Swedish cheap chic fashion giant H&M takes to the catwalk at Paris fashion week for the first time on Wednesday, hard on the heels of its Helen Hunt Oscar coup.Best supporting actress nominee Hunt bucked the trend for haute couture by teaming an enormous diamond necklace with a strapless navy blue H&M gown at last Sunday's ceremony.The show, featuring 25 outfits for autumn/winter 2013, will take place in the spectacular surroundings of Paris's Rodin Museum dedicated to the works of French sculpt

NEW YORK (AP) ― The biggest trend in fashion for the new year might just be that there isn’t anything especially trendy.Based on runway and retailer previews, the must-have look in 2013 could be menswear-inspired and tailored, or ladylike chic. Colors are bold and bright, or graphic black and white; fabrics are slinky and silky, or textured and tough.And pick your silhouette: There are both short sexy minis and long flowing maxis to be had. Check off dressed-up shorts, jumpsuits and slinky merma

PARIS (AFP) ― Deep in concentration, Tina Queralt sorts through a scatter of white paper strips sprayed with scent. She has whittled the choice down to a handful in her search for The One: the perfect perfume.One Saturday in the run-up to Christmas, the Parisian and her two daughters have come to investigate a niche perfume store called Nose, that holds more than 250 references ― and the elusive promise of personalised perfumery.Opened in June, Nose is one of a new breed of stores that prides it

Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber have been booked to perform at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, U.S. television network CBS announced.The lingerie runway show is to air Dec. 4. “Victoria‘s Secret Angels Miranda Kerr, Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Doutzen Kroes, Candice Swanepoel, Erin Heatherton, Lily Aldridge, Lindsay Ellingson and a bevy of other supermodels will star in this lingerie runway show,” the network said in a news release Wednesday.“The special will also include pink c

PARIS (AP) ― “Don’t take things too seriously,” said Karl Lagerfeld standing next to a towering wind turbine inside Paris’ Grand Palais, “especially not fashion.”Chanel’s veteran designer, with trademark humor, thus summed up an important message of this Paris season.The iconic house’s fun, young collection headlined the penultimate day of Paris spring-summer 2013 show.The fact the show had nothing whatsoever to do with the several eco-turbines constructed for the event ― no doubt at a huge cost

PARIS (AFP) ― Fur on Copacabana beach? Why not. Boosted by a 10-year surge in sales to Asia, the global fur industry is primed to take on what it sees as the markets of tomorrow.Hobbled during the anti-fur 1980s and 1990s, the trade has rebounded as all but a few designers put fur back on the catwalks, and luxury-hungry China sent global sales surging 70 percent in a decade, to 15 billion dollars in 2011.But Mark Oaten, a former British MP who took the helm of the International Fur Trade Federat