The Value of Authenticity and Repetition
Many years ago, as a young dance student at UCLA, one of my instructors demonstrated a movement performed by one of the notable postmodern dancer/choreographers. (I don’t remember who the dancer was but I’m guessing it was the incomparable Pina Bausch.)
She began the movement with her back toward the audience, and then very slowly and deliberately turned to face them full on, at which point she threw her arms outward and lifted her face toward the sky as if to say, “Here I am world!” And then she turned around, reversing the movement until her back was to the audience. And then she repeated the sequence again. And again. And again. And again… [...]
Does this scenario sound familiar? You wake up one morning full of enthusiasm and a sense that "today is a great day for a shopping trip." You head off to the mall full of hope and expectation, only to spend fruitless hours of disillusionment and self-loathing... and end up at the ice cream shop instead.
Don't beat yourself up. We've all been there. Almost everyone has a hard time finding just the right item that is flattering in color and style.[...]
Last year there was a fair amount of media buzz around the shocking claim that the average woman (I’m still trying to figure out just who the proverbial “average” woman is) eats around six pounds of lipstick in a lifetime. But a few brainiacs did the math and discovered that the claim was wildly exaggerated. Still, around the same time there were a couple of real studies published that described unacceptable levels of toxic chemicals found in many of our cosmetics. Suddenly that lipstick-eating story got a lot of attention again.
In the book I describe some of what are considered the classic wardrobe staples that every woman should own. I always have to qualify this concept with a little dose of reality and this caveat: depending upon your lifestyle and coloring, the strictly “classic” version of these may not work for you.