An excellent role model

    Valerie Gooding, CEO, BUPA

    Published on August 27, 2007 on the CNN website

    LONDON, England (CNN) -- Valerie Gooding is in the top five most powerful businesswomen in Europe as named by the Financial Times.

    art.val.gooding.jpg

    She runs global health and care organization BUPA and under her leadership it has grown to over 8 million customers in over 190 countries and record revenues.

    CNN's Todd Benjamin spoke to her in London and began by asking her why there are so few women at the top. She said it goes beyond family issues.

    Read the Interview here

    CNN's Profile
    Valerie Gooding is currently ranked in the top five most powerful businesswomen in Europe by the Financial Times and has steered the British private healthcare organization BUPA to continued success.

    Gooding joined BUPA in 1996 and was made the company's CEO in August 1998.

    Since her appointment the company has grown to over 8 million customers in over 190 countries and record revenues, and is the UK's largest independent healthcare company.

    Before joining BUPA she worked at British Airways.

    Val is a non-executive director of Compass Group plc (since January 2000) and of Standard Chartered Bank plc (since January 2005).

    She is a member of the council of Warwick University as well as co-chair of the advisory board of the Warwick Business School. She is a trustee of the British Museum, and a non-executive director of the Lawn Tennis Association.

    Val was awarded the CBE for services to business in the 2002 new year's honours list.Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

September Trends 1: Fade Away

Flaring Keira!

    Keira Knightley is in the Canadian fashion magazine, Flare. She opens up on power of fashion, the importance of family and the highs of fame. The British actress said she doesn’t want to emulate anyone else, she’s perfectly happy trying to figure out everything on her own. She looks stunning in these photos:







    *Click on the photos for larger view.

    Photo SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Tyra Banks: On America's Top Model

    The countdown to the catwalk had already begun. "Top Model" will premiere on The CW on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET, just before the debut of "Gossip Girl." But before anything else, here's another teaser of the show: Tyra Banks on her very-sexy-futuristic costume.

    Photo SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Beauty Top 10

    The fall runways dictated strong brows, sleek hair, and incredibly loud lips. Elle round up the ten trends that will rule this season.

    1. Cleopatra Eyes
    The bold, bright look of the Cleopatra eye certainly isn't a trend for the shrinking violet. It echoes the ancient Egyptian with heavy liner, an aqua lid, and a strongly defined brow. Wear it with all black to make a major statement.


    2. Defined Brows

    The bold brow made a major statement on the runways, with simple, neutral makeup as a backdrop. However, some chose the strongly defined arch "to anchor the face"; the Mommy Dearest-inspired look also popped up.


    3. Film Noir Waves
    Cascading waves a la Old Hollywood made appearances everywhere for fall: Gucci, Missoni, and Valentino. It references the film noir heyday of the '40s and keeps things soft and romantic. Wrapped small sections of hair in the front around a curling iron, then brushed through them to soften the curls.


    4. French Nails

    Last fall, black nails were everywhere; when spring arrived, tips took a completely contrasting route and went white. This fall, the two trends make a blissful union with the reverse French manicure, a new take on the two-tone classic.


    5. Full Makeup

    For the right occasion, a full face of makeup can have a perfectly dramatic effect. Play up both eyes and lips, but keep skin looking fresh and natural. According to master makeup artist, Tom Pecheux (Ferragamo), "It's important to stick to complementary colors, like deep plums and brick red, or else it's overly disco '80s." By the same token, keep hair sleek and simple.


    6. Golden Accents
    Gilded accents will give anyone a truly ethereal glow. A bit of shimmering powder will do the trick at home.


    7. Liquid Liner
    Winged cat eyes are back in a big way—think Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve, all liquid liner, and tons of sex appeal. "Liner had a painterly shape this season, almost like a flick of the watercolor brush," says Pat McGrath, who employed the technique at Prada and Louis Vuitton. She also recommends leaving lips neutral to draw the attention to the eyes.


    8. Messy Hair
    Your forehead isn't the only place you'll want to banish shine this season. "Intentionally dull hair looks new," says Redken creative consultant Guido. "Very Parisienne coquette." A little baby powder (or a dry shampoo) will have you looking matte and fabulous in no time.


    9. Neon Lips

    Not since the '80s have lacquered lips in neon hues had such a prominent place in the beauty lexicon. Paint the pouts a bright shade somewhere between pink and red and layer the color on with your fingers in order to "control intensity." Go easy on the eyes to let the neon lip take full effect.


    10. Sleek Hair

    For sleek, straight hair, New York stylists looked no further than their own backyard for inspiration. It's all about simple elegance.Not a lot of design, but amazing quality.

    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

2007 Teen Choice Awards

    This year, the live awards show was co-hosted by Hilary Duff and Nick Cannon with live performances by Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Fergie.

    Winners included Jessica Alba and Zac Efron for the coveted Female and Male Hottie awards, along with top honors going to popular High School Musical 2 co-star Vanessa Hudgens for Choice Breakout Artist - Female.

    Other winners included Justin Timberlake as Choice Male Music Artist, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus for Choice Summer Artist and Choice TV Actress in a comedy, and Ugly Betty star America Ferrara for Choice TV Breakout star.

    During her acceptance speech for the female hottie award, Jessica Alba told the audience:

    “I would like to dedicate this award to a young man who has been on my mind for the last 19 years: Ross. Ross didn't love me. I was pigeon-toed, I had a sway back, I was slightly cross-eyed, buck-toothed, I sucked my thumb. Look at me now, Ross! Look at me now! [Ross] promised that if I kissed him he would choose me for baseball ... I was still chosen last. I never trusted men again.”

    Click here to view more winnersSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

What's New in Prada?....Fall/Winter 2007

Well...it's about time!

NY Times Obituary for Grace Paley

CANADA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

America's Next Top Model: Cycle 9 Contestants

Christian Louboutin's Peep-Toe Pumps: Hollywood Shoes

    It's the fashion kiss of death in Hollywood: Showing up on the red carpet, only to find that some other starlet is wearing the exact same gown. But when it comes to shoes, all of the A-list seems to have the same pair, and no one seems to mind.

    Everybody's talking of none other than Christian Louboutin and his black peep-toe pumps. Simple, elegant and ridiculously expensive, these babies have proven irresistible to Angelina Jolie, Ashley Olsen and Nicole Richie (who even sported 'em on her court date).

    Price: about $800. Knowing your shoes can face everything from photogs to a DUI charge: priceless.




    SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Top 10 Accessories for Fall/Winter 2007

    Black is back! For this season make sure that black and leather accessories will be on top of your It List. Here are the 10 (or shall I say 11) must-have accessories for fall and winter from Net-a-Porter. If you can't have all, at least have one!


    1. Burberry Prorsum - Get Waisted. The wide triple-buckle belt

    2. Christian Lacroix - Charm School. The wood and glass charm necklace

    3. Fendi. Gemology. The suede chunky-rib belt with large stone

    4. Marc Jacobs. It's A Cinch. The black leather knot belt

    5. Celine. Drive Time. The black leather driving gloves

    6. D&G. Glove Story. The black leather fur-trimmed gloves

    7. Erickson Beamon. Off The Cuff. The black metal cuffs with black stones

    8. Roberto Cavalli. Hat Trick. The black felt wide-brimmed hat

    9. Cloe. Inner Circle. The Marcia multi-sphere necklace

    10. Miu Miu. The Skinny. The fuchsia leather belt

    11. Burberry Prorsum. Run The Gauntlet. Tha black patent-leather glovesSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Wearable Fashion Trends 19: The Roaring Twenties


    Cloche hats, pearls and gloves - who said a girl can have too many accessories? The 1920s played inspiration to design duo Proenza Schouler, with beautiful dropped shoulder coats and flapper dresses looking extremely prim and proper. Ladylike also showed up at Marc Jacobs, where beautiful silk blouses were worn with calf-length skirts and day hats. Think Agatha Christie's murder mystery novels...


    SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Heidi Klum: New Face of Jordache

    Heidi Klum, a Victoria's Secret model and TV host of the ever-popular Bravo series "Project Runway", will represent skinny jeans by Jordache.

    The ads feature a topless Klum, shot from behind, holding equestrian gear while standing on the balcony overlooking Los Angeles at the Chateau Marmont.

    With retro high-waisted jeans making a comeback but the denim market already awash with designer brands, using a famous face like Klum's will likely garner some attention for a brand like Jordache.




    SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Female infanticide holocaust rages on in India

    In other words, baby girls are being killed in the womb or at birth on an industrial scale, except there are no gas chambers or ovens this time around - just ultrasound equipment and medical tools. I'm amazed that it doesn't spark generalised outrage. If you think the genocide in Darfur has been neglected, this most heinous type of mass murder is overlooked and invisible.

    By Nick Bryant
    BBC News

    "Why pay 50,000 rupees to your new in-laws when you can pay 500 rupees for an abortion? You do not even have to leave home.

    Many unscrupulous doctors carry portable ultra-sound equipment in the boots of their cars.

    Increased consumer choice is one of the hallmarks of the new India.

    Tragically, it is being applied, with almost industrial efficiency, to depress the female birth rate."


    FACTS AND FIGURES
    • Female infanticide occurs in 80% of states
    • Worst-affected states include wealthiest areas
    • 927 girls born for every 1,000 boys
    • Infant mortality rate: 60/1,000
    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

More on Bodies and Souls

The Jewish prostitutes who founded the Society for Truth in Rio

    My good friend Marc Herold just sent me this fascinating article from nextbook.org :

    In the Life

    Piecing together the lives of women caught up in the white slave trade

    Interview by Sara Ivry Today, reports abound about women from Nigeria, Thailand, or Albania working as prostitutes abroad. But international sex-trafficking is nothing new. Between 1860 and 1940, Jews were ensnared in what was known as the "white slave trade." A network of pimps and conmen lured girls and young women from Eastern Europe to South America with promises of love and work. There, these women found themselves in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, without families, friends, or language skills. In Bodies and Souls, Isabel Vincent pieces together the biographies of three Jewish women forced into prostitution in the New World and examines the history of the Society for Truth, a mutual aid and burial society these outcasts founded as an alternative to the community that rejected them. Formerly based in Canada, Vincent now lives in Brazil. She is a newspaper reporter and author of Hitler's Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, And The Pursuit Of Justice....


    How did these women come to form the Society for Truth?

    In 1916, they pooled their resources and bought a plot of land. They had it officially designated as a cemetery. That was the founding principle, because the women who were dying of yellow fever and of venereal disease were being tossed aside in some city cemetery without a proper religious ceremony. These women didn't want to die like that. They organized their burial society earlier than the Jewish community in Rio, and there was a lot of animosity from the upstanding Jews of Rio, that these women would be able to do it first.

    Then it became more ambitious. The women wanted to be able to advance each other money to send each other back to Poland or Romania or Russia if they wanted to spend their last years there. They would pay for hospital stays. I think it grew too ambitious, and when the women started dying off in the 1960s and 1970s, the whole thing disappeared. There was nobody left to support it.

    These once penniless women had sufficient resources to front money for passage to Europe?

    They were very strict about collecting dues every month, about the operation of the society. That became the most important thing in their lives. You see it in all of the minutes. It's amazing. In 1942, they buy a building for cash in downtown Rio. Some of these women went on to become quite serious madams who had more than one brothel and several women, not necessarily Jewish, working for them.

    It sounds proto-feminist.

    Well, they were trying to seize control of their own destiny. Most women were not able to—most women in South America were not able to vote until much later. I don't think they looked at it in political terms. They just did it out of desperation and the need to survive—and the need to survive spiritually, which I found very moving: that everything else can go wrong and they can be working in a brothel, but they wanted to be Jewish, and they wanted to hold on to some kind of dignity and faith. For them, unfortunately, that meant death, when they felt they could return to what they were....

    Can you tell me a bit more what so captivated you about this chapter of history?

    First of all, I'm a journalist. Secondly, I really feel for these women, I'm amazed at what they did. If you see the cemetery and you stand there with the sun beating down, you think, "Oh, my God, how did they end up here from Eastern Europe so long ago?" It's a sad story. But it's also a powerful story, that they banded together and created a cemetery so they could die with dignity. It transcends religion. It becomes this universal quest for meaning and dignity, and dying with a clean soul. I'm not very religious, but I was very moved by their story.

    Read the interview in full hereSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Wearable Fashion Trends 18: A Skirting Way

    Out of the picture for the last couple of seasons - overshadowed by its sister the dress - skirt is firmly back in fashion focus.

    There's nothing like wearing a skirt to make a woman feel feminine yet empowered. It's a garment with many moods; the knee-length is perennially practical, the midi is easy and carefree while the mini is bold and brave. Check out the new season's skirt shapes with net-a-porter's tips on how we should wear them...

    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Contorversial: Fall's Must-Have Shoes

    V Magazine used a controversial fashion editorial to showcase this season’s must-have shoes. Combining images of the female form and stylist Brian Mollov’s foot-wear picks for the fall is facing a lot of scrutiny by more conservative types.

    The photography by Bela Borsodi is being met with varied opinions. Some of the bloggers may find it ridiculous: naughty imagery was being used to sell footwear, others may think it was an innovative approach.

    It all depends who you ask—either way, the ad was effective. It got attention, it’s been talked about, and the images will remain in our minds.

    It’s body art. It’s creative. And yes, it’s edgy.

    The following pictures were edited to hide some "private" parts. Look closely and share your opinion!


    From left:
    Diesel
    Prada
    D&G


    From left:
    Balenciaga by Nicolas GhesquiĆØre
    Tod's
    Dior by John Galliano

    From left to right:
    Calvin Klein
    Giuseppe Zanotti
    Bally

    Photo Source

    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Keira Knightley Bares It All

    As she would be the first to admit, Keira Knightley is not exactly famous for her hour-glass figure. But her latest role - posing virtually naked to advertise a perfume - makes her look subtly different.

    Despite the presence of a carefully-placed bowler hat, the 22-year-old actress appears to be just that tiny bit curvier. For sure, Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle will be a must-buy for men! LOL


    Knightley is thought to have signed a one-year contract worth more than £500,000 to be the face of the scent.

    Photo SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Nigeria's Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife

    Published: August 11, 2007
    Many working women, seeing their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead, are wishing they had wives.

    Read the NY Times article here

    Fortunately, since I live in Brazil, where labour is relatively cheap, I can afford a full-time maid - whom I call my "housewife" - otherwise, as a divorced single mother with two daughters in university, I'd be in the same boat


    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Bars without women

Ngawang Sangdrol


    As F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." Ngawang Sangdrol's story mirrors the tragedy of her country.

    Surviving a Tibetan gulag
    By Sarah Buckley
    BBC News

    Ngawang Sangdrol, a former political prisoner in Tibet, only smiles once during our hour-long interview.

    She had been asked how long a particular torture method - being hung by the arms after they are tied behind the back - would be used during incarceration.

    "It's so painful you don't keep a timing on it," she said simply.

    Ms Sangdrol served 12 years in prison before she was released in 2002. She is still only in her late 20s.

    She was first imprisoned aged 13, after she joined her fellow nuns in Garu Nunnery in shouting "Independence for Tibet" and "Long live the Dalai Lama" during a protest outside the Summer Palace in Lhasa.

    read the rest of her story here
    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Pregnancy In Style

    Congratulations on your pregnancy! For most women this is a time of great happiness but not all pregnancies are easy. Many mothers begin to feel self-conscious about the weight they are putting on to support their baby, and these feelings can lead to low self-esteem.

    Fret not! You still be in style while in pregnancy. Take Nicole Richie as an example.

    Now that she’s not trying to hide it, it looks like Nicole Richie is doing pregnancy in style with a really cute maternity mini-dress. She looks adorable, isn't she?



    Photo SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

The Return of Victoria's Secret Fashion Show


    The rumor is spreading and it's true!

    Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is returning to prime time this winter. CBS will be bringing sexy back on Dec. 4 at 10 p.m.

    Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Karolina Kurkova and Selita Ebanks will be among the professional lovely faces taking part in the nearly annual event. However, we'll be missing Giselle Bundchen from the catwalk this year , who parted ways with Victoria's Secret in May after being a frequent catalogue fixture for several years.


    SourceSource URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection

Celebrities... Mugshots??!

    I accidentally found this (Destination Creation) website yesterday. But then, I didn't regret for I found some hilarious pictures.

    So if you’ve been craving for images of celebrities who are increasingly getting arrested for their incompetence, here's a few celebrity mugshots we couldn’t miss.

    Paris Hilton


    Jessica Simpson


    Fergie


    Lindsay Lohan
    Source URL: http://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/2007/08/
    Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection
My Ping in TotalPing.com

Blog Archive