Style & Beauty

May I introduce you?

The Ryan Goslings and Leonardo DiCaprios of Fashion Week in Milano!

The guys were walking around in front of the shows, back and forth, gazed at their smartphones, walked around some more, had the most important phone calls and were looking for someone that probably didn't even exist. I'm amused by this behavior with the goal of possibly-getting-caught by a street style photographer. And to be honest -- I don't even mind. As long as they do one thing: Look good in my photo.

Find more Street Style on www.chic-in-zurich.ch

If Facebook is passé, well, when an affiliate group of an art museum converges to live-chat fashion during a red carpet preview, then I guess one might as well be chipping away at a block of limestone... Stone age? Or might it be a twist on high tech baroque when it's this lively and bright?

The Indianapolis Museum of Art has a number of affiliate groups that regularly redefine and elevate the concept of fun in events and gatherings that serve beautiful, arts-based causes and historic reverence and preservation. The groups likewise bond participants in friendship founded on these mutual interests. Ours is called the Fashion Arts Society, a fledgling group in its fourth year, which does its thing under the guidance of Textile Arts Curator, Niloo Paydar. Come May we will hold our third annual Hats Off Lecture and Luncheon, and in recent past we have hosted the venerable likes of Oscar winning costume designer James Acheson and documentarian Deborah Riley Draper. In between, we enjoy smaller, casual "friendship raising" events that give us lovers of all things wearable choice opportunities to chat on fashion at every level, which of course leads to all manner of wonderful discourse.

Last Sunday evening's 2014 Academy Awards found FAS members in our respective homes, warmly ensconced against yet another late winter snow, with laptops and phones at the ready during the pre-awards red carpet show (and after with faves noted) to share our impressions of the styles worn. Here are some of them:

Serious bling, vintage and contemporary, shone as brightly as any single celeb star, and was chosen well. And though this may not have been a red carpet parade for the ages, it was one for the progressively styled books; for indeed, some of the best looks trended decidedly to the understated AKA contemporary tasteful. Even the plunging Vs, which were everywhere, were superbly fitted and balanced to the entire gown/ensemble. Among the best were Lupita Nyong'o's triumphant sky-blue Prada and Kate Hudson in one of the best Versaces ever. This deep-V success had for once no celeb (but for one anonymous, middle-aged "blonde" in a black TMI scoop neck) looking like they were accidentally-on-purpose airing the twins for purposes of camera time.

As for the gorgeous non-colors we saw everywhere, Cate Blanchett ruled in Giorgio Armani, with a nod to Sarah Paulson, both gowns done in exquisitely embellished, barely-there nudes. There was Angelina's somehow matronly take on the same, Meryl Streep draped like a portrait in a hint of ivory, Portia DeRossi in an artfully exquisite ivory Naeem Khan, and though Sally Hawkins's armor-level embellished Valentino was an overall miss as choice, it did possess that great off tone as well. Even host Guilana Rancic's gown hit the mark with its dusky, pale mauve color. I'd tie into this group both Penelope Cruz and Camilla McCounaughey's blush gowns, though one FAS member accurately did point out the added benefit of the arm candy that was devoted hubby Matthew. Fun to use the term fer a fella!

After the non-colors, we enjoyed the rich navy colors for both men and women. Sandra Bullock's Alexander McQueen and Amy Adams' amazing Gucci were faves. Several gorgeous tuxedos likewise sported the sporting color, tying together a batch of looks equally diverse in collar styles and finish. My faves on that note: Jason Sudeikis, Tyler Perry (the bar pin on the lapel!) and Ellen Degeneres' first ensemble (can you imagine that awesome jacket with a crisp white blouse and jeans?). And I don't know exactly why, but Kevin Spacey looked a little like a lounge singer...

After embellishment, what claimed the red carpet best of all were the architecturally sculpted, columnar gowns, in the looks of Amy Adams most especially as well as Jennifer Lawrence's sleek Dior, Naomi Watts in Calvin Klein (though her gelled bangs reminded me of that scene in "There's Something About Mary") and Kristin Chenowith, who nailed her Deco-evoking Cavalli along with her gorgeous, layered bob. Notable here too, as with the well executed deep-V necklines, were the superbly (at last!) fitted bodice tops, which held busts in place without squishing armpits up and out as in so many years past -- one of my ongoing fashion laments as regards all sleeveless gowns. But for Laura Dern -- so beautiful and deserving of a better fit -- the looks suggested construction know-how and a very contemporary regard for the women's bodies: sheer architect of design to enhance an overall elegance while not broadcasting body parts and overt suggestions of flesh barely contained.

Eyebrow raising might have been Liza Minelli's jammies, but she gets a free pass, down to the blue streak in her hair. Anyone who could rock her signature look as she did for eons deserves one. Outright cringe-worthiness goes not to any one "horrible" look but to the water-logged turf that soaked hemlines, Kerry Washington's most notably in the pre-show press. Ick. And though IMO one of the eve's visual fails in his waiter's jacket and prommie bow tie, I'd like to credit Jared Leto for the beauty of his acceptance speech -- an ode to love, creativity, and the True North dedication of his mother. Makes for one heck of a Mom's Night Out, eh?

Thanks to FAS members and friends Jody, Leslie, Maria, Leah, Rita, Cathy, Heather, Beatriz, Sandy, Scott, Madison, Murph, Crystal, Deborah, Lanie, Rob, Candy, Joe and Nate for clicking and quipping and lending their stylin' presences to our online FAS FB chat!

photo by kimann

While everyone was laughing at or tweeting how alarming Kim Novak and Goldie Hawn looked with their faces full of Botox, I could only think of a woman who never stood on the Academy Awards stage: my mother.

She had her first facelift when I was in college. My father casually informed me, "Your mother's in the hospital," as if it were routine to spend a few days in the Manhattan Eye Ear and Throat Hospital. Dad and I traveled from Brighton Beach to East 64th Street by subway. "The City," as we called it, was a faraway place where my father worked and I occasionally went to the theater, to Bloomingdale's, to skate at Rockefeller Center.

I didn't know what to expect when I entered her hospital room. Her head was bandaged, and I felt as frightened as if she'd survived a near-fatal car crash and suffered traumatic brain injury. Sitting by her bed, I was already eager to leave, uncomfortable and angry that my parents hadn't warned or prepared me in any way. It was also baffling why my first-generation reformed Jewish mother, a middle-class housewife, would subject herself to "the knife" in a quest for eternal beauty.

A decade earlier she'd "fixed" her beak by one of the most renowned plastic surgeons in Manhattan. She never liked the way it came out. I always found her new turned-up nostrils too fake and Wasp-y. Then, when I was 16, she took me to a different plastic surgeon who had a reputation for sculpting perfect noses. I didn't want a nose job -- never asked for one, yet I followed my mother's instructions, not thinking I could protest.

During the procedure, I was half-sedated, so that the doctor could say "Smile" to see how to perfect my profile. I heard him say, "We usually don't even do rhinoplasty on someone like this," meaning my schnoz didn't really need it. But whose does? I suffered through recovery, my nostrils packed uncomfortably with gauze, wondering why I didn't have to courage to stand up to my mother's forced reconfiguration of my girlish face.

I attended my brother Jay's wedding with black-and-blue marks under my eyes. When the swelling went down, Mom approved my new snout, especially because the surgeon hadn't shortened it too much, like hers. Standing side by side, the two of us no longer looked characteristically or overtly Jewish.

My mother was trying to sculpt away her traumatic past. Her father died of tuberculosis when she wasn't yet 2. Her Russian immigrant mother made bootleg gin in her Jersey City railroad apartment, unable to support three children, eventually putting them all into an orphanage, where Mom lived until she was a teenager.

The events of her past are sketchy, as she was often unable to call up the trauma. Once she confessed, "The superintendent came into my room and exposed himself to me. That's as far as it went."

I never knew for sure. Mom buried the topic for the rest of her life. Whatever happened in that state-run orphanage, Mom constantly ran away from her past, obsessively focusing on winning a cabinet full of golf trophies, spending entire days lost in the Met and chiseling torsos out of alabaster.

"Gets rid of her nervous energy," my father said.

He was such a penurious self-made man, who went to Cooper Union, a math prodigy who opted for a secure but uninspiring job at The State Insurance Fund. He'd give my brother the car keys and a dollar, saying, "Get three gallons of gas" -- hard to imagine in today's world. Embarrassed, my brother felt like a cheapskate at the Shell station.

How did she ever convince Dad to fund two nose jobs and her secret facelift? I kept mine hush-hush from almost everyone, except my husband. I was regretful and ashamed. No one ever gossiped behind my back, wondering, "Did she... or didn't she?" And I pretended I'd been born that way.

No one ever guessed my mother had plastic surgery either. Her friends commented how vibrant and glistening she looked. Eventually their faces became more lined, but she smoothly stood out.

"Genetics," she'd tell them when they asked for her skincare secrets.

She had a second facelift 20 years later. A touch-up. Thankfully, she never looked like Joan Rivers. But she cruised into old age appearing decades younger than her peers. Mom hadn't had a normal childhood; she'd missed out on the simple pleasures of dinner with your family, sitting in a backyard on a breezy summer evening, riding a bike to school, having a mother comfort you when your small world crashes. Two facelifts made up for the youth my mother had missed.

She was bedridden with dementia for the last two years of her life. Nellie, her live-in caretaker, often stroked her cheek and said, "She's beautiful. How does she look so young?"

"Genetics," I replied.

My daughter is now the age I was when my mother had her first facelift. Sometimes we look at old photos in my mother's pre-nose-bob-era. "Grandma looked so different then," my daughter observes.

I explain everything to her, including my own reluctant foray into plastic surgery. At 19, my daughter has inherited my creamy skin tone and never suffered through acne. When we shop together, I sit in the dressing room envious of her concave stomach and tight thighs. In the harsh store light, the wrinkles in my face are even more predominant than usual. But I'm supposed to look like her mother, not her sister. My daughter has never asked for a nose job -- nor would I consent to one, even though the doctor who crafted mine would have a bit more to work with. But her nose is the one I remember distinctively from the moment she was born. The identical one to her father's. Standing next to each other, they look like clones. And that's the way it should be. Who am I to mess around with genetics?

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

Snarky commenting about celebs dresses and hair have been fair game for awhile, and augmented boobs have been called out for years. But following this year's Oscar ceremony, I noted the increasingly mean snark about facial cosmetic surgery.

Yes, it can be appalling to see people aging ungracefully, even desperately. And duck lips and smooth but unmovable faces can look disturbing. But what I find even more appalling is ageism. The dread of losing youth and looks, projected into disgust with those who try to fight it.

Fillers and Botox have become accepted for younger women to freshen up. But cosmetic surgery remains something that is almost universally assailed. "Why can't they accept aging?" "What's wrong with wrinkles?" Over and over, you read these type of comments. And they usually come from people who are not yet losing their looks.

Disrespect is too soft a word to use for the post-Oscar ceremony comments about Goldie Hawn. And social media has made it easy for clowns such as Donald Trump to publicly make fun of Kim Novak, a gentle old soul who had the nerve to try -- and fail -- to look like her former self.

No wonder older beauties such as Marlene Dietrich stay completely out of the public eye when they lose their perfect looks. But why should they have to?

Catty put-downs can come from those who should know better, like the women on "The View," who have had there share of "work." But most come from people who still look "like themselves" and from people who don't earn a living in part because of how they look. And when the barbs come from people who can't afford cosmetic surgery, it sometimes sounds like jealousy.

A few obvious cosmetic-surgery addicts, like Joan Rivers and Dolly Parton, will cop to it. But most people won't admit having it. Who wants to be shamed? Like age, weight and income, it's a taboo subject, or one that's flatly denied. And those who have good surgeries are often incorrectly used as examples of those who never went under the knife, shaming those others who weren't as lucky in their outcomes.

A friend in her sixties recently shared her neck surgery on Facebook, complete with photos. She explained in part that it would be hard not to -- the change would be too obvious. And she looks so terrific and has been so open about it that some of the usual cosmetic-surgery shamers admitted they would love to get their necks fixed too.

Come on. If you were a person of a certain age who felt young yet looked tired and saggy, and you had the funds to fix your eyes or your neck or your jowls to look refreshed, and more like you feel inside, would you not?

Nobody has to go too far. The goal is to look age-appropriate; yourself, but better. And the key is to choose a good surgeon. Many of those cited as aging gracefully and not having surgery, just had good surgery.

But meanwhile, let's be aware that making fun of those who are trying to remain youthful can get into making fun of those who are no longer youthful. And maybe if there wasn't so much mean-spirited disrespect of older folks in general, perhaps there wouldn't be the perceived need for so much cosmetic surgery in our society, botched or not.

Perhaps the most dichotomous artistic event of the year, Fashion Month throws together polar opposites that truly shouldn't work but just do: late nights, early mornings, bare legs in below freezing temperatures, and creativity and business.

The organizers are also making opposing statements; simultaneously opening up Fashion Week to the public through live streaming and instant reports, and closing it by cracking down on press accreditation for non-fashion exclusive publications or bloggers.

So, what does it all mean?

If we go back to the original reason behind Fashion Week (to increase sales for designers by showcasing their collections to new buyers and press), then I can present to you some of the essential takeaways from my experience this year. While I did not attend Milan and Paris (unfortunately I would've had to clone myself to have done so) I can definitely give you my opinions on the first half of Fashion Month.

Take it away, London and Paris.

New York Fashion Week (#NYFW)

Despite the Arctic temperatures, the show went on, albeit a little more quietly than September's events.

Known for: Its afterparties.
Where does it take place: Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Lincoln Center and now MADE Fashion Week at MILK Studios or other more interesting locations.

Best party that I attended: The NYNY Volume 3 opening party at the Tribeca Grand Hotel blew everyone away with Blood Orange playing a killer set.

Best make-up look: Prabal Gurung's Nepalese-inspired wind-burned cheeks and healthy glow.

Best unexpected event: Lockwood umbrellas, couture pop up at the Ace Hotel.

Best show at MILK Studios: Public School wowed the crowd with their debut womenswear. Sleek, monochrome and effortlessly cool, with dare I say it, plenty of swagger.

Best non-FW moment: Having the lovely team at No.8 spoil me on Saturday night with endless amounts of drinks.

Best setting: Alice+Olivia took the biscuit with an eerie fairytale stage set in The McKittrick Hotel, champagne and an incredible live jazz singer.

Best casting: Billy Reid had a fantastically diverse range of handsome models that sauntered down the runway for their show at the Highline Hotel.

Show that made me happiest: Timo Weiland. I'm going to sound cheesy but it's always amazing to see friends succeeding. The polka dots made me incredbily happy.

Best backstage: Jeremy Scott's backstage was teaming with life and a sense of humour. The models were sat in chairs that said "Eeny," "Meeny," "Miny" or "Moe" whilst they had their make up applied.

NYFW takeaway trends for AW14: Polo-necks, long skirts, earthy tones, big prints -- plaids and polka dots, flat shoes!

London (#LFW)

A wonderfully diverse mixture of colour, texture and interesting materials dominated the runways at #LFW this year.

Known for: Showcasing more innovative fashion.

Where does it take place: Somerset House, or basically anywhere in London.

Best party that I attended: Matthew Williamson's party was deceptively innocent with their health drink mixers. Two hours in and Matthew himself is up on the table dancing with a leggy Cat Deeley.

Best hair: Corn rows at Fyodor Golan were killer.

Best unexpected event: Meeting the hilarious Nimrod Kamer (who has yet to follow me on Twitter) and his motley crew.

Best setting: Nicole Farhi had a beautifully civilised presented collection in a duck-egg blue room over a juice and champagne brunch.

Best non-FW moment: Watching the BRITS over wine spritzers (old ladies much?) with Ella Catliff (La Petite Anglaise) and Millie Cotton (It's a LDN Thing).

Most intelligent show: Antipodium's Times New Roman presentation at the ICA commented on the advent of the digital age. Plus anyone who hung around long enough witnessed Creative Director Geoffrey J. Finch feeding the models grapes.

Show that made me happiest: Charlie May. Not only was it set in a beautifully light room in the OXO Tower overlooking the river, I would buy every single piece in the minimalist. collection.

Best backstage: GILES. Cara Delevingne knitting. That is all.
#LFW takeaway trends for AW14: Rollneck jumpers, earthy tones, muted colours, 90s inspired fahsion, corn rows, texture, androgynous shoes.

Photo by Tona Stell.

Monday's episode of Bethenny featured three "sugar babies" from the controversial dating site, SeekingArrangement.com. The website helps connect "attractive, ambitious and goal oriented" sugar babies with "respectful and generous" benefactors. The ladies who appeared on the talk show were young and shared the same shameless enthusiasm for dating men for money. However, their reasoning for romantic income completely differed. Some reasons were actually quite valid.

Sunni is a sugar baby who says her experience with dating rich older men has serviced her as mentorship. Yes, she dates married men and at least three of them at a time. But at least those married guys are helpful. Right? Sunni also believes that she isn't home-wrecking but is rather helping that married man's marital situation. Then, we have Kelly, a med-student who uses the website to help her pay her college tuition. According to Kelly, "This is what it's like to be an independent woman trying to work your way up." And finally there's Sara-Kate, the most entertaining guest of the trio, who bluntly admits that she refuses to date men her own age for free and that she prefers elderly men because of the expedited access to their assets once they've passed away. The ladies admitted to having sexual relationships with some of their sponsors but made it clear that most of their relationships were platonic.

Of course, the audience found nothing sweet about these sugar babies; there was no hesitation as host Bethenny Frankel passed around the mic for viewers to speak their minds. But when you really think about the sugar baby and sugar daddy (or mommy) relationship, it's not much different than some of the relationships we see everyday. Every "Real Housewife of Some Place" dated and then married for money. They don't really hide their vanity or materialistic side, yet they are celebrated in the media. How about the several rags-to-riches stories we read every year about some student, maid or waitress who married a millionaire shortly after meeting? I think the real issue everyone has is the fact that there's a website that actually coordinates infidelity. Sans adultery, the setup is quite honest. Sara-Kate explained, "When you meet someone on Seeking Arrangement, before any words are spoken, he knows that he is going to be helping you out, supporting you -- giving!" It's better than pretending to love for cash. Not to be confused with prostitution, the "arrangement" does not require the sugar babies to sleep with the sugar daddies/mommies. It's no different than Kim Kardashian's paid companionship to 81-year-old Austrian billionaire Richard Lugner at the Vienna Opera Ball. I know that was a terrible example but it really is no different.

There's also a double standard here. The controversy focuses on women not supporting themselves but depending on some random man. While that is a fact, let's not forget that the site connects male sugar babies with a benefactor, too. There's not much discussion on that. Believe me, I'm all for female empowerment. But why can't the male sugar baby be a part of the conversation also? It's not something I would do however, I don't see anything wrong with a person spending time with another person who wants to spoil and pamper. Whether or not SeekingArrangement.com exists, men and women with money will continue to seek lovers to spoil and those lovers will gladly accept.

See video of the Bethenny segment here.

My baby daughter doesn't know what she looks like.

She recognizes me -- I'm the one with the milk boobs and the toothy grin all for her. I'm pretty sure she can smell me and thinks I smell right. She recognizes her father -- he's the one with the red beard and the fun nose for grabbing. The big, sturdy chest.

But right now, she is a window with light pouring out of it and she's the inside, opening up, and she's a camera, taking millions of pictures of everything. Her body is for touching the world. It's all tools for experiencing and learning. She makes expressions to try out different muscles in her face, to move her jaw around in order to practice chewing. She looks like a bewildered frog. She pops her stubby legs up and grabs her feet triumphantly and lets out a carefree fart. She looks like a cheerful, farting bug. Who cares how she looks? She's all about how it feels.

It's weird to think that I started out like this, too. That we all do. A brilliant jumble of sensors sensing excitedly all at once.

Sometimes I put a bow in her tufting, undecided baby hair. There. She's a girl. People always guess boy when she's in her brown bear suit. But her girl-ness is irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything yet.

She is exuberantly human. It seems nice.

I'm not jealous. That'd be embarrassing. To be jealous of a baby.

I'm reminded, though, of something I'm not even sure I understood well enough to forget. Something to do with the center of things, instead of the surface. Surfaces are very important. They inform everything, I know. I've thought of myself for so long as a person who looks a certain way that it's hard to imagine just looking at the world without looking at myself looking at the world. If that makes sense.

I am almost always at least a little conscious of what I might look like, as I go through life, doing things.

Looking at my daughter, I'm reminded that in a certain sense, our appearances have nothing to do with us. My husband and I gave her these genes. Through both of us gushed our joint histories, an ancient tangle of eye colors and hair textures and exact lengths of the space between the lowest point of the bottom lip and the tip of the chin. A cacophony of suggestions about height and carriage and fingernails and smiles. All of it filtered and funneled into one chubby little baby body. And here she is. Not knowing the first thing about the shape of her eyes, but fully existing anyway.

She'll learn this information about herself, eventually, the way everyone does. And I hope she will like it. That's the most important thing about appearances, after all -- whether or not we can like ours enough to move on to other things.

But right now, before that knowledge walks into her brain, takes a seat and never stands up again, I want to take credit -- I made this person. The way she looks is maybe more about me than it is about her right now. I accept a big portion of the credit, and I wish that one day, if there is blame, I could accept that, too.

I watch her -- she is making a hideous grimace which must feel fun or serve some developmental purpose neither of us can even guess at -- and I want to save this moment. I want to protect her forever, right here. I don't want her to know what she looks like. I don't want her to care.

No, of course I want her to grow and transform and become more complexly realized all the time. But also, I want to remember this is how it always begins. We are all, in some way, always this. The exuberant human looking out from inside, light pouring into the world, pure, brilliant, ancient, fantastically individual, full of eagerness.

Oh, and we can all probably still make the occasional frog face, if we feel like it.

I've tried it, it's pretty great.

Read more at Eat the Damn Cake

hacker hymn

Mine eyes have seen the misery of the coming cyber wars
my heart had felt the sorrow of young lives yet to fall
my mind has been corrupted with the garbage cyber trolls
and the Drones come buzzing on

Rolly polly evil google boy
Rolly polly baby facebook toy
Rolly polly spy NSA boy
and the drones come buzzing on

the codes and the drones of the spying internet lords
have trumpled over fields of our software joys
face books google glasses NSA devices trolls
And their lies are marching on

rolly polly evil google toy
glory glory google deserter boy
rolly polly evil Facebook toy
and their lies are marching on

I have seen my boys become the soldiers of warlords
I have lost my cyber sons to patriotic trolls
I am the mother of the victims of the lies
who deserted the wicked spies

glory glory google deserter boy
glory glory Facebook deserter toy
glory glory NSA defector boy
and the truth comes marching on

I have seen the rising of the brave NSA spies
I have seen the rebellion for the freedom of their toys
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Hacks
and the lies don't march no more

Glory glory hacker NSA boys
Glory glory hacker NSA girls
Glory glory free internet worlds
and the lies won't march no more

One cannot watch the Oscars -- or any grand Hollywood event -- and not be swept up in the fashion, the pageantry, the suspense, the... cringe-worthy sport of seeing just which aging actress has ruined her face.

Seriously, I sit and watch these things and wonder out loud: "Why do American women hate their faces so much?" Because they must, right? They would have to be filled with such loathing to make the inexplicable decision to take what we typically call our "calling cards" -- our faces -- and mutilate them to the degree so many do.

Do these women (and, lately, more men) not have mirrors? Are they under the influence when they have consultations with their plastic surgeons? Do they not see how just how not better they look by virtue of whatever cosmetic facial readjustment they've wrought upon themselves?

I'm assuming not. Because when they end up with visages that no longer look like them, no longer look particularly human, no longer look young, and certainly --gasp -- no longer look attractive, just what was it they were going for? What was the goal? If this is the achievement, dear God, we really do need to rethink our view of beauty and the inevitability of aging.

This query of mine was certainly piqued while viewing the recent award season, looking at one face after another that made me shake my head in puzzlement and -- I'm not kidding -- a certain sadness: sadness that we live in a culture that is so f*cking fixated on the currency of YOUTH (is there any way to make that word bigger??) that some of our most beloved film and TV icons have been compelled to trade their uniqueness, their quirks and characteristics, their endearingly aging faces for that Face. The one with the capital "F"; the one with implants and tightenings and Botox and collagen and those really weird lips and odd eyebrows and bizarrely puffed cheeks and chins. You know, that Face, the one that is now so appallingly familiar and ubiquitous that no one who's "had work done" can even pretend to hide because it's all so generic and obvious. It's obvious, folks! We can tell. And we don't like it.

It was the night after the Oscars that I happened to have "The Blacklist" on (love James Spader!) and the glorious Dianne Wiest showed up as a guest star. Looking fit, healthy and very much her age, she filled the screen beautifully as an actress who knows who she is and embraces it: her softening jawline, her wrinkles; her sags. I loved her all the more for having the wisdom and grace to accept herself and show her face -- front, center and in high definition -- with no embarrassment, no shame, no apology. As it should be. I hope Hollywood casts the hell out of her coming up because I, for one, would like to see more women who look like real women on my film and TV screens.

I mention the Brits in comparison on this issue but I should probably use the more inclusive "Europeans"... even "internationals." Because one cannot enjoy the abundant offerings of our current film and TV landscape without noticing the distinct differences between the faces of our counterparts across the various ponds and the sinewy, panicked faces over here. Watching "Downton Abby" with Maggie Smith's delightfully craggy face and the aging -- and ageless --women who make up both the upstairs and "down"; "Broadchurch" with Olivia Colman's unglamorous and oh-so-human and weary eyes; "The Bletchley Circle" with its "four ordinary women" (truly); Dame Judi Dench in... anything. There's the Swedish versions of the "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy that come with the pockmarked, wrinkled, very real faces of their skilled actors not afraid to be seen as who and what age they are. The unique, everyday faces of the men and women in Steven van Zandt's loopy and very Norwegian "Lilyhammer." The gritty offerings of pretty much every other country that casts actors and actresses who look like real people with unperfect faces and bodies who, therefore, truly represent the unperfect audiences watching them.

Here in the States? We have men and women who clearly hate their faces so much that when any hint of age makes itself known, it's cut away like so much loathsome debris. Perfection is the goal; age is the cancer.

And it seems the misguided young turks at the helm of all visual media -- print, TV, film, photography -- have determined that what Americans want is the perfection of youth; they want that unnatural, unreal, unattainable "fountain" that demands that dewy-faced, drop-dead beautiful, forever-young men and women are the only representations of the world we should have to see; models, dammit, are the ideal. So FBI agents are cast with model-pretty men and women, all "moms" are fit as fiddles and look like they've just come from makeovers; young businessmen have six-packs and wives as pretty as the models being cast as FBI agents; every police, fire or lawyer person -- male or female -- looks like they stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. You know... pretty much what we see every day, right?!

But, of course, age and humanity being what it is, those standards for even the most perfect can only hold for awhile. We all age. Even that 3-year-old is aging. And certainly that jaw-droppingly gorgeous 20-something is creeping toward obsolescence; that 30-something is tapping on the coven door. And once the jaw starts to soften, the laugh lines stop being funny and the lips settle into their less-Jolie form, it's all-out triage. CALL A PLASTIC SURGEON... STAT!

God, it's all so exhausting, isn't it?

Look, I love youth; I love looking at gorgeous young people doing whatever it is they're cast to do. Beauty is beauty and we can all appreciate the particular beauty of the young. And hey, I used to be one of the young; my jaw was tighter, my eyes wider, my cheeks up where they started. I see pictures of myself these days and wonder who the hell that is and where did my other self go... I get it. I can't imagine having a camera shoved up my nose and having to hear, "Oh my God, look how old she got!!" on a regular basis. It can't be easy. I understand the impulse to do whatever it takes to stave off those gasps for as long as possible. But here's where they make the mistake: people are still gasping... just for different reasons.

I don't have to name names; we all know who and what we saw at the Oscars (male and female) who took our breath away for all the wrong reasons. We've all seen one famous face after another tumble down the rabbit hole of peer pressure, cultural expectations, show business demands, sheer vanity, fear of death, revulsion of aging and the simple miscalculation -- pummeled and propagated by the media and culture -- that the only beauty is youthful beauty. It's a heavy burden.

And it's simply not true. Youthful beauty is one kind of beauty. There are other kinds; the beauty of grace, acceptance, feeling at ease in your skin. The beauty of wisdom, life lived, experience gained. The beauty of Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest; any man or woman who hasn't panicked, doesn't resent their years, hasn't put themselves under a knife to carve away their familiar, beloved and well-earned features to be replaced with the replicant, reptilian, repetitive faces of fear we see all around us these day. That beauty, that fearless beauty, is the kind that sticks till the very end.

We see it elsewhere... dear American Culture, can we please see more of it here?

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Follow Lorraine Devon Wilke on Facebook, Twitter, and Rock+Paper+Music. Details and links to her other work at www.lorrainedevonwilke.com.

Many of you love to poke fun of mostly mothers who wear workout clothing all day, and begin to look like one another. Look, we all are squeezing a lot in our days, and showering and/or changing is asking a lot, isn't it? Or is it more the thought of someone seeming like all they do is workout, and having the luxury of such choice... we can discuss that in another forum.

Do you know how many books have been written in yoga pants? I don't either, but I imagine many. It's interesting what our eyes can do, for me I don't feel like i'm trapped in a sea of Lululemon donning people. I am constantly and I mean obsessively observing style, and I see such individuality. But then again, I hang out at donut shops where exercisers aren't really present.

I get that this post may seem a bit trivial, and I agree, but I do want to point out ways to be stylish in workout clothing, post workout. I used to wear huge gold hoops while I was working out, until one earring flew off my ear, hitting a a fellow spinner in the head, only slightly breaking his skin... men and their shaved heads.

After I work out, and need the day to be accomplished, here are some tips to maintain individual style and break away from the Lululemon flock:

Buy Cool Kicks: Have you seen the selection of sneakers for women? I had to buy a new pair of sneakers and the selection is horrifying. The women's sneakers are as big as boats and come in a scary array of colors, which look frighteningly similar to those cheesy toddler shoes that light up. I needed a new pair as my Helly Hansen all black, non-descript kicks are no longer in production. Not only are the color choices hot pink or purple on a pure white canvas, but they are really pricey. It makes no sense that I have an issue with spending money on sneakers, but the real reason is they only have a strictly utilitarian purpose, and who wants to spend money on shoes you only wear to workout? I am still a fan of the New Balance old school sneakers in grey... they kind of remind me of the 1980s station wagon in the below photo, classic, preppy and funky. I am wearing a pair of sneakers by a Japanese company. I picked them based on pure style... not sure how well they are working for me, so maybe skip my advice and put comfort first...

Hygiene: Obviously wash up as much as you can, wipes, safe deodorant, cream/oil for skin and a lot of blush, cream is better .I love Nars Orgasm. A gym with a shower is pretty awesome. I used rubber gloves on my feet when I forgot my flip flops, they had them out and I assumed it was for that reason. The housekeeper did look at me strangely when I stepped out with water filled rubber gloves on my feet. Change your shoes. I love my grey Minnetonka Moccasins. Boots like moccasins create a funky, bohemian vibe... which I adore.

Bottoms: I leave on my booty shorts or yoga pants from Lululemon, even though I kind of hate to admit that. I do go to dance stores and discount stores like TJ Maxx to get cool looking leggings with a little color and attitude -- the only issue is you have to wear underwear. Believe me, another incident I will refrain from discussing. If you are wearing leggings only for style, you can't expect added protection.

Tops: For hygiene purposes, switch into another bra and throw on a tank top. I usually wearing a white tank or my repeater Trunk Blondie tank. And then one of my many jackets, usually my acid wash jean jacket or my vintage army jacket. If it's cold, I throw on a pea coat or my new Uniqulo jacket. The thing is the "outdoor" jackets are just not stylish, if you must wear them, go for green or something outside the box, if not it tends to look like everyone else. You can walk into any used clothing store and get an amazingly cool and unique jacket or if that's unappealing, go to a "regular" store and find a jacket that works.

Accessories: This is where you can have a lot of fun. I wear huge earrings, like the ones I created using gold hoops and arrows designed by Shandi Levy Jewelry. I am also wearing a wide cuff from Turchin Jewelry in Miami. Big rings adorn my hands, a chunky one with a large brown stone from Paris my mother purchased in the 1980s, and the other has a cool ram on the front of the ring. Handbag or "pocketbook" (my favorite term) can be a fun way to provide lots of individualism to your overall after gym look. I am holding a classic black Chanel handbag in the first photo and an enormous Grey Miu Miu bag in the second. All the bags have gold hardware, as that's what looks best on my skin. Sunglasses are important, especially if you want to hide your post-workout face... these are Chanel Gladiators.

Hair: A braid always looks groovy, I have an issue wearing my hair totally back. Let's just say one of my brothers told me I look ugly with my hair back, I still believe him... siblings! But if you are without weird childhood image issues, a bun or a full braid looks so sweet.

I hope this was helpful to create some individual workout style... you guys can rock it... I know you can!

By Lora Schellenberg

Silicon Valley may be the historical mecca of the tech startup, but when it comes to the world of fashion technology, London has positioned itself to be the center of everything digital fashion. It's brimming with fashion-conscious technologists, creatives and entrepreneurs alike and it's a one-stop shop for inspiring style, hiring talent and closing deals.

Itxaso del Palacio, who has experience working with fashion tech startups through London-based investment firm EC1 Capital, sees the advantage of having the important players together when building great tech products. "London has designers, big brands, retailers and technologists, who understand how to build great tech products from scratch. It's always on the edge of new trends. You can see how fashion is overlapping with other sectors such as wearables, fitness and health."

Startups like Lyst, a personalized fashion marketplace, Boticca, a retail website for jewelry and accessories, and EDITD, a fashion data firm, are following suit by starting up in London. These are companies that are as much, if not more, technology companies as they are fashion companies.

Launched in 2007, London-based online publication The Business of Fashion has helped secure the British influence in this space. Commonly referred to as the "Economist of fashion," BoF was founded by former McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School graduate, Imran Amed when he saw a void in an informed view on fashion business. Today, its contributions include the industry's most talented writers and influencers.

British fashion giant Burberry is noted as being on the forefront of technology as the first luxury brand to incorporate digital and social media into its marketing strategy, in order to bring about a newfound relevance to the brand. Former CEO Angela Ahrends has moved to Apple as its new Vice President of Retail and Online Stores, suggesting the fusion of fashion and tech isn't going anywhere if Apple sees the need to incorporate a fashion sense into its brand.

Two of today's most popular online retail companies Net-A-Porter and ASOS set up shop in London in the early 2000s, despite the UK's weariness toward e-commerce at that time. Since then, the two companies have experienced tremendous growth, most notably ASOS, which launched in China last November, and now exists in 240 countries worldwide.

ASOS CIO Pete Marsden explains that to find and develop some of its best talent, they work closely with the Prince's Trust, a UK charity that provides financial and practical support to disadvantaged young people and Maker's Academy, a highly selective, 12-week full-time course in web development. "Our CEO, Nick Robertson, is passionate about getting the UK's young people into fashion and tech," he says. ASOS want to make sure young people are prepared for the industry and proceed to take them on board after the training process.

Amalia Agathou shares the same passion when it comes to getting London's young people involved in fashion tech. She works with London College of Fashion on Front Row I/O,an organization aiming to support the fashion tech startup ecosystem with a series of events, classes and a pre-seed accelerator that will launch in March.

While creating new talent to support the ecosystem is clearly important, finding and hiring the best existing talent is a top priority too, and compared to New York and San Francisco, London is affordable! Chris Morton founded personalized fashion marketplace, Lyst, nearly 3 years ago. He has set up offices in both New York and London, but the tech side remains purely European-based. "70% of Lyst is data scientists, designers and product people, but our New York office is only editorial, partnerships and marketing. In New York, if you want to hire a data scientist, its a lot tougher because of the draw of the Bay Area, plus the best talent is incredibly expensive. Hiring in London and Europe is just easier and cheaper to do," he says.

Morton emphasizes that UK and other European-based investors understand the fashion market much better than Silicon Valley-based investors, which are more focused on tech alone. Boticca co-founder Avid Larizadeh agrees, after firsthand experience working in venture capital in Silicon Valley. "European VCs have been more involved with e-commerce related to fashion. They have more experience and data points they can draw from. The Valley is very much pure technology-based," which she further explains in her Forbes article from last year.

Although it's laudatory that London is flourishing with tech talent, fashion influence and huge fashion tech players, other key locations shouldn't be ignored. New York City is still very much a contender, as an established fashion house with the best strategic location for the U.S. market. Global fashion brands are also looking more toward Asia's economy, whose booming population is becoming hugely captivating in the e-commerce space. But for now, with all of London's advantages, (in addition to being at the center of the world's time zones) it's the best bet for any fashion technology business to get started.

Photos via Shutterstock.com

The consummate middle sibling, I have bobbed and weaved for my entire life along my older sister's path, trusting her twists and turns, straightening it where I could for our brother. Like those familial trails, Emily Mendell's "This is 45" and Lindsay Mead's "This is 38" are the kind I feel lucky to follow.

Thirty-three is the landing on the staircase. It is the place where you rest, panting, after the exhilarating climb through childhood and youth and extended adolescence and before the breathless steps into full adulthood and toward middle age, to the late years and the final passageway above. It is where you stop and plead fruitlessly: Must I move on at all?

It is where you luxuriate for a moment, looking down and back with a secret smile at the person who did what you can best in your twenties: Escape from those tangled queries of adulthood. In a glimmering city, in a first-rung job in an endless hierarchy, at bacchanal parties, in days and nights pulsing with unanswered possibility, as the sun rose over late night pizza, you did not often ask, Is this the wisest thing for tomorrow? Because even then, you knew: It is from this wild and imprudent place that I must climb.

It is where, in vulnerable moments, you regret who you failed to be -- the newly-minted graduate who realized that life does not wait for your ascension, that you must passionately search for what you are meant to do, that the earliest years are the easiest to give yourself entirely to that found mission. It is the age when you wished you had grasped much sooner the importance of wholeheartedly funding your 401k.

It is the age when you wonder: What did I accomplish during those halcyon years?

But it is the age when you accept that going through your 20s with too steely a resolve and determined a rise would have made you much less interesting than you are today. It is where, unconsidered change behind you, you can see more clearly the grander choices above. It is where you admit to yourself: I like this someone I am becoming. It is where you start to care much less if others agree.

From this vantage, at 33, you've seen enough to forge connections with strangers and new friends. But it is an age when, phone pressed to ear, spine against the stair, you value most those who remember you when you lay just the same, knees scraped, spine against the uneven grass. It is when you realize that failing to keep in better touch with your kindred spirits is merely and mostly the fault of the insouciant laws of physics, the measurable gaps between you and them.

It is an age when these friends and you are making the first and final steps to adulthood -- whether and whom to marry, when and whether to have children, whether to divorce or to switch careers, whether to start again before the choice seems too consequential. It is an age when Facebook streams with smiling choices you celebrate and question, when you are grateful for the friends who have ventured before you and wistful for the days when you inhabited the same place, when you must continually remind yourself that their trajectories are not your own. It is an age when your mother reminds you to be thankful that these endless changes you hear about are not fatal.

It is an age when, if you are lucky and if you chose it, love has settled upon you. It is when you look forward to a long and magnificent march upwards, when you believe, despite heavily broadcasted statistics, that not one of you will fall behind, thwarted by some gold-paved diversion to some siren in some illusory Emerald City. It is when you spend more wooly nights inside and comfortable, heads tipped back in unselfconscious laughter. But it is also when you take the chance when you can to leave that house to do something, to do anything, while you still have that unadulterated freedom.

And if you have not had children at 33, you question how that distant step is so suddenly before you. At 33, you understand medicine's pressures and its limitations. You imagine the prodigious joy of regifting all you've been given and all that you value, of creating newborn love. But you have just navigated youth's spiral clamber to arrive at this joyful and tranquil place. In your early thirties, you must revel here, at this resting place, if only for a thieved moment, before starting a newly-uncertain climb.

At 33, your knees do not creak when you step up, not in the way your friends talk about at 40, or even 35. The tendonitis, the sore neck, the aching feet -- they are not the signs of creeping middle age, you trust, but of youthful athleticism. But at 33, you cross your fingers when you approach a bar, exhale gratefully if you are asked to substantiate your age. You wonder if the request is out of some sympathetic acknowledgement that you are not quite ready to be more or less than some young thing. But at 33, you know that youth shines from your skin and from your twinkling eyes. You vow to preserve both.

Thirty-three is where you realize that those you have lost are really and fully gone, that they will never reappear to trek alongside you, not here. But it is where, if you're most privileged, those champions and guardians and guides higher up -- your parents, relatives, family friends -- are only at the cusp of an era you expect against science will hold little suffering. Even in the most fortunate of circumstances, time -- theirs and yours and yours together -- will too have its mysterious end, you are told. But in some childish optimism and maybe for the last moment you are able to pretend, you, at 33, hold your foot motionless above the next step, assert that it is possible to stay in this place forever.

And then you move. You must. You can't know to what you are climbing, or how steep will be the rise, but the truth is, at 33, and maybe at every blessed age, you still believe in this breathtaking ascent.

This is 33, for me. Take from it only what you trust.

C. P. Krishnan Nair looks and acts every bit the army captain he once was. He walks ramrod straight. He dresses neatly and fastidiously, paying attention to every item and accouterment of his attire, choosing carefully from gaily colored and well tailored suits from Italy, the United States and Britain. He invariably wears what Britons call braces and the more sartorially plebian Americans refer to as suspenders. He looks you directly in the eye. He speaks firmly and fluently.

Everybody calls him "Captain." Some call him "Chairman." Very few would venture to call him by his first name, even though he's tickled pink when close friends say "Krishnan." The name, he says, always bring to mind the way his parents addressed him. However, as an author writing his biography who's spent a year following him around, I have never taken the liberty of calling him by his first name -- nor has he invited me to.

Most people think he's of uncertain age, and it's easy to assume that the yoga and rigorous exercise he undertakes daily explain his unlined face and vigorous handshake. Very few people are able to ascertain that Captain Nair, in fact, marked his 93rd birthday this past February 9.

If you believe in astrology, Captain Nair's February birthday makes him an Aquarius, according to the Western zodiac.

According to the literature, such people are always in pursuit of excitement; Aquarius-born folks love to make people laugh as it makes them feel good about themselves. Most people feel nourished by a session with him. In their conversations with him, most people get the impression that, like Aquarius-born folks, Captain Nair would love to do whatever he could to make the world a better place. He is, in a manner of speaking, a natural philanthropist and humanitarian.

He's also, in a definite manner of speaking, an enormously curious man who, like many Aquarians, constantly searches for intellectual stimulation. You could run through each letter of the alphabet and come up with a subject with which Captain Nair is well acquainted. The man has read exhaustively; but even more importantly for him, he engages everyone who meets him in lively conversation. There are great yields for him in such encounters -- he absorbs new information, he obtains tidbits of knowledge, and, yes, he soaks up gossip.

As the literature also suggests about Aquarians, routine bores Captain Nair. Not only does he come up with inventive ideas in his business, his body language suggests a certain impatience with the status quo. If an Aquarius gives his word, he will stick to it. Captain Nair's loyalty to his colleagues and associates gains him an enduring place in people's hearts and minds.

He can be stubborn, of course, and sometimes he can be downright obstinate. It's not easy to convince an Aquarius to change his points of view, and this certainly applies to Captain Nair, as his subordinates will tell you -- although not within his earshot.

And he can show flashes of temper -- as his subordinates will also tell you, and this, too, not within his earshot.

So who is this C. P. Krishnan Nair?

He was born into a rural family of modest means. After winning a life scholarship at the age of 10 from the Maharaja of Chirakkal in North Kerala, Nair obtained his education in Madras. He then became an aide -- at the age of 14 -- of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and came into close contact with Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and other leaders of India's Freedom Movement. As a teenager, he was even put into jail by the British. These early experiences made Nair determined to make a contribution to the development of a free India.

After enlisting in the army's Maratha Light Regiment, Nair rose to rank of captain, and was later befriended by giants such as Lord Louis Mountbatten, and V. P. Menon. At the insistence of his wife, Leela, he left the army in order to promote his father-in-law's textile business. He transformed that Kerala-based business into a successful national handloom enterprise.

His success in reviving India's handloom industry emboldened Nair to launch an export business. He invented "Bleeding Madras" textiles -- which became the rage in the United States -- and also sparked what would become a multibillion-dollar garment export industry. His textile company, Leela Scottish Lace, became one of the most prosperous enterprises of its kind in India.

Nair himself is credited with being the "father" of globalization of India's garment and textiles industries. He overcame thickets of bureaucratic and governmental regulations through a canny mix of intuition, charm, guile and foresight. His friendships with stars such as Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and the Rajmata of Gwalior, made him a celebrity -- and attracted more business for his fabrics.

Acting on an idea that his uncle V. P. Menon -- who'd been the mastermind of the consolidation of princely states into the modern Indian polity -- had once planted in his mind, Nair started The Leela Group of Palaces, Hotels and Resorts. Bankers were unwilling to lend him money at first. But Nair persisted. Today, his eight super-luxury properties are considered among the world's finest. More hotels are being built across India and abroad. But these are uncertain days for the hospitality industry in India, and The Leela hotels have a huge debt that is being currently restructured.

Does that worry him?

"I didn't necessarily enter this business only for profit," Captain Nair says. "I wanted to put India on the world map in the hotel business. That has happened, I think."

He was 65 years old when he launched The Leela hotels in Mumbai. Captain Nair often remembers that when his family had asked for the hand of his wife-to-be, Leela, in their native town of Kannur in Kerala, an astrologer had predicted that the young man would multiply by thousands the kind of wealth Leela's family already enjoyed.

More predictions, anyone? Captain Nair, the Aquarian, is always game to make good things happen.

We are at an unprecedented moment in history when teen girls are redefining what it means to be successful, make money and have meaning in life. Ultimately, they are changing what it means to be powerful in the world -- for everyone, forever.

The new power girls are epitomized by BFF entrepreneurs Julianne Goldmark and Emily Matson, who started hairband company Emi-Jay when they were still in high school. The company raked in $5 million in sales in 2012. But more important to the founders, who are sophomores in college now, they donate 20 percent of their profits to charity.

Or take Jennie Lamere, 18, who taught herself how to code by watching YouTube videos and then entered a hackathon to solve a problem that had been driving her crazy -- how to stop spoilers of her favorite TV show, Pretty Little Liars, from popping up in her Twitter feed!

There have always been alpha girls who sit at the front of the class and take every leadership opportunity, but now alphas are the everygirl. The girls you see practically superglued to their phones aren't just distracted or self-involved, as teenagers are often dismissed as being. Those girls are creating their personal brands on Twitter, launching fashion careers on Tumblr, starting their own businesses on Etsy and becoming beauty moguls on YouTube. Their phones, and the social-media apps they are obsessed with, are the hammers of their power.

What a dramatic shift from 2007, when I became editor in chief of Seventeen. For years, I had been running a girls' leadership campaign at another teen magazine, but by 2007, it often felt as if I were pulling teeth to get girls interested in the idea of being a leader. They were much more focused on advice for getting through eighth period rather than planning for a career. Our tagline when I came to Seventeen was "It's fun to be Seventeen" -- and it was! The reigning teen queen was Lauren Conrad, the reality star of MTV's "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills." But those were the days before the recession. Lauren and her affluent friends spent most afternoons sipping Frappuccinos and discussing their relationship dramas. Today, Lauren has gone on to tremendous personal success; but back then on her TV show, there was a lot of shopping and very little talk about the future beyond Saturday night.

IRL (in real life, as teens say), this generation's girls, who were just crossing into their teen years as the crash of 2008 hit, saw the crushing effects of the recession on their families, and they vowed never to let that happen to them. In just the last year, as those tweens matured into teens trying to figure out their place in the world, our inboxes have been flooded with questions about how girls can jump-start their careers. They don't want to wait until after college to build their résumés or launch start-ups -- they're laying the groundwork now. Fewer than half of our readers have been kissed, but more than 80 percent want an internship -- not someday, or in college, but now. In high school.

To better understand the impact of this sudden change, last fall Seventeen conducted a national survey of teen girls 13-19 to ask how they defined power. The results were stunning: Independence -- which girls defined as "calling the shots" at work and "living life on your own terms" -- accounted for 41 percent of what makes a girl powerful, they said. Philanthropy, social activism and "making a difference in the world" accounted for another 29 percent of what makes them feel powerful. Money, awards and fame, which are all the traditional ways Forbes or Fortune might track "power," trailed with tiny percentages at the bottom of the pack.

So you can forget the "lean in" conversation of last year. This generation doesn't want to climb the ladder to the top -- these girls want to build their own ladder, because success only matters to them if it is on their terms. Finding a greater meaning in their work is just as important as making money or achieving a lofty position.

Another power coup: Real girls trumped celebrities as their icons of success. Girls declared that fashion bloggers have more power than pop stars, entrepreneurs have more power than movie actresses and founders of charities have more power than reality stars.

For this generation, the Hollywood version of reality stars has been replaced by self-made fashion and beauty gurus on YouTube who have created empires from their bedrooms, like Bethany Mota, 17, who, full disclosure, got her start in the pages of Seventeen! With 4.4 million subscribers, Mota has built her success on short, friendly and occasionally goofy videos. She is held in such high esteem by her fans that this winter, teen-fashion retailer Aéropostale replaced movie star Chloë Grace Moretz with Mota as its spokesmodel -- and named her designer of her own line of clothing. Mota, like the other girls of her generation, is authentic, ambitious and unapologetically girly. This is the new power generation.

They may have been on the runway last year, but that shouldn't stop you from wearing them. A bold lip is hot, especially as we in come into the warmer months and overall it is the perfect summer shade.

Tip: When applying bold shades, always apply with a lip brush for optimal precision. Image credit: Maybelline

No eye makeup = fresh goodness.

Don't freak out and clutch to your jet black mascara just yet. Ditching the eyeshadow, eyeliner and jet black mascara is one of my favorite things to do when rocking a bold lip, the reason? It looks fresh and it looks modern. Instead, curl your lashes with a great lash curler and apply lashings of clear mascara (and if you really can't ditch mascara then go for a dark brown shade instead) finish off by grooming your brows with a tinted brow gel.

Tip: Keep your bold shade looking modern by going for a cream or matte finish rather than a shimmer, frost or pearl finish. Image credit: Getty Images

Mascara and soft liner = the edgy girl next door.

If ditching eye makeup is a little scary for you, than this is the next best thing. Smudge some dark brown kohl liner around your upper and lower lashes lines and then wiggle two to three coats of a good mascara through your lower lashes and (curled) upper lashes.

Tip: Use a whitening toothpaste and opt for a blue based orange, warm toned lipsticks can make teeth look yellow. Image credit: Getty Images

Winger eyeliner + Mascara = classic beauty.

Ah, the foolproof number. When in doubt draw on a jet black liquid liner and wiggle an amazing mascara through your lashes from roots to tips. When rocking, well any makeup look really winged eyeliner is the easiest and most sophisticated way to go.

Tip: Bold oranges look best on darker, tanned skin. Those with lighter skin should opt for an orange-coral shade instead. Image credit: MAC Cosmetics

White Shadow, LOTS of mascara or false lashes = retro glam.
Old Hollywood celebrities loved their white eyeshadow and with good reason (think Marylin Monroe) White eyeshadow can brighten your eyes and make them look larger (not to mention it goes with just about every bold shade of lip color) Start off by applying a pigmented white eyeshadow base all over the eyelid (not going any farther than the crease) then pat a white, shimmery powder shadow on-top to keep the color in place. Line waterlines with a soft white kohl pencil and then apply lashings of mascara or false lashes, lining the lash-lines is not necessary. This look is not for the faint hearted.

Frozen was a victory for Disney at the Oscars, but certainly not for Goldie Hawn or Kim Novak. The blogosphere erupted with icy cold commentary on why these two women hadn't aged gracefully, and instead allowed themselves to be nipped, tucked and botoxed into cartoonish like characters.

I think we're missing the point a bit. It's not about doing plastic surgery but over-doing it. It's about making good choices.

As Slate's Amanda Hess wrote,

Throughout the evening, 67-year-old Sally Field and 64-year-old Meryl Streep were compared favorably to Novak for daring to age gracefully and naturally. But we don't' know what Streep and Field do to maintain their looks -- all we know is that they have successfully navigated Hollywood's dual requirement to look amazing post-60, while never signaling that they've worked at it.

In the same way adding a teaspoon of oregano freshens flavors in pasta primavera, adding a tablespoon can overpower and destroy the tasty dish. Everyone realizes the difference. The doctors who have the secret sauce in making someone look natural and ageless, versus frigidly frozen, are coveted more than a reservation at Stone Barns. (At a milestone birthday, legend has it that celebrity publicist Peggy Siegal sparked laughs and sincere appreciation by giving out the list of doctors who had helped make her look so fabulous.)

Let's face it. Unless you own a company, or are a brilliant celebrated doctor, professor or judge, looking good when the economy is shrinking -- but not our waistlines -- is essential. "Many of my patients are not here for vanity, but for keeping their jobs in a tough economy," says Dr. John Farella, a Westchester, N.Y. plastic surgeon known for giving patients a natural look. As Adam Belz pointed out in a Star Tribune article,

The number of workers over 55 who have dropped out of the labor force but say they still want a job is about 1.6 million, a 67 percent increase since 2007. Fair or not, some employers question older applicant's energy and enthusiasm, their technical knowledge and their willingness to work with young people.

But if you look good, and feel good, those biases thaw.

As the beautiful still employed Jane Fonda eloquently pointed out in her popular Third Act TED talk, we have an extra thirty years of adulthood in comparison to previous generations. It is both a challenge and opportunity. We have to be part of the enlightened herd who says no to these stereotypes of age.

Because we are all venturing into frontier territory. Science has not only given us nifty digital gadgets like the iPad and Kindle, it has given us the opportunity to rekindle our looks and confidence through technological advancements. Finally we can have substance and style. But we have to say no to the impulse of over-doing it. Saying no to this idea we are supposed to be frozen in time instead of embracing that we live life in chapters and each decade has a beginning, middle and end leading us to the next venture and adventure.

So whether it's Goldie Hawn or Meryl Streep, all these women are participating in the test case laboratory of what to do and not do. It is why I want to thank Marlo Thomas, Rita Wilson, Arianna Huffington, Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Joan Collins and Helen Mirren who remind me, when the seduction of inadequacy and fear sets in, that one can still attract admirers of all ages -- both romantically and professionally. They have found the right recipe. They have researched and done their homework.

Years ago, when I was a cub reporter, the indomitable ageless Cindy Adams invited me to her home for a lunch. I remember looking around at this glorious gathering of seasoned women of all generations and thinking, "Hmmm, when I'm in my 40s I want to look like her, when I'm in my 50s, I want to look like that woman, and when I'm in my 60s, 70s, 80s like these other women." It is a memory I hold dear because it showed me possibility. I even shared my awe with Kitty Carlisle Hart, the now deceased singer and spokeswoman for the arts.

"You can be beautiful at any age if you take care of yourself and feel good about yourself," the octogenarian told me. "In fact, I even have a beau who's in his 70s." At 80 she still had sexiness because she felt good about herself and also had done what it takes to enhance and prolong her looks. She embraced technology without letting it take over her humanness.

By Nora Milch, W Magazine

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I'm single. And I live in NYC. And I'm really busy just like everyone else here, so I decided to give Internet dating a try. In the midst of the flood of ever-creative messages simply reading "hi" or "let's chat," there were an overwhelming number of messages asking: "What are you?"

The only thing that is more annoying than the question itself is both the frequency -- and the freedom and authority -- with which people feel they can ask it.

In the words of one of my favorite movies, Mean Girls: "You can't just ask people why they're white." It's pretty unheard of to ask a white person their particular country of origin directly upon meeting them. Just as you probably wouldn't ask an African-American person their particular country of origin upon meeting them -- especially due to the unfortunate way in which many Africans were brought to this country, in many cases cutting off the ability to identify a country of origin. Now, I know a lot of my Asian friends get this question because people want to know "what kind of Asian" they are. But as my girl Bon Qui Qui from "MADtv" would say, "RUDE."

I have gotten this question all my life. At school. At the park. At parties. On the subway, a woman once tapped me on the shoulder and had me take out my headphones, interrupting my favorite Mariah Carey song, to ask me, "What are you?" She wasn't ready for the answer she got that day, because it was just a whole lot of side eye.

The problem with this question is, for a lot of us blended people, that it doesn't have a simple answer. In most cases, our identities were not something we were born with or something we inherited from our parents. Because our parents are different from each other and different from us. Our identities are something we chose. They are formed and cultivated over years, and some of us may still not have the answer for ourselves, so we surely can't explain it to you. Nor should we have to. For ANY person, shaping an identity is an intimate process. And it's more than the genetic combinations that make up the color of your skin, eyes, hair types and features.

So, what am I?

I'm a woman. I'm a New Yorker (yes, I was born here). I'm American. I'm human.

If I was Borg, I'd be one of two. Because as far as I know, there are only two people in the world with my particular ethnic mix. Myself and my brother.

I'm a singer. I'm a songwriter. I'm a fashionista.

I'm a Christian, but I'm open-minded. I hate that I have to say that I'm a Christian that's open-minded.

I'm the "other" check box.

Apparently, I'm exotic... good thing I like birds so I don't mind this stupid saying so much.

I'm complicated.

And for the sake of never having to answer this question ever again because everyone who asks me henceforth will be forwarded to this note, I am (in alphabetical order) African-American, Italian, Mexican, Native American and Swedish.

Right. You were NOT gonna guess that. And now that you know that, you still have no idea what box to put me in. Because I'm pretty sure there is no box for that. You might need a suitcase for all of that. And knowing that will not likely help you to relate to me, understand me or know me any more than you did five seconds ago. It might satisfy an unnecessary and fleeting curiosity of yours, but in your quest to do so, it might make me or any other blended person you'd ask that question to feel incredibly uncomfortable.

For me, my identity has caused a lot of arguments and pain in my life. So I might not want to answer "What are you?" because I might be apprehensive as to how you, a total stranger, are going to judge me and possibly react to the choice of identity that took me years to accept and understand.

As a kid, I went to a pretty much all-white private school, but lived in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. I felt like I was connected to everyone, but I was a part of nothing. For the white kids, I was like show and tell. I always felt like I was on display. Like, "Look at this cool interesting creature I'm friends with! Isn't she so exotic?" Not kidding. One of my 'friends' actually called me a creature one time. Pretty sure she didn't get invited to my awesome Barbie roller skate party that year. And then you get those back-handed compliments like "Well, you're not REALLY Black..." Um, thanks?

The Latina girls looked down upon me because I "didn't know my heritage" and couldn't speak Spanish. So even though they could speak English, they only spoke Spanish around me. I'm not sure if they were secretly ahead of their time with the whole Rosetta Stone immersion concept and thought I'd pick it up or if they were just bitches. I'm gonna go with bitches because it just made me feel isolated and rejected, and I was a kid. I just wanted to play with them.

And then there were the arguments I got into with African-Americans since I don't answer, "What are you?" with "Black." I don't know if maybe they felt that I was somehow rejecting them or embarrassed of being Black, but neither is true. Yes, I am fully aware that for certain closed-minded types of people, 1/32nd of the blood in my veins is Black, so therefore I am Black. But to me, identifying solely as Black makes me feel like I'm rejecting my father, whom I love very, much. And I can't just pretend that half my family doesn't exist... that's... weird.

And then I have to explain why I "talk white." And that my hair is real. And that my mom was not my babysitter, but in fact my mom. And that my dad did not adopt me. And it all becomes so tedious and exhausting I almost want to walk around covered in blue paint because it might actually be easier. Everyone loves Blue Man Group. No? OK, maybe not...

My point is that "What are you?" is not an icebreaker. Let blended people give that information to you, should we choose to. I usually offer it up with pride once I know someone and feel accepted by them based on my own merit and sassy charm. Let's be honest, I know you're confused as hell looking into my face... I surely was for most of my life. But especially if you're trying to get a date with me, or any Blendiva, don't be that person.

I love a good origination myth and was delighted to find that Restørsea, for which 41-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow has just been appointed as the new face, has a particularly amusing -- and implausible -- one.

Here goes: One day Restørsea's boss, Patti Pao, just happened to be touring a Norwegian salmon hatchery. While this was doubtless a fascinating experience in its own right, eagle-eyed Patti couldn't help noticing the workers' "ageless hands". Now, given than your average dock worker is not known for youthful looks, Patti was "mesmerized" and vowed to discover their secret. I bet at this point you can totally get why Gwyneth Paltrow is willing to be in Restørsea's ads.

The secret turned out to be an enzyme in baby salmon that, when in contact with human skin, exfoliates and hydrates. The enzyme is the key ingredient in Restørsea's "Vibransea Complex". It all sounded a bit fishy to me.

Remembering, of course, that Gwyneth Paltrow loves sushi, I wondered whether eating super fresh salmon would simply do the trick. To give Restørsea the benefit of the doubt, I needed to take a closer look at Restørsea's Rejuvenating Day Lotion SPF 30 ($150).

Baby salmon enzyme isn't exactly listed in the ingredients for Restørsea's Rejuvenating Day Lotion, but hydrolyzed roe is. Or fish eggs, to you and me. So the baby salmon is so young it isn't even born. In good faith, I am assuming that the hydrolyzed roe used by Restørsea is from salmon (although, according to Wikipedia, the most common roe in Norway is from cod) as it is very high in omega 3 fatty acids.

I've come across the fish roe as exfoliator theory before with a skincare line called LiftLab. Apparently, the enzyme acts as an exfoliator by mimicking skin enzymes and degrading corneodesmosomes, the "mortar" in the skin's "bricks and mortar". It is also the key ingredient in Dr. Perricone's Blue Plasma line.

My guess is that Restørsea's Vibransea Complex also includes alaria esculenta and algin, both derived from seaweed. Algin has a myriad of industrial uses, notably for preventing ice cream from crystalizing and as a thickening agent. Alaria esculenta is a bit more interesting -- an edible seaweed, studies have shown it to be able to protect against UV damage.

The only other ingredient of note is honeysuckle extract, an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. It is sometimes used in skincare as a preservative, as honeysuckle has paraben-like qualities. Anyway, that's about it for Restørsea's Rejuvenating Day Lotion. Unless, you put a lot of faith in fish eggs, $150 seems like a lot to pay for this day lotion.

And, for my part, I still can't overcome the logic of this ingredient. Restørsea says that the miracle enzyme is "released by salmon at birth". Yet aren't roe really pre-birth? Maybe the presence of Gwyneth Paltrow will cause the scales to fall from my eyes.

For more information visit me at www.truthinaging.com

Last week I turned 30, which means that -- holy cannoli, I've been dating for 15 years now.

Yikes!

To celebrate these two momentous occasions, here are 15 things that I wish the 15 year-old Therese had known about love.

1. Your appearance ≠ your worth.

It's easy to get the two confused -- believe me, I know. Being skipped over, ignored and invisible as guys scramble to impress the big-breasted, bodacious blonde bombshell to your right is one of the worst feelings in the world. And so the first time you discovered that you could look good enough to turn a guy's head, you thought it was the best, most powerful feeling in the world. You felt as if you were were finally worth something: worth paying attention to, worth getting to know. (Because honey, let me tell you: you are!)

But in all these years, perhaps the most important thing you've learned is that your worth has got nothing to do with your appearance or with a guy's reaction to you. In fact, your worth is not dependent on anything at all -- it simply is. And the surefire way to get the (right) guy's attention is to own your inherent worth, not to prance around trying to adhere to Victoria's Secret-like standards of hotness. Hard to believe, but true.

Because the thing is...

2. You are infinitely worthy of receiving love.

You -- you are a rad motherf*&^r. Not because you're beautiful or smart or because you have "beach sexy hair" -- but just because. For no other reason except that you exist. You just are.

I want to pour this love over you until every inch of you is covered like the ice cream at the bottom of a heaping hot fudge sundae. I want you to marinate in this feeling and let it sink into your pores and into your heart and into your soul. I want you to know: you are infinitely precious and worthy of receiving love, just for being you.

3. The right guy will see -- and value -- and cherish -- your depth.

Sure, he'll also think you're sexy as hell (because you are). But watch the way he compliments you: does he value you just as much for your depth and your drive, for your strength and your spirit as he does for your beauty? If so, he's a keeper.

If not, keep looking.

4. You get what you're willing to accept.

Let a guy treat you like less than you deserve, and that's what you'll get from him. Demand nothing less than honesty and respect and consideration, and that's what you'll get. Maybe not from the guy you'd hoped, because, sure, you'll end up losing a few duds in the process of demanding what you're worth -- but trust me, it's worth it. Better to move on sooner than later from the guys who won't call you or keep their promises or take you out. There are men out there who will, but you've got to carve out space for them first.

5. Be honest.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, guys aren't mind readers: Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't play games. Don't make him guess what you're thinking. Don't be afraid to be upfront about what you want, what you need and how you're feeling. If he won't hear you out or can't handle it -- well, consider it another good way to weed out the best of them from the rest of 'em. You deserve a relationship in which you feel safe speaking up and getting your needs met (and vice-versa). Direct, honest communication and simplicity, not complexity, are key. (After years of playing games, who knew this was even a thing?!)

6. There will be another guy.

You feel crushed. Heartbroken. You can't imagine life without him. But guess what? Believe it or not, it does exist (and get this -- it will be even better than it was before). You will live again. You will love again. You will get over it and move on. And believe it or not, the day will come when you you'll no longer want to poke his eyes out with a burning hot steel rod. (Just sayin'.)

It may take some time, but it'll happen. Promise.

7. It's OK to be on your own.

You've spent most of your dating years in relationships (or if you were single, you spent your nights looking for a boyfriend), but believe me when I say that some of the best years of your twenties will be the years you spend on your own, not needing or desperately seeking for a dude to make you happy and whole. These will be the years in which you'll come to know and love yourself and to figure out where you really want to steer this life of yours before you bring someone else along for the ride. Don't be afraid to embrace those years; they'll become the foundation for your future relationships. Don't rush it; trust it.

8. If he isn't calling you -- he's just not that into you.

You know that book, He's Just Not That Into You? Read it.

If he's not texting you back, calling you, poking you on Facebook (is that still a thing?), whatever -- stop obsessing about how to get him to magically like you. Save yourself from needless heartache. Move on. He's just not that into you, and it doesn't matter why.

9. You might never know why. Accept that.

Did you hear what I just said? He's just not that into you, and it doesn't matter why. Maybe he met someone else. Maybe you just aren't his type. Maybe he's just a D-bag, don't ask me.

The point is, you'll probably never know why, and you don't need to know. Save yourself from the needless, hair-pulling analysis. Accept that the mystery is a part of life. Move on.

10. Sit with your insecurities.

The thing about dating is that it tends to bring up All The Insecurities and All The Feelings. But here's the secret: Instead of acting on them, see if you can sit with them. Watch them. Get to know them inside and out, without repressing and without indulging. So you want to go crazy when he doesn't text you back like, right away? How interesting. You feel super needy when he spends a night out with his friends? I wonder why that is. Chances are that your insecurities run much, much deeper than you realize. And getting deeply familiar with and curious about them instead of going batsh*t crazy? It just might be one of the best things you'll ever do for yourself.

11. Love isn't what you think it is.

You've been in love before -- or so you thought. That feeling of being enamored by, obsessed with, filled up by someone else? That feeling of wanting to be with him every chance you get and "I can't wait to kiss you again"? Enjoy it while it lasts, but consider the fact that this isn't actually love. Entertain the idea that real love is less of an obsession with the other person than it is an acknowledgement of the other's inherently precious nature and an unconditional regard for his or her well-being (and for that of the relationship). Says Joseph Campbell, "When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity."

Relationship as recognition of a spiritual identity: I like that. Real love is so much richer, deeper, and truer than the puppy love you've known in the past. You're still learning what that means. Embrace the question.

12. Respect him.

When you do find a keeper, respect him. Make sure he knows how awesome and manly and amazing he is. Say it to his face and in front of his friends. Never criticize him, especially not in front of other people. Make him feel capable -- because he is. Let him know how happy he makes you. For men, there's nothing more life-giving than respect.

13. Love thy wonderful self.

'Tis corny, but 'tis true: The love you have for yourself is absolutely foundational. So go ahead: Show yourself some love. Take care of yourself. Draw healthy boundaries. You cannot -- I repeat, cannot -- truly love another until you've learned to love your wonderful, badass self, flaws and all.

14. The purpose of a relationship is not to find another who might complete you...

But rather, to find one with whom you might share your completeness. (Read: The Missing Piece Meets The Big O by Shel Silverstein.) You will never find your other half, because you, my love, are already whole.

15. Love already is.

Love isn't something you need to search for or seek out, as if it's something that's missing in your life. Instead, love is something you already have. Love is a practice, a state of mind, not something that needs to be fulfilled by one specific person or romantic relationship. So go forth and love: love yourself, love others, love life. The rest will fall into place when the time is right. ♥

Want to read more great posts about love? Click here to read my most popular posts on love of all time.

This post was originally published on TheUnlost.com.

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