Going “Native” – Shopping on Vacation
The beach, the sunshine, the margueritas…it’s all so alluring. We can almost forget we have a pile of laundry awaiting us once we get home. That’s often the reason we feel compelled to go shopping when we’re in a favorite vacation spot: all the trinkets and mementos transport us back to the “land of no responsibilities.”
A vacation shopping adventure can be one of the most fun events on any holiday. It’s one of my favorite things to do, frankly. But it’s always a good plan to be at least slightly practical when shopping for clothes away from home base. I know that sounds boring, but it can save you some money and what you end up with will still connect you back to that oasis just as well.[...]
Back in the early 1970s I lived in a group house in Berkeley with two roommates and one married couple. The wife in the couple, Donna, was an aspiring designer. But the pieces she created were the polar opposite of the tie-dye and bohemian 
For Spring 2016 designers are all about going big – big color, big stripes, big patterns. And one of the cheeriest of pattern trends is floral.[...]
We’re going to start looking at patterns and prints in terms of the style facets they each represent. Since we're in the dead of winter let’s bring in some cheer by starting with that most quintessential of summer patterns, stripes!
Stripes were not always representative of the sunniest of times or circumstances. In medieval times stripes were [...]
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… [...]