Latest news with #Ronning
The Star
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
What is a firefighter jacket and why has it suddenly become fashionable?
Many fashion trends are a matter of inches. This one is a matter of cinches. The firefighter jacket, a variation on the three- or four-pocket chore coat that features weighty metal clasps in place of buttons, has emerged as a curious, clangy spring jacket trend. Adrien Brody, pre-Oscar win, wore a firefighter jacket in British GQ . Supreme, the streetwear agenda-setters, offers one in glossy cowhide for close to US$1,000 (approximately RM4,371). Instagram-marketed brands like Ronning in Britain target early adopters with waist-length clasp jackets for about one third of that price. Vintage dealers, reporting increased interest, offer them for even less. When worn, firefighter jackets are part fidget toy, part ASMR doodad. Those metal clasps lock together with a pleasing "click", like a seatbelt on a roller coaster. As the owner of a vintage version from the nearly forgotten Italian label Energie – purchased for around US$175 (RM765) at 194 Local, a New York vintage shop, I can tell you that those closures are pleasing to idly toggle as you, say, contemplate how to write a spring jacket story. As is perhaps obvious, it's those shiny clasps that lend the coat its name. Authentic firefighter's jackets feature metal clips that are easier to fasten than buttons or zippers while wearing gloves. Read more: Want to look fashionable – and ultra rich? Dress in cream, beige or off-white Kiyana Salkeld wears a firefighter jacket she bought from Brut, a French label that riffs on vintage workwear. Photo: The New York Times Still, firefighter coats have been around well before the term ASMR was in use. A 1979 article in the St Joseph Gazette in Missouri includes a photo of a man in a US$150 (RM656) metal-clasped 'fireman's jacket' from the defunct men's label Hunter Haig. 'Firemen take risks,' the accompanying article read. 'That's why they need a coat that can take the roughest treatment in the worst weather.' To note, vintage dealers today will tell you to never buy a genuine used firefighter's jacket, which may have, if not carcinogens soaked into it, then at least a smoky odour. Through the 1990s, jackets with gleaming clasps were common at mainstream-leaning labels: Liz Claiborne, Isaac Mizrahi and Structure, all of which are, if not shuttered, then shells of their former selves. It was Ralph Lauren, though, who was most closely associated with the style. Liam Gallagher, the Oasis frontman, was wearing a colour-blocked version from the brand back in 1994. Photos of him in the blue-and-white coat still cycle around the internet. 'Ralph definitely made them way more wearable,' said Matt Roberge, a vintage seller in Vancouver, British Columbia, who sells a US$350 (RM1,530) denim firefighter's jacket with a corduroy collar and a US$250 (RM1,093) washed-out-to-near-pale-blue model, both from Polo, both decades old. 'I found a fireman's jacket in a vintage store a few years ago, and I wanted to update it,' said Sigurd Bank, the founder of Mfpen, the Scandinavian label that produced the tri-clasp jacket Brody wore in British GQ . Mfpen's version (now entirely sold out on its site) came in a washed denim fabric, with corduroy panels on the back. For the clasps, Bank used an Italian manufacturer who made closures for authentic firefighter outfits. If the firefighter's jacket is becoming popular, it's doing so in the wake of a broader trend: the embrace of barn coats. Barbour and J Crew have collaborated on a barn jacket, now nearly sold out. The GQ s and Vogue s of the world are hailing them as the coat of the moment. LL Bean is importing a heretofore only-in-Japan lightweight version of its 100-year-old field coat design. And designer labels like the Row and Auralee have brought the barn to the boutique with four-figure upsells. 'I had reached barn coat fatigue,' said Jalil Johnson, the writer of fashion newsletter Consider Yourself Cultured in New York. Read more: Flaunt them, pair them with sandals: How to pull off white socks fashionably Johnson, instead, went searching not for a barn jacket clone, but a cousin. He took to duffle coats, the very Anglo, rope-closed wool overcoats, but he did acknowledge that firefighter jackets were another contender in the barn-jacket-but-just-off-enough contest. 'It is a continuation of all these jackets we've seen, but it's more interesting because of the hardware,' Johnson said. And that, in the hairsplitting manner of micro-trends, makes it worthy to shoppers. 'It goes no deeper than 'I like these clasps,'' said Kiyana Salkeld, a product designer in New York who owns a pair of firefighter coats from Brut, a French label riffing on vintage workwear. They are, she said, similar enough to the J Crew barn coat she'd worn for 15 years to slot effortlessly into how she already dressed. The clasps were sturdy and reassuring but not so heavy as to distract. Said Salkeld, 'It's just nice to have a slightly different version of the same thing that you had previously.' – Jacob Gallagher/©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pizza and beer makers, plus senior living, open in time for spring season in Waukesha area
As spring blooms, three businesses have begun adding to the newness of the season in Waukesha County, though with some perennial favorites and necessities. Voodoo Brewing in Delafield, Glass Nickel Pizza in Waukesha and The Westerly senior community in Pewaukee have emerged following months of planning in central and western parts of Waukesha County. A veteran culinary pro and beer lover has poured his passion into a franchise reaching into Wisconsin for the first time. Voodoo Brewing Co., founded in 2005 in Pennsylvania, has opened at The Grain building at 705 N. Genesee St., in downtown Delafield, under the direction of franchisee Bryan Ronning. According to a news release from a marketing company on behalf of Voodoo, Ronning has decades of experience in the hospitality industry, starting when he made pizzas at age 14 and eventually expanding his vocation as an executive chef at a large catering company. Ronning said Wisconsin's reputation as a sort of beer capital was part of a formula for success for the first Voodoo franchise in the state. Delafield represented an area of pointed interest. "It's an untapped market in the area that's looking for a craft beer destination," he said in the release. "There's really nothing else like it around where we're going." The brewpub, which opened in mid-March, has a "communal" atmosphere, with large tables inviting patrons to simply walk in and find an open seat, he said. The menu includes locally-inspired foods and Voodoo Brewing Co.'s 'liquid gold' craft beer, along with craft cocktails and hard seltzers. The business is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. A 27-year-old statewide franchise that started in Madison has found an operator for a second Milwaukee-area location, this time along a road where pizza choices are common. Glass Nickel Pizza opened recently in the newest outbuilding on the shopping center once defined by Kmart, along Sunset Drive near East Avenue. Like elsewhere, the Waukesha location, 116 E. Sunset Drive, features a variety of pizzas (with 25 specialties), but the menu also includes a salad bar, sub sandwiches, baked pastas and chicken. It's available for dining in or delivery. Specials, including pizza of the month offers, are listed on the local franchise's Facebook page. The business is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Glass Nickel Pizza has nine other locations in Wisconsin, including one in Brookfield. An apartment complex for senior living and specialized care, announced in 2023, has now opened. The Westerly Pewaukee features about 140 apartments — under a partnership with Matter Development, ICAP Development and Koru Health — on a 4.7-acre parcel on the east side of Highway 164 along Swan Road. It's a neighborhood just north of Capitol Drive that is Pewaukee's largest commerce center, which the senior center is marketing as a convenience feature for its residents. Walmart, Costco and Menards, smaller shops in Meadow Creek Market, an Aldi store and a Walgreens, plus several casual and fine-dining restaurants, are among the businesses in close proximity to The Westerly, 409 Swan Road. Residents who committed to space began moving in April 1, nine days before a ribbon-cutting event celebrating the end of a 20-month construction effort. Contact reporter Jim Riccioli at Do you have a retail business, restaurant or entertainment venue that's opening or has recently opened in Waukesha County? Email us at news@ with some information about the business and contacts. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Waukesha County new businesses include brewer, pizzeria, senior living
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Minnetonka e-commerce firm to shut down, resulting in 122 layoffs
A Minnetonka e-commerce company is closing down, with more than 120 workers set to be laid off. Digital River Inc. informed the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development this week that it will permanently close its headquarters at 10380 Bren Rd. W. by Mar. 28. The closure will result in 122 employees losing their jobs. This includes a number of remote workers who reported to the office. The closure comes just over ten years after the company was acquired by a New York-based private equity firm for a sum of $840 million. Digital River offered online payment processing solutions for companies across the globe, as well as data insight and market intelligence services. It was founded by Joel Ronning in 1994 before going public in 1998. Ronning stepped down in 2012, with the company taken private again less than two years later. According to the Twin Cities Business Magazine, Digital River CEO Barry Kasoff told employees that "unforeseen factors have intensified the strain on our financial resources. "The rapid contraction of key customers, combined with the headwinds presented by new deals with shorter payment terms and U.S. trade policies that impacted one of our largest customers, have exacerbated the pressure on our available capital," he added.
