Fast cars, exotic locales, guns and fiery lovers: James Bond and his Bond girls lead dangerous and dashing lives. Ian Fleming’s elegant spy and provocative adventuresses are some of the most celebrated characters of 20th century fiction. Cool, cultured and oh so seductive, Bond’s mixture of wit and sophistication is the epitome of male glamour. Whether he’s wooing a coy Bond girl or fighting a villain, Bond always wins. A Bond girl’s allure is her intelligence and resourcefulness. She jets around the world, thwarting villains and bedding the hottest secret agent in Her Majesty’s service. Their lifestyle is a fantasy. Now you can make it a reality. In honor of the latest Bond movie, Casino Royale, hitting theatres this November, Echo spoke ...

You see them on the cover of Neiman Marcus catalogs, in the windows on Michigan Avenue, and in the pages of Vogue. You might even be wearing a pair now. The wedge shoe made its comeback last summer, and it’s here to stay (well, at least until the fashion gods tell it goodbye). Think this trend just popped up on the radar? Think again. Your grandma was just as hip as you. Echo dug into the archives on this shoe phenomenon that puts the Manolo in Manolo Blahnik. 1600s Venice, Italy. Venetian Chopines Italian men put their women on pedestal shoes made of cork and wood. These shoes were a symbol of social status and wealth. “Venetian husbands reputedly introduced chopines to prevent their ...

Indian is in. From hot pink paisley skirts and fiery red tunics with gold embroidery, to canary yellow sequined brocade scarves and fancy flats with multicolored thread work, South Asian (also called desi) fashion sensibilities have infiltrated the Western fashion world. Echo decided to go all-out ethnic to bring you the ultimate in haute couture. For an incomparable Indian shopping experience, we went to Sahil, an upscale boutique on Devon Avenue. Sahil carries lines by some of India’s hottest designers, including Manish Malhotra, Vikram Phadis and Satya Paul, all of whom count among their customers Bollywood stars and socialites like actress Aishwarya Rai and New York City hotelier Vikram Chatwal. Though prices can range up to $10,000 ...

Master dyer Dagmar Klos is in the basement, crushing bugs. But not just any bugs. The cochineal she’s pulverizing will soon be combined with madder root to create a red dye that Columbia alumna Rachel Szmajda will use for her new line of hemp clothing, EleMental. EleMental consists of two men’s ensembles and two women’s ensembles, each representing one of the four elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. “All of my outfits are vegan, except the fire one, because I used the bug to dye the red color,” Szmajda says. Hemp, the brother plant of marijuana, has been used for more than a century to make clothing. (The first American flag was made of hemp and the ...