School spirit is always in style. What's one of the best ways to flaunt yours? Customize yourself some shoes in your school's colors.

The Adicolor kit you see at right was one of the first customizable shoe kits, by Adidas in 1983. Now of course, you can do your customization online.

Choose your favorite shoe designer below and get to work, you fabulous artists, you!

Keds
Nike
Reebok
Converse
Vans

Our pick for this season is Keds, and if you really want to take the Artistic License Bus to Customization Town, check them out on Zazzle.com!

While the most of us have been glued to the TV for the last couple of weeks watching some the world's best athletes compete at the Beijing Olympics, there's another group of people competing in a very fierce retail competition stateside.

In honor of the summer Olympics, Opening Ceremony released a limited-edition run of metallic gold and silver Air Max 1 and the Nike LunaRacer. They also threw a really big party, too, and even had jewelry designer Philip Crangi host a ping pong match in their store.

Luckily, the good people at Style.com went and documented all of the madness for those who are more into Micheal Phelps instead of Marc Jacobs right now. In this clip, watch as a slew of guests breakdown their funky outfits, amongst other things.

There must be something in the water because quite a few of our favorite labels have called it quits.

After luring us all to Target to buy adorable denim vests and boho chic sun dresses, Milla Jovovich announced in the current issue of Lucky that Jovovich-Hawk is now kaput. This news came just days after the girls behind the quirky Mooka Kinney decided to part ways. And who knows when Richie Rich and Travor Rains of Heatherette will come off of their extended "hiatus."

So this latest designer break-up shouldn't really be that shocking, but it still hurts nonetheless:

Jane Mayle, the designer who creates all of the covetable dresses for Mayle collection, has decided to quit making chic frocks. Sad, we know. Her holiday/resort line that drops in November will be her last. The doors to her Elizabeth street shop will close in February. So yeah, buy as many drop waist dresses as you can by Mayle because they'll all be gone soon.

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Michael Buckner is a fashion and celebrity photographer who travels around the world taking pictures on the red carpet. He gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the hottest entertainment industry events.


It was a sunny afternoon at the Pasadena Civic Center, where the 10th annual ALMA Awards hosted by hot housewife Eva Longoria in 15 different dresses, all my Latin designers. My Favorite was this over-the-shoulder shot wearing Venezuelan designer Armando Piquer.

Joining the Chanel fishing rod, and the diamond-studded digital camera on the list of ridiculously overpriced luxury goods that do nothing special at all, Dior has unveiled its $5,000 MyDior cellphone. Dior's luxury phone boasts a touch screen, camera, and a Swarovski crystal face plate. Apparently, the phone is targeted specifically for the Russian and Chinese markets (where people throw away their hard-earned money?).

Dior is teaming up with French tech firm ModeLabs Group to produce the couture handset, of which they expect to sell 10,000. Wow -- that's an easy $50M. Aside from Swarovski face plate -- which we agree is a nice touch -- the My Dior phone only offers one other unique feature: a tiny micro-phone that allows you to leave the Swarovski-studded handset in your pocket. We have no idea why you'd want to leave a $5,000 designer phone in your purse/pocket. Think we'll stick with the technically superior and less expensive status symbol -- the iPhone.

[via Jezebel]

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Hess Natur hired designer Miguel Adrover to raise the brand's profile from reliable, mail-order apparel into something more genre defining. For them, it's all about high style with sustainable materials and methods. For us, it's all about Adrover finally finding a company to stand by his visions and bring clothes to the market.

According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, Adrover will maintain a work studio in Palma, Spain, as the German company expands with stand alone stores around Europe plus a higher level of US presence. So, file under, Miguel Adrover rules the school and please don't forget it, this time, Miguel Adrover for Hess Nature will present a collection during New York Fashion Week. Shown above, screen shoot from Fashion Calendar verifying this remarkable revelation.

Who says maternity clothes have to be bland and uninteresting? Not Christian Siriano, that's for sure -- the designer is planning a range for pregnant women, called Fierce for Moody Mamas by Christian Siriano, due out Spring 2009.

Moody Mamas has some seriously stylish maternity wear already -- from tanks with a sparkly message (It's a girl!) to cozy cashmere wraps made for two, they have moms-to-be fashionably covered. It's no surprise, really -- Christian is friends with the Moody Mamas founders. Still, it looks like Christian's Fierce line will be a perfect addition.

We love all of the amazing independent designers out there. In order to find out more about just what makes all of these creative types tick, we present to you an ongoing segment called Indie Designer Interviews.

We'd like to introduce you to designers Rachel Six and Joleen Rumsey of Flutter LLC. They create feminine knit tops and jackets that are perfect for both work and weekend.

The fashion industry has suffered another great loss. While he may not be a household name to the average woman, those of you who follow clothes know that Percy Irausquin was one to watch. Sadly, the Aruban designer, based out of Amsterdam is dead at just 39 years old.

As Cat mentioned earlier this summer, we have a bit of a "thing" for the bright colors and pineapple patterns of Lilly Pulitzer. Truth be told, we're not even closet Lilly fans -- we have a full-on preppy thing going in our closet, and we don't care who knows it.

However, even we know that sometimes preppy isn't the look you need. A bright pink and green shift decorated with margarita glasses and parrots is great for mid-day cocktails in Ft. Lauderdale, but not for lunch with the ladies on the Upper East Side. So, for those days when you need to dress a little darker, but still want to indulge your inner Lilly, there is a fragrance. Actually, there are three.

Victoria Beckham's new dress collection won't be shown on the runway at New York Fashion Week, but that doesn't mean Posh will be a no-show. She's taking a different route -- allowing pre-approved editors and buyers to fondle the frocks "by appointment only over a several day period" during Fashion Week.

Haven't you ever walked by a store window, or seen an ad for something and thought, "Boy, I'd like to buy that right now without setting foot in a store"? Ralph Lauren is working hard to make that happen, by launching into mobile commerce (m-commerce) which will allow potential consumers to scan a code on a display, ad, or mailer with their phones and shop for the Polo items they adore.

To do this, the company will use Quick Response Technology, which is already popular in Asia and Europe. This makes Polo the first luxury retailer in the U.S. to do so.

We love all of the amazing independent designers out there. In order to find out more about just what makes all of these creative types tick, we present to you an ongoing segment called Indie Designer Interviews.

Today's designer, Marcia Asuncion-Ricchiuti of Kahili Creations, comes to us from the Big Island of Hawaii. Her jewelry designs are inspired by the islands, and each of her delicate creations is unique and perfectly elegant.

We're not going to lie. When we heard Jessica Simpson was coming out with a line of shoes, we were prepared to poke fun at them. Not that she doesn't wear cute shoes -- we just didn't picture ourselves as the Jessica Simpson Footwear-type.

However, we kept finding ourselves drawn to shoes from her collection in the shoe department at Macy's, and when we admitted it to a fashionable friend, we found that she, too, had fallen somewhat in love with Jessica's shoes. And we're not alone -- according to Eric Q. McCoy, the owner of Heels.com, Jessica's collection is the number one seller.

We love all of the amazing independent designers out there. In order to find out more about just what makes all of these creative types tick, we present to you an ongoing segment called Indie Designer Interviews.

Today's interview is with artist Lauren Gehr of Spinach N Peace. Lauren designs beautiful journals to inspire the written word in addition to her other artistic endeavors of painting, photography and mixed media artwork.