I admire go getters who turn that one great idea into a money-making business. But sometimes, things move too fast or not fast enough, and those go getters make big promises they struggle to keep.

I really hope that’s not the case with LA-based accessories brand Thursday Friday whose founding duo Roni Brunn and Olena Sholomytska created the Together bag – a wildly popular canvas shopper emblazoned with a pop-arty Hermes inspired bag print on the outside. With the original $35 price tag (the price has since risen to $45 to counter rising cotton prices), they literally sold like hotcakes.

What could be wrong with instant success and enormous publicity you ask? Well, this fledgling company has had a very public struggle to fill orders placed as long ago as January, causing an outcry on its Facebook page from frustrated buyers. In full disclosure, I’m among the hundreds of people worldwide waiting on bags I ordered and paid for at the start of the year.

It seems the wait may soon be over. Late yesterday, Thursday Friday posted the following to its Facebook page: 

“We understand your frustration with us. We have been dealing with the delayed shipments, cotton price rise and production halts since we started. When we designed our products, we did not expect it to explode in (the) way it has and the overwhelming demand from all over the world has exceeded our production. Please be patient with us, we take your orders very seriously and we are shipping all orders from Jan/Feb.”

This long-awaited assurance prompted many hits of the Like button, and was met with a flurry of thankful, hopeful comments from Facebook fans.

Sure, we all knew when we ordered bags in January that they were on backorder and would be delivered sometime in March. But as March turned into April and spring weather coaxed us to swap chunky leather bags for a lighter tote, there were still no bags and intermittent communication from the firm left shoppers wanting. There were discussions about how to get a PayPal refund, and even threats of getting the Better Business Bureau involved.

‘Production Snafu’

The problems started when, with unexpectedly high and relentless demand, Thursday Friday had to work with an unfamiliar factory which was not only seven weeks late with orders but produced bags of unacceptable quality that Thursday Friday wouldn’t sell to customers. Even once a suitable factory was booked, it was slow to replenish stocks.

“During this production snafu, we understandably got more incoming customer emails, and this volume overwhelmed our support team,” Creative Director Roni Brunn, half of the Thursday Friday duo, told G’DayBklyn. “We’ve been hiring and training new staffers with the same eye for quality and care that we have for our products.  Again, this level of attention to detail has created another lag – a delay in answering support emails.”

What there has been all along though is enormous publicity for the bags – from blogs like this to The New York Times, Elle and The Daily Mail, and a prolific Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr presence by the company. That presence, as it turns out, can be both a blessing and a curse. Sure, a company can promote itself brilliantly through social media, but on the flipside, when something goes awry all those chatty friends and followers have a very public place to rant. And that they did.

A string of negative comments and delivery queries litters Thursday Friday’s Facebook page. So much so, that the company repeatedly asked people to take their issues to customer support rather than use Facebook  as a complaint forum. 

“We try our best with those whose frustrations are voiced on Facebook, and we completely understand that our responses may not work for everyone,” said Brunn. She said the company contemplated sending an email to customers “but thought it’d be whiney of us. We’re lucky to have anyone interested in our products and just want to push through any setback.”

Interestingly, even bad publicity – in the form of legal action from French luxury brand Hermes, whose iconic Birkin bag inspired the Together tote – has only fueled demand for the quirky bags.

Hermes, whose Birkin bags sell for upwards of $9,000, contends that Thursday Friday is  ”riding on the reputation and recognition of the Birkin Bag” to sell its otherwise generic tote. And in so doing,  Hermes says Thursday Friday is creating confusion among customers and putting Hermes’ reputation at risk.

I’m not sure that anyone is confused by a leather bag worth thousands and a cotton tote, but the suit has done nothing to damp demand for Together bags.

As we cross our fingers that the wait really is coming to an end, Brunn assures Together bag carriers can still be the coolest kids on the block.

“These bags aren’t close to ubiquitous,” she said, putting a positive spin on the setbacks and delays.  “People who ordered them in January will still be among the first to carry them.”

As a human, it makes me wonder what sort of children we are raising that two college students would think it a funny prank to ridicule another person’s sexuality in public. And as a mother, I feel a massive responsibility to ensure that my children would never think to treat another like this, and to protect them from ever being bullied.

Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22 after learning that his roommate and another student had used a webcam to film a sexual encounter between Clementi and another man and posted it not once, but twice on the Internet . The two 18-year-old freshmen Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei are charged with invasion of privacy, with the most serious charges carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison. Of course, nothing will bring back Clementi or any of the other young people who have taken their lives after repeated bullying.

What really gets to me, besides obviously the length Clementi felt he had to go to in order to flee the public humiliation inflicted by his perverted roommate, but just why anyone would think it okay, let alone funny, to target a boy for being gay. I realise this is naive of me, but I really thought we had come far enough that young adults – especially once at college-age - didn’t have to hide their sexual preference.

Back in the old days when I was at school, I’m sure there were mean girls. I remember being teased for having Greek heritage (unlike some of the pristine WASPS I schooled with), oh and for wearing glasses, and being on the debating team but it was harmless stuff back then. I don’t remember ever feeling shut out by it, and certainly not suicidal. What has happened to make kids so extraordinarily horrible to their peers?

Apparently while technology has made leaps and bounds, allowing social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to broadcast exploits far and wide and encroach on privacy all around,  kids today are dragging their knuckles on the ground and getting thrills from belittling anyone different to themselves.

 Bullying is alive and well, and with more terrifying consequences than ever.

Arghhhh ... my eyes!

When  you  switch on the TV come August 23 to watch the Miss Universe pageant, which I know you all will, please disregard this crazed ensemble on Australia’s entrant. High-heeled Ugg boots, a sheepskin shrug and a cutout cossie, that’s a swimsuit in Oz-speak: Is this really worthy of a national fashion identity?

Please, Ugg boots shouldn’t be seen outside of your cold apartment in the dead of winter, or at least that’s my take on them, let alone adorned with heels and on a catwalk. Hideous. But, what do I know. Jesinta Campbell, the 18-year-old Aussie pageant queen, is chuffed with the costume, which she will wear to represent the land down under in the national costume section of the contest. “Isn’t it incredible,” Campbell said when revealing the outfit, which a-la-pageant style also reveals plenty of her.

Well, yes Jesinta, it is incredible, in the same way that the Crocodile Dundee stereotype was incredible, and horribly embarrassing. The costume was designed by Sydney’s Natasha Dwyer who works under the Arthur Ave label, and the swimsuit bares a design hand-painted by an Aboriginal artist. To be fair, I actually don’t loathe the multi-layered skirt, but I am not sure how it really speaks to Australia. Perhaps the color palette is reflective of the earthy reds and ochres of the landscape, and common in indigenous art. Or perhaps Jesinta is headed to Rio for Carnival after her Las Vegas jaunt?

Please, before you judge Australian fashion sense based on this national garb,  think Sass & Bide,  Lisa Ho, Peter Morrissey, Richard Tyler, Collette Dinnigan, Carla Zampatti – there are plenty of great designers to emerge over the years, and they really are incredible. Oh and feel free to smack me silly if heeled Ugg boots catch on!

Spotted On A Construction Site

This snippet of graffiti on some construction to the Area Yoga building on Court Street got me thinking: Aren’t yuppies just hipsters all grown up? Not necessarily older, but in a different phase of life.

Yuppies are by definition young; so are hipsters. Both are urban and both have professions of some form, lawyer or book publisher perhaps VS indie rocker or graphic artist. Hipsters like arts and pop culture, as do yuppies who, to go with the sterotype, typically spend plenty of money on cool stuff … so isn’t it more about a state of mind. Yuppies are settling down, while hipsters are hooking up; yuppies are having babies, while hipsters just have sex.

Maybe I’m missing something in the call for “Yuppies Out: Hipsters In.”  To be sure, these could have come from different scribes, but it seemed an amusing juxtaposition, especially given the makeup of the neighborhood – old-timers who grew up here mixed with Manhattan transplants in search of more space to push a stroller and perhaps a million-dollar brownstone to store it in, and the singletons in creative fields who start work sometime after 10am, once they snarkily dodge the strollers.

Coincidentally,  I spied the graffiti from across the street only because I noticed that upscale children’s store Ola Baby  is going out of business.

Yep, breeders take note; there is a closing sign on the window and a 50-70 percent off sale in the meantime. Perhaps we’ll get another organic, fair-trade, pricey coffee shop … or just another boarded up building.

Ola Baby is at 315 Court Street, between Degraw and Sackett Streets.

The folk at Mean Red Productions, say last weekend – which was a bonanza with events including Score! Free Pop-Up Swap and Parked, where some of the city’s hottest food trucks gathered and fed thousands for the holiday weekend – was the finale. The landlord apparently won’t honor or even renegotiate the lease on the Carroll Street property and has told Mean Red to take their four-year vision elsewhere.

The landlord “requested that we take what we have built, and terminate all of our confirmed plans and schedule for BKLYN Yard this summer, ” Mean Read, the production, marketing and promotions company that dreamed up the yard concept, says in a posting on the BKLYN Yard web page.

They may be down, but definitely not out: “Rest assured our renegade spirit and love for pop-up spaces will come alive again this summer — very possibly with the same collaborators and programming you see on our current schedule… And very possibly even better than we had planned before,” says Mean Red.

Meantime, Doug Singer, Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter’s Sunday Best series will continue on at another location, including this Sunday with DJ Koze. To find out where, keep an eye on www.sundaybestnyc.com.

Just when it looked like there was a grassy patch to loll about on through hot summer days … good luck Mean Red and keep us posted …

Where do cheap designer duds go once the buzz is over? To the clearance rack, that’s where.

I traipsed over to the Target store this week, after following my own advice and dropping two bulging bags of clothes at the Salvation Army on Atlantic Avenue. My Target mission was two-fold: to check out the Zac Posen collection in person, which was unveiled a week ago, and to see what was left of other recent designer collaborations, including  the much-hyped Liberty of London for Target range and Jean Paul Gaultier’s collection.

Well there they were, the remnants of both designers’ clothes, piled high on the clearance racks. Needless to say there was no buzz there. No styling. No huge “get it while it lasts” graphics; nary a coat hanger even for these forgotten clothes. They were crammed onto a couple of racks, hanging haphazardly or trodden underfoot beneath the 50%-off and 30%-off banners.

These were the same floral dresses and saucy swimsuits that people lined up for just a few weeks ago, though admittedly the choice of sizes was limited to very small or very large. Quite a contrast from Liberty’s fanfare introduction to the masses at a pop-up store in New York, that came with an enormous ad campaign, spring flowers and even hyacinth scent wafting through the air. Jean Paul Gaultier would be no less thrilled, I’m sure, to see what’s left of his collection shoved unceremoniously onto the bargain racks.

Somehow even the deep discounts  couldn’t make this mish-mash of frocks and bathing suits and tunics appeal; everything looked unloved, cheap and garish.

That leads me right to Zac Posen’s collection, which is still very much front and center, having been in store only since April 25. I was disappointed it didn’t show better than I expected. The fabrics had that cheap sheen; the red tulle party dress didn’t live up to my hopes; the cherry-red leather jacket, the most pricey of the clothes at just under $200, looked plastic and glaringly bright; and some of the prints were just plain tacky.

Needless to say I left empty-handed and even more resolved to buy only what I love from now on.

Like thousands of fashion lovers, I cleared my Friday schedule to be ready for the email from theOutnet.com, the discount offshoot of high-end online retailer Net-A-Porter.com,  that would provide the top secret time of the $1 sale. Instead, when I wandered downstairs this morning to make lunches for my children and get them up and ready for school, the email alert flashed and lo and behold just before 7am, the sale was on.

Fast and furious I logged in and filtered for my size only to find a paltry selection; two pages of clothes that I didn’t care for.  For those who’ve asked, the only noteworthy things left at that stage were studded Mary Janes and a Stella McCartney Taffeta jacket that, at a stretch, I may have bought for a buck. The jewelry flashed SOLD OUT, and the handbags, which I would happily have settled for, were long gone. A Sold Out sign abounded by 7.25am, and the next time I checked, the sale was closed.

What a fizzer. It was a great concept. Who doesn’t want a designer piece for just a dollar? But like so many of these recent pop-up stores, Liberty of London for Target  which sold out a day early and the current Zac Posen for Target  24-hour sale come to mind,  or even the snatch and grab for  Stella McCartney children’s clothes at the Gap, the attempt to give everyone a chance to participate leaves most people wanting.

I was one of the lucky shoppers who could actually sign-in to the Outnet site this morning, but there are many, many people who’ve complained that the site crashed or it took them hours to log-in, only to find the sale closed by then. There are gripes galore on Twitter today, calling the sale a bust, a hoax, a joke; a couple of tweeters commented that it was like getting an invitation to a fabulous party and then having the bouncer not let you in!

Not surprisingly, the Zac Posen for Target pop-up sales party, which started 11pm last night and runs until 11pm tonight, was another bloodbath.  I didn’t go after hearing from a friend that racks were bare by 11.25pm. I’m not so enamored of the range that I have to have something right now, but perhaps I’ll take my chances to peruse what’s left when it hits Target. com on April 25.

The moral of all this?  Maybe with the proliferation of social media – Twitter and Facebook, in particular, where loads of people have shared their Outnet frustrations – and guerrilla advertising, have elevated even the world of pop-up stores and deep discounting to heights beyond the average consumer.

Now, even designing or discounting for the masses have become exclusive.

There are plans afoot to censor internet content in much the same way that Communist China does. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Communications Minister Stephen Conroy have outlined plans to force Internet Service Providers to block a blacklist of so-called refused classification or RC websites for all Australian internet users. If adopted into law, and let’s pray it isn’t, the screening system would make Australia one of the strictest internet regulators among the world’s democracies.

The blacklist would include subject matter that most of us find abhorrent such as child pornography, sexual violence, bestiality … but where do you draw the line? There’s a very real risk that that anything from regular porn sites and YouTube links to sites on euthanasia, anorexia, or fringe religions from satanic worship to fetishism and even Christian sites could slip onto the banned list. Not to mention that such a broad filter also runs the risk of restricting news coverage of illegal activities.

Political Suicide

The blacklist would apparently be compiled and updated based on complaints from the public, government censors and URLs provided by international agencies. How could these entities not know what’s best for us – let me count the ways! Not only is it is political suicide for a government with a national election looming, but fraught with all sorts of freedom of speech ramifications. Add to that the threat that real educational and informational sites could inadvertently be blocked, and the whole thing is a big, stinking, ill-constructed, and hopefully ill-fated, mess.

Sure, the motivation is noble. We all want to shield our children from seeing things they shouldn’t, which is why children have PARENTS and don’t need the government for a big brother. Besides, most children watch television and there is plenty of cursing, sex and violence on regular programming, let alone the slew of uncensored cable channels or ever-popular video games that anybody can get access to. Does the government plan to monitor and control these too?

That Australia would even toy with internet censorship – at enormous cost to boot – let alone allow the nation to be tarred with the same unfavorable brush as China, where centralized censorship abounds, is beyond me. Search giant Google has just pulled out of doing business in China, to protest such censoring; followed fast by GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain registering company.

Friendships in Jeopardy

Now Google and rival search engine Yahoo are condemning Australia’s proposal, dubbing it a heavy-handed measure that could restrict access to legal information. And even the U.S., Australia’s most coveted security ally, has weighed in. U.S. State Department officials reportedly raised concerns about the planned internet filter, which would defy the free-flow and ease of access to information that define democracy.

From a technical standpoint, the proposed filtering system is so broad that it would likely slow down Internet speed too. Interestingly, when my husband and I first visited Australia together about a decade ago now, technology-savvy husband was impressed at how advanced Australia seemed; the span and sophistication of everything from cell phones to internet speed were leading the pack. Our most recent visit in 2008, revealed something different. Australia, he said, had stood still, while everyone else had caught up and then some. Internet speed was already wanting, and with censorship proposals in the works, Australia could lose its footing as a player in the modern technology arena.

And one more thing, besides the obvious and indecent infringement on freedom of speech and thought, I wonder what happens if deviates can’t freely surf the Internet? Would they be more likely to act on unsavory urges? I’m no therapist, to be sure, but I can’t help but think that keeping cyberspace free and unfiltered is a good thing, especially if it keeps people inside glued to their computers rather than out on the streets causing trouble. This may be naïve of me, like I said I’m no therapist, but hey Prime Minister Rudd, it’s something else you may want to consider.

IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.

IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY.

IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU GET SHOT.

IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU WILL BE JAILED.

IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.

IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.

IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY – YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT.

IF YOU CROSS THE AUSTRALIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET –

A JOB,
A DRIVER’S LICENCE,
A SOCIAL SECURITY CARD,
WELFARE,
FOOD STAMPS,
CREDIT CARDS,
SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE, FREE EDUCATION, FREE HEALTH CARE, A LOBBYIST IN CANBERRA,  BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN YOUR LANGUAGE, THE RIGHT TO CARRY YOUR OLD COUNTRY’S FLAG WHILE YOU PROTEST THAT YOU DON’T GET ENOUGH RESPECT – AND, IN MANY INSTANCES, YOU CAN VOTE.

Now, I don’t generally open emails with jokes or group messages for fear of downloading a virus or reading something annoying, or just plain silly. But this gem sent from an Aussie mate gave me a good laugh, in part because it is so true, so worrying and just so Australian in attitude.

From the cynical content, to portrayal of the collective chip on the shoulder and the national pastime of whinging, (that’s the US equivalent of whining or moaning), it has Aussie stamped all over it – and I say that as an ex-pat with some level of nostalgia and love for the country.

In light of some of the crazy stuff going on around the world at the moment – the ludicrous controversy surrounding health-care reform  in this country, for one; Google and then Internet domain registering company GoDaddy.com pulling out of China to avoid censorship demands; and a whole slew of other irritating news the past couple of weeks, all bearing the common thread of just how much say should any government should have in our lives, the above commentary offered some light relief, while also being a tad too close to the truth about my homeland.

For what it’s worth, I commend Obama for having the Presidential balls to make health-care reform happen, and I am yet to see why people are so irrationally against it, to the point of brick throwing, threats and name calling.  Brand me a socialist if you must, but public health care works just fine in Australia … more ranting on this to come, I swear.

I also commend search giant Google, and others to follow, for saying so long to the enormous Chinese market, rather than operate under the country’s Big Brother surveillance and censorship.

I’ll be ranting plenty more on both those issues once i clear my house of marauding six and seven year olds in need of pizza, cake and goody bags! Meantime, it’s nice to know that someone had the sense of humor to write and email the “joke” above.

I just don’t get it. You pull a wild creature from its environment, basically exploit it for money and entertainment value, and then wonder why the animal acts “wild.” Whales generally don’t encounter humans, let alone attack them, in the wild because unlike other sea animals, sharks for instance, whales don’t come close to shore where humans swim. 

The SeaWorld orca (from Orcinus orca) drowned its experienced female trainer Wednesday in front of horrified onlookers. Details of the accident are still sketchy but there are news reports that the trainer was dragged under the water and thrashed about. 

It’s the second time in just two months that an orca trainer has died on the job. In December, a trainer fell from a whale at a marine park on the Spanish Island of Tenerife and crushed his ribcage as the pair practiced a trick. And the SeaWorld whale, the oldest and largest killer whale in captivity, was responsible for two previous deaths. In 1999, there was the bizarre case of a man sneaking into the whale’s pool at SeaWorld and his naked body being found splayed on the whale’s back; and in 1991, a marine biology student and part-time trainer fell into the whale’s tank in Canada and was dragged under to eventual death.

What’s not clear in the latest case is whether it was an act of aggression by the whale, or if the animal was just bored and trying to play. Whales are typically intelligent and playful creatures, and with potential to reach some 32 feet and weigh up to 18,000 pounds, they are not meant to be penned in. So no matter the motivation for the whale’s attack, the sheer strength of the animal was no match for a human.

There’s no word yet on the fate of the killer whale. SeaWorld has suspended its orca show for the time being. And just maybe someone will show some sense and consider setting the orca free now.