Haley paid me the ultimate compliment by saddling up next to me after church one Sunday to ask if I thought this dress was from the 70s. With its distinctive cut, print, fabric and a characteristic back tie at the neckline, there is no doubt that this is a 1970s original. I wore a very similar maxi when I was a high school freshman! Yes, maxis were all the rage in 1974. That’s one clear advantage of having life experience: I can date some garments with 100 percent confidence because I have lived and dressed through these eras!

Haley’s Goodwill excursion is proof that there are plenty of vintage bargains to be had for patient shoppers, willing to scour thrift stores. This one looks like it was custom made for Haley, the youngest in a gaggle of sisters, each one as charming, ladylike, and pretty as the next, which is no great surprise if you know their parents.

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

Today I’m drinking Blue Lady, also a gift. It makes me think of the first perfect tea service I drank from, arranged by our family friend Sue Philipak. It was blue and white with a little candle warmer underneath, served in the little breakfast nook of her Cape Cod house, an alternate home to me and my three brothers. Sue stopped by our house and had tea with my mother nearly every afternoon on her way home from teaching art. That was no doubt the highlight of Mom’s day (and also ours) because Sue was always sun and light, inside and out. After painting my mother’s portrait, Sue named it Blue Lady, just like my tea. So here I am with my Blue Lady tea, remembering the time I was sitting on Sue’s lap, looking through the Sears and Roebuck catalog when an earthquake struck and we all ran outside.

What do you do to make the world slow down?

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

Consider Sarah, a Southern Belle who sang Pennies from Heaven as we finished dinner at the Bombay Club in the French Quarter on Thursday night. She struck three heavenly chords with me. 1) She’s a yoga teacher like me. 2) She plays the guitar like my Dad. 3) She was wearing a pink vintage dress with red shoes—a combination that symbolizes All Things Bright and Beautiful to me. Her voice was a silky blend of Doris Day steeped in Billie Holiday and she transported me to a magical place that still seems like heaven. Doesn’t she look like a perfect angel, strumming her guitar?

Then there’s Zara, the hotel clerk who was strutting her stuff in a Derby Day Hat on Saturday morning when I came stumbling down to the lobby of the Gretna Holiday Inn in search of coffee. Have I mentioned that going to the Kentucky Derby in a ridiculously spectacular hat is on my bucket list? You have to have spunk to wear a hat like Zara’s. Otherwise, people just look at you like you’re touched. Like a little angel, Zara salvaged a day’s worth of faxes that were sent from our home office to the hotel. Sounds simple, but her colleagues had failed on that mission the day before, causing a considerable amount of grief for my husband. How grateful we were to her!

Last (but not least) is Belva Howell, a southern belle of the very highest order, even though she hails from Buffalo, New York. After marrying our good friend Bob Howell and settling in Gretna, Louisiana where he was born and raised, Bel’s name was surely placed on God’s roll call of southern hostesses. For the past 45 years, she and Bob shuttled friends like us around New Orleans, showing us the sites from a very personal point of view. When Bel died a few weeks ago, Bob lost the love of his life, a fact that no one who knew them could overlook.  Loving them as we do, we couldn’t imagine the depth of his grief or what we could say to help him. And so we planned a trip.

Even in grief, God grants some people such grace. Bob shuttled us around as he always has, introducing us to sites still unseen and sharing pictures of the two of them in younger days. When he met us on Saturday morning for our parting breakfast, he was carrying this little angel as a gift, part of Bel’s considerable collection of angels and one of the first to leave their home. I carried it home in my purse and hung it in my office on a little antique lamp that once belonged to my husband’s grandmother.

It must have been impossibly hard for him to part with this angel, but every time I see it, I will think of their marriage.  Describing their secret, Bob put it this way: “There is no longer an “I” when you marry. There’s only “we” with plenty of room for individuality.” We’ll always be grateful for Bob and Bel for sharing their great love with us and prodding us on to higher ground in marriage. Who is your favorite married couple?

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

This is not a petty catfight. It’s a matter of great significance to people who suspect Rosen’s comments reveal a thinly-veiled truth about how women are viewed in our culture. Most politically astute people have learned to suppress their scorn for women and their work, but that doesn’t keep it completely out of sight.

Rosen’s unusual boldness placed her thoughts in full view. That created an inconvenient distraction to her work. That’s why she wants the offended to move along as quickly as possible. Here’s my response to that:

No, Ms. Rosen, words matter. You have chosen your subject. If you were bold enough to say it, then let’s not change the subject quite so soon. I would like to help you understand why this is not a phony war for women by giving you some anecdotal evidence.

I just finished Ernest Hemingway's book, A Moveable Feast. Next on the list: The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of Hadley Hemingway's life with the famous author.

Let’s begin with Hadley Hemingway, who was cast aside like a dirty ashtray when her husband met for long conversations with artists like Gertrude Stein, although Hadley was of far superior character than Ernest Hemingway and many of his contemporaries. (That’s not my opinion. Ernest Hemingway said it himself.) If an educated, informed woman in a visible public role is not a credible voice on the subject of women and the economy because of the fact that her main job has been raising children, then we haven’t come all that far since Hadley Hemingway was sidelined from discussions that interested her. Women still have a problem making their voices heard today.

Let’s talk about the young mother I met this week who recently decided to set aside her career to care for her eight-month-old son. Her replacement hasn’t even been hired yet and she’s already feeling ostracized by her professional peers and worried about the future of her career. Women are often forced to make difficult choices about their careers and endure criticism no matter what decision they make.

Let’s talk about a Mom I met last night at the gym, who patiently steered her five-year-old toward self-control following his dispute with another child. “I use to work 15-hour days as a corporate attorney at one of the biggest law firms in town,” she said. “Being a full-time Mom is far and away harder than being an attorney. There’s so much riding on it.” Raising children is intricate, demanding work.

Let’s talk about the countless mothers we all know, trying to juggle work and a family life. They are criticized as high-maintenance employees when they request flexibility to deal with a sick child or leave early for a school event. They privately wonder whether they are doing the right thing for their families. The galleries are full of spectators ready to seed a working mother’s doubts about the quality of her parenting. Working mothers walk an exceedingly high tightrope.

Let’s talk about my mom and how little respect she got from people outside our family and friends. At one of her class reunions during the 1970s, a former classmate asked what she did. She answered that she was a full-time mom and caretaker of a home with four children. His reply: “Don’t you feel like a parasite?” As far as I can tell, Mom lived at least two decades of her life without doing a single thing out of self-interest. And this was the respect she earned for that? Observing these and other injustices, I reasoned at an early age that motherhood might not be a good choice for me. It’s not the only reason I didn’t have children, but it was an underlying factor.

So I chose a path that seemed more likely to generate respect. To her credit, my mother encouraged me as I pursued a career. That worked out fairly well for me through my twenties and thirties if you subtract the occasional implication that I was (by nature) a selfish person because I was not a mother. People sometimes hinted or said that I didn’t have my Godly priorities straight because I hadn’t taken this role. But I pressed on, confident and happy with my choice.

Then came a surprising twist. In my mid-forties, I decided to make my own career part-time and secondary to my husband’s for many reasons that made perfect sense to us. When I left the corporate charge, I began to notice how quickly I was blown-off by young women working in business roles similar to the ones I occupied while they were still in diapers. As far as they knew, I had always been a lowly librarian, a role that seems to rank equally low on a value scale with motherhood. These women would much rather talk to my husband about how he started his business. What could we possibly have in common?

When I was no longer chalking up business experience and meeting “important people” on my own, there was a remarkable decline in my personal charisma. Even close friends did not hesitate to show their disdain. A friend might interrupt me mid-sentence, holding up a finger to silence me while straining to hear some startling observation my husband was making across the dinner table. Or, after asking me what I had been up to and getting an explanation that was less impressive than a corporate job description, another might say that SHE had ALWAYS worked. The subtext, of course, was that my work did not count. One thing I’m certain of: my husband and I are the only people who know exactly how I contribute by dividing myself between our family-owned business and part-time work elsewhere.

Are you with me so far, Ms. Rosen? Do you still think this is a phony war? It seems pretty authentic to me. This is the full range of options available to women: we can choose full-time motherhood and be scorned; we can pursue a career path and be scorned; or we can choose a middle way and be scorned. That leaves us with a classic conundrum of conflicts. It’s like Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, but if you’re a woman, you can never leave this place of judgment. Or can you?

This post wasn’t really for Ms. Rosen. It’s for you. Here’s all I know about the subject: When deciding the direction for your life, go to your room, close the door and pray about it. The answer may not come definitively or soon. Discuss it with your closest family. Make your choice and live your life with your head held high, whatever you decide. This is the United States of America. Remember? We have freedom to make choices. Every choice has an upside and a downside.

Take it a step further. Resolve not to judge people on the basis of what they do for a living. When the inevitable happens and you feel the slap of judgment, be resolute: these people may know you, but they don’t know you well enough to judge what’s right for you or your family. Who will live the life you were intended to live while you’re over there living the one someone else wants for you? And who, by the way, is minding your judge’s life, while he or she is living yours?

No matter who you are, a day will come when you will see that your life’s work is more than the job you choose or the important people you know. Whether you’re rocking the corporate world or rocking your baby, you’ll realize that life is too precious to worry about what someone else thinks of you.

That day may hit you when you’re caring for a sick parent, grieving the death of a friend, raising money for your library, mentoring a disadvantaged child, teaching a Sunday school class, helping in your child’s classroom, or organizing a family reunion; but it will come.

At that moment, you may reach the happy and wise conclusion that former First Lady Barbara Bush has: “Women who work are wonderful. Women who stay home are wonderful. Whatever.”

P.S. I accept your apology, Ms. Rosen.

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

I'm confused, but not about my role in life. Is this print snakeskin? A little too large, but I love this double-breasted coat. I hope this is the last vintage coat I'll be wearing until next fall!

I just finished this making this retro jacket from the 1960s. Between work and other hobbies, it only took me three months to finish it. If you'd like to try making it yourself, the pattern is Simplicity 2154.

There are lots of things about the 1950s that are unenviable. But listening to John Updike describe family life during that era, you can’t help but wonder whether there were a few offsetting perks that made those times terribly happy. In a radio interview with National Public Radio host Terry Gross, Updike made it sound like a job in the 1950s was just something you did between social engagements and hobbies.

As a professional hobbiest (is that an oxymoron?) that seems enviable to me. Bouncing back and forth between my work and my hobbies, I’ve never had the time to master anything I do strictly for fun. But in the arc of my life, it doesn’t make my hobbies any less valuable.

Two reasons everyone needs a hobby

Hobbies bless you with friends. If you have lots of hobbies, you’ll have lots of really meaningful friendships. Where we would be without friends who share our agony over missing a putt for birdie, our passion for a great or terrible book, our triumph in finishing a difficult garment, our suffering over writer’s block, or our frustration over not being able to hold yoga’s balancing half moon? These shared experiences help us know the hearts and minds of others. How can you estimate what that’s worth?

Hobbies are meditation. Whether it’s a job that demands too much or too little, a betrayal by a friend or loved one, or a personal or professional failure, life can disappoint. When these things happen, you can lose yourself in a book. There you might meet someone who suffered and triumphed after a grander betrayal than yours. Maybe you can’t make someone love you, but you can calibrate your swing at 90 yards with a nine iron. Perhaps your employer restricts you to a tiny sphere of influence, but you can write a blog post that adds value to a larger community. Your arthritis may be excruciating, but the vast frontier of learning music may divert your mind for hours. While you are engrossed in your passions, you are in a form of divine union, unshackled by life’s problems and disappointments.

We’re living in times when success at work is the dominant yardstick for measuring one’s worth. Here’s wishing you the courage and determination to give work its due without sacrificing the bonds of friendship and the union of meditation.

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

It seemed safe betting on another month of winter late in February. But spring came early in central Indiana and it looks like it’s here to stay. Here’s one last shot to bid goodbye to winter, a vintage Pendleton blazer from the 1970s. It reminds me very much of one I had in junior high. When it comes to maintaining wool, keeping them immaculately free from dust, perfume and body oils is the name of the game.

Here’s how I protect my wool garments from insect damage:

Brush after every wearing

Dry clean before storing for winter

Hang cedar chips next to bagged wool garments

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

I wouldn’t have known about it except for the fact that the burglars actually hired me. On my third day of work, I opened my new employer’s house publication (the one I’d been hired to write and edit) and found work I wrote for a previous employer. It was exactly the same content except for a subtle swap of named professions to make it at home in its new environment.

Here, I must give the thieves props: they apologized for their ethical lapse, lamenting that they should have sought my permission. I was flabbergasted by the apology for two reasons: 1) because the content was so uniquely crafted for the original audience that it seemed like a blatant insult to simply transfer the same words to a different group of people and 2) because it wasn’t my place to grant permission even if they had asked. The work belonged to my previous employer. How sorry I was for leaving. But there I was, three days into a new job and I couldn’t turn back; I had trained my replacement.

I could see that we had nothing in common and that I wouldn’t last long in such a place. It was one of those events with the legs to inform how you think for a very long time. All these years later, I know that their decision was unethical, but I finally see it through the gentler lens of someone who has made many mistakes.

When we think our backs are against a wall (whether that’s true or not) we sometimes do things that will later make us ashamed. We’ll strive in any number of unholy ways. Among them is taking credit for something we didn’t do or becoming defensive when someone tries to take something precious.

The reality is that few of life’s truly precious things can be stolen. I loved the people I wrote about. At the time, I thought my appreciation made what I wrote about them sacred. That was wrong. Only the love was sacred. Love can’t be stolen or pretended. Only the real thing will do. Everyone has to go out and get their own love. In hindsight, having my work ripped off seems more like a gloved compliment now. Naturally, I still wish my idea had been reinvented in a new way for an audience who deserved to have something unique composed about them. It would have been better that way for everyone.

Reinvention Rocks (or is it really that old?)

Have you ever noticed how often a brand new idea actually goes back to an old idea? When I saw this tweed coat at an auction, it was identified with the 1940s. I thought, “Yeah, right.” Despite the obvious 1940s styling, I couldn’t help suspecting it was really from a later era revisiting something earlier, as fashion often does. But once I studied it, I realized the 1940s claim was plausible.

Here’s why. The first time I wore this vintage coat, I reached to close my car door and felt the lining rip, an audible sign of its age and fragility. Ooops. Other telltale signs were the tags, which show the coat is made of tweed loomed in Great Britain. By the 1950s, Great Britain had grown into the world’s largest exporter of wool. Considering the textile industry’s role in Great Britain’s economic recovery after World War II, it’s probable that this coat was made in the late 1940s during that climb.

That’s supported by another tag revealing the store that sold the coat, Dickson and Ives. This Orlando, Florida department store was founded by two Georgia entrepreneurs who got their start in business following Florida’s severe economic downturn known as the Great Freeze of 1894-95. Henry Dickson opened a printing business in Atlanta, but left it in 1887 to move to Orlando where he sold feed and fertilizer. A few years earlier, Georgia native Sidney Ives also moved to Orlando to open a grocery business.

The two men formed a partnership in 1897 and consolidated their businesses in a larger store, allowing them to grow into other products like grain. With their prosperity came new ventures including a department store and the sale of stock in the thriving Dickson-Ives Company. By 1914 the Dickson-Ives department store was successful enough that the two merchants renovated the store’s building and closed their grocery business.

Dickson-Ives Company was reorganized as Dickson and Ives in 1944. The first non-family member to run the company bought a majority interest in 1949 and sold it in 1958. Without the family’s influence, Dickson and Ives began to flounder. It went out of business in 1965.

For all these reasons, I figure this vintage gem may have kept some Orlando tourist warm about the time Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan. Everyone who has seen this coat imagines how warm it must be. It’s actually lightweight tweed, perfect for the mild weather we’re having.

Here’s to great ideas made into new and better ideas!

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

Nothing was off limits, from details of their sexual lives to the abundant use of the “F” word and other obscenities that many people still find offensive. (Shall I mention that these two were total strangers to each other when they sat down together?) As my husband and I de-boarded the bus in Indianapolis, I felt I had definitive proof that it is possible to receive a formal education and still not be educated.

The Chicago Cultural Center was built 100 years ago as a Civil War memorial and the first Chicago Public Library.

One of the best parts of traveling is to open the mind and know the world’s people and realities, tragic or excellent. A day after our return, my mind is brimming with memories of Chicago’s homeless people, two clueless college students, and their equally sad contemporaries, a 30-something couple who stared into cell phones during the intermission of South Pacific, moments after hearing a soulful baritone belt out one of the most romantic tunes of all time, Some Enchanted Evening. Hardly a moment was devoted to basking in that beautiful ballad before they had thrust themselves back into the world of technology. If this happens often enough, won’t it influence our humanity?

Fortunately, we all have abundant access to a powerful antidote for what’s wrong with the world. Part of what puts it right again for frail human beings is art, literature, and culture—but only if we’re willing to wade in and sort it out for ourselves. Never say, for example, that you don’t care for a particular form of art. Say instead that you haven’t yet found someone who could make you feel passionate about it. I formed that opinion this weekend after visiting the Roy Boyd Gallery in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.

On the morning after its opening reception, my husband and I met someone who could give us just such an introduction to Eminent Domain, a show of semi-abstract paintings by one of Chicago’s most important artists, William Conger. Conger is known for the three-dimensional feel of his landscapes, which fit together like jigsaw puzzles, including earth, sky, water and rock.

Our guide was gallery co-owner Ann Taylor Boyd, a petite brunette in her early 70s. Ann is originally from Terre Haute, Indiana where my husband and I both attended college. As a child of two musicians, she grew up in a household surrounded by music and musicians and studied music herself at my alma mater, Indiana State University.

I’m standing a little taller this morning, knowing that Ann and I were educated in the same space. As she explained Conger’s work and we compared notes about Terre Haute, her brown eyes were lit with warmth and vitality. I would have followed Ann anywhere, trusting her to lead me to a higher plane. Doesn’t she cut a spectacular figure in this fushia jacket? (I think she said it was purchased on a trip to China.) Her beads are made of ivory.

Ann is a  portrait of what a life well invested can do for one’s face, not to mention the world at large. I’m reconsidering abstract art because of Ann. And I’m grateful for the jolt of inspiration I found in her way of life. While some people her age are roaming from casino to casino, she and her husband lead a busy life steeped in art, theatre, ideas and young people. Their minds are lively and open because they’ve kept them that way.

If you’re visiting Chicago, be sure to give these gallery tours a try. You’ll meet gracious gallery owners like the Boyds who remove the intimidation factor of visiting a gallery. You’ll experience art in a private setting where you can reflect on what you see. The tours meet in other neighborhoods, but our favorite is the River North Tour, meeting every Saturday 11am-12:30pm, at 750 N. Franklin, inside Starbucks.

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

I would like to think that they would be glad to see them worn and appreciated the way I will. But I’ve known too many depression-era babies to assume that. I think the philosophy went something like this: once gained, an item might never be feasibly replaced, and therefore it must be forever preserved, even at the expense of never wearing it. One or both of these ladies might have winced to see them with jeans and boots. For my part, I can only say this: when I am dead, I hope some lively person will find some of my better things, love them, and give them new life. That’s not all that I hope for, but that’s all I’m willing to mention here!

Here’s the story on these coats

The first coat (in burnt red velvet) was designed by Marguerite Rubel and still had the tags hanging on it. It had never been worn! Rubel was a member of the San Francisco Fashion Industries, established in 1920. From her biography, you can deduce that she was something of a trailblazer. A product of the Great Depression, Rubel grew up on a farm in Iowa and moved to San Francisco in the 1940s to join the Woman’s Auxiliary Service Pilots. When her flight training was over, pilots were no longer needed.

Rubel turned to dressmaking and custom sewing for work while working as a waitress and attending school to learn pattern making. By 1945, her career in fashion began to flourish after she designed a popular raincoat worn by international visitors meeting in San Francisco. The purpose of the meeting? To establish the charter known today as the United Nations.

Although this coat is made of velvet, it is intended for wear as a raincoat. It’s made of de Ball True Velvet, a water-repellant fabric manufactured by the J.L. de Ball  of America, Ltd. Established in 1963, the company specializes in velvets and corduroys.

The label and other research indicates it was probably made in the late 1960s. From the tags, I can see that it was purchased at Ferris Brothers, a clothing store based in Saginaw, Michigan, where it did business from 1898 until somewhere around 1980.

There is almost nothing to indicate where the second coat originated. With its ginormous houndstooth print and today’s trend of solid colors in coats, it’s a real head turner. I love the pockets, the collar, and the large buttons. Great with jeans, brown boots and a hat.

Always be on the lookout for great vintage coats. They wear like iron and you’ll see many that have been delicately cared for!

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.

Sujei, in her trademark look--black and white polka dots with red accents. Gee, I wonder if she is wearing Converse sneakers...

Meet one of the judges in the February Freedom Style Fest and Photo Contest

Ask Sujei Lugo what it was like to be named America’s Most Glamourous Librarian and you get an embarrassed giggle. “It was really like a joke my friends played on me,” said Sujei. Claiming to have no awareness of fashion, she insists the whole affair was a hoax. Try telling that to the avalanche of friends and followers who voted for her in the contest sponsored here last summer.

Since then, Sujei moved from her home in Puerto Rico to Boston, where she is working on a doctorate in library science at Simmons College. Her concentration is collection development and class/gender studies in children’s literature. As someone with a serious mind and a modest nature, discussing fashion with Sujei reveals something about her likeability: she is completely comfortable with herself, but not quite comfortable with such a frivolous theme. Despite her self-proclaimed apathy for style, she admits to an academic interest in clothing worn by characters in children’s literature and what it may say about gender and class stereotyping.

Sujei fell in love with libraries while she was studying to be a doctor. One of her best decisions, she said, was abandoning medicine for librarianship. As a post-graduate student on a tight budget, Sujei is a huge fan of thrift and vintage shopping. “Once I discovered thrifting, I’ve never gone back to shopping retail,” she said. Her favorite discoveries are the $2 dresses she gets at a thrift store in Puerto Rico. “I just love getting compliments on them, knowing how little I paid.”

What are the trademarks of your personal style?

Well, I’m always on the move, so I prefer low shoes. I wear my Converse sneakers with everything. I always want to have one thing that’s going to be the eye-catching piece. I really don’t like a lot of things happening at the same time. There’s always a basic piece that’s the focus of every outfit. I love short dresses and they work well with my long legs. I like a lot of solids and black and white polka dots. I’m not big on color, but I love using a dash of color–usually red–with cardigans, shoes, and earrings. I also wear small prints to add an element of surprise. From a distance, they look serious and understated, but when you get close, you find it’s something whimsical like a print with giraffes, whales, or the Big Ben Clock Tower.

Where do you draw inspiration about styling yourself?

A look from one of Sujei's favorite films.

I don’t read fashion blogs or magazines. I like to watch a lot of movies and maybe I get inspiration from some of my favorite films by the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. His films typically feature women as the main characters. They wear slim pants and t-shirts, but also short, mod dresses with lots of polka dots, stripes and geometric prints. The haircuts are part of the style. Those films have some wonderful looks that I’ve imitated.

Combining two loves: after deciding to become a librarian, Sujei got this tattoo of a librarian from the 1930s. She looks a little French, no?

Do you have any favorite eras that you like in vintage clothes?

I love the hair and clothes from the 30s, 50s and 60s. I love the 30s so much that I have a tattoo of a librarian from the 1930s.

Where do you shop?

In Boston, I shop The Garment District. They have an amazing variety, so there’s something there for everyone. Buffalo Exchange is one of my favorites. I also like the Goodwill on Davis Square. When I’m in Puerto Rico, I visit Electro Shop. They buy, sell and trade vintage clothing and records. I love music and I buy a lot of vinyl records. One of my best friends lives in Kansas City and I recently bought a cute dress at Donna’s Dress Shop that I love.

What do you like about vintage and thrift shopping?

I like finding unique things and I feel good about supporting local businesses. I can afford higher quality when I shop vintage or thrift.

What’s your best kept secret about styling yourself?

I think fit is everything. I buy things and either alter them or take them to a tailor to get a perfect fit. When you’re not spending much money, you can afford to have a few alterations made. I also think that people ignore hair too much. A hair style should be part of your outfit. I recently cut mine very short and I just love the convenience of it.

What is your philosophy about style?

I think styling yourself depends completely on your body type and your personality. There is really no such thing as age or gender appropriate fashion. People should wear what they feel comfortable in at all times. There should be no boundaries. I like clothes that challenge gender stereotypes with color and style. A shirt with a tie on a woman can be beautiful and I think men look great in pink.

Sujei will join Ingrid Henny Abrams as one of the judges for the Freedom Style Fest and Photo Contest. If you haven’t entered yet, get a move on! We’re accepting entries through the end of February. Check here for details about how to enter!

Life is short. Wear the good stuff.