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A slim, discreet packet is dropped off in your postbox with no sign of the sender except for a feminine “Panty by Post” emblem. A Canadian stamp neatly occupies one corner of the lightweight package. What surprise is this? Who can this enticing gift be from? Alluring. Mysterious. Secretive. Enticing. Provocative. Sexy. Surprising.

At the Best of 604 awards, I met Lori Sholzberg, one of half the best-friend duo of the newly launched Panty By Post . The concept is simple, customers can sign up online to receive a surprise pair of panties, postal mailed, each month for up to twelve months. Customers have a choice of 1-, 6, and 12-month packages: the “Sexy Single”, the “Sultry Six” or the “Commitment”.

When Wasserman asked the audience, “Should we talk about Sex and the City?”, the entire room filled with applause. So what makes this TV series so special? Cattrall says it is hard for her to take an objective view because of her involvement in the series, but she describes it as “post-feminist”. For example, Sex and the City exemplifies working women with style, without the “man suit”. Cattrall believes the four main characters are “beautifully drawn” and together makes one complete woman. At this point, the audience reacted with a murmur of agreement. When asked if there is going to be a sequel for Sex and the City (the movie), Cattrall remarked that she gets into trouble every time she’s asked this, but, “it looks good“.

I’m no beauty expert, but I am a girl with chapped lips. Inspired by the freezing Vancouver weather and being snowed-in at home, I decided to come up with my own list of products to help chapped lips in the winter. Unlike my Mac lipglass and Chanel lipgloss (great color choices, crappy moisturizer), the below are my personal top three picks and the first products I reach for when my lips go dry and bizerk in the winter weather.

1) Bigelow & Co Rose Salve $5.50
Packaged in a cute vintage/retro tin, the rose salve has the consistency of petroleum Jelly (ie. Vaseline) with a slight rose scent from its 0.9% rose extract. This product actually places #1 on the Bigelow Chemists top-sellers’ list….

If there was any event that could put you into a holiday mood, it was this one. Opus is a beautiful L.A inspired lounge, with white tile walls, and high ceilings, which were decorated with sporadic large glittering stars hanging above us.

The dresses themselves, which can all be found at Boudoir in Yaletown, were a myriad of satins and modals, in blacks and creams for all of your formal events, as well reds, sky blues, champagnes, coffee brown and greens for a few punches of eye catching colors. Over 25 dresses traipsed down the runway, in styles for the flirty and feminine girl, such as their salmon satin dress (notably worn by the beautiful violinist), with a scoop neck and voluminous short sleeves.

While people elsewhere were lining up to purchase World of Warcraft’s expansion pack, young fashion-savvy consumers in downtown Vancouver lined up to H&M’s release of their collaboration with Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons. Available at only a few stores (only a half-dozen out of the hundreds of H&M locations in the States, and only three in Canada), Vancouver was blessed with the opportunity to host this event.

Comme des Garçons has been around for roughly 30 years and has been known to create extremely avant-garde fashion; pieces you can barely wear, much less justify the purchase for the average consumer. Jackets easily run upwards of 4 digits, and their wallets, lovely as they are, start at the 200-300 level. At their level of design, their pieces should be treated more as an art piece than as everyday wear that you can take to the office or the street.

Although the entire graduating class displayed a sense of originality, I noticed three reappearing trends in the midst of their diversity:

1. The “sweetheart” shaped and strapless necklines which portrays a feminine look of glamor by accentuating the neck and shoulders.

2. Corsette-style, criss-crossing lace-ups. These appeared on the front and back of tops as well as more subtly on short-sleeved blouses.

3. Parallel columns of buttons, big and small. Similar to the buttons on double-breasted winter coats but on tops instead.