Arms for children but not women in Missouri

 The Washington Post has the story:

Missouri Republicans block proposed ban on kids carrying guns in public By Timothy Bella

"The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives rejected a proposal Wednesday that would have banned children from being able to openly carry firearms on public land without adult supervision.

"The proposal, which was part of a long debate in the chamber on how to fight crime in St. Louis, was soundly defeated by a vote of 104-39, with just one Republican voting in support of the ban.

...

"Since 2017, Missouri residents have not been required to have a permit for concealed carry, after lawmakers in the Missouri House voted to override a veto by then-Gov. Jay Nixon (D) of a broad gun-rights bill. The law does not require gun owners to take safety training or have a criminal-background check to carry concealed firearms in most public places. The move was celebrated by Republicans, but law enforcement officials warned that the law was “going to make officers a lot more apprehensive,” St. Louis Public Radio reported at the time.

"The proposal’s defeat this week comes almost a month after Missouri Republicans in the state House made news for a voting to tighten the dress code for women legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone. Missouri House Republicans sought to require women to wear a blazer when in the chamber. The state House eventually approved a modified version of the proposal, which allows for cardigans as well as jackets but still requires women’s arms to be concealed."

Fur for fashion banned in Israel

 Here's the story from Ynet:

Israel becomes first country to ban sale of fur in fashion trade.  

"Israel announced a ban Wednesday on the sale of fur in the fashion trade, winning applause from the International Anti-Fur Coalition as the "first entire nation" to impose such a ban

"Environmental Protection Ministry said commerce in animal fur, imports and exports, will be banned except for the needs of research, study or certain religious traditions.

"Fur is used for hats called "shtreimels" worn by some ultra-Orthodox Jews.

"On this historic day, Israel has set an ethical precedent and hopefully other nations shall join them and ban the sale of barbaric and cruel blood fashion fur," the Anti-Fur coalition wrote on its Facebook page.

...

"The ministerial decree is to take effect in six months."

********

And from the Jerusalem Post:

Israel bans sale of fur to fashion industry, first country to do so  by Aaron Reich

"“The fur industry causes the deaths of hundreds of millions of animals worldwide, and inflicts indescribable cruelty and suffering,” Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said in a statement after signing the amendment, which goes into effect in six months. “Using the skin and fur of wildlife for the fashion industry is immoral and is certainly unnecessary. Animal fur coats cannot cover the brutal murder industry that makes them. Signing these regulations will make the Israeli fashion market more environmentally friendly and far kinder to animals.”

Why own your own (fashionable) clothes?

There's a rental market for fashionable women's clothes, Rent the Runway

The NY Times ran a feature story on it:
The Transformational Bliss of Borrowing Your Office Clothes
Rent the Runway’s Unlimited service saves working women something more valuable than money: their time.

"Though Rent the Runway was originally conceived as a solution for women who didn’t want to invest in party-wear they might use only once, Unlimited has become a strategic solution for professional women...

In Italy, a proposal to tax brides whose dresses are too skimpy

Nico Lacetera, who has a fine eye for repugnant transactions, points me to a proposal involving repugnance from several points of view:

Venezia, una tassa sulla scollatura della sposa
G-translate: Venice, a fee on the neckline of the bride

"The initiative comes from the parish priest don Cristiano Bobbo, from the community of Oriago and Cà Sabbioni, near Mestre. "We could create a sort of offer to be redeemed in proportion to the decency of the bride's dress, which very often presents itself vulgar and vulgar. So those who are more undressed pay more ", wrote the parish priest in his column on the newsletter" La voce della riviera "

French court suspends burkini ban: repugnant or protected (or both)?

There was something appropriate about swim suits being banned in France for being insufficiently revealing, but it turns out French citizens may have rights...

French court suspends burkini ban
Highest administrative court says prohibition goes against ‘fundamental liberties’ of citizens

"France’s highest administrative court has suspended a ban on the body-covering burkini swimsuits, saying that it went “against fundamental liberties” of French citizens to choose what to wear in public.

"The Conseil d’Etat said on Friday the ban in the Mediterranean town of Villeneuve-Loubet was “illegal”, adding that the ruling set a precedent that applied to all of the towns that have banned the garment this summer.

"The debate over the burkini has split France’s government and society. It has also drawn anger abroad after images showed French police appearing to force a Muslim woman to take off her tunic on a beach.

"Debates over Muslim integration in France have been tense following a series of terrorist attacks in the country by Islamist extremists. The discourse over the issue has been particularly polemical as politicians are gearing up for the presidential elections next year.

"Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls came out in support of the local burkini bans earlier this month, saying the swimsuit, which typically covers the body but not the face, reflects a world view based on “the enslavement of women”.

"The court on Friday said the decree to ban burkinis in Villeneuve-Loubet “seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom”.

"The suspension of the ban comes pending a definitive ruling. The court will take more time to prepare a judgment on the underlying legality of the case."
***************

Some other photos from recent news stories come to mind.
Here's one from Roger Cohen in the NYT on the Olympics:

And here's one recovered from the archives, of a policeman giving a bikini-clad woman a ticket for inappropriate beach attire in Italy in 1957.

These days we've seen the opposite picture in France:

The online market for tailors

One of the markets that the internet seems likely to change profoundly is the market for custom clothing. Bloomberg news had a recent report on what looks like it could be a small beginning of a big thing:

"Custom clothing startups J. Hilburn Inc., American Giant andBonobos Inc. are racing to gain share in a U.S. e-commerce market that Forrester Research Inc. estimates will reach $327 billion in 2016, up from $202 billion last year. They’ve won customers and venture backers by cutting stores from the supply chain to ship straight to consumers from the factory, charging lower prices than department stores and eking out higher margins than Amazon.com Inc. , the biggest Web retailer.

“J. Hilburn will sell shirts that are made out of the same fabric mill in Italy that a Zegna would sell at Neiman Marcus for $300,” said Brian O’Malley, a partner at Battery Ventures, an investor in the startup, which has raised a total of about $12 million. “They can sell that same shirt totally custom-made for the customer for less, and do that still with healthy margins because there are a lot less middlemen along the way who need to get paid.”

Dress exchange

Joshua Gans points out to me that now there's a dress exchange called 99dresses.comhttp://www.99dresses.com/ (which seems less complicated than kidney exchange).

FREE FASHION

and never wear the same thing twice!

Get Started It's FREE. Learn more about how it works.

1 UPLOAD

Upload your quality unwanted clothes, shoes and accessories into the Infinite Closet.

2 SELL

Sell your fashion to other girls for a virtual currency called buttons.

3 SPEND

Spend your buttons on anything you want in the Infinite Closet.  

If fur is repugnant (in West Hollywood, CA), why not leather?

That's the question the NY Times asks (Ban Fur? Then Why Not Leather?) following the decision by the city of West Hollywood California to ban the sale of fur garments.

(In addition, "The city has established no-kill animal shelters, outlawed the declawing of cats, and banned the sale of dogs and cats in pet stores...")

In my discussions of repugnance I've often been struck by how hard it is to model just what will strike some people as repugnant and what not. This isn't surprising in view of the fact that what is repugnant at one place or at one time may not be regarded that way at another place or time.

Flash sales--buying in a hurry

Time Is Money
...
"But commerce will always require the creation of scarcity, bottlenecks and stampedes. The most immediate way to do this is to make time seem tight — the going-going-gone approach to sales. For years, digital-world salespeople have been putting in overtime to resurrect the illusion that consumers must put up their money now or life will pass them by.


"Not long ago they figured it out: the online private-shopping club. It’s brilliant and insidious. No current retail trick so successfully conjures the bygone retail climate of hotness and nowness — with its proven capacity to create value — as luxuriously capitalized clothing vendors like Gilt Groupe, HauteLook and Rue La La. For shoppers who register, these services host “flash sales” — sudden sales of limited inventory that offer a seemingly exclusive group of consumers deep discounts on known labels in a few-frills atmosphere.
...

"Gilt Groupe, HauteLook and Rue La La are the holy trinity of flash-sale event dealers, at least when it comes to clothes. Know them by their five-star labels, their ticking clocks, their sheen of exclusivity and their limited searchability.


"EBay won’t be left out of the private-club revolution. The latest way to beat those preposterous M.S.R.P.’s — manufacturer’s suggested retail prices — is eBay Fashion Vault, a shopping club like Gilt Groupe but with some of the madcapness of eBay. "

The market for once-used wedding dresses

For Sale: One White Dress, Yet to Be Worn
"AS more brides try to sell their used wedding dresses online, some have found a way to stand out from the competition: putting their gowns up for sale before even walking down the aisle.
A growing number of postings for so-called presale dresses have popped up among the listings on sites like oncewed.com, preownedweddingdresses.com and woreitonce.com.
...
"A used dress generally sells for about 50 percent off retail, whether sold before or after the wedding. But brides see an advantage to selling before the wedding because the styles are still current and other brides often can try on the same dress in stores. That, they say, enhances the likelihood of a quick sale.
...
"Zofia Gajdamowicz, 27, a bartender in Toronto who hopes to sell her Modern Trousseau dress before her wedding in late October, said she will “have to be a little more careful” if she finds a buyer.
“I already told my friends, ‘Don’t let me drink any red wine,’ ” she said."

Designer dresses: avoiding coordination failure

The Telegraph reports that "The anguish and embarrassment of arriving at an exclusive party only to find another woman wearing the same outfit could be banished forever thanks to a new website that allows partygoers to “register” their dresses before the event."

Apparently this is a serious problem, as the paper reports "The dress duplication problem has long caused anxiety among women. "

Here is the website at which you can register your dress and the event you intend to wear it to, or see if someone else has: http://dressregistry.com/ .

I'm planning to wear jeans to the office today, guys.

The market for old clothes

In Haiti: The Afterlife of American Clothes
Haitian entrepreneurs find value in our castoffs.