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The US competition watchdog has sued to block fashion accessory giant Tapestry's $8.5bn (£6.9bn) takeover of rival Capri. Tapestry owns handbag makers including Coach and Kate Spade, while Capri's brands include Michael Kors. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said if allowed, "the deal would eliminate direct head-to-head competition between Tapestry’s and Capri’s brands". In response Tapestry said "the FTC fundamentally misunderstands both the marketplace and the way in which consumers shop". Together, the firms employ about 33,000 staff globally but the FTC argued the deal could reduce wages and their benefits. Coach and Kate Spade are known for what...

It has stood for over nine centuries as the most celebrated record of the 1066 Norman Conquest of England, its famous images cemented into the mind of every British school child. But for all its enduring power, the 70-metre (230 feet) long Bayeux Tapestry -- held at a museum in the northern French town of the same name -- is a fragile object suffering from wear-and-tear, including thousands of holes. It will now be restored for the first since 1870, two years after an agreement between Paris and London for the tapestry to be loaned to Britain. "The tapestry is...

For nearly 36 years, a tapestry depicting Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" adorned the wall at the entrance to the 15-nation Security Council chamber at the United Nations' New York headquarters. But the tapestry, a haunting and harsh reminder of the horrors of war, has since been removed and returned to its owner. The tapestry was commissioned in 1955 by Nelson A. Rockefeller and was loaned to the United Nations in 1984, Chef de Cabinet Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti said in a letter to the Security Council's president. Viotti added that Rockefeller's son, Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr., had recently, "notified the United...

Quebec’s separatist government is betting on broad popular support with a proposal that prohibits public workers from wearing headscarves, skullcaps and other religious symbols, yet it is dividing the movement that advocates independence from Canada. The proposal, unveiled by the ruling Parti Quebecois last week, plays with the explosive issue of minority rights in a part of Canada, a country that prides itself as being a tapestry of immigrants rather than a U.S.-style melting pot. The government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values would ban teachers, doctors and other public workers from wearing highly visible religious symbols, including yarmulkes, headscarves and...

People view one of Raphael's tapestries hanging from a wall of the Sistine Chapel July 14. (CNS photo) By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like long-lost twins, two halves of an artistic masterpiece conceived by the Renaissance master Raphael will be reunited for the first time. The Vatican Museums and London's Victoria and Albert Museum will exhibit side-by-side some of Raphael's enormous tapestries for the Sistine Chapel and his preparatory paintings. The joint initiative is meant to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to the United Kingdom in September. Since the Renaissance, "the cartoons and...

This week in New York, the American Museum of Natural History unveiled something never before seen: an 11-by-4-foot tapestry made completely of spider silk. Weavers in Madagascar took four years to make it, and the museum says there's no other like it in the world...

Tapestry reveals Tudor country idyll By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent Last Updated: 2:02am BST 05/06/2007 One of the greatest tapestries made in Elizabethan England has been rediscovered in America after it disappeared almost a century ago following a blunder by a prominent British art historian. The tapestry represents an idyll of sixteenth century country life The giant hanging, measuring 15 ft by 6ft and made in the 1580s, with an idealised image of country life shows that wealthy Tudors had much the same aspirations to own a beautiful part of the countryside as their counterparts today. A fantasy palace -...

Brightly Colored 1,000-Year-Old Fabrics From Peru With Indian Ritual Pictures on ExhibitBy Carl Hartman Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 8, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - A tapestry at least 1,000 years old shows a fierce-looking deity with rays coming out of his head. Other superhumans stare at the viewer through pupils divided by vertical lines that make them look cross-eyed. Big tunics are adorned with pictures of women beating drums, men playing pan-pipes and others who seem to be making a ritual fire with a kind of wooden drill. All are in a new display at the capital's Textile Museum, finely...