sound.

How did you meet Tom Ford?

I met him in 1998, right after my son was born. [Moore has two children and is married to the director Bart Freundlich.] Tom made a dress for me for the Oscars, the first time I was nominated, for "Boogie Nights." In that movie, I played Amber silver rings, a porno actress.

Tom was unbelievably charming and handsome and normal, not scary, which surprised me because he was one of the first designers I'd ever met. He made me a really beautiful black chiffon dress that kind of had an empire waist. Because I'd just had a baby, my boobs were really big. I didn't feel confident enough to wear it.

But Tom was incredibly gracious. He said, "I tiffanys care -- wear it, don't wear it -- it's just a dress,' " And that was the beginning of my friendship with Tom.

What was Ford like as a director? Were you surprised that he co-wrote the script, which was based on a Christopher Isherwood novel?Not really -- from our friendship, I knew he was interested in content. The script is primarily about love and loss and human connection, and although Tom reveals himself very slowly, what he reveals is very genuine.

Did you find yourself thinking a lot about clothes when you considered the character?

I always find that aspect of a character important. But, you can't say, "Ooh -- I like that Balenciaga dress and I'm going to wear it." You have to wear something that the character has access to. People tell stories about themselves with their clothing, their hair, with the way they move and the way they present themselves. I learned that when I was young. I was always on the lookout for clues. And there are a lot of clues in how people dress.

You were an army brat -- your family moved around a lot.

Yes, and that life teaches you that behavior is not concrete. A lot of people think that how you behave is a given or that behavior is character. When you move around a lot, you learn that behavior is mutable. I would change, depending on where I was. I would go to one school and everyone would dance one way and, then, at a new school, you'd notice that no one picked up their feet when they danced. You're like, O.K. -- I'll shuffle my feet like them. You learn that there's no one way to dance or be. For some reason, a lot of actors come from these peripatetic backgrounds -- army kids, missionary kids, kids of salesmen. It teaches you to watch, to reinvent, that character can change.

Karl Lagerfeld may look intimidating. with his starched collars and fistful of rings, but he's surprisingly funny. Jean Paul Gaultier, a designer who caps off his shows by literally running down the runway, is much more reserved. Oscar de la Renta, as one would hope, is a delightful charmer. I wasn't sure what to expect of Nicolas Ghesqui?re. The Paris-based creative director of Balenciaga (and one of the few genuinely original voices in fashion silver necklaces) is publicity shy and grants few interviews. I was thrilled but nervous when I met him in New York for the launch of his first fragrance, Balenciaga Paris.

I thought Ghesqui?re might be quiet and introverted or even standoffish, but he had me at hello. Not only was he warm and fully engaged in our chat - he acted like I was his first interview of the day, not one of the last - he offered lots of smart advice for aspiring designers. Ghesqui?re was just 25 when he took over the reigns at Balenciaga - a storied house that needed a major reinvention. He spoke passionately about the importance tiffanys pure, even radical creativity and how much more he wants to achieve professionally. Check out my interview, Commander in Chic, on page 116.

As he spoke, I thought about my trip to Paris the month before and my tour of the Balenciaga studio after the runway show. I never miss the opportunity to get a closer look at Ghesqui?re's brilliance. I like to pull every garment off its hanger and turn it inside out - they're silver rings what they seem at first glance. What I thought was denim turned out to be textured leather. What looked like a pleated miniskirt was actually strips of leather that moved like an accordion. Colourful striped leather shoes were not printed or painted but compressed by laser-fusion. My query about price was met with a shrug.

Granted, Ghesqui?re could lean on the Balenciaga name, but he revived the house with a brash infusion of technology. His business - and reputation - continues to grow due to his relentless pursuit of creativity. I was thoroughly inspired - perfect timing as I was finalizing the stories in this, our spring celebration issue.

Faced with a deepening recession and evaporating sales, an increasing number of small businesses are resorting to a high risk strategy: costly giveaways and promotions to lure the reluctant consumer.

If the strategies work, these companies could have a powerful weapon in their struggle to weather the economic storm. But if they don't work, the more vulnerable businesses could find themselves in a bigger financial hole.

"Offering things for free is a very dangerous area to get into" for little-known small companies, because it threatens to establish the brand's reputation as cheap, says Barbara Apple Sullivan, managing partner at New York communications cheap jewelry firm Sullivan & Co. "Clients or prospects [may see] the product as worth what they're paying" during a promotion, she says.

But, she adds, the promotions can give the companies a shot of finding new customers -- something in short supply right now. And it could lead to even greater long-term success if these customers are willing to pay full price for the products or services in the future.

Clearly, small businesses are in a sales bind. A record 46% of companies reported lower sales in the three months ended in December, according to a monthly survey of more than 800 small firms conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business, a Washington, D.C., trade group.

Over the past few months, the pace of calls from potential customers slowed at Vaillant Solar Systems Inc., a San Diego-based provider of solar hot-water heating systems for area residences. "People don't want to spend thousands on cheap key rings they don't really need right now," says Burkhard von Spreckelsen, the firm's chief executive officer.

Vaillant executives thought about reducing prices but didn't want to set a precedent or cheapen the company's image. So the company, a subsidiary of German solar-energy provider Vaillant Group, launched a program where it installs the system, which can cost as much as $7,000, for no upfront cost.

Homeowners pay for part of the installation through tax credits; the company says homeowners can have Vaillant cover that cost initially and reimburse the firm at tax time, or they can wrap the amount of the credits into monthly payments. Then, the cheap money clips balance is paid back from the savings customers realize on their energy bills. Households that currently use propane or natural gas to heat water might save as much as $500 a year on an energy bill with the Vaillant system, Mr. Spreckelsen says. The amount of the payments varies depending on a customer's energy usage. He expects most repayments to take about seven years.

"It's like a car loan with 0% interest," he says.

The program began Feb. 1 and is limited to 20 customers, partially because of its expense. Fluctuating energy costs also are a risk, since homeowners are expected to pay Vaillant back through their savings. The firm runs a credit check on and requires proof of income from anyone applying for the program. One customer has signed on so far, and about a half-dozen applications are pending.

Thrifty consumers and the loss of several department store leases contributed to a 20 percent sales decrease for Finlay Enterprises Inc. in the fourth quarter.

Sales for the three months ended Jan. 31 were $306.7 million, down from $383.1 million in the same 2007 quarter. Specialty nameplates Carlyle, Congress and Bailey Banks & Biddle, which Finlay acquired in November 2007 from Zale Corp., contributed sales of $99.1 million in the quarter. Finlay said comparable-store sales fell 19.6 percent. Comparable results exclude the Macy's Inc. and Lord & Taylor LLC in-store shops that were scheduled to close on Jan. 31.

The 93 licensed departments in Macy's North and Northwest divisions generated $120 million in 2007 revenue. The firm will continue to operate 216 counters for Macy's Central, as well as areas in 34 stores in the Bloomingdale's division of Macy's. cheap bangles Bloomingdale's license expired at the end of fiscal 2009 and the Macy's Central license one year later. Licensed departments in Macy's stores accounted for 52 percent of Finlay sales, or $438.6 million, in 2007.

At Lord & Taylor, which is owned by NRDC Equity Partners, the original plan was to close 47 sites because NRDC had planned to replace Finlay with its own Fortunoff fine jewelry departments. When NRDC was reported to be seeking buyers for Fortunoff last cheap cufflinks, negotiations began to continue the Finlay sites as licensed departments. Fortunoff filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week.

The Lord & Taylor locations generated $44 million in sales in 2007, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On a continuing operations basis, sales in 2008 rose 3.2 percent to $862.6 million from $835.9 million in 2007.

While Finlay has been fighting credit battles of tiffanys own, it's also listed as one of the creditors of bankrupt Gottschalks Inc., with claims totaling $1.1 million.

Everything Channel, a division of United Business Media, announced that Greg Avera has joined the company as Global Sales Director, Field Sales & Marketing Services. Everything Channel's Field Sales & Marketing Services provide multi-channel marketing and sales services for technology vendors which are designed to support and complement the sales process and drive marketing programs that actually do sell. With more than 20 years of IT sales and marketing experience, Avera understands the unique challenges technology vendors face when executing channel strategies. Avera is based in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Coin Edge disc pendant area and will report to Dan Dignam, SVP, Everything Channel.

Avera comes to Everything Channel from Viewsonic, where he was the General Manager US Channel Sales and was responsible for all channel sales, including Regional Value Added Resellers (VARs), e-commerce Double heart pendant and Direct Market Resellers (DMRs). Prior to Viewsonic, Avera led D-Link's channel as Vice President Channel Sales for three years helping them to develop their VAR, government/education and corporate strategy. Earlier, he was a trainer with Tech Data. Avera began his career at BusinessLand in sales.

"Greg's intimate knowledge of channel sales and operations, as well as his experience working with and for distributors, makes him a perfect fit to lead our Field Sales & Marketing Services business. He understands our customers' needs first hand and will be able to Graduated bead drop pendant them drive increased sales cost-effectively and efficiently," said Dignam. "We are very excited to expand our sales and marketing services group, it allows us move our business closer to our customers and assist them grow and drive their businesses."

Fortunoff Holdings LLC, which has operated fine jewelry and housewares furnishings stores for more than 87 years, will conduct a court-ordered bankruptcy liquidation sale beginning on Thursday, February 26th. The sale, which will include all 20 store locations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, was ordered by the bankruptcy court as a result of Fortunoff's Chapter 11 filing earlier this month.

In what will be the most significant sale in Fortunoff's long and Black oynx Toggle necklace history, inventory valued at approximately $212 million will be completely liquidated. Customers will find tremendous savings on everything in the store, including fine jewelry and watches, antique jewelry and silver, everything for the table, fine gifts, home furnishings including bedroom and bath, fireplace and outdoor furnishings.

The Fortunoff sale is being managed by a joint venture group of leading national retail liquidation firms, including: Great American Group, LLC; SB Capital Group, LLC; Tiger Capital Group, LLC; and Hudson Capital Partners, LLC; along with Charm bracelet liquidators Wilkerson and Associates and The Gordon Co.

"These are unprecedented economic times, and it's unfortunate that after all these years, a New York icon like Fortunoff is going to close and people are going to lose their jobs," said Harvey M. Yellen, Chairman of Great American Group. "Fortunoff has been a destination for fine jewelry, home goods and gifts at incredible value, and the going out of business sale will offer a final opportunity to purchase this quality Coin Edge disc pendant at even greater discounts."

Bobby Wilkerson, President of Wilkerson and Associates added, "Since 1922 consumers have looked to Fortunoff for its quality, selection, and value of fine jewelry. This liquidation sale is affording an excellent opportunity to shop for quality jewelry and watches at incredible value."

In addition to the merchandise liquidation of Fortunoff, all store fixtures throughout the chain will also be sold.

Fortunoff has been operating under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code since February 5, 2009 (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, Case #09-10497.) Fortunoff is owned by NRDC Equity Partners, a private equity firm that bought the retailer out of an earlier bankruptcy in March 2008.

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as counsel to the joint venture regarding the liquidation of Fortunoff.