• Would you (or Mark Zuckerberg) wear a pinstriped wool hoodie?

    Jason Van Horn / Betabrand

    Business as usual? Betabrand's luxurious executive hoodies come designed with the CEO in mind.

    By Julia Rubin, Styleite

    Much has been made of Mark Zuckerberg‘s affinity for hoodies. He’s been put on GQ worst dressed lists and pissed off Wall Street types, but it’s part of his uniform, and for that we commend him. Steve Jobs had his (Issey Miyake!) turtlenecks, Zuck has his hoodies. And now he has a new option for when he wants to appear formal, without compromising his personal style.

    Betabrand (a San Francisco-based online retailer — of course) seemed to have had the Facebook CEO in mind when it came up with its Executive Pinstripe Hoodie. The merino wool (“the same exquisite fabric found in fancy-schmancy tailored suits”) hoodie is dry-clean only and has “luxurious tie-cloth lining, comfy ribbed cotton cuffs, and a pair of roomy front pockets.” The $148 sweatshirt certainly gives new meaning to business casual.

    While we applaud the winking ingenuity here, we’re inclined to declare you should stick to a regular ol’ cotton/polyester/fleece blend when purchasing a hoodie. Leave the merino wool pinstripes for, well, actual suits. It’s like sneaky sneakers!

    More from Styleite:

    Steve Jobs' Decades-Long Love Affair with The Mock Turtleneck
    How Much Does The Most Expensive T-Shirt In The World Cost?
    What Do You Think Of Time's Controversial Breast-Feeding Cover? 

  • Bobbie's Buzz: Savvy style solutions for phones, babies and more

    TODAY style editor Bobbie Thomas suggests fun fashion ideas, such as a company where you can customize your high heel, and reversible onesies that suit both baby boys and girls.

    By Bobbie Thomas

    From making your smartphone smarter to cute and cleverly-designed baby onesies, TODAY style editor and Bobbie.com's Bobbie Thomas shares buzz-worthy products for everyone:

    chromaticgalllerie.com

    Pick your own heel height!

    Just the right height
    One of the most common questions I'm asked by women is about shoes; how to find a wide width in a certain color, where to purchase low-heeled purple pumps or just how to make shoe shopping easier.  Enter ChromaticGallerie.com, a website specializing in a rainbow of basics. They offer up simple yet stylish suede and leather designs, each in 3 different heel heights and 3 different widths, so you no longer have to trek around the mall in search of the elusive perfect pair ($88, chromaticgallerie.com).

    Less 'dropped' calls
    Smart phones provide us with countless solutions on a daily basis, but one thing they sometimes lack is a good grip. Whether you have an iPhone, Blackberry or Droid, you may be familiar with how easily they can slip out of your hand when taking a picture or juggling keys and a handbag. Thankfully there's FlyGrip, a small attachment that clips onto your phone and rests comfortably between your fingers, providing a solid, single-handed grip ($29.95, flygrip.com).

    twotara.com

    Smart: Boy or girl can wear this cute romper.

    The perfect baby gift, every time
    Last but not least, I was surprised to learn that 40 percent of expectant parents choose not to know the gender of their baby before birth, leaving 40 percent of baby shower-gifters in the dark.  But rather than settle for gender neutral green or yellow, you can turn to TwoTara, makers of adorable two-sided onesies, one side being blue, the other side being pink.  There are also fun, dual-tone rompers, baby booties, hats and more ($5-$35, twotara.com).

    More: Bobbie's Buzz: Active (and stylish) essentials
    Hillary Clinton doesn't care if you see her without makeup
    Retro fashion: Making the old new again

  • H&M apologizes for using too-tan model in ads

    Photo courtesy H&M

    The ad shows the olive-skinned Isabeli Fontana deeply bronzed.

    By Martha C. White

    H&M made a splash with its new bathing suits, but not in the way the Swedish clothing retailer intended. The company issued an apology yesterday after coming under fire from the Swedish Cancer Society for a series of ads featuring Brazilian model Isabeli Fontana in bright swimsuits and a very, very dark tan. 

    "Every year, more people die in Sweden of (skin cancer) than in traffic accidents, and the main cause is too much sunning," the Society wrote in an opinion article in the Thursday edition of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, according to the AFP.

    The group blasted H&M for what it characterized as creating a "deadly" standard of beauty that unduly influenced young people to tan. It said images like the swimsuit ad campaign "contribute to more people dying from skin cancer."

    Live Poll

    Should the company have apologized for the ad campaign?

    View Results
    • 183456
      No. Swimsuits look better on tan models and the company is in the business of selling.
      62%
    • 183457
      Yes. Skin cancer is a serious issue. And these ads promote dangerous behavior.
      38%

    VoteTotal Votes: 26885

    The retailer responded with an apology via email to the media outlet. "We are sorry if we have upset anyone with our latest swimwear campaign. It was not our intention to show off a specific ideal or to encourage dangerous behaviour." While H&M did defend itself by saying the goal was to highlight the bathing suits — as opposed to the color of the model's skin — it also said, "We have taken note of the views and will continue to discuss this internally ahead of future campaigns."

    The ads show the olive-skinned Fontana deeply bronzed, an effect that could have been achieved with makeup or digital manipulation instead of via hours in the sun. The Cancer Society did acknowledge that it was possible that Fontana's complexion could have been faked with computer enhancements, but said the image was harmful either way.

     "[T]he effect is the same: H&M tells us we should be very tan on the beach," it said.

    More from msnbc.com business:

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  • Suds for buds: Do men require their own type of hand soap?

    Bathandbodyworks.com

    Foam for fellas: Bath & Body Works' line of anti-bacterial gentle foaming hand soaps for men.

    By Alex Smith

    What exactly is it with women and soap? Put some of the stuff — soap, skin moisturizer, lotion, hand cream, exfoliating product or any other similarly inclined goop — into a pretty tube or bottle and show it to my wife and she lights up and coos like a doe-eyed newborn. For myself — and like most men, I'd wager — it's not that I'm averse to smelling nice (to say nothing of being clean), but it really isn't that complicated. For most guys like me, it's usually just a matter of using whatever is on hand, even if it's just a humble, generic bar prized from one's local truck stop. If it gets the job done, huzzah. Just don't ask me to get excited about it.

    As a senior editor at TODAY.com, however, I work with what some might consider an inordinate amount of women, and my indifference to the allure of specialty soaps is thus often expressed and well-documented. As such, when our style and beauty editor plunked down three bottles of Bath & Body Works' "signature collection" of anti-bacterial gentle foaming hand soap for men on my desk, I was naturally skeptical.  But still, I was curious. What exactly sets hand soap for men apart?  I volunteered to take the three sleek bottles, which sell for $5.50 each, home and give them a try.

    My first foray into this new realm involved a quick squirt from the first bottle, "Twilight Woods." Already suspicious of the connotations, given the teenage-vampire-alluding name, I dutifully lathered up. While purportedly "lightly scented with juicy berry, soft mimosa, apricot nectar and warm woods," I found the bold aroma of the soap almost overpowering. It didn't feel like I was washing my hands so much as coating them in fragrance. It's not that the smell was unpleasant, per se, but rather that it was invasive to the point that I felt compelled to wash it off.

    As if on cue, there was my second bottle, "Noir." Presumably designed to cater to my self-styled, shadowy masculine mystique, I spread the foamy mix of "sage, coriander, cardamom, white vanilla, vetiver and amber musk" around my palms, expecting ... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what I was expecting from a hand soap called "Noir," given that dark and sepulchral aren't adjectives one normally associates with hygiene. The end results didn't so much remind me of a gritty Raymond Chandler novel or a Nine Inch Nails album so much as a musky bowl of potpourri. Even stronger than "Twilight Woods," "Noir" had a perfumey quality that was inescapable.

    At this stage of the experiment, I cheated and went back to my generic, white bar of hand soap for a while, seduced by its purifying (if slightly industrial) simplicity. It may have lacked the olfactory complexities of "Twilight Woods" and "Noir," but isn't that what you want from a hand soap? Simplicity?

    Then it happened. One of my kids left the top off a tube of toothpaste, and I suddenly found my hands coated in the viscous stuff. Instead of grasping that bar of soap, I turned my attention to the third bottle, that being the promising blueness of "Ocean." As I reached for it, I imagined a cleansing experience that captured all the crispness and depth such a moniker suggests. "Ocean," however, smelled like no ocean I'd ever swum in, although its robust scent of "cypress, vetiver and yuzu" (and what, pray, tell, is yuzu?) did indeed seem to possess the strength of a tidal surge. Once again, I felt that this heavily scented soap did more to camouflage than to actually clean, and I came away from it feeling like I was sporting a weighty cologne.

    I can't help thinking that Bath & Body Works has the best of intentions with these products, and amplifies certain aspects of "Twilight Woods," "Noir" and "Ocean" to mirror the assertive nature of the idealized man. And it's not that they smell bad, once again, but rather that they lack any semblance of nuance, even when used sparingly. Perhaps finesse is inherently a female trait? Obviously, men come in all shapes, sizes and sensibilities, so perhaps my own hygienic habits are not indicative of the rest of my kind, but these soaps have left me asking whether hand soaps really need to sub-divided by gender-appeal, and if so, does a man's hand-soap need to cater to such stereotypes?

    What do you look for in a hand soap?

    Alex Smith is a senior editor at TODAY.com who has very clean, presentable hands.

    More:
    Video: 'Murses,' man-cures: Male grooming gets big
    Video: Most men don't wash their hands after using toilet, says study
    I'm obsessed with ... Shanghai Tang

     

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