One more thing...

Then I desperately need to go to bed! 

I'm dying to go winter camping- I think the picture says it all. It comes from the coolest site ever. 

Also. 

My addiction to Outside is in full force again... for good reason! 

ARCTIC SURFING!!

Lara Stone; Maillots

I love this photo- I want her outfit, her attitude, her face! 

Especially the maillot. That's what I want to be wearing at Havasupai... 

Python Tries to Eat Alligator: An Analogy for China

I randomly found this when I was looking for pictures of Burmese pythons (because who doesn't look for pictures of Burmese pythons?): 

"In 2005, a 13-foot Burmese python tried to swallow an indigenous 6-foot alligator in Everglades National Park. However, the alligator was too big that python’s stomach ripped open. Later on, the biologists and ecologists figured out that the python was starving for days. This also is an apt analogy that represents the Chinese ambition: desires overwhelming the reasonable consciousness." 

Sick, huh?! (Mostly the python story but I guess China's ambitions are kinda sick, too)

The reason I was looking for pictures of Burmese pythons was because I was reading the "Room for Debate" article in the New York Times: Killing Pythons and Regulating Them.  It is about the fact that Florida has, apparently, experienced an "Invasion of the Giant Pythons,"  at least according to the show of that name on PBS.  They got there by a combination of irresponsible pet owners but also the hurricanes that wrecked exotic-pet warehouses and set them loose across the state. Florida now has the highest concentration of non-native amphibian and reptiles species in the world. 

Now, I kind of think this is wicked cool, but there is the problem of them ruining the entire balance of the ecosystem, like the Brown Tree Snake has done in Guam. Fortunately, the recent cold spell killed as many as half of them. Experts hope that a combination of nature and concerted efforts to manage the population will allow successful containment. 

Now I want to watch A Series of Unfortunate Events!  Uncle Monty is my hero!

It's Time to Make Management a True Profession

HBR Article: It's Time to Make Management a True Profession

Fascinating article arguing: "True professions have codes, and the meaning and consequences of those codes are taught as part of the formal education required of their members." Giving business the equivalent of a Hippocratic Oath would "forge an implicit social contract with society: Trust us to control and exercise jurisdiction over an important occupational category, and, in return, we will ensure that the members of our profession are worthy of your trust - that they will not only be competent to perform the tasks entrusted to them, but that they will also conduct themselves with high standards and great integrity"

Judging a book

The best of fashion week thus far

A few of my favorite shows so far: Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Erin Fetherstone. Aren’t they gorgoeus? Frida Giannini at Gucci especially showed glamourous, exquisitely curated day ware. With knee-length dresses and suede thigh-high boots, narrow and flattering tailored trousers in a “pale palette of neutrals, meant she essentially had a new, quite refreshing look done and dusted” as Sarah Mower on style.com described.  Giannini explained: "I've grown up. It's more mature clothes for more mature women, because that's what I am." Mower compared it to “hitting the kind of equilibrium Stella McCartney reached a couple of years back: the confidence to relax and not try too hard to be super-duper fashion-y.” The show defied the view of Gucci as an exclusively nightwear house: “Gucci ready-to-wear might have a viable life in daylight.”

And while it was not one of my favorite shows, it is wicked cool that Erin Wasson decided to show at the sixth floor of ABC Carpet & Home. Coolest store ever! Over a hundred years old, it occupies a six-floor flagship at 881 Broadway with store spaces for Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, ReGeneration and Ralph Lauren. In 2003, they began the transition to a socially responsible business, emphasizing products made from sustainable materials and serving as a launch-pad for many environmental and humanitarian causes. 

But Wasson’s collection, fueled by her delft personal style, did not live up to it’s hype- as style.com put it: “the 22-look lineup was a little too long on T-shirts and corduroy cutoffs.” 

Details from Carolina Herrera