As many high-end brands show off their latest designs at New York Fashion Week, Greenpeace has a big message for the fashion world at large: It's time to clean up your act.

The latest from Greenpeace’s global Detox campaign is its “Fashion Duel,” with Italian actress Valeria Golino leading the charge for the industry to make environmental stewardship a priority in their operations.

The "duel" sets out to rate 15 Italian and French high-end luxury brands on three areas of the global supply chain — leather, pulp and paper and toxic water pollution — and highlights their differences in policy on toxic water pollution and deforestation.Continue reading...

Lexus is pitching a hybrid tablet/print experience with CinePrint™, its proprietary ad technology to merge print and digital. The Toyota-owned luxury automaker demonstrates the 2013 ES in a video demo (below) of its ad in the Oct. 15th issue of Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated magazine — just slip a tablet under the page to see it come to life.Continue reading...

Dolce & Gabbana's spring/summer 2013 runway show had barely finished parading on the catwalk in Milan on Sept. 24 when the luxury fashion brand found itself generating buzz ... less for the clothes than for the accessories — specifically, the earrings dangling from the models' lobes. Depicting an African American woman's fruit-carrying head as earrings smacked of colonialism to some, and just plain offensive to others, and not just women and people of color.

D&G, accused of "romanticising slavery" and worse, turned to Vogue to publish the brand's explanation in an online article titled "Dolce & Gabbana Explains Controversial Jewellery." That's fairly ironic, considering Vogue has been behind both the NBA star LeBron James "King Kong" cover controversy and raked for a reference to "a pair of large, gold hoops as 'slave earrings'."

But did D&G's own show add the ultimate irony of its excuse? And what did they think would be the response?Continue reading...

We've just passed the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death from an overdose of barbiturates, but the world still can’t keep its collective eyes off of her visage — or brand. She may not have an annual week dedicated to her as Elvis does, but her doe-eyed, beauty-marked visage is stronger than ever.

Forbes, which has made something of a cottage industry out of tracking dead celebrities' brands, estimates that Monroe pulled in $27 million in 2011, third behind Michael Jackson and Presley in the dead-celeb sweepstakes.

Her image and likeness are controlled by Authentic Brands Group and partner NECA, which purchased the Monroe brand in 2010. The plan in process now, according to the Associated Press, is to upgrade “Monroe offerings from trinkets to cosmetic lines, spas, salons and apparel.”Continue reading...

Burberry released the campaign for its Autumn/Winter 2012 collection, starring British actress Gabriella Wilde and musician Roo Panes. The black and white campaign, shot by fashion legend Mario Testino, uses London as the backdrop. "We wanted to play with everything that’s at the heart of the Burberry world – celebrating our brand and London through imagery, film, music, weather and our iconic outerwear, all in a very poetic and British way," explained Burberry chief creative officer Christopher Bailey.

In other fashion/luxury news today:Continue reading...

The Netherlands-based Clean Clothes Campaign, the garment industry's largest alliance of labor unions and non-governmental organizations, has already convinced apparel retailers and designers including Armani, Versace, Gucci, H&M and Levi Strauss & Co to ban sandblasted jeans for endangering workers' lives.

As the CCC's website details, giving denim that "lived in" look by high-pressured sandblasting contaminates the air and can contribute to silicosis, a fatal lung disease. Now Target has announced it is joining the global ban on the technique; find out more in the budget retailer's blog post. Still under pressure by labor activists to join the ban: Dolce & Gabbana.

Below, watch a Levi Strauss video featuring chief supply chain officer David Love marking the company's first anniversary of no-sandblasting last September.Continue reading...

In addition to tweeting at commuters in London, Dove did Valentine's Day, China style.

Following Apple's lost iPad trademark lawsuit, iPads are being removed from stores in China. Is it just muscle-flexing by authorities? And will all imports be halted? Apple already told Amazon China to halt sales of iPads.

Meanwhile, is the Fair Labor Association the solution to Apple's Foxconn woes? And putting things in perspective: Apple racked up over $13 billion in sales in China last year.Continue reading...

And now for something completely different: in honor of Chinese New Year (Kung Hei Fat Choi!) this week's Brand Bites round-up is all China, all the time:

• Coach is targeting mainland consumers with limited edition Spring Festival e-card collaboration with artist Zhang Lan. And some nifty Year of the Dragon themed accessories, above.Continue reading...