Multimedia Producers: Christina Jeng, Elva Ramirez

Barbie landed her first gig as a teenage fashion model in 1959. Since then she's been an astronaut, a surgeon and a presidential candidate. Her latest career choice? Computer engineer.

MCM epitomized glamour...in the 1980s.

The German-based company then-known as Michael Cromer Munich produced logo-ed leather goods that ranged from trunks to tennis racket covers to belts. The brand was ostentatious and flashy, perfectly suited for the "Dynasty" era. Then counterfeiters flooded the market with fakes. Tastes changed. By 1997, when MCM underwent a restructuring, its moment in the fashion world seemed over.

In a nod to growing power of digital word-of-mouth, the Donna Karan company has released two Web-only videos to social networks and blogs. The DKNY ad directed by Kai Regan features leggy models wearing the fall 2009 "Cozy" sweater parading through New York in a runway-cum-Abbey Road lineup. The second ad, "Four Play," stars Christina Ricci and the Donna Karan Eldridge bag; the nearly two-minute long spot was directed by filmmaker Jake Sumner, known to music fans as Sting's son.

Who says the media is dying? Vice magazine threw itself a $250,000 bash to celebrate its 15-year anniversary. But forget champagne, the publication staged a 1994-theme party with hardcore bands and tons of flannel, Elva Ramirez reports.

Glamour magazine hosted a panel last night on the future of women's fashion at the 92 Street Y. Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive moderated a lively discussion between designers Ashley Olsen, Isaac Mizrahi and journalist Robin Givhan. The conversation ranged from Michelle Obama's style influence to skinny models on the runway. While Givhan was sardonic and thoughtful, and Olsen geeked out for moment when discussing how excited she gets over branding, it was Mizrahi who stole the show. Herewith, some of the evening's most colorful quotes on fashion, culture and style.

Andy Warhol's early, hand-drawn illustrations don't garner as much attention as his iconic Pop art, but he was a regular contributor to Harper's Bazaar throughout the 1950s and '60s. Last night, the magazine unveiled "Andy Warhol: The Bazaar Years, 1951 - 1966″ in the Alexey Brodovitch Gallery at Hearst Tower.

"You think that no Warhol rock had been left unturned, but, frequently, in a Warhol retrospective there might be one illustration," said curator Charlie Scheips.

Barbie's been a rock star, an astronaut, a doctor and a supermodel. What she has never been is someone who would sing a subversive song.

And that remains so. This week, Mattel released Barbie's first music video with music set to 1997's "Barbie Girl." The song, made famous by Danish group Aqua, is a cheeky critique of materialism and female disenfranchisement; Mattel's tweaked 2009 version is a you-go-girl anthem for the post-Bratz, post-Pussy Cat Dolls generation.

Reporter: Vanessa O'Connell
Multimedia Producers: Matt Rivera, Elva Ramirez, Matthew Lynch

A luxury fashion shoot and retail operation is set inside a Brooklyn warehouse. WSJ Magazine's Vanessa O'Connell goes behind the scenes at Gilt Groupe.

Windows at Kate Spade stores trumpet 75% off deals (and a plea to “Please pop in”) and Kenneth Cole’s posters joke that sales were “a free for all (more or less).”

These are among the signs of the times reported by retail analyst Amy Noblin of Pali Capital, who also says in a recent report* that, on some days in the second week of January, returns outweighed sales at some stores.

Designer Peter Som, who announced yesterday that he is ending his joint venture with investor Creative Design Studios, is exploring options for the fall season. Mr. Som has already canceled his runway show, which would have taken place during fashion week next month in New York.

In recent months, shoppers have voted with their wallets, spending more money at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. while cherry-picking the sales at other stores.

New data from BrandIndex, which polls 5,000 consumers each day, asking "Do you receive good value for what you pay," confirms the trend. Discounters Target and Wal-Mart have seen their scores rise over the past six months, while Abercrombie & Fitch, which bucked the discounting trend, and luxury retailers Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue saw their saw their scores stay in the negative range.

Today's Journal reported that, following a dismal holiday season, some spring 2009 apparel is discounted as soon as it is arriving in stores. The findings were not surprising to Erin Armendinger, managing director of the Wharton School's Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative.

"Now that you've given people 70%, 80%, 90% off on goods, people start to think, 'Well what was it that I was paying full price for?' " Ms. Armendinger says. Consumers are currently re-assessing their "value proposition," which is business lingo for the trade-off between the money spent and the goods the consumer gets in return.

Even with sharp discounts and aggressive marketing, this holiday season has been tough for retailers.

Department store Macy's is tapping into celebrity star power as a way to bring shoppers inside. On a recent Monday, Olympic gold-medalist Nastia Luikin promoted her new youth line, "Nastia Gold by Vanilla Star" to a line of starry-eyed girls and a few boys.

French luxury jeweler Boucheron is hoping its bespoke jewelry will thrive despite the decline in luxury goods sales.

With sales of designer apparel plunging, it might come as a surprise that officials of the Council of Fashion Designers of America were talking up new opportunities for designers at a breakfast on Thursday in New York.

Video reporter: Rachel Dodes
Multimedia producer: Elva Ramirez

With the economy in a downturn and world financial markets in meltdown mode, Macy's will try to woo shoppers this holiday season with a simple message: Believe. The 813-store behemoth's "Million Reasons to Believe" campaign, highlighting the iconic "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" newspaper editorial first published in the New York Sun in 1897, will appear in 300 newspapers, on TV and online starting Nov. 9. Two-page newspaper ads will include reprints of the original letter by Virginia Hanlon and the New York Sun's reply, along with blank forms for children to use to write their own letters to Santa.

Despite the gloomy economic news, retail sales for the week ended Saturday rose 1% over the same week last year, according to an estimate from ShopperTrak RCT. But although gas prices have fallen, consumers may be waiting for last-minute Halloween markdowns. “We anticipate that there will be some retail activity leading up into Halloween,” said Dan Natale, ShopperTrak senior vice president. “More and more folks are holding out. They’re looking for the markdowns.”

Retail sales, which are being closely watched this fall, strengthened a bit in the week ended Oct. 18, rising 1.1% from the same period a year ago, according to ShopperTrak RCT.

The uptick reflects the Columbus Day holiday and cooler weather in the Midwest and the Northeast, ShopperTrak says. The comparable 2007 results didn’t include the Columbus Day weekend.

About three weeks before fashion week starts, the offices of casting directors, stylists and designers are flooded with show packages containing cards of models that agencies want to promote for the bi-annual runway shows. Model cards are meant to provide basic stats on available models for hire: A typical card features photos of a model, his or her measurements and contact information.

In the last few years, the show package has evolved from a simple informational tool to an industry art form.

At New York Fashion Week, senior fashion reporter Teri Agins spoke to retailers and executives about how the luxury market is adapting to a possible economic slowdown.

Even as designers debuted their newest looks, some worried that their work would be copied as soon as runway photos hit the Internet. Last year, a group of designers, including Nicole Miller, lobbied Washington for laws to protect original designs. During New York fashion week, Teri Agins spoke to designers and executives, including Ms. Miller and Oscar de la Renta, about copyright legislation.

Typically the clothes seen this week on the runways won't appear in stores for another six months. But the newly revived Halston brand decided to use a different merchandising strategy: The label, backed by investor and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, teamed with online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter to sell two outfits the day after the runway show.

Despite jittery economic markets, Gucci unveiled its largest store yet on Wednesday -- a 46,000-sq.-ft. empire on New York's Fifth Ave.

Senior fashion writer Teri Agins spoke to Gucci Group president and CEO Robert Polet about his label's new flagship shop and his plans for maintaining a strong brand.

Purple: from runway to highway When the models wearing Betsey Johnson's spring/summer 2008 collection sashayed down the runway at New York Fashion Week in September, their sky-blue tulle skirts and cotton-candy-pink prom dresses were noted by sundry fashion editors, retail buyers, celebrities and photographers. Also in the audience: Jon Hall, Ford Motor Co.'s chief paint designer.

Clothing designers are currently working on fall 2008's fashions, but design teams at auto makers like Ford, General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG's Audi are tweaking the paint choices consumers will be reviewing for cars in 2011 and beyond. Companies are paying more attention to color because consumers are, and having the right -- or wrong -- color in stock can affect the bottom line.

Improvements in online video and the growing prevalence of broadband access are encouraging luxury brands to create glossy new Web sites that better reflect their elite appeal on a medium that can make things look equal.

"Go look at some shoes from Marc Jacobs and then some shoes from Target," says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the NPD Group. "Shoes from Marc Jacobs are $499. The shoes from Target are $14.99. They look almost the same online."

Miu Miu relaunched its site earlier this month, replacing a relatively simple design with one that includes stylized videos and "behind the scenes" access to photo shoots.

Buying a $10 paperback from Amazon or a 99-cent new release from iTunes is now commonplace. But has online shopping matured to the point where people don't blink at dropping a $20,000 half-carat diamond into an online shopping basket and proceeding to checkout?

De Beers Diamond Jewellers, Inc. is banking that the answer is yes. And given the success of online-only jeweler Blue Nile, they might be right.

Energy investment banker Matthew R. Simmons has dispensed energy advice for over 40 years, to everyone from President Bush to audiences in China. The author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy" and founder of Houston-based energy investment firm Simmons & Company International, Mr. Simmons argues that now is the time to start planning for the post-oil age.

Customers searching for the Web site of a company with a generic business name are likely to cast a net too wide to find what they're after. In many cases, there may be no telling who -- or what -- will rise to the surface. For entrepreneurs seeking to improve their search results, the experience is often a crash course in the nuts-and-bolts of search algorithms.

While the home kitchen is traditionally identified with women, men have dominated the star positions in the restaurant and hospitality industry over the years.

That inequality has been changing more recently however, as high-profile female chefs like Alice Waters and Ina Garten top best-seller lists with books related to food and host popular television cooking shows.

Along with a rise in female restaurateurs, women are exploring other careers in cooking and creating niche industries, like personal home instruction or cupcake-centric bakeries, that emphasize, rather than downplay, a "just like Mom used to make" aesthetic.

Public relations professionals have always wrestled with protecting and managing their clients' image. But blogs are forcing publicists to rethink their tactics for mitigating bad word-of-mouth.

John Bell, managing director of 360 Degree Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, answered some questions about how public relations experts can manage, and in some ways, prevent trash-talking by bloggers.
As social media become more sophisticated, public relations firms debate not only about how best to tap into the wisdom of the masses, but they also seek to grasp the protean nature of the public sphere.

The new Yale Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, established in June, takes an alternative, global perspective to corporate governance, with an aim to link corporate health with social welfare.

Ira M. Millstein, the center's director and senior associate dean for corporate governance at Yale School of Management, says the center's philosophy is that improved corporate performance leads to a better corporate world, in which corporations see themselves as intrinsic to the overall welfare of society.