Fashion focus

The Olsens' women's label, New York-based The Row, uses factories in its home city and Los Angeles to make fashions such as its $250 white T-shirts and $2,350 short dresses.

The brand has found favour with the likes of First Lady Michelle Backless Prom Dresses and actress Julianne Moore, as well as with critics: The former Full House child stars got a nomination this year for a new talent award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Tiffany & Co. has moved past its north-east home turf and into the south by expanding its manufacturing base to Lexington, Kentucky. The New York-based company makes 60 per cent of its jewelry itself, all of it in the US, compared with 20 per cent 15 years ago.

Alongside Eritrea celebrating its independence from Ethiopia Ball Gowns this month, and only seven weeks before South Sudan is to officially declare its independence from Sudan, the self declared republic of Somaliland celebrated its 20th independence day on Wednesday, May 18, 2011.

Tucked in the North-western corner of the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia's neighbour has not been recognised by anyone as an independent country.

Nonetheless, Hargeisa, the bustling capital with wide roads and 650,000 inhabitants, was teeming with people readying themselves to celebrate the occasion on Wednesday.

The colourful shops run by men clad in meweyen (traditional tunics) Corset Prom Dresses women wearing direh (brightly coloured flowing dresses) or abaya (a more austere dress) were closed down for the celebration, one of the biggest Somaliland has held since independence.

The occasion marked the defeat of the forces of the former short prom dresses ruler Mohammed Siad Barre by the Somali National Movement (SNM), a rebel group at the time, and Somaliland's subsequent declaration of independence from Somalia.