Advanced Style: A Celebration of Life

Lina Plioplyte just sent me this wonderful video from our Fashion Week fête with Tavi Gevinson

and The Ace Hotel. What better way to celebrate life than an amazing party dedicated to marvelous women with great style and a tremendous zest for life? Fashion is only one ingredient in the remarkable lives of these inspiring ladies. Their spirit and vitality is the real key to living a truly stylish life.

"Develop Your Own Style Rather Than Going With Trends."

Most of the women I talk to agree that confidence and a great smile are one's best accessories. This woman looked smashing in her eye-catching red coat and matching dress, but it is her confidence that stands out more than anything.She explained that the secret to appearing fashionable is to,"Develop your own style rather than going with the trends." Check out the video above for some  more of her fashion tips.

A Stylish Mother and Daughter

I spotted this gorgeous 90 year old lady and her daughter at my hotel in Cancun. With everyone in bathing suits and shorts, it was a pleasure to see this well dressed pair. They were very excited to have their photo taken and told me that later on they'd both be in their finest for New Year's Eve. I asked the daughter if her mother is always so fashionable and she replied," She dresses up everyday, no matter what." I saw them later that night and they definitely didn't disappoint.

Vintage Kenneth Jay Lane

Bakelite bangles aren't the only popular accessory amongst the advanced style set. The lovely women above are all fans of Kenneth Jay Lane's elegant and inspired designs. The frogs are a personal favorite of mine -- which do you like the best?

Loop Geography as Defensive Tactic

In a fascinating detail from a long series of articles published two years ago in the Washington Post, recently expanded as a stand-alone book called Top Secret America, we learn about one way to hide classified government infrastructure in plain sight.

[Image: Photo by Michael S. Williamson, courtesy of The Washington Post].

"[J]ust outside Washington," authors Dana Priest and William Arkin explain, in the exurbs of depopulated office parks and "huge buildings with row after row of opaque, blast-resistant windows," there can be found what the authors describe as "the capital of an alternative geography of the United States, one defined by the concentration of top-secret government organizations and the companies that do work for them."

One such complex, called Fort Meade, "is the largest of a dozen such clusters across the United States."

And it is cleverly camouflaged:

The existence of these clusters is so little known that most people don't realize when they're nearing the epicenter of Fort Meade's, even when the GPS on their car dashboard suddenly begins giving incorrect directions, trapping the driver in a series of U-turns, because the government is jamming all nearby signals.

It's an experiential trap street—an infinite loop—a deliberate cartographic error introduced into the mapping of the world so as to sow detour and digression. A kind of digital baffling, or recursive geography as state defensive tactic.

I'm also curious when we might see this privatized and domesticated—gated communities, for instance, blocking the GPS navigation of their streets in the misguided belief that this will help protect them from future burglary, effectively delisting themselves from public cartographic records. Perhaps the future of neighborhood security lies in the privatized repurposing of advanced signal-jamming technology, the misleading lamination of other, false maps onto the streets as they really exist.

(Detail spotted via @doingitwrong and [thisisaaronland]).

Advanced Style Tips For The New Year

I wanted to start the New Year off right with some style tips from one of Advanced Style's favorite ladies. Rita has only gotten braver and bolder with age. Check out some great advice from this fantastic woman below and check out her wonderful CD HERE.

1.Everything doesn't have to match. I've gotten to a stage where I don't match things like I used to. I don't want to look like a freak, but as I get older I get more nerve.

2.As you get older you can take more chances. I am braver. I look at something once and if I like it, I'll take a chance.

3.Always try and bring out your best feature and don't let anyone tell you that you don't have a best feature!

4. Go shopping in your closet before throwing anything away.I save all my clothes.I have clothes that I have been wearing for ten to fifteen years. Try them on and if they still look good and you feel good in them,you can create new looks.

5.You can be very dressed and have a casual and relaxed look and it can be sensational.
Instead of buckling my raincoat, I'll tie it. It creates an effortless and elegant appearance.

6.Don't just wear a label, wear what looks good on you.I bought it Daffy's I bought it at Bergdorf's. It's just what hits you for the minute. I don't look for the most expensive thing.

7.Take a long look at yourself and create a beautiful silhouette.

8.Create your own style. You can wear trendy things once in a while, but wear what looks good on you.

9.I stay in good shape from aggravation-I love walking, walking is terrific!

10. Use make-up properly to highlight your best features. I love make-up and I love lipstick, I just don't want to wear too much.

The Baffler

[Image: From "Baffles and Bastions: The Universal Features of Fortifications" by Lawrence H. Keeley, Marisa Fontana, and Russell Quick, courtesy of the Journal of Archaeological Research (5 March 2007)].

In a paper called "Baffles and Bastions," published in the Journal of Archaeological Research, anthropologists Lawrence H. Keeley, Marisa Fontana, and Russell Quick offer a detailed history of militarized building design features such as "V-sectioned ditches, defended gates, and bastions."

All of the features they subsequently analyze occur at peripheries, borders, and thresholds. In their own words, "the militarily functional ditch and gate features and bastions discussed below, in fact and by definition, are all distinguished by being part of enceintes (that is, surrounding barriers or enclosures). Enceintes are barriers that prevent access to and, almost always, obscure vision of a particular location."

Their diagrams of "baffled" entryways, seen above, are particularly interesting—a kind of archaeological variation on floor plan porn—revealing the various techniques used to at fortified points of entry to gain an advantage over invaders. Through a navigational encounter with architecture, attackers are forced to show their vulnerabilities. "Baffled gates force attackers who enter them to expose their flanks and rear to defenders’ fire," the authors write. "Ideally, they require attackers to turn left exposing their unshielded right side. Left-turning baffles also were useful against (typically) right-handed bowmen."