Clothing

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

Tracy Anderson Given all the buzz last month around the opening of fitness guru Tracy Anderson's flagship super-studio in Brentwood - a partnership with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is Exhibit A for Anderson's handiwork - it comes as no surprise that the celebrity trainer is extending her lifestyle brand into fashion. Just weeks ago, the Tracy Anderson line debuted with compression-fit capri leggings ($60) in three eye-catching fabrics: red tartan plaid, oversize multi-color polka dot and glittery metallic.

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch Co. began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers. "A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers," he said in the statement.

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch Co. began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers. "A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers," he said in the statement.

On any given day, in downtown lofts, Santa Monica ateliers and dozens of studios across Los Angeles, dressing rooms are filled with men and women who are slipping into suits, dresses and jeans that fit as if they were made just for them — because they were. They are donning custom-made wedding gowns, dress shirts, even entire wardrobes. Whether they were propelled there by the frustrations of poorly fitting commercial clothes or by a sense of style that isn't part of the trend du jour, they've discovered the rewards of made-to-order clothing.

Step into Jack Denny's office at World Jungle Clothing Co. in Costa Mesa, and you'll feel like you've entered another world--that of a 1970s-era college dorm. There's an old Jimi Hendrix poster on the wall, a remnant of a brown-and-white South Pacific tapa cloth tacked over a window and an eye-popping orange velour easy chair, rescued from a thrift store, in the corner. Denny even looks like a college kid; on this day he's sporting baggy corduroy pants and a '70s-style shirt. And when you ask him what he loves about his job, he sounds like a kid: "It's the surfing," he says.

When I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I pulled out the storage bin containing the maternity clothes from my first pregnancy and was instantly depressed. After nine months of wearing a Diane von Furstenberg maternity wrap dress and Lilly Pulitzer maternity shift in heavy rotation — and I mean heavy in every sense — I couldn't face another pregnancy in these same few outfits. But at $300 for designer maternity dresses I would wear another half a year at most, I wasn't prepared to splurge on an entirely new pregnancy wardrobe.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Amid mounting protests, college clothier Abercrombie & Fitch on Thursday said it will pull a line of T-shirts from stores nationwide after complaints that they depict racist caricatures of Asian Americans. The $25 T-shirts show cartoonish Asian characters with slanted eyes and conical hats who serve as pitchmen for companies such as restaurants, dry cleaners and bowling alleys. One portrays a man pulling a rickshaw with the words "Rick Shaw's Hoagies and Grinders.

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Darlene, Bob, Betty and Chuck--their names remain enshrined in embroidery on old bowling shirts. Little did they suspect that those bowling shirts, with their tacky ads for Al's Diner and the Corner Bar stitched on back like miniature billboards, would someday be treasured as quaint souvenirs from America's happy days. After all, "bowling shirts are not good looking," says Donna Saucedo, who nevertheless owns 20 of them.

Anyone who has ever walked past an Abercrombie & Fitch store at the local mall knows that it's a place for queen bees and cool jocks. Hot, buff store employees greet customers at the front door. They don't say, "Fatties keep out. " They don't have to. Abercrombie does not stock sizes for the average American young woman, who is roughly 5 feet 4 and weighs about 162 pounds. Abercrombie does not want that person in its clothes. And that is not news. But thanks to the power of social media, the company's obnoxious marketing philosophy is making waves again.

Jeff Hanneman Founding member of metal band Slayer Jeff Hanneman, 49, a guitarist and founding member of the thrash metal band Slayer whose career was irrevocably changed after a spider bite, died Thursday of liver failure at a Los Angeles hospital, according to spokeswoman Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald. Hanneman was born Jan. 31, 1964, in Oakland and co-founded the speed metal pioneers in Huntington Park in the early 1980s. He and Kerry King played screaming guitars, vocalist Tom Araya played bass and Dave Lombardo played drums (Paul Bostaph later replaced Lombardo)

A man went to great lengths to escape officers during a pursuit Friday morning in Northern California, including jumping from a moving car, and changing his clothes. Sacramento police and California Highway Patrol officers chased a man into a south Sacramento neighborhood because the car he was driving was allegedly stolen. The man jumped out of the moving car, and ran into the neighborhood. Officers had to jump into the car to stop it from rolling down the street, according to Fox 40. The man then changed his clothes, and pretended to water the grass at a random home to avoid being spotted.

Actor Matthew McConaughey will launch a new clothing line called JKL . McConaughey partnered with Canadian-based Grand National Apparel on the mainly sportswear-based collection. A portion of the sales from JKL will go to benefit McConaughey's charity the just keep livin foundation, which supports after-school fitness and wellness programs at inner-city schools. [ Yahoo ] Macy's has launched a new Keds apparel line at Macy's stores nationwide and online at Macys.com and Keds.com.

WEST, Texas - At the Veterans of Foreign Wars post just a few blocks past City Hall here, the donated mattresses form a stack that nearly touches the ceiling. Rows of folding tables are piled high with clothes, and the porch out back has enough water bottles to hydrate an army. That's just Saturday's haul. And the first thing visitors hear when they step inside: "You hungry?" PHOTOS: Texas explosion The smoky scent of barbecue wafted through the room, as did the smell of meatloaf fresh off the grill.

A slew of Gatsby-related garb and gear is roaring into stores and onto websites. Besides the Brooks Bros. collection (see accompanying story), here are just a few other stylish options for the Daisy crazy - or anyone else feeling gung-ho for the new film: DRINKS Moët & Chandon is one of the movie's official partners, delving into its archives to ensure that all the bubbly being poured on the silver screen was from bottles bearing historically accurate...

In the rarefied, regimented world of ballroom dancing, an incident in 1982 proved nothing short of a fashion coup: During an international competition, half a dozen of the world's reigning ballroom dancers--queens of the floor--threw down their tutus. For decades they'd been consigned to wear short skirts with layer upon layer of netting that made them look as if they had stick legs and huge hips. They'd had enough.

Happy Hour had drawn too quickly to a close, and my wife and I were wandering through Wailea Shopping Village, arguing over whether it was the Big Dipper or the Little Dipper up there among the thousands of stars in the Maui sky, when suddenly I saw something in a store window that took my breath away: It was the shirt Montgomery Clift wore in "From Here to Eternity." I rushed into Sgt. Leisure's Cabana just as Ann Rinker was about to shut down for the night. "A replica, of course," she said.

So many of life's soupy uncertainties can be settled in or near tiny Toluca Lake, a neighborhood named for a body of water we never see. Ever water-skied on Toluca Lake? Ever caught a bass there, or lay idle on the toasty summer sand? Toluca Lake. An illusion wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a giant fence. People are always asking, "Why do you go out so often now?" and I immediately describe for them the baritone bark of our 300-pound beagle, his atrocious table manners, his inability to hold down a job. Of our five kids, he is the least motivated.

Two Arleta men were arrested Saturday after they stole women's clothing from Sears in Burbank and returned to the store, police said. The men -- Richard Munje, 46, and Paul Rey, 30 -- stuffed a yellow plastic bag with women's shorts, pants and a denim top, and left the store to place the bag in their Buick sedan, Burbank Police Sgt. Darin Ryburn said. The pair then returned to the store at 111 East Magnolia Blvd. just before 8 p.m., where they were met by police in the lingerie department.