Fashion Powerhouse Liz Claiborne Dies at 78
Liz Claiborne in a 1984 portrait
It was 1976 and Liz Claiborne was in Oklahoma City for Fashion Week.
Yes, Oklahoma City really had it own Fashion Week. Six months earlier, Claiborne had started her own company with clothing geared to women entering the workforce.
“I don’t want to dress a few beautiful people who have lots of money,” Claiborne told a reporter during her visit. “To me that (working women’s fashions) is the natural area for designing. They’re more interesting people, more vital.”
Working women across the country embraced her affordable sportswear, mix-and-match pieces that could be combined to make dozens of looks.
Claiborne died Tuesday. She was 78.
She quickly became known as the American woman’s favorite designer because she paid attention to style, quality, fit and price.
What endeared the company and the designer to women across the country was that they felt a kinship with Claiborne, herself a working woman. She understood what women wanted from their clothes and how they wanted to dress.
Though she stepped down from day-to-day operations in 1989, the company continued to prosper and now has more than 40 brands in its portfolio, including Ellen Tracy, Dana Buchman, Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand Jeans, Laundry by Shelli Segal and, of course, Liz Claiborne.
The name recognition continues. Last year, Liz Claiborne was the No. 10 best known fashion brand according to an annual survey by Women’s Wear Daily. Women still love the brand for its fashion and value.
And to think her father never wanted her to design.
“He always said 7th Avenue (home of the fashion markets in New York) had the reputation of being a jungle,” she said during that visit to Oklahoma City. “And he was right, it is a jungle.
“It’s not a ladylike field at all. But I think it’s fascinating. I love it … You just have to get used to the mentality.”
Women everywhere are thankful she did.
Linda Miller
Fashion Editor
Water polo anyone?
I don’t understand why everyone is making such a big fuss over washed out streets, bridges and cars. A greater problem has been created by Floodhoma:
The cancelation of kickball. Every week (see Carrie Coppernoll’s column in today’s metro section) a group of OPUBCO’s finest (not really, there is a team from LOOK@OKC who is better) gets together for kickball.
Or at least we try. Like clockwork – or a sick joke – it always rains on Tuesday and Wednesday, flooding the fields at Boomtown Ballyards, 801 NW 122.
The only positive that comes from the weekly cancelation is that our record doesn’t get worse. We might not be the best team in the league – or this building for that matter – but a little rain does not scare us.
But that team with the high socks, face paint, knee braces and matching uniforms – they, however, do. I’ve seen how hard (and where) they peg base runners and I don’t want any part of that.
On second thought, keep on raining, baby.
Chad Previch, Staff Writer
Cancer cure from the rainforest
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have determined how a substance derived from the bark of the South American lapacho tree kills certain kinds of cancer cells, including pancreatic cancer and one type of lung cancer.
The compound, called beta-lapachone, has shown promising anti-cancer properties and is currently being used in a clinical trial to examine its effectiveness against certain cancers in humans.
A study by Dr. David Boothman appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been researching the compound and how it causes cell death in cancerous cells for 15 years.
In the new study, Dallas researchers found that beta-lapachone interracts with an enzyme called NQO1 to kill cancer cells without damaging non-cancerous tissues.
In Oklahoma, pancreatic cancer kills about 400 people a year. while lung cancer kills some 2,300 individuals annually in the state.
In Dallas, further research is needed, officials said. But UT Southwestern medical scientists hope that a drug like beta-lapachone can selectively target and kill cancer cancerous cells more effecitvely. The new drug may have to be used in conjunction with radiation to treat “non-small cell lung cancer,” a common form of lung cancer.
Jim Killackey
Staff Writer
A dramatic rebound
The Center for Biological Diversity released this week a report stating that the bald eagle population in the contiguous United States is about 11,040 pairs. That’s an increase of nearly 1,300 bald eagles counted last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Oklahoma mirrors what is happening nationwide. Researchers have counted 60 pairs of bald eagles in the state, up 30 fold from 1973 (the same year the Endangered Species Act was enacted).
It’s estimated that 500,000 bald eagles inhabited the United States when the Pilgrims arrived in the early 1600s. About 420 bald eagles were counted in 1963 in the contiguous United States.
“The bald eagle’s recovery from the edge of extinction is one of the world’s great conservation success stories. The eagle has returned to every single state in the lower 48, though it has yet to successfully fledge a nestling in Vermont,” said Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity policy director.
The bald eagle was named a national symbol on June 20, 1782, but suffered terrible abuses due to the mistaken belief that it was a dangerous predator, Suckling said. Bald eagles were fed to hogs in Maine, shot from airplanes in California, poisoned in South Dakota and hunted for half-dollar bounties in Alaska.
Bald eagle populations rebounded in response to the banning of Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT), protection from killing, habitat protection and restoration, artificial incubation of eggs, fostering of chicks and reintroduction of eaglets.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed the bald eagle’s status from endangered to threatened in 1995 and is expected to remove it from the threatened list by the end of this month.
Brian Sargent
Staff Writer
Catching the attention of people
Presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney has joined a growing group of researchers and policymakers who have utilized the Terrorism Knowledge Base in their work.
The database, found online at www.tkb.org, is a project of Oklahoma City’s Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism.
Romney is polling strongly in the GOP race to succeed President George Bush. The Massachusetts governor utilized TKB’s data during a speech to the American Enterprise Institute’s World Forum.
In Romney’s presentation on his Global Initiative for Values and Freedom recently, he cited the database’s figures tabulating terrorist attacks and where they have occurred since the end of the Cold War.
According to MIPT, in May TKB site usage hit an all-time high, with more than 130,000 visits during the month.
Additionally, an MIPT survey of TKB site users from May 23 to June 18 showed U.S. government personnel frequently used the site, as did state and local first responders. The biggest single user was the Department of Homeland Security, with 31 percent of users.
Take a look at the survey here.
The site is really coming into its own, and has obviously caught the attention of those in government and law enforcement. Oklahomans can be proud they have a well-regarded resource such as MIPT located here.
The Internet’s quiet today…
I plugged my earphones into my computer today and typed in my recently re-discovered favorite Internet radio site, Pandora.com.
The screen that usually pops up, displaying my favorite radio stations, custom tailored to my likes, was replaced with a disheartening message from Pandora’s creator, Tim Westergren.
It reads: “I’m sorry to say that today Pandora…is going off the air in observance of a Day of Silence.”
My first thought was “Oh no, what happened?”
I read on to discover it was a protest to a ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board on Internet radio and the royalties that they pay to the music industry. Internet radio sites are going to have to pay between 300 and 1,200 percent more.
That would drive many, if not all, off the Internet’s radio waves.
I was in shock. Not everyone can have their iPod with them or carry their CD collection around to work. Internet radio provided that free service.
Now, it could go away forever.
So instead of discovering new artists on Pandora, I had to listen to the deafening silence of protest.
That, and the never ending rain beating on the window behind me.
– J Wofford
Carrie Underwood named sexiest vegetarian
Checotah’s Carrie Underwood is again the world’s sexiest vegetarian.
In a poll conducted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Underwood and “Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks were the leading vote-getters. Underwood also won the title in 2005.
The Associated Press reported the organization as saying 110,000 votes were cast on its web site, peta.org, for the honor.
“I quit eating beef when I was about 13,” Underwood is quoted as saying at PETA.org. “I do it because I really love animals and it just makes me sad. … I don’t like to watch commercials where they have meat. It weirds me out.”
Runners-up included Joaquin Phoenix, Milo Ventimiglia, Kristen Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jared Leto and Lisa Edelstein.
Bell was last year’s winner, along with Prince. In 2005, Coldplay’s Chris Martin shared the award with Underwood. Other previous winners include Natalie Portman, Andre 3000, Shania Twain, Tobey Maguire, Lauren Bush, Josh Hartnett and Alicia Silverstone.
– From staff and wire reports
What’s in a name?
A London woman has finally outdone my mother in the “What were they drinking” baby naming category.
In the case of my mother, she was drinking Mylanta — by the case loads. Apparently I gave her horrible heartburn, resulting in her buying the antacid in bulk and carrying a bottle of the thick substance in her purse so she could take a swig at her leisure.
When she couldn’t think of a middle name to go with Ja’Rena, my mother pulled out her bottle of Mylanta — which had quickly become her best friend — and decided to pay homage to her new pal.
Ja’Rena Mylantia was born. Yes, my mother named me after heartburn medicine, an act I’ve pondered for 25 years now.
But my complaining days have come to an end thanks to Maria, a London resident who gave her daughter Autumn 25 middle names — that’s one name for each year I’ve been ticked about my middle name. Autumn is named after 25 of her mother’s favorite boxers.
The baby’s full name is Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.
I guess being named after an antacid is not so bad after all.
Ja’Rena Mylantia Lunsford
Business Writer
Fun facts about July 4
Some interesting facts and figures about the Fourth of July released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau:
Population
— 2.5 million: Estimated population of the United States, July 1776.
— 302 million: Estimated population of the United States, July 2007.Food
— 15.5 million: Market hogs and pigs in Iowa on March 1. This accounts for one-fourth of the market hogs and pigs in the United States.
— 6.8 billion: Production in pounds of cattle and calves in Texas. This accounts for one-sixth of cattle and calves production in the United States.
— 835 million: Pounds of watermelon grown in 2006 in Florida.Fireworks
— $216 million: Value of fireworks imported in 2006 by the United States. All but $10 million was imported from China.
— $22 million: Value of fireworks exported in 2006 by the United States. Nearly one-third of that value was exported to Japan.Flags
— $5.3 million: Value of American flags imported in 2006 by the United States. All but $300,000 was imported from China.
— $1.7 million: Value of American flags exported in 2006 by the United States. Nearly one-third of that value was exported to Trinidad and Tobago.
Brian Sargent
Staff Writer
Mutiny of Muteness
Tomorrow, you may logon to your favorite Internet radio station and hear nothing. No music. No bantering and joke-telling from highly caffeinated deejays.
No, you won’t be experiencing technical difficulties. And the deejays are not just stuck in line at Starbucks.
Live365 – a site that hosts 10,000 online radio stations — has declared June 26 a Day of Silence. Live365 stations and other independent stations will go mute tomorrow in protest against a March 2 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board to increase webcasters’ royalty rates between 300 and 1200 percent over the next five years.
Royalties for webcasters have been on an upward hike the last couple years. In 2005, the rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed. On March 2, the board voted to increase the rate to 19/100 of a penny per song streamed.
Webcasters, whose incomes are already meager, are hoping the Day of Silence will help reverse the board’s decision. If the Day of Silence goes as planned, webcasters will have a repeat of the 2002 Day of Silence. That year, the event garnered so much national attention that the Librarian of Congress garnered a rate cut and also created the passage of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act for the period of 1998-2005.
All 10,000 Live365 stations will be redirected to a Day of Silence stream tomorrow that will offer an explanation for the silence and broadcaster testimonials. If the Day of Silence isn’t successful, silence may be heard more prominently on Internet radio stations starting July 15, when 17 months’ worth of retroactive royalty increase payments are due to the SoundExchange collections organization.
-Lindsay Goodier
NewsOK.com Editor
