Alluring fashions for any age

By Nedra Wickremasinghe

Your age, however, influences the way you dress. Every age has its own style.

There are scores of style suggestions, for different stages of a woman's life, which can be put to good use. Fashion is also fickle and one must not splurge on too many fashionable items only to regret the impulse later, and perhaps cringe on seeing them. When dressing up or buying an outfit, certain principles - like line, colour, texture, design, proportion and accessories - must be applied. Never let the outfit dominate your appearance. 

Textbook rules and guidelines are useful but regard them as just a springboard. Rules are always broken so it is up to you to make a look work for you.

Teens (age of not so innocence)

For this age, anything goes from racy jeans and stiletto boots to showing off midriffs, bare backs, putting on chunks of accessories, as well as wearing anything tight and wild.

With a limited budget, cheaply priced clothes and bargains are what teens are looking out for. Casual basics are ideal for this age group, but a common mistake teens make is to go overboard with too many trendy items. This is the age to work on your fashion sense and discover whether you have the flair to put it all together.

20s (age of glowing youth)

30s (age of serious commitments)

A practical solution is to build on updated classics in neutrals for work. To hang out with friends and kids be stylish and feel free to wear clothes like the ever comfortable pants, be they cropped, Capri, boot-leg or lean-cut jeans, mixed with stretch knit long/short tops and shirt blouses.

For night time glamour, a little black dress or a bare-back long number in stretch or sheer fabric is a must to look feminine. Choose the best shoes and handbag you can afford. As for jewellery, nothing less than diamonds for the ear, and something serious for the wrist will suffice.

40s (fabulous forties)

Theatre magic

By Alfreda de Silva

Next to the theatre, this couple loved the water and it was in a picturesque village on the seafront that they lived before their departure.

Now domiciled in Mexico, their home is in Ajijic, a small charming village. It squats on the north shore of Lake Chapala, south of Guadalajara, which is scenically appealing to them.

Ajijic, by all accounts, is a fascinating place to retire in. It has recently been brought into the limelight by a friend of the McCarters, Karen Blue, whose book Midlife Mavericks has been enthusiastically received.

Karen opens the introduction to her writings with Johann Wolfgang Goethe's words: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

In the book she interviews several single women in mid-life, 'women re-inventing their lives', in Mexico, who have had a good look at themselves and have decided to retire and move to Ajijic to take on a new pursuit and persona.

"Careers, corporate ladders, stock options - heart attacks, ulcers, cancer and divorce.... Women are taking a second look at their lives and asking, 'Is this all there is?' Burned out and up, or trapped in unfulfilling career, an attorney swaps law for painting, a corporate executive gives up prestige to search for purpose."

Karen Blue was fifty-two when she moved to Mexico and began to write. On the feedback she received from a book club meeting of both men and women in Ajijic she went ahead and the result is an extraordinary book.

For Robert and Jeritza, there was not much re-inventing to do. They went back to their field of theatre, for which there is scope at Ajijic's Lakeside Little Theatre.

Sri Lankan audiences will remember them in their many theatre productions as directors as well as players of many parts on the Lionel Wendt stage and other venues. With a handful of other theatre enthusiasts they founded the Colombo Amateur Dramatic Society (CADS) in 1983, and never let up on their theatrical activities till 1999.

Regular play reading from the work of well-known playwrights and enjoyable productions of American and other theatricals were eagerly looked forward to by members of CADS as well as the large audiences that patronised the shows.

The shows include Neil Simon's Sunshine Boys, California Suite, Plaza Suite and The Odd Couple (women), Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water, Marsha Norman's Night Mother, a brilliant and poignant play for two characters; The Shadow Box by Michael Christopher and the 1978 Pulitzer Prize winning play by D.L. Coburn: The Gin Game, The Rinter Quartet and Chekhov's The Good Doctor. 

Both Robert and Jeritza have been news-makers in the Lakeside Little Theatre. Critic and reviewer for the 'Colony Reporter' Jeanne Chance acclaims Jeritza's direction of Robert Hurling's Steel Magnolias. She stresses the professionalism of the exercise: "From the intense attention to detail, clever blocking and high levels of character development, it was clear that McCarter (Jeritza) was an ever present and strong driving force...."

Robert's contribution to this play had been the set design of a neighbourhood beauty parlour with an original and artistic touch. He had also designed the clever and complex set for Noel Coward's Private Lives, in which he played the wronged Dear Victor. Reviews drew attention to the fact that the Lakeside Little Theatre audience have been impressed with Robert's unshakeable stagecraft and are in tune with it.

Sri Lankan born Marie-Lyse Jacobs Muhlen, nee Rockwood, who, with her late husband, settled down in Ajijic a few years ago, is also involved with this theatre. Her portrayal of Bloody Mary in the Rodgers and Hammerstein extravaganza South Pacific has been described as 'a sterling performance', "Her sassy energy and bawdy body language brought down the house".

Robert and Jeritza McCarter have come under the spell of Ajijic's natural beauty; its culture and the friendliness of its people. And waiting for them there, amid all sorts of places to explore, was the theatre to welcome them.

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