Rihanna determined not to change sexy image

Rihanna says women who criticise her for being sexy are "unhappy with themselves".

The pop beauty - who is famous for her flesh-flashing stage outfits and revealing fashion choices - is proud of her body and insists girls who attack her online are "hypocrites".

She said: "People think I'm overly sexy. It bothers them for some reason. Girls don't like to see other girls dressed sexy . It's a little intimidating, I don't mean that in a cocky way. There's always going to be somebody not liking what you do. People have a lot of crazy opinions on things.

"Things I say, things I wear, places I go. It's just stupid. It's bulls**t. I'm a 22-year-old human being. It's fine for me to go to a club.

"People are hypocrites. They can't wait to say something horrible. Most of them are unhappy with themselves. It's women who are mad at other women. They should take a look at their own lives. A lot of people don't have the guts to confront themselves. They don't have the b***s."

Although her online critics make her angry, Rihanna can accept that her overtly sexual image could annoy people.

But she is determined not to change her behaviour or style just to please anyone else.

She added in an interview with the UK edition of GQ magazine: "Public figures can become annoying. They see me a lot and every time they see me my a** is out or my boobs are out, so it can get a little irritating. I get that. But I have to do what makes me happy, what I feel like doing."

Swarovski's costume jewellery brand

Swarovski's costume jewellery brand, for example, now competes for many consumers who also scout - and can afford - Chopard, Tiffany, Cartier, Bulgari and comparable fine jewellery collections for their bling.

''In fashion, it's not shocking any more to mix designer (labels) with high street brands,'' says Swarovski's French creative director, Nathalie Colin (pictured). ''So you find the same principle working here: fine jewellery (brands) now work like fashion jewellery brands, and fashion jewellery brands like fine jewellery brands.''

It's a concept that tempers, or even negates, the allure of genuine diamond, sapphire or ruby jewellery if the rival in the consumer's mind is a crystal-based alternative as finely crafted, as fashionably designed, and as cunningly marketed as the real bling.

The tiny price cards placed around the Swarovski ''crystal forest'' store by Japanese designer Tokukin Yoshioka, the focus of Monday's marketing extravaganza, for instance, showed sums ranging from just $180 for rings and $500 for necklaces of precious-looking, hand-cut multifacetted and coloured ''stones'' that would sell for tens of thousands more were they mined from the earth.

''All those frontiers in the world; in food, in fashion, in jewellery, are getting totally blurred,'' Ms Colin says. ''Everything is cross-fertilising.''

She says Swarovski's history - it was founded in Austria in 1895 by entrepreneurial glass cutter Daniel Swarovski, and evolved into a multibillion-dollar company with integrity in crystal products from industrial tools to road safety equipment - and what she calls its ''DNA'' of fine jewellery crafts, contributes to that blurring and crossing of markets.

The rest is achieved with luxury-look stores, luxury-look advertising and luxury-based marketing such as Monday night's party and appearance by the iconic Blondie which, incidentally, triggered a wide viral fallout as A-listers tweeted and Facebooked their delight even before they had been whisked by limousine away from Bennelong Point.

''This material has a spontaneous fascination,'' Ms Colin says of the watery pure and brilliantly coloured crystals she worked into a collection of modernist and exotic jewels dubbed Wings of Poetry. ''It is a lively material, like a chameleon, mysterious and capturing.'' She could as easily have described her marketing campaign.

Inside the hair-raising world of competitive coiffure

We are all familiar with the sleek, highlighted manes sported by denizens of the fashion and celebrity magazines, from Gisele to Jennifer Aniston and Kate Middleton. But, says the German-born photographer Daniel Stier, "I like the idea that there are different ideas of beauty." Seen here are a startling array of locks Stier shot earlier this month at the Organisation Mondiale Coiffure (OMC), the "Olympics of hair", in Paris. Some are several hairstyles in one, with 1940s rolls, waves, curls and sprays of hair looking like some sort of sci-fi flower arrangement.

The OMC competition and trade fair takes place every four years – "like the World Cup", says Stier, who has been biding his time to snap the event ever since he saw an "unforgettable documentary about a guy from a small town who goes to compete in the show". People come from around ' the world to take part with a team or as individuals, many of whom are from small salons – and they take it extremely seriously, down to the preparation and the kit. One team from America arrived a week in advance to acclimatise, as if they were going to be hairdressing at altitude. Stier recalls a German team with customised tracksuits with Hairworld 2010 on the back, and a team from Mongolia with the name of their country emblazoned on their clothes.

The competition is divided into categories from Classic and Creative to Hair by Night (unsuitable to be viewed in daylight, perhaps?) and Trend Cut, which seems to be mainly a short, spiky style with tips coloured red, pink and peroxide; rather like a punky porcupine. Eye-catching? Certainly. Likely to topple Alexa Chung or Jennifer Aniston from their hair-icon pedestals? Maybe not. The Fantasy category certainly lives up to its name, featuring one ' model dressed as a pineapple, another with hair teased into something resembling a tree stump covered in flowers, and a third with hair – or rather extensions – teased into vertical blue ringlets in the style of an underwater scene, complete with replica clownfish. "The really outrageous ones were like something out of a carnival, with trees and leaves," says Stier. "It was mayhem and there was no way of even getting near to the entries, because there was so much excitement." But, he adds: "I liked the idea of the more realistic hairstyles." Well, everyone's reality is different.