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Having worked in the fashion industry since 1967, veteran designer Norma Kamali is taking a stand against female objectification in a new awareness campaign. On www.stopobjectification.com, she’s encouraging women to upload photos of their most powerful body parts, along with a caption explaining their strengths—and a chance to share their own objectification experiences with others.
One woman submitted a photo of her biceps, along with the caption “I can do more pushups than my husband”; another showed a close up of her eyes, along with “I survived an abusive mother to become a successful attorney, wife and mother.”
Kamali recounts her own objectification story in this video. “I was 18 and feeling totally out of power...I was so humiliated,” she recalls. She hopes with this campaign “...[we’re] creating awareness, we’re cleansing our souls and we’re becoming emotionally free of a series of incidents that have changed our behavior and affected our lives.”
| Photo: George Burns |
Love this table setting where Oprah chooses some of her Favorite Things for 2012? It was created by Tammy Carmona, owner of fine porcelain dishware company Carmona New York & Co, and veteran caterer and event planner. (And for all you Twihards out there, she also designed the set—down to the flowers and the dishes—for Edward and Bella’s wedding scene in Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1.) Here, she reveals her secrets for creating a beautiful table—and throwing a great holiday party.
Holiday entertaining
can be stressful. What do I need to know before I begin?
Know your theme, food selection, amount of people attending
and other items you want to have on display such as flowers or candles. If it’s
a holiday like Christmas and the red and green theme doesn’t work, have no fear—go
with an elegant brushed gold and white instead.
What sort of dishware should I use?
Look at your menu as a starting point. Our dinnerware styles
range from traditional to modern and funky; our challenge is to match each food
with the best dish by size, shape and placement. Remember: You want the presentation
to create excitement.
How do I make sure I don’t get stuck in the kitchen while my guests are mingling?
Keep it simple by limiting the number of dishes, so guests don’t get overwhelmed. Be prepared by placing good-sized portions on your serving dishes. When it comes to sweets, go for mini-desserts, which look less messy.
Any other tips?
Use flowers and candles to add to the ambiance—the lighting adds
to a festive look. Also, consider personalized napkins, which are a beautiful
finishing touch.
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The neighborhood of Hough, in Cleveland, is full of empty lots and boarded-up houses—just about the last place you'd expect to see a vineyard. But that's what you'll find at the corner of East 66th and Hough Avenue: 14 rows of third-year vines. The Traminette and Frontenac grapes to be harvested this fall will soon be bottled under the label Chateâu Hough.
This microappellation is the brainchild of 69-year-old Mansfield Frazier, who claims no enological expertise besides enthusiasm. ("I'm an expert at opening the bottle," he says.) Three years ago, when Cleveland chose to put $500,000 in federal money toward vacant land reuse, Frazier was one of the first residents to apply for a grant. But instead of proposing an urban farm or community orchard, he submitted an application to grow grapes for wine.
Frazier also hopes to open a winery in the historic firehouse down the street, and to build a biocellar—a deconstructed house that retains its basement and is capped with a solar roof, functioning as a subterranean greenhouse. If he can raise enough money to convert the old Victorian next to the vineyard into a biocellar, he'll train his crew to grow crops like shiitake mushrooms.
He has won the support of U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge, who has—thanks to his efforts—introduced a bill that would fund biocellars and urban viticulture projects. Whatever the future holds, Frazier is pleased to have come this far. "People drive by the vineyard and say, 'My son helped you build this!'" he says. "They have a real sense of pride in this project."
When "a small grey figure wearing a bright red foulard" disrupts the funeral for respected Parisian civil servant Léon Le Gall—father of three, grandfather of 12, great-grandfather of four—at the venerable Notre Dame Cathedral, a family secret unravels. Seventy-four years prior, in the spring of 1918, while cycling to his new job in the village of Deauville, Léon had spontaneously raced a gap-toothed girl on a rusty, squeaky bike. Despite her damaged equipment, the girl in question, a certain young Louise Janvier, soundly beat him. Thus began a bewitchment—and an unrequited, lifelong love story. A near-fatal explosion during World War I separated the two, and years passed until they found one another again, only to be separated by World War II, not to mention spouses, children and assorted other complications, including one with a delicate box of tartes aux fraises. Interestingly enough, it's not the anxiety of how these two will ever be reunited—you somehow just know they will—but the eccentric charm of the novel itself that keeps you tearing through the pages. Capus' light, playful touch makes everything feel as if touched by an invisible French-speaking Mary Poppins, whether he's poking fun at a busybody landlord eating calf liver with onion or spinning up a description of Louise's polka-dot blouse. What results is a winsome bonbon of a novel in which "The End" feels like an unexpected and unfairly realistic awakening.
