Alessandra Ambrosio: Big Apple Beauty

Making the trek from the West Coast to the East Coast earlier this week, Alessandra Ambrosio was out once again in New York City today (September 12).

The “Victoria’s Secret” model looked super sexy in skinny jeans, flats, a white long-sleeve top, a giant scarf and her signature shades while exiting a chauffeured vehicle, coffee in hand.

As previously reported, the Brazilian beauty is in New York for its annual Fashion Week.

The festivities of the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week began Thursday, September 10, and will run until this Thursday, September 17.

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Lectra Launches the Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1

Lectra Launches the New Version of the Only Fashion-Specific PLM Solution on the Market: Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1.

Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using soft materials-textiles, leather, industrial fabrics and composite materials-, is pleased to announce the launch of Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1, the latest version of its state-of-the-art product lifecycle management solution for the fashion industry.

The ultimate synergy for fashion professionals

"In these tough times, bringing the right product to market at the right time is crucial to staying ahead of the field. Now is the moment for companies the world over to re-assess their business priorities and processes," said Daniel Harari, Lectra CEO. "An integrated software application with associated process-oriented services developed and delivered by industry experts, Lectra Fashion PLM supports fashion companies as they seek to deliver high-quality, cost-effective and on-trend collections in a timely manner, season after season."

Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 is a unique modular and scalable solution, tailored specifically to the needs of the fashion industry, with in-built best practices developed throughout Lectra's years of work with the biggest names in fashion. "With its solution for streamlining the complex business of collection management, Lectra is the ideal technology partner for fashion companies looking to enhance their productivity and their competitiveness," said Mario Boselli, President of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (National Chamber of Italian Fashion, CNMI).

This process-oriented offer incorporates tools for all the activities and processes involved in the business of bringing a collection to market. Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 includes modules for line planning, scheduling, costing, sourcing and performance monitoring, created with strategic decision makers in mind, and also process-based applications for fashion design, technical specifications, pattern-making, 3D prototyping and sample development. This fully modular and adaptable offer fulfills the needs of brands, retailers and garment manufacturers of all types and sizes.

A major breakthrough in PLM technology

Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 takes a huge leap forward by integrating fashion design tools and product development functions with end-to-end collection management features. Going further than any other PLM solution on the market, the V2R1 brings contributors together around "one version of the truth." Users can share season palettes, pattern design data, and measurements charts across the entire range of Lectra Fashion PLM applications, thus securing data and eliminating the risk of errors. Having a single information center saves time on data entry, facilitates communication, and helps maintain quality standards.

Prominent Europe, for example, specializes in men's shirts and formal wear and has recently expanded into casual wear and women's wear. The UK-based company produces approximately 17 million garments a year and manages up to 2,000 customer contracts. It was looking for an international system to work across different languages, maintain its exemplary delivery record, and move the business towards an "at once" manufacturing system. "Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 will allow us to speed up our processes," said Nigel Lugg, Chief Executive of Prominent Europe. "It will link our three European offices in Spain, France and the UK, and will allow us to collaborate directly with six key Asian hubs: India, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Thailand. Lectra's key strength is its high degree of fashion experience, which links into a global business network."

Enhanced workflow management features within Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 guarantee optimal planning and control of product lifecycle processes, activities and deliverables for both users and managers. Product development status and workflow management milestones are synchronized, and workflow management follows product development progress-not the reverse. This flexible workflow system, unique among PLM solutions, now enables each fashion company to adapt the order of tasks and progress flowcharts to their individual working methods, making it easy and comfortable to use.

Ease collaboration to enhance competitive advantage

Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 offers fashion professionals a shared information space with a number of features that facilitate close collaboration within and between teams. Improved notification features ensure that key participants in the collection development process are kept up to date regarding changes made along the value chain. An innovative mark-up tool provides creative and technical teams alike with powerful tools for visual communication, enabling users to "grab" designs of all kinds and annotate them for modifications. Also included in V2R1 is a plug-in option to save and classify sketches directly from Adobe® Illustrator® CS3/4 directly into Lectra Fashion PLM. These sketches are then not only shared throughout the design and development process but can also be modified, filled with colors and fabrics and used to create boards and other communication tools. Easy and efficient collaboration speeds up the accurate exchange of ideas, eliminates the risk of error, and freeing up time for creative work.

"At Une Nana Cool, it is very important for us to continually propose attractive concepts and designs-we aim to encourage young women to enjoy simple, fashionable, high-quality lingerie, the way they enjoy choosing outer garments," said Akiyuki Ueno, President of Une Nana Cool, a subsidiary of Wacoal, worldwide lingerie leader headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. "Up until now, our designers have spent half of their time on operational tasks and on coordination with other team members. With Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1, our designers will be able to spend more time on creative tasks such as concept development and design-this will really strengthen our competitive advantage."

Revolutionizing PLM: modular and scalable software and services

For customers looking for a speedy return on investment, Lectra Fashion PLM V2R1 can be implemented with Lectra's new Easy Start approach. This offers pre-configured contributor roles such as designer, product specifications developer, pattern maker, quality controller, sourcer, product manager/merchandiser. Users are quickly operational and efficient thanks to pre-defined user rights and requirements and role-specific training. As the solution is totally scalable, a project that begins with an Easy Start implementation can easily grow and become personalized for the user company and their specific needs. This flexible system allows fashion companies to integrate their own best practices into the system and adapt it to their methods. Change management is thus accelerated and users are quickly at ease with the system.

In order to provide the best possible support for their customers, Lectra's fashion PLM experts offer rigorous assessments of company processes, carried out within a specialized pre-study-fundamental to successful implementation. Fashion is Lectra's industry experts' vocation; they are committed to getting to know their customers' businesses by working with their teams to conduct thorough evaluations of working methods, processes, needs and challenges. Lectra also offers customers a value assessment that takes the quantitative evaluation even further, using a methodology that provides a framework in which to establish the likely value of a Lectra Fashion PLM implementation, along with the return on investment the customer can expect. As part of Lectra's continuing commitment to customer care, both PLM software and services are entirely tailored to meet the needs of the fashion industry and the needs of each individual customer to ensure that every Lectra Fashion PLM project is a perfect fit.

"We have been impressed by the service received from Lectra. The attitude of their team is always positive and we have really felt supported in our implementation of this advanced technology. Lectra's fashion experts really know our sector and understand our challenges. When our processes change and develop, we will be able to capitalize on their experience and knowledge of best practices," said Vincenzo Gamberale, Global IT Coordinator, Arena Group, leading-edge Italian waterwear producer.

Why Coaching is the Way to Go in Team Management?

When you hear the word “coach”, what comes first into your mind? Do you picture a basketball team with a man/woman shouting out directions? Or perhaps a football team with a man/woman pacing to and fro and calling out the names of the players?

Coaching is no longer reserved to sports teams; it is now one of the key concepts in leadership and management. Why is coaching popular?

Coaching levels the playing field.

Coaching is one of the six emotional leadership styles proposed by Daniel Goleman. Moreover, it is a behavior or role that leaders enforce in the context of situational leadership. As a leadership style, coaching is used when the members of a group or team are competent and motivated, but do not have an idea of the long-term goals of an organization. This involves two levels of coaching: team and individual. Team coaching makes members work together. In a group of individuals, not everyone may have nor share the same level of competence and commitment to a goal. A group may be a mix of highly competent and moderately competent members with varying levels of commitment. These differences can cause friction among the members. The coaching leader helps the members level their expectations. Also, the coaching leader manages differing perspectives so that the common goal succeeds over personal goals and interests. In a big organization, leaders need to align the staffs’ personal values and goals with that of the organization so that long-term directions can be pursued.

Coaching builds up confidence and competence.

Individual coaching is an example of situational leadership at work. It aims to mentor one-on-one building up the confidence of members by affirming good performance during regular feedbacks; and increase competence by helping the member assess his/her strengths and weaknesses towards career planning and professional development. Depending on the individual’s level of competence and commitment, a leader may exercise more coaching behavior for the less-experienced members. Usually, this happens in the case of new staffs. The direct supervisor gives more defined tasks and holds regular feedbacks for the new staff, and gradually lessens the amount of coaching, directing, and supporting roles to favor delegating as competence and confidence increase.

Coaching promotes individual and team excellence.

Excellence is a product of habitual good practice. The regularity of meetings and constructive feedback is important in establishing habits. Members catch the habit of constantly assessing themselves for their strengths and areas for improvement that they themselves perceive what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to acquire to attain team goals. In the process, they attain individually excellence as well. An example is in the case of a musical orchestra: each member plays a different instrument. In order to achieve harmony of music from the different instrument, members will polish their part in the piece, aside from practicing as an ensemble. Consequently, they improve individually as an instrument player.

Coaching develops high commitment to common goals.

A coaching leader balances the attainment of immediate targets with long-term goals towards the vision of an organization. As mentioned earlier, with the alignment of personal goals with organizational or team goals, personal interests are kept in check. By constantly communicating the vision through formal and informal conversations, the members are inspired and motivated. Setting short-term team goals aligned with organizational goals; and making an action plan to attain these goals can help sustain the increased motivation and commitment to common goals of the members.

Coaching produces valuable leaders.

Leadership by example is important in coaching. A coaching leader loses credibility when he/she cannot practice what he/she preaches. This means that a coaching leader should be well organized, highly competent is his/her field, communicates openly and encourages feedback, and has a clear idea of the organization’s vision-mission-goals. By vicarious and purposive learning, members catch the same good practices and attitudes from the coaching leader, turning them into coaching leaders themselves. If a member experiences good coaching, he/she is most likely to do the same things when entrusted with formal leadership roles.

Some words of caution though: coaching is just one of the styles of leadership. It can be done in combination with the other five emotional leadership styles depending on the profile of the emerging team. Moreover, coaching as a leadership style requires that you are physically, emotionally, and mentally fit most of the time since it involves two levels of coaching: individual and team. Your members expect you to be the last one to give up or bail out in any situation especially during times of crises. A coaching leader must be conscious that coaching entails investing time on each individual, and on the whole team. Moreover, that the responsibilities are greater since while you are coaching members, you are also developing future coaches as well.

Benefits of Liquid Vitamins

Vitamins and minerals can be absorbed by the body in a number of ways. They first enter our body through the food we eat. Secondly, we can take vitamin supplements to increase the amount of pertinent vitamins and minerals. There are different methods of taking medication and one of the most common methods is absorbing it in its liquid form. Do the advantages of liquid vitamins far outweigh its disadvantages – if there are any? Read on and find out.

Better or Easier Absorption for Kids
Although liquid vitamins may taste worse than vitamins in flavored, chewable tablet forms, they are however easier to absorb. There are numerous cases in which children have problems with choking, breathing and swallowing simply because of their inability to absorb medication or vitamins in this form.

This is the same problem as well for adults who have lost their ability to control their jaws or are unable to digest anything that is not in liquid form.

Liquid Vitamins are More Effective
Because of its form, liquid vitamins can be assimilated immediately into the blood stream for a more systemic administration of the vitamin and its average absorption rate is approximately 90 to 98%. It is also three to five times more concentrated than vitamin pills and this lead to higher bio-activity and greater therapeutic benefits.

The Link between Antioxidants and Liquid Vitamins
Have you ever wondered whether or not liquid vitamins contained oxidants as well? Vitamins E, C and A are examples of antioxidants and they are commonly found in vitamin supplements but what about liquid vitamins?

And the answer is an absolute YES. Liquid vitamins must in fact contain such antioxidants or they’ll prove to be ineffective compared to other vitamins. Remember that the most important of all antioxidants – Vitamins A, C and E – are not internally produced by the body so they must be a regular fixture in our diet. Antioxidants are our main defense against effects of damaging oxidation reactions. Antioxidants are our best weapons against suffering from any form of cancer. Without it, we are basically weaker and less healthy.

Liquid Vitamins versus Digestive Acids
One reason why people refuse to acknowledge the benefits of liquid vitamins is because of the supposed destruction by digestive acids of any vitamin or mineral that it does not recognize as part of the process of digestion. The opposite is, in fact true. Our digestive system actually prefers or is able to better absorb liquid vitamins and minerals rather than those made in pill or capsule form.

A vitamin pill or tablet has to be digested completely before it can benefit the human body. It must be broken down into absorbable nutrients or only up to thirty percent of it will be absorbed by the human body. Liquid vitamins however provide a better and easier solution for the digestive system. Because it does not depend in any way on mechanical digestion, an estimated 90% of it can be absorbed directly by the body.

It’s vital to remember that digestion does not mainly function to destroy vitamins and minerals but rather to transform them into substances it can use to improve the general constitution of the body.

Liquid Vitamins: Toxic or Not?
Another problem posed is the amount of colloidal minerals found in liquid vitamins. Are they harmful or not?

In truth, even plants and fruits contain a trace of such minerals in them. Apples, for instance, contain 3-5 mg of aluminum as it’s one of the most abundant elements that can be found in the surface of the Earth. But do you hear anyone telling you that apples are dangerous to your health? On the contrary, what we are more likely to hear is that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

And so it must be with liquid vitamins as well. Containing a slight amount of colloidal mineral doesn’t mean it’s bad for our health right away. Colloidal minerals, are above all else, naturally occurring elements and can not therefore be avoided.

You Have a Choice
At the end of the day, however, it’s still up to you whether or not you wish to take vitamin supplements in liquid or solid form. What really matters is what you prefer and which will ultimately work better for you.

All About Clinical Depression

Depression, a mental illness that is often characterized by prolonged periods of sadness and melancholy, experts from the field of psychiatry say.

But just because one person is moping around and just generally hating the world around him or her, doesn't mean that it's already depression, but if this kind of behavior, the feeling of emptiness, loss of self-worth and absolutely no hope for happiness just goes on and on, then, yes, that individual is very much, indeed, depressed.

Still, there are various types of depression, from Manic or Bipolar depression - characterized by sudden and extreme changes in one's mood wherein one minute he or she is in an elevated state of euphoria while the next minute (day or week) he or she is feeling to be in a personal hell, Postpartum depression - characterized by a prolonged sadness and a feeling of emptiness by a new mother wherein physical stress during child birth, an uncertain sense of responsibility towards the new born baby can be just some of the possible factors why some new mother go through this, Dysthimia - characterized by a slight similarity with depression, although this time, it's been proven to be a lot less severe, but of course with any case, should be treated immediately, Cyclothemia - characterized by a slight similarity with Manic or Bipolar depression wherein the individual suffering from this mental illness may occasionally suffer from severe changes in one's moods, Seasonal Affective Disorder - characterized by falling in a rut only during specific seasons (i.e. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall) studies however, prove that more people actually fall in to a rut more during the WInter and Fall seasons and lastly, Mood swings, wherein a person's mood may shift from happy to sad to angry in just a short time.

Clinical depression however, or as some might call as 'major' depression, is actually the medical term for depression. Actually clinical depression is more of a disorder rather than an illness since it basically covers only those who are suffering from symptoms related to depression. Clinical depression is how doctors usually refer to "depression" when giving a diagnose of their patient. It's basically just a medical term.

However, in spite of being an actual disorder, Clinical depression may well be treated. Doctors are actually highly optimistic that their patients who are suffering from Clinical disorder will be well on their way towards good mental health as long as they treated as soon as they have been diagnosed with Clinical depression. Patients who have been seeking for treatments for Clinical depression have proven to be quite successful in their quest, given that 80 percent of actual Clinical depression patients have been treated and has somewhat found relief from their disorder.

For those who may be seeking some answers for their Clinical depression related questions, the depression section of the health center is highly recommended, as well as books on psychiatry and the internet - which can offer a lot of helpful information with regards to Clinical depression although self-medication/treatment is highly disapproved of. Clinical depression may not pose as much as a threat as the other types of depression, but it is best to leave it to the hands of professionals who can safely attend to and cure this disorder.

Temporary Tattoos

Things are getting SICK down at Alchemy Tattoo Knoxville Tn. Coverup in progress masterfully done by Al Hume.

Temporary Tattoos

Things are getting SICK down at Alchemy Tattoo Knoxville Tn. Coverup in progress masterfully done by Al Hume.