Big shoulders, leggings, tunics, cuffs, booties, poufed minis—dare we say stirrup pants? Like a “Dynasty” rerun, fashions from the 1980s rolled down the runways in New York and Milan recently at designers’ fall preview shows. American women gasped. “I look at pictures of myself in high school where I was wearing shoulder pads and stirrup pants,“ lamented Lyn Page, owner of Clementine consignment shop in Richmond. “I make fun of those pictures and the way we looked. Why would I want to look like that again?“

Here are trends seen on the runways:
Cocoon coats (Diane Von Furstenberg)
Tailored jackets (Vera Wang)
Cold shoulders/bold or “strong” shoulders (Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs and Charlotte Ronson)
Thigh-high “bondage” boots (Nicholas Kirkwood for Rodarte)
Poufy hemlines in dresses (Marc Jacobs)
Ponchos (Chloe)
Ruffles (Chanel)

Area residents reuse, repair, recycle stuff instead of buying new. “We’ve gotten in our society to think about everything as disposable: furniture, automobile, clothing,“ says writer Wanda Urbanska, creator of the PBS television show “Simple Living.“

Leigh Purdum refused to cover her John McCain T-shirt Nov. 4 at the Brightwood precinct in Madison County. On Dec. 1, warrant in hand, she turned herself in for arrest. The American Civil Liberties Union believes Purdum is the only person arrested as a result of a Virginia State Board of Elections ruling in October that banned political clothing at polling locations.