Fall runways: Texture is key at Fashion Week in Milan

Don't expect to be swathed in silk next fall and winter. Designers are reaching for fabrics of a sturdier nature.

Fendi showed an eccentric side, combining wild fur, down-to-business tweed and ephemeral sheer fabrics, sometimes in a single piece.

And materials were the starting point of Prada's collection, from python in boots, caps and coats to fake fur caps and collars and sturdy gabardine outerwear.

Soft women, this won't be your year, at least judging by collections previewed last week in Milan.

Actress Katie Holmes was on hand for Max Mara's preview. She wore an off-the-shoulder dress, hair pulled back simply, for the collection, in a straightforward palette of gray, cream, beige and camel.

The Max Mara women won't need to worry about the cold. Whether dressed for the evening in a strapless dress, or for work hours in a belted gray leather jacket over paints, the answer is a high fur cowl as a hedge against a chill.
PRADA

What could be more innocent than an aviator's cap? Pair it with a narrow silhouette dress featuring a pleated skirt, and you start to get an image of innocent childhood dreams.

Then throw in some python boots, and the dream morphs into Miuccia Prada's fashion vision.

The clothes are about "innocence or freshness," Prada said backstage. "Not a girl dressing like a lady, but a lady getting more innocent."

There were dark double-breasted coats with big buttons, silver or black, belted at the waist. The collar matches the aviator's cap, and goggles complete the picture.

Drop-waist dresses feature pleated skirts, red or blue, or geometric designs, checks and squares.

Evening wear included dresses of plastic, transparent scales, in sophisticated combinations like mustard-seed and garnet, paired at times with one of her oversized furry collars -- a sort of surf-and-turf of fashion.

Accessorizing, Prada blurred the line between the clutch -- hers featuring strategic strap that snugly fits the hand -- and handbags, which models held sideways like clutches.
FENDI

Fendi's look recalls an era when women's daytime clothes were highly structured: tight skirts and tucked-in blouses. But the collection presented by Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi is deconstructed and looser fitting than the girdles of yesteryear.

Colors are natural, loden greens, grays and blacks, with accents of orange, green and azure.

The ruffle forms a motif for the collection. It is well-constructed, like an elaborate curl of cloth ribbon candy. It shows up on the bodices of daytime dresses, managing to be both playful and businesslike in swirling loden wool atop a long-sleeve plaid bodice that flows into a gathered black skirt, and more simply in black for a daytime dress.

Fendi combines tufts of sable, fox, chinchilla and mink to create a richly textured look of alternating black, silver and reddish-brown for fur jackets, bodices and scarves.

Evening dresses can be floor length, with silver shoes catching the light as the Fendi woman walks.

As earthy and grounded as the daytime collection, the eveningwear has a touch of magic: translucent sleeves sprinkled with flecks of gold, as if with fairy dust, and a bodice made of a rich mix of furs, as if from some enchanted creature, atop a straight black skirt.

The handbags -- from totes to clutches -- are made from "chameleon leather," which appears to change color with the light.
D&G

Don't try to read between the lines of D&G's collection for next fall and winter.

It's all there to see in black-and-white, or pink-and-black, and even yellow-and-black.

D&G appear to have dipped back to the 1980s, and perhaps took some inspiration from their earliest muse, Madonna, for their latest collection.

Madonna's "Vogue" provided the background music for the show -- but the influence of the era that launched both the designing duo and the pop queen hardly needed emphasis.

Colors were techno-bold, and the clothes -- clearly with a young audience in mind -- clung tightly to the models' slight frames: skinny dresses that ended with a sheer, ruffley fabric, tube skirts and tight leggings.

Most of the pieces featured a boggle of letters, perhaps inspired by nonsensical and repetitive keystroking. Don't strain too much to get anything out of it: The letters are an alphabet soup jumble, aimed at having fun, not sending a message.

Eveningwear stays bright, but skirts are long and sheer, recalling something of the prairie skirt of several decades ago, topped with a blouse.

The coup de grace: a herd of long-legged models wearing bright tutus covering the neon spectrum from orange and yellow to green and blue that evoked images of boldly feathered ostriches. Boldly feather ostriches wearing high-top wedged sneakers.

AMEX Ended Lower amid Libya's Chaos

AMEX was captured in negative territory where all the major indexes posted worst one day drops of the year because of shooting political crisis in Libya, On the contrary the oil prices continued to amplify.

However market strategists are of opinion that the market is on a short-term pullback given by steady rise since late August, and the advancement in oil prices might be the catalyst to set off that retreat.

The overnight slide joint with anxiety about precariousness associated to surging geopolitical risk overseas stimulated U.S. participants to cut their stock holdings. Primarily, their attempts plunged stocks nearly 1%, but as has been the matter in prior sessions some entered in to endow with support and proffer up the dunk.

A February Consumer Confidence Index reading of 70.4, which surpassed the Briefing.com agreement of 67.0 to set a near three-year high, assisted the attempt.

AMEX COMPOSITE INDEX (AMEX: XAX) plunged -0.92% at 2,325.26 where on the whole is moving with the positive growth rate of +75.89% of five days change, +27.72% of five years change and +159.49% of ten years change.

Looking for the basic Market Movers, Avalon Rare Metals Inc. and Denison Mines Corp. were among the top volume leading stocks on AMEX.

Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (AMEX:AVL) traded with 3.06 million shares as compared to average volume of 2.14 million shares in last trading sessoin.

China generates nearly 97% of the global supply of the metals consumed in the manufacturing of numerous high-tech products like Blackberry, iPhone, aerospace components, wind turbines, and lasers. It proclaimed in December 2010 that it will reduce its export quota by almost 35% for the first half of 2011.

This opened chances for companies that were not in position to compete to fulfill the demands. Rare earth metals are dispursed all over the world: established reserves in China exist for almost 43% of the total, and the remaining best comprise of the Commonwealth of Independent States (19%), the United States (13%), and Australia (5%).

Avalon Rare Metals (AVL) focuses on raising the Nechalacho Deposit in Thor Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. Preliminary production is plagued for 2015. Furthermore, the Company is not having any debt. Also significance noting is that since September through November 2010, revenues surged by over 300% in contrast to the same period in 2009 resulted in the last 6 months, AVL is up by 70%, and year-to-date has increased by over 20%.

Denison Mines Corp. (AMEX:DNN) has commenced a Bid Implementation contract with White Canyon Uranium Limited under which Denison Mines Corp. has approved to make a conquest offer to obtain 100% of the issued as well as outstanding shares of White Canyon (TSX VENTURE: WU) (ASX: WCU) at a price of AU$0.24 a share for a total contemplation of nearly AU$57 million or CDN$56.6 million. The bid reflects a premium of almost 20% to the closing price of White Canyon shares on the Australian Securities Exchange on February 18, 2011 (the last trading day in White Canyon shares previous to this declaration) and premiums of 23% and 51% to volume weighted average prices for White Canyon shares in the prior 30 and 90 trading days, respectively.

DNN traded with 7.53 million shares as compared to average volume of 3.10 million shares.

Highlighting the broader picture of Advances & Declines on AMEX give the view that it has total 699 issues out of which Advancing Issues remained 114, where 552 were Declining Issues and 33 were noted as Unchanged Issues.

Whereas the Total Volume included from the pre-market and regional exchanges was noted as 826.57 Million with up volume of 9%, down volume 90% and 1% unchanged volume.

NIVS IntelliMedia Technology Group, Inc (AMEX:NIV) witnessed as the top price% gainer with the splendid rise of +7.52% at $2.86 where on the whole is moving with the positive pace of +15.32% of five days change, +23.28% for quarter change and +26.55% of year to date change.

On the contrary, Midway Gold Corp. (AMEX:MDW) was noted as the top loser on AMEX with the sharp decline of -14.19% at $1.33. Midway Gold Corp. recommended that in association with its opening prospectus filed February 2, 2011, it has obtained remarks from the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) over the Company’s confession of technical as well as scientific information regarding its Midway, Pan and Gold Rock properties.

In last, B2B Internet HOLDRs (ETF) (NYSE:BHH) ($1.14, -4.20%) seems to be rising stock on AMEX traded with 1.04 million shares as compared to the average volume of 315,275 shares.

Nike SB Dunk High Premium Liberty

If you were to review the entire catalog of Nike Dunks from the very beginning, it is pretty safe to say that an entire day may not be enough to get it all done. This is because there have been so many Dunks over the years in so many different colorways, styles and special editions that your head will really start spinning trying to catalog them all. It seems like every special occasion, event or thing that has ever happened has been covered at some point by the Nike Dunk. Today we are going to look at the latest one, this is the new Nike SB Dunk High Premium Liberty.

It is pretty easy to see where this shoe gets its name from as the entire up is done up in the same color as the statue of liberty. If you look closer you can even see hints of wear and tear and copper and silver paint below the surface, just like the real statue.