A Life of Adventure

Get a taste of what designers and manufacturers have in store for their 2009 swimwear and resort collections with these news bites. From mass market to high-end design, whether inspired by nature, nostalgia, high performance, or the tropics, styles encompass the trendy, sporty, sexy, sophisticated, daring, and figure-flattering. You’ll also find updates from fabric and fiber suppliers.

http://www.himfr.com/buy-California_Style/”>California StyleChina’s Guangzhou Huar Garment Co., Ltd. is seeking global cooperation with swimwear brands for its new, U.S. patent–pending seamless swimwear. The inventive and functional design features molded bra cups and enclosed underwire, maximum comfort with no seam or stitch, a variety of laser-cut edge-trimmings, refined workmanship, innovative technology, and BV and OEKO-Tex tested durability with anticorrosion from chlorine and sea water.

Inventor/designer Carol Wior is dedicated to creating figure-flattering, glamorous styles for her customers. The revolutionary, patented Carol Wior Slimsuit™ is a highly engineered, one-piece swimsuit that takes an inch or more off the stomach instantly. Available in sizes 4 to 26W as well as mastectomy, the Slimsuit™ is sold with a tape measure to show customers the measurable difference. Her products are proudly made in the USA. Call (562) 927-0052 for more information.

Founded in 1949, the Philips-Boyne Corporation is a stocking distributor of high quality woven shirting fabric. The majority of the line consists of long staple Egyptian cotton that is woven and finished in Japan. More than 3.5 million yards of stock also includes blends, linens, and silks. Styles range from classic stripes, checks, and solids to novelties, oxfords, polka-dots, and more. Located in the New York metropolitan area with sales agents throughout the country, Philips-Boyne serves everyone from at-home sewers and custom shirt-makers to couture designers and branded corporations. Peruse the extensive inventory listing .

Malibu Dream Girl and Gossip Girl welcome Paul Luksa as National Sales Manager for their house brands. Luksa, a seasoned veteran in the swimwear industry, brings more than 25 years of experience and expertise to the company. Similarly, Malibu Dream Girl celebrates more than 25 years of designing and creating swimsuits for children, juniors, and women. Its 2009 collections will be shown at Surf Expo (Sept. 12–14). For more information, contact (800) 359-SWIM or visit the newly launched website.

Brazil, home to some of the most beautiful models and glamorous beaches in the world, is also home to the hottest bikinis in the world. Warm breezes, tropical climates, and a culture that revolves around holidays at the sea are a recipe for exceptionally creative and sexy beach fashion. Cia. Maritima has been a favorite of Brazilian women for more than 15 years. Sold only in exclusive boutiques in the country, the sophisticated yet edgy swimwear collection also features accessories to complete its signature look such as cover-up dresses, tunics, and beach totes.

Skye™ swimwear brings style, elegance, and comfort to the world of contemporary swimwear. Designed for the sophisticated woman with a youthful spirit, Skye™ swimsuits incorporate three key elements: style, comfort, and functionality. The soft and silky feel of Skye’s™ SoSoft™ fabric is smooth to the touch and feels blissful against the skin. Stylish prints and lavish embellishments merge to create elegant swimsuits with an excellent fit that make women feel confident and beautiful.

With more than 20 years of experience in swimwear, Colombian designer Vicky Moreinis is passionate about creating swimwear that is flattering, unique, timeless, and fun for body conscious women of all ages. Unique to her designs are the extensive use of Colombian, handcrafted artisan details, such as ornaments in coconut and seeds, crochet, batik, and hand painting. The 2008 Vicky Moreinis Swimwear collection is inspired by the “London Look” of Twiggy and the British Invasion combined with soft silhouettes and pleats, vibrant colors, and present day romance. All swimwear is manufactured and controlled by The Moreinis Hermanos factory in Colombia.

INVISTA, for the fourth year in a row, staged the only group runway show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim in Miami in July 2008. Hosted by Carson Kressley, style expert and host of Lifetime Network’s “How to Look Good Naked,” the catwalk showcased 2009 swimwear collections with INVISTA’s Xtra Life LYCRA™ fiber from Banana Moon, Brette Sandler, Christina, Gottex, Karla Colletto, Maryan Mehlhorn, Miracle Suit, Profile by Gottex, Red Carter, Reebok, SHAN, and Speedo. The fiber brand features innovative technology that provides long-lasting fit that resists bagging and sagging as well as 5–10 times more chlorine resistance than ordinary spandex.

Kariza Designs combines elegance, creativity, and sophistication in a unique concept for the specialty retail industry. Kariza wrap skirts can be worn in countless ways, converting into beautiful dresses, tops, shawls, and cover-ups to achieve a number of looks from simple to sexy to sophisticated. With creativity, these timeless pieces can be worn for any occasion. New collections for the upcoming seasons can be viewed at .

Founded in 1990, InGear is a leading supplier of swim, resort, and casual-lifestyle fashions in the United States and abroad. InGear’s product and lifestyle accessories may be found at surf, beach, swim, hotel/resort, and gift shops, as well as in specialty stores, boutiques, spas, sporting good stores, and department stores throughout the country. InGear also designs, manufactures, and sells Your Best Look Swimwear, conservatively sexy swimsuits that come with a free matching cover-up. Most recently, InGear inked a licensing deal with Playboy and launched the much-anticipated Playboy Swim collection at the July 2008 SwimShow in Miami Beach.

Established in 1983 on the principles of fashion forward styling and quality assurance, MAR RIO believes in the natural beauty and uniqueness of every woman. The 2009 collection takes its inspiration directly from nature, featuring strong, lively colors mixed with flowers and harmonized with the soft colors of rivers on the horizon. The line includes more than 130 fashionable products, many of which are available in both Brazilian and American cuts and in light Lycra.

The extended success of the washed, soft finish Matte Foil from specialty fabric and yarn manufacturer La Lame prompted a new version in an unwashed hand for a shinier finish. Both foils are stocked in New York and are popular with swimwear and sportswear manufacturers. Another fashion forward fabric in demand is a Satin Stretch in 12 colors also stocked in New York. A new collection of Silk Blends in solids and prints produced in the Far East offer a less expensive price point than usual silk groups and are being heavily sampled by swim, sportswear, dress, and loungewear makers. Please call (212) 921-9770 to review these and other developments.

From feminine and romantic to nautical or retro to old Hollywood glamour or old school vintage—the essence of Skinny Dip Swimwear is to combine classic bikini looks of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s with contemporary ingenuity, foresight, and a keen sense of risk to create the newest retro/contemporary swimwear. The daywear collection features cute, flirty, playful styles, while the eveningwear collection offers sexy and sophisticated fashion. Established in 2006, Skinny Dip Swimwear is sold in specialty boutique and by online retailers throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

True Religion Apparel, Inc. has paired up with InGear Swimwear, a global leader in swim, resort, and casual lifestyle fashions, to release a diverse line of sexy, rock ’n’ roll–inspired swimsuits for women, men, and kids that incorporates denim, leather, and crochet fabrics. The True Religion Swim collection includes suits that range from vintage-inspired prints on Brazilian silhouettes to beading and embellishments on basic bikinis as well as coordinating cover-ups. Retail prices range from $60 to $100 for separates and $100 to $180 for sets available nationwide at major department stores and specialty shops.

Phantom L.A. Brands presents three distinct lines of swimwear. The daring and playful California Waves features bright colors, flirty detailing, and cute styles in mix and match pieces for a custom look and fit. The Endless Sun collection is designed for the more modest customer who also wants cutting-edge style and beautiful detailing and colors. Martini Sol offers a more sophisticated look with its structured cuts, detailing, and textures. Contact (800) 783-1451 for information.

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or intolerant Islamic Fundamentalists. This Travel Video PostCard is about the color and activity of Morocco, about the bright oranges and delicious street food of the markets of Morocco. Morocco is its souks, crowded, colorful open-air markets where everything is sold or bought there from camels and spices to herbs, gold and rugs. Morocco welcomes travelers and Morocco is inexpensive. Travelers to Morocco love their experiences in Morocco. You won’t find heroes from the movie classic …

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Do you know anyone who is given a riddle to solve and there is a prize for solving and still the person doesn’t try?  I don’t. Anyways I’m writing this for folks who love to create clues. Writing clues can be quite intricate and demanding for inexperienced. Here I present the structure to write treasure hunt or scavenger hunt clues for any physical object like refrigerator, closet.

Objective

We are to organize one scavenger hunt game in our nearby park for kids aged 9 to 13. We have selected ‘Grass’ as one of the objects to be collected in this clue based hunt. Now we need to write a clue on ‘Grass’.

Start from the End

The obvious start for writing a clue is to identify the answer (We selected ‘Grass’). Physical objects are easier than abstract ideas for making riddle hunts. Very specific answers like ‘grass of Mike’s backyard’ can be very challenging to solve even for Mike himself. Less specific answers like ‘backyard grass’ or ‘grass’ are generally not as difficult however hard clues can still be made for general answers.

Think, Think & Think! Some More!!

Related Words

First create list of words, ideas, thoughts which are related to and have some association with ‘Grass’. Important part is to just note down whatever comes to your mind.

Green, Lawn, Garden, Grassland, Lawnmower, plants, Crops, Weeds, Herb, Hay, Sod,  Under your feet, Cricket pitch, Hockey artificial turf, Football field,  lush, Collect dew, Grazing land, Pasture, Herd, Wimbledon, Golf putting, farm, food chain, chomp, grasshoppers

Opposite Words

Also create list of words, ideas, thoughts which are opposite or have reverse correlation with ‘Grass’.

At the top, Hungry cattle, muddy football in rain, Soiled,  On your head

Use Thesaurus & Internet Resources

Leverage Internet’s vast resources to capture more information on ‘Grass’. Types, associated history, referenced in movies. One very useful aspect is to find idioms related to ‘Grass’.

Grass is always greener on the other side, Don’t let the grass grow under one’s feet, Put out to grass, Snake in the grass, Grass root level

Put yourself in Object’s shoes

Imagine you are the object and describe the world from its point of view.  What do you see, hear, feel and smell? What do you like & what you don’t.

Everyone is taller than me, Don’t stomp, I need lots of water, Cut the shank and I’m smooth. I make your lawn lush green, My king in Africa is the tallest

Use Figure of Speech

Use figure of speech to write sentences describing the answer (‘Grass’), using whatever we’ve come up with so far.

Mental Picturization: Collects dew to make your shoes wet

Personalization: I can move the ball, just don’t stomp on me, Cut the shank and I’m smooth

Metaphor: Start of the food chain, Wimbledon court

Substitute Word for main word(s): lush green

Sounds associated with word: chomp, chomp, chomp for grazing

Simile: So is Grass to lawn as hairs to head (You guessed it! I’m indeed baldy) or colours to painting

Did all the hard work…Now write a draft ‘Hunt Clue’

Both too easy or too hard clues will make players loose interest very quickly. Categorize all work done till now. (1) Reject too straight forward phrases (2) Choose some cryptic phrases (3) Choose some solvable part of the clue.

I like the ideas related to ‘cutting the shank’, idiom ‘let the grass grow under one’s feet’, ‘ moving the ball’ and ‘king in Africa is the tallest’ to build the cryptic parts. Let’s see if we could use ‘Golf putting’, ‘greener on the other side’ & ‘Hungry cattle’ to guide the players for actually solving the clue.

Lush green and anything related to grazing seem a bit obvious. May be I’ll pick these while writing clues for younger kids but not here. Start of the food chain can be confused with other plants, so ignore it..

Cut the shank, I make the ball move, putt you believe I’m green other side.

In Africa I have the tallest king, Lazy you I grow under your feet.

Aaah! It seems very disjointed and not spicy at all. Let’s give another try and use some Parallelism and Opposites, Cut & Grow, Short & Tall.

Cut the shank I move the ball, No action I grow in your feet,

Greedy bully makes me short, Only tall is my African king.

Used ‘greedy bully’ for ‘hungry cow’ to make it a bit obscure. I’m still not quite satisfied. It doesn’t sound good when I read it aloud. Let’s give it the finishing touch.

Make it Elegant & Poetic

Now we need to use thesaurus a lot. Modify the phrases to have almost equal number of characters and finish each phrase with rhyming words. We could use formal writing technicalities like rhetorical effect, alliteration to enhance literary quality of clues. Visual changes like punctuation placement, capitalization and bolding to further emphasise the clues. I used ‘switch’ to represent ‘other side’.

No action I grow in your feet, greener if you are switching.

Greedy bully makes me short, biggest is one African king.

It looks and sounds better now. I’m sure kids are going to have lot of fun playing scavenger hunt game.

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hauntingly beautiful music of Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan Travel Video PostCard brings you up close and personal to the sounds of this wonderful country. Travel to Nicaragua is easy with these sound rich wonderfully narrated travel presentations. You’ll see in the muscular Mombacho Volcano, and the elegant Colonial town of Grenada and Leon. The people of Nicaragua are friendly and welcoming. The prices inexpensive and the fresh fruit of Nicaragua, the food is the best you’ll taste. it’s …

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The prepaid Visa travel card is the newest convenient tool for travelers. This is the closest you will ever get to immediate spending that is also safe and secure. Here’s what you need to know about finding a card provider.

Visa Benefits

In general, you will get similar major card benefits wherever you get it. When it comes to the benefits of Visa, all vendors are more or less equal. Here’s what you can expect from a Visa TravelMoney card:

- The travel card from Visa eliminates the need for cash on hand. This means you reduce the risk of misplacing your money or losing it to pickpockets. You can use your Visa travel card in ATMs and establishments that accept Visa in any country.

- As a cardholder you also enjoy the safety and security guaranteed by Visa. Your signature and PIN are your first lines of defense. You can also rely on the U.S. Bank Zero Liability. When your card is stolen or lost it can be replaced and you can even get your balance back. A secondary card option is another way to protect yourself if you lose your card.

- Since the card is prepaid, you don’t need to put all your monetary assets in one account. You can load your card with just the right amount for your trip. If you do run short though, this card offers you the option of reloading.

- With Visa, you have extra perks. You can take advantage of travel and emergency services or reimbursement of lost luggage.

Vendor Differences

Card providers can’t just make changes in the prepaid Visa travel card benefits. Even with equal benefits though, there may be some points you can use to help you determine the best card provider.

- Of course, there will always be fees to obtain a card before you can even use it. Among some providers, fees are higher if you obtain a card and you are not a regular client of the bank. You might be able to save cash if you obtain the card from a provider with which you also maintain an account.

- Other fees also vary across providers. Some of the fees that you would have to look at include processing fee, shipping cost, enrollment fee, reload fee, card personalization fee and secondary card cost. Some providers do not charge their regular clients a preliminary enrollment fee.

- The prepaid cash values are not the same. In most cases, there is a reload cap of $5,000 but different providers have different minimum values.

- Although there are many vendors, not all of them present the product in the same way. You would probably have a better experience if you buy from a vendor who takes pains to provide you with comprehensive product information as well as customer assistance.

Traveling for business or leisure should always be worry free. That’s why you should get yourself a prepaid Visa travel card. Ask your provider now for more information on this fabulous card.