Get Shorty. Elegantly tailored in luxe materials and vibrant prints, its time to rethink this summer staple.

Most of us have a pair packed away in the back of our closet for when the weather heats up. With temperatures steadily climbing, rather than digging out your old standbys, consider an elegant new style in printed satin or metallics. This season’s short trend is emerging as the summer evening style statement.

Alice Marble caused an outrage by wearing mid-thigh shorts in 1932

Do shorts as suitable eveningwear seem shocking to you? Consider this, in 1932, tennis star Alice Marble wore knee-length, A-line bottoms to a professional tennis match and caused an outrage. Less that 40 years later in 1971, the hugely popular trend for “hot pants” made skin-tight short-shorts widely acceptable. Women wore them to the office, to weddings, and were even allowed in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot in Britain.

Hot pants went from risqué to everyday streetwear in 1971

From Bermudas, cycling and board shorts – not to mention hybrid versions such as jorts and skorts – they represent two very American qualities, freedom and inventiveness. The desire for shorts is enduring. They are one of those items of clothing that have the ability to change chameleon-like depending on who’s wearing them. Take a pair of similar white high-waisted shorts from the 1950s, patrician on CZ Guest; they are sporty on Audrey Hepburn in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina.

C.Z. Guest in patrician white shorts photographed poolside in Palm Beach in 1955

No look back in time on shorts would be complete without mentioning the most memorable shorts ever captured on film, the “daisy dukes.” Named after Daisy Mae Duke, a fictional character played by Catherine Bach in the 1979 TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, the tiny denim hot pants made Bach a household name and a bona-fide calendar girl. During the show’s run, her poster sold 5 million copies, outselling even Farrah Fawcett’s iconic red swimsuit shot.

Demi Moore at the Oscar’s in 1989 wearing glittery bike shorts, a bustier and a brocade cape. Needless to say, this is a look that did not catch on.

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Now & Then: The History of Fitness Wear

Now & Then: The History of the Pencil Skirt

Now & Then: The History of the Cocktail Dress

Now & Then: The History of Skinny Jeans

Read more Now & Then articles here.

The post Now & Then: The History of Shorts appeared first on EcoSalon.

Meat: It isn’t what’s for dinner if you want to be thinner – on and off the red carpet. Yes, a rigid diet is a great way to feel in control, and it shows up in vegetarian lifestyles just like all others.

The most disciplined in our culture are Hollywood celebs du jour like Kristen Bell, who swears by vegetarian diets (and daily workouts) to get that perfect body. It is not just a lifestyle for this segment, but a career. A one-time vegan, Bell says she reaches for a spoonful of peanut butter or a few Morningstar Farms veggie sausages for that protein fix.

She is among a growing cast of leading ladies (Demi Moore, Alicia Silverstone, Natalie Portman) and regular weight-conscious folk who have become mindful eaters not only for environmental and moral reasons, but to achieve that flat, bikini belly and 3-inch gap between the upper thighs. It works quite well but isn’t the vegetarian ideal.

Fountain-of-youth finder Moore says she is lucky she prefers iron rich, leafy spinach to chocolate, explaining why she looks 20 when she is approaching 50. But for most women, a focus on a strict veggie diet to reduce calories rather than to maintain good health has its pitfalls in terms of getting adequate daily nutrition.

“There is a caloric intake everyone needs, usually around 1200 to 1800 – depending on the height to weight ratio and if someone isn’t hitting that amount they are suffering from a caloric deficit and cannot function properly on a daily basis,” says Reese Dimacali, CPT/NCSF, a Bay Area trainer and nutrition consultant. “To be healthy you need everything, fiber, carbs and protein, which are fuel sources for our bodies and you are causing trauma to the body without that balance.”

Dimacali finds the healthiest vegetarians are not the new crop of green beings trying to look like models and rock stars but well rounded people who take it seriously. They research what their body might be lacking by giving up animal proteins and fats, and supplement their diets with protein shakes, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish oil, pills, bars, rice and beans, soy and rice milks or other nutrition to boost energy and vitality.

“I studied at U.C. Santa Cruz and there were always rail thin vegetarians lying on the beach, not working out,” says the trainer. “I never saw them going on runs. You don’t have to work out to stay thin if you are only eating salads and spinach because losing weight is 80 percent eating, not exercising. It takes a lot of greens and cabbage soup to get the calories up to what is needed, and that is why they are usually so lethargic.”

In other words, if you aren’t a conscious vegetarian, you aren’t inclined to move your body the same way as the vegan with a cause. As Diets in Review points out, the way of the vegan and vegetarian is not a diet, but a lifestyle, one that requires awareness and responsibility. The site also links this choice to a deeper respect of the environment, saying “while there is a not a link to Veganism and activity, Vegans generally tend to eschew fossil fuels, and this translates into increased walking or utilizing public transportation methods, which in turn increases physical activity.”

Today, there is a cornucopia of websites, such as Vegan Nutrionista, which can walk you through the food pyramid for maintaining good a good intake of grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes and oils  – and staying fit as a result. When we talk to teens about their bodies, we focus on health and not weight to prevent eating disorders. We do this for a reason.

Vegan Nutrionista’s Food Pyramid:

With adults going vegetarian, as well, we need to emphasize the prolonging of life and lifting of spirits that often comes with avoiding sweet, salty, preserved processed foods and chemicals found in much of the animal kingdom. A muscular, buff body is sure to follow – ask any wise yogi! Very few of the masters clean their digestive systems to look hot in skinny jeans; but they still do. And so will you, as long as you feed your carnivore-designed system with what it requires.

Images: Celebrity Diets, Examiner

The post Are Women Becoming Vegan Just to Lose Weight? appeared first on EcoSalon.

They chow down the same foods we healthy middle-aged women eat: Quinoa, lean proteins, fresh organic produce, water from chic reusable Sigg bottles. They drive hybrids and raise funds for good causes, shun the direct sun, and sometimes even wear secondhand fashion (couture, of course).

But tinsel town celebrities my age, like Demi Moore, who is featured on the cover of W Magazine this month, are not like me or any of my healthy, naturally beautiful women friends. No, unlike the mere mortal soccer moms I rub shoulders with at book club gatherings and parties, Demi shows no signs of age or wear and tear. Where is the emerging turkey neck Nora Ephron wrote about? Where are the sagging eyes? Where are the cottage cheese thighs?

“Her body of work has been notable in no small part because of her notable body,” writes Moore cover story author, Kevin West, adding that, “hers is an undeniably striking version of midlife.” He assures us the striking former brat packer has changed at 47, evidenced by tiny lines when she smiles, but she has not gone under the knife.

“It’s their job to look amazing,” observes my astute 13-year-old daughter, Sydney. She tells me if it were her full time job, she would be flawless, too. Methinks my teenager looks pretty flawless now, but she would be happier with perfect hair and no blemishes, stuff that completes you when you are 13.

It comes down to the perception of perfection, and in achieving it, stars are spoonfed support from trainers and personal chefs. Most turn to plastic surgery, even prematurely, like America’s sweetheart Meg Ryan and highly respected eco goddess Daryl Hannah. In both cases, the surgery changed the lovely features we knew, while their bodies maintain the taut physiques of teens. In all cases, the goal is achieved. Defy age. Look young.

One looming exception is Meryl, but even the consummate thespian had to shape up to play a mature hippie in Mama Mia and Alec Baldwin’s ex and Steve Martin’s lover in It’s Complicated.

Still, Streep, now in her 60’s, is probably aging more naturally than any other major star. She doesn’t succumb to surgery and I haven’t noticed her photographs being altered through Photoshop, the favorite weapon in the arsenal of Hollywood anti-aging defenses. Streep doesn’t maintain a public persona outside of her appearances, stays out of the sun and avoids alcohol. Those are pretty good defenses, too. Bon Apetit, Meryl!

While I’m certain Demi stays gaunt for her industry, the W cover shot is not the body of a 47-year-old mother unaltered. My 47-year-old friends look amazing, but none of them have bodies like that. It’s the body of her daughter Rumer, perhaps.

The cover was as surprising as the Self Magazine issue featuring American Idol Kelly Clarkson, who didn’t actually slim down the way the magazine suggests on the cover, but erased those pounds thorough digital post-production. And how ’bout that ad featuring Ralph Lauren model Filippa Hamilton, who was deemed too fat at 5’10” and 120 pounds and had to be drastically Shopped to cut the mustard?

While the option of doing digital makeovers is the choice of each publication, the star still pays a price in terms of credibility.

I feel compassion when I realize society demands its idols be, well, objects to idolize. Air brushing and retouching are just a few of the finishing tools employed in the land of make believe, the land the media fully endorse because we fully buy into it. But at the end of the day, it just makes us feel sad. We can’t possibly live up to these images of perfection, and frankly, neither can the stars.

The alternative: finding a way to accept ourselves as natural beauties who do the best we can to stay healthy and fit and happy and productive – and admire how we are able to thrive in a world with so much adversity, sickness, hunger and negativity.

The Demoiselles website did a recent feature profiling celebs moving in the direction of self-acceptance, even unlikely candidates such as Kim Karshashian, who posed for the cover of Life & Style Weekly completely unretouched.

When asked by the magazine why she is so open about her body (i.e. showing herself receiving a cellulite treatment on her reality show), Kardashian said she was tired of people pretending they’re perfect and covering up things when in reality we are who we are.

“You can try to improve that, but the reality is, nobody’s perfect.” she declared.

But maybe we are perfect, Kim. Maybe we are perfectly flawed.

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images: W Magazine, Plastic Sergeant, Sony pictures, ABC News, Life & Style Magazine, Luanne Bradley

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