Archives December 2016

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Yves Saint-Laurent, one of the major fashion designers of the 20th century, died Sunday evening of cancer at the age of 71, after four decades at the top of his profession. Friends say he died while at his home in Paris, France.

Saint-Laurent was born Yves Henri Donat Dave Mathieu-Saint-Laurent on August 1, 1936 in Oran, Algeria. Saint-Laurent was famous for designing women’s clothing and at age 21 he became the head designer for the company House of Dior. He was hired to take the place of the late Christian Dior, who died in 1957.

He retired from his job there and ultimately left the fashion industry in 2002, but not before starting his own clothing line and shop with Pierre Berge in 1962. It was once rumored that woman who wore his newly designed pantsuits were not allowed to eat at restaurants or stay in hotels in New York City and London, England.

“Fashion was not only supposed to make women beautiful, but to reassure them, to give them confidence, to allow them to come to terms with themselves,” Saint-Laurent once said.

Saint-Laurent not only fought the effects of cancer, but through the years dealt with drug use and depression.

“I’ve known fear and terrible solitude. Tranquilizers and drugs, those phony friends. The prison of depression and hospitals. I’ve emerged from all this, dazzled but sober,” stated Saint-Laurent.

Friday, November 7, 2014 Albuquerque, New Mexico — Online entertainment is a booming market, and plenty of players are making their play; back in March of this year The Walt Disney Company bought the multi-channel network Maker Studios. What is web entertainment, and the arts therein? And, who are the people venturing into this field? Wikinews interviewed Mario Lucero and Isabel Ruiz, the founders of Heaven Sent Gaming, a small entertainment team. This group has been responsible for several publications, within several different media formats; one successful example was aywv, a gaming news website, which was #1 in Gaming on YouTube in 2009, from September to November; Heaven Sent Gaming was also the subject of a referential book, released in 2014, entitled Internet Legends – Heaven Sent Gaming.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Once you get a chance to talk to West Palm Beach, Florida native Whitney Cunningham, who placed seventh on the eighth cycle of the popular reality TV series America’s Next Top Model, you begin to understand what host Tyra Banks meant when she described her as the “full package.”

First of all, she is confident and headstrong, which is a must on these kinds of shows, almost as much as it is to take a beautiful modelesque picture. Second, she turns that confidence into drive. She has been receiving steady work as a model since leaving the show, and still believes that her goal of being the first woman to wear a size ten dress on the cover of Vogue is in reach. Third, and probably most important to television viewers, she obliterates the age-old model stereotype that to be pretty and photograph well, one must also be vapid and without a thought. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Cunningham also dreams of becoming a writer, and is working toward dual goals: a model who can express herself like no other model before her.

Cunningham recently sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in an impassioned interview, taking hours to field questions from the reporter as well as from fans of America’s Next Top Model. Always in high spirits, Cunningham shows that she is a distinct personality who has carved her own niche in the Top Model history books. At the same time, she exhibits a joie de vivre that is oddly reminiscent of earlier Top Model fan favorite Toccara Jones, who showed America just how to be “big, black, beautiful and loving it.” However, Cunningham is quick to remind everyone that she isn’t big at all; she is simply a regular woman.

This is the first in a series of interviews with America’s Next Top Model contestants. Interviews will be published sporadically.