Above: Summer Rayne Oakes as photographed for Lucire in 2005 by Sarah McColgan, make-up and hair by Deshawn Hatcher, styled by André Adkins. Summer Rayne Oakes was represented on this shoot by Boss Models.

Payless ShoeSource has announced plans to launch the first affordable green footwear line due in stores early next year and that it has signed an agreement with Summer Rayne Oakes, Discovery Network’s Planet Green fashion and beauty expert, author of Style, Naturally: the Savvy Shopping Guide to Sustainable Fashion & Beauty (Chronicle Books, February 2009) and Lucire editor-at-large to serve as the green footwear brand’s Eco Consultant.
   The new brand is a key part of Payless’s mission and strategy to democratize fashion, design and new ideas in footwear and accessories and to position Payless as a “house of brands” retailer, offering well recognized, fresh and affordable new brands.
   The forthcoming line will include on-trend, fashionable footwear and accessory products that are also green through the use of sustainable and eco-friendly materials such as organic cottons and linen, natural hemp and recycled outsoles, as well as the use of eco-smart packaging.
   The line will be seasonally refreshed offering the latest trends; the new brand will launch initially for women, expanding to include kids’ and men’s styles in the future. The “green” shoes will be available at prices, on average, of under $30 a pair early next year in about 500 stores with select styles appearing in 1,000 stores, as well as generally available on Payless.com.
   ‘When Payless approached me to partner with them on what would be their first-ever affordable green line of footwear, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ said Oakes. ‘It’s high time a stylish line of shoes can be both environmentally friendly and reasonably priced. Payless is at the forefront of a significant movement bridging fashion, environmental awareness and accessibility—an undertaking I am proud to be a part of.’
   ‘The sustainability movement is pervasive today and is touching so many elements of consumers’ daily lives and they are interested in more and more green product options being available to them,’ said Matt Rubel, CEO of Collective Brands, Inc., the parent company of Payless ShoeSource. ‘But green items are often expensive and inaccessible to so many. With our mission to democratize the latest ideas in footwear and accessories, we are in the best position and proud to bring forward a green footwear line that is affordable and accessible to all.’

Online today: a story I’ve wanted to write for a while on the best dining places in Wellington, New Zealand. I’m no food critic, but maybe that makes me a better judge of premises. It’s basically an expanded version of what I might write someone if they were to ask me where to dine, which was one of the inspirations behind it.
   Two are out of town: Cobar and Villa Margarita; the rest are within Wellington city. They all take American Express, not because we have some deal with them, but because it remains the only credit card brand I carry (never liked those bank ones, especially since so many New Zealand banks are owned by customer-hating foreigners).

We’ve added a small image to the right of the ‘Insider’ page for cellphones equipped with a camera and a QR code reader. Developed by Denso of Japan, the image contains information on the Lucire ‘Insider’ section, for those who wish to browse this part of the site on their cellphones. We’re gradually sorting out cellphone access—watch this space. We may put the graphic elsewhere, too, to help the increasing number of people surfing with their cells.

[Cross-posted] It looks like the American Big Three are doing pretty much what I warned them against in my ‘Saving Detroit’ piece presented to the Medinge Group in August.
   GM and Chrysler have had exploratory merger talks, while Ford may sell its controlling stake in Mazda.
   They have cited dropping sales, caused in part by their reliance on trucks and SUVs in years past.
   I can only say, ‘I told you so,’ when I warned of this exposure a decade ago.
   The sad thing is that GM and Ford make excellent small cars—just that they don’t let Americans buy them. In the meantime, they get trounced by the Japanese and Koreans in their home market—even though they’ve paid for the R&D of models that Americans would love.
   They needed to look at motoring commentators, examine the globalized tastes in small cars and learn to listen to their customers.
   But this was all too hard given the arrogance of at least the Big Two, GM and Ford, which have managed to weather hard times in the past.
   Their US operations have usually been mired in politicking and Ford, in particular, has often rejected the work of its Köln subsidiary for decades.
   Chrysler, meanwhile, fell victim to German brand mismanagement under Daimler-Benz AG. As a US company, the lean Chrysler of the 1990s was a business darling because of its rapid R&D processes and its market orientation. It even understood its three brands very well.
   Add to that the Americans’ obsession with short-term results—the problems that Medinge warned about many years ago, and which are also to blame for its financial crisis today, and there are serious systemic issues to work out before things can come right for the Big Three. If they ever do. (Continued at jackyan.com.)

I was surprised to read in Entertainment Weekly that there is still controversy over public breast-feeding in the United States.
   I largely agree with Mike Bruno at EW with his reactions to the cover of Advance Publications’ W, where actress Angelina Jolie is shown in a ‘private’ photograph breast-feeding her baby. The initial reaction: publicity-seekers. The second reaction: what is so wrong with breast-feeding? It deserves promotion, and better having a celebrity do this for a worthwhile cause than showing that she doesn’t wear knickers.
   This comment from Mr Bruno got me: ‘Not surprisingly, the reaction to the photo has been mixed with some people lauding Brangelina for being open about breastfeeding, something still considered taboo in our nation’s more puritanical circles’.
   Taboo?
   My reaction to that is that a segment of the population of the United States is more out of step with the occident than I thought.
   I am a Christian and I stop short at what I call vulgar behaviour, including coarse language, to the point where some people feel I am being excessively Ward Cleaver.
   And I have to give a vote for God and nature, versus milk powder and pharmaceutical companies.
   Most mothers who choose to breast-feed publicly are pretty skilled at retaining their modesty, anyway, and speaking for myself, it is not exactly troublesome to avert my eyes briefly out of good manners.
   They give the rest of us a quick warning first, too.
   And that has been the experience in most western countries that I have visited or lived in.
   In fact, the Americans I know would not have a problem with breast-feeding in public.
   We have seldom covered Ms Jolie, with the exception generally being her charity work. We never saw too much remarkable about her romance with Brad Pitt that was worth column inches here; and I can only think that it was her curvy figure that prompted much of the obsession by male paparazzi.
   From a publisher’s point-of-view, I can deal with devoting a few words to Ms Jolie this time.

Every now and then, we archive things, and in doing that today, I came across these beautiful black-and-white photographs from Doug Rimington, shot in Manhattan. Some were run in the print editions of Lucire; others were not. Film, as the professionals will tell you, has more depth and character than digital photography, and I think these illustrate that admirably.

The American version of Life on Mars débuted in the United States last night and while we are still waiting for rating figures at the moment, it looks like it will be a hit. However, it will be for different reasons, despite a script for the première episode that is remarkably close to the original.
   The adapters, Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Scott Rosenberg, who also produce the series, have recognized which elements of the successful BBC version to keep: the social commentary, the humour, and the dark, muted tones of the original set in Manchester.
   While a few scenes are changed, one in particular trumps the British original: Sam Tyler (played by Irish actor Jason O’Mara), arriving in 1973, sees the World Trade Center looming overhead. Given 9-11’s significance in our lives, the scene is far more poignant in a TV show than the original where Sam Tyler, John Simm, sees a billboard for an unbuilt Manchester motorway.
   Overall, most will agree that the original was hard to beat, though the Americans have done a fabulous job in the remake.
   Earlier in 2008, a Los Angeles-set version, produced and adapted by David E. Kelley of Boston Legal, was leaked on to the internet and was strongly criticized—showing just how poorly an adaptation could go.
   For a while it seemed all the doubters—mostly Britons on their high horse dismissing all American remake attempts (conveniently forgetting the UK’s own record with Who’s the Boss?, Married with Children, Outrageous Fortune and potentially the upcoming Law & Order and Bewitched) were right. But the network, ABC, realized things could be better—exit Kelley, enter the new producers. The shiny, 21st-century colours of the Los Angeles pilot were dumped; the dark, New York feel came in.
   It was a good move, not just because New York was offering tax credits to producers filming there, but because the dreary setting of a city facing bankruptcy is not that far from the mood of 2008.
   When times are tough, people generally wish to look back at the past with rose-coloured glasses.
   And as predicted earlier this week, Life on Mars did not so much remind us of what 1973 was like, but re-created some of the uncertainty we feel in the present day. In that respect, it differed from the original, which contrasted 1973 and 2006.
   Meanwhile, it gave enough levity and escapism to viewers, even if the Americans do not quite have the same regard for Kojak as the British do for The Sweeney.
   We had said at Lucire that fashion looks very 1970s right now, anyway. Not necessarily on the catwalks, but in what people choose to wear. Those in search of correlations between fashion and economic climate—any observer of fashion will have come across some anecdotal evidence of hemlines and the stock market index—might see parallels again.
   New York, in 1973, was nearly bankrupt and the mood was sour as the Vietnam War faltered.
   The pessimism of 2008 is now largely financial in origin, not that things were exactly cheerful as the public support for the War on Terror diminished. The latter could have been foreseen by the network and the producers, but could the former?
   It is easy to point out now how some post-9-11 cinema and TV have a gritty, early 1970s feel reminiscent of The French Connection—the Jason Bourne trilogy with Matt Damon is an example. However, Life on Mars may be the one of the few notable times that the period has been put so squarely in front of us in a retro TV series. (There was the poorly promoted Journeyman last year, but the time travel was sporadic and the hero always returned to 2007.)
   That ’70s Show, the mid-1990s sitcom, probably reflected a Clinton-era optimism by laughing at the styles; the various Brady Bunch movies had a similar function. One doubts if either would match the demands of the 21st century audience as well.
   Assuming the best for the new series—that it defies the pessimists by surviving beyond the 16 episodes of the BBC series, and goes on to last a few seasons—Life on Mars may well chart the switch from our present pessimism to a more optimistic time, as it goes from the downbeat mood of 1973 toward the Bicentennial. As it does that, it might be a fairly accurate barometer of our fashion, too.

Two motoring-related snippets this time—and I’ll keep it short given that this isn’t why some of you come to Lucire.
   The first item relates to our most popular item this week: Harley–Davidson has released images of the photo shoot that model Marisa Miller appears in for its V-Rod Muscle model.
   A video on the making of the campaign appears on YouTube, but it expresses the usual Hog values of the brand rather than the urbane, sophisticated image that the company claims it is pursuing with this new model.
   Meanwhile, I was happy to see the option of a lift kit for the Aston Martin DB9 in my newsletter from Independent Prestige, the brand’s dealer in Auckland, New Zealand.
   Driving a DB9 (see Lucire 25) is not easy when the car is an everyday vehicle as it has trouble negotiating some driveways and even hotel car parks. It is too low and you risk bumper damage.
   The kit, according to Independent Prestige, gives an extra 20 mm, which should be sufficent to lift a DB9 and prevent this damage. And the $2,500 bill including installation and GST seems a small price to pay to cease experiencing heartache each time you hear the spoiler scrape on a car costing over a quarter of a million New Zealand dollars.
   I can only imagine James Bond’s Aston Martin DBS being far, far worse on this front.
   I also want to pay tribute to Mike Clark, who has stepped aside as Independent Prestige’s general manager.
   I have known Mike for four years and I was surprised to learn he had turned 70 and was taking more of a back seat role in the car retail business.
   Anyone who has met Mike will know that he not only does not look 70, he acts about 25.
   He began in sales in the 1950s but really concentrated on cars from the 1960s on.
   I remarked that I never knew his true age because we never discussed his earliest sales and what cars he began selling. Today, we had a good chat about old Mustangs and Camaros—the ’69 Mustang being his favourite among Ford’s pony cars.
   I had to go with the ’68s because of Bullitt, but I have a soft spot for the first Bunkie Knudsen Mustangs.
   I was very flattered when he said I was the most knowledgeable of any motoring journalist he had met. I imagine this is only because no one expects a fashion magazine publisher to be able to cite cubic capacity figures for a 1970s Mercedes-Benz and I have surprised Mike from time to time.
   I have yet to meet Mike’s successor at Independent Prestige but I hope to in due course.

A US federal judge has dismissed the case between Van Cleef & Arpel, and Mouawad USA Inc. and Heidi Klum GmbH, over a line of jewellery bearing Klum’s name.
   Late last year, Lucire reported that Van Cleef & Arpel sought damages of US$25,000 against the defendants for allegedly copying its Alhambra clover design.
   Judge Shira A. Scheindlin dismissed the case without prejudice after the parties opted ‘to settle the controversy between them without any admission of liability.’

It’s Marisa Miller’s year. After signing a contract with Victoria’s Secret to be one of its ‘Angels’, Miller (left, in a Victoria’s Secret campaign) will now team up with Harley–Davidson to promote its latest model.
   Miller’s campaign will break October 10, promoting the Harley–Davidson V-Rod Muscle motorcycle (below).
   The California-born model says that her uncle rides a Harley and that her father is a keen motorcyclist.
   Harley–Davidson is aiming at a more urbane, sophisticated consumer with the V-Rod Muscle, especially in light of its average customer age rising. A sleeker, more contemporary and less retro design, its price begins at US$17,199.