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. 

Surely, this is what the Buddha meant by aesthetic, right?

Every day, my life forces me to practice wabi-sabi.

This Japanese concept is essentially the appreciation of flawed beauty. The acknowledgment that nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect -- and that very simplicity is profoundly fascinating and interesting.

Wabi-sabi is the green satin A-line skirt that my friend Laura sewed me for my 30th birthday.
It is the slightly scuffed-up pink pearl necklace I discovered at an estate sale. It is the wrinkles framing my eyes, the dirt on a freshly plucked carrot, the dried sweet potatoes on my daughter's left temple after a particularly enthusiastic dinner and the yellowing pages that break out of old books.

Wabi-sabi is a reminder that everything is fleeting, and that decay is woven into growth. Wabi-sabi is that which is asymmetrical, imperfect, incomplete and impermanent.

Which, incidentally, is how I would describe my husband's latest "creation."

My first encounter with this object was in the kitchen. For some reason, it was drying on the stovetop: a shiny silver 1-foot-tall statue of a flying hotdog on a triangular podium.
So many thoughts raced through my mind.

Oh, so many.

My emotions oscillated between confusion and delight, and then intense hope, that this special piece would not be our new roommate. For like a flying hotdog it did not look, but rather like a metallic banana in a thin bowl, or a fat snake inside a large contact lens, or fill in the blank with awkwardly phallic entities of corresponding shapes; please don't make me say it.

I was relieved when my husband explained that this statue would soon be awarded to his friend Jeff, who won the fantasy football recital show contest try-outs, or something involving sportive activities and thereby completely confusing to me. Turns out, the fake football troupe was called the Flying Hotdog Circus, and the statue was intended to be a spoof of the Lombardi Trophy. I didn't get the joke. But I did get that the manicotti tube in a clamshell would be leaving my house, so I smiled.

The next day, my husband had moved the trophy to the top of the refrigerator so the final layer of spray-paint could dry. The day after that, the trophy sat on the sidewalk in front of our house; another layer, for good luck.

A few days later, my husband came running in the house, moaning, "Oh no, oh no" like a little kid, juggling about 50 silver chunks. While adding yet another layer of paint, a corner of the base had crumbled off and the statue had toppled out of his hands onto the cement.

We would obviously have to super-glue it all back together, he explained. Obviously.

It took four tubes of epoxy, which my dad says can hold train cars together, but apparently not a clay hotdog wing. Five tubes. Two more layers of paint, now as structural support instead of aesthetic. By now, the trophy was missing many major components, the wings looked veiny with fault lines and the once-triangular base now resembled a tower of rubble.

I came home yesterday, and this time the statue was drying in the middle of the kitchen table. I went to move it so I could get ready for dinner.

Uh.

It didn't move.

That is when it came to my attention that my husband had accidentally super-glued the flying hotdog trophy to our kitchen table.

So many thoughts raced through my mind. Oh, so many.

Wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi. I repeated the words like a mantra, reminding myself to enjoy the flawed beauty that was now our dining centerpiece.

Asymmetrical. Imperfect. Incomplete.

But unfortunately, in this instance, God help me and have mercy on my soul, not impermanent.

Water-proof fashion

I am an earth sign, for Pete's sake.

That's my excuse as to why I've never been a fan of water. And by "not a fan, " I mean I used to be terrified to splash water on my face because I thought I was going to suffocate.

Maybe my water terror stems from a past life. More likely, from watching Stephen King's "It" at a young age in my friend's basement. Every horror flick -- "Psycho, " "Arachnophobia, " "From Dusk Til Dawn" -- seems to have a creepy shower scene.

So don't blame me that my skin care regime was a little less than spa-worthy until I got into college. In fact, I used to wash my face (but not eyes or I would be blind) with isopropyl alcohol.

You may know of what my father affectionately called IPA for its ability to remove hot glue and disinfect hospital needles. But as an antiseptic, it also kills all kinds of bacteria and fungi, which left my skin all but zit-free, even in puberty.

My father -- who also washes his hair with the same bar of soap he uses for showering, cleaning his hands, the dishes, the car and the counters -- introduced me to IPA. It worked as an almost-viable skin treatment, if you could get over the violent burning sensation, and the way it dried out my flesh to the point that I developed scales.

As I got older, I learned that a murderous clown was not going to crawl out of the drain, and I also learned that there were many other (non-burning) options to skin care.

There are many household objects you can use on your face (and I`m not talking about Drano).

Denver stylist Jenece Amella (www.stylesbyjenece.com) offers these summer skin care tips:
Strawberries -- If you`re sunburned, these are a great bleaching agent for hyperpigmentation and freckles. Throw strawberries in the blender and add some honey to help it stick together. Apply the strawberry mush to your face like a mask. It will sting a little (hey, I`m used to that), but it`ll reduce redness. Be careful if you have sensitive skin.

Tomatoes -- If your sunburn stings, pop open a can of tomatoes and spread them across your face. The acid in the tomatoes alleviates the burn. Amella learned this trick in Costa Rica.