Boulder and the Beautiful

Originally published 6/17/2006

By Aimee Heckel, Vanessa Miller, Brittany Anas
Camera Staff Writers

AIMEE: I’ll be gone for Father’s Day this year. Not that we call it Father’s Day in my house. I’ve never called my dad “father” or even “dad.”

To outsiders, it is weird that I call my dad “Frog.”

My family has tried to trace the nickname back, sifting through ancient hieroglyphics (the comic strips he drew during boring piano recitals).

We’ve conducted linguistic dissections (Frog rhymes with smog, and he went to college in Chicago – nope, that`s not it).

We’ve also pondered literary techniques, such as the onomatopoeia. (He has big eyes. Could I have thought he looked like a frog when I was a child?)

But when it comes down to it, I don’t know why my dad is Frog. No one does. It just is and always has been.

And that very inexplicable silliness, oddness and uniqueness makes the name that utterly fitting.

Dads, Frog-like or not, are funny creatures. Especially to their daughters.

VANESSA: And dads are always right. Of course they know who won the game. They just can’t remember the exact score; “Remind me again. Oh right, right.” Or, “This Merlot is excellent. …What’s that? No, I mean if it were a Merlot it would be superb. As a Pinot Noir, it’s so-so.”

BRITTANY: Dads are also experts at everything.

I decided 9 p.m. the night before high-school volleyball tryouts one year that I wanted to be on the team. I barely knew the difference between volleyball and pingpong.

Neither did my dad. Yet I was convinced he was once a professional volleyball player. He confidently set up a spotlight in our back yard and taught me how to bump, serve, block and whatever else they do on volleyball courts.

The next day, my techniques were far different from those of the other girls. I may have even tried to head-butt the ball like they do in soccer and hurl it like a dodgeball. Somehow I made the team.

But it was that day I learned you can convince people to give you a chance if you glow with confidence.

AIMEE: My dad’s signature quirk was his white Illinois sweatshirt, which in and of itself was not problematic. Except the whole “white” thing. Because Frog wasn’t a big fan of the “washing machine.” He was, however, a big fan of wearing that sweatshirt every day when he got home from work for, oh, three years.

After a while, it was a rainbow – no, that sounds too pretty, more like a cesspool – of ink, barbecue sauce, car grease, soil, grass stains and mysterious other forms of man grime.

One night, I stole the shirt from him to wash it. But he intercepted. Another time, I hid it from him. When he recovered it, he paid me back by chuckling as he scribbled across the front of it with a fat black marker.

Frog now only gets dark-colored shirts for Christmas.

And despite, or maybe because of, this tragic experience, I`m now obsessed with clothes so much that I make a living writing a fashion column.

BRITTANY: My dad’s laundering skills are actually amazing. He taught me how to iron, and he’s one of those people who neatly sets out his clothes the night before he wears them.

I think it comes with driving a mini-van. My dad swapped his manly Blazer for a stereotypical mom-mobile when I entered middle school.

As a sixth-grade girl, my clique of friends became like a secret society. We tied up our parents’ phone lines to update one another about every second of our days, which was also chronicled in the dozens of notes we folded like origami and delivered through the slots of lockers.

Never did my dad eavesdrop on our conversations or read the notes that I accidentally let slip into the laundry.

He didn’t need to. He had his van.

Dad shuttled me and my group of gabby girlfriends to and from every basketball practice and game.

Have you ever heard a van full of middle school girls quiet? There we spilled all of our juicy secrets that were too good to write in notes and we revealed our crushes, which changed faster than the Baskin Robbins flavor of the day.

And at the front of the van, my dad was our deejay playing MC Hammer and Paula Abdul cassette tapes at a negotiable volume, loud enough that my friends thought he was cool but soft enough that he could hear if the secret society of sixth-grade girls needed any fatherly advice.

VANESSA: The great thing about my dad is there’s pretty much no disguising his errors. Which is why we laugh a lot. “We, ” meaning my mom and I.

Take our weekend trip to the mountains. Heading up to the hills bright and early one winter day, we decided to swing past McDonald`s for some delicious McMuffins or whatever.

Dad pulls up to the ordering box thing and is like, “Hi. We want three McMuffins, a coffee and two Diet Cokes. Hello? Hello? Excuse me. Is anyone there? What’s the matter with you people? It`s your job to take orders, idiots.”

I was lying in the back and decided it was time to step in and calm the old man down. But as I looked out the window at the object of my dad’s ire, I noticed something peculiar. Right. It was a trash can. He had stopped one tan box too early and was cursing out the paper cups and straws that had been innocently discarded.

When we got to the right speaker, my dad tried make himself look less erroneous by continuing his rant with the woman. But she was sweet as could be, and gave us the egg sandwiches pronto.

Escapades like that are almost daily for the dude in the socks and sandals who adds, “things of that nature” to the end of every sentence. “What’s for dinner? What time are we eating? Things of that nature.”

But that’s why he’s perfect. For me. I love to laugh.

AIMEE: Indeed, dads are funny creatures. But intentionally or not, it’s their quirks – the nasty sweatshirt, the McTrashcan, the mini-van – that made all the difference. Those are the experiences that shaped us into who we are today.

OK,  Boulder. You win. I give up. You can stop beating me over the head with your peace signs.

I’ve been holding my breath for six years. The Anti-Hippie, I called myself. But a girl can only plug her nose so long before her mouth opens to gulp big wafts of Woodstock perfume (I use the term lightly).

And I’ll be darned to heck if it doesn’t smell delicious. In fact, it doesn’t even stink. At all.

This confession could cost me my job as a fashion columnist, but that’s a sacrifice for the greater good of spreading the word about the New Hippie Revolution, a movement I have started with myself. Down with the wo-man.
Mainly, Sarah Jessica Parker. I don’t want to write about SJ’s latest trainwreck of a “Sex” sequel, or the $10 million put into her wardrobe. Know why? Because I don’t have $10 million. And neither do you. Probably. (You never know around here.)

I’m annoyed by Carrie Bradshaw’s “artsy” style. Her poseur-bohemian accessories cost more than a Real columnist — the kind who owns the poetic license to gratuitously capitalize Things for emphasis — earns in a lifetime. Artists don’t have money. That’s why they have to be creative with their style. And you can’t buy creativity.

Here’s where the New Hippie Revolution comes in. The NHR is the inevitable response to the recession, for folks who are sick of the constant wrestling match with the economy, technology and (for some of us) body hair.

I’m not sure how Boulder unleashed its final winning blow in the cage fight versus my Schick Quattro. Maybe it was my near-death childbirth extravaganza three months ago. (My birth plan was the Murphy’s Law Method.) Or the hilarious stack of medical bills that forced me to sell my car and ride the bus. Or maybe it was simply the undiluted idiocy in SJ’s last romantic comedy with Hugh Grant.

Regardless, my husband is looking at a 1973 VW bus as I write.

Still, being a revolution newbie, I’m almost as big of a poseur as SJ, minus the whole money thing. That’s why I solicited help from the greatest guru since the Grateful Dead:

My aunt Cindy was/is a real hippie. Today, she makes jewelry and is an international expert on beads. In 1973, she sewed clothes out of pieces of vintage clothing in the back of her husband’s silversmith shop in the mountains not far from Boulder.

Cindy says:  Hippies are not dirty.

Some older, conservative people in the ’70s categorized everyone with long hair as hippies, and that included some unkempt bags of dirt (my words, not hers), as well as Rastas with dreadlocks, neither of which were necessarily part of The Movement. Cindy said she never knew a “dirty hippie.”

Even mountain folk without running water bathed in the creek (with biodegradable soap) or at the hot springs’ showers. Other friends showered at the silver shop; they dropped quarters into a coffee can to help pay utilities.
“Today a lot has changed from what it was like in the real true hippie years,” she says. “My values were well grounded and I believe in it: an earthy, simple, pure, peaceful, usually very intelligent and very resourceful, talented culture.”

This means I can keep my bare armpits. Very groovy.

Cindy also says:  Make everything from scratch. This proves problematic for this one girl, a friend of a friend — definitely not me — who broke her sewing machine while trying to make a Smokey the Bear costume after six too many glasses of wine.

That’s why the New Hippie Revolution touts buying clothes that other people made from scratch.

Like Phat Cat Patch (www.phatcatpatch.com or www.phatcatpatch.etsy.com), a line of gorgeous, handmade patchwork dresses by a Boulder single mom named Lauren Vice. I love the floor-length purple and dragon-print dress, with five layers of fabric ruffles. She calls her clothes “wearable art,” and they start as low as $20. Not $10 million.

Find the clothes online or at the Boulder and Beyond artist co-op on the Pearl Street Mall, just east of Broadway.

Boulder resident Elsa Hayden, originally of Peru, runs the shop and designs some of the clothes. Ask her to show you her tie-dye dresses ($39) or the white cotton, lace and eyelet ruffle skirts ($29), with fabric from Denver, sewn in Longmont.

Supporting local designers is kind of like dropping money in the coffee can to help pay utilities.

Did you know that there’s a children’s clothing consignment store in Louisville called Spirit Kids at 629 East South Boulder Road? Me neither. That’s why I didn’t include it in my column last week about kid clothes.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I did not go to prom for my 30th birthday.

By luck, or probably fate, my May birthday coincides with the biggest dress-up day of the year for high schoolers.

So logically — and partially out of protest for no such similar day for “adults” — I have made a tradition of sneaking into various proms and crashing them. Crashing, in this sense, means dancing (I know, who dances at prom?) and not standing around acting self-conscious. I’ve always been a rebel.

We would arrive late and simply walk in, wearing oversized sunglasses and way too much lipstick. Miraculously, we never got caught, kicked out or arrested. Even after the smile lines around my eyes deepened. Even after I unapologetically announced my plans, year after year, in the newspaper. I’d like to think it’s because I’m so youthful and spry. But more likely, no one spoke up because they were scared.

That’s what kept me home this year. It’s totally normal to sneak into prom at age 29. But age 30? Ew. That’s. Just. Creepy.

Well, the beer kept me at home, too. (Like one and a half beers; I left my liver in San Francisco.) Which was just as well, because the real party occurred in my closet. According to the photos and not my memory whatsoever, my friends and I changed outfits every three to five minutes.

Then we brought prom home.

It was so melancholy. I pulled out my old prom dresses — all 14 of them, including the four from my uncrashed proms — and dressed my friends in them. Some fit. Some ripped. Some looked more like bathing suits.

Then, we brought the boom box to the busy street outside my house and did a fashion show. It was like everything not to wear all wrapped up on one stage — er, sidewalk. The worst fashion trends, from 1995 to 2008: poufy shoulders, heart-shaped necklines, itchy sequin straps, multi-colored velvet, lace cut-outs. The mistakes seemed to recycle every few years, blurring the decades, illuminating the hilarity of society and most certainly terrifying my neighbors.

Then, the fashion show turned into an impromptu parade. Which, by luck or probably fate, led us to the karaoke bar down the street. Which is where I saw Them.

It was heavenly: formal gowns, PBR, an open microphone, a carnival-style popcorn machine on wheels, more formal gowns — what? More gowns? The entire room was buzzing with women wearing prom dresses. Women, not girls. Old crazy ladies. Just like me.

And, unlike prom, they were dancing. On tables.

It was a bachelorette party, and for the first time probably ever, my friends and I fit right in. A birthday reminder that if you stay true to your own quirkiness, and you don’t chase the past, and you’re willing to keep marching forward (even if it is a ridiculous dress-up parade), you will eventually end up exactly where you’re meant to be.

Which brings us to my e-mail this morning.

Thin Man Tavern, 2015 E. 17th Ave. in Denver. May 30, starting at 9 p.m. Prom Night 2: The Totally Awesome Sequel, featuring prom photos and drink specials for grown ups.

I’ll be there. Arriving late, wearing oversized sunnies. Ready to crash.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I was not 10 steps into the Broomfield 24 Hour Fitness when I pivoted and walked back out. I didn’t even make it to the locker room.
There was no way I was sweating here, in sweatpants and an old tank top.
This was not a gym. This was a nightclub.
As if the booming hip-hop music wasn’t enough (was that a fog machine in the corner?), the girls seemed to be wearing the same outfits that they would wear to the club, except with clean, pink sneakers instead of stilettos.
Well, wait. I think a few ladies going 1.2 mph on the elliptical might have been wearing wedges.
This fitness center was a-swarm with “gym bees.”
The gym bee species, a direct descendant of the barfly, joins a gym as an extension of her Match.com profile, and always announces it on her Facebook status update: “Going to go work out! Xoxo!”
Because the gym bee places her iPhone on her treadmill while she stands there reading Cosmo and not exerting whatsoever, she can update her status in live time: “Headed to the weights! Xoxo!”
This is especially useful if a male gym bee across the room has his iPhone perched near the mirror, because, well, what if amid posing and flexing, he lost track of the hottie on the treadmill?
Problem solved. Xoxo!
As a fashion columnist, I’m the first to give a thumb’s up to pride and cleanliness. I like designer clothes and hoop earrings and fishnets and fur.
Just not on the bench press.
The she-bee spends more time picking out her perfectly coordinated brand-name top, bottoms and matching shoes than she does getting her heart rate up.
And the he-bee sports (if you can even use that verb in this context) hair gel, one or more necklaces and an Affliction shirt on top of an Ed Hardy shirt on top of an Affliction shirt on top of an Ed Hardy tattoo covering up an Affliction tattoo. And jeans.
What happened to Colorado’s true athletes? And how do these posers (literally) stay so fit, when we all see them not working out? Do they chase their evening lines of coke with 1,000 push-ups?
In search of these secrets — as well as a little sports cred — I consulted Boulder’s Kevin Wendling.
Wendling, 30, a Fairview High and University of Colorado grad, is an expert on sports attire for two reasons.
First, he is a freelance producer for TV sportscasts, from football to golf to speed skating to car racing. In his words: “I see Spandex being worn to its perfection, in all levels of sport.”
Second, he was the dude who wore the oversized bunny head, tights and a fannypack to the Bolder Boulder this week.

I know, mega cred. The only catch: On this particular day, both Wendling and I had lost our voices — completely.
So we conducted the interview via modern day note-passing: Facebook instant messaging. Note: Neither of us was on a treadmill.

Here’s how it went down:

Kevin: (Obligatory small talk) How are things at the Cam today? Are you writing about our voices eloping?
Aimee: Yes. And I wanted to write about workout clothes: dressing designer d-bag to go to the gym.
K: Maybe I should change then? How did you know what I was wearing?
A: No, you’re wearing a bunny head, right?
K: I work out in any number of costumes. Or mustaches.
A: That is why I love the Bolder Boulder. People loosen up and have fun with exercise; they don’t try to make a fashion point. So what is the story of the bunny head?
K: I wish there was a tale. I think I just go for the funniest outfits possible.
A: Have you dressed up every year?
K: Second year. But I dress up a lot for events, as often as possible. Last year I was a gladiator.
A: Where did you get the bunny head?
K: The Ritz. I rented that bad boy. A bunny was the most outstanding costume there. The rest of the outfit was American Apparel: fanny pack, leg warmers, spandex, wristbands, gloves.
A: Outstanding indeed. Was it also hot?
K: Ummm.
A: Not hott with two t’s. Like temperature-wise.
K: I don’t remember, really. I was fed a lot of cocktails during the six miles. I would say we stopped 100 times for pictures.
A: Did you train for the race?
K: To walk? No. And maybe that is why my ankle is mysteriously sprained and my big toes are black and blue.
A: Did you find that sweatbands improved your fitness capacity?
K: Absolutely, except it added to my wind resistence.
A: OK, so tell me: Why the tie? And what did you store in your fannypack?
K: Matched the leg warmers. The fannypack was full of adult beverages.
A: My friend Brittany recently met a guy at a club who was wearing a fannypack, and she asked him “What’s in the pack?” And he said, “Fruit Roll-Ups.” Apparently his friends were like, “Dude, stop wearing your fannypack to da clubs, you’re ruining our game,” but then he was the only one of them picking up girls. So then it was like, “Who’s cool now, haters?”
K: That. Is. Awesome.
A: So back to business. Do you work out?
K: Ew, that was nasty. Sounds like a cheesy pick-up line.
A: Except I am looking at a picture of a dude wearing a bunny head, so my emotions are very complex.

K: I do work out, but not like a meathead.
A: What do you wear to work out in?
K: You’d think I’d wear Spandex, but I don’t. I would love me to be in Spandex 24/7.
A: Do you like it when guys flex in the mirror excessively?
K: I don’t like it, unless it’s me. Which it usually is. Thats 60 percent of my workout, I’d say.
A: What do the pros wear to work out? Mandex? Do they wear necklaces and hair gel?
K: Some do, certainly. Big earrings on some.
A: Is that how they get so strong? By hooking weights into their lobes?
K: Lol.
A: You lolled. How did “lol” even become a word? What’s wrong with the good old-fashioned “Heh?”
K: I might start a clothing company called Lol.
A: An athletic clothing company, that makes clothes that double up for working out and working it — on the dance floor. Your insignia: a massive bunny head. Do it.
K: Just do it.
A:  I have a feeling this is how movements are made.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Today is your lucky day.

No, you did not win “$100,000 U.S. Dollar” and all you need to do is respond to this e-mail with your bank routing number.

No, Tony Little has not launched a new infomercial series for fitness equipment that simultaneously tones your thighs while making you frolic like a woodland creature.

Better. Yes, better than the Gazelle.

Ken Izawa was in our hood. Izawa is my fashion heartbeat; my juicy bite of the Big Apple. When this style expert moved to New York several years ago, it was Boulder’s biggest fashion tragedy since the invention of Crocs. (Although Crocs continues to chisel the stone wall around my heart with its philanthropic work, including a recent donation to the nonprofit that I work for, Think Humanity. I’d like to egotistically believe it’s part of some plan to woo me.) (It is not.)

Izawa now lives on the East Coast and at www.styleforall.blogspot.com.

I reserve the word “zany” for rare occasions, maybe once per decade, due to its obvious nerdiness.

I am pulling it out today — your lucky day. The style news that Izawa brought to Boulder is that: zany. Pure zane.

Until this moment in history, trends have started on the coasts and trickled inward, leaving Midwestern states picking through the dust and debris.

For the spring of 2009, Izawa says the big cities are copying us. (Insert eye bulge here.) Sparked by the green movement, the streets of New York are looking organic, green, simple, earthy and relaxed. Those five words define Boulder. Not New York, not ever.

“From country to concrete” is what Izawa calls it, because all experts have clever titles for everything, which is part of what makes them experts.

You don’t believe me, do you? Here’s the proof: Lucky seven trends, as seen in NYC.

1. Gladiator sandals.

Mega-strappy flat sandals are still a hit. But instead of looking metallic and bejeweled, they are now earthy and natural.

2. Floor-length jersey gowns, with or without a pattern.

“This reflects more suburban-rural. It’s comfortable,” Izawa says. “You’d see it at the beach. You wouldn’t see it in the city. Until this season.”

3. Mini-floral prairie dresses. Think: Drew Barrymore of the early ’90s. Pair the chiffon dress with Docs. Wear everything with Docs. No, I’m not just saying that because I’ve been wearing Docs since the early ’90s, nonstop, even when they were “out.”

4. Southwestern style. Even if you don’t want to stick feathers in your hair, slip into skinny jeans, brown boots, a white undershirt and a light brown suede vest. Oh, you already wore that yesterday? I thought so. Then kick it up with an oversized turquoise rock or a beaded choker.

5. Natural waves. Instead of blow-drying your hair, towel-dry and tousle. A little frizz is OK. Hydrate and smooth with a dime-size of olive oil, Izawa says.

6. Simple natural-tone shoes for men, such as suede hush puppies or comfy loafers. Pair with a plain tee in natural tones, jeans or shorts. (This is all getting so obvious that it is confusing me.)

7. Ray-Ban sunglasses. I’d venture to say few Boulderites even know that Ray-Bans went out of style.

Maybe they never did.

Maybe, all of these years, we’ve been so far ahead of the New York curve that they didn’t even realize until now. Fifteen years later.

Ah yes, Boulder, the true Manhattan. And I am the new Ken Izawa.

As if.

Now that we all know how cool we are, we must tap into our local genius. You know, figure out how to keep ahead of New York’s slow-ball curve, even in this bum economy.

Here’s your chance. Bonnie Eckert, with Tres Bon Wardrobe Consulting, and Emily Wilson, with Joyful furniture, are holding a fashion show on Thursday. The event, from 6-10 p.m. at Joyful Furniture, 2000 21st St., Boulder, will promote and demonstrate ways to recycle your clothes and furniture.

The event includes a fashion show with clothes from five different consignment stores, with models ranging from size 0 to 14.

For more info, check out www.joyfulfurniture.com and www.bontresbon.com/styletips.php.

Eckert says:

Buy recycled whenever possible: clothes, jewelry, furniture, cars.

Shop consignment stores, garage sales, Craigslist and online for vintage.

Use what you already have. A wardrobe consultant can help create outfits out of what you have, and help you track down a few key accessories and pieces to pull it all together.

What’s underneath is as important (if not more) than what you wear on top. Try Spanx (www.spanx.com), Flexees (control-fabric camisoles) or Lipo in a Box (www.lipoinabox.com) to slim down and help your clothes fit right.

I heard on the radio this morning that the average woman spends 40 minutes every day doing her hair. Over a lifetime, that’s two years of combing, blow drying, gelling, curling and ratting — usually with the goal to look effortless.

I’d like to think I am helping lower that number. For the first 10 years of my life, I refused to comb my hair.

I was born trapped under a heavy mountain of what feels like horsehair. A mutation of self-growing wire. And my thick mane wasn’t satisfied with just boiling my scalp to 159 degrees on a hot summer day. It is coarse and curly, so it also tangles easily.

I wasn’t the only person who hated wrestling my head mutant. After eight years of violent combing (thereby removing all sensory capability from my follicles), my mom — who has whisper-thin, straight locks — resigned. She threatened: I didn’t start combing my own hair at least once a week, she would just cut the “rat’s nests” out.

I spent several years of my childhood with an upside-down mullet: short on the underside, long on the top. This was a good five years before it became cool for girls to shave the underside of their hair, cut zigzags into the sides and pull it into a ponytail. Ironically, my mom wouldn’t let me do that.

My mom and I (God bless her on Mother’s Day) have always had a rocky hair relationship. She is a natural brunette who dyes her hair blonde. I’m a natural blonde who dyes my hair brunette. She hates that. Yet she is the

person who got me hooked on hair dye — at the tender age of 9.

We constantly lament how expensive it is to keep up our hairy addictions, yet neither of us could imagine being our natural color. Gross. Shudder, shudder.

The economy (oh, the “e” word) doesn’t help. In fact, area hair salons report that beauty is one of the areas taking a big hit, as increasingly more people make cuts (zing!) to race away from the red.

Specifically, more people are opting for store-bought color, which promises you’ll get the same results as if you went to the salon.

But be careful, says Robert DiTacchio, creative director of Jon Ric International Salon and Day Spa in Denver (www.jonricdenver.com). More often than not, he says, people end up spending eight times what they would have if they’d just asked the pros. Eight. Times.

Boxed color costs between $15 and $30. Color correction services to fix your hair after it turns out leopard-spotty begin at $150. Salons across the area have reported a “drastic increase” in these color mess-ups — nearly double during the past year.

Unfortunately, this is a number I am contributing to. In March, I had to seek professional intervention from Fringe Hair Studio in Louisville to abolish a fire-truck red spot that I ignited near my bangs. It took three layers of bleach to conquer.

If only I had consulted someone like DiTacchio beforehand. He recommends calling in the pros when you are dealing with resisting gray, vibrant colors (perhaps fire-truck red?) and blonde. Blonde can turn green or orange. Reds can morph into dull pink.

If you do color at home and you’re not striving for a jungle pattern, get a friend to do it for you, DiTacchio says. It’s hard to see what you’re doing on your own head. The best at-home brand is L’Oreal Professional.

DiTacchio also recommends:

Even if your hair is not as thick and coarse as a cattle rope, hydrate it. Look for products with a low pH balance to seal your cuticles.

Wash color-treated hair in cold water to help close the cuticle and sustain the color longer. I have been doing this for several years, and it is completely miserable, but it works. To counteract the hair icicles, I put my towel in the dryer while I’m showering so it’s nice and toasty when I get out.

Wash your hair less to maintain the natural oils.

Use moisture-rich products, such as Aquage, Pureology and Kenra. If you can only afford drugstore brands, once again opt for L’Oreal.

And finally: Brush your hair — a lot. This is one of the best natural conditioners. Brushing your hair brings the oils from your scalp into the ends.

“I tell all of my clients to brush their hair while they’re watching TV,” DiTacchio says. “The old myth of brushing your hair 100 times before bed is true.”

Hmm.

DiTacchio, my mom totally told you to say that, didn’t she?

Here are a few other hair musings:

Guys: Grow out your hair. I liked the faux-hawk for a while, but let’s cremate it. Instead, grow out your hair a la shaggy surfer boy.

Ex-Boulderite fashionisto Ken Izawa says the up-and-coming hair trend for men in New York is to go 1940s: cropped on the sides and back, long in front, combed back with wax. Depression-era style for the New Depression.

I say this sounds a little too “punkabilly,” and the neo-greaser guys I know would not be amused by the mainstream sucking up their style. And rockabilly dudes — with their tricked out hot rods and cigarettes rolled in their T-shirt sleeves — are best to not upset. I’ve seen one too many pompadours fly across a bar counter in a bloody brawl.

Let’s say you suffer a bad dye job, a greaser knocks your skull off or your mom cuts chunks out of your hair. A good hat becomes your best friend.

Wallaroo Hats, 1880 S. Flatiron Court in Boulder, offers these tips on how to find the right hat for your face:

Round: Look for a squared crown with a medium-sized brim. Try Wallaroo’s Sonoma hat.

Oval: Larger flexible brim that folds up or down. From Wallaroo: The Catalina.

Heart: Square with a flat top. Think Panama style. Wallaroo’s version: The Canberra.

Narrow or petite: Rounded crown with shorter brim, such as Wallaroo’s Victoria Hat.

A letter to the lady in line behind me at Target:

You deserve an explanation for what happened last Saturday. It was yet another in a long list of damaging blows from socks to me.

First, the history. I have a hate-hate relationship with socks. This war was first waged during a kickboxing class in college. Front and center, I was kicking boxes like a trillion dollar baby. Bam. Uppercut, jab, jab, jump kick — and whoosh! Out of the leg of my sweatpants, with one particularly swift kick, I launched a sock rocket.

The sock wad — which had apparently smuggled itself inside my pants leg in the washing machine — landed with an audible “Wee!” in the middle of the studio. The other participants saw it and did not know how to respond. They subconsciously backed away, while not missing a kickbox beat, forming a sort of circle around the sock. It looked like a foot fetish tribal dance, or maybe like my sock was about to perform a breakdancing routine.

That was the end of my kickboxing passion.

So needless to say, what happened Saturday awoke in me Post Traumatic Socks Syndrome.

Now, the context:

1. It was my friend Vanessa’s birthday. She wanted to play trampoline dodgeball. But I was wearing a short leather skirt.

2. I ran to Target and bought a pair of sweats to change into. But by the time I returned, everyone had already jumped so much they were hyperventilating and now eating cupcakes. We’re getting old.

3. I never actually used the pants, although I did wear them for three minutes to eat a cupcake. I did not think that qualified as use, which brought me to the customer service line to return the pants.

Now, to address your unspoken (but obvious) concerns:

1. No, I do not live in a van down by the river. I had Old McDonald’s Swine Flu Farm living in my sinuses. Yes, I should have at least combed my hair.

2. My dog, which also happens to have the hairiest white rumpus of any creature on Earth, was in the backseat of my car. Even though the pants were caked in dog hair, once again, I swear they were within the bounds of an appropriate return.

3. When I shook the pants to remove their fur coat, I did not know a dirty sock had been hiding in the pants leg.

4. And no, I am definitely not Aimee Heckel, who writes a fashion column for the Camera. That was actually my sister Leah returning the pants for me.

Thanks for your understanding.

Dear Leah,

I’m sorry. Don’t go to Target for a very long time.

Love,

Aimee

Ah, yes. Socks suck. One of the reasons I love spring is it means I don’t have to touch those things for a good three months.

Of all of my clothing items, socks cause me the most stress. They’re either where I don’t want them to be — i.e. the return line at Target — or nowhere to be found, kidnapped by sock gnomes and my poodles. I feel like I am constantly digging through my bucket of widowed socks for “the other” sock. In vain.

I recently reached such a critical mass of single socks that I began unapologetically wearing mismatched socks to the gym.

My friend Laura says my problem is that my socks are bored, so they’re running away. They’re all white or black.

Laura wears striped socks, toe socks, thigh-high socks, argyle and tie-dyed and homemade and theme socks for every occasion. Her “spring gym socks” are covered in bugs and turtles.

Laura’s socks live in a 30-gallon trashcan that she could hide a body in. More than 350 pairs of socks — 22 of which have monkeys on them. Laura doesn’t own a single plain pair, except for bright green thigh-highs. And she says she has never misplaced a sock.

“If you have fun socks, you can find their mate in the laundry really fast,” she says. “The lost sock is a white sock phenomenon.”

I don’t doubt her. She’s had a feeting frenzy ever since I met her at age 10. Some women spice up their outfits with wild shoes. But Laura is a self-proclaimed “lounger.” Lounging around the house drinking rum doesn’t lend itself to shoes.

“I can’t not buy socks,” she says. “I go to Target for shampoo and I end up with shampoo and socks. I go to

PetSmart for food for the lizard and end up with socks.”

(Of course PetSmart has animal-themed socks, she says.)

Laura’s socks have sentimental value. She doesn’t like to get rid of old socks, so she learned how to fix holes. If she has trouble sleeping, all she has to do is slip into a pair of socks and she immediately nods off.

“I sometimes sleep totally nude but in socks,” she says matter-of-factly.

Which brings us to the question: Can socks be sexy? Laura insists they can. Striped socks are fashionable in a punk way. Argyle socks are hot on both men and women. Plus, if you need to shave or have gnarly feet, Laura adds, they “hide the gnarl.”

Here are some tips from Laura on how to rock socks.

You can find the best socks at Kohl’s and Target (oh, not Target), especially around Halloween time.

Check the Internet. The best site is www.sock

dreams.com.

In the summer, wear lightweight socks, thin tights or toe socks — preferably with ballet flats or Mary Janes and not flip-flops.

If you have sweaty feet, wear half socks with your heels. They cover your toes but leave your heels and arches bare.

Current legwear trends include white tights; tights with shorts; bright, primary colors, such as yellow, blue and red; sparkly tights (metallic, sequins or glitter); and sheer black pantyhose, according to the sock blog www.fashionlegwear.blogspot.com.

As for me, I have found my alternative — a different way to make a footie fashion statement while keeping your tootsies free. Boulder-based Verve, a climbing clothing company, makes boot-cut leg warmers.

Local female climbers came up with the design by cutting off the sleeves of their old sweaters, making a cone-shape cover of the calf and most of the foot.

Best of all, more than 90 percent of Verve’s clothing is made by four grandmas who left war-torn countries to move to the United States. Find Verve at www.verveclimbing.com or at local shops, such as Boulder Bodywear on Canyon Boulevard.

The bell leg warmers are lightweight and made from polyester fleece with organic cotton lycra ($18), and they allow you to add one extra layer of style to your legs.

The only problem: They are dog hair magnets.

Fortunately, I won’t be returning mine any time soon. And they go great with a leather skirt. Even on a trampoline.

This fashion tale begins with death.

The living dead, to be exact.

I was week four into recovery from an abdominal surgery, and had only recently began walking again. (Read: Hobbling like a rickety swamp creature.) That afternoon, Women’s Magazine stylist Angel Garcia asked me if I had time to pose of a fashion photo shoot for her portfolio.

Obviously I had time. My entire month’s social activities centered around Brian “Bulldog” Moore and Frank Azar. And I had already determined I didn’t want to consolidate my debt into one easy payment, become an automotive repair technician or partake in a class-action lawsuit for the drug Rybotrichomatomatein.

But fashion? Judge Judy would object. In addition to my hunchback posture, I had been wearing the same sweats for so long they were beginning to grow into my flesh. Probably.

“Perfect,” Angel said. “That’s why I asked you. It’s a zombie shoot.”

Um, thanks?

With no legitimate way out, I traded daytime TV for a black tutu and (for once) nodded approvingly at my tangled bedhead and the circles under my eyes that rivaled an entire baggage cart. I could not do much, but I could do zombie.

When my boyfriend walked in that night — expecting his little injured fawn curled around a heating pad — he instead found me with more stitches than before, hunched over the table with bloody hands and a fake heart dangling out of my mouth. Without a word, he slowly backed out the door. I found him a while later, locked in his car rocking back and forth humming nursery rhymes.

A zombie bomb, photo by Molly Plann.

I had gone too far. Again. It was time to head into the light.

In fashion (and life), we must constantly re-invent ourselves. Sometimes, the change is sparked by boredom, or nature (i.e. the “angel wings” I am growing where I used to have triceps) or, as in this case, the need for balance. And a scared boyfriend.

The depth of my fashion rut became clear when I realized most of my closet qualified as a zombie costume. Perhaps it was a way to free myself of Westwood College’s exquisite commercials, but I became obsessed with finding the perfect white dress.

Not for marriage. For balancing out my dark side.

Enter: The innocent age.

I have long criticized the white wedding tradition, believing white is a universally unflattering color, not to mention almost universally deceitful. I have a vase of near-black roses in my living room. (Yes, next to the fake heart with a stake through it.)

That’s why I had to seek help from the yang to my yin: My best friend, Brittany. Platinum blonde Brittany who has more white, eyelet and cotton in her closet than a Holister store.

I did a little research first and found out that hip trench coats, oversized necklaces and military jackets actually come in colors other than black. Who knew? And according to Glamour magazine, the little black dress has been replaced by a little-black-on-white-graphic-print dress.

Then Brittany arrived — wearing a black and purple tutu, black leggings, a black tank top, black vest and purple pumps. She looked like Coraline. Or me.

I grabbed up the first white satin dress I saw at Macy’s. It might have been a knee-length wedding gown. I don’t know. Or care. I just needed to reset the balance of the universe.

Plus, adding some light to my life sounded like an appropriate way to begin re-inventing myself. I put on the white dress.

It looked great with my black boots, black pearl necklace, black sash and long black jacket.

I left the fake heart at home.

According to Mac make-up, you don’t have to be black or white; you don’t have to wear pastel colors in the spring.

One of Mac’s current make-up trends is “Re-Evolutionary Nature.” It is a softer, less dramatic smoky eye. Cat eyes of the ’50s, but done with shadow so it’s softer than with a liquid liner.

Here are tips on re-evolutionizing your eye make-up, according to Tiffany Creamer, who works at Boulder’s Mac store on the Twenty Ninth Street mall. Turns out this look goes with both black and white.

Your eyelids can be divided into four sections: the lid, crease, brow and highlight. That’s why Mac sells shadow in four-part palates.

Start with a shadow primer in a skin-tone. This prevents creases in the darker colors.

Use a light color, such as Dazzle Light ($14.50 per shadow), to highlight the brow bone. Avoid white. This looks too artificial.

Brush a darker matte color — I used Bamboo, with an orange undertone to reflect the blue in my eyes. This adds definition. Always use one matte color; all shimmering reflects only one surface.

Blend over the lid with the smoky color of your choice, such as Night Divine. Smudge it at the lash line and pull it out into wings, following the arch of the bottom lash line upward. Create a cat-eye shape, but more blurred than the traditional ’50s liner style.

Line and blend into the crease with a darker color, such as Carbon.

Touch up with concealer under the eyes and edges to clean it up.

Outline and define the cat eye with black liquid liner.

Optional No. 1: Use a soft kohl eyeliner pencil to draw a thin line on the inside of your bottom lash line, aka your “water line.” Not under the lash line.

Optional No. 2: Apply a shimmery gloss in the middle of the lid, above the pupil, to make it shine. Mac’s eye gloss is a big seller this season, although I don’t like this runway trick because it made my eyes feel sticky and caused the shadow to crease.

Optional No. 3: Dab a light-colored frosty shadow color at your tear duct. This opens your eyes and pushes them apart. Note: If you are an obsessive eye toucher or your eyes water a lot, this will vanish before you put it on.

Optional No. 4: Throw on some limited Hello Kitty brand eyelashes, very unique looking lashes designed to accentuate the cat shape. Tip: Letting the eyelash glue dry a bit first assures they will stick better. Don’t over-glue it, either. You don’t need much.

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Napoleon once said there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It must have been an Irish step.

My friend Lisa was an Irish step dancer for nine years. So obviously, with it being St. Patrick’s Day Week Month — yes, that’s how we Irish celebrate it (I am 0.004 percent Irish so I have deep pride) — I needed Lisa to teach me a jig.

Turns out, there’s a lot more to Riverdancing than just stomping, kicking with a pointed toe and bouncing your overcurled hair.

There’s also velvet. Oh, the velvet.

Yes, Irish dresses were obviously designed on a dare: (said with accent of Brad Pitt in “Snatch”) “I double dag dare you to move your bottom half as fast as possible while not moving your top half whatsoever — in a 40-pound sweaty velvet dress.”

With a cape. And rhinestones, satin embroidery and copper lame — as in “fabric woven with metallic threads,” and also as in “pathetically lacking” and, heck, probably also as in “drunk and unfit for service” (www.thefreedictionary.com). Then, in the middle of the dress: an embroidered design featuring an Irish dude smoking a doobie. With a fish.

I couldn’t even make this up if I were the dude smoking a doobie with a fish; this is Lisa’s competition dress.

Bridging the seemingly ridiculous back to the sublime was a little research. I learned the costumes evolved from women wearing their “Sunday best.” And the fish smoker represents an ancient legend of “The Salmon of Knowledge.” Although I couldn’t find any explanation for the joint; must have been embroidered in Boulder.

Still, a fly-by understanding of the Irish heritage did not help my feet during my fly-by step lesson. So, unwilling to wear velvet, ever, tradition notwithstanding, I needed another costume to compensate for my slow and mostly French feet.

That’s when I found Derailed Ink, www.derailedink.com. This T-shirt line, designed by two Fairview High School grads, began after the economy “derailed” their lives, per the name. But instead of getting run over, Rob Bell and John McCaskill used the momentum to carve a new path.

A DeRailed design.

If you went to a home Broncos game last season, you know them. They’re those loud, hyper and hilarious characters hawking T-shirts outside the stadium. They probably taunted you. You probably bought a shirt.

Because the shirts are legitimately cool. Much better than wearing the same generic jersey as every other 12-year-old and gangsta in the state. Bell, a contemporary artist, calls Derailed’s designs “instant vintage” or “retro nouveau,” the kind of shirts you could only find at Saver’s, except these are new and don’t smell like moth balls. The “Eddie Royal with Cheese” and “What would JC do?” (as in Jay Cutler, to which the proper response is “Throw an interception”) shirts even boast the original Bronco orange that I totally think the team should revert back to.

But before my boyfriend gets too excited that I am using the “f” word (football), here’s really why I dig Derailed Ink: Their fashion line — including an Irish “Lucky Charms Make You Fly” design.

The tees ($20 each) are all locally made and printed. Plus, they’re made from that soft, ultra thin cotton — much more ideal than velvet for Irish stepping. Or stomping and clomping, as it were.

Derailed Ink, available online and at Boulder’s Buffalo Exchange, also sells a shirt proclaiming, “It’s not the (the other “f” word in gerund form) ’80s.”

Which is true.

It’s the (f-word) ’90s. Fashion leaders across the world are resuscitating fluorescents, grunge, flannel, Docs and sleeveless sweatshirts.

My friend Brittany hates St. Patrick’s Day because of “all of that loud clapping and shouting.” But she does love her fluorescents.

In fact, her first fashion memory was of her fluorescent pink, orange and green swimming suit. She wore it everywhere: to church, school and, oh yeah, swimming, and one day, to the lake with her mom and her Snoopy fishing pole. That’s when Brittany’s mom read something horrifying in the Detroit paper.

“Fluorescents are out, dear.”

Initially, Brittany wanted to cry. But instead, she retorted, “So? I’m wearing them anyway,” and she did, until they resurfaced 15 years later. Granted, at the time, she had worn her fluorescent suit so much that it was actually pastel and fuzzy.

But still. That was the day Brittany learned the most important fashion lesson of all, incidentally another quote about the “ridiculous,” by Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. And my justification for shunning stinky velvet dress in lieu of a breathable tee.

The quote: “People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.”

Instead of step shoes this weekend, I’ll be stomping in my Docs. Celebrating the circle of fashion, and the Salmon of the Sublime and Ridiculous.

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I am wearing Lisa’s black rocker jeans.

I borrowed them this weekend, which means I claim stake on them for at least another two weeks. It’s OK. Lisa has my white fur jacket, so we’re even.

And anyway, Molly has my jeans.

It’s amusing to watch the circulation of clothing among siblings and close friends — as long as those friends are not only children. Only children, raised without the constant threat of others in their closet, don’t understand the fluidity of possessions.

My mom had an at-home daycare, so I never owned anything. Clothes were constantly ebbing and flowing out of and into my closet; a wardrobe wave. So it’s a bit ill-fitting that two of my best friends today are only children.

I liked Brittany’s necklace, so I put it on. I would have probably worn it five times and returned it, naturally shedding five or six other accessories all over her apartment in the meantime. But when she saw me wearing her necklace, she tilted her ear to one side, like a dog trying to decipher a conversation but only recognizing one word. She knew I was not being deceptive or mean, but why was I jacking her stuff?

Loss is freedom. That’s what I tried to explain to her. And friend-borrowing is implied consensus; no contract or prenup necessary. In other words, as her best friend, her stuff is my stuff is her stuff. By letting go of what we have, we both end up with double. This extends beyond necklaces and into life in general.

Regardless of whether it comes back in one piece, the eventual return is what distinguishes borrowing from stealing, and anyway, it is impossible for friends or sisters to steal from each other due to the Law of Circulatory Clothing, which states, “Let she whose closet is without borrowed objects cast the first stone.”

My entire trunk is packed with O.P.P. (other people’s possessions) — some they forgot, some I borrowed. The exact means of acquisition is irrelevant. Instead, we live by klothing karma: For every dress I lend or lose, I will eventually acquire another. I consider my trunk an extended, mobile closet. I occasionally use the stuff — jackets, skirts, aprons, wigs, a blender (yes, Vanessa, I still have your blender) — but keep it on hand in case I run into that friend and either of us remembers that I have the item.

But be careful with your boundaries. Friendship or blood borrowing is not the same as neighbor or coworker borrowing.

While growing up, I had a neighbor who was a habitual borrower, driven by envy but trapped by cheapness. Whenever my family got something new — a car, trash can, lawn mower, garden spade or fishing pole — the dude asked if he could borrow it.

In this case, he should have just bought his own tent poles. His addiction to borrowing drove a wedge (or spade) through what sliver of fellowship he ever had with my dad. Taken to the extreme, you could probably borrow everything for life, never making purchases if you did it right.

Hmm, isn’t that the same concept of our credit-hungry society?

Big on borrowing? You can borrow (aka rent) the latest designer handbags, sunnies, watches and accessories at www.bagborroworsteal.com.

Then there is bartering. As we all go broke, Craisglist bartering ads have increased 100 percent in the past year, according to Best Public Relations. Two real bartering examples:

“My wife’s loud parrot for your Vespa.”

“Three plastic lawn flamingos (one with a bullet hole) for a good dog or alcohol.”

Consigning your clothes for in-store credit is another way to share, without screaming birds. You can buy and sell used goodies at the Amazing Garage Sale, a mega “garage sale” at 4919 N. Broadway in Boulder that has lasted 10 years (www.theamazinggaragesale.com). The founder of the store, Judi Lesta, lets customers take home items right away and make payments with no interest. Even pink flamingos.

Chairs from the Amazing Garage Sale.

Obviously, Lesta understands the “wardrobe wave.” In fact, she started the store after she sold all of her possessions to travel Spain for a year.

Talk about freedom in loss.

Now. Where are my purple cowboy boots? Anyone? I’ll trade you a pair of black rocker jeans and blender (without a bullet hole).

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