Mrs. Rogers’s Neighborhood

Patricia Clarkson has advice for getting bargains at charity sales. “You got to fight,” Ms. Clarkson said last Thursday at Fashion for Action, an annual shopping benefit for Housing Works, which is known to attract an elbows-out crowd. “Because there are things that are hot and people who’ll push in front of you.” Ms. Clarkson,…

100 Women, One Mile-Long Runway

Most runway shows take place during designated fashion weeks—within the walls of hotspots in major cities worldwide. Recently, though, SOREL broke the mold—the footwear brand totally ditched fashion show norms for its New York show in early October. Professional models, for one, were not involved. Instead, SOREL chose to cast a lineup of real, everyday…

Office Design That Sends a New Message

This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. It’s been 20 years since the release of “Office Space,” the Mike Judge movie that lampooned the drudgery of the corporate workplace. In many ways, office culture remains the same. But these days, the soul-sucking…

What If Porn Had No Pictures?

“I know it when I see it,” Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote in a 1964 Supreme Court case when asked to set legal parameters for “hard-core” pornography. But what do you call it — hard-core, soft-core, whatever you like — when there’s nothing to see? “‘Erotica’ doesn’t sound as fun,” said Caroline Spiegel, a founder…

One Whopper Jr., Hold the Toy

In the climactic scene of “Toy Story 3,” Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the crew narrowly escape death when a remote-controlled claw lifts them from an incinerator just before flames engulf them. Now Burger King is set to enact an alternative ending — collecting, sorting and chopping up hundreds of thousands of tiny…

Choose Your Cozy Hangout

This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. More than ever, pods and podlike chairs are necessary refuges in busy work environments. Today’s open-plan office, where executives might sit shoulder-to-shoulder with underlings, is no longer defined by a desk. Work happens over coffee,…