NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.: High-wire performer Nik Wallenda announced on Wednesday that June 15 is the day his boyhood dream to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls will become a reality. Wallenda, 33, a seventh-generation member of the famed “Flying Wallendas” family of circus performers, is set to walk a 2-inch (5 cm) cable strung 1,800 feet (550 meters) across Niagara Falls gorge - the first such tight rope feat between the United States and Canada in more than a century. This has been his dream since he was 6 years old, Wallenda said during a news conference held near the falls in upstate New York. “I can guarantee nothing like this has ever happened anywhere in the world,” Wallenda said of his planned walk 150 feet (46 meters) above the falls that span two countries. “I’ve done walks that are higher and longer but none of them compare to this,” he said. Wallenda, of Sarasota, Florida, said he will train publicly for 10 days prior to the walk, from May 12 to 22, in a parking lot used by the Seneca Niagara Casino, located less than a mile (1.6 km) from the gorge. Using a cable strung between two cranes at the site, Wallenda is set to practice using equipment to simulate the high-wind conditions and moisture he expects to encounter. As for which country Wallenda will be in when he steps out onto the wire, he said weather will dictate that and a decision will be made closer to June 15. He said it’s likely the walk, which is expected to take 30 to 40 minutes, will take place in the early evening, when colored lights are used to illuminate the huge waterfalls. A long-standing ban on such stunts in and around Niagara Falls has meant that no one has attempted a high-wire walk there in more than 100 years. Gaining permission for the June 15 walk required almost two years of lobbying by Wallenda and politicians in upstate New York who hope the spectacle will translate into tourism dollars. “We had to change two laws in two countries,” Wallenda said. “I didn’t know how far I would get. There’s a history of people who have been denied.” Wallenda’s initial support came last September when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill giving him one year to perform the feat. Canada initially opposed the stunt but then reversed itself in February and agreed to allow it with a provision barring a similar feat for another 20 years. Wallenda holds several Guinness World Records including one for the highest tightrope crossing by bicycle and another for the longest.
Bella Hadid leaves Paris for Los Angeles launch event
DUBAI: Supermodel Bella Hadid jetted from Paris to Los Angeles this week to launch her latest campaign with US fashion retailer Revolve.
The Palestinian US Dutch model was on hand in France earlier in the week, where she hit the runway at the Saint Laurent show during Paris Fashion Week.
She then flew across to Los Angeles to launch a campaign with Los Angeles-founded retailer Revolve, which was set up in 2003 by Michael Mente and Mike Karanikolas.
Hadid fronts a campaign launching the e-commerce department store’s first-ever in-house brand, Revolve Los Angeles.
“Born from a deep understanding of the modern woman and inspired by the city where it all began, our eponymous fashion house is a new expression of effortless glamor,” the new fashion label posted on Instagram alongside black-and-white images of Hadid in a selection of looks.
Prior to her trip to Los Angeles, the model showed off French label Saint Laurent’s latest collection in Paris.
Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello, marking his own 10th anniversary at the helm, sent out a parade of razor-sharp Smokings — the house term for its iconic women’s tuxedo — with plunging necklines and elongated silhouettes that crackled with the same transgressive energy founder Yves Saint Laurent unleashed in the 1960s, the Associated Press reported.
But Vaccarello didn’t stop at evening wear.
He extended the same sensual, body-skimming tailoring into daytime suits in fluid pinstripe fabrics with almost no interlining, effectively arguing that the tuxedo silhouette belongs in a woman’s life around the clock.
Plenty of brands in Milan showed strong black pantsuits this season, but the Saint Laurent version still occupies its own territory — sleeker, sharper, more loaded with meaning.
The other half of Vaccarello’s equation was lace, stiffened with latex and tailored into structured cardigan-like jackets and straight skirts.
It was lace with backbone — tough, not delicate.
Paired with smoky eyes, chunky gold jewelry and slingback heels, the collection made a case that Saint Laurent’s codes are as potent as ever.
