Archery Lessons, New Rates and Courses
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I have updated my archery lesson rates and changed how I operate my
lessons. Starting in September 2025 I now do archery courses: Each course
contains 3...
Spring Cycling Fashion in Toronto
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Guest Post by C.M.
Bicycles are the latest fashion accessory to go mainstream... the weird
thing its not normally what people think of when they think "fas...
FASHION/POLITICS - After months of discussions, Indonesian lawmakers have agreed that bikinis are acceptable attire for beaches in the world's most populous Muslim country. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, with Muslims making up some 86.1 percent of the 235 million population.
"Tourists will be able to wear bikinis in special tourist areas, such as in Bali, so Indonesia's tourism industry won't be hurt by this legislation," Democrat Party lawmaker Husein Abdul Azis told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday, October 17.
"We are listening to the protests of stakeholders and people at large," he added, referring to fears the tourism industry would suffer if bikinis were criminalized.
Bikinis were to be criminalized under a new a pornography bill, being debated by the parliament. But politicians and tourism entrepreneurs have warned that the bill would undermine the country's tourism industry.
Indonesia has declared 2008 "Visit Indonesia Year" and hopes to attract seven million visitors, earning 6.7 billion dollars in foreign exchange revenues.
Proposed in 1999, the bill defines porn as sexual material that includes photographs, cartoons, films, poems, vocalization, conversations and body gestures in the media, or in public shows, exhibits or performances.
It calls for criminalizing those who arouse sexual propensity, desires or longings or contravene community ethics, decency or morality. The bill also imposes fines on women who refuse to cover "sensitive" body parts, such as hair, shoulders, midriffs and legs.
It also slaps a seven-year jail term on people caught kissing in public. The porn bill will treat recreational and leisure areas differently.
No word yet on whether Ms Indonesia will also be banned from wearing a bikini.
POLITICS - Socialite and party-girl Paris Hilton has stripped down to a silver stars-and-stripes inspired bikini as part of her mock election campaign for the United States presidency.
The celebrity heiress, who has released two humourous videos and a music video as part of her campaign, has now posed in a US presidential election-inspired photo shoot. It features Hilton's "Secret Service Dudes," and in it she talks about creating a new department for fashion police, being good at sipping a martini and being the best "Commander in Bikini".
Paris For President Lyrics by Paris Hilton
Paris for president, At the Palms chillin’ with the martini.
Paris for president, Your commander in bikini.
When they tell you ’bout my policies To stop the player-hating on the USA, Incentivize nuclear non-proliferation and ratify Kyoto today. You can ride in the motorcade… in the hybrid, pink Escalade!
Paris for president, Not another oldie cliche.
Paris for president, you can get married if you’re straight or if you’re gay.
If you’re gonna put lipstick on a pig, make sure that shit it matches her skin tone. you can trust me with my finger on the button, “Nucular” is a vocabulary don’t. Trading in the cabinet for a walk….in….closet…hey!
Paris for president, America should put me in charge.
Paris for president, look at Bush it cant be that hard
Simon Cowell, he might be a little mean, but when his oldest kicks the bucket I’ll put him on the court supreme Then I’ll paint the white house pink and move Camp David to Maui…
Paris for president, A proponent of clean energy.
Paris for president, The real maverick in D.C.
Water boarding is torture and, global warming is totally not hot. I’ll make a department called the Fashion Police and boost the economy with all of the new jobs. Make over Lady Liberty…in Donna, Tommy, and Calvin Klein.
Paris for president, Get your cute little butt out there and vote.
Paris for president, Dispensing beauty tips and hope.
Paris for president, hey! Paris for president, hey! Paris for president, hey!
The first day of daylight saving brought fine, sunny weather to much of the country yesterday and spurred about 30 hardy souls to carve the slopes of Mt Ruapehu each dressed in a bikini as if they were heading for the beach.
But don't be fooled - while the sun was blazing, a cold front and fresh snow on the mountain saw temperatures plummet to minus 5 degrees celsius, with the wind chill generated by hurtling downhill making it feel more like minus 15C.
The skiers and snowboarders took part in the downhill race at Turoa to raise funds for Breast Cancer Research. About $3000 was raised.
Mt Ruapehu marketing manager Mike Smith said there were plenty of volunteers - mostly blokes - to collect donations and carry jackets to the bottom of the course.
"Those girls are pretty hardy," he said. "It was cold enough being fully clothed, to be honest." Both Turoa and Whakapapa ski-fields have had record-breaking snow bases leading into the school holidays, which run this week and next week.
Yesterday saw the welcome return of the sun after a wet and windy week.
Wellington enjoyed clear skies and 14C temperatures. Napier recorded 15C and New Plymouth hit 17C.
But MetService forecaster Andy Downs said last week's changeable weather would return today, bringing gale-force winds. "That will bring clouds in, and it will rain later in the afternoon or evening."
A cold southerly was expected tomorrow morning, he said.
And with the spring equinox last week, the days will now be longer than the nights.
Though 1980s beach films seem objectifying and anti-feminist, they offer a utopian space where class and gender hierarchies begin to dissolve.
A group of young women dressed in homemade army-print bikinis are stretching in the shallow water on the beach, preparing for a running race.
Todd [through megaphone]: Okay! It's time to get wet! Are you ready?
[Alan rushes up to Todd, distressed]
Alan: Todd! I just read the invoice from that surgical supply house ...
Todd [through megaphone]: On your marks! [Turns to Alan] So?
Alan: The thread... the surgical thread we used to sew the bikinis!
Todd [through megaphone]: Get set! [Turns to Alan] What about it?
Alan: It's full of dissolving stitches, Todd!
Todd: I know!
Todd fires his gun to start the race, and the film cuts to a slow-motion shot of the girls running through the water as their bikinis gradually fall off. Then we see onlookers -- boys, men, women, and one police officer, who all laugh at the spectacle, and a close-up of Todd and Alan, smiling.
No, the above scene is not from a porn movie. It's from the The Bikini Shop (released as The Malibu Bikini Shop in the U.S.), directed by David Wechter, one of a number of low-budget Hollywood beach movies that had a brief resurgence during the 1980s. You may have come across such films as Summer Job, Spring Break, Sizzle Beach USA and Private Resort in a dark corner of your local video store -- not naughty enough to be behind the curtain, but titillating enough to provide pubescent boys with their first taste of adult entertainment. The movies belong to the broader genre of the teen movie, and they necessarily include gratuitous female nudity, as in the scene detailed above.
The movies are, at first glance, basically tit-and-ass comedies that take place on the beach. There is no doubt that the novelty of seeing daggy '80s fashion can make these films fun to watch now, but they have more than mere nostalgia value. The films capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood. But whereas we must reluctantly accept adult responsibilities, '80s bikini movies allow us to indulge the fantasy of rejecting them and return to a world where fun rules.
The basic premise in all these films is the same: a group of young, attractive characters spend their spring break or summer vacation on the beach getting naked (girls) or trying to get laid (guys). This gives ample opportunity for gratuitous nudity and close-up bikini montages, but these same ingredients -- the beach, a vacation and sex -- bestow the movies with unlikely substance.
The Bikini Shop follows college graduate Alan (Michael David Wright) on a trip to California, where he intends to settle his deceased aunt's estate and return to Chicago to be married into high society. But the aunt left half of her estate to Alan's rowdy brother Todd (Bruce Greenwood), who doesn't want to sell her beach house -- he wants to run his aunt's bikini shop with Alan.
So begins Alan's journey. His transformation from an upper-middle-class tire sales executive to a laid-back Californian can be understood as a liminal journey. Film theorist Adrian Martin observes that liminality -- an anthropological term that refers to the transitional period between major life events -- is, more than any other aspect of teen movies, the thread that connects them all. For Martin, liminality manifests in teen movies as "that intense, suspended moment between yesterday and tomorrow, between childhood and adulthood, between being a nobody and a somebody, when everything is in question, and everything is possible." This brief but often life-changing detour between life stages figures in The Bikini Shop: by the end of the film, Alan has dumped his snobby fiancée, fought to keep the modest shop, and shacked up with the shop's salesgirls in the beach house. As Alan goes from wearing full suits to shorts and Hawaiian shirts, his core concerns have gone from money and status to family loyalty and hedonism.
You'd be hard pressed to think of any teen film from any era that doesn't explore liminality. American Pie focuses on a group of boys determined to lose their virginity before they finish high school; the quest to "become a man" by having sex is as explicitly liminal as the classic teen transition between high school and college. Dazed and Confused limits its focus to the last few days of middle school and the rites of initiation teens experience in order to enter senior high's social circle.
At a basic level, liminal journeys can be understood as various rites of passage. But the implications of liminality are more complex than this. Cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, author of The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, explains that the liminal operates in opposition to structured society, and "secular distinctions of rank and status disappear or are homogenized". '80s bikini movies explicitly explore this aspect of liminality within the space of the beach, separating the subgenre from other teen movies.
As the strip between the ocean and the land, the beach is itself liminal -- neither land nor sea, but with the characteristics of both, as John Fiske, Bob Hodge, and Graeme Turner observe in Myths of Oz: Reading Australian Culture. And according to Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker, authors of The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth, the space of the beach "sizzles with the erotic voltage of bare-breasted, bare-buttocked beauties and virile stalwarts," providing an escape from "the nagging sense of fealty to cash, work, and responsibility."
At the beach house in The Bikini Shop, there are no limitations: alcohol flows freely, flirting is par for the course and everyone -- even Alan, enjoying a spa with beautiful salesgirl Ronnie (Barbara Horan) -- is shown having a good time. It no longer matters that Alan belongs to a higher class than his fellow partygoers, or that he has a fiancée: as a liminal space, the beach in The Bikini Shop facilitates the breakdown of sexual and class boundaries.
The beach also provides the opportunity for rejuvenation and the blurring of boundaries in Where the Boys Are '84. In the movie, Sandra (Wendy Schaal) reluctantly accompanies her college friends to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for spring break, disappointed to be missing out on the trip she had planned to a more sophisticated vacation spot, Bermuda. Seeing the masses of semi-naked college students spilling out on the beach, her friend Jennie (Lisa Hartman) exclaims, "It's a supermarket of sex!" But Sandra describes the carefree environment as a "zoo" and insists that a girl should only date bankers, lawyers, and doctors. But these prejudices against the nonprofessional classes disappear during her beach vacation, during which she dates a police officer -- a lowly civil servant.
The similarly stereotyped affluent snob Barbara (Chantal) in Summer Job also relaxes her prejudices during her time working at a beach resort. At the beginning of the film, she sourly explains that her "daddy" made her apply for the menial resort job to build her character. Barbara arrives at the resort with a personal assistant and treats all her fellow employees like crap. But by the end of the movie, Barbara has befriended many of the other employees and has even taken to dating the equally stereotypical geek Herman (George O).
Class is not the only social category dissolved at the beach. In Spring Break, Nelson (David Knell) gradually gains the courage to defy his overbearing stepfather during his college vacation, turning the familial hierarchy on its head. Sandra lets her own inhibitions collapse in Where the Boys Are '84 when she allows herself to get drunk and perform a table-top striptease in a bar, literally stripping off her self-imposed restrictions.
The characters in '80s bikini movies often face a significant life change: Alan's impending marriage and career, Sandra's college graduation and entry into upper-class society. Their deviation to the beach is often portrayed as a last escape, the last chance to enjoy the frivolity of youth before entering the real world. Hovering between life stages, the liminal break offers a chance for necessary personal growth.
Typically, the characters return to society having absorbed the necessary lessons, but sometimes, they don't. In The Bikini Shop, Alan chooses to remain in the liminal space of the beach rather than return to his responsibility-filled life with his fiancée. Alan simply refuses to grow up. Here, the beach film positions liminality as a utopia, where one can permanently escape the pressing obligations of adult society. Such a resolution perhaps explains the modest popularity of '80s bikini movies during their heyday. What teenager wouldn't fantasize about never growing up, about spending their life surrounded by near-naked specimens, enjoying endless parties and no-strings-attached sex? Who wouldn't at least dream of rejecting the often-terrifying prospect of maturity and responsibility?
Of course, one could argue that '80s bikini movies are nothing more than sexist drivel. The endless stream of impossibly beautiful women that litter the mise en scéne of these films provide eye candy and little else. In The Bikini Shop there are several overtly sexist set pieces -- the most offensive involving the installation of one-way mirrors in the bikini shop's changing rooms. But to attack the films for negative attitudes toward women would be to take them far more seriously than they ever took themselves. Like the beach in these films, '80s bikini movies themselves are a liminal space inviting us to suspend such judgments and providing us with a foray into irresponsibility, careless fun and good times. In this world, the abundance of naked women is not sexist; it's just refreshingly free of political correctness. The free exchange of sex is not irresponsible; it's just fun. And the idea that we, like Alan, can live out our days on the beach? Well, that's just great.
According to reports coming from France, sunbathers on the Cote d'Azur, who once adopted a "laissez faire" attitude to nakedness, have turned against displaying too much bare flesh.
Even regulars at La Voile Rouge beach club on Pampelonne's Beach, in St. Tropez, where it all started shortly after the actress' film And God Created Woman, prefer to keep their top on.
The development has sparked a minor debate in the country which has always prided itself on being less prudish than its Anglo-Saxon neighbours.
For some it is simply a change in fashion, for others it marks a new conservatism sweeping France. Yet others say it is to do with increased health concerns about skin cancer and sensitivities to the growing Muslim community.
"It is seen as a bit vulgar now," said Sabina Hourdin, 38, from Paris, holidaying in St Tropez. "It is like mini-skirts. You don't show your legs any more, you cover them up more.
"In the 70s and 80s less was considered more when it came to clothes but now that has changed. It has gone out of fashion."
But a spokesman for the health ministry put the cover up down to cancer concerns.
"Whereas people once thought nothing of exposing their flesh to the sun for many hours, people are generally a lot more sensible nowadays.
"This is certainly the case as regards women who are very conscious of the risks of exposure to bright sunshine."
Geraldine Doree, a 34-year-old publishing executive from Paris who was enjoying the beach at St Tropez, said: "In the past the whole place would have been filled with topless women, but people are a lot more sensible nowadays.
"The health risk is very great, and people prefer to cover up for longer periods. It might also be that people are now more aware of the offence topless sunbathing might cause.
"There are many Muslims in the south of France who might find such a sight upsetting."
In the past La Voile Rouge - or Red Sail - was described a seaside sanctuary of "French aristocracy that has no qualms seating a grandmother in a Chanel pantsuit next to a topless-teenager having Chandon sipped from her belly button".
It was here that Princess Grace and Brigette Bardot would arrive by yacht in the 1950s when it was little more than a fishing shack.
Now it is lined with beach clubs and bars and known for its gorgeous women and Mediterranean playboys.
There is even a makeshift catwalk for them to sashay down in the middle of the space.
Swimwear should suit body, not trends, says fashion model Monika Schnarre.
TORONTO — Elegantly clad in all black and peep-toe heels, it's hard to imagine anything could look less than flattering on Monika Schnarre.
But the statuesque former supermodel recently spoke candidly of one swimwear look that wasn't among her best - the boy short.
"I looked back at pictures from the cottage, and it was in a really bright print - and I've got a booty," recalled the six-foot-two Schnarre. "It didn't look good. It wasn't good for me."
"There are skirted options, which I think are really flattering, but that's where someone has to be really honest with you, and say, 'It's not working, Monika. You're really not rocking out the boy short."'
Schnarre said while it's tempting to snap up the trendy new item off the rack, sometimes what's hot doesn't necessarily work for everyone - and that's OK.
"I've always said in fashion, it doesn't matter what the trends are, you should wear what looks best on you, regardless of what's in," she said. "If skinny jeans don't look good on you, don't wear them."
The Toronto-based beauty, who has graced the covers of Vogue and pages of the famed Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, is suiting up once again - this time as the face of a Canadian brand making a comeback.
Following a decade-long hiatus, Sea Queen is relaunching with a new swimwear line designed to fit women 35 and older.
But the 37-year-old Schnarre said the pieces are "not your old lady swimsuits" and that the collection incorporates looks inspired by the runway.
Among the one-piece, two-piece and tankini suits that comprise the line, the swimsuits include bold accents like belts, metallics and exotic tiger and jungle prints.
When trying to find the right size, Schnarre said the focus should be on the fit rather than the number on the tag, which may not match up to what you normally wear in clothes.
"If you wear something that's too tight, it can work in clothing, maybe, but in a swimsuit it's not forgiving, and you don't want any digging into the skin," she said.
"And don't get hung up on the size. If you're a size 6, you might want an 8 or a 10 just because again, you don't want cutting into the skin. It's not flattering."
For those with a larger bust, Schnarre suggests trying out a halter which is adjustable, thus allowing you as much or as little support as you need, while women with a smaller bustline may want a little enhancement in the form of a bra.
Among the features in the Sea Queen line is a built-in bra with malleable moulded cups featuring flexible underwires touted as being able to keep their shape in and out of the water.
For a more boyish figure, Schnarre said ruching can create some curve as well as a beautiful waistline.
And while belts can be a stylish addition, in the case of women who are petite with a slim build, the empire waist may be a better option because it gives the illusion of looking taller, Schnarre said.
"If you're quite short, I think that a belt on the waist would just cut you in half," she said.
"But up here, (it) creates the illusion of a waistline and a longer torso," she added, motioning to a suit featuring the empire waist.
As for accessories, Schnarre likes to infuse a little glamour in her swimwear look by wearing heels around the pool which helps to elongate the leg, in addition to donning a hat and sunscreen.
But she stresses that whatever bathing suit buyers opt to pick up, their focus should be on selecting something that looks great on you - no matter what's considered "in."
"If a one-piece is in, but you look better in a bikini, rock the bikini, it doesn't matter," she said. "It's all about looking your best."
Additional tips on how to flaunt assets, minimize flaws with right swimwear
For a woman with...
A large chest: Look for suits with underwire, soft cups with wider straps for best support.
A small chest: Look for suits with detailing and pattern on top which will give the illusion of a larger chest. Two-piece bathing swimsuits are also a great way to enhance the bust.
Full hips: Try a suit with a skirt to visually even out your line. Printed top with solid coloured bottoms also help draw the eye upward.
A tummy: Look for suits that have a built-in tummy control and those with ruching or a crossover design to help camouflage your midsection.
A short torso: Try a bikini to elongate your body. Two-piece swimsuits with lower cut bottoms give the illusion of a longer torso.
A long torso: Try suits that give you a balance effect. A deeply-cut neckline, higher waisted and higher cut bottoms help make the torso appear shorter.
Who would have thought that salmon's scaly skin could be so useful, or become a fashion statement one day? Claudia did. She also saw a source of cheap raw material in the masses of salmon skin discarded worldwide every year.
Her Lycra-trimmed, ultra-mini salmon-skin bikini, which she describes as durable and elastic, and trousers have now become wardrobe must haves of most celebs.
“Many people who lived near rivers and oceans have used fish throughout history. It's not my original idea,” she told a British website. “It’s amazing, it’s a used product and you transform it into a product with added value.”
These days Escobar is busy scouring the local markets looking for materials to go with sheep wool. Why? Because she has just returned from a trip to pick up wool shed by sheep in the Scottish islands. She is already excited about developing something traditional using the wool.
FASHION/POLITICS - After months of discussions, Indonesian lawmakers have agreed that bikinis are acceptable attire for beaches in the world's most populous Muslim country. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, with Muslims making up some 86.1 percent of the 235 million population.
"We are listening to the protests of stakeholders and people at large," he added, referring to fears the tourism industry would suffer if bikinis were criminalized.
Proposed in 1999, the bill defines porn as sexual material that includes photographs, cartoons, films, poems, vocalization, conversations and body gestures in the media, or in public shows, exhibits or performances.
