History of Fashion Design: Late 20th Century
The late 20th century is part of the recent past. Although not all remember the trends and fashions of the era, the designers that were active then are still active today. The designers that we love, Gucci, YSL, Burberry, Prada, Miu Miu, to name a few, have been active for a long time, most long before the late 20th century. However, it was only as the century was coming to a close that high fashion became accessible and diverse. Now, most designers make clothes as well as a range of other accessories. That means that it is now possible to pick and stick to a favorite designer.The 1970s were a decade that saw the end of the hippie style and the arrival of the disco era. The look became more structured and chic. This is a decade when Kenzo Takada and Sonia Rykiel came to prominence. Kenzo created combined fantastical prints with fluid lines that were immensely popular. Rykiel was the first designer to use reversed seams and to create clothes that were very distinctive and unique yet, at the same time, right for most occasions.In the 70s, as well as toward the end of the 60s, male fashion entered popular culture. Before that time, men were not supposed to pay attention to their looks, thus making designs for men practical than stylish. In the 70s, men started to feel comfortable with fashion and caring about the way they looked.In the 1980s, fashion became international big business. Western fashion designers became popular all over the world. Designers from outside the Western world became prominent as well. The 80s were a power decade marked by affluence. The clothes and hair became big and futuristic as large shoulder pads and bold designs were becoming increasingly popular. The fashions came hand in hand with baby boomers that were present in the workforce at that time either at their peak power or just starting to climb the career ladders. This is a generation that felt strong and wanted power and freedom. The fashion shows of the decade echoed the mood; these were huge spectacles, televised and always extravagant.The economic recession at the beginning of the 1990s changed fashion again. The flamboyance of the 70s and the big clothes of the 80s were gone. The 90s were marked by minimalism and diversity. There was no unifying style anymore, but the styles that were fashionable were fairly simple. The 1990s are the decade that saw the birth of the Miu Miu house, the first Lady Dior handbag and the first Fendi baguette handbag, which are truly great legacies of a fashion era.
Open Source Education – The New Way of Learning
There is a new form of education these days. Open Source Education is surely going to change people’s outlook about education and help in spreading of knowledge and provide access to education to children across the globe.Lisa Petrides,President and Founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education,elucidates the worth of open source education – “Open educational resources provide a learner-centered platform that authentically marries technology with education, provides access and equity to education resources for all, and last but not least, is in some cases enabling the re-professionalism of teaching.”Earlier, learning was quite a herculean task for the students in absence of classrooms or teachers. Now, with access and distribution of Internet facilities across the world, students have gained access to education for free through websites personalized to this type of education! Promoting open source learning will help in reducing the cost for printing & publishing books, which in turn, will help the students to bring down their own incurring costs. It will also help in curbing the financial barrier to educational resources as students who will be buying books, will be capable of sharing the PDF versions of the books online with the other children for no charge at all.The curriculum provides online educational resources free of charge, which can be used, distributed and tailored as well. This practice encourages participation from educationalists, developers, parents and students and also invites their feedback and ideas. Wikiversity, Curriki, and MIT Open Courseware are some of the open source curriculum repositories which provide a curriculum framework for a particular course. Curriki is a non-profit social private enterprise devoted to improving the quality of education with global access to free and open edification resources.With numerous learning platforms available now, both corporate and academic organizations are progressively acquiring its whole host of benefits. For example, instead of having the trainers to travel numerous company sites, the employees can easily access the online company training resources. Moreover, recently the potential of the open source learning management system is being explored by the industry connoisseurs in the sphere of business environments. There are many tools of open source learning available including Xerte, Udutu, and Claroline for helping professionals in creating online courseware and provide knowledge at little or no cost! Moodle is one of the well-known and dynamic online learning tools that offer wide range of tools to enhance the virtual learning experience. It also provides its users the facility to create customized learning environments.In addition to this, Open source education also helps for higher education initiatives. In accordance with the Online Education Database, in 2003 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware Program started providing its users open access to syllabus, notes, courseware, problem questions and solutions, exam samples as well as some selected video lectures. “Using open source allows the university flexibility to modify software and make it more applicable to the Oxford style”, feels Stuart Lee, Director of Computing Systems & Services at Oxford University.
Preparing Your Small Business For Sale
Selling your business is very unlike running your business day-to-day. Your perspective has to shift to a new kind of customer. The potential buyer of your business may be comparing an investment in your business with a totally dissimilar business with different skills, market and returns.In order for your business to stand out and get the attention it deserves, you can spend some time and money making sure it is an attractive investment. It’s not just about the numbers, but the numbers count. Here are some things you can do to position your business for success in selling.1) Having well organized financial records will bring a lot of credibility. You might use a bookeeper to generate a QuickBooks report, for extra credibility have your CPA review the records. For larger companies, a professional buyer will want to see audited books. Buyers will want to see three years of clean books that match the tax returns.2) Pride of ownership in the business- get rid of broken equipment, obsolete inventory, and general clutter. Consider your marketing image to reflect a relevant and successful company.3) Buyers prefer a business that has well trained, experienced and dependable staff. Good systems allow you to delegate and spend more time working on the business rather than working in the business. Buyers understand good employees are essential to success, and they decrease the load on the new owner.4) Show your processes. This can include documenting how you handle returns, customer credit, shipments, marketing and sales. Make it easy for the buyer to see how they would run your business without you. Documentation isn’t just about financial records.5) Look at your business like a buyer. Buyers hate surprises. Many deals die in due diligence because they discover something the seller has tried to hide, or forgotten to disclose. This usually destroys the trust between the buyer and seller, and the deal can not be saved. Don’t let this happen to you.6) Get your team on board. Your accountant, attorney and key advisors need to understand your desire to transfer the business. It might be time to do some exit planning with your financial advisor.7) Create a vision for the future. The buyer wants some help taking things to the next level, and you can map out a way to get there. If you have future plans for new markets, products or processes, share them with the buyer to help them visualize a great future for the business.Can’t get all this done? Then focus on what you can do, and get a good broker to take you through the process.