Tips on How To Stay Warm and Stylish During Winter

Colorful Scarves and Bold Lipstick

A colorful scarf will brighten up a winter coat and add personality to any outfit. Bold Lipstick is also a great way to add color to your dark winter palette. This looks even better when coordinated with your accessories,like the ladies above have done.

Turn Your Scarf into an Elegant Head Wrap

You can stay warm by simply wrapping your scarf around your head in an artful manner. Your scarf can be turned into a elegant and playful headwrap or turban!

Sunglasses and Accessories

Sunglasses aren't only for the summer months. Wear a unique pair of shades to block out the glare on a snowy day, and add some pizazz and glamour to a winter look. Instead of putting on a dark pair of gloves to match your winter coat, try something colorful. Bangles and Pins are also excellent ways to spruce up your winter wear.

If you are afraid of appearing to bulky in your winter coat, try something that belts at the waist. You might also want to try wearing thin layers of sweaters under a coat which may already have heavy shoulder pads and weight. This way you can monitor how much bulk you are adding, while staying warm and cozy.

Winter Coats Don't Have to Be Boring

Who says that winter coats have to be dark, bulky and boring. Try a vintage coat with some personality to add charm to your cold weather clothing. The woman above wears legging and fun tennis shoes instead of bulky pants and boots. Make sure you wear warm socks and undergarments if you decide to go this route.

Go Classic

The other day Mary shared her tips on how to stylish and warm during the cold winter months.

One of the benefits of being older, is being able to choose from items that you have collected throughout the years. Put on that coat, scarf, or hat that you have had for years and not only will you remember the great times you have shared while wearing this treasured item, but you will be right in style. Style comes from within, so if you feel good, you will look good. If you are younger, you may have the benefit of borrowing one of your grandparents' coats, if not stop by a local thrift store and pick the coat that speaks to you. Remember to feel comfortable in what you are wearing and stay warm in the upcoming weeks!

Manhattan El Dorado

[Image: The New York Federal Reserve Bank; photo by Friends of the Pleistocene].

I have linked to the ongoing series of "Geologic City Reports" released every few weeks by the excellent blog Friends of the Pleistocene—which, having launched back in January, receives my vote for Best New Blog of 2010—but the newest installment, #9, is worth singling out. In it, F.O.P. tour the gold reserve vaults of Manhattan.

The New York Federal Reserve bank "is a place where humans have encased geology within geology. They’ve unfolded and refolded stratifications of limestone, sandstone, iron and gold so they could put the gold on the inside—where it can be hyper-protected because of its high, human-assigned value." Think of it as a kind of metallurgical Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

The authors go on to describe the actual, physical sale of gold bars as "a human-scale chess game playing out in the basement of New York with elemental geology as the pawns."

While you're at it, "Geologic City Reports" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are all worth reading, as well.

(Earlier on BLDGBLOG: City of Gold).

Crystal Furnace in Space

[Image: The crystal growth furnace; courtesy of NASA].

This isn't news, but my days are made fractionally better by the knowledge that there is a "crystal growth furnace" birthing new geological forms in microgravity aboard the International Space Station.

[Image: Another view of the crystal growth furnace; courtesy of NASA].

"The Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) furnace, which was derived from earlier shuttle models," NASA explains, "can grow zeolites, zeotype titanosilicate materials, ferroelectrics, and silver halides—all materials of commercial interest. The unit consists of a cylinder-shaped furnace, the Improved Zeolite Electronic Control System (IZECS), which includes a touchpad and data display as well as autoclaves. Two precursor growth solutions are placed into each autoclave, which mix during their stay in the furnace."

In the end, though, this research comes down to fossil fuels: "Zeolites form the backbone of the chemical processes industry, and virtually all the world's gasoline is produced or upgraded using zeolites. Industry wants to improve zeolite crystals so that more gasoline can be produced from a barrel of oil, making the industry more efficient and thus reducing America's dependence on foreign oil."

[Image: Terrestrial and nonterrestrial zeolites compared, courtesy of NASA].

First, "the furnace heats up and crystals start to form, or nucleate," monitored only occasionally by the crew, while a "payload team on the ground" watches these crystals, like something out of a Charles Stross novel, "via download telemetry." Otherwise, "with the exception of loading the autoclaves into the furnace and turning the switch on, the crystal growth experiment operations are unattended by the crew."

Rare and unattended postgeological forms take shape in engines quietly aflame in space, new hearths for future astronauts, like William Blake gone Ballardian in earth orbit, cultivating crystal trays, supervised telemetrically by an audience far below.

[Image: More comparative space crystallography, courtesy of NASA].

In fact, there was an article seven years ago in New Scientist about cosmonauts running plasma-crystal experiments aboard the International Space Station, studying a type of matter that is atomically parked somewhere between liquid and solid: "Although the consistency of the [plasma] crystals is something like a viscous fluid, their internal structures closely resemble the atomic lattices seen in conventional solids."

But what's particularly interesting is that "one of the cosmonauts was so intrigued" by this strange new material form that "he decided to do extra experiments in his private sleep time"—a statement phrased perhaps deliberately vaguely, as if the writer was unable to resist this exquisite vision of obsessive-compulsive cosmonauts so intent on building crystals in space that they have found a way to do so even while dreaming.

Air Hive

[Image: From "Microclimates" by PostlerFerguson].

These air-cooling hives made from "3D-printed sand" and designed by PostlerFerguson have been rendered a bit too glossily for my taste, but I love the idea: each unit has "a complex internal structure whose large internal surface area efficiently conditions air passing through it by evaporative cooling. Each cooling tower is made from 3D-printed sand using technology developed by D-Shape."

[Images: From "Microclimates" by PostlerFerguson].

The designers refer to the work as "not just an installation, but a building language that can be reused again and again to create new public spaces." Roads, piazzas, buildings, halls, rooms, architectural ornament—adding non-electrical air-cooling technology to the built environment on a huge variety of scales and conjuring up images of 3D-printed sandstone ornamental cornices on buildings being used to cool urban streetscapes.

[Image: From "Microclimates" by PostlerFerguson].

In some ways, purely on the level of material similarities, this might remind readers of the work of Magnus Larsson, featured here last summer, in which it was proposed that landscape-scale architectural forms in the African desert could be "printed" into existence via bacterial-injection machines (read the original proposal for more information).

[Images: From "Microclimates" by PostlerFerguson].

But the very different aesthetic here, and the functional purpose of using hives of 3D-printed sand as a way of generating thermally advantageous microclimates in the city, offers an interesting direction for the surprising popularity today of architectural projects involving stabilized sand.

(Spotted via Dezeen).

Why "Old" Is Not a Bad Word

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day going to galleries with my lovely friend Mary. In the videos above she explains how to stay stylish and warm during the winter and why being called "old" is a compliment. She looks wonderful in her stylish dark coat, which she accessorizes with purple gloves and a vintage Iradj for Oscar de la Renta runway pin. How do you guys feel about being called "Old", doesn't it mean EXPERIENCED, WISE, ADVANCED, ENDURING, ESTABLISHED, and MATURE !

90 Is The New 40

I know I shoot several people over and over, but I can't get enough of Ilona Royce Smithkin. At 90 years old she is busier than ever, performing her "Eyelash Cabaret" act a few times a month and getting together with her network of amazing friends.The truth is I become friends with the people I photograph and we get to spend a lot of time together. Ilona and I talk a few times a week, we go over our current projects and she offers me great advice and onion soup.

Ilona is always up for participating in creative projects. I had to do a photo essay for my photography class, so I decided to do a day in the life of Ilona. She proves that age is just a state of mind and 90 really is the new 40! I hope you enjoy this small selection from my assignment.

Always Animal Print

I saw the lady above walking around my neighborhood in her adorable animal print trimmed shoes and matching scarf. Animal print never seems to go out of style with New York's most glamorous silver haired fashionistas. Take a cue from these ladies and put on some leopard print and hit the town.