"Don't mix your colors."

That's what A, my Kiwi co-worker in Daqing, always used to say when he saw anyone about to make the beer-to-red-wine or baijiu-to-whiskey-to-rum transition:

"Eef theh's won theeng I no-oh, eet's don't meex yeh kuh-lehs!"

While apropos for drinking, the "Don't mix your colors" rule, contrary to what one DC woman who works at the National Geographic Society seems to think, does not apply to the world of professional dress. So unless you're one of those "don'tcha-wanta-wanta" ladies who's required by contract to wear a head-to-toe monochromatic ensemble, it is not only advisable but flat-out required for you to wear more than one color to the office.

Black, of course, being the only exception. If you need help with how to do the all-black, click here and let me give you a refresher course.

Back to the National Geographic lady. You love green, I get it and that's great, but that doesn't mean you should let yourself supersaturate in the color with a pair of tapered, leaf green Mom cords, lime green Moroccan-beaded flats, a faded-from-not-following-the-"hand-wash-only"-label kelly green cotton cable crewneck sweater, and I shit you not, a perfectly-matching-the-shoes lime-hued leather barn coat.

I'm not going to degrade this woman with the predictable Kermit the frog comparison or take the erudite path with an Iago analysis, but what I will do is call this look lazy, silly and unprofessional.

Evidenced by the effort it must have taken her to compile all these green wardrobe components (I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for a jacket that color), this woman clearly cares about presentation. And despite their Mom-like cuts, the excellent fit of each piece further bolsters this claim. How then, can a woman who meticulously coordinates and pays such careful attention to the just-right drape of each one of those fabrics against her frame, fall victim to a fashion mistake even kids on the short-bus know to avoid?

Then again, there are more important vexing issues for which my analytic faculties are better suited -- for example, how the sultry hotness that is Amy Winehouse - and potentially your next Bond Girl - can in the space of only a few months go from this to this to this below.

Oh right, a heroin and heartbreak cocktail. That'll get you every time.

The pajama strut.

"If there is a city that needs your help more than DC does, it is Shanghai. Representative sample attached."

Picture courtesy of my friend E who is doing his darndest to convince himself it was a sound decision to leave the comforts of a country where women don't do the "pajama strut" and head East - waaay East - to that mythical place everyone foolishly puts on their I've-always-wanted-to-go-there list and where even in its most cosmopolitan city the food sold on the street might be labeled "chicken with spices" but is more likely ground cat-paw covered in dumpster sauce.

Yes, my boy E is in the funpark that is Mainland China, where indulgences and state-borne ideas run rampantly, gloriously and with a security detail as inconspicuous as a liberal at a gun-range.

As much as I enjoyed this picture - admittedly, more for the "challenged-looking" fellow with the cowlick poking out from behind the wall on the left than for the fashion subject - it was this next line of E's e-mail that got me most hot and bothered:

"By the way, 'Serious Job' appears to be blocked in China."

My benign, little blog...blocked?

At first, I thought it was pretty cool to be on par with the BBC and occasionally CNN in terms of my threat-level to the Chinese government, but once the cold-hard truth set in and I realized my pearls of fashion wisdom and opals of celebrity insight weren't able to reach China's enormously style-challenged female population (pajamas to work are the least of their problems, believe me), I became quite upset, especially considering how much of my life I've devoted to this mother-'effing country. After I allowed it to swallow up the better part of my early to mid-20s, after I endured months of listening to their crappy, melodramatic pop music, after the trauma - okay, excitement - of being approached in the Tianjin Guoji Dasha Starbucks to be "very special, well-paid personal assistant" to a Mr. Li Wang who was half my height and shooting me the unsexiest sexy-eyes I'd seen since Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky, after being forced to eat barbecued dog cartilage twice a week while living in a city whose only Western food outlet was a Popeye's that didn't have mashed potatoes or soft-serve -- this is how my Red friends re-pay me?

Hmpf.

Holy f**king leggings!

Yesterday, while watching a Frontline documentary on the unknown whereabouts and identity of that brave (ahem, dead) soul who stood defiantly in front of the tank queue mowing over demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in early June 1989, I learned something I probably should have known about the country to which I have devoted in one way or another the last nine years of my life.

In true fuzzy-soft communist fashion - with efficiency and practicality not only at the forefront but at the only front - the Chinese government has created cities in the far less prosperous central and western parts of the country whose livelihoods over the last 25 years have been entirely dependent on a single commodity. Footage was shown of Anhui province's bedding city, its toilet city, toothbrush city, sock city, and even though they didn't show it, after my visit to Georgetown's campus today, there isn't a doubt in my mind a leggings city exists and that it was the number one Spring Break destination for all Hoya female co-eds.

Leggings, dress, cropped jacket, heels - 'check'

Leggings, tee, miniskirt, Grecian-style sandals - 'check'

Leggings, Georgetown Final-Four long-sleeve, sneakers - 'check'

Leggings, tunic, bright flats, cigarette - 'check ad infinitum'

In the space of 20 minutes, I must have seen five or six dozen female students rocking one of the three lengths - knee, calf and ankle - of what are essentially, foot-less pantyhose. I'm not one to knock a leggings look, because in all honesty, when done right, I think they can be quite fetching, but I will say Georgetown proved to me even more today the dearth of originality when it comes to their style scene.

What perplexed me most as I forcibly cut through the sea of Us Weekly's "favorite trend of '06" with my vampy heels, Dior lip shine and disapproving attitude was just how many body types I saw stuffed into those skin tight things. Now, I'm not saying you need a wisp of a Sienna Miller frame to pull this off, but you know what, it kinda helps. And not just for you, the wearer, but for the rest of us who can't help but stare car-accident-style at the very visible jumbly-jibs your untoned thighs create when encased like sausages in the largest pair of light blue Primps you could find.

While I may not get the leggings craze or understand the thought process behind a size 14 thinking tights-as-pants is a good idea, one issue on which there was no confusion was where Georgetown girls are shopping these days. After I saw my third Milly eyelet mini with wide patent-leather belt, I knew every last girl on that campus had already taken Daddy's AmEx for a ride at Cusp.

Ah, Georgetown University. The 10 month hiatus was long but not long enough.

Campus chic

For the first time since last May, I will return to my grad school stomping ground today to learn more about what's standing in the way of BFF status between China and the United States. They know they want to be, they know they can be, but for some reason - those pesky Japanese leaders, the whole democracy/communism misunderstanding, that made-up shift in the Northeast Asian power dynamic threatening U.S. security interests - they're still stuck in Paris/Nicole circa Winter 2005 territory.

During my time behind Georgetown's heavily guarded gates, I never really found myself too inspired by the Hoya Saxa fashion sense. The kids had money, that was certainly clear, but aside from the occasional super hip Hong Kong girl or the not quite as Eurotrashy piece of Eurotrash, there was very little uniqueness in the style landscape and almost no deviation from the traditional summer-at-the-Vineyard look: Tod's driving moccasins, straight-leg Seven jeans, a light pink popped-collar Polo, Vince cashmere sweater tied and draped over the shoulders, Longchamp tote and perfectly, always just so sideswept bangs.

Though I have my doubts about the attendees at a Sino-U.S. foreign relations round table serving as fair representation of Georgetown's style, I'll do my best to look around before, after, and who am I kidding, during the 90-minute presentation for signs of life in what I unfortunately believe is a pulse-less fashion scene.

Just like you proved those Tar-holes wrong last week, I hope you prove me wrong today, Hoyas.

Full report on campus chic later in the day.

Upon closer inspection...

After putting on my glasses, I realized my love-bite was no love-bite at all but just the new ink I purchased earlier this week in loving dedication to my favorite man-bot, Richard Bruce Cheney.

Or as I like to call him, "his Emperor-ship."

Note the eye-roll he's giving the rifle-wielding Chinese dude in the Cultural Revolution propaganda poster to his right. No matter which direction I'm facing, the veep refuses to acknowledge his presence.

Rayburn style.

Rayburn House Building style.

Don't know what it looks like, but from 11:30-1:30 today, in between seeking out Michele Bachmann for advice on how to be crazy and still get elected and letting the all-the-Chinese-are-spies rantings of a China "specialist" go in one ear and out the other, I'm dedicated to finding out if 'Hill' style is any different - any better - than its ConnAve counterpart.

I was going to write up something on what I encountered yesterday at Bolling, but let's just say the crowd was so far gone with flaky unmoisturized, unmakeup-ed faces, red and white snowflake-printed tube socks stuffed into brown block-heeled square-toed buckled boot-shoes and literally, every other female (I can't bring myself to say, "woman") with untended-to, half-wet, product-free hair pulled back into a waffle-textured scrunchie, that last night, when I sat down to write, I thought, "What's the point, really?"

I'm crossing my fingers the JV skinterns give me something more to work with.

Only three days left.

This Sunday marks the final day of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's three month exhibit of the late Nan Kempner's extraordinary collection of vintage couture evening gowns.

Admission is $20 per person; museum hours are 9:30am-9pm on Friday and Saturday and 9:30am-5:30pm on Sunday.

As an early birthday present, a dear friend surprised me a couple of weeks ago with his plan to Amtrak us up there where we would enjoy a Friday night eating true, make-your-lips-blister-and-bleed Sichuan laziji and sipping cocktails tens of tens of floors above Central Park South.

The shiny penny of the 24 hour trip, however, is that on Saturday, following a traditional lox-and-bagels brunch, we will take in the penultimate day of 'American Chic,' an experience from what I've read in several media outlets feels less like a formal exhibit than it does an intimate tour through the seven color, fabric and event coordinated closets of the woman Yves Saint Laurent referred to throughout his life as "his greatest muse."

I'd try to get there yourself, but if you can't, expect a full, starry-eyed report sometime Saturday evening.

That's not bronzer, that's windburn.

When I lived in Inner Mongolia it was during the "warm" season between April and September. You'll understand, then, that during my time there, whenever I encountered someone with a pair of rosy cheeks, my first reaction to whomever the flush belonged to - child or adult - was to get right up in their grill and coo, "oh, how ADORABLE!"

It was not until the third month of my stint there, potentially forty or fifty such coos later, that one of my colleagues finally asked me, "What exactly is it about permanent windburn that you find so adorable?"

"Permanent windburn?"

"Yeah, it's July, it's 75 degrees outside, and their cheeks are red, bordering on purple -- what did you think it was? Bronzer?"

Right. That was a bad day.

So you can imagine my horror last night, when, upon arriving home after a blustery 12 minute half-walk, half-jog, I realized I too, had fairly severe wind-whips on the apples of my cheeks.

What's so puzzling is that I don't have fair skin, I don't have dry skin, I don't even have sensitive skin, but there they were, having defied the protection of my thick winter moisturizer, the unmistakable streaks of windburn.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Tips for cold weather skin maintenance - and winter makeup - coming later in the day.