DISCOEX | Shopping Blog

Archive for February, 2010

When you own or manage a business that requires employees to work out in the field, it\’s important that your workers convey a professional appearance at all times. After all, their appearance is a reflection of your company. Similarly, if you have a manufacturing plant or operate a warehouse, the clothing your employees wear can impact safety, which is always a primary concern.

Styles of Work Clothes

For reasons of professionalism, safety, and conformity, industrial work clothes are (or should be) a requirement in any number of industries. One of the leaders in industrial work clothes is CornerStone, which offers the following types of apparel:

Work Jackets: Work jackets are made from cotton duck cloth fabric with a polyfill lining that withstands harsh conditions. Hooded work jackets feature a zipper front, drawstrings at the hood, rib knitting at the hem and cuffs, and muff pockets. Classic work jackets feature reinforced stitching at the shoulders and armholes, a zipper front, a corduroy collar, slash pockets, and hems and cuffs that each have two snaps for a more tailored fit.

Work Shirts: Industrial work shirts are available in both long-sleeve and short-sleeve styles, and can typically withstand up to 50 washings by an industrial launderer. The fabrication of work shirts is a poly/cotton blend with a special treatment for easy cleaning of soiled fabric. These work shirts feature an open collar with stays, a metal collar gripper, melamine buttons, and two chest pockets. CornerStone work shirts come in a variety of colors, including white, light blue, navy blue, gray blue, petrol blue, light tan, light green, and light gray.

Work Pants: There are two basic styles of work pants. Both industrial pants and insert work pants have a poly/cotton twill fabrication, front and back pockets, and a zipper and button closure. Regular industrial pants have a solid fabric waistband, while insert work pants feature elastic inserts in the waistband for a better fit and added comfort.

It’s hard to imagine that a mineral with a name as mundane as corundum yields gems as exquisite as the ruby and sapphire, or even that these two stones, so different in color and mystique, are actually the same mineral family.

Lucky you if your birthstone is sapphire (September) or ruby (July). These are among the richest-colored of all gemstones with a romance and history as colorful as they are. Rubies are actually rarer than sapphires, and only red corundums are called rubies. Any other color is a sapphire. When grading colored stones, the density and hue of the color are part of the evaluation, and it’s the richest, deepest colors that are the most prized. In rubies, the most prized variant of color is called pigeon’s blood. Large gem quality rubies can be more valuable than comparably sized diamonds and are certainly rarer. There is a relative abundance of smaller, (1-3 carat,) blue sapphires compared to the scarcity of even small gem quality rubies, making even these smaller stones relatively high in value.

Stones of Burmese origin generally command the highest prices. The vast majority of rubies are “native cut” in the country of origin. High value ruby rough is tightly controlled and rarely makes its way to custom cutters. Occasionally, such native stones are recut to custom proportions, albeit at a loss of weight and diameter. Custom cut and recut stones are usually more per carat.

Sapphires exist in all the shades of blue from the deep blue of evening skies to the bright and deep blue of a clear and beautiful summer sky.  Sapphires also come in many other colors, not only in the transparent grayish misty blue of far horizons, but also displaying the bright fireworks of sunset colors – yellow, pink, orange and purple. So sapphires are really and truly heavenly stones, although they are being found in the hard soil of our so-called “blue planet”.

People want to remain looking youthful for as long as they can, and they would do anything to attain it at whatever price they can afford.  A lot of them do not acknowledge that sometimes, all it takes is rethinking one’s wardrobe and dressing young.

As we women reach our 30s, some of us start to see signs of ageing, especially on our skin.  The fine lines, wrinkles and crows’ feet begin to appear.  If we have had a child already and we have not really focused on taking care of our bodies, we would notice a certain thickness around the middle, not to mention a few sags already forming here and there.  Plastic surgery may be the answer you need to get your youthfulness back, but sometimes, just dressing young cuts it far enough.

Dressing young does not mean following current fashion trends too closely.  No matter how trendy or fashion-forward we are, we would all reach a certain age where some fashion trends just do not suit us anymore.  Dressing young is not an excuse either to pull out whatever remnants of the wardrobe we had as teenagers from storage and start wearing them again.

When we say “dressing young”, what it means is updating our wardrobe with a few select items to keep us fashion-forward and adding a bit of spice to them, but without disturbing our own signature style.  Because that is what we should do when we start reaching middle age.  We should start adopting a signature style instead of being conscious about fashion.  In more ways than one, this is the “dressing young” that we need to keep doing.  Our signature style should show in our choice of outfits, but we should nonetheless keep moving forward with our choices.

Dressing Young with Jeans

Jeans are the staples when it comes to dressing young.  Unfortunately, jeans are also the most unforgiving to a figure that has been thickened by age and perhaps maternity.  If your jeans do not fit you, they will show every curve that must be hidden rather than revealed.

I was surfing the net the other day, and came across an article that left me flabbergasted. As you all likely know by now, I am a designer handbag fanatic.  There have been months where I have seriously considered bouncing my rent check in order to buy a purse I simply could not do without.  Who am I kidding?  I have bounced my rent to buy a new handbag!  And I would likely do it again.

Well, it appears that my dilemma has come to an end.  I was surfing the net the other day, and came across an interesting article.  It was about the burgeoning industry of designer handbag rentals!  Now I have heard of luxury car rentals and even designer wedding dress rentals, but I never imagined a day when I could rent the latest Chanel purse.  Can you picture yourself going into Blockbuster Handbags and renting the purse you have been saving your money for?  I know I can!

There is a company called Bag Borrow or Steal that, as far as I can tell, is the first of a kind.  They have a wonderful website, and a business model like no other.  It is very similar to Netflix or something to that effect, but you rent handbags instead of the latest DVD.  Somewhat similar to renting videos, you pay annual subscription fee and you are given access to a collection of beautiful handbags to use on a temporary basis.  The type of bag you are allowed to borrow is determined by your membership level.  Memberships range from $19.95 to $174.95 per year.  You can keep the bag for as long as you like, but it must remain in the condition you received it in.  I wonder if they have an insurance plan.