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By: Stephanie Hector

Levi’s Cords by Opening Ceremony

The Levi’s Cords by Opening Ceremony spring collection celebrates the craftsmanship, detail and ease of the ever-popular Levi’s cords. The collection takes a modern twist on the iconic Levi’s 505 styled jeans by updating it in buttery-soft corduroy in a rainbow of colors. Found in both women and men’s styles, be sure to check out this season’s styles that stemmed from the treasured pair of classic cords. The collection consists of trucker jackets, cut-off shorts and summer in the city inspired shirts. (Level 2, South)

Starbucks Needs Your Help!

Starbucks is asking for help in their efforts to reach their goal of serving 100% of its beverages in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015. Starbucks is sponsoring an open collaboration contest called “Betacup” to engage public talent and ideas to solve the world’s disposable cup problem of waste. It takes 20 million trees and 12 billion gallons of water to manufacture the 58 billion cups that end up as un-recycled waste each year. The winning idea will be rewarded with $10,000! Put your thinking caps on!

Puma’s Clever Little Bag…

Puma announced they will launch eco-friendly packaging for its sneakers in 2011 to reduce their carbon footprint. They will put their shoes in cardboard frames wrapped in reusable shoe bags. This new design of packaging will save 8,500 tons of paper (the weight of more than 1,400 adult elephants)! It also reduces about 60 percent of the water and energy used during the production process and the amount needed for transportation due to lighter packaging. Now that is truly a step in the right direction!

Check out Puma’s “Clever Little Bag” ad to learn more about the impact of their new design here.

The Summer Crop

After seasons of skinny jeans and leggings, the new buzz item to add to your closet this summer is the cropped pant. The straight legged crop pant looks fresh and accentuates the legs to make them look like they go on forever- what every woman wants, right? Available at J. Crew (level 2, South), Banana Republic (level 1, West) and Ann Taylor (level 2, South).