December 2024 Magazine

Olga Szwed is from Gomel the second-largest city in Belarus.  An extraordinary fashion designer/stylist, she came to America to study at the International Academy of Design and Technology. Aside from designing couture fashion for her own proprietary brands, Olga de la Couture, and her former bridal shop La Belle Reve, Olga is the creative director and designer for Poppy & Bloom, which offers whimsical prints,...

What is it about smiles that, at least to Americans, are so appealing?  I was buying something at my local CVS and when I chanced to smile at the checkout clerk who smiled back at me with a 100 watt smile.  There was no apparent flirting going on.  And, while I am most certainly capable of flirting, am pretty fit, and do look a bit younger than my chronological age, I was also at least as old as her grandfather.  She was just responding to...

One of my interns recently commented that she had observed “so many old people” working in places such as Fedex-Kinkos, Home Depot, and Rite Aid.  She wasn’t making a comment on the culture as being “old” as much as she was observing that many of these oldsters who are working are doing so because they have not saved enough for retirement.  Some companies prefer to hired older people because they bring a...