When your own initilas aren't enough...

How about Hayden Panettiere's?

The Dooney and Bourke Hayden bag comes complete with a tag bearing the initials of their celebrity spokes model. Talk about upping the ante...now, it's no longer enough to just have a bag named for you...Sienna Miller, Jessica Stam, Kate Moss...the list is endless, the Marc Jacobs catalogue alone would take a day to list...you need to have the bag monogrammed with your initials.
Take away the celebrity and her little hang tag, and the bag itself is really not bad. Not my personal taste, but not bad. It's a generously sized shoulder tote with a cute little flap and buckle. Sure it looks like something you've seen before a dozen times, but originality is sometimes overrated. Considering it's Dooney and Bourke, I'll say, I am pleasantly surprised.
The Hayden Bag is $500, celebrity spokesperson not included, from Dooney and Bourke.

Blog the Blogger: Shoegal

Cheers, dear readers. Hope you're having a jolly good Friday morning. What's with all this Brit talk? Well that's because today's Blog the Blogger comes to us from across the pond. (Oh, if you need to know how to draw the Union Jack, the Cheltenham Borough Council has a guide, at right. Just sayin'.)

Shoegal lives in Yorkshire, UK, and almost daily blogs about what she's wearing, especially her - big surprise here - shoes. She's super-tall like the DC Goodwill Fashionista, so we're kindred spirits in that way. Enjoy her wacky British spelling and terminology (I kid!) as she answers the DCGF's soon-to-be-famous five (plus one) questions...

1. What is the first article of clothing you remember that you loved to wear? Oh this is a tough one. I remember I had a pink dress when I was about 8 or 9. It was made of heavy cotton, kind of like denim, with elastic ribbing on the cuffs, hem and roll neck, like the cuff on a sweatshirt. It was a drop waist style with a button on either side. It was given to me by my older (and therefore far cooler than me) neighbour. She would pass on many of her old clothes over the years and I loved getting a bag of them, it was so exciting to see what was inside. Sadly I don’t think there are any photos of me wearing the dress otherwise of course I’d share.

2. Where is your favorite place to shop for a fashion bargain in the DC area? I’ve never been to DC so I can’t answer this one! Can I tell you about my favourite place to shop in the UK? [Well, okay... -the DCGF] It has to be Long Tall Sally. When they have a sale on. Regular readers of my blog will know I am a big fan of this shop and its website as I am so tall. There’s always something here to fit and the styles are not limited to black trousers and jeans as so many other tall ranges on the British high street seem to be. [I found the cute dress at left on sale for ?40, or about US$80. -the DCGF] Tall ladies of the US, you don’t know how lucky you are – there are so many more retailers over there carrying tall styles than there are in the UK.

3. Where is your favorite place to shop for a fashion bargain outside of DC? I think I covered that in question 2 but for a real bargain, it has to be one of the many, many charity shops that can be found in my home town and local to where I live now. I am a particular fan of the fact that you can buy shoes for ?2.99 (US$6 ish) that would have cost much more than that new. My favourite pair is these black and cream ones worth ?45 (US$90).

4. Who is your current favorite designer? I have to say I tend to watch what is going on on the high street [Translation: the general shopping district in a town in the UK... -the DCGF] more than on the catwalks, but Alberta Ferretti can always come up with a pretty frock or two. [And a great shoe; see left. -the DCGF] And of course, being Shoegal, it’s got to be Christian Louboutin or Manolo Blahnik for the high end shoes and boots.

5. If you could own any single item from fashion past or present - money is no object! - what would it be? This is hard. I am totally in love with these NYLA over the knee suede boots. Of course my legs are so long they’d be just up to the knee on me – the perfect length. They come in red too if you’re feeling really daring...

Bonus Question: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? My typically British answer: What is a Tootsie Pop? Wait, I’ll Google it…. Good old Wikipedia! But I’m still not sure – do they have a hard sugar coating? If they do it’ll take me ages to get to the centre – those boiled sweet lollies always took me ages to eat – I’d get bored and crunch it in the end.

Ahaha - boiled sweet lollies! Delicious! I love it. Isn't it great to get an international perspective? And Shoegal just did this fun thing on her blog where she listed where here readers come from around the world. It's always fun as bloggers to know where our readers our reading the blog.

Well, dear readers, I have a nasty cold and am out of clever things to say. Don't forget to "Show Us Your Denim" (see yesterday's post) and drop off your gently used jeans at a participating Levi's retail store near you, if you live in San Fran, L.A., Chicago, NYC, or the D.C. metro area. Have a great weekend...

Goodwill’s fashion blog provides detailed knowledge and insight on vintage and contemporary clothing and accessories that are valuable to fashion shoppers. The facts and opinions shared present readers with entertaining, exciting and value based information on vintage and contemporary fashion and shopping trends.

Jeans fit lousy these days

Note: At close we have a sponsored give away; a free pair of jeans from Tummy Tuck Jeans.

I have been sitting on this post for a couple of months mostly because I don't know what to call it and I don't have any (easy or fast) answers. Specifically, what's up with the fit of jeans these days? I am beyond annoyed. I thought it was just me but then I got this email from Sue:

I am a consumer who found your site while I was looking for links to pants patterns and manufacturing. I have been noticing the trends in the patterns for most commercially retailed women's pant. The recent troubling trend is the lack of buttocks room at all, even in higher rise pants. It just seems the a$$ just keeps getting flatter in all pants. It may be a way to save costs on labor (less curves and uneven measurements ) and material. But even the expensive brands are going in this direction. What the heck is happening and who do I holler too?! I am so frustrated I could scream.

Specifically, jeans are round-mounds lately. I'm calling it the mono-butt. There's no nice way to say this but -we have cheeks back there, what happened to the bifurcation? A buttless, mound back there is annoying. What happened to "shape and lift"? This isn't flattering. We want cheeks!

Swarovski: Playing with Sparkle

Sometimes working with Swarovski seems like playing with moonbeams that gleam and sparkle, only moonbeams that come in every colour of the rainbow. The past couple of days, I've been taking breaks from other work to scoot the crystal around my desk and see if they formed themselves into any kind of cohesive design - that's how working with Swarovski often is. I realized that there were certain colours that were not at all represented on my Swarovski Crystal Bracelets page, so I set to work to remedy the situation. I realized I had very few pinks and purples, so I created the bracelet above and the one immediately below. It's difficult to tell from the pictures, but almost all the crystals are 8mm, 10mm and over. I love the larger sizes of Swarovski crystals, and I also like to use the newer colours. The bracelet below features palace green opal (one of the newest Swarovski colours) and rosewater opal, as well as my favorite, Pacific opal.
The pink bracelet below has a focal of Crystal Moonlight and the majority of the bracelet is rosewater opal. Finally, I worked with the light red Siam , a colour I rarely use although I love, and I mean love, to work with red and red-toned gemstones. I mixed the red Swarovski with the more muted silver shadow and included a little silver shadow butterfly. The last challenge was photographing these so that their sparkle showed - and I am still not satisfied with the results - especially with the opal colours!

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20 Celebrity Mental Breakdowns

It’s not uncommon that some of our society’s most brilliant and alluring individuals are often plagued with horrific personal and mental issues. In fact, sometimes these very sicknesses are connected to the individual’s shining moments – a genius and panache that come during moments of extreme highs. But unfortunately, what comes up must come down. And many times those people who seem so self-controlled, self-motivated, and self-confident are also the most haunted and self-destructive. Here’s a list of 20 celebrities who know all-too-much about mental illnesses and the terrifying mood swings that accompany a sick mind.

1. Britney Spears: Britney Spears’ struggles with mental illness started to exhibit themselves most obviously after her divorce from Kevin Federline and the birth of her two sons. While Spears has yet to go public with a formal diagnosis from her doctor, she has been committed to a mental hospital, has been caught on camera shaving off her hair in a Los Angeles salon, and has had custody of her children revoked. Currently, Spears is still going through treatment and trying to regain the rights to her children. Her father Jamie Spears has been put in charge of her legal and monetary affairs, and while she seems to be keeping a lower profile these days, it’s unclear whether she is getting better at all.


2. Rosie O’Donnell: With all the attention focused on Britney Spears’ antics these days, Rosie O’Donnell has sought to take some of the heat off the young starlet by speaking out about her own struggles with mental illness, saying she should be the poster child for metal disease. Recently she told a TV talk show host, “I have been on anti-depressants since Columbine.” O’Donnell has said that she believes she is bi-polar, an assumption that might be buffered by her quick temper and recent firing from The View, said to be because of her difficult personality.


3. Marilyn Monroe: This legendary actress grew up in a world of mental illness. Her maternal grandparents and her mother all suffered from insanity. Her grandfather killed himself and her mother spent most of her adult life in a mental institution, where she died in the 1980s. Monroe kept a cheerful appearance in public, but in private she struggled mightily with depression. Her genetics and the fact that Monroe grew up in a series of foster homes didn’t give her much of a fighting chance against mental ills, and in 1962 Monroe was found dead of a supposed prescription drug overdose.


4. Tim Burton: The eccentric filmmaker Tim Burton’s mental health has been under debate for many years, with many people assuming he was autistic. It turns out, however, that Burton suffers from bipolar disorder, an illness that afflicts many celebrities. People with bipolar disorder have violent mood swings characterized by extreme highs and crippling lows. Bipolar is also the correct term to describe what used to be called manic depressive disorder. Bipolar people are often said to be more creative, which may help explain Burton’s wildly imaginative films like Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, and The Nightmare Before Christmas.


5. Mike Wallace: 60 Minutes newsman Mike Wallace is known for his hard-hitting news stories and his tough exterior. But in 1984, after one of Wallace’s news reports about the Vietnam War resulted in a $120 million lawsuit, Wallace descended into a deep depression that was misdiagnosed and mistreated for several years. Wallace has since gotten much better and is a public advocate for those suffering from depression. He talks about his experience taking a plethora of drugs in an attempt to treat his illness and he even tried to commit suicide once by overdosing on pills. Today Wallace continues to heal and spends much time talking about depression, even testifying before the Senate about the disease.


6. Patty Duke: Patty Duke, the all-American TV star, earned an Oscar at the ripe age of 16 for her portrayal of Hellen Keller. But living in a household where she was sexually abused and allowed to drink from a young age, Duke’s emotional problems began to arise. She began to have violent mood swings – dangerous highs and lows, which she later chronicled in a book and TV movie, both titled “Call Me Anna”. She said her first experience with the disease came at the age of 9 in the form of a panic attack, and she then struggled with depression and anxiety during her adolescence. While acting on her hit series “The Patty Duke Show”, Duke’s illness raged forth in a manner that could no longer be ignored. Her managers and childhood guardians got her medical attention, and she became drugged out on the wrong medicines that were ineffective at treating her bipolar disease. Over the years, Duke experienced many hospitalizations and therapies before finally finding the right combination with Lithium. She now lives a happy life and is in control of her illness.


7. Francis Ford Coppola: Acclaimed movie director Francis Ford Coppola has been the brain behind legendary movies such as “The Godfather” Series and “Apocalypse Now” and he’s the father to another notable director, Sophia Coppola. But despite winning 5 Oscars and earning 36 other award nominations, behind the scenes Coppola also struggles with bipolar disease, which possibly explains why he is thought of as one of Hollywood’s most unpredictable and tempestuous directors. But it’s not uncommon for the disease to afflict such accomplished individuals, such as Coppola. Bipolar disorder is often called The CEO’s Disease because it’s common among many famous and not-so-famous leaders.


8. Brooke Shields: Brooke Shields has been a leading lady in Hollywood since a child and has survived a high-profile marriage to tennis star Andre Agassi. Now on her second marriage, Shields recently wrote a book called “Down Came the Rain”, which chronicled her struggles with post-partum depression after the birth of her child Rowan. Shields describes in her book about how she heard destructive voices in her head, found it impossible to bond with her baby upon returning from the hospital and had no will to care for her daughter. Shields says she thought of suicide and felt like a failure. Shields tried anti-depressants. They worked and brought her to a place where she could bond with her baby. Though she was criticized heavily by her Scientologist friend Tom Cruise over her decision to medicate, Shields credits it with bringing her out of the fog. She now has a second daughter named Grier.


9. Roseanne Barr: Comedienne Rosanne Barr was a TV sensation in the 1990s, starring in her self-named series in which she portrayed a dry, mid-western housewife with ease. But Barr is also one of the more controversial and polarizing figures of her time, as her crassness and blunt way of speaking turned many fans away. Her life has had its fair share of drama: she claims she was sexually abused as a child and her highly-publicized marriage to Tom Arnold ended in bitterness with her claiming domestic abuse. Roseanne also claims that she has multiple personality disorder, also known as dissociative personality disorder. While Barr wrote on her blog that she was relieved of many of the disease’s symptoms while on a trip to Israel, she also previously told Larry King in 2001 that she has been known to “regress” during times of great stress and that the disease makes her do “crazy things that you don’t know you do or want to do.” Barr also has been hospitalized for the disorder in the past.


10. Carrie Fisher: Carrie Fisher is the daughter of Hollywood star Debbie Reynolds and she is best known for playing the role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars”. But despite her privileged pedigree and successful career, Fisher battled depression and bipolar disorder for years. Not knowing what was wrong with her, Fisher turned to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. Even though a doctor suggested that she was manic and that she try Lithium when she was 24, Fisher didn’t believe him. It was only when she overdosed on drugs at the age of 28 that she began to listen to doctors more intently. Though Fisher says she’s experienced trouble with Lithium and has regressed in treatment, it eventually helped her calm her demons. Fisher wrote “Postcards from the Edge”, a bestselling book about her disease. She has also been recognized by many mental health associations for her work at raising awareness about the disorder.


11. Jim Carrey: Jim Carrey grew up in an eccentric family, where everyone had to pitch in for rent. When his father lost his job, the family sank into poverty and everyone had to work, a situation that forced Carrey to drop out of high school. Now, Carrey is a riotously funny actor who’s made tens of millions of dollars acting crazy in front of the camera. Turns out part of that craziness can be attributed to the fact that he has long suffered from depression and has admittedly taken Prozac during bad spells. During a 60 Minutes interview, Carrey admitted to being on the drug for “a long time” before finding God and abandoning the medication for a strong ritual of spirituality. “I had to get off at some point because I realized everything is OK,” he said. Today, Carrey is dating Jenny McCarthy and together the two of them are raising McCarthy’s autistic son.


12. Sinead O’Connor: Controversial Irish singer Sinead O’Connor made her fortune off her unique voice and buzz-cut hairdo. She also made headlines for ripping up a picture of the pope on a “Saturday Night Live” appearance. But it turned out that there was an explanation for her combative behavior and often-times attitude of anger toward the world – she was suffering from bipolar disorder and depression. O’Connor says that she started having very persistent thoughts about suicide at the age of 23 that clouded everything else in her life. She finally took herself to a hospital for the third time seeking psychiatric treatment. Though her previous therapies and admissions had never brought forth a diagnosis, this time it stuck and O’Connor was revealed to have bipolar disorder. She was prescribed medication, which she said has helped her enormously. She now lives outside Dublin and is the mother to four children.


13. Hugh Laurie: “House” star Hugh Laurie plays a mentally disturbed doctor on TV, but in his real life Laurie has struggled with depression for many years, having received a clinical diagnosis for the disorder. While he continues to receive psychiatric treatment, he also has said that the disorder is not helped by the fact that he has to live in L.A., thousands of miles away from his family in London, while shooting his series. Laurie said that he first realized something was wrong with him while at a demolition derby where he felt “bored” by the exploding cars.


14. Linda Hamilton: Linda Hamilton plays a tough lady in “The Terminator”, but in her private life she suffered anxiety attacks and a crippling depression from bipolar disorder. Hamilton, who says her father had also self-diagnosed himself with bipolar, said she was an overeater as a young woman trying to deal with depression. She drifted from food to drugs and alcohol, saying she was an alcoholic and wild child for some time. When Hamilton found success in Hollywood, her disease worsened and though she has been in some form of treatment since the age of 22 she was prone to frantic moods and wild outbursts. After the birth of her child, she succumbed to an even deeper depression and paranoid thoughts about his safety and suicidal thoughts of her own. Once diagnosed, she tried to treat her illness with diet and exercise, but eventually went on medication and says today she has found some balance.


15. Maurice Benard: Similar to the path that Carrie Fisher took, Benard also suffers from bipolar disorder and also has had several psychotic experiences on his journey through treatment. Benard, who stars as Sonny on the soap opera “General Hospital”, recently went on the Oprah show to discuss his harrowing experience with bipolar disorder. He was diagnosed in his 20s and went on to meet and marry a woman, who knew about the disease. Benard says his lowest moment came during a night when his wife’s nieces were sleeping over and he, in a drunken and manic rage, threatened to kill all of them. Since that night, he says, he’s never stopped taking his medication again. But Benard says there were signs of his depression even before his diagnosis when he used to drink heavily as a teenager. He still works on “General Hospital” and has been recognized by many for coming forward with his story.


16. Jean-Claude Van Damme: Martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme is best known for his ripped physique and action-packed movies. But perhaps the catalyst for his obsession with martial arts and physical training came from a depression that has plagued him since he was a child. Van Damme says as a young man he would work out endlessly to combat feelings of depression and self-loathing and that a day away from the gym was a day in the dumps. In 1993, he began using cocaine seriously to self-medicate, but three years later he checked himself into rehab. After a near-suicide attempt, Van Damme sought treatment and was diagnosed as bipolar. He now takes medication, which he says has turned his raging inward storm into a calm “lake.”


17. Ben Stiller: Comedic actor Ben Stiller followed his parents’ footsteps in becoming an actor, but he also followed them in other ways. Both of his parents and Stiller have spoken out about depression. In 2001, Stiller spoke out about his own diagnosis of being bipolar, saying he has not been “the most easygoing guy.” Stiller is being treated for the disorder, and says there is a “rich history” of it in his family.


18. Owen Wilson: Funny man Owen Wilson seemed to be living the life of a high-rolling Hollywood bachelor, starring in the hottest flicks and dating some of the most beautiful women, such as Kate Hudson. But in the summer of 2007, this image came to a screeching halt after it was reported that Wilson tried to commit suicide by slicing his wrists and taking a bunch of pills. The suicide attempt was attributed to many things – like his break-up with Hudson – but sources indicated that the troubles went much deeper. Wilson, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse and spent time in rehab in 2000, was said to still be using illicit substances regularly and trying to treat a deep depression through self-medication. Friends said he had sunk into a deep depression weeks before the suicide attempt, and he is now said to be taking anti-depressants. He has since rebounded from the ordeal and appears to be doing better.


19. Winona Ryder: Doe-eyed Winona Ryder became a tabloid hit in 2001 when she was caught shoplifting quite a bit of contraband from a Saks Fifth Avenue store. She stood trial for the crime, pleading not guilty. During her arrest, however, Ryder was also caught with many prescription drugs on her person for which she didn’t have prescriptions. Since that incident, Ryder has spoken about her struggles with anxiety attacks and depression, saying that she has tried hospitalizations, medication, and therapy and said she sometimes feels “broken and confused.” Ryder continues treatments, is in a relationship, and has starred in a few movies in the past few years.


20. George Michael: 80s music sensation George Michael has had a glamorous life with some tawdry details. In 1998, Michael, who is gay, was in a public restroom with a cop who later arrested the singer for lewd behavior. In 2006, Michael was arrested for possession of drugs, investigated for driving under the influence, and arrested again for drugs in three separate incidents. He has admitted to problems with drugs and to suffering from depression.