Style and Fashion

Julia Sneden writes: With older women and men all across the country doing water aerobics and swimming laps, wouldn’t you think the bathing suit manufacturers would twig to the idea that there’s a huge market out here? Not only do we seniors buy suits; we buy suits more often than even the teenagers do, because we’re harder on them. No clean surf ‘n sand for us, no lying still on a beach blanket for hours, or languidly standing around the lifeguard’s chair. No, we are up to our clavicles in health club pools full of chemicals, stretching our suits (and our bodies) to all sorts of outrageous extremes, sweating inside them even though the water is cool. more »

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Why are restaurant tips calculated as a percentage of the total bill? Is it harder for a waiter to serve a fifty-dollar fillet than a five-buck burger? Do today's tech-savvy kids really believe in Santa Claus ... the tooth fairy ... the Easter bunny? You don't think they've Googled them all? I saw my first bikini on a beach in Nice during my first trip to Europe, back in the ‘60s. I couldn't believe how brazen its wearer was! Today that bikini would look positively Victorian. more »

We admit, with all apologies, this NYC exhibit that closed earlier this month, but hope to make it up by some history and images:   The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT) preseneds Shoe Obsession, an exhibition that examined our cult… more »

Roberta McReynolds writes: The truth of the matter is that I’d hit an awkward point I hadn’t foreseen. The lights over my bathroom mirror still reflected the shine and sparkle I loved. (They don’t call them ‘vanity lights’ without a reason.) But when I caught my image in a window, a store dressing room mirror, or worse yet, in a photograph, I was shocked by reality. The white had become more dispersed through the brown making it appear ... no big surprise here ... drab gray. more »