The skinny

Sometime between the fall shows and the first snow fall, I decided never to wear skinny jeans. The mutton-chop pant-leg look was not, after all, a look I wanted to go for, and so I sat on the sidelines as the leggings look trickled down from the catwalk to the sidewalk. I held out as A-, B-, then C-list celebs wore them, and even lasted through the first, second, third blast of merch in stores.

But weak from a "I'm going to L.A. and have nothing to wear" dilemma, I took to impulse shopping and bought a pair of black skinny-leg pants. The purchase sat in a bag for two weeks before I built enough courage to wear them out (aided by a long tunic top, of course). That was in December.

A month later, I actually contemplated wearing skinny jeans all week. So what about my thighs--nothing that a long top or oversized cardi can't cover. The pants are perfect for tucking into boots and are a no brainer with a foot of snow on the ground.

Sure, Lindsay Lohan puts up with a lot of slack for wearing leggings/skinny jeans all the time. But, really, who can blame her?

Tip of the hat

The problem with berets is that they scream "beret." There's nothing subtle about the stylin' French cap that seems to be everywhere these days. But if you're set on wearing one and are neither French nor in France, there are some considerations to keep in mind. The key being in the placement. Tilting it to the side is just dorky. What you want is to have some hair (ideally your thick, chic bangs) showing in the front and framing your face. Et voila.

Even better? Floppy berets. Because they don't look so, well, beret-ish.

The long and short of it

Like the ever-divisive reaction to cilantro or Crocs, people seem to either love or hate Kirsten Dunst. Whether discussing her acting abilities or her style, some aspect of her, for some reason or other, is bound to irk/delight. Personally, I like the films she's been in but am no fan of hers. Which makes it all the more harder for me to admit that she has single-handedly inspired me to go smaller (bag-wise) and longer (strap-wise). I am obsessed with her latest bag.

Large and small, in black, white, gray and counting, an enviable collection of Jane Mayle Billie bags have been photographed on Ms. Dunst over the summer. Much like her consistency in taste--from boys to sunglasses--she has carried the long-strapped purse with total abandon, a refreshing change from the oversized totes that everyone else seems to be lugging around.

Yes, the classic Chanel chain-strap shoulder purse is also hot among the downtown and young Hollywood crowds of late, but it's thanks to Ms. Dunst that I have become a long-strapped purse devotee.

Chacun son gout, as they say.

Brand new bag

I'm always on the lookout for cool, reusable bags to carry my groceries in. And just the other day, I heard about the latest bag in town while at the gym of all places. Two women, with faces flushed from spinning, sat on a bench conveniently located in front of my locker, speaking in hushed, conspiratorial tones. I leaned in to listen.

"So where did you see it?"

"All those film fest people have them. They carry it over their shoulder. It's black. And pretty big."

Well, that was enough to pique my curiosity. Out and about that weekend, the opening weekend of the Toronto International Film Festival, I spotted one being used as a book bag, then another that seemed to be on official film fest duties (the man carrying it was wearing a suit). Simple. Sleek. Discreet. I headed to the festival headquarters to purchase my own.

To be honest, I was less than thrilled when I finally held my new bag in my hands. In previous years the festival bags were made of cloth and even leather, but this year's $8 tote by Roots didn't look or feel substantial in any way. The surface resembled a tarp in sheen (dull and a tad tacky) and sound (kind of crispy), and moreover, the bag just felt too light and too flimsy. So I let it lie dejectedly on my kitchen floor. A few days later, I grew curious and inspected it up close. Inside the bag was an unexpectedly soft, woven material, something I didn't recognize. So I googled the name on the fabric tag: polypropylene.

Polypropylene. A lightweight, extremely durable polymer used in everything from dishwasher-safe plastic food containers to wick-away-type long underwear. Score, I thought to myself. Ever since learning about this king of materials, I can't stop spotting it, particularly in its reusable bag application (seems to be the latest thing among the "green" bags sold at stores).

Now that the film fest is over, I can finally take my bag grocery shopping (because carrying an event-specific bag after said specific event is way cooler than during). It's no hyped Anya Hindmarch "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" bag, the last eco-friendly bag I considered buying, but that's just fine. I'll pass on cloth. And no paper or plastic either, please. I've got polypropylene.

Gold rush

I have nothing against gold. In fact, the first earrings I ever had, studs that were punched into my earlobes during childhood, were gold. But what can I say. I'm a silver person.

I don't know exactly when this life decision came about, but it seems that one gravitates toward the silver or gold camp in the teen years. Up until then there's a sort of indifference or unawareness. Then one day you wake up and one precious metal says cool and understated, while the other conveys self-importance and flashiness, and you pick a side, and that's that.

Anyway, it has always been easy enough to avoid gold, with popular taste increasingly favoring silver-colored-type metals like platinum, particularly for wedding rings (hello, Lucida ring, anyone?). But this summer, stores have been awash in gold. Bags, shoes and clothing with gold hardware, gold bows and gold chains, chains, more chains.

I caved.

It started out small with gold horse-bit-like links on a pair of sandals I fell in love with. Next, a long chain necklace, which I'm wearing today. I still prefer silver, mind you. But today I just felt like being a little flashy.

Gray matters

Standing in the checkout line at H&M the other day, I couldn't help but notice a girl with an armload of clothes stacked from her outstretched arms right up to her fashionably long bangs. "That's a lot of gray," said the shopgirl to the bangs girl when it was her turn to pay. Without skipping a beat, Bangs Girl replied, "Yeah. Gray is the new black, you know." My first reaction was to shudder at what she said--the trite phrase, the earnest tone--but then my attention was drawn the clothes piled on the counter. They looked more like a black or even a faded black in color than the gray she was so keen on.

It reminded me of the issue I had with my new Kate Spade pumps. In the store, I was drawn to the gleaming gray patent and was thrilled to add gray footwear to my shoe collection. But when I opened the box at home, I was so sure that the shoes I brought home were brown, not gray, that I triple-checked the box label ("color: gray," it said) and then looked online to make sure it didn't come in brown (it doesn't).

After some subsequent research, I learned that gray extends much further than the charcoal and heather shades that I know. All those hyphen-gray and -ish-gray terms that are thrown around colloquially, like purple-ish gray, blue-gray, reddish gray, are all fully grays. Heck, even taupe is classified as gray. Taupe!

A gray area of color, that's for sure.