CoolCapitals is currently holding a phone case design competition with Dwell.com, and the winner gets a trip to either Amsterdam, Antwerp, Valencia or Zurich.

Submit your phone case design to coolcapitals by August 9th, and you just might get to free trip to Europe.

The prize package includes two roundtrip tickets (from anywhere in the contiguous United States), a five night hotel stay, two city cards that get you free local transportation, discounts and more, and 20 of the phone covers you designed

The phone cases should be made for both iPhone and Blackberry and should feature and include the names of all five coolcapitals cities.  The winning design will be announced August 24.

This contest brings together coolcapitals — a website made by Amsterdam, Antwerp, Valencia and Zurich’s tourism offices, promoting the cities’ art, architecture, food, fashion and design through promotions and informative listings — and Dwell, an American magazine devoted to modern architecture and design.

This is the second time this design contest has been held, and it brings American audiences a greater awareness of the diversity and innovation in the cities’ arts and cultural scenes.

For more information, or to submit your designs, go to Dwell.com.

Our biggest announcement is that during this year’s Magic Tradeshow in Las Vegas, the first ever digital panel is going to happen. Our own Macala Wright Lee worked with the Magic Show to create the panel to further  merge the offline and online components of the fashion industry.

August 2010 – WWD Magic Tradeshow

Social Marketing: Strategies for Customer Engagement, Product Research & Sales

Top retail marketing professionals discuss the overall evolution in social media marketing, how to create meaningful online engagement with customers and how to effectively generate online sales.

Panelists:

• Macala Wright Lee, Principal – Fashionably Digital Los Angeles
• Crosby Noricks, Sr. Social Media Strategist –  Charlotte Russe
• Daniela Zeltzer, Director of Marketing – XCVI Clothing
• Carolyn Coles, Digital Culture and Innovation – Lululemon Athletica

Social Marketing has become mainstream and an essential component of marketing for brands and retailers. This interactive session brings together some of the top retail marketing professionals  to discuss the overall evolution in social media marketing.

Panelists will discuss how brands and retailers should can use online marketing strategies to build brand awareness, create meaningful online engagement with customers, build customer relationships, use social communities for product development and research and how to effectively generate online sales.

Details: 1:30 PM I LAS VEGAS CONVENTION CENTER – NORTH HALL 2ND FLOOR, N261

September 2010: Retail Camp – California

San Francisco & Los Angeles

The Fashion Camp Conference was an astounding success. Shortly after, many professionals in other industries – namely beauty and lifestyle – asked us to expand the event to be more inclusive of them as well. We thought the best way to include and encompass everyone was through the commonalities of all the industries – RETAIL. So we’re launching Retail Camp in San Francisco and Los Angeles in September.

Los Angeles: Social Technologies & Marketing To Consumers

This session focuses on using social technologoes to drive consumers behavior.

• Social Shopping Sites: Ever wonder how to use Polyvore, Kaboodle and social shopping sites to drive traffic to your retail sites and convert them to transactions? We’ve got the CMOs and CEOs talking!
• The Power Of Bloggers: How do you build effective, constructive blogger relationships that promote your products and support your SEO and community strategies.
• Affiliate Programs: Can affiliate programs still bring meaningful revenue? iI you integrate them into your social marketing and blogger outreach strategies. We tell you how!
• Email Marketing: Yeah! or Nay! – How to create effective email marketing campaigns that generate revenue without the use of discounts!

September 17th, 2010: Register Online for Los Angeles

How San Francisco Leads Social Fashion

Some of the world’s best fashion technologies, social sites and fashion dot coms are based in the Bay Area. We’ll explore how these companies have revolutionized the fashion and beauty industries and we’ll explore what the more traditional side of these industries can teach tech companies.

September 30th, 2010: Register Online for San Francisco

The MBA Summer Mashup, which will be held at the L2 Offices on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 from 6 to 8 pm, is meant to be an informal way of bringing MBA students and luxury industry professionals together.

While firms with job opportunities are definitely welcome, the focus of the MBA Summer Mashup is to discuss luxury brands in a lively environment.  Wine, beer, and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

The L2 Offices are located on 821 Broadway, 2nd Floor (Entrance on East 12th Street) in New York, NY.  You can RSVP by emailing Bryan@L2ThinkTank.com.

On Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 I will be speaking on Social Marketing for Retailers. The panel is from 12-1pm at the California Market Center.

The panel includes:

> Jen Uner | Fashion Week LA, LA Fashion Awards
> Mitesh Solanki | Creative Intellects
> Mark O. Wertz Jr. | American Rag Cie
> Macala Wright Lee | Fashionably Marketing.me

Moderated by:
Ilse Metchek, President, California Fashion Association (CFA)

Registration is required. Please register in the Buyers Lounge, Suite B271 (9a-5p) to obtain a CMC Buyer Badge. Visitors without the required Buyer credentials are subject to a $20 Guest Fee. Click HERE for Admissions Policy.

Buyers who write an order with a CMC Showroom and get free parking! Bring the purchase order and your parking ticket to the Buyers Lounge, Suite B271 (9a-5p) to receive your parking validation. Purchase order & Market Tuesday dates must match.

Moderated by WGSN editor Claire Hamilton, the panelists will include Emily Current and Merriott Elliott (The designers behind Current/Elliott), Meisha Jones (Barneys CO-OP Denim Buyer) and Johnny Diamandis (Designer, Parsons faculty member, former designer at Evisu and Burberry).  Topics of discussion will include future denim trends, how to sell denim in a saturated market, new global markets and their impact on the denim industry and emerging technologies.

The event kicks off at 6 pm with cocktails and networking, followed by panel talks and a Q&A session at 6:30 pm.  The event is free for industry professionals, business cards required.  You can register at the WSGN website.

The Response To LA Fashion Camp is amazing, the event spread like wildfire with the help of our sponsors Mashable, BurdaStyle and XCVI Clothing. If you can’t attend or were unable to register, you’re not out of luck. UStream.TV has partnered with FashionablyMarketing.Me to feature the FashionCamp LIVESTREAM via their site for the on Sunday.

Simply log onto UStream.TV on Sunday at 10AM, we’ll be live on the homepage; you may also go directly to the Fashion Camp LA Stream.

Thanks To:

QR Work provided by Warbasse Design.

UStream for their support of bringing to everyone internationally

5 Things To Know About Augmented Reality

1. Augmented Reality (AR) is no longer the stuff of Sci Fi movies.  It can be used today to provide value for consumers, and subsequently retailers/brands.

2. AR is the future of how we will interactive with digital information but needs to be thought out carefully. For some, it will make sense to use it as part of a more comprehensive interactive strategy, for some it won’t.

3. When thinking about using AR, look at your goals, objectives, target demo, and budget. Then ask yourself if AR is the best tool to help you accomplish what you want your business to accomplish.  Don’t just use AR for the sake of using it.

4. Mobile AR is “sexy”, but due to the realities of smart phone’s hardware systems, it’s not quite there yet. It will be soon, but not right now.  Trust us

5. Consumers hate downloads, so if you are being pitched an execution that requires a download, please realize that a large number of your consumers will not participate.

To learn more about Augmented Reality and Zugara, visit their blog, We Organize Chaos.

Watch the livestream at 10AM PST.

“5 Things Fashion Campers Need to Know About Law”

Borodkin and Ganier will discuss:

1. The fine print of Web TV: Internet video issues for fashionistas

2. Blogging with style:  User-Generated Content, communities and reviews

3. Avoiding faux pas at the USPTO

4. Fashion commerce on the world wide web

5. Fashionably mobile:  Apps and m-commerce agreements

About The Speakers

Lisa Borodkin – @lisaborodkin is a Los Angeles-based attorney focusing on the intersection of technology, law and media. A practicing attorney for over eleven years, she specializes in copyright, Internet and entertainment law. Her fashion work includes licensing, trademark registration. copyright and trade dress litigation and anti-counterfeiting. Lisa graduated from Harvard College and Columbia University School of law.

Christina Gagnier – @gagnier is an intellectual property attorney and partner at Gagnier Margossian LLP. A proud Californian, she began her interest in technology and politics while working on initiative campaigns and coordinating voter turnout in California for causes relating to education. Gagnier also operates as CEO of REALPOLITECH, a political technology startup.

Previously, Gagnier served as the Chief Information Officer of Mobilize.org , a non-partisan Millennial civic engagement organization, working on the organization’s Democracy 2.0 initiative, managing its online interface and research programs. Gagnier was one of eight members of the National Conference on Citizenship’s 2008 Civic Health Index Millennial Working Group.

The campaign was a joint collaboration with New York-based PR firm Lauren Henson Consulting and Carey Gordan, The Dessy Group & Fashionably Digital’s Macala Wright Lee and Crosby Noricks.

Polyvore, the leading fashion and social shopping platform, today announced an online media partnership with the Brooklyn Museum’s major fashion exhibition: American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection. The exhibition will be on view from May 7 through August 1, 2010.

To mark the new relationship between the Brooklyn Museum and the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum presents an exhibition of some of the most renowned objects from its costume collection.  American High Style consists of approximately eighty-five dressed mannequins and a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related material that will reintroduce the collection, long in storage, to the public. Polyvore will provide museum goers with digital styling tools to remix images from the exhibition live in the gallery, as well as online, to create and share their own interpretations of “American High Style”.

The exhibition will document the development of the Brooklyn Museum costume collection from its inception in the early 20th century to its function as a working design lab, and its development into one of the premier costume collections in the country. Featured will be works by the first generation of American women designers such as Bonnie Cashin, Elizabeth Hawes, and Claire McCardell, as well as material created by Charles James, Norman Norell, Gilbert Adrian, and other important American designers.

Also included will be works by French designers who had an important influence on American women and fashion such as Charles Frederick Worth, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Lanvin, Jeanne Paquin, Madeleine Vionnet, and Christian Dior. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will celebrate the arrival of the Brooklyn Museum costume collection at the Met with a related exhibition, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, on view May 5–August 15, 2010.

“Polyvore is known for its influential global fashion community and we wanted to integrate an engaging social experience into the American High Style exhibition,” said Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology for the Brooklyn Museum. “Working with Polyvore enables us to collect our visitors’ visual interpretations of the exhibition in real-time and share their creations with both a local and global audience.”

Together, the Brooklyn Museum and Polyvore have created an immersive and unique experience that enables museum visitors at the exhibition and online to mix and match over 300 images of apparel, shoes and accessories – ranging from ball gowns to beachwear – to create their own looks. Included are Schiaparelli’s Surrealist insect necklace, considered by experts to be one of the most important works in the collection; elaborate ballgowns and day wear by Charles James; evening ensembles by Charles Frederick Worth, Christian Dior, and Mainbocher; street wear by mid-20th-century designers including Vera Maxwell, Claire McCardell, and Elizabeth Hawes; a group of hats by legendary milliner Sally Victor; and dazzling evening wear by Norman Norell. The resulting creations will be published to the museum’s website and also showcased on polyvore.com/brooklynmuseum.