river island

river island Biography River Island was introduced by Bernard Lewis in 1948, a family business and it started out as a small shop in Londonwith the trading name of Lewis Separates. There have been many changes to the brand name such as Chelsea girl and Concept Man and not until 1989 its officially became known as RiverIsland today. Between the period of twenty years, from the 1960s to 1980s, Chelsea Girl was a well known high street store and was famous for its long haired girl logo. A group of approximately 45 students from Uxbridge and Middlesex has teamed together with the store to regain its reputation in the name of Chelsea Girl. River Island could considered to be one of the UKs biggest and most successful privately owned high street companies with over 250 stores operating all over the world and is still growing. Moreover, to ensure theirs customer a great, unique and fashionable look, unlike New Look and others high street stores which buy others brand design then altered it, River Island has their own in-house designer. River Island always focus on providing their customer the hottest look, hence, they also concentrate on providing their employees with a good working environment so that they can work efficiently and at their best. River Island stores across the country are always similar in both decoration and layout. In recent years, River Island has changed all of their stores to have a unique and similar layout. The general colour schemes are usually white walls with some emphasis of bright green to create a fresh feeling; the flooring is laid with creamy coffee coloured tiles with black paneling. Bri ght spot lights have also been used to create a posh look. In order to help the customer to feel comfortable and relaxed the stores have been designed to have an open air space which is simple but act as an effective background helping the clothes stand out and also enabling the customer to find their clothes. The layout of River Island is known to be like a walk-in boutique where you have trends that are divided into sections in the shop, which helps customers to know what theyre looking for, i.e. casual, smart or going out. Style River Island is a UKs leading high street brand, providing a big range of stylish clothes, but most importantly, their prices are affordable and the quality is great. River Island design clothes for both men and women at the age range from 16-30. With 250 stores and selling many different types of clothing like jeans, skirts, knit wear, jacket etc†¦ or even accessories such as jewelry or shoes. To â€Å"Get the most out of it† the company also provides online shopping so that it is more convenient for their customers. The design team represents the culture thats around them and thats the culture our customers understand, says Richard Bradbury, River Islands managing director. This year, the brand have reported mega profits, as mentioning this, River Island will have to thank their young team of designers, buyers and in-house stylists. The company‘s general theme for clothes line is usually smart looking, quite often the customer will see that there is a combination between smart-casual. Additional glitter, sequins, diamonds and jewels appear on all types of clothes to add a bit of bling and to meet with the young fashion trend. Moreover, these decorations also appear on purses or handbags so that they are all are matching. One of the company philosophies is focusing on finding new talent and bringing them up to contribute to the new high street trend, collection after collection is required to meet with demand of customers who searching for the new look everyday. In order to do that, every two weeks, Style Challenge is launched by one of our insiders. The themes will be different each time to make sure theres something for everyone. Youthful could consider being the inspiration for each design, but still could suit any age range as long as they are the person who is seeking a celebrity or catwalk style at a cheaper price. River Island always concentrated on the style and the quality. The company clothes are so trendy, chic, young, affordable and of a very high quality. Not only the clothes, but also the stores provide an exciting and fun environment to shop within. The average price of each garment is affordable: Ethical issue RiverIslandis committed to providing a fair deal between the company and their employees. The company has understood that to make an excellent business, it has to build strong relationship with its suppliers, consumers and employees. Corporate Social Responsibility has always been the companys strategy. Ethical Supply Chain At River Island, it works enthusiastically with its suppliers and official agencies around the world to provide a standard health and safety regulation to its employees. The company always ensures that their suppliers sign a contract which commit to World Wide Ethical standards and those who violate them will be prosecuted. To support this policy, the company have ordered the buying and technical teams to visit their factories throughout the year and actively engage in looking out for mistakes, hence, improve it. Today, River Island products are made across the world such as in the European Union, Turkey or India. Although there are many ethical and trading issues happening within fashion industry, River Island believes that through gradual changes, it will manage to solve the problem. According to source, â€Å"In June 2008 RiverIsland became a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI). Established in 1998 the ETI is a trade union organization and non-governmental organisations committed to working together to identify and promote good practice in the implementation of codes of labour practice.† River Island committed to the adoption and integration of the ETI Base Code into our World Wide Ethical Policy through its supply chain. River Island believes that to be one a ETI member, the company will be able to gain more experience to tackle the related issues within the industry. Environment: Nowadays, being green is one of the main focuss of each individual company. In order to protect the environment, River Island is strictly committed to a number of main key points targeted such as : reducing problems the environment is having, this includes dropping levels of energy consumption (including the use of renewable energy sources) reducing the level of product packaging, increasing the levels of recycling and increasing the use of biodegradable materials. The retail environment of River Island is very edgy, lively and vivid. The staff are committed to provide the customer a high quality service. River Island also believes that making the customer feel happy is its first priority, as customer service is converted into sales in retail. Promotion In recent years, River Island has gained many important titles from its competitor. Top shop has been at the top for years but slowly losing its â€Å"style crown† losing its best shop on the high street title of three years to rival River Island. River Island also won in the best bags and best place to spend GBP50 categories in the Company Magazine. The winners were chosen by more than 6000 people trough the voting system on the â€Å"company.co.uk† website. River Island advertises itself in magazines for having garments, accessories or products that are copied from celebrities or the catwalk. In order to advertise and campaign, River Island has joined forces with Look in autumn 2007 the UKs first glossy high street fashion weekly magazine- to celebrate and introduce its autumn collection .The collection has been styled and photographed by the Look fashion team. More interestingly, River Islands store windows nationwide have also been specially designed by Look to make a connection between the company and the magazine to promote different aspects of the collection. Look publishing director Julie Lavington comments: We are extremely excited to be working with River Island on such a major project. The collaboration exemplifies our brand credentials, and its great that River Island are harnessing the power of Looks reputation as the authority on high street fashion. After all, were driving hundreds of thousands of women in-store every week !† .In order to expand its market sale, River Island has also launched an online marketing with NME.com (a music brand ). In addition, River Island have celebrities such as Pixie Lot and JLS to model its garments which brings fans to shop in River Island. Together with the advertising campaigns, River Island also sponsors Graduate Fashion Week which brings advertising all over the world, for designers and students who would love to start a career in the fashion industry. Fashion Weeks with new designs and colours, serve additionally to promote new concepts. These Fashion Weeks not only display an array of new products, but also serve to communicate with the audience visually. Dresses and accessories worn by models doing catwalks, are more lively and enthralling than the mere display on mannequins. Normally with a range of Fall, Spring, Summer and Winter collection, Fashion Weeks boost market demand and promote its associated businesses as well. In addition, presence in graduate fashion week is the opportunity for their company to have a review from other people who have visited the show. It gives peopl e an idea to what River Island has to offer as a fashion retail store and how they are incorporating designs from students into their clothing range. River Island was one of the retailers which has joined in High street fashion week to show its line up. The event was taking place on Londons Oxford Street from September 7 to September 11. This is a great opportunity to promote the company image. River Island satisfies its customers with trend, quality, design and durability. That is one reason that River Island is, day by day, getting support and demands by its customers. It provides a range of comfortable draper footwear to soothe aching feet of all day long. River Island won the Draper Footwear Award in 2008 while another proof of its excellence emerged when this brand bagged ‘LK Today Fashion High Street Fashion Award for Best Denim. Fashion is not only a phenomenon for luxurious life, but this concept deals with humanity as well. That is why, modern fashion companies are aware for the fact of supporting special people of society with special needs. River Island is responsive towards special people and that is why it supports BDF (Birth Defect Foundation), now known as New Life Foundation Other than the BDF, River Island also helps Heart and Design; an association that combines creativity of fashion communities with heart and lungs treatment. Fashion is not only for healthy people, but it also helps to make ailing people healthy, it supports them in fighting for health. River Island is a well know high street brand that has over 50 years experience on fashion retail, it provides a big range of stylish clothes but most importantly its price are affordable and its products are good quality. The company satisfies its customers with trend, quality, design, global, human, culture and society friendly. At one end it emphasises collective psychology and trends of a society, and at the other end, it deals with the individual needs of customer care. Healthy trends, balanced life, and busy lifestyle are, what the modern fashion companies have to consider deeply. It is no more a matter of looking good and attractive, true fashion and accessories join comfort and trend together.

The Democratization of Monsters as Characters :: Monsters Literature Novels Essays

The Democratization of Monsters as Characters Proportion and distortion are not just irrelevant to monstrosity. Monsters are not weird or wrong versions of ideal forms, and the monstrous is not that which violates the rules of the game or calls boundaries and order into question. There are no necessary narratives that are inevitably reacted to (making it just a question of how). At the same time, this is not an anarchist thesis. At one level, monstrosity is obviously that which is called monstrous. However, there must be something too it. Right? Ways of writing, reading, or thinking monstrosity enact monstrosity, just as an era’s critics often embody their culture better than the society they critique. What is interesting instead is how to react to monstrosity in its face today. Proportion is certainly not the issue. Pro portions look for portion and then compare them, without offering criteria for comparison. Elementary definitions of simile and metaphor are not instructive in this regard. A simile is a metaphor with ‘like’ or ‘as’, and both are comparisons, but comparisons are acts or statements of comparing. To compare is to describe as similar, equal, or analogous. First, similar means alike but not identical, and alike means having close resemblance – which is the state or quality of exhibiting similarity or likeness too. Second, equal means having the same measure or value. Same means being the very one, identical – which means being the same, exactly equal, or just indistinguishable and so interchangeable. Third, analogous means â€Å"similar or alike in such a way as to permit the drawing of an analogy†, and analogy means â€Å"similar in some respects† or a â€Å"comparison b ased on such similarity†[1]. The whole batch of words that try to explain comparison end up relying on the exhibiting of similarity to come from the object, measurement to be intrinsic to the object, interchangeability to be possible by inability to distinguish, and objects with respects that can be the previous things. Exhibition is not a one way street by which objects strike passive actors. Equal means having the same measurement.

Breaking Away from Stereotype

The United States of America has been called the â€Å"melting pot† of the world. It is a country that is open to diversity and welcomes culture, race and ethnicity of all sorts, for as long as it complies with its laws. United States become a nation rich in immigrants who found new home in a foreign land. Most of the big and key cities in the United States are culturally and racially diversified. This diversity is taught to be an asset of the society. If not understood well, this diversity may also lead to internal and external conflicts such as discrimination and stereotyping. Stereotyping can be as harmless as thinking that Chinese cooks the best orange chicken or Indians have the best chicken curry, but it can also be as destructive as stereotyping Muslims as potential terrorists or Mexicans as potential illegal aliens. Stereotypes come in different forms and it is also apparent in the news, media, television, songs and even literatures. Latino or Hispanic race, for example, has been a hot topic of racial stereotyping. A Latino man behind a cash register may often hear a customer asking â€Å"habla Ingles†. Failure to assimilate to American culture, including language, is one stereotype Latinos are facing. In the story â€Å"Rain of Gold†, written by Victor Villasenor, most of the characters spoke little or no English until they entered the United States. Another literary work, a poetry, written by Pat Mora entitled â€Å"Immigrants† contained lines that read â€Å"before the baby can even walk, speak to them in thick English, hallo, babe, hallo†. There may be some humor to the poem, but it stereotypes the Latino immigrants as having â€Å"thick English† accents. â€Å"Rain of Gold†, written by Victor Villasenor was about the three generations of two Mexican families whose hardship and adventures date back in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The book chronicled the characters’ escape from Mexico and entry into the United States. It was entitled â€Å"Rain of Gold† because it is the English translation of the characters’ home town of â€Å"La Lluvia de Oro†. In the book, the characters spoke little or no English, which may still be apparent today in our society. However, from the book, we cannot generalize that Mexicans cannot assimilate the way of living or system of other culture. In the book, it was also written that the characters learned to use the survival techniques of Native Americans in order to survive the difficulties they were facing in their environment. The poem â€Å"Immigrants† by Pat Mora also wrote examples on how Mexican try to adapt the American culture by eating hot dogs and apple pie, by naming their children Bill and Daisy, or by buying their children football or blonde dolls with blue eyes. In the modern America, most stereotypes related to the Latino race are exaggerated in the movies or in the media. The movies would often depict Latinos as blue collared workers with little education, family with more than four children, or young Latino with literacy problem. Another stereotype that is attached to the Latino culture is the use of spiritual healing or magic. There are three literary works that took note of the Spiritual healing practice of the Latino culture. â€Å"Rain of Gold† by Victor Villasenor noted that during trying times, the character held on the belief of spirits and asked for their guidance and healing. â€Å"The Curing Woman† by Alejandro Morales was about the power of the traditional healers who use spiritual connection to heal physical ailments. It is about a Spanish woman named Marcelina who learned how to use â€Å"white magic† from her Spanish mother, Dona Marcelina Trujillo. â€Å"White magic† uses herbs, plants, minerals, chants and astrological formulas to cure diseases of the human body. â€Å"Curandera†, a poem written by Pat Mora describes the dependency of a Latino woman to the nature as means of survival and healing of the people. In the poem, the curandera (a woman who practices folk medicine), uses the elements found in the desert, plants, sunlight, and wind to heal other people to survive. Living in a modernized society and the availability of technology used as tools in medicine will create plenty of skepticism and mockery to spiritual healing as a form of cure. The use of spiritual healing will be rejected by most of American populations who grew up with vaccines, radiography, and antibiotics. It will be a challenge for any Latinos practicing this part of their culture to make someone else outside of their race to understand. Another Latino stereotype that affects most Latino men, is the machismo schema attached to Latino men. It is viewed that in Latino culture, men are the dominant gender, and women are submissive to their male counterparts. However, in â€Å"Rain of Gold† written by Victor Villasenor, the character of Dona Margarita, a wife and a mother, possessed strength that was even able to boldly reprimand the character of her husband. Dona Margarita’s strength and support was valued in the book as one of the reason of fulfilling the family’s dreams. She was able to express her anger and frustration on her husband, Don Victor, when he gambled and got drunk. Her family felt hope when she did not give-up her hope that her daughter, Sophia, was still alive. Although she wanted to give the leadership role to her husband Don Victor, the book made it apparent that she is the strength of her family. However, the story also depicted Dona Margarita as a housewife whose primary role is to raise her children and manage the household. Most Latino written works also depicted the common stereotype that Latinos mostly worked blue collar jobs. For example, in the â€Å"Rain of Gold† by Victor Villasenor, most men worked as miners, while some worked as soldiers. In the movies, most Latino females play characters such as nanny, cashier, waitress, or housekeeper. In conclusion, I believe that the Latino race does not only suffer from being stereotyped by people from another culture, but also from the literary works of Latino authors. Pat Mora, for example, used the â€Å"thick English† accent of Latinos to provide some humor to her poetry. In more than two literatures the â€Å"spiritual or magical healing† was also noted, providing a stronger connection between this practice and the Latino race. Personally, I believe that I am a victim of the movies and television programs who effectively instill cultural stereotypes in me. Fortunately, I was able to know numerous Latinos that proved that the stereotypes should not be used as a general depiction of their race. A research study survey noted that the stereotypical images of the Latinos in the media are not accurate and that most Latinos who participated in the survey were able to assimilate well into the US culture (Latino Professional Survey, 2006). The survey noted that 98% of the survey respondents were fluent in English and 80% were college graduate (Latino Professional Survey, 2006). This defies the common stereotyping that Latinos cannot speak English very well and mostly occupy blue collared jobs.

Efficient Market Theory and Behavioural Finance Essay

The behaviour of markets and investors, the decision making in the market place and the dynamics of demand and supply in any given market cannot be determined with a hundred percent accuracy. However master minds in the past have designed various techniques and theories that help investors make a particular buying decision, or to make choices logically. These theories and techniques help today’s investors to peep into the future and make almost immaculate predictions regarding the future behaviour of the market and the ongoing trends. A lay man night view the decision making of an investor as being solely based upon speculation but in reality every move that an investor makes today in the market place is backed up by sound calculation and†¦show more content†¦So according to the Efficient Market Theory it is impossible for any investor to â€Å"beat the market† that is earn more profit or get more return than what the market is actually offering. Therefore the investor can only earn greater profits on his investment if the investment portfolio includes a high proportion of risky investments that is those with higher standard deviations and betas but with a good capability of yielding high returns as well (Stephens, C.R., 2010). On the other hand behavioural finance defines the market dynamics and movement in terms of psychology of the participants in the trading process. Behavioural finance proposes that the amount of information available in the market regarding the factors that determine the output or profitability of a particular investment actually serve to determine the movement and output of the market itself (Fama, E.F., 1998). It is believed that Efficient Market Theory is based upon some fallacies and it does not provide strong grounds of whatever that it proposes. More importantly the Efficient Market theory is perceived to be too subjective in its definition and details and because of this it is close to impossible to accommodate this theory into a meaningful and explicit financial model that can actually assist investors in making the investment decisions (Andresso-O’Callaghan, B., 2007). The basis of Efficient Market theory is considered to have a gap in theory and practice thatShow MoreRelatedKey Concepts And Explanations Of The Efficient Market Hypothesis915 Words   |  4 PagesConcepts and Explanations of the Efficient Market Hypothesis Overview Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is a theory that states that it is impossible to beat the market due to the following reasons: †¢ Assumption that markets are efficient †¢ Investors make rational decisions †¢ Market participants are sophisticated †¢ Investors act quickly on information as it becomes available Since prices reflect all information there are no bargain prices. 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