Architect Zaha Hadid's Chrome High Heels Arrive From the Future

 

Zaha Hadid NOVA heels for United NudeA great shoe is all about design, so who better to create high heels than an acclaimed architect? Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-British architect known for her futuristic buildings, has partnered with United Nude's creative director, architect Rem D. Koolhaas (the nephew of the great Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas), on some insane, space-age heels we can already picture on the feet of Lady Gaga.

The Scariest Shoes of All Time

The 6.25-inch NOVA heels appear to be heelless, but the architect claims to have engineered a comfortable shoe that you won't topple over in. The materials are equally creative, with the outside of the shoe using metallic chromed vinyl rubber in either silver, black, or rose gold. The result looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. The sole is rubber and contains a hidden platform and heel made of fiberglass, while luxurious Italian nappa leather lines the shoe's interior.

Zaha Hadid: You Don't Have to Be Polite to Succeed

"United Nude's collections are provocative yet sensual," Hadid said in a statement on the United Nude website. "Rem D. Koolhaas' unrelenting experimentation at the cutting edge of fashion never fails to capture our imagination. I have always appreciated those who dare to experiment with materials and proportions. Our collaboration with United Nude reinterprets the classic shoe typology; pushing the boundaries of what is possible without compromising integrity." To create the NOVA heels, the design duo apparently invented a new way of making shoes called "rotation molding," that United Nude claims has never been used before.

The unique footwear doesn't come cheap. Only 300 pairs of numbered, limited-edition heels will be made—100 in each color—and will sell for $2,000 a pair. You can preorder them now in sizes from 35 to 40 (US women's sizes 5 to 10) at the United Nude website, and they'll soon be available in select boutiques like L'Eclaireur in Paris. The price may be steep, but customers who cringe at copycats will be pleased with the product. The shoes are not exactly easy to knock off or mass-produce (ahem, Christian Louboutin).

"Zaha consistently reinvents the program with her own ideas and interpretations," said Koolhaas. "Her visionary creations are often unexpected yet reinforce their origins. I could not resist the challenge to work with Zaha. We gave ourselves the greatest degree of experimentation and used the latest digital design and manufacturing technologies to create one of the most innovative shoes ever produced."

 

Zaha Hadid made limited edition shoes for Lacoste back in 2009Hadid is not a new face in the fashion world. Back in 2008, she designed limited-edition shoes for the Brazilian footwear label Melissa, and in 2009 she made an aerodynamic shoe collection for Lacoste. The architect also created the asymmetrical Louis Vuitton Icone bag in 2006 and has designed jewelry for Swarovski on several occasions. In terms of structures, Hadid is the mastermind behind Chanel's Mobile Art Container in Hong Kong and even supermodel Naomi Campbell's

5 things to know about Tour de France

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JAMEY KEATEN 1 hour ago Tour de FranceChris Froome

SAINT-NAZAIRE, France (AP) — Five things to know as the Tour de France enters its 10th stage on Tuesday:
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1. ZZZZZZZZZ — After nine torrid days of riding, on the 10th day they rested. In hotels in and near Saint-Nazaire on France's western coast, the 182 riders who survived the Tour's bruising first week were sleeping, eating, and sleeping some more Monday to recharge their batteries for the middle section of three weeks of racing. Smart riders know that to stop riding altogether is a recipe for stiff legs, so many wheeled out their bikes for a few hours to keep their engines ticking. How times have changed. Three-time winner Greg LeMond recalled in a recent interview with French sports newspaper L'Equipe that he used to play golf on a rest day. Perhaps the most legendary rest day episode involved Jacques Anquetil. The story goes that he overindulged on roast mutton and booze after crashing a radio station's barbecue party during the 1964 Tour, and paid the price the next day. He initially struggled on a mountain ascent, but with some prodding from his team and a little luck — his top rival blew a flat — Anquetil went on to win his fifth Tour, a record since matched but never beaten.
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2. BACK IN THE SADDLE — You can bet Chris Froome will not have been so devil-may-care. The Kenya-born Briton will wear the leader's yellow jersey in Tuesday's 10th Stage. It shouldn't be too rude an awakening for riders as it's a mostly flat 197-kilometer (122.4-mile) ride across Brittany from Saint-Gildas-des-Bois to Saint-Malo. The next test to Froome's grasp on the leader's shirt comes Wednesday with the first individual time-trial, up to the majestic island citadel of Mont-Saint-Michel.

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Stage winner Daniel Martin of Ireland celebrates on the podium of the ninth stage of the Tour de Fra …

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3. TIGHT-LIPPED BRAILSFORD — Dave Brailsford, the manager of Froome's Sky squad, insists his riders won't collapse again in the mountains like they did in Sunday's ninth stage. Paris-Nice winner Richie Porte and several other Sky riders were dropped on the first big climb. That left Froome, the pre-race favorite, to fend for himself for the next 125 kilometers and over three more monster ascents. But he held on, solo, to keep the yellow jersey. "(Using) a boxing analogy, he's taken the biggest right hook he could face, and he didn't flinch," Brailsford said. "You learn more from adversity." Asked what Sky's plan would be to avoid a repeat scenario, he said: "I'm not going to spell it out. I'm not going to go into the details of the changes we're going to make."
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4. DUELLING MANIFESTOS — The candidates to run cycling's governing body used the Tour's rest day to publicize their visions for the future of a sport trying to move beyond its doping past. UCI boss Pat McQuaid, who is seeking a third four-year term, insisted the sport has changed for the better during his tenure as he unveiled his manifesto for cycling's future. He wants to "preserve the new culture and era of clean cycling," develop women's cycling, and authorize an independent audit to look into the UCI's actions between 1999 and 2005, the period when Lance Armstrong won seven Tour titles before they were stripped for doping. Brian Cookson, the head of British Cycling who put out his own manifesto last month as part of his own candidacy, retorted Monday in a statement that he believed people will "ask why those things haven't been done in the last eight years" under McQuaid.
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French President Francois Hollande, right, congratulates stage winner Daniel Martin of Ireland on th …

5. RIDERS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN? — Cyclists know about pain, sweat and hard work. The Orica GreenEdge team proves they know how to have fun too. The Australian squad and some filmmaking-savvy helpers have put together an online video tribute to legendary rock 'n' roll band AC/DC in which the riders don wigs, strum on floppy toy guitars and even play air guitar on a Tour podium to the tune of the Australian band's classic, "You Shook Me All Night Long." Simon Gerrans and Daryl Impey do their riffs while in the yellow jersey that they both wore last week. Others played along, too. BMC's Philippe Gilbert and fellow Belgian Eddy Merckx, a five-time Tour champion, get cameos. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAl1-mBhFpU

How Retirees Spend Their Time

Most people who are employed full time spend seven or more hours at work each day. Once you retire, much of the time you used to spend working turns into leisure time. People ages 65 to 74 spent an average of about seven hours per day on leisure activities in 2012, according to the most recent American Time Use Survey, compared to just over five hours among the total population age 15 and older. Here's how people age 65 and older spend their days:

Sleeping. People ages 65 to 74 spend an average of nine hours and 25 minutes per day sleeping, bathing and dressing, which is about the same amount of time the overall population spends on these activities. People age 75 and older get almost a half-hour more of sleep per day than younger retirees.
[Read: 10 Things to Do in Retirement.]
Watching television. Retirees spend more than half of their leisure time watching TV, averaging about four hours per day. Older people watch over an hour more TV daily than the overall population, which watches two-and-a-half hours each day. "The population is aging and older people watch more TV," says Geoffrey Godbey, a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and co-author of "Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time." "TV viewing has generally been about half of all free-time use in the U.S. TV is immediate, it is comparatively cheap on a per-hour basis and you can do it in half an hour."
Home improvements. The typical person spends an hour and 44 minutes on housework, food preparation, garden care and other household management activities. Retirees ages 65 to 74 spend two hours and 32 minutes daily working around the house. "They have the time to do so, so they spend more time on housework and food preparation, whereas other people would be trying to cram them into their day to make time for work," says Laura Wronski, an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "It does look like if you don't have all those work hours in your day that are taking up all of your time, you kind of have a little bit more freedom to do what you want to do."
Eating. Older people have more time to linger over meals, typically spending and hour and 25 minutes per day eating and drinking, compared to an hour and 15 minutes among the total population.
Working. Not everyone in their 60s and 70s has completely given up working. People between ages 65 and 74 continue to work an average of a little over an hour per day. "There does appear to have been an increase in phased retirement, with people cutting back on their work hours and shifting down to part-time," says Liana Sayer, a sociology professor at the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland. "It could be due to the recession, but it also could be that people enjoy working because it gives you a sense of integration and purpose."
Shopping. Retirees can take their time window shopping, comparing prices and evaluating the best purchase. They spend an average of 51 minutes daily purchasing goods and services, about eight minutes more per day than Americans overall.
[Read: 10 Great Senior Discounts.]
Reading. The typical American spends only 19 minutes per day reading, but reading is more popular among older people. Seniors ages 75 and older spend almost an hour each day reading, and people ages 65 to 74 generally read for more than half an hour on weekdays. "[Retirees] spend more time reading than other age groups, and most of this is reading for pleasure," Godbey says.
Socializing. Perhaps you've noticed an older person taking the time to stop and chat on the street or at the grocery store. Older people often have more time to socialize than their younger counterparts. They typically spend three-quarters of an hour with friends or attending or hosting social events, compared to 37 minutes among the overall population.
Volunteering. Retirees spend an average of only a few minutes a day caring for members of their household, compared to more than an hour each day that people between 25 and 44 spend caring for their families. However, retirees spend slightly more time caring for people who live outside their household than younger people. And the typical retiree volunteers or is involved in civic or religious activities for about a half-hour each day. "If you look at most commercial hospitals, most of those hospitals would not function without people age 65 and older who work as volunteers. That would also be true for community libraries and community art centers," Godbey says. "A lot of the institutions of government and of charities are served by older people doing volunteer work."
[See: The 10 Sunniest Places to Retire.]
Exercising. Retirees certainly have more time to exercise than employed people, but that doesn't mean they are motivated. People ages 65 and older generally spend only a few more minutes exercising than the total population, averaging 22 minutes per day.
Relaxing. Perhaps the best thing about the retirement years is finally having time to relax, think and reflect. Relaxing is a much more popular activity among people ages 65 to 74 (26 minutes) - and especially people ages 75 and older (37 minutes) - than among Americans overall (17 minutes).

Twinkies to last longer than many may remember

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FILE - A Jan. 20, 2012, file photo shows Hostess Twinkies in a studio photograph made in New York. …

NEW YORK (AP) -- Twinkies don't last forever, but they'll have more staying power than most people remember when they return to shelves next week.

Hostess Brands LLC says the spongy yellow cakes will have a shelf life of 45 days when they start hitting shelves again July 15. That's nearly three weeks longer than the 26 days the previous owner had stated as the shelf life for Twinkies.
A spokeswoman for Hostess, Hannah Arnold, says the change to extend the shelf life was actually made by the old company that went bankrupt, with the longer-lasting cakes first hitting shelves on Nov. 1 of last year.
But the old company went out of business and stopped production just weeks after that, meaning the Twinkies most people are familiar with had the shorter lifespan.
Arnold declined to say what changes were made to extend the shelf life, saying that it is proprietary information.
The New York Post also reported last week that Hostess will start freezing some of its cakes to extend their shelf life. That means that Twinkies would be delivered to stores frozen so retailers can stamp their own expiration dates on the cakes.
Arnold said in a statement that "a select number of retail customers" representing about 10 percent of its distribution made the request for frozen products. She declined to say which retailers requested the frozen Twinkies.
Hostess shuttered its factories this past November, after years of management turmoil and a failure to reach a contract agreement with its second biggest union. Its brands were sold off in chunks to different buyers; Twinkies and other Hostess cakes were purchased by Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co., which also owns Pabst Brewing Co.
As to whether the freezing would affect the taste, Arnold said in a statement that "any suggestion that Hostess is changing the integrity of the iconic snack cakes consumers have loved is completely untrue.

Bin Laden wore cowboy hat ‘to avoid detection’: Pakistani report

Osama bin Laden "trusted in Allah for his protection" but made sure to wear a cowboy hat on his walks around his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, "to avoid detection from above." That's according to the blockbuster final report of a Pakistani commission that looked into the circumstances surrounding the May 2011 raid in which U.S. commandos killed the leader of al-Qaida. The report was obtained and published by Al-Jazeera English.
The so-called Abbottabad Commission comprised Pakistan's most senior supreme court judge, a retired inspector general of police, a retired army lieutenant general, and the director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Its task was to investigate how bin Laden managed to live quietly in that garrison town ("a kilometer in a straight line from the Pakistan Military Academy," the report notes) and how U.S. special operations forces were able to conduct the covert raid without interference from Pakistan government forces. Key question: Was Pakistan's government guilty of incompetence or complicity in each case?
It's a fascinating read, capturing the would-need-two-upgrades-to-be-merely-tense relations between the U.S. and Pakistan—a country U.S. officials call crucial to the war on terrorism but which needs to do more to crack down on Islamist extremists.
The independent commission's assessment of Pakistan's government is brutal. Among its findings:
--"The whole episode of the US assassination mission of May 2, 2011 and the Pakistan government's response before, during and after appears in large part to be a story of complacency, ignorance, negligence, incompetence, irresponsibility and possibly worse at various levels inside and outside the government," the report says starting on page 333.
--Dismantling the operations of both the CIA and Islamist extremist networks on Pakistani soil must be an "urgent national priority" (page 331).
--Civilian casualties from American drone strikes must be judged "deliberate and criminal" (page 328).
--The CIA stopped notifying Pakistan's government of high-value extremist targets on its territory in 2005 (page 325).
--It calls the bin Laden raid "illegal" and a symptom of America's "contemptuous disregard for Pakistan's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity in the arrogant certainty of its unmatched military might" (page 305).
--But a more effective Pakistan government could have spared its people their "avoidable humiliation" (page 305).
--How did Pakistan's intelligence services miss the presence of the world's most wanted fugitive? "It was probably more a case of negligence, inefficiency and incompetence rather than complicity" (page 299).
Repeated entries note speculation that Pakistan abetted the raid with at least a wink-and-nod acceptance, but the commission found no evidence for that claim. On page 292, the report notes that Pakistan's air defense radars, which might have picked up the Navy SEAL team helicopters, were in "rest" mode because it was "not economical" to have them on constantly.
But among the most interesting nuggets in the report are the descriptions, based on interviews with bin Laden relatives living with him at the compound, of his life in hiding.
Bin Laden was "not fond of possessions" and moved into the house with just three summer outfits and three winter outfits. He also had a black jacket and two sweaters, the report said. Why didn't bin Laden have tougher protection? He "trusted in Allah for his protection" and had just two bodyguards.
Still, "when OBL moved about the Compound he wore a cowboy hat to avoid detection from above," the report said on page 41. When he felt unwell, he relied on "traditional Arab medicine." He "did not discuss political matters with his wives." But Bin Laden "personally saw to the religious education of his grandchildren and supervised their play time, which included cultivating vegetable plots with simple prizes for best performances."
The witnesses said that the Americans made off with a hard disc that belonged to bin Laden—but also with what the report calls 20 gold “biscuits” and two gold lockets with emeralds (page 40).
“They also took a purse that contained the will of Osama bin Laden,” the report says.
One of bin Laden's wives “had previously read the will but did not wish to divulge the details. She said it was not political and pertained only to personal and family related matters. Other reports suggested that the will said his children should not seek the leadership of Al-Qaida.”

Behind the Ink: Johnny Depp's Crow Tattoo (and Other Body Art) Explained

 

Tattoo besties: Freed prisoner Damien Echols, left, and Johnny Depp (George Pimentel/WireImage)There's no stronger bond than one drawn in ink (unless you change "Winona Forever" to read "Wino Forever," but never mind).

Johnny Depp, star of this week's "The Lone Ranger," and Damien Echols, one-third of the original West Memphis Three, have shared some time together on the red carpet over the past year to promote "West of Memphis." (The highly acclaimed documentary is about three men, including Echols, who just last August were released from prison after being wrongfully incarcerated for 18 years.)

It turns out the actor and the former inmate have also shared time in a few tattoo parlors.

 

Depp's new crow tattoo was visible during a recent visit to David Letterman (Ray Tamarra/FilmMagic)

Although he's not officially involved with the documentary, Depp has been a fierce supporter of "West of Memphis" and the legal crusade that finally made free men out of Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr., and Jason Baldwin, who were accused of the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys found next to a creek in the Robin Hood Hills area of West Memphis, Arkansas. Depp and Echols have become close friends and have sealed their bond with a few permanent marks.

The most striking tattoo shared by the two is an image of a crow, found on the back of their respective right hands. The artwork is a nod to the "The Crow" (released in 1994, the same year the Three were convicted), the fantasy action film about Eric Draven (the late, great Brandon Lee), a rock musician whose brutal murder is avenged when he rises from the grave a year after his death, guided by a mystical crow. It's a theme Echols says he explores in his autobiography, "Life After Death."

"[In the movie], they talk about the mythology of how [the crow] is considered to be something that transports souls from the realm of the dead to the realm of the living," Echols said in an interview with People Magazine last fall. "When somebody comes back to life, it's the crow that brings them back to the living."

[Related: The Secret History of the Lone Ranger]

The image and theme of the crow also fits into the bird imagery of the headdress that Depp wears as Tonto in "The Lone Ranger." This costume flourish came from Depp himself, who was inspired by Kirby Sattler's striking painting, "I Am Crow."
"It just so happened Sattler had painted a bird flying directly behind the warrior's head," said Depp in an April interview with Entertainment Weekly. "It looked to me like it was sitting on top. I thought: Tonto's got a bird on his head. It's his spirit guide in a way. It's dead to others, but it's not dead to him. It's very much alive."

[Watch Weekend Picks! 'The Lone Ranger' and 'Despicable Me 2']

Watch Johnny Depp and 'Lone Ranger' Cast Discuss His Thick Tonto Makeup:
And get this: The crow is only one of five tattoos that Depp and Echols share. The others are as follows:
1) Right Shoulder: 'Brother' (in Theban language)
According to Johnny-Depp.org, this tattoo was first seen at the Japanese premiere of "Dark Shadows" (May 2012). The artwork is that of a circle made up of the word "Brother" in the Theban alphabet (a magical alphabet believed to be invented by Honorius of Thebes, Egypt). "This one I actually got with Johnny Depp," says Echols, who also designed the artwork. "It says 'brother' on the outside and my name and his name in the middle of it."
2) Right Tricep: Ching
Depp and Echols got this tattoo on October 7, 2011, at Depp's favorite tattoo parlor, Mark Mahoney's Shamrock Social Club, located on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Echols got a large version of the artwork while Depp's is smaller. Echols identifies the symbol as "Hsiao Ch'u," meaning "Taming Force." "What this represents is, whenever you're facing huge obstacles, you don't focus on them or you'll lose heart and be defeated," says Echols. "Instead focus on just putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time."

[Related: Off the Rails — 5 Big Screen Train Wrecks]

3) Underside of Left Forearm: Harley Davidson Skeleton Key
This tattoo was first seen on April 11, 2012, when Johnny and Marilyn Manson were performing at the Golden Gods Awards. "When I was a child, I thought that a skeleton key could literally open any door," says Echols. "So that if you ever got your hands on a skeleton key, you'd be almost unstoppable — no barrier could hold you back. It seemed like an incredibly magical thing. For me now, that's still what it represents."

The Skeleton Key was also something of a "long distance" tattoo for the duo. "That one we did simultaneously," says Echols. "[Depp] was in L.A. and I was in New York and we were on the phone at the same time both sending each other photographs back and forth, keeping track on the progress and everything else."

4) Left Hand: Inverted Z (Flash)
This was first seen when Depp became an adopted member of the Comanche Indian tribe on May 16, 2012. Echols got the same tattoo in celebration of his friend's adoption. According to Johnny-Depp.org, the 'z' or the zigzag is a common Native American symbol and motif.

If the center line of the Z slants left, it indicates the path of the soul — the journey the spirit takes and the walk that is made within the spirit. If the center line slants to the right, it indicates forces that call loudly to a person's soul — passions or issues that compel a person to take a chosen path of life. The two horizontal lines (top and bottom) indicate the journey of life and the understanding as we walk upon the grounding plane of Earth.