Donatella Versace is making efforts to help children need get access to art lessons and art supplies. Versace will sponsor the Whitney Museum of American Art's Gala and Studio Party for the second year in a row. The party is on October 19, 2009, and will co co-chaired by Donatella, Penelope Cruz and Liz Swig. Donatella has worked with the museum's education department to create a new global project called Art Unites. The project's mission is to help expose children to art by asking U.S. and Chinese children to draw images using the theme of friendship.
Versace will provide canvases and art supplies to 500 children from the Starlight Children's Foundation in the U.S. and 900 children from Jet Li's One Foundation in China. The fashion house will then turn each of the resulting drawings into a canvas tote, which it will sell at Versace boutiques around the world and through the luxury sample sale e-tailer Gilt Groupe for about $200 to $250 in October. All proceeds from the sale will go to Starlight and the One Foundation.
"I have been blessed with incredible success in my life," Versace said. "And part of that success means being able to give back to people in need. As a mother, children's causes are especially close to my heart, and I am honored to be able to work with the Whitney on the creation of a program that inspires children through the arts."
The initiative will kick off on July 1 with an afternoon event at the Whitney with children from the New York chapter of the Starlight foundation. Versace herself will be on hand, along with an undisclosed artist, to assist these children with their drawings.
Once all the drawings are assembled, a panel of judges, which will be led by the designer and Adam Weinberg, a Whitney director, will pick a winner from each charity. Versace plans to feature the two winning designs on her runway show in Milan in September.
Donatella has also worked with the One Foundation to open a second
Versace One Foundation Children's Centre in Shuimo, Wenchuan, in China's Sichuan Province. The centers help displaced victims of the earthquake that devastated the region. Donatella and Jet Li teamed up to tour the area and
find out what the survivors needed.
Hayden Panettiere has teamed up with The Whaleman Foundation and SocialVibe to collect 1,000,000 signatures on the Whaleman petition to put a stop to commercial whaling. Hayden will personally deliver this petition to the The International Whaling Commission in June 2009.
Take a look:
All whaling should be stopped immediately. To sign Hayden's petition visit SocialVibe.com.
Beyonce is asking her fans to help donate food to Feeding America so it can deliver more than 3.5 million meals to local food banks. Hunger is a big problem in the U.S. and many children are affected. The recession has depleted the stores of major food banks, so Beyonce is asking fans to bring nonperishable food items to her concerts or to get involved another way with the charity. You can learn more or get involved at FeedingAmerica.org. Take a look:
A new campaign to raise
awareness of breast cancer kicks off on July 3rd. The campaign is being promoted by the CFDA and asks women to wear a polo shirt designed by Ralph Lauren on Fridays during the summer to help raise awareness of breast cancer and to promote donations to research to find a cure.
Summer Fridays will have a new dress code if the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Net-a-porter.com and Susan G. Komen for the Cure have their way.
Together, they unveiled a new grassroots campaign called "Fashion Targets Summer Fridays" that aims to encourage women to buy and wear the Ralph Lauren-designed FTBC (Fashion Targets Breast Cancer) polo shirt at work on Fridays this summer, raising both funds to support the fight against cancer and awareness of it.
The program kicks off July 3 and runs through Sept. 25.
"It is a powerful opportunity for women across America to join together in a unified message of care, concern and hope," said CFDA executive director Steven Kolb. "The FTBC polo makes a perfect summer Friday outfit, and can take women from work to their favorite weekend getaway spot."
The shirts retail for $55 and are available for purchase at
netaporter.com/ftbc. The proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other FTBC-supported organizations. the shirts are in British sizes extra small to extra large. A British extra large is the equivalent of a size 12 in the U.S., according to Netaporter. Apparently Ralph Lauren and the CFDA are not interested in the charitable support of any women bigger than a size 12.
Angelina Jolie sat down with The Today Show's Ann Curry to talk about World Refugee Day. In the clip, Angelina tears up when she talks about all the mothers who have no food to give their children. She also says that if she had known as a child about all the hardships these millions of people suffer it would have eased her growing up process: she says she would not have been as self-destructive as she was. Take a look:
Designer Malcom Harris of Mal Sirrah, Inc. repeatedly hung up
the phone on Angelina Jolie, believing that he was being prank called. But -- to his intense horror -- it turns out that it really was Angelina calling him because she wanted to buy some of his dresses. Page Six has the scoop:
Malcolm Harris hung up on Angelina Jolie -- twice. The Mal Sirrah designer didn't believe it was Jolie on the line when she called last week to order three of his "One Dress" frocks. Finally, she convinced him she was the real deal by explaining they were both participating in World Refugee Day on Saturday. Jolie bought three of Harris' dresses for $225 a pop, knowing that some of the proceeds go to the UN's refugee effort. Harris confirmed the story to Page Six and said, "I was so flattered."
It had never occurred to us before, but we bet that Angie gets hung up on all the time, because no one believes it's really her. What a bizarre -- and annoying -- side effect of fame. In any event, here's a brief video by Malcolm showing off the "One Dress" project which shows how versatile the wrap dress is to for women of all shapes and sizes.
You can contact Malcolm through the Mal Sirrah website. You can buy a One Dress
here.
Selfridges invited celebrities and designers including Naomi Campbell, Matthew Williamson, Sam Taylor Wood, Paul Smith and Manolo Blahnik to customize Havianas as part of an auction to raise money for CLIC Sargent, a UK children's cancer charity. The auction runs until July 3rd. You can find the auction listings here.
Angelina Jolie recorded a public service announcement (PSA) for World Refugee Day which is June 20th. Angelina is the United Nations High Council for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador and is working to draw attention to the plight of the millions of people who have been forced to flee their homes because of war or persecution. Take a look:
High Line Park in New York City is located on Manhattan's West Side. The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930s, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets. Diane von Furstenberg has designed a limited edition beach towel inspired by the tracks of the railroad. A percentage of the proceeds from the towel will go towards Friends of the High Line, an organization charged with raising funds for the park and overseeing its maintenance. The towels can be purchased here for $75 each. You can see a few other products created to support High Line Park here.
Lauren Bush is launching a FEED 2 Kenya bag that will be sold exclusively at Bergdorf Goodman for $195. WWDreports that the each bag uses local Masai fabric and hand beadwork. The bags take local Kenyan artisans a day and a half to bead. $100 from the sale of each bag will go to the UN World Food Program's School Feeding operations in Kenya. You can read more about the FEED project here.
New York City-based fashion designer Yigal Azrouel is holding an auction on eBay featuring looks from his women's and men's Spring/Summer 2009 collection. A portion of the sales will benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The auction also includes two Alternative Earth graphic t-shirt designed by Azrouel. The auctions end June 19th.
Patrick Dempsey, Eric Bana, Josh Brolin, Kevin Space Matt Dillon and other stars have donated their ties to Career Gear's auction. Patrick Dempsey's Ralph Lauren tie is pictured above. All the proceed from the auction benefit Career Gear, a non-profit organized to help men get and keep jobs. You can find the auction listings on eBay here. The auctions end on June 14th.
Actress Sarah Chalke, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, founding chair of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Dr. Jill Biden and HRH Crown Prince Alexander II and HRH Crown Princess Katherine of Serbia take the ceremonial first steps at the first-ever Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure on June 6, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Nearly 45,000 walkers and runners, including more than 3,600 breast cancer survivors, attended the event, helping to raise more than $4.3 million for breast cancer programs. You can see a larger photo here.
French jewelry house Boucheron has created the Magnetic Quatre cube to celebrate the launch of the environmental movie, Home. The Magnetic Quatre cube (2.7cm x 2.7cm) is a unique combination of four golds and motifs; smooth white gold, pink gold in Gadroon motif, yellow gold in Grosgrain motif and Boucheron "chocolate gold" in Pointe de diamant motif. The amalgamation of different golds symbolizes Earth's four elements; fire, air, water and earth and reminds us of their fragile balance.
Boucheron's Magnetic Quatre is being auctioned off on eBay.fr here from June 6th to June 13th. All the proceeds will go to the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), an effort to promote and verify more responsible mining of gold and other metals.
The movie Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Luc Besson is made up of aerial images which have been filmed in more than fifty countries around the world. Other products that have been created for Home include an Earth skull scarf created by Alexander McQueen and eco-friendly pumps created by Francisco Russo.
Tonic has added a Mother Earth Collection created exclusively for Tonic as part of a partnership with Alex and Ani. Alex and Ani's designer Carolyn Rafaelian created a charm that represents the globe. The charms are made from Russian Gold or Russian Silver and adorn Alex and Ani's Signature expandable bangles, necklace and keychain. All of Alex and Ani's pieces are made in the USA from recycled materials. 10% of sales revenue goes to WHY (World Hunger Year) and an additional 10% of sales revenue goes to the Tonic Foundation. You can see the collection here.
