Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has begun its annual run at Lincoln Center, and several industry firsts will be on display — including a live stream of every runway show and video on-demand provided by Rightster and IMG Fashion.

"We constantly look to provide innovative solutions for designers to connect with buyers, press and consumers around the globe,” said Peter Levy, senior vice president of IMG Fashion Worldwide Events and Properties. “Our extended partnership with Rightster will allow us to bring the rich content live from the runways to fans and media who support the event, opening the doors for designers worldwide.” 

Last year, IMG Fashion and Rightster’s distribution of live streamed shows brought a 165% increase in viewership.Continue reading...

Fellas who have been bumming out for the past eon about not having any pantyhose made expressly for them can now rest easy. There’s a new trend in town and Women’s Wear Daily is calling it mantyhose.

Racked.com is trying on a few other names for the new product — Brosiery, Guylons, He-tard, Beau-hose — and asking consumers to vote. At this writing, Brosiery was smothering the rest of the competition.

As WWD points out, men having seen this much hose for guys since NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath donned a pair for a Hanes BeautyMist commercial and Burt Reynolds showed off his nylon-clad gams in a Cosmopolitan pictorial.

Italian fashion designer Emilio Cavallini is leading the charge, looking to expand the 4 million pairs of tights that he sells annually to a new audience: men.

Cavallini's website is  offering at least six different designs of the unisex tights including white or gray side bands, skulls, stars, checks, and horizontal stripes. He has also designed camouflage mantyhose, which may appeal to officers and gentlemen.Continue reading...

Mercedes-Benz has bought a prime-time slot during one of the most-watched television events on the planet — the Academy Awards ceremony — with the commercial above premiering during Sunday's Oscars telecast on ABC.

The minute-long spot touts the sixth generation SL with, appropriately, a vintage nod to the model's storied history, from the 1950's SL roadster through to the 1960's and so on to the latest iteration, the 2013 model, which passes them all on a soft-glowing sunny California day.Continue reading...

Toyota teams with Marvel for a Yaris viral video, above.

Ford hooks up with the 2012 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for product placement.

The king(size) Snickers bar is dead. Make way for the fun size.

Below: Coke and ScarJo, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Linsanity and more.Continue reading...

It's sexy sex time!

Not to be outdone by all the sexing sex talk between Catholic leaders concerned with religious freedom and the Obama administration's mandate on providing birth control, brands got into the prophylactastic fun.

Are you ready for an almost-entirely NSFW post? Okay! First, there's the Louis Vuitton condom that wasn't.Continue reading...

New York Giants Super Bowl champion Victor Cruz cut the ribbon today in a kick-off event for New York's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, now gearing up to debut Fall 2012 collections starting Thursday morning at Lincoln Center.

There's also a whirlwind of virtual activity in what the HighLow blog calls "the most egalitarian" New York Fashion Week yet, including a Facebook invitation to RSVP to live-streams of the runway shows and join the conversation on Twitter via the #liverunway hashtag.

YouTube and Maybelline will once again sponsor a real-time YouTube channel that will bring 30 of the Fall 2012 runway shows to the world. The runway videos will also be archived at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week YouTube channel.

Cover Girl is partnering with Polyvore and the Fashion Institute of Technology on Polyvore.com/Live, which will see four FIT grads debut their collections to an audience of fashion insiders and bloggers: Lauren Bagliore, Vengsarkar “Ven” Budhu, Sergio Guadarrama, and Dana-Maxx Pomerantz.Continue reading...

President Obama has returned to e-commerce and haute couture with Runway to Win, a collaborative campaign merchandise fundraiser pegged to the kickoff of New York Fashion Week. As fashionistas rev up for the Fall 2012 collections, designers and Dem supporters have been rallying to raise money, chicly, for the president's re-election campaign.

The collection features patriotic clothing and accessories, moderately priced from $45 to $95, from top designers including Tory Burch, Rachel Roy, Derek Lam, Beyoncé and Tina Knowles, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Diane von Furstenberg, Narciso Rodriguez, Vera Wang, Thakoon, Jason Wu, Grace Tsao-Wu and Laura Kofoid of Laudi Vindi, Marc Jacobs and Tracy Reese.Continue reading...

Now that New York Fashion Week is a wrap, the spotlight turns today to London, where British designers are showcasing at their Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Up and comers including the designing duo behind Preen, above, whose spring 2012 collection features high-tech lace and pixelated pastels inspired by Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set.

Burberry will once again live-stream its show (taking place Monday) at Burberry.com, where anyone can buy fashions directly from the runway. Not hitting the runway, however: Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, along with some models who feel LFW doesn't pay well enough to merit their time. (Click here for the full LFW schedule.)

There's hope that McQueen and McCartney will return to London Fashion Week in the spring, ahead of the London 2012 pre-Olympics buzz. The British Fashion Council, meanwhile, this week announced that Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen will participate in an arts-based collaboration, Britain Creates, part of the London 2012 cultural program.Continue reading...