Style Directions

Thou shalt follow the following fortune cookie advice:

"Be yourself, and you will always be in fashion"

Town Architecture, Part 1 The Case of Mexico

I'm getting ready for a journey down to my mother's homeland, Mexico, in the next 2 weeks. I have not been deep down in Mexico in almost 10 years and the excitement is churning up my insides with more excitement. Since my last visit I have become an architecture and culture aficionada, and I'm sure that my eye will wander and wonder with enchantment at all of the structures and ways in which people move through life.

In doing my usual research before trecking aimlessly through Mexico City, Toluca and S.L.P, I realized thatI do not know much about Mexican architects or architecture. I'm familar with Aztec, Mayan and Enrique Norten architecture, but apart from that I'm clueless, but I know that this trip will help to rectify this knowledge gap.

There is no doubt of the influence from Spanish architectural tradition in Mexican architecture. And of course I am also sure that population, political and economic growth has dictated the installations of formal and informal buildings, but who were these cities and towns built by? In the case of Mexico, have new buildings in small towns been more a result of proactive formal planning or of reactive informal planning? My assuption is the latter, but my certainty is ambivalent, I need more information.

Halloween Fashion...2007

Let's play the "Do You Know" game:

• Do you know that Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain?
• Do you know that the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints (because all Saints Day is on Nov. 1st), and, until 1970, it was also a day of fasting?

Don't feel so bad I really didn't even know until I decided to Wikipedia-It a few seconds ago.

I have always associated Halloween with trick or treating, parades, parties, scary stuff and costumes.

• Do you know why we wear costumes...because ancient Gaels wore costumes and masks to the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits to placate them.

Picking a costume and putting it together really leads up to all the festivities. Most Halloween costumes for women tend to have one theme in common: sex. It doesn't matter if you're nurse, witch, Dorothy, etc., whenever someone asks someone like me what they plan to be, the answer 9.9 times out of 10 will always be: "A Sexy _____" if not you will get those looks, the "she's a weird girl" look. Is this how we blend with evil spirits?

Personally I don't always mind it, I just wonder if my costume really changes much from year to year. It makes things easier for me and I am not forced to buy those awful polyester outfits that cost and arm and a leg for cheap versions of items that I can find in my closet. Plus I feel that any great Halloween outfit really comes together with the accessories.

So do you know what you're going to be Halloween this year?

Oh Condé...Why Don't You Care?

Oh Condé, why don't you tell me more?

I'm constantly disappointed by the coverage of Fashion Weeks around the world. The news sources only care about the pictures and the show itself, but what about the reason that collections were even created?

Fashion Designers want to be taken more seriously as artists but how will that be if the treads of inspiration are not shared?

The picture coverage is phenomenal but most of the articles do not reveal anything beyond the make-up behind the image. Personally I don't care much about what so and so is eating or not. Plus people don't need to get ideas to eat Kleenex to feel full, we already have enough fuzzy girls running around thinking fuzzy bones are sexy. Yet these details make the cut along with trashy celebrity gossip, while more important details are overlooked, but then again who cares about civilization or the environment for that matter.