Jennifer Aydin’s Blue Tie Pants and Black Sheer Sleeve Bodysuit

Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 13 Episode 2 Fashion

Jennifer Aydin wore the perfect playdate look on tonight’s Real Housewives of New Jersey in her blue tie pants and black sheer sleeve bodysuit. I always want to look good when I’ve got a playdate with a new mom friend but not be over the top. Jennifer’s definitely not dressed down, but not too dressed up. And it’s at a great price point to leave you looking playdate perfect for under $35 by Friday.

The Realest Housewife,

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Bodysuit Sold Out at Shein

Originally posted at: Jennifer Aydin’s Blue Tie Pants and Black Sheer Sleeve Bodysuit

Our bodies are genetically programmed to sleep for at least a third of our lives. This is where healthy living starts, and it’s also the foundation of a wise lifestyle. The factors that determine the quality of a person’s sleep are called sleep hygiene. These factors collectively play an essential role in treating insomnia and other sleep disorders.

An excellent book on this topic is Say Good Night to Insomnia (2009), by Gregg D. Jacobs and Herbert Benson. They set out a program that was developed and tested at Harvard Medical School and is based on cognitive behavioral therapy. There are many other programs, and on YouTube you can find plenty of videos of music and guided meditations designed to help you fall asleep.

Why Is Good Sleep Important?

Good sleep hygiene is critical in maintaining balanced physical, emotional, and mental health. It helps us stay focused during the day, regulate our mood, and feel more functional and productive. Bad sleep hygiene leaves us feeling unrested when we wake up – and that’s just the beginning of its nasty consequences.

It makes us feel we are dragging ourselves through our waking moments. It leads us to fall asleep during the day or have difficulty falling asleep at night. And it makes us forgetful. A book that explains the functional importance of sleep very persuasively is Why We Sleep (2017), by neuroscientist Matthew Walker.

Where Do We Start? How Much Sleep Do You Need Per Night?

So, where do we start if we want to establish a regime of good sleep hygiene? We first need to experiment and find out how much sleep we actually need. The average is between six and eight hours.

To work out the average for our own sleeping time, we need to set aside several days in which we go to bed at the same time every night and sleep until we wake up naturally. It might turn out that we need more or less than the average we worked out using this process. That is all right.

The time when we need to get out of bed in the morning ought to determine our bedtime. We should allow enough time for sleeping – and then a little more, to give our bodies time to wake up slowly and naturally.

Before getting out of bed, a good idea is to stretch like a cat, perhaps rubbing our hands together and then over our bodies. Doing this gives our bodies a wakeup call and helps us get out of bed feeling ready for the day. We can also adjust our mood so that we feel happy. (That, of course, is itself something that takes practice. If you need help with this, my previous posts offer some suggestions.)

What About Our Sleep Environment?

The next step on the path to good sleep hygiene is to examine our sleep environment, starting with our bed. Is it the best we can afford? Is it comfortable? Does it give support for the spine?

Our bedding and nightwear also need to be assessed. Are the covers the weight we like? Do they keep us warm enough? Do they breathe with the fluctuations in our body temperature during the night? Are our sleep garments comfortable? Do we prefer, perhaps, to sleep au naturel? This is all of vital importance.

And so is our bedroom. Is it dark? Is it quiet? Is it a comfortably cool temperature? Is it uncluttered? Is it used only for sleeping and sex? Is there no television, computer, or work papers around? Is our alarm clock out of our direct sight? Our bedroom needs to be a safe and peaceful haven.

How Do We Prepare for Sleep?

The last hour before sleep is vitally important. We need that time to be peaceful and relaxing. Any concerns can be set aside so the time is ours alone. We can make a brief note of any problems or challenges, with possible solutions, then leave them on the written page. They will be there in the morning. Computers, smartphones, and the television should be turned off.

We need to follow the same routine every night: perhaps reflect on the activities of the day; perhaps feel gratitude for all our many blessings; perhaps write in a journal; perhaps read a good book; perhaps do all four.

Once comfortably in bed, we can consciously relax, tuning into the Infinite should we want to do this. In an earlier post on guided meditation, I described how we can construct imaginary relaxation spaces in our minds. These are an ideal place to visit once we shut our eyes. Alternatively, taking three deep breaths, holding each for a while, before letting them out slowly, we affirm to ourselves that we will sleep after the third breath.

What Sleep Habits Ought We to Develop?

Habits take three weeks to establish, and with this in mind, we know what we must do.

We eat early in the evening so as not to go to bed on a full stomach. If we have to have a snack before bed, we choose something light like a warm milk drink.

Knowing that using drugs (caffeine, alcohol, etc.) in the evening will disrupt good sleep, we don’t reach for them. Having exercised during the day, we do not exercise three hours before bed. We waken and rise at the same time every morning. We never nap during the day, though we may meditate, because that is not sleep.

We choose the same bedtime every night, picking the time that we know will give us the hours of sleep we need. Immediately before going to bed, we go to the bathroom. If we have to get up during the night, we don’t put on a bright light. We go straight back to bed, expecting to fall asleep again. We take an extra 15 minutes to let us come awake slowly to consider our dreams and ask if our subconscious has a message for us.

What Can We Do About Sleep Problems?

If in spite of following all the correct procedures, we have a chronic sleep problem such as insomnia or sleep apnea, we consult our doctor, and maybe a sleep specialist. We remember that the first question the specialist will probably ask is about our sleep habits. If they are good, that will help speed up the diagnosis.

With all this information, honestly ask yourself how you measure up!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How well do you sleep? What is your sleep hygiene? Do you follow a strict routine to maintain good sleep hygiene?

One of the iconic images that defined our youth was that of Jane Fonda in a post-apocalyptic metal and mesh green mini dress in the film Barbarella. That dress, and all of her costumes for that film, were designed by the eclectic, ground-breaking designer, Paco Rabanne, who died earlier this month at the age of 88.

Rabanne was a product of the 60s and was certainly born for the times. It was a period of experimentation and enormous socio-political change, worldwide. Taboos were being broken and fashion naturally reflected it. The prim shirtmaker dresses and bobby socks of the 1950s were rapidly being replaced with shockingly brief miniskirts. His contribution was to make his versions of those miniskirts and dresses a bold, shiny, futuristic statement.

Breaking Out of the “Concrete”

Rabanne was born Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo in the Basque region of Spain. His widowed mother worked as head tailor for Cristobal Balenciaga, moving the family to France when Balenciaga opened his (now tainted) atelier there. But in spite of Rabanne’s eventual career trajectory, he did not receive fashion training. Instead, he studied architecture and for 10 years worked for France’s main reinforced concrete developer.

Nonetheless, he apparently imbibed much of his mother’s knowledge and while in architecture school earned extra money by creating drawings for Givenchy, Dior and shoe designer Charles Jourdan.

Eventually, Rabanne was inspired to put his own artistic visions into play, designing jewelry for Dior, Givenchy, and Balenciaga. And in 1966 he opened his own fashion house. “I realized that with fashion I had freedom. Architecture is more limited and restricted,” he said.

He called his first collection “Manifesto: 12 Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials.” It featured dresses that were created using no sewing machine, but unusual materials including pieces of metal, paper, and fiberglass, linked together with plastic and metal.

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(Fans of the television series Project Runway, will recall that the aspiring designers were required to stretch their creativity to meet the “unconventional materials” challenge by creating something beautiful and wearable out of such materials. It’s highly likely the producers took a page from Rabanne’s book.)

In his ready-to-wear collections, he embraced asymmetry, geometric and computer generated – sometimes almost psychedelic – prints, diaphanous and body-revealing materials and surprisingly, lots of florals. But even the florals featured something unexpected, such as uneven hemlines or twisted and draped fabric.

Déjà Vu?

Although extremely private in his personal life, Rabanne willingly shared some pretty quirky ideas very publicly. For starters, he claimed to be 75,000 years old, to have known Jesus in a past life, murdered Tutankhamun, been a prostitute during the reign of Louis XV, been visited by ETs, and to have seen God three times.

In 1999, he also claimed to have had, at the age of 17, visions of Paris in flames as the Mir space station crashed into the city, and that this would occur on August 11, 2011. In May of that year, he said if this didn’t happen, he would refrain from making further predictions. Rabanne kept his word. But he also claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to him and told him to continue his predictions.

It’s likely that those experiences and beliefs are what shaped his aesthetic vision. It was a vision that spoke of a more supernatural world. And, he hoped, a more peaceful world. One of his black and white sketches was of a child releasing a dove and a white balloon into the sky. He said it was inspired by the commemoration ceremony for the 319 children, servicemen and hostage takers who died in the Beslan attack by Chechnyan rebels. He donated the money for that drawing to the women of Beslan.

Rabanne’s Legacy

In April of 2010, Frederic Mitterrand awarded Rabanne the French Legion of Honor for his contributions to the worlds of fashion and art. Although he retired and closed his atelier in 1996, the Spanish company Puig bought the brand and re-launched it along with the fragrance business that continues his legacy. (As with many high-end design houses, their fragrance wing is a much-needed cash cow that keeps the brand name afloat. And for a younger generation, those fragrances are more likely how they remember his name.)

Rabanne never achieved the astronomical wealth that many of his contemporaries in the fashion world did. He didn’t attempt to cater to the mainstream but simply wanted to perpetuate his vision, which has certainly influenced the industry far and wide.

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In an almost prescient and eerie coincidence, this spring’s fashion runways featured an atypical emphasis on shiny, sparkly, metallic fabric clothing, sequins, paillettes, multi-colored miniskirts, skin revealing sheer dresses, satiny tank tops, and rhinestone jewelry. Those elements are usually reserved for the holiday season. They feel like a fitting tribute to Rabanne’s vision.

Maybe Rabanne somehow set that in motion, hoping that, as he exited the stage, the world would see pretty, shiny things as a way to find relief from the constant bombardment by images of destruction on the evening news. In a 2016 Antwerp retrospective at the MoMu fashion museum, he described himself as having had the impression of being, “a time accelerator… of going as far as is reasonable for one’s time and not indulge in the morbid pleasure of the known things, which I view as decay.”

Paco Rabanne set his artistic vision toward a more hopeful and technologically advanced future. You might say he was the fashion version of Elon Musk.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Did you ever own a Rabanne garment? Did you ever use any of his fragrances? Did you wear any of those types of garments in the ‘60s? What do you think of the current trend toward shiny and sheer fashions?

Marlo Hampton’s Pink Star Dress

Real Housewives of Atlanta Instagram Fashion

I have been waiting for a Real Housewife to wear Marlo Hampton’s pink star dress from the moment I saw it pop up online. I think it’s so fun and unique, on top of being perfect for the astrology loving Housewives, seeing as it has “zodiac” in its’ name. And leave it to the fashion queen of Atlanta to be the first star spotted in this totally unique celestial style.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to Shop her Zimmermann Zodiac Celestial Dress

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Photo: @MarloHampton

Originally posted at: Marlo Hampton’s Pink Star Dress

Lindsay Hubbard’s Pink Sequin Cutout Dress

Summer House Instagram Fashion

Lindsay Hubbard is giving us some great looks on her Summer House press tour surrounding last night’s premiere. And as I mentioned in my last post on her dress from last night’s WWHL, I love all the bright colors she’s been rocking. So of course her pink sequin cutout dress in right up my alley. And hopefully it continues on right into my closet.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to Shop her L’Agence Christie Sequin Dress

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Styled by: @emilymen

Photo: @LindsHubbs

Originally posted at: Lindsay Hubbard’s Pink Sequin Cutout Dress