What U.S. States Are Open For Travel?

Most people will likely be staying closer to home for any summer travel plans. International travel isn't worth it this summer for many due to travel restrictions. However, some U.S. states are open for travel just in time for a summer road trip.

But before you pack your bags, it's still worth checking the local travel restrictions. To prevent overcrowding from states with lockdowns, local mayors may discourage tourism.

For now, you will want to focus on outdoor activities like the beach or mountains. Close contact activities and indoor attractions are going to be some of the last ventures to open in most states.

The southern U.S. states tend to be opening first as governors began relaxing stay-at-home orders in early May. While states are opening for businesses, some local towns may reopen at a slower pace. As always, you should research any local quarantine rules before booking your travel reservations.

Two common trends you will see in all states are making reservations to visit tourist spots and reduced seating capacity for dine-in restaurants.

The Orlando area is working on reopening its various tourist attractions and theme parks in phases.

Disney Springs is one of the first high-profile attractions to open, with most third-party stores opening on May 20, 2020. The various Disney-owned shops and restaurants open shortly after, on May 27, 2020. The Walt Disney World theme park hasn't announced an official reopening date. Universal CityWalk is also currently opening in gradual phases.

Food Meets Fashion At New Annual Festival In Valencia, Spain

Valencia on the east coast of Spain is the country's third largest city (after Madrid and Barcelona) and offers many of the same attractions of these two better known cities. This foodie paradise is the birthplace of paella and offers the ideal city/beach break with its seven kilometers of sandy beaches and 304 days of sunshine annually. The famous Las Fallas fireworks festival every March is a major draw and this year a new festival has been introduced: Clec Fashion and Food festival. Aiming to fill the gap left by the former Valencia fashion week, this new festival includes an additional interesting component where the city’s top chefs collaborate with fashion designers. And hot on the heels of Clec is the annual Valencia Culinary Festival running February-March where local chefs work together to make the city into a big foodie party for Valencianos and visitors. Thirty gastronomic events including special dinners, talks and tastings take place across the city. One of the sold-out events was by chef Alejandro del Toro who brought together chefs who’d all worked together in 1998 at the famous restaurant Martín Berasategui, to recreate a menu from that time.

                                                             

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The Clec runway shows and events are held at the incredible Santiago Calatrava designed building, Hemispheric, part of the City of Arts and Sciences. An impressive lineup of new and established Spanish designers showed their new collections last month, including Visori, Dominnico, Miquel Suay, Anel Yaos, Siamo Studio, Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada and Francis Montesinos. 404 Studio had also just showed at London Fashion Week as part of the On/Off showcase for emerging designers.

The Best Things To See And Do In Edinburgh

The Scottish capital is the second most visited city in the UK (after London) and it’s obvious why. Edinburgh writer Alexander McCall Smith said “this is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.” Indeed it would be difficult to find more dramatic views than those you encounter upon emerging from Waverley train station. In one direction green rolling hills extend upwards to the looming Edinburgh Castle while in the other direction is Arthur’s Seat, a grass covered extinct volcano. And of course in addition to the magnificent views and architecture, this city is well known for the Edinburgh International Festival of performing arts and the Fringe festival, the world's largest annual international arts festival.

The Balmoral has 187 guest rooms including twenty suites designed by Olga Polizzi to evoke Scotland’s heritage and landscape, with a colour palette of blues and greys along with bespoke Balmoral tartan. Of the twenty individually styled suites, The Bowes-Lyon suite named after former patron of The Balmoral, The Queen Mother, is one of the most impressive. With its unusual layout and large, porthole-style windows overlooking Princes street, the suite features lovely green velvet sofas, leafy drapes and cushions from Glaswegian brand, Timorous Beasties in the spacious lounge. The hotel’s food and drink offering is excellent too from Alain Roux’s Brasserie Prince for breakfast and all day dining to the opulent Palm Court for afternoon tea to Number One, the Michelin-starred restaurant for fine dining and Scotch, the whisky bar serving over 500 kinds of Scottish whisky.

How Slow Fashion Is Fast-Tracking Sustainability

Today's consumers, especially us millennials, are increasingly concerned and influenced by companies' records and initiatives around sustainability. Whether it is because they follow #sinnfluencers on social media or because of the growing understanding that climate change is a real threat to human in the near future, this has manifested itself in the fashion industry with a new trend towards 'slow fashion'.

Now more than ever, consumers are curious about where their clothes were made and under what conditions. The slow fashion movement promises to be the opposite of the fast fashion trend (inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends) by delivering sustainably procured and produced clothing to mindful consumers. Instead of never-ending sale offerings due to rapidly changing trends, slow fashion items are designed to be sustainable, functional, durable and stylish.

A sustainable fashion product is made in an environmental and social friendly manner along the supply chain. From the initial design of sustainable products using ethically sourced raw material, production through sustainable manufacturing processes, and delivered through green distribution, and retailing channels.

First, as already explained in another blog of mine “Sustainable Design: The Key To Unlocking A Sustainable Future”, design determines the ecological footprint of the whole product lifecycle. Fashion designers can therefore help to significantly reduce the environmental impact of products by making sure that they change the way they design their clothes, by taking into account the environmental impact early in the product design.

Eco-material production is the fundamental part in a sustainable fashion supply chain. Cotton, as a renewable resource, is the main material for apparel production. However, chemicals and pesticides are largely used in the traditional ways to grow cotton. Sustainable fashion products are often made by organic fabrics, which are produced using less water and harmful chemicals. Organic cotton therefore is grown without using pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, which could reduce the negative impact on the environment.

Apparel manufacturing often takes place in countries with low labor costs. However, in those countries, the awareness of environment and human rights are often less developed. Therefore, it is important to promote the importance of fair working conditions and environmental performance, especially when working with various suppliers all around the world.

Producing carbon emission is inevitable in distribution. However, by designing a more efficient transportation system, the amount of carbon emission in distribution can be minimized. For example, to engage with sustainable product design which can make container shipping less harmful to the environment.

Some retail brands have already launched clothing collection initiatives to promote sustainable concept in ethical consumers in retailing. Consumers can return old apparel products and in return, they can get a coupon for their next purchase. All collected used apparel and textiles are then optimally recycled according to their condition. Moreover, within an up-cycling process, some textiles and fabrics are reprocessed and used to create commercial products for example.

According to a Greenpeace survey conducted in 2015, every fifth garment is never worn. This makes a total of one billion unworn garments – if you include rarely worn items, you even get a total of two billion "wardrobe corpses". Many people then sort out clothes again within a year – after all they have to keep up with the trend, don't they?!

In my opinion, this is mostly the result of fast fashion. If more clothing businesses follow the idea of slow fashion, and more people start reflecting their buying habits, we can make a big step toward a world run better.

Download the IDC report “Leveraging Your Intelligent Digital Supply Chain” to find out how an end-to-end digital supply chain – from design and planning to manufacturing, logistics, and operations – helps businesses to increase sustainability.

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Highlights From Paris Fashion Week

Now that the dust has settled on Paris Fashion Week, let us look back on the collections that gave us a lot to talk about.

One of the most breathtaking shows of the season was Dries Van Noten's. For the spring 2020 season he has partnered with Christian Lacroix, who was the king of 80's fashion. With a tandem made of designers who are not afraid of colors and prints, the collection was exuberant, joyful and loaded with fanciful ideas.

There were the poufs and feathers we've come to associate with Lacroix, however, these were tempered with Van Noten's hand. Sweatshirts were paired with ruffled trousers and silk skirts, tank tops were worn with beribboned tailored pants. There was a shocking pink opera-style coat worn on top of gold shorts. And as a finale, a bride in a white tank and jeans under a gauzy dress with sprays of asymmetric ruffles and feathers.

Pierpoalo Piccioli's collection for Valentino was a masterful study in elegant restraint. While he has shown us plenty of times what he can do with fabric and embellishment, this time he was most successful when he did away with ornamentation. He instead chose to explore what he can do with a white shirt: turning it into feather festooned blouse or a smart tunic or a shirt dress with exaggerated sleeves or finished with a tiered ruffled tulle skirt. It was simply sublime.

At Givenchy, Clair Waight Keller wrestled between the minimalism of the 90s and the shapes of the 70s. There were plenty of tailored pieces including dresses and skirts in sumptuous leather and a gorgeous and sleek cream elongated blazer. But the sudden introduction of Liberty-like floral prints via turtleneck blouses and dresses were a bit discordant with the stronger minimalist pieces.

At Saint Laurent, the light show that opened the runway parade sort of eclipsed the clothes which was, like in past collections, filled with peasant style dresses and rocker chic short get ups. The saving grace was the permutations of the tuxedo look that closed the show (albeit a little too many and too self-indulgent).

At Hedi Slimane's Celine, the runway could have been a sequel to the Saint Laurent fashion show because there were the same gold peasant style dresses and the knee-high boots and the 70's inflected jackets.

At Chanel, variations of tweed ensembles sashayed up and down a set made to look like a Parisian rooftop. The clothes could have used a bit more energy but I suppose the Chanel client likes to stick to the tried and tested.

Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen gave tour de force of a collection that showed what a creative mind can do. Her exploration of shape and mix of materials made for a collection that finely threaded fantasy and practicality.

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Searching For The South Of France In A Plate? Look No Further

There is a restaurant in the South of France that’s worth a detour. Truth be told, it’s worth the entire journey.

Château Saint-Martin Trencavel, a diminutive castle boasting a 12thcentury tower, stands only a few minutes’ drive from the walled fortress of Carcassonne in a garden filled with flowers and ancient stone fountains. In the winter, its old- fashioned dining room feels cozy and warm, but in the summer, a moment on the shaded terrace near the century-old wisteria brings to mind a Merchant Ivory set.

The meal starts with an innocent-looking puff pastry twist coiled around hints of olive and thyme flowers, an equal blend of buttery innocence and strong, salty kick. By the time you come back to reality, you have devoured most of them and your partner is staring at you with eyes that growl, “We have a whole meal coming and you’ve downed all the bread.” Best to sip the local bubbly Blanquette de Limoux and call it a day.

The hardest decision of that day is, without doubt, whether to order a cassoulet or not. After all, the magical mythical stew is a winter dish, but how can you arrive at the source of all things cassoulet and not order it? The chef, Jean-Claude Rodriguez, is the founder of the Universal Academy of Cassoulet, a group of chefs, restaurateurs, vintners and food lovers dedicated to saving the authentic cassoulet. Rodriguez has spent most of his life perfecting the right ratio of beans to garlic to onions to duck confit to sausage to bouquet garni. And that’s without even mentioning the fresh herbs he picks at a location he won't divulge, somewhere in the Montagne Noire.  Festklänningar