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Role
model offers hope to victims of Omagh
A
fashion model has told three young victims of the Omagh bomb how they can enjoy
life again after the tragedy. Like them, Heather Mills lost a leg, but carried on to
rebuild her career.
Pauline Green,
19, lost her left leg below the knee in the atrocity in August 1997. Suzanne Kelly, 21,
had part of her right leg amputated, and Michelle Mimnagh, 17, lost her right leg above
the knee.
Heather Mills had
her left leg amputated five years ago after she was knocked down by a police motorcyclist
in London. Now ,between modelling assignments she helps to boost the morale of other
amputees. She said: "My legs are my fortune. They are what I am known for in the
modelling world. So after I lost my leg, I decided that I was really going to
go for it.
I got the best
artificial limb that money could buy and my career just carried on. I have learnt to ski,
swim and snowboard. And only having one real leg hasn't done my sex life any harm at all.
There is no reason for these girls to feel any less attractive than before. There are a
million things out there that they can do as well if not better than anyone else. Losing a
leg need not be any disability to them and after what they have been through I know that
they have the courage to do it. They will be a great example to all of us."
Pauline Green,
who plans to carry on with her art college course later this year, said: "Heather is
just brilliant. She has given us all great  encouragement and hope. I want
to go and teach art to children and there is no reason why I shouldn't be as good as
anyone else. I still have my sight and the use of my hands and in no time at all people
will forget that I was injured as badly as I was." The engine of the car which
contained the bomb landed on top of her. She astonished doctors by recovering so well from
her multiple injuries.
Suzanne Kelly,
who was standing near the bomb with her mother when it exploded said, "Obviously we
will never forget what happened that day. We were lucky to survive when so many people
died - including people we knew well. I consider myself one of the lucky ones despite my
injuries and I am going to carry on with my teacher training course at Liverpool. People
like Heather who understand some of what we have been through are a tremendous help to us.
She hasn't let it get her down and she is still so lively and so glamorous."
Miss Mills, who
is aiming to break into television, urged the girls to get the best possible prosthesis no
matter what the cost. She said, "How could I be the next Anneka Rice hobbling around
on a stump?" She said that now people could hardly tell the difference between her
prosthesis and her real leg.
Some of the cash
raised through the Omagh bomb appeal may go towards helping the young women to get top
quality prostheses. "It's very important that they get the best," she said.
"They have the rest of their lives to lead in as normal a fashion as possible."
The bombing that
devastated Omagh on August 15 last year was the single worst atrocity in the 30-year
history of the Northern Ireland troubles, leaving 29 people dead and hundreds more
injured. Shoppers were crowded in the streets of the market town on a Saturday afternoon
when the bomb went off. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants were among the dead, who
included several children. The Real IRA, the Republican splinter group behind the bombing
declared a ceasefire shortly after the attack. This followed world-wide revulsion at the
outrage. Both Tony Blair and President Clinton visited the town in the wake of the
tragedy.
Photograph:
From left - Pauline Green, Suzanne Kelly, Heather Mills and Michelle Mimnagh
An alternative way to shop for clothes Are you exasperated by all the hurrying and pushing of crowds when shopping for clothes? Or maybe you have been insulted or belittled by inconsiderate shop assistants.If so, this could be a possible solution. Is it really possible to buy a designer dress in a virtual shopping mall, without trying it on and twirling around in front of a mirror? Several fashion companies think so, and have put their collection on to the Internet. Kingshill, the British company, put its mail-order catalogue online a short while ago. That is, you can log on to its website on the Internet and choose, order and pay for its products electronically. It is currently the biggest single shopping spot in the virtual world, with 500 easy-to-navigate pages, quick service and even e-mail advice about dress codes for certain events such as Ascot and Cowes Week. Andrew Davidson, the co-director of Kingshill, says: "Internet shopping has to be the way to go. About 60 per cent of our customers have access to the Internet, and although most of them still prefer to order by phone or fax, it is gradually changing." The majority of Kingshill customers - working women aged 35-45 who are too busy to shop – will have a treat when they click onto the site. Davidson has developed a "remote bespoke" service which he believes is a first. "We found that a Paul Costelloe size 12 was different to a Paddy Campbell size 12. So we measured every garment and entered the information into a database. Now when a woman buys from the website, we ask her to enter her vital statistics in centimetres or inches, rather than her dress size. That way we can make sure that she gets the right fit," Ghost also has a website, launched in April. Page visitors can see the latest, advertising campaign, check every Ghost stockist in the world and see magazine cuttings, as well as the small range of clothes which are available to buy. "We chose to sell clothes that translate easily on screen," says Tanya Sarne of Ghost. "That means simple lines in well-known, easy-to-care-for fabrics. All the items on sale are Ghost classics, so our customers should be familiar with them. Other good fashion sites include Brora, the cashmere firm, which offers everything from babywear to twin-sets, drawstring pants and lace-knit camisoles; Top Shop; Racing Green; Diesel and Levi’s; as well as Nine West, the shoe and accessories company, whose website offers a "zoom" option so that shoppers can get a close-up view of the merchandise. The most important thing about shopping on the Internet is to ensure that you are using a "secure site". This means that the line through which the credit card number is given - all Internet purchases must be made by credit card - is encrypted, making the transaction safe from hackers. The other important factor is to have fun! You may not he able to whirl about in a changing-room, but the Net does offer groovy alternatives. On the Levi's site, for example, if you click on a pair of jeans, they will revolve 360 degrees, so that you can be sure of the key thing when buying a pair of 501s: how they look at the bottom Top ten sitesE-zine shows a touch of feminine class How is it that girls get the best e-zines? It’s probably a reaction to the waves of porn and macho nonsense that wash over the Web, and is epitomised by the wonderfully irreverent Smile and Act Nice. Featuring tongue-in-cheek sections such as Negligee Gourmet and Ho in the Know, this site deals with the things that modern girls are interested in – food, news, home, life and sex. Great design and stylish graphics add to the site’s appeal, making it well worth a visit. http://www.smileandactnice.com
http://www.newwomanonline.co.uk
An on-line retailer helps customers find latest fashions – and test them in a virtual dressing room If you are one of the many people who are sceptical about shopping on the Internet for anything other than books and flights, then boo.com, the first on-line urban fashion and sportswear ‘e-tailer’ of its kind, is almost certain to change your mind. Imagine the scenario: you see a fabulous pair of New Balance sneakers in a style magazine and try to find a local stockist, only to discover the red/yellow colour combination is available in one obscure London shop – and it doesn’t do mail order. However, log onto boo.com (so named because ‘boo’ means the same all over the world) and you will find the New Balance sneakers in every colour combination , as well as ranges of shoes, accessories and clothes for both sexes from DKNY Active, Patagonia, The North Face, Converse, Vans, Puma and many others. In effect, quick-hit shopping should be as easy as click, click, click, pay. And it doesn’t stop there. On-line innovations include trainers which spin 360 degrees (so you can see them on-screen from every angle), clothes modelled by a dummy which twirls and a zoom facility that allows a close-up view of fabric and stitching detail. There is even a ‘dressing room’ with a dummy that can be dressed in selected items so you can see whether they go together. The dressed dummy can then be emailed to a friend with the question: ‘Shall I wear this tonight?’ Free delivery takes five days. The website launches later this month in Britain, the United States, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany simultaneously. It is the brainchild of multi-lingual former model Kajsa Leander and Ernst Malmsten, 28 year-old Swedes with an eye for a gap in the market and amazing entrepreneurial flair. They began in book publishing and quickly moved into Internet book retailing. Last year they sold their Internet bookstore, bokus.com and used some of the money to fund boo.com. Ernst is an archetypal Net-nerd, complete with heavy-framed spectacles and funky suits. Kajsa is an ice Nordic blonde who wears Jil Sander skirt suites and low-healed shoes. Both are millionaires. Before making boo.com a going concern, they hired a financial executive who secured funding from Bernard Arnault of LVMH (owner of such labels as Dior, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton) and the Benetton family, among others. Next they head-hunted Michael Skidmore from fashion department store Barney’s in New York, where he was senior vice-president. Skidmore was responsible for introducing Helmut Lang and Dries van Noten to America. His job now is to select the right clothes for the 15 – 40 year-old media-savvy and trend-conscious individuals who are boo.com’s target audience. ‘What mail-order catalogues were to the nineties is what boo.com will be for the 21st century,’ he says from the boo offices in New York. His most important task, he says, is to select items that customers can understand without needing to try them on. To do this he has focused on the ‘uniform’ of late nineties youth: trainers, T-shirts, rucksacks, shoulder bags, loose-fit trousers, jackets and little dresses – the kind of items that can generally be bought from specialist shops off the beaten track. His first supplier was Donna Karen, who is selling her DKNY Active range of separates through boo.com. ‘She is a visionary who recognised the potential and validity of Internet shopping straight away,’ he says. Other big names are sure to follow. When it finally opens its virtual doors, boo.com will be the best electronic playground on the Net. It features a cyber-shop assistant called Ms Boo, who is described by Leander as ‘bit of a ladette, strong and independent’. She will pop up on screen now and again offering advice, and bears a striking resemblance to Lara Croft – so she should appeal to both sexes. If Ms Boo can’t help then the Boo Crew – on-line assistants available 24 hours a day, seven days a week – will. They can advise on fit, sizing, stock availability and navigation of the site. Boo.com’s London offices in Carnaby Street are full of groovy young things with laptops and mobile phones. The atmosphere is hectic: on one floor the boomagazine team is creating an interactive webzine to offer ‘culture and life beyond the clothes on your back’. The editors are finalising interactive street fashion shoots and other things. On another floor the Boo Crew are in training. ‘Fresh, funky, friendly individuals with vivid imaginations and good fashion knowledge. For Morgan, the coming months will be the busiest of his life. Every day for the past two weeks, 50-60,000 people have been checking into the ‘under construction’ site. Of those, 2,000 a day have been leaving their email addresses – no doubt looking forward to the day when those New Balance trainers can be bought from their bedroom, simply by lifting a finger and typing in their credit card number.
Lank-haired Net users can breath new life into their barnets thanks to the shampoo people at Salon Selectives. Their new website features advice on hair care and styling, helping you to keep up with the latest trends in twirling, curling, bobbing and snipping. If you’re completely stuck for a new cut, you can enter you details into the ‘Style File’, and the site suggest a style that’s suitable for you… And if it doesn’t work out, you can always wear a hat – Shockwave plug-in required. http://www.salonselectives.co.uk/
Thank heaven for long dresses. This summer they are everywhere, allowing those of us with less than perfect lower halves to cover up in style. This year, the range of colours and designs is quite stunning, but a word of warning: big girls would do well to steer clear of patterns. Swirls and circles, à la Pucci, might make great headscarves for larger ladies, but they create havoc with the body. Likewise, geometric shapes and overgrown blooms make even the Twiglet- thin look bulky. And, as for stripes, they are totally passé – which leaves us small flowers, miniature prints and block colours. Not only is a dress in one colour easy to accessorise but you can sear it with any colour, and it is definitely the most sophisticated choice out of the three. For some reason, though, the majority of them seem to be sleeveless. Worry not, this gives us the perfect opportunity to call on our new friend the shrug – the latest version of our national favourite, the long-sleeved cardigan, and what has undoubtedly become the salvation of summer dressing.
Whilst the disability legislation of accessibility is now accepted and disabled people can go into stores, they cannot always choose what clothes they want.
An organisation called AWEAR has within its organisation a group of clothing workshops than can make clothes for you and where disabled people are going to get access to mainstream fashion designs. AWEAR think that the most important thing is that once they go into the mass market everyone will be treated the same, have access to the same fabrics and the same look. A spokesperson from AWEAR has stated that a new technology is being developed where people go into an electronic booth and their body measurements are scanned for exact measurements according to their disability. AWEAR hope to have the first of these booths up and running within the year. It is then hoped that clothing outlets will introduce this booth into their shops. ContactAWEAR They will deal with callers enquiries regarding their clothing workshops and information on the new electronic booth. |
