Forever 21

Forever 21 is an American chain of fashion retailers with its headquarters in Los Angeles and sales of $3.7 billion in 2013. Forever 21 began as a 900 square foot store in Los Angeles in 1984, and has grown to sell their clothing lines Forever 21, XXI Forever, Love 21, and Heritage in over 600 stores in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and the UK. More than 60% of its apparel is manufactured in China and the average store size is 38,000 square feet. According to Adrienne Tennant, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, and Andrea Chang of the Los Angeles Times, Forever 21 is known for its trendy offerings and its economical pricing. The company sells clothing, accessories, and beauty products for women, men, and girls. The company has been involved in various controversies, ranging from labor practice issues and copyright infraction accusations to religion.

History

Forever 21 founders Do “Don” Won Chang (Hangul: 장도원) and his wife Jin Sook Chang (Hangul: 장진숙) emigrated from South Korea to the United States in 1981. The luxurious cars of those in the retail industry influenced Don to enter the garment industry and so Fashion 21, later renamed Forever 21, was established. Don is the Chief Executive Officer and Jin Sook the Chief Merchandising Officer, with a combined net worth of $5 billion. As of September 2013, the couple ranked 264 in Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list and 90 amongst America’s wealthiest. Their two daughters joined the business in 2009, Linda leading the Marketing department and Esther in charge of visuals.

Inspired

Inspired is a collection of Lea Salonga's personal favorites, including "To Hear You Say You Love Me" (Jim Brickman), "Do You Hear It" (Lani Macaraeg), "Who Are You" (Bill Cantos), and her official wedding song, "Two Words" (Louie Ocampo).

Track listing

Fashion

Fashion is a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body or furniture. Fashion is a distinctive and often habitual trend in the style in which a person dresses. It is the prevailing styles in behaviour and the newest creations of textile designers. Because the more technical term costume is regularly linked to the term "fashion", the use of the former has been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while "fashion" generally means clothing, including the study of it. Although aspects of fashion can be feminine or masculine, some trends are androgynous.

Clothing fashions

Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey, India, China, would frequently remark on the absence of change in fashion there. The Japanese Shogun's secretary bragged (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in 1609 that Japanese clothing had not changed in over a thousand years. However, there is considerable evidence in Ming China of rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing. Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social change, as occurred in ancient Rome and the medieval Caliphate, followed by a long period without major changes. In 8th-century Moorish Spain, the musician Ziryab introduced to Córdobasophisticated clothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashions from his native Baghdad, modified by his own inspiration. Similar changes in fashion occurred in the 11th century in the Middle East following the arrival of the Turks, who introduced clothing styles from Central Asia and the Far East.

H&M

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈhoː.ˈɛm; ˈhɛnːˈɛs ɔ ˈma.ʊrɪts]; H&M) is a Swedish multinational retail-clothing company, known for its fast-fashion clothing for men, women, teenagers and children.

H&M exists in 61 countries with over 3,700 stores and as of 2015 employed around 132,000 people. The first store was opened on the high street of Västerås, Sweden in 1947. It had 2,325 stores at the end of 2011, 2,629 stores at the end of August 2012 and opened its 3,000th store in September 2013 in Chengdu, China. It is ranked the second largest global clothing retailer, just behind Spain-based Inditex (parent company of Zara), and leads over the third largest global clothing retailer, United States based Gap Inc.

History

In 1946 the company's founder Erling Persson came up with the business idea of offering fashionable clothing at attractive prices. In 1947 he opened his first shop Västerås, Sweden "Hennes", which exclusively sold women's clothing. "Hennes" is Swedish and means "hers". In 1968 Persson acquired the hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss, which led to the inclusion of a menswear collection in the product range and the name change to "Hennes & Mauritz" (H&M).

Getty Images

Getty Images, Inc. is an American stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage. It targets three markets—creative professionals (advertising and graphic design), the media (print and online publishing), and corporate (in-house design, marketing and communication departments).

Getty has distribution offices around the world and capitalizes on the Internet and CD-ROM collections for distribution. As Getty has acquired other older photo agencies and archives, it has digitized their collections, enabling online distribution. Getty Images now operates a large commercial website which allows clients to search and browse for images, purchase usage rights and download images. Costs of images vary according to the chosen resolution and type of rights associated with each image. The company also offers custom photo services for corporate clients.