Rachel at The Bodacious Beauty, which is scheduled to open at the Twenty Ninth Street Mall in Boulder late December. Makeup by DeAnne Grasinger, using D Lauren Cosmetics, sold exclusively at The Bodacious Beauty. (Photo by Molly Plann of The Bodacious Beauty. )

DeAnn Grasinger had me at the pink claw-foot tub.

Then she introduced me to her Victorian chaise lounge and her closet of corsets and bustiers. And then -- heaven help us, fetch my smelling salts -- she brought me into a pink room accented by pink pinkness, where she introduced me to her own mineral make-up line, skincare treatments and stuff like Boulder's only HydraFacial machine. I wanted to ask her what it was, but instead I think I asked her to marry me.

Grasinger is Boulder County's Superwoman. But I don't mean in the comic book kind of way. She's like a super woman, as in queen she, as in the creator of the ultimate haven for girls.

She calls it a boutique spa like you've never seen before.

And it really is. At The Bodacious Beauty, clients can get a wide variety of spa treatments (chemical peels, waxing, facials, microderm, temporary eyelashes), get a makeover and new makeup, go shopping for lingerie and then capture it all in a boudoir photo shoot. The studio has a half a dozen different scenes, from tall mirrors to a (less subtle) bed. You can bring your own outfit, or shop in the on-site store.

"It's like a haven where a woman can come and be herself in a safe and nurturing environment, and explore who she is and learn what's the best look for them without being chastised," Grasinger says.

And then capture that moment in time, she says.

The Bodacious Beauty (a name Grasinger's father helped her coin shortly before his unexpected death) is currently running out of Grasinger's in-home studio, and is scheduled to open at Boulder's Twenty Ninth Street Mall (on the second floor, above Starbucks) just after Christmas. The grand opening party is scheduled for Jan. 21, Grasinger's 45th birthday and the day that she will realize a dream that started when she was 13 years old.

That's when her Aunty Fanny introduced her to makeup. It became her passion, and Grasinger says she remembers telling her dad that vacation that she wanted to have her own makeup line some day.

She launched it, called D'Lauren (a combo of her name and her daughter's) about 16 years ago. Over the years, the mother of three added more spa treatments, is formulating her own skincare line and most recently decided to expand services to include photography and boudoir.

The idea came after Grasinger and a friend treated themselves to boudoir photos just for fun.

"We realized it was a perfect addition," she says. "Women get skincare treatments, learn make-up and show off who they are, and once they've realized their potential, we can capture that."

The Bodacious Beauty offers membership packages, from $39.95 a month for a twice-a-year makeover and full line of D'Lauren cosmetics. Add regular spa treatments to the package and the monthly rates rise, too.

Photo shoots start with $199 up front and increase based on the add-ons and products (such as books, canvas prints, calendars).

Grasinger plans on franchising within the year, with plans already in the works for DC, Soho, LA and Seattle.

"Watching women fall in love with themselves is the most gratifying thing. It makes my heart swell," Grasinger says. "Whether you're 18 or in your 60s, when you see yourself and you come out of your shell, it's the most unbelievable thing."


For more info, check out thebodaciousbeauty.com.

Read more at dailycamera.com. 

Fashion for your left brain

"Bats have feelings too" coat, a haptic coat for the blind. Designed by Lynne Bruning (lbruning.com). Stylist: Courtney Snider. Model: Ellyette. (Carl Snider)

Beauty schmeauty.

Bill Stoehr is more interested in what's captivating.

"I think beauty is a dysfunctional term," he says. "What most people think of as beauty is one of their own personal criteria in some subset of what's captivating."

Stoehr is a Boulder-based painter. But he's intrigued by neuroscience: how art expresses itself in the brain, and how genetics and life experiences weave together to influence what we consider beautiful or interesting.

He organized a recent sell-out series at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, delving into how humans create, perceive and appreciate art -- from theater to music, and down to fashion.

There are certain aesthetics that appear "hard-wired." Stoehr says. Humans appear to be genetically predisposed to be attracted to volumetric curves over straight lines. ("What would Darwin think of that?" Stoehr asks with a laugh.)

But how do we explain everything else? Take Lady Gaga, he says. Not everyone would describe her as beautiful, but who can dispute that she's interesting? And in that, she has become a fashion icon.

"It turns out as humans, brain scientists are discovering that we have a built-in desire and interest and are captivated by something that's ambiguous or that is mysterious or creates a puzzle," Stoehr says.

In other words, what is beautiful in Iowa might not be considered beautiful in Nigeria, due to cultural influences, but underneath all of the attraction is the notion of mystery.

Some scientists believe that's why Michaelangelo didn't finish about two-thirds of his sculptures. He wasn't bored or distracted by another project, Stoehr surmises.

Maybe he did finish them.

"He left something for us to finish, let us complete the puzzle," Stoehr says. "When we see something ambiguous or unfinished, we finish it with our own perfect image, and then we create something that may be better than what the artist could have done, because it's something that appeals to us."

Art and science are not opposites or enemies; in fact, one can enhance the other, as the emerging field of neuroaesthetics teaches.

Award-winning fashion designer Lynne Bruning (lbruning.com) is proof of that. Bruning, of Denver has a degree in neurophysiology. And in architecture. She considers herself equally a scientist as an artist. Which, in a sense, is redundant. Bruning does not see a difference in the two.

"In science, there's an inherent beauty in it. When you look through a microscope, you're privy enough to understand how nature comes together on a cellular level," she says.

Architecture, fashion and art all use the same building blocks, she says.

"Everything's the same. There's nothing new here. You jump scale and you change palettes," she says. "That's it."

Simple. Sure. Like a coat Bruning designed called "Bats have feelings, too." The gorgeous red coat is packed with ultrasonic range finders that constantly sense the environment and feed it into a microcontroller, which activates vibrating motors so the wearer knows when something is in the way.

In other words, it's a fashionable haptic coat for the blind. A wearable cane.

Bruning specializes in technology-based clothing and textiles, including a handcrafted blacklight-reactive 1870s-influenced evening gown, with a corset and bustle illuminated by ultraviolet LED lights. (It took her one hour to weave one inch of fabric, and the dress has 120 inches of fabric.)

As Bruning sees it, something is captivating when it's a fresh interpretation of something you already know. Take her floor-length lace evening coat called "What golden webs we weave." It uses a traditional method of making lace, using nontraditional fibers, such as novelty yarns, metallic threads, ribbons and wool roving -- inspired by a spider web.

"Something can be captivating to me, whether I look at a computer code so elegantly crafted that it's beautifully simple -- just exquisite -- or a painting that's done," Bruning says. "The craftsmanship can be in any discipline, but it has to have rigor and a fresh interpretation."

Hot boots

Duo Boots, will you marry me?

If I want to know how to build a house, I will ask a carpenter. If I want to know how to bake a great cookie, I'll talk to the chefs at Old C's.

So obviously, if you want to know about good boots, you gotta go to the most esteemed expert: a Brit.

Ah yes, London. How many times have I cursed that frigid air because I attempted to wear heels? I have decided that even in summer, the only shoe suitable for England is the boot.

So when my British pal, Catherine, sent me this e-mail tip the other day, I knew it was legit. Not to mention, I love how British people write. Tea!

"Check out www.duoboots.com. They are a company based in Bath who make simply the best long/mid-calf boots in lots of different width fittings. I've had a pair that have made it through three winters of 'I want to wear a dress but it's cold and wet,' have been resoled and reheeled and still survive. They are brilliant and the more people who know about them the better the range will become, so I thought you'd like them, too! I have to say that I'm starting to think on this rainy Sunday that I should buy these: Jesolo boots, Textured metallic patent leather boots with leather covered platform sole and heel. So I'm going to have a cup of tea."
I love the idea of patent leather boots. And tea.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"You know you have an amazing pair of shoes when . . ."
(guess)
" . . . when your feet hurt but you love them so much that you just walk through the pain."
-- My friend Devon

Be my friend on Twitter: @Aimeemay
Or Facebook: @Boulderandbeautiful

Read more fashion stories, along with other stories, at www.dailycamera.com. 

Don't by a fashion sloth: Gluttony is so 2006

Blame it on the economy, or whatever your opposing political party is, or on the weather. But fashion around here has a whole new meaning.

The magazines and catwalks are still so old fashioned; they haven't even yet released designs for the season of Recession 2007-11. I laugh at the "Lust/Must" pages, featuring billion-dollar couture items and their "inexpensive" inspirations -- for only $559 per glove!

Right. Sure, let me just count that out in coins from under my car seat. And then run that "must-have" shopping list past the "Occupy" crowd.

Sure, a few Boulderites have squeaked by in lucky oblivion, but for the former CEOs now scraping by on $10 an hour (or journalists who have been broke since the advent of the Gutenberg Press), true style is about creativity, prioritizing, recycling and a darn good deal.

Style is about being smart. It is no more sexy to be gluttonous with your credit card than it is with your lunch menu. Sure, a grease-soaked bag of French fries is novel on occasion, but balance it out with some leafy-green discretion, or you're honestly kind of gross. Same goes with your labels. Head-to-toe inflated price tags lacks individuality -- and discretion.

My BFF Brittany and I have a bit of a competition going on (although she doesn't exactly know -- yet) for who can best rock Recession style. One point for cuteness. One point for craftiness/DIY. Two points for creativity. And one point per every $10 saved, per item.

Take a flower-accented belt that Brittany saw in the store for $40. She bought a fake flower, glued it to a clip and affixed it to a belt she already owned, totaling $5. That's like 293.5 points, if my math-for-liberal-arts-majors training is correct.

I can't DIM-A (do it myself -- anything ). But unfortunately for Brittany, I've got a new secret that is about to take her down: Hip Consignment, 1468 Pearl St. in Boulder.

Vanquish any idea you have of consignment shopping. Because if I didn't tell you (well, that and the store's name), you wouldn't know. You'd just think you were in a beautiful boutique hallucinating over finding designer dresses around $40, accessories from $5 and, um, excuse me while I weep in delight, but is that a brand new Diane Von Furstenberg line?

The 8-month-old store was designed to break the stigma of consignment shopping, while hooking ladies up with fancy-pants clothing for Marshall's sales rack prices.

I'm going to need a new fashion point system. Either that, or more fingers and toes to count on.

Tip: Like Hip Consignment on Facebook (Facebook.com/hipconsignmentboulder) and get in on regular specials, including the Mad Dash Lunchtime Specials from noon-1 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Select merchandise goes on sale for just this one hour, like 30 percent off boots for winter.

Coming up at Hip Consignment: The Holiday Dress Extravaganza, Nov. 26-27. The plan: Accumulate 100 fantastic
holiday dresses to put on sale the weekend of Black Friday.

Read more at Dailycamera.com. 
Check out my BFF Brittany's blog at loislanelifestyle.blogspot.com. 

Finding your inner steampunk

For more subtle steampunk style, check out the brown lace-front Sarai top, $70, by Australian-based tahnaya.etsy.com. With cap sleeves, high turtleneck collar. Also check out the shops' Gothic Victorian-inspired dress ($160) with a standing lace collar, short puffy sleeves, layers of ruffles and tulle and carved wooden buttons up the back. (Jeremy Sypniewski)

Steampunk is second nature to modern-day alchemist, Joshua Onysko.

Beyond the fact that he moved to India in 1999 so he could ride steam-engine trains, in his practice, and in his daily life, the Boulder man enjoys combining different elements to create something else. Whether it's as simple as adding a brass belt buckle to a regular outfit, or as complex as deconstructing plants chemically and them recombining them to create a mood-enhancing candy.

In fact, Onysko used ancient alchemy to create a cutting-edge skin-care line, Pangea Organics (pangeaorganics.com), an organic, fair-trade, natural skincare line that boasts a long list of awards and national accolades. Including the (very) lesser-celebrated Aimee Heckel Test; I use and love the Italian Red Mandarin with Rose face cream, ($36 for 2 ounces).

On Halloween, Onysko organized a steampunk-theme fundraiser at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The party raised money for the campaign Hey GMOs, Stop Trying To Get In My Plants, a media campaign to raise awareness about the risks of genetically modified organisms in our food.

"I've always been fascinated by combining two different cultures, and that's what steampunk is," Onysko says. "It's combining the steam era with futurism."

As Onysko sees it, adding steampunk to your daily wardrobe can be as simple as copper earrings, aviator goggles, puffy shirts, brass jewelry or boots. Imagine futuristic innovations as Victorians may have imagined them. Some call it neo-Victorian: a mix of clothes from 1950 to 1910 with technology using gears and mechanics, instead of computers.

But it's more than "brass and watch parts," according to the blog thesteampunkhome.blogspot.com.

Antique black leather Victorian lace-up boots, $175, from Boulder-based charlesvintage.etsy.com. Made by Peters Shoe Company in the 1900s, and in excellent condition, too. Granny meets old school teacher meets a Salem witch.

"It's finding a way to combine the past and the future in an aesthetic (sic) pleasing yet still punkish way. It's living a life that looks old-fashioned, yet speaks to the future. It's taking the detritus of our modern technological society and remaking it into useful things," the blog explains.

Want to infuse a little more steaminess into your punk this fall? Check out these items from local Etsy sellers:

Compass necklace, $55, chainedbeauty.etsy.com -- Wrapped in chain mail, made from a variety of metals, including brasses, stainless steal and aluminum. The Boulder-based designer, Peter Cacek, has been immersed in medieval art forms his whole life, "ever since my dad worked a blacksmith's forge when I was a child."

Antique black leather Victorian lace-up boots, $175, from Boulder-based charlesvintage.etsy.com -- Made by Peters Shoe Company in the 1900s, and in excellent condition, too. Granny meets old school teacher meets a Salem witch.

Here are some other Etsy ideas from around the globe:

For more subtle steampunk style, check out the brown lace-front Sarai top, $70, by Australian-based tahnaya.etsy.com. With cap sleeves, high turtleneck collar. Also check out the shops' Gothic Victorian-inspired dress ($160) with a standing lace collar, short puffy sleeves, layers of ruffles and tulle and carved wooden buttons up the back.

For blatant steampunk, go for a handmade Alfresco-style mechanical bracelet watch with a skeleton pattern, $109, by alfrescouniquegroup.etsy.com. Leather band wraps around your wrist twice from both sides. And to be extra authentic, this watch works without a battery.

Read more at www.dailycamera.com.

High-end fashion in Longmont

Danielle Seiss has it rough. She is surrounded by jaw-droppingly stunning clothes all day long. This might not sound so terrible -- unless you've also worked selling something that you love. Then you know the amount of self-control it takes to not blow your entire paycheck before it hits the bank.

Seiss is the owner of Apparel Valley, a high-end fashion boutique that opened in downtown Longmont two weeks ago. The shop, which first launched online in 2009, already has a following, and features quality, timeless women's clothes, accessories and gifts with a European flair. The racks are filled with some of

Colorado's best designers, as well as products that support disadvantaged women around the world. All items are chosen for simultaneously being elegant, yet practical. Like machine-washable leather. Or boiled wool, which has the warmth of wool but with a smoother texture and lighter weight.

"The problem we have is we love everything in our store," Seiss says, with a laugh. "I appreciate it when people buy things in my size."

She's holding a long, fitted red fleece trench coat-inspired jacket with an oversized external pocket and asymmetrical buttons. The shop has been open for three days and it's almost sold out of all of the scarves. That's a good problem to have, Seiss admits, for the shop's sake and her own.

"It's dangerous working around beautiful clothing," she says. "It's like setting a chocolate cake down in front of (yourself) and saying, 'I'm not going to touch that.'"

  Indeed, it's dangerous seeking out and writing about beautiful clothing, too. Seiss let me try on the Covelo Degas jacket, a below-the-knee-length boiled wool jacket, dip-dyed to have a gradient of teal color, and accented with dramatic ruffles and oversized fabric flowers ($318). While wiping the drool off my chin, I sized up Seiss to determine if I could outrun her out the front door. I decided the length of the jacket might slow my stride, reluctantly hung it back up and went to smother my envy in greasy hash browns in Janie's Cafe a few doors down.

Every resident in east Boulder County should be sending Apparel Valley, 471 Main St., a thank you card, for bringing some legitimate fashion to this side of the Rockies.

The shop's staple is Longmont-based Icelandic Design (icelandicdesign.com), which makes sweaters and jackets in the handicraft tradition of Iceland, where the founder is from. My favorite Icelandic Design piece is an Asian-print inspired sweater called the Taiko: 100 percent wool, $238, in charcoal and gold (two of the top colors for this fall).

Clothes in Apparel Valley range from $48 to $400 a piece. Accessories start at $38. And if you're looking for inexpensive gifts, check out the Cube Suds (locally made all natural soap), starting at $8.

For more info on Apparel Valley, check out facebook.com/ApparelValley, apparelvalley.blogspot.com, or buy online at apparelvalley.com.
 
Read more at www.dailycamera.com.

Laura: Some things you never outgrow

The rent-a-cops at the hotel couldn't prove it, but they kicked Laura out anyway. On New Year's Eve, at 9:30 p.m., they sent her packing to the ice-rink of I-25.

It would have been tragic if we hadn't had 20 years of practice handling, and thereby laughing at, fashion-related adversity.

Laura and I were both straight-A students who grew up to be intelligent, respectable mothers with clean houses, emptied dishwashers and a regular stream of elaborate dinners that make
Martha Stewart look as lame as Colonel Sanders (OK, that last part is jut Laura, but I'm taking credit by association).

Except somehow when it comes to anything fashion related. Then we become terrorists.
Take New Year's. Granted, the security guards had their eyes on us, after they physically removed us from the life-sized gingerbread house for trying to consume the candy corn fireplace (apparently this "stressed out the children").

But don't build a glass elevator running through the middle of a hotel if you don't -- how do I phrase this? -- expect teenage boys to seize the opportunity when a woman wearing a short pink satin dress takes said elevator, and, unthinking, leans against the glass.*

If you ask me, the po-po should have kicked out the horrible teenage boys.

*For written record, this is exactly how the events unfolded, and no other possible way.

Perhaps Laura and I have bad luck. For example, in seventh grade when her mom asked us to paint the living room, how were we supposed to know that she wanted white paint and not bright orange? I thought we were overachieving by including the doors, hinges, light switches, trim and even some of the floor. Who knew her mom would cry?

This incident sent me into a spiral of rebelliousness against walls. At school, every time I went to the ladies room to apply lipstick (three times per passing period), I kissed the wall to dab off excess color. Soon, I had created an elaborate collage of pink smooches across the vast wall of blue tile.

Not even the notes the custodian left deterred me; first, pleas of cessation, explaining how difficult it was to remove dried Mauve Magic. Then, a sign announced that the walls were being washed with toilet water. Pssh. I actually kissed a toilet that day to make a statement about my untouchable insubordination. Looking back, there might have been a less hepatitis-y way to make my point, which I guess was, "I am the master of all walls, and the toilet."

Toilet water could not restrain my lips, but in-house detention eventually did.

A few weeks later, a substitute teacher said she smelled alcohol in my locker. "Yes, of course you do," I confessed cockily, and pulled out the bottle for her to see: Aquanet. Duh. I sprayed it in her face, to give her a good whiff.

I got sent to detention, which was whatever because I was already in detention for stealing an ID card from the library Rolodex (for you youthful whippersnappers who don't know what a "Rolodex" is for, well, neither do I) of the boy I had a crush on. Luke was cool because he had a puffy Buffalo Bills Starter jacket. He wore that jacket in his library picture. I needed it -- to kiss, now that I was banned from using the bathroom at school.

Detention wasn't half-bad, because there I could hang out with Laura. This time she was there due to controversial school pictures. Laura, whose parents were super strict (who wouldn't be after the orange paint incident?), left the house wearing a ribbed turtleneck and overalls. But by the time she got up to the front of the line for class pictures, she was sporting a midriff-baring lace shirt that would only be acceptable on an actual prostitute.

These photos remain immortalized in the yearbook today. Which makes the three days in the detention room totally worth it.

Of course, now that we're all grown up, we have risen above our troubled pasts, or at least we have better excuses.

Like it was the seamstress's fault for not sewing a tighter seam up the back of Laura's pants. Otherwise, they wouldn't have busted when she dropped it like it's hot. Twice.

And David's Bridal should make higher quality dyeable heels. Otherwise, Laura wouldn't get in trouble at a wedding for pounding her shoe against the wall, to try to repair the nail in the heel. Three times.

Luckily, over the years, Laura's mom has forgotten about the offensive paint job. Laura helped divert her mom's attention by meeting her at church, smoking a cigar and wearing a T-shirt that said, "I kissed your girlfriend."

At least it wasn't a lace crop top. See? A lesson learned.

Reba: Home weird home

Reba is weird. I love her.

Reba's apartment is a museum of the world's most amusing flea market items. It's a gallery of conversation pieces. It is, in and of itself, a work of art.

Public speaker Patricia Fripp once said style is being yourself, but on purpose. My childhood friend Reba's home is like diving inside her beautifully mad brain and backstroking across her dreams. It's the most alive building I've ever walked through, a character. And a dangerous inspiration.

Reba's living room boasts not one, but two, sets of mannequin legs. One rests upside down between the green nightstand, barely wide enough to support her television, and Charlie McCarthy, the ventriloquist doll, who I simultaneously want to hug and set on fire.

Full-scale skeletons dance on Reba's walls year-round, along with a sad clown portrait made out of yarn, various robots, a picture of a dog in a tuxedo and an oversized landscape of a German castle. She uses old doors for picture frames and a newspaper rack for dishes.

On some street in Oregon that I forget but it was cool. Being stalked by a cardboard wolf.

 

She adorned her kitchen table -- and four mismatched chairs -- with decoupaged coffee bags, and she let her 6-year-old son, River, decorate the bottom of the table. He chose hundreds of googley eyeballs. When new people visit, Reba excitedly ushers them under the table to lie and gaze at her son's creation.

Spend 10 minutes in this apartment and you'll feel like you've known Reba for 20 years. It's the opposite of a beige Pottery Barn showroom house that could be anyone's. Reba's house couldn't
be anyone else's. That's what makes it so glorious.

I visited her in Oregon last week, and returned home to an office that had relocated from a 120-year-old station on the Pearl Street Mall to a modern business park in east Boulder. At the new desk, first I noticed the cleanliness (more than a century of newsprint, yellowed papers and journalist tears really crusts up a place). Then, I jumped out of my chair. This order was uncomfortable. My desk needed flair. And a little crust. Just enough for character.

My first reaction was to hit up one of the Pearl Street shops that I've grown addicted to over the past 10 years (gross, I'm old) at the Daily Camera. Urban Outfitters. Goldmine Vintage. But that was no longer my 'hood. I wept three tears.

I needed to trailblaze east Boulder, like Christopher Columbus blazed the Atlantic, or like Russell Brand explored every woman east of Wales.

My sense of adventure and lack of finances led me to the Salvation Army on 33rd Street. After I ran across a cookbook so ancient that it was growing a new variation of mushrooms, I knew I was home.

My house, albeit lacking eyeballs on the underside of the table, has its own energy. Obnoxiously bright walls, furniture from the 1950s and '60s and even pictures of a glittery unicorn and a hologram wolf (both gifts) (amazing). I'll never claim my house is immaculate, and I'll never pretend I'm rich. But I am proud of my odd little nest that reads about me like my own palm.

At the Salvation Army, I found records for 49 cents each. Frames for $1.30. Books for 49 cents. I almost bought three dozen Chinese literature books (for the colorful pictures of birds and mustached men), but instead, I opted for two Whitman classical books, printed in 1955. Ever blasphemous, I ripped out my favorite sketches from "Five Little Peppers" -- of a girl crying, burglars breaking into a house and a gaggle of kids writing a letter -- and I framed them.

Nearby on my desk, I hung three record covers that make me laugh, including "Sing Along with the Honkey-Tonks," and I bought an old milk pitcher to hold my pens. I found a wooden jewelry box to organize my office supplies (paper clips, sticky notes and lipsticks). I used the records to divide up my desk. The grand revamp: $8.45.

As I complete my first article in the Camera's new quarters, I feel a little greedy, like I get the best of both worlds: a modern office without asbestos flaking into my tea, and a little old-fashioned weirdness, to remind me of where we came from.

I even decorated the underside of my desk, in honor of River. Feel free to peek under there. The carpet's clean of journalist sludge.



At least for now.

Clayton: Grin and beard it

Mustaches aren't funny anymore. There. I said it.

No more mustache theme parties. No more moustachio-etched coffee mugs or pink stick-on crumb-catchers. I am calling for an end to 'stachical jewelry and stickers, and even requesting the removal of all mustache tattoos on the inside of the pointer finger. I never want to see another sarcastic soup-strainer, I swear. Even though they still make me chuckle. At some point, the nose bug has to lose its funny.

Doesn't it?

Why does the fuzzy upper lip tickle me so, metaphorically and literally? Perhaps it's a passive anti-bourgeoisie statement (because everyone knows all bosses have mustaches, even the women). The nose-tickler denotes control: Hulk Hogan, Magnum P.I., Josef Stalin. Could there be some underlying rebellion rising with this unstoppable trend?

Or is facial hair just plain amusing?

Supporting the latter is my friend Clayton. His wife, Alex, wanted him to grow Elvis sideburns. He wanted a Groucho Marx. The end result was a hybrid of the two, a sort of Sgt. Floyd Pepper from the Muppets. A burnstache. Mustchops.

Clayton grew in a wee soul patch under his bottom lip, just to get wild. He ended up with hair everywhere except his lower jawbones, or the opposite of K-Fed's famous pencil-thin, chin-strap (also known as the "douche beard"). When asked about his unique scruff, Clayton explained that it had been "originally popularized by a U.S. president in the 1800s," if a trend can still be considered popularized 200 years later.

Coincidentally -- purely -- Clayton is also beardbald on his lower jaw area. As far as I can tell, most guys suffer this ailment, where a peculiar patch on their face has zero hair follicles. My husband's is next to his left ear, which results in one Vanilla Ice sideburn, with lines and zigzags naturally shaved in. This has not, however, stopped him from occasionally growing them out.

The plus side: I never have to fear my man attempting the lumberjack fave: mutton chops.

Options for facial hair designs are only limited by a man's imagination (well, and his blank spots).

In a "quest for every beard," blogger Jon Dyer experimented with 42 different scruff styles (dyers.org/blog/beards/beard-types), including a few rarer species, such as the Hollywoodian (mustache-beard sans sideburns). Dyer calls himself an annual winter beard-wearer and active celebrator of not only Octobeard and No Shave November, but also December's MaBeGroMo (Macho Beard Growing Month, which he created himself).

"Growing a beard is one of the simplest, zero-effort, macho things you can do," he writes on his blog.

When selecting your beard style, experts recommend complimenting your face shape. Let it grow for two weeks, and then re-examine your creation, according to eHow.com. At this point, the Web site says, you will have experience two bouts of itching and you possibly look homeless.

Considering your follicular strengths, choose a style. A weak stache? Opt for the Lincoln. Bare cheeks? A goatee is your friend.

Are your strengths on the edges of your face? If so, grow it long and flowy, a la Amish, or if you want to get beat up all the time, step into the chin strap. Feeling innovative? Shave everything except the edges, sideburns and then shave your head, except for your bangs. Voila -- you've mastered the Hair Ring of Fire. I'm pretty sure that was popularized by a red-headed U.S. Secretary of State in the 1700s.

With options like that, how can anyone ever laugh at Tom Selleck again?

Important vocabulary
Increase your knowledge and impress your friends by incorporating these terms into your daily life. Source: Urbandictionary.com.

Stache-ism: Prejudice or discrimination toward individuals with mustaches.

Beard Goggles: When you see a man with a beard, and you automatically think that person is awesome, funny, chill or just an overall cool dude just because he has a beard.

Beard of Shame: The beard that a man will grow after his girlfriend has broken up with him.

Photo by Bill Hogan.

Katie: Cowgirl for a day

My redhead friend, Katie, walks her own fashion path. And I have reason to believe that path was at least partially forged to spite me.

Our first meeting, an ominous beginning, set a precedent for our friendship and for Katie's future choices, from her talent in math to her love for polar fleece -- both of which strike utter fear in my soul.

Katie was the new girl in third grade, a particularly challenging position in our small, mountain-town elementary school where everyone had known everyone and their moms and horses and ducks since birth (or hatching, as it were). Few new faces ever moved to this part of the world on purpose. We'd all been cast there by crazy cowboy fathers, hippie mamas and general bad luck.

So when Katie walked into the classroom -- all orange hairy and freckled amid many dark-haired Native American peers -- I didn't want to make fun of her. But I guess I just had to. In the same way that the A-dog nips or tries to dominate a new puppy at the dog park, I tried to mark Katie.

"Your shoes are dumb." (They were white with brand-newness and obviously awesome, so I knew this was the most direct route.) "Jem and the Holograms aren't cool anymore." (They obviously were and still are today.)

At this crucial juncture in her youth, Katie had the choice to crumble or kick. She chose the third option: to crimp.

"You don't crimp your hair? That's weird." Zing.

We immediately became best friends, even sharing a boyfriend (Burke silently held my hand during morning recess, and then stood in Katie's general vicinity at lunch). The glory of crimp became the first of many lessons from Katie.

She taught me that you can get tanned, and by tanned, I mean seared like an overdone steak, by slathering your body with vegetable oil and lying out on the scorching tin barn roof. She taught me that it was stupid to cry when she spat crackers in my perfectly Aqua-netted cinnamon roll bangs, even though there was no way I could possibly get the crumbs out without destroying my coif.

In high school, she taught me about personalized license plates ("4-H Queen"), and how empowering it feels to cruise around Loveland in a massive lifted Chevy truck. Katie taught me about tight cowgirl jeans and that you can still feel feminine, even while shoveling horse manure, if you talk about "Dirty Dancing."

Now that we're old and have our own daughters, Katie has taught me that some people ride bikes for fun (not just because they lost their license because of a DUI), and that there is a whole line of shoes with "flat soles" (try to imagine the stiletto part broken off), and that some women consider lululemon an entire clothing group in and of itself, despite its lack of ruffles.

All of these lessons I would have never learned without my redhead. That's because, even to this day, we remain polar (fleece) opposites.

I'd like to think she learned a few things from me, too. But honestly, I think what I left her with was the decision, at age 8, to be nothing like me whatsoever. In other words, the freedom to pursue her own path. In other-other words, the easiest way to stop the A-dog from mounting you is to run the other way. And fast. But make it look like a game.

Photo by Flickr user mikebaird.

Brittany: The flow of fashion

Photo by Flickr user CastawayVintage.

My BFF Brittany was browsing through the racks at the Goodwill near her house when she came across the perfect red-and-black plaid jacket.

Granted, it was the middle of summer, and she wouldn`t be able to wear it until fall, but it was only a couple of bucks, super cute and it fit her perfectly. She eyed it in the dressing room mirror and stuck her hands in the pockets. The pockets weren`t empty.

She pulled out lipstick -- and did a double take. It was her exact shade, the tip even bearing her signature lip shape. (Lipsticks are like fingerprints for our mouths.) Could it be destiny?

Then she remembered she had a winter coat similar to this at home. Actually, no, identical. This was her coat. How did it get here? She didn`t remember selling it. She still liked it.

Obviously, right?

Now what? In an unsure daze, she decided not to buy the coat -- her own coat, again -- and instead called her dad to tell him the confusing coincidence.

He agreed it was pretty funny, and then casually mentioned, "Speaking of thrift stores, I went ahead and brought all of the clothes that you don`t want anymore to the Good Will."

"What clothes?"

"The ones in trash bags in the back of the spare closet."

Oh, those clothes. The seasonal winter clothes that Brittany had cleared out of her closet to make space for the summer stuff. The bags that contained her red and black plaid jacket.

They tried to buy her winter wardrobe back -- classifying the cost as a donation to the nonprofit -- but they never did track down the plaid coat again.

Which was just as well. Because by the time this fall rolls around, plaid will probably be out of style.

Read more at www.dailycamera.com.

My mom: Welcome (back) to the '60s

My actual mom and my actual dad at age 15. Their marriage was arranged at birth, which you can see here by their pure misery did not go over well. You can see my mom's knees in this photo, so you can tell she was a total rebellious man-eater.

My mom got sent to the principal's office in middle school because her green shift dress was too short.

So naturally, she wore it again -- on the day of class pictures for the yearbook. The teachers told her she couldn't wear that short dress in the class picture. So naturally, she sat in
the front row.

This photo of my mother is one of my favorite objects on this planet. Before printing the yearbook, some brilliant yearbook editor took a marker and colored my mother's gorgeous legs black, down to mid-calf, where any good girl's hemline should have landed.

My mother insists that she was a good girl -- a total June Cleaver. But her edited yearbook legacy also proves that my mother was a fearless fashionista. A bit of a Bettie Page. And that delights me.

Not only did my mom own -- and wear -- a mini the size of a wrist cuff, but the date of the yearbook indicates she wore it before it was mainstream. Therefore, until anyone can prove me otherwise, I am starting the rumor that my mom singlehandedly started the mini-skirt trend of the mid-to-late-'60s.

Or maybe she was 40-plus years ahead of the curve, a mere teenager setting the stage for the up-and-coming style for fall 2009. Because the '60s are It right now.

Thank AMC's show, "Mad Men, " or give Michelle Obama and her ubiquitous sheath dresses a nod. But you can find pencil skirts, brooches, pearls, chiffon, vintage scarves and wristlette gloves on the runways, red carpets and increasingly more clothing racks.

Photo from http://www.newlywedinneworleans.com/2011/06/mad-men.html.

My mom's favorite '60s style was Cher, circa 1966, with long hair and long bangs. In fact, in eighth grade, Mom got sent home on picture day because her bangs were in her eyes and she refused to push them to the side. I see a trend.

As for '60s clothing?

My mother is innocent: "Call your grandma. I borrowed that infamous shift dress from her."

Tip: Check out the official "Mad Men" fashion flipbook here: http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men/season-4-fashion-gallery

Reba: Fashion layers

Reba and me dissentegrating in Africa.

I knew it was going to be a great trip when the text chimed in, "I can't wait to disintegrate with you."

The love note came from my childhood friend, Reba, just hours before we boarded planes from opposite sides of the United States to meet up in a cockroach-infested airport in Africa.

The text was referring to our impending hygiene decay. The refugee camp where we were headed had no running water or electricity. Getting ready came down to digging under your black nails with moist towelettes and splashing in a bucket of sub-zero rainwater. (Repeatedly shouting "Water World" helps. Water World's slides are always cold and people pay good money to splash in them.)

My dad calls the refugee camp "low-tech camping." In other words, it makes two weeks in a tent in the Rocky Mountain National Park look like the Hilton. In fact, after I tried but could not shake the ants out of my green breakfast bread, I began daydreaming about dehydrated backpacker's chow; just add water and the prepackaged powder transforms into a steak. Creepy, yes. Not crawling? Also, yes.

Most people back home are flabbergasted when I tell them about my annual refugee excursions. How can a fashion columnist handle the deepest and dirtiest ditches of humanity? Joyfully. But how can I survive without dresses and lipstick?

I don't.

I don't have to.

That's the thing that really freaks people out. You see, it turns out women are complex, multi-dimensional beings. We do not have to be either/or. We are all (seeming) contradictions in one way or another. And it's these opposing features, placed side-by-side like gold eye shadow with blue eyes, that make a woman stand out.

That is my justification for packing lipstick, mascara and one beautiful necklace -- a pick-me-up for those extra-rough days. Simple pleasures gain a new value after sleeping in an orphanage for orphans of war and AIDS. Happy thoughts become the only lifeline back to sanity.

But not too happy of thoughts; those hurt even more. Just something cheery and misplaced, like a fresh coat of "Amplified" pink M.A.C. lipstick. As Plato said, "The good is the beautiful."

Sure, it's taken out of context to prove my point. And I have no doubt Plato would have laughed at me when my backpack of beauty supplies tipped over in the graduated-floored latrine, sending my "lifelines" to the bottom of Bog of Eternal Stench.

It's all about balance -- in this case literally, but also figuratively, says Courtney Allen, a marketing intern with Boulder's Women's Wilderness Institute.

Allen, a University of Colorado graduate, rocks hiking boots, as well as stilettos. She just knows when to wear which.

Allen admits she hikes with make-up on. She shops at the Nordstrom Rack, Common Era in Boulder and Pink, a boutique on University Boulevard in Denver. She knows the best spa to get a mid-day mani/pedi (Fingers and Toes in Denver, because they also provide a boxed lunch).

She also adores her vintage outdoor clothing her parents passed down to her. Allen wants to start a blog called "Waterproof Mascara, " sort of a support group for outdoorsy girly girls.

She says too many women limit their style, and with that, their capacity for self-expression, personal growth -- and fun.

"It's about learning to appreciate different parts of who you are, " Allen says. "If you're comfortable throwing on make-up before you hike, that's fine. It doesn't take away from the hike at all."

No more than it diminishes a night on the town for an athlete who feels like wearing a twirly dress but doesn't want to wear glow-in-the-dark lipstick.

Just don't forfeit the breathtaking hike because you don't own Patagonia like the rest of the hikers. And don't forfeit that rooftop cocktail because you only wear Patagonia.

Allen says she hears too many women say the evil words: "I wish I could pull that off." What does that even mean?

"You can pull it off, " she says. "If you really want to, you can. You can be whatever you want."
Which is the heart of the Women's Wilderness Institute (www.womenswilderness.org). The institute helps local women uncover their inner outside-self in a safe, personal and fun environment.

"Everyone comes from different backgrounds, but you're all dirty, slimy, sweaty girls three days into the course, " Allen says. "The course peels away the first level, and you grow from there."
Or disintegrate from there, as it were.

Maybe Plato was off. I don't think the good is the beautiful.

The real is the beautiful.

Whatever shade of pink or mud-brown or ant-covered-green your personal reality comes in.

Giselle: Shea for life

Photo by Hollywood Calling.

Giselle is very concerned about the welfare of women in Uganda.

She rarely makes eye contact with anyone. Mostly, she sits and stares into the horizon, silently contemplative and thoughtful. An emotive desperado. She is waiting -- for something.

That something is animal crackers, or topical ointments of any kind. Especially shea butter.

Although her skin is somewhat dry, she prefers shea butter in her mouth; she could easily slam a large tub of the stuff in one sitting. And if you put shea butter on your skin, you best sprint out the door. Otherwise, you will be chased around the house with a poodle tongue velcroed to your lotioned leg.

My apricot poodle would like every human in the world to buy and generously use shea butter.

And the Boulder nonprofit BeadforLife just started selling shea butter made from nuts harvested by poverty-stricken women in Uganda.

That`s how I know Giselle is an advocate for women in Uganda.


Read more at dailycamera.com.

Miss Kitty: Rough ruffles

Karen Mandery is the mad scientist of fashion. The Lady Gaga of Boulder County.

Except better. Mandery is like the mysterious creative genius who crafts Lady Gaga`s outfits, thereby transforming her from a forgettable bubble in pop-star soup to a headline-coloring legend.

Mandery is also known (and henceforth be referred to) as Miss Kitty, because the dresses she creates out of mixed media and found (and sometimes stolen from her unwitting husband) objects are so eccentric that they resemble circus costumes.

Hence the Lady Gaga parallel. Although let it be known that Miss Kitty created her dress out of abandoned stuffed animals at the thrift store before she knew that Lady Gaga also had one. (Don`t you hate it when you show up to a party and someone has the same Care Bear gown as you? Hate that.)

Miss Kitty has, however, designed dresses adorned with black and white photos, old jewelry, lights, a vintage light fixture, gravel -- you name it. She made one dress, called "Sometimes it`s hard to be a woman," bedecked with 65 vintage dolls wearing various Girl Scout-style sashes. Miss Responsibility. Miss Courteous.

"All of the things that we`re taught to be," Miss Kitty says.

Ah yes, all of Miss Kitty`s dress art contains a provoking message.

She created one dress, called "21st Century Mantra," after she was evacuated from her house during the Four-Mile Fire. She had to quickly decide what handful of objects to take with her. She left with her passport, bikini, dog, bike and computer.

Inspired, she hand-stitched the words "I have everything I need" onto a basic slip. She designed several clear pockets, placing in them objects symbolizing shelter, food, love. She put a TV in there, too.

"I was honest," she says.

Around Easter, Miss Kitty walked into Savers and was shocked to see aisles upon aisles of "unwanted, unloved, forsaken" stuffed animals."

So she bought them all up and gave them a second life: in fashion. The dress, called "Love is Who I Am," is designed partially as a statement about loving the unlovable, and making choices from a place of love instead of judgment and reaction.

Miss Kitty originally started designing artistic dresses after her degree in fashion design left her feeling unfulfilled. Another artist suggested she use dresses as canvasses, and Miss Kitty says a light bulb went off in her head.

Soon, she affixed the literal physical manifestation of that light bulb to a dress to hang on the wall. Using her husband`s belt.

Miss Kitty`s glorious gowns will be on display at the Dairy Center for the Arts, along with four other area artists` dress designs, through July 8. The exhibit, called Rough Ruffles.

Which, as Miss Kitty sees it, is "anything goes." And explains why one of her dresses is actually a pair of jeans.

Let`s see Lady Gaga try to pull off something that crazy. Jeans. She wouldn`t last a minute in denim.

My dad: Geek chic

6/15/2006

My dad doesn’t wear Armani.

He never has and never will wear leather pants or silk anything. He likely thinks chenille is a type of meat, like veal, but from France.

But my dad is fashionable in his own right. He wrote the book on IT style.

To people who interact with humans – like face-to-face and not through flashing Instant Messaging screens and virtual meetings – “IT style” is an oxymoron. But there are actually fairly developed standards on how to rock men’s high-tech geek chic.

My dad calls it “Post-50 High-Tech Crony” style, aka P50HTC. I have no idea what that means, but I figure that’s because I studied liberal arts.

Wardrobe basics include slip-on loafers, jeans and polo shirts, preferably from Sam’s Club, located between the 26 pounds of bacon and 8-gallon tub of horseradish sauce.

Want to wear tall white socks with your sandals? Go ahead. The rules of the street don’t apply.

Virtually anything’s a go in the maze of cubicles at an Agilent or Texas Instruments office. You’ll find everything from shaven heads to man ponytails, sunglasses to pop-bottle glasses.

Cleanliness is optional.

“The operative concept is comfort, pure and simple,” my dad says.

He adds because human interaction is rare, “business casual” means “wear whatever you want and back up your egos by writing complex code, managing impossible projects and even more impossible workloads.”

He compiled the following questions to help you build an appropriate P50HTC outfit:
1.) Is it comfortable? (Answer must be yes.)
2.) Is it functional? (Ditto above.)
3.) Can you wear it multiple days in a row? (This is helpful on business trips.)
4.) Does it easily show dirt? (Desired answer here is no, but can be traded off for either above three answers.)
5.) Is it cheap? (Should be yes, but balanced by overpriced camping/outdoor clothing for the weekends.)
6.) Will people know what you do by looking at the way you are dressed? (Should answer no. You could be either a custodian or software engineer.)

Tattoos also are fine, despite the naggings from your sixth-grade teacher that “no one will ever hire you with a flaming poodle on your left shoulder.”

My dad has a tattoo on his arm (not a flaming poodle, although that’d be cool). My uber-conservative mom has one on each ankle. I have a hip/buttical region tat of a fleur-de-lis that matches my mom’s, aunt’s, sis-in-law’s and 70-something-year-old grandma’s.

More than a third of all 18-to-29 year-old Americans sports a tattoo, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Twenty-four percent of all 18-to-50 year-olds do. And that doesn’t even count 70-year-olds.

Out of nowhere last week I decided I wanted to get a tattoo of a cross on my left wrist. I thought it seemed unique. Until I looked online and found links to wrist tats on celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Pink, Aaliyah and, worst of all, Lindsay Lohan.

Have I been subliminally influenced by pop culture? Am I unknowingly imitating celebrities? Because otherwise, I don’t know where my idea came from.

Unless – yes, that’s it. I think a data-warehouse manager at my dad’s office has a wrist tat. A flaming poodle or something.

I have been subliminally inspired by geek chic.

Photo by Flickr user Rocío Lara.

Brittany: Beturn, the dark side of shopping

I have three white dresses, a black gown and a jacket that I didn’t really want and certainly couldn’t afford, but I now own.

You see, I tried — unsuccessfully — to join the cult of the beturners, folks who buy something with the explicit intention of using it one time and returning it. It’s part stealing, part retail-borrowing, and pure evil. We all know about beturning, but no one likes to talk about it.

The five flaws with beturning, as well as the barriers that keeps me safe from its tempting grasp, are as follows:

1. You cannot lose the receipt. (Bam, I am already doomed.)

2. You cannot squirt spaghetti sauce/cranberry juice/red wine on, say, your white dress(es).

3. You have to be willing to wear your clothes with itchy tags grinding on your armpits, and be willing to slither away in shame when someone sees said tags.

4. You must be versed in every store’s specific return policies. Remember this one. It will come into play when we talk about the “beturn block.”

5. You have to have no soul.

The only exception to No. 5 is the what I call the hurried beturn. You’re scrambling for an outfit because you are too important and busy to set aside proper shopping time, or you are a procrastinator. So you grab the first five things to try on at home, or in the car on your way to the fundraiser, and you plan on returning the four reject outfits.

That is how my boyfriend ended up with three pairs of black pants and four white button-ups. Late for fundraiser. What receipts?

I told him he should get a job as a waiter to pay for the unneeded items; after all, he’s now got the closet for it.

Some stores have more relaxed policies than others. For example, according to urban myth, you can beturn anything at Wal-Mart.

Here are three real-life examples of the Worst Beturns In History, Ever:

3. The hoses. It was the Fourth of July, and we wanted to fill up water balloons in the park. But parks don’t have spigots. So my friend bought about 25 garden hoses, hooked them together and attached them to the spigot at her house. She then carried the hose chain through the neighborhood, across busy streets and to the park. As the tale goes, when she beturned them, they were dripping water and were covered in fresh tire tracks. Wal-Mart didn’t flinch.

2. The carpet cleaner. Judy (name changed to protect the guilty) had a carpet cleaner. Her carpet cleaner quit working, but she had thrown the box away. So she bought another carpet cleaner. She put the old carpet cleaner in the new box, and used the new receipt to beturn it. Wal-Mart didn’t flinch.

1. The snake. I can’t bring myself to tell this story in full sentences, so here goes my best staccato effort. Toilet. Clogged. Home Depot. Plumber’s snake, aka electric eel. Unclogged. Snake in a box. Snake back on the shelf. Poor Home Depot.

There is yet another kind of beturning: the beturn block.

Brittany was checking out at Forever 21 when she noticed the sales associate had accidentally scanned a nearby yellow striped shirt and placed it in Brittany’s bag.

“Oh, that shirt wasn’t mine,” Brittany explained.

She was shocked by the associate’s response: “Yes, it was. It was in your pile.”

Brittany explained that it must have already been on the counter or somehow got into the mix, but she really did not want it. The woman said, “It was in your pile.” The fight raged on.
“No. I don’t want it. It’s ugly and not even my size.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but we don’t take returns.”

“What? This is not a return. I never wanted it.”

“We don’t take returns, ma’am.”

“Let me see your manager.”

Manager: “What is the problem?”

“She accidentally charged me for this shirt that I don’t want.”

“Well, our computers cannot return anything. Sorry.”

I suggested Brittany just beturn the shirt to Wal-Mart. Even with Forever 21 tags and no receipt, I’m sure the Mart would take it. I mean, this one wasn’t even run over or dunked in a toilet. It was Wal-Mart’s turn to benefit.

Photo by Flickr user gandhiji40.

Lisa: Step up

Napoleon once said there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It must have been an Irish step.

My friend Lisa was an Irish step dancer for nine years. So obviously, with it being St. Patrick’s Day Week Month — yes, that’s how we Irish celebrate it (I am 0.004 percent Irish so I have deep pride) — I needed Lisa to teach me a jig.

Turns out, there’s a lot more to Riverdancing than just stomping, kicking with a pointed toe and bouncing your overcurled hair.

There’s also velvet. Oh, the velvet.

Yes, Irish dresses were obviously designed on a dare: (said with accent of Brad Pitt in “Snatch”)
“I double dag dare you to move your bottom half as fast as possible while not moving your top half whatsoever — in a 40-pound sweaty velvet dress.”

With a cape. And rhinestones, satin embroidery and copper lame — as in “fabric woven with metallic threads,” and also as in “pathetically lacking” and, heck, probably also as in “drunk and unfit for service” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/). Then, in the middle of the dress: an embroidered design featuring an Irish dude smoking a doobie. With a fish.

I couldn’t even make this up if I were the dude smoking a doobie with a fish; this is Lisa’s competition dress.

Bridging the seemingly ridiculous back to the sublime was a little research. I learned the costumes evolved from women wearing their “Sunday best.” And the fish smoker represents an ancient legend of “The Salmon of Knowledge.” Although I couldn’t find any explanation for the joint; must have been embroidered in Boulder.

Still, a fly-by understanding of the Irish heritage did not help my feet during my fly-by step lesson. So, unwilling to wear velvet, ever, tradition notwithstanding, I needed another costume to compensate for my slow and mostly French feet.

That’s when I found Derailed Ink, http://www.derailedink.com/. This T-shirt line, designed by two Fairview High School grads, began after the economy “derailed” their lives, per the name. But instead of getting run over, Rob Bell and John McCaskill used the momentum to carve a new path.

If you went to a home Broncos game last season, you know them. They’re those loud, hyper and hilarious characters hawking T-shirts outside the stadium. They probably taunted you. You probably bought a shirt.

Because the shirts are legitimately cool. Much better than wearing the same generic jersey as every other 12-year-old and gangsta in the state. Bell, a contemporary artist, calls Derailed’s designs “instant vintage” or “retro nouveau,” the kind of shirts you could only find at Saver’s, except these are new and don’t smell like moth balls. The “Eddie Royal with Cheese” and “What would JC do?” (as in Jay Cutler, to which the proper response is “Throw an interception”) shirts even boast the original Bronco orange that I totally think the team should revert back to.

But before my boyfriend gets too excited that I am using the “f” word (football), here’s really why I dig Derailed Ink: Their fashion line — including an Irish “Lucky Charms Make You Fly” design.

The tees ($20 each) are all locally made and printed. Plus, they’re made from that soft, ultra thin cotton — much more ideal than velvet for Irish stepping. Or stomping and clomping, as it were.

Derailed Ink, available online and at Boulder’s Buffalo Exchange, also sells a shirt proclaiming, “It’s not the (the other “f” word in gerund form) ’80s.”

Which is true.

It’s the (f-word) ’90s. Fashion leaders across the world are resuscitating fluorescents, grunge, flannel, Docs and sleeveless sweatshirts.

My friend Brittany hates St. Patrick’s Day because of “all of that loud clapping and shouting.” But she does love her fluorescents.

In fact, her first fashion memory was of her fluorescent pink, orange and green swimming suit. She wore it everywhere: to church, school and, oh yeah, swimming, and one day, to the lake with her mom and her Snoopy fishing pole. That’s when Brittany’s mom read something horrifying in the Detroit paper.

“Fluorescents are out, dear.”

Initially, Brittany wanted to cry. But instead, she retorted, “So? I’m wearing them anyway,” and she did, until they resurfaced 15 years later. Granted, at the time, she had worn her fluorescent suit so much that it was actually pastel and fuzzy.

But still. That was the day Brittany learned the most important fashion lesson of all, incidentally another quote about the “ridiculous,” by Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. And my justification for shunning stinky velvet dress in lieu of a breathable tee.

The quote: “People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.”

Instead of step shoes this weekend, I’ll be stomping in my Docs. Celebrating the circle of fashion, and the Salmon of the Sublime and Ridiculous.

We all look stupid in skinny jeans

Striped socks, funky skirt from The Ritz - it's Fashion Under the Flatirons. ( Jonathan Castner)

I promise ye this: Some day, we will look back at jeggings and laugh. Big, wild, side-aching, tear-inducing guffaws.

That day is today.

Come on, World. Can't you see that jeggings (leggings with denim-print fabric, complete with painted-on pockets and fake zippers) are Pajama Jeans without the infomercial?

The pressure from the skinny-jeans trend has pushed otherwise fashionable women into dark, desperate places. Places with fake pockets and elastic waistbands. That's because skinny jeans are designed for 13-year-old emo boys, German technomeisters and Skeletor. Not women. And certainly not comfort.

I look stupid in skinny jeans. There. I said it. And you can admit it, too. The skin-tight legs force my calf flesh ever-upward until it inner tubes over the top of the waist. Skinny jeans make me look pointy toward the ankles, inaccurately thigh-heavy and they give me body-image issues I never knew I had before. That is because I have estrogen, and because this particular trend is not flattering for my shape.

And that is OK.

Part of fashion is honesty: recognizing and accepting what flatters and what flattens, what works and what is too much work. And sneaky Pajama Jeans trying to disguise themselves as designer denim is simply a lie.

Needless to say, my pointy feet were happy to see more wide-legged jeans and pants in the Fashion Under the Flatirons fashion show on March 10.

The second-annual show, organized by Downtown Boulder Inc., highlighted about 60 different outfits from downtown Boulder businesses.

"One of the things that is so great is it gives stores a chance to give a side of themselves that people might not know about," says Anna Salim, event manager. "For example, everyone knows The Ritz has costumes, but not everyone knows they have great boutiquey things that are really fashionable."

Or that Little Mountain Outfitters is one of the only stores in the state that specializes in outdoor clothing for kids -- despite the obvious perfect fit for a city like Boulder.

Terri Takata-Smith, director of marketing for Downtown Boulder, says the Pearl Street and surrounding area's 49-square blocks offer a wide range of prices, fashion tastes and hidden treasures

"It is a one-stop shop that isn't your typical mall," she says.

Here are a few spring and summer trends to look forward to, according to Kathy King with Barbara & Company, 1505 Pearl St., which featured several outfits in the show:

Tops: Look for doleman sleeves, which are full sleeves that are wide at the armhole but narrow at the wrist. Also look for drapey georgette-style tops with a slight '70s feel.

Accessories: "Multimedia" scarves, with multiple fabrics, patterns and accents, like beading and roping. Multi-strand, long necklaces with leather cords and ivory, turquoise and silver charms.

Colors: Bright corals, oranges and bright pinks, as well as every shade of blue. Even navy, but only with trendy clothes; otherwise, it looks too old.

Pants: Although skinny jeans are still in and will be strong for a while, wider-leg pants are on the horizon. Want to be ahead of the trends? Pick up some white linen pants with a softer leg. White is a great way to tone down the bright tops.