Style and Focus News Bites

** Lancôme launches Taylor Chang-Babaian's new beauty book, "Asian Faces: The Essential Beauty and Makeup Guide for Asian Women". Divided into distinct sections, the book includes makeup tips, how-to’s for makeup based on city location, and makeup by decades, including, of course, the look of geisha girls. (Fashion Week Daily)

** Fashion Designer, Elie Tahari looking to expand his brand into the lifestyle market, is working on creating a network of worldwide freestanding boutiques and expanding his brand with two new categories: home and fragrance. (WWD)

** Drew Barrymore Named New Face of CoverGirl, according to Fashion Wire Daily, the announcement was made Wednesday. TV and print ads featuring Barrymore will be shown in January 2008. Barrymore will also be directing the commercials.

** Shawn Carter, better know as Jay-Z, has sent $2,500 worth of clothes from his fashion company, Rocawear to a Florida charity. The charity has two youth programs: "Campaign for Adolescents" and "University Student Empowerment" and Jay-Z sent the clothes as a thank you for their efforts to improve their local community.

** According to the Chicago Sun-Times, wary shoppers chose discount stores and off-mall department stores for back-to-school fashions in July, raising gloomy prospects for retailers heading into the fall season. Specialty stores were also hard hit, with steep declines in same-store sales at Aeropostale, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, Gap, Pacific Sunwear and Wet Seal.

Department and teen-specialty stores were hit by shoppers' concerns about high gasoline prices and a slumping housing market that's causing a credit squeeze, as well as a shift in the retail calendar that moved some back-to-school sales into August. Those that reported strong same-store sales gains were: Target, J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart and Nordstrom.

** Consumer goods companies are using the packages for their products to grab shoppers’ attention. Consumer goods companies, which once saw packages largely as containers for shipping their products, are now using them more as 3-D ads to grab shoppers’ attention.

The shift is mostly because of the rise of the Internet and hundreds of television channels, which mean marketers can no longer count on people seeing their commercials. They are using their bottles, cans, boxes and plastic packs to improve sales by attracting the eyes of consumers, who often make most of their shopping decisions at the last minute while standing in front of store shelves. (New York Times)

** According the publishing company Bloomsbury, Daniel Radcliffe has written the introduction for famed magician Paul Kieve's upcoming new book "Hocus Pocus". Kieve's was also the magic consultant for the third Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and the "Guinness World Records" where he researched and created magic sections for the 2005 and 2006 Guinness books. "Hocus Pocus" will be released October 15, 2007. (Press Release)