Dutch supermarket drops staff underwear photo request

The Netherlands’ top supermarket chain said Tuesday it has ditched plans to ask staff to upload photos of themselves in their underwear to work out sizes for new uniforms.

The Albert Heijn retailer had asked workers at one of its stores in the eastern city of Nijmegen to send the pictures using an “innovative mobile app.” But it changed course after the Dutch newspaper NRC quoted stunned employees as complaining about the plan.


“I saw a poster hanging in our canteen and I was shocked,” 17-year-old Jochem de Haes, who works at the Nijmegen branch, told NRC.

“My mother thought it was a joke. But the manager told us that if we don’t do it, we can’t be in the store anymore because we don’t have the right corporate clothing.”

Albert Heijn insisted the plan was voluntary and was aimed at helping bring in new uniforms for staff at its 1,000 Dutch stores.

“We conducted a test with an innovative mobile app in one of our supermarkets in order to determine clothing sizes in a quick and efficient way,” Albert Heijn said in a statement. “In this test we asked associates to upload a personal photo in close-fitted clothing or underwear for automatic analyses by the app.”

“Although participation was voluntarily and pictures were not visible to management, this should never have happened,” the supermarket chain added. “We have canceled the pilot yesterday and we apologize to all involved.”

The Dutch Data Protection Authority said the move was “bizarre.”

“Albert Heijn has no basis at all for imposing this on his employees,” it was quoted as saying by NRC.

It is not the first technical mix-up for the supermarket chain, which suffered two major breakdowns at checkouts in the space of a month earlier this year, causing huge queues. RGA

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Bench Body heats up New York Fashion Week–a first for a Filipino brand

Homegrown lifestyle brand Bench scored big this week after successfully staging its first-ever show at New York Fashion Week Men’s Spring Summer 2017 collections—the first Filipino company to present in the Big Apple.

Bench Body, the brand’s underwear line, collaborated with New York brand and CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist Cadet for the show, directed by Ariel Lozada. It was held on Monday in a loft location called Michelson Studio in downtown Manhattan.

The fashion week presentation is Bench’s first major move as it makes inroads into New York, making good its goal to truly go global. Apart from stores in China, Singapore and the Middle East, the brand now has outlets in California and Guam.

“I am happy that our introduction to the New York market turned out well,” Chan told Inquirer Lifestyle. “The show was well-received, the market liked our product, and the right press came,” he added.

Noel Manapat, who headed the styling team, said “publications such as GQ, Esquire, Manifesto, among others” attended Monday’s show, which featured a motley of male models from North America and Europe, headed by Filipino-Canadian Paolo Roldan who has starred in Bench campaigns.

“Our casting director, Brent Chua, assembled a diverse set of faces, both new and current. We mixed the alpha males with the skinny fashion types, atypical of how we cast shows in Manila,” said Manapat.

Up-and-coming models like Trevor Signorino and Ivo Buchta, as well as William Los and Malik Lindo, joined Roldan in the lineup, which also had two female models in the mix.

Based on the official images shared to the Inquirer, the beefcake crew preened in a collection of vivid-print skivvies and briefs, inspired by island prints, in the venue adorned with fishing nets. The show’s theme is “Forever Summer.”

Behemoth

Chan started Bench in 1987 as a T-shirt brand; it has grown into an apparel and lifestyle behemoth, with a vast merchandise mix that now also includes footwear, fragrances, bath implements, accessories and a full clothing range, and sub-labels that cater to men, women and children.

The Bench underwear show is a major fashion extravaganza held every couple of years, which brings together not just models from the United States and Europe, but also the country’s top celebrities who are also Bench endorsers. (No underwear show is planned in the Philippines this year, according to Bench.)

Bench is known for its marketing campaigns that often push boundaries. Showing in New York City may be one of its boldest moves yet.

“But it is just the start,” said Chan, “and the future is uncertain but exciting. We’ll take it one step at a time.”

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Odor-eliminating underpants a hot seller

TOKYO —Underpants which are claimed to neutralize the smell of flatulence are proving a hit in Japan, whose hard-working businessmen seem to like the idea of breaking wind without getting rumbled.

 A Japanese textile company has developed a range of underwear which it says prevent unwelcome odors.

“It took us a few years to develop the first deodorant pants that are comfortable enough to wear in daily life but efficient in quickly eliminating strong smells,” said Nami Yoshida, a spokeswoman for the company, Seiren.

“At first we thought about selling them to those who require nursing care and to hospitals. But to our surprise, lots of ordinary people, like businessmen who are in positions that require them to see people on a daily basis, bought them,” she said.

The underwear is manufactured with niff-absorbing ceramic particles in the material fibers.

Seiren developed the technology after being contacted by a doctor who wanted something to disguise the regular parps emitted by people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome.

The company’s range has now expanded to 22 items, including socks that prevent feet from smelling and T-shirts that mask the whiff of sweaty armpits.

Available online here.

source: japantoday.com