If you are carrying your yoga mat under your arms to your yoga class there is a better way to do it and you’ll be glad to make the change. Yoga mat bags have in recent years become more stylish and functional. You can buy the messenger bag that will carry your bag securely strapped to the bottom. When you’re not going to a yoga class the bag functions and a general tote bag. Yoga mat bags come in different shapes, sizes, and colors so it becomes the yoga fashion accessory of today. If you prefer solid colors over floral designs, or a backpack style over the over the shoulder style there are stylish and functional bags out there. So stop juggling personal items and exposed mats under your arms and protect the one true yoga investment in a safe and convenient way.

It seems like every lifestyle magazine these days has a section devoted to lifestyle testimonials.  People like to hear what other people do to change for the better. Diet and fitness is a popular topic from celebrities to next door neighbors all spilling the beans about their latest conquests. We learn about their food habits, their workout routines, their favorite piece of exercise equipment and their diet cheats. All this right out as an open confession. Celebs want you to think they are a like normal people. I’m starting to get that warm and cuddling feeling. Celebs have publicists, they get pampered and in no way they are like the rest of us. Yet I still enjoy reading the latest gossip about them. And that said, I’d have to throw in the testimonial read in there as well.

Okay, I’m being a bit dramatic here, but if you are looking for a great fitness exercise for 2010 and you haven’t tried yoga well maybe it’s time you start. Yoga has come a long way from the days of being “too earthy crunching” Remember earth shoes and tie-dye tees? Today you will find all kinds of people, shapes, backgrounds and vocations making it their point to stay in physical shape practicing this ancient discipline. Retail fitness stores are taking notice as well. More and more space is being offered to yoga supplies and accessories. So what are you waiting for?

Does anyone mail hand written personal letters anymore? The way technology has developed people are spending more time writing emails than the hand written letter. Let’s hope that the mailed letter will not end up like the eight track player. Maybe it’s because postage has gone up dramatically over the years? C’mon $.044 cents! Maybe long hand written letters are too arduous to tackle? Text speak with short cut techniques is faster that is for sure. Or is it that we just don’t know how to say things more than a sentence or two? With email so much part of our lives as well as hand held cell phones that are hooked up to web service, people are so much more connected.

Love letters once mailed by postage are now showing up in a person’s email box. I hate the thought that someday my kids would look at a hand written letter and ask – what is it daddy? That’s why I make it a point my kids hand write a personal thank you note to those who were nice to buy them birthday gifts. And it is so much more appreciated by those generous folks who want to keep the hand written letter alive too.

Have you noticed the variety of apps out in the marketplace?  Yes there are thousands of them and growing each and every day all with their unique graphic look. So is the iPhone app art worthy of  a mention? I think so. Before the app explosion there were the few classic iconic graphics so highly recognizable such as Apple’s iTunes or search engine browsers like Safari, Firefox and I.E. Now with so many apps to choice from unless one has overwhelming popularity, these new graphic apps won’t find the immediate recognition those previously mention have. Not to worry. There will be a time when the public sees an array of application graphics out from cellphones and computers.  I wonder how long it will be before some artist mounts a show appropriating these graphics into his artwork. It’s coming. From a personal standpoint, I like to see the apps stacked resembling pixels and made into portraits. Chuck Close are you listening?

Every year moms are stuck on what costumes would be either worth making or buying for their children. It gets especially difficult because the child is apt to change his mind many times before he gets out the door on Halloween night. So what is a mother to do? Make the decision for him. Little children have it easy. They can be kitty cats, witches, ballet dancers or whatever and whatever they choose they all look adorable. This year one of the favorites just might be Max from the “Where The Wild Things Are”. Making the costume is quite easy for the mom. It is as non-frills as burning cork and rubbing it over the little’s one face making him a hobo for the night. But if your love one wants to be a princess it will be hard to convince her out of it. After all it’s her fashion statement.

To the naked eye it first looks strange, then it gets weirder the more time you spend staring at it. And then you ask yourself what were they thinking? Fashion designer Ralph Lauren recently apologized for retouching one of his models wearing his clothing. The model Filippa Hamilton, a size 4 to begin with said she was fired by the designer for being too fat. What they did to her photo was a little more than the usual nip and tuck retouchers do before many fashion photos appear in ads or in magazines. This time they went to ridiculous extremes. They made her body at the waist look freakishly small as well as her head.

Eating disorder advocates as well as moms with young teenage daughters are up in arms against companies selling their products this way and for good reason. Anorexia, bulimia, general low self-esteem and other eating and food disorders continue to be an enormous issue with young girls and teens and they are the ones really paying attention to what advertising is saying. What do these ads say to them? That looking skeletal, emaciated, and sickly is not only acceptable but that this is the only way they’ll look good in these clothes.

Another retouched Ralph Lauren ad has surfaced and this time with model Valentina Zelyaeva. And again the photo looks bizarre. It looks as if Valentina’s head is smaller than her pelvis. No comment by Lauren as yet, but is he doing this for publicity?

To all those budding photography students across the land you should take special note of the recent loss of a giant in the world of photography. Irving Penn first known as a fashion photographer and later evolved into a commercial art photographer has died at the age of 92. Before computers came along that would change how we saw photographs, photographers like Penn only had their creative eye and their intuition to transform beauty on a two dimensional level.

His works became iconic no matter if he shot portraits of celebrities to fashion models. From everyday tradesmen like a milkman to the tribesmen of Africa, to the culture of beauty products. For over forty years he was the man that shot the simple, clean graphic visuals to the Clinique cosmetic line. And in the world of commercial advertising that would seem like an historic record for any photographer to retain such a client. The same can be said of his collaboration with Vogue Magazine. Obviously, Vogue showed fashion through Penn eyes through decades.

Penn understood the world of commerce and art. He photographed a series of discarded cigarette butts that were once exhibited in the New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He leaves this world a perfectionist unbridled by modern technology.

Well, at least Top Chef is. If you are a food junkie how can you not sit and watch the drama that unfolds on this hit cable show? Granted the action is in the kitchen and not so much outside of it. And that’s a good thing, because what’s not to like about competing chefs going at it under the clock. Sure the producers of the show make it interesting with setting up the game rules each week and it doesn’t hurt to take the chefs out of their comfort zone now and then. That is why talent alone may not get the chef to the top.

Granted the dishes these chefs create each week are not the kind of dishes the average home cook whips up at home. These chefs are talented. They may not have all studied in France or have gain wisdom from apprenticing in some other culinary country, but they do know their way around the kitchen. A great feature of the show that points this out is the opening quick fire challenge. Here chefs bust their butts to put out a dish in the shortest of time often making do with what they have to work with on foods that may not be familiar to them.

What the show is not is a how-to-cooking show. If you want that you’ll have to switch over to the Food Channel.

What’s with these celebrities and their tweeting? I thought they lived busy lives. Isn’t filming on exotic islands or making on screen love with their beautiful co-stars enough excitement for a day? Why on earth would they waste time telling the world about their everyday activities? Maybe they want to be like the rest of us or maybe they’re just downright bored to death.

Come on! Celebs live a charm life. Even B stars get enough press that the public just can’t get rid of them. They hang around making movie after movie that never see the big screen but settle instead for the movie rental DVD. I wonder if these celebs tweet more. I would like to think that the really big movie stars can’t be bothered. Of course, that is why they have someone else do their tweeting for them. There are exceptions though.

Basketball player Shaquille O’Neal and actor Aston Kushner come quickly to mind. Actually Kushner is a serious tweeter. He is believed to be the first Twitter account to reach one million followers. Still I have to wonder if time spent tweeting can be spent doing something more productive.