Check out Carmen Majeau’s crafty wares, and what you don’t see is as revolutionary as what you do. Majeau creates happy, summery wallets embroidered with cute octopuses and forest animals; purses that close with antique buttons and sport appliqués; and cheerful polka-dot bas. As well, she’s walking in the footsteps of the arts and crafts movement’s William Morris, and those of midcentury anticolonialist—and spinning-wheel enthusiast—Mahatma Gandhi. How?

Yes, Vancouver, get a hold of yourself: H&M has finally arrived. The Swedish fashion retailer will open the doors to its Pacific Centre location and, of course, its scads of hip, inexpensive clothing for women and men on May 22.

Tabith Savoie emblazons art on fashion with her indie label togs, which uses sustainable fabrics and lots of bold patterns for sexy and comfortbale results.

Back in 1997, the Vancouver Art Gallery officially ushered skin art into the city’s mainstream with the show Pierced Hearts and True Love. Tattoos featuring anchors and large-breasted women took up most of the exhibit, plus some traditional fare from Asia and Africa.

Even with the current media focus on the ugly and humiliating reality–TV version of modelling, being a fashion model is still the dream of many young girls, and some guys. For those who have never been in front of the camera, it can be difficult to sort out how far removed the dramatized version of modelling is from the real-life, everyday profession.

Beware. Once you’ve stepped over the threshold of young-gun tailor David Wilkes’s studio, you’ll never be able to wear an off-the-rack suit again without your soul dying a little. Ready-made suits are often filled with foams, glues, and synthetic fibres. They’re built to fit a theoretically average-proportioned man. If your chest, waist, and torso measurements don’t match up, you’re out of luck.

The niche-market designs unveiled at the grad show for Kwantlen University College’s latest crop of fashion students said a lot about how the industry is changing.

There’s a reason why chairs at Parisian sidewalk cafés all seem to face the street. It’s so that customers have a front-row seat to observe the “fashion dandies”.

Vancouver fashion designer Jenny Yen enjoys researching fashion trends. So she wasn’t surprised when vibrant floral patterns and geometric prints became the rage of this year’s spring season.

Beautiful, smooth, flawless skin. Lanky limbs. Waspish waists. Heaving chests under which young, spirited hearts beat to the silent song of innocence. Laid out before all, within reach of outstretched arms, are a dozen samples of delectable eye candy. And who knows what pleasures they may have for us to savour.

The event: The Green Living Show, February 29 to March 2 at B.C. Place.

Two years ago when Jada-lee Watson began designing eco-friendly clothing, she had trouble finding gentle-on-the-planet fabrics. Now, she told the Georgia Straight, they’re everywhere. Organic cotton, bamboo, well-made hemp, soy, and organic linen are readily available, thanks to companies such as Syka Textiles. But the future of environmental fashion in Vancouver has one more major hurdle—the drought of professional sewers in the city.

If you’ve been pining for the new Mavi store, the 850 Granville Street location is now open, joining its sister stores in Kits and Gastown in the cult of cool denim, with fresh spring looks like the lemony jeans and sweet short-sleeved jean jacket

Inside Moxie’s Classic Grill on Davie Street, customers’ eyes popped as, outside the plate-glass windows, leather and PVC–clad Velvet Steele, Drew Ridley, and Mitch McGuire vamped it up for the camera. It was a miniature preview of the third annual Mardi Gras, which kicks off Thursday (February 21). Davie Street will once again be home to Vancouver’s most colourful crew, thanks in part to sparkling style icons like Steele.

A wise and very stylish woman once told me to celebrate each chapter of life with new jewellery.