Designer uniforms for Olympic Games' players

Ralph Lauren has designed unform for Team USA, Stella McCartney for Britain, and Armani and Prada for Italy. But most designs don't come without controversy or criticism National uniforms for the Olympics rarely fail to elicit extreme emotions among fashion critics. While the Indian uniform designs appear far from inspiring, there's more drama in countries where the uniforms have been designed by international designers. Designed in the US, made in China When Ralph Lauren introduced the uniforms to be sported by Team USA in the London Games' opening and closing ceremonies, his designs got a mixed reaction. While some in the US criticized them for harking back to Gatsby's America, others said they were suave as can be. But whether fashion critics loved or loathed Ralph Lauren's designs for Team USA heading for the London Olympics is now secondary. For, Lauren's designed-in-the-US, made-in-China uniforms have come under heavy fire for outsourcing jobs to China, when unemployment in the US is reported to be above 8%. Such is the anger in the US against the made-in-China tag for the national team's uniform that the majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid has even demanded that the uniforms be burnt. That's not happening, though, for it's too late in the day to have the uniforms re-manufactured in the US now, with the London Games less than 10 days away. But six Democrats say they intend to introduce a legislation in the Senate next week that would make it mandatory by law to manufacture ceremonial uniforms for national teams within the country. But till the Team USA Made In America Act, 2012 - as it will be called - is passed, the US has Ralph Lauren's word that the uniforms for the Winter Olympics in 2014 will be entirely home-manufactured. According to statement by the designer brand, "We are honored to continue our longstanding relationship with the United States Olympic Committee in the 2014 Olympic Games by serving as an Official Outfitter of the US Olympic and Paralympic teams. Ralph Lauren promises to lead the conversation within our industry and our government addressing the issue of increasing manufacturing in the United States and has committed to producing the Opening and Closing ceremony Team USA uniforms in the United States that will be worn for the 2014 Olympic Games." Give me red! Stella McCartney's uniforms for the Great Britain team received adverse comments not for lacking in the design department, but for not sporting enough of the national colours. The design was thrashed for being "too blue", and not having enough red. British loyalists weren't too lenient while making their point on Facebook. "Badly designed. Not enough red. They don't emphasis (sic) the athletes physique. Design by McCommittee?" wrote one on a picture of the designs posted on the social networking site. Another one wrote on Stella McCartney's FB page, "an absolute disgrace .... you should be ashamed and embarrassed at that abomination ... the GB flag is RED white and blue, NOT blue, grey and blue ... typical self centered artist trying to 'be different' rather than designing for the purpose. Stella McARTney (sic) hang your head." The designer finally took to her microblogging account to justify the choice of colours. She wrote: "I see many feel as strongly about the Union flag as I do! The design actually uses more red & shows more flag than any Team GB kit since '84." Armani, Prada for Italy Giorgio Armani has designed the uniforms for Team Italy for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. Like McCartney, he steered clear of Italy's flag colours while designing the dress. But how did he manage to dodge the critics for his white and midnight blue creation? He made up for the lack of the national colours by emblazoning words from the country's national anthem on the insides of the jackets. "This is going to be the most fashionable Olympic Games ever," said Armani at the launch of his Olympics designs. And sure enough, not much later, Prada stepped in not just to dress up Italy's sailing team, but also to sponsor it. Thumbs up Bob Marley's daughter, Cedella Marley has designed the much approved uniforms for Jamaican Olympics team. For this once, no controversy or criticism. Just a big thumbs up from everyone.

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Institutes can't retain fees if student withdraws from course

Date 4 Jul 2012 13:03:18 IST , Times of India    Tags: Fashion Design Educational institutions cannot retain the tuition fees of a student if he withdraws from a course without attending classes, a consumer forum here has held while asking the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to refund it to a student. "This forum as well as the Delhi state commission has been taking a consistent view that no institute can be allowed to retain the tuition fee charged by it in case tuition has not been provided or availed. They are only entitled to deduct a token amount for the expenses incurred by them for process of admission," the East District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has said. The forum presided by N A Zaidi gave its order on the complaint of city resident Rajesh Aggarwal that he had deposited to NIFT Rs 51,750 as the tuition fees for the admission of his daughter, who, however, was not able to attend classes and had withdrawn from the institute. But the NIFT refunded him Rs 25,000 only, forfeiting Rs 26,750 of his daughter's tuition fees, said Aggarwal in his complaint. The forum pointed out to the NIFT that even as per the University Grants Commission's guidelines, an institute can only deduct a token amount of Rs 1,000 towards expenses of admission process and not retain the tuition fees and asked NIFT to refund Rs 25,750. "Keeping in view general guidelines issued by the UGC and the judicial pronouncements, we find that NIFT is not entitled to forfeit the amount of Rs 26,750 and they are only entitled to deduct admission process expenses of Rs 1,000 from the total deposit amount of Rs 51,750. "We therefore, direct NIFT to refund to the complainant (Aggarwal) a further amount of Rs 25,750," the forum said. In its defence, the NIFT had argued that it is an autonomous institute and that Aggarwal had been informed at the time of admission that if his daughter withdraws from the course only 50 per cent of the tuition fees would be refunded.

NID framework to assess its performance

The National Institute of Design (NID) was conceived to train and create design professionals, undertake research and publication activities and promote design awareness. But has the premier design institute fulfilled the goals it set out to achieve?

So far, there was no evaluation system to check the institute’s performance but, starting this academic year, the NID has formed a results-framework document (RFD) to assess its own performance across various parameters at the end of the academic year.

As per the document, which has been uploaded online, it has two purposes __ moving the focus of the organisation from process orientation to results orientation and also to provide an objective and fair basis to evaluate the organisation’s overall performance.

The NID’s evaluation system is in keeping with the prime minister’s recent approval to an outline ofPerformance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES) for government departments. Under PMES, each department is required to prepare a Results-Framework

Document (RFD). A RFD provides a summary of the most important results that an organisation expects to achieve during the financial year.

Institute director Pradyumna Vyas said the document would help to focus on priority areas.

Some of the important aspects included in the RFD are providing graduate diploma programme in design (GDPD) education, provide sector-specific post graduate diploma programme in design, offer sustainable design intervention and consultancy to industry, MSME and the crafts sector.

Different criterion have been allotted weightage in terms of percentage. As per the RFD, a score of 100 is excellent, while 98 is very good, 95 good, 90 fair and 85 poor.

As per the online document available, it seeks to address three issues - main objectives of the organisation for the year, actions proposed to achieve these objectives and measures to know progress made in implementing these actions.

National Institute of Design bags three national awards for publication design

Date 27 Jun 2012 15:58:10 IST , Times of India    Tags: Fashion Design


The National Institute of Design  (NID)'s two in-house magazines got national awards for publication design at ICE Awards held in Mumbai. As per the Research and Publications Department officials, NID had participated in the ICE Awards Competition for In-house communication excellence. The ICE awards are given to in-house journals and magazines in any language from any part of the world. There are seven different categories in the competition. This year there were 675 entries sent by corporate giants, educational institutions, NGOS and others from India and 35 entries sent from overseas.

""We sent both the Trellis and D/Signed. While Trellis is a design research journal, D/Signed is a periodical encompassing design industry and good practices. Both our publications were nominated by the jury in three categories. The Trellis was nominated for Best Publication among Educational Institutions and also for the Best Imperative Content . D/Signed was nominated in the best Design and Layout category. We were one of three organizations that were nominated three times so far,"" said Shilpa Das, head, NID Publications.

Some of the other nominees in the other categories were IIT Bombay, Tata Power, Reserve Bank of India, Nabard, Mumbai Police, Mahindra and Mahindra, Sophia College, and Air India among others.

NID officials said that the magazines bagged second prizes in all three categories - Best Journal/Magazine among Educational Institutions, Best Imperative Content and Best Design and Layout. While IIT Bombay's Raintree won in first two categories, Creative Keeda published by Sophia College, Mumbai, won first prize in third category.