Socialite, fashion designer Esther Nash is a graduate of FIT, and has attended and received several scholarships to the top schools of design in New York. My head was spinning when she listed her credentials. I found it even more intriguing when she told me that she used to model, was a gymnast, and was also a ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet for 5 years. She has appeared in several television shows, movies, and commercials including Law & Order and Lift. And her designs have been featured on Sex in the City.

Candice Held is an LA-based designer who creates one-of-a-kind pieces from recycled scarves. She puts pieces together from hand-woven, hand-laundered scarves. She defines the Candice woman as fun, feminine, vibrant, and liking to have a good time. Her spring/summer collection is about the first bloom of spring when the flowers come out; and the heat of summer, which inspired her “hot air balloon” print.

Sympathy for the Kettle is not your typical tea retailer. It was started back in December 2003 in the East Village in New York City. Jodi Holiday purchased the initially dark and bankrupt Korean tea room and its business, learned the art of tea, and created a whole new tea experience. She experienced tea while living in Germany and traveling through Denmark, France, and Holland. That’s when she made the switch from European coffee to tea layered in herbs and dried fruit.

(Written by Kaylene Peoples)

The trick to weight loss is simply to use up more energy than you take in (food and stored fat are energy). Now, you first have to make sure you don’t eat less than your body’s safety point, called your BMR. This is basically how many calories you would burn if you were to just sit for a 24-hour period.

(A new column by fitness trainer/nutritionist Anthony Heredia)

Your body doesn’t care what you look like. It doesn’t care what car you drive, what job you have, what designer name you’re wearing; who you know, what style is in fashion, what color hair you have, or even who you married. Your body has better things to worry about like, hmmm, survival.

A 90-year-old man—or is he 93?—narrates the story of his one summer as a veterinarian with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth during the summer of 1931 in depression-era America. Jacob Jankowski resides in an assisted living home with other elderly people, many of whom require more medical attention than he. He is quite mentally astute for his age, yet because of his age, most of the people in charge of the facility treat him as mentally incompetent, all but Rosemary, a forty-seven-year-old nurse, who treats him and the rest of the patients/residents with the loving care, dignity, and respect they deserve as human beings.

(Reviewed By Lee L. Peoples)

It’s difficult to remain in a bubble these days with so many threats of war in places like Iran, the Congo, Iraq…. I wonder if most people feel as I do: Enough with the news already. Let’s just listen to the radio. And we can go on and on, with no information, believing that we are all O.K.; it’s only those people in Iraq, Palestine, and other regions like the Congo who suffer.

But don’t we all suffer from the plague of war?
(Written by Lisa A. Trimarchi)

I never buy a blouse, a pair of earrings, or hot heels to wear in just one style. Whether the cost of the item is $10 or $100, it is still an investment that I take seriously. It’s a wardrobe purchase either way! So when it came to my recent buy, an orangeish-red, long-sleeved top from Target, I decided to show the various ways to wear it in front of a group of men and women.

(Written by Elana Pruitt)

In an industry that caters to smaller sized women, Devon Ball has pioneered a line of active and leisure wear that is not only flattering but promotes healthy body image and positive attitudes.

Rachel Pally’s designs have been featured in countless magazines, and have become favorites among celebrities. Pally launched her collection back in 2004 at Los Angeles Fashion Week, and that collection has gained the momentum of a snowball rolling downhill ever since. She has discovered the formula which makes every woman look and feel feminine, no matter what her size.