Special-occasion style
She'll remember that dress, she said. One-shouldered and slate blue, it was a custom design by Michelle DeCourcy."I always call it the dress. As in, 'remember the dress?'" said Portland-based actress Katie O'Grady, who wore it to the premiere of her star turn in "Rid of Me" at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival last April.
The dress is part of a new line of bridal gowns and cocktail wear that DeCourcy, a celebrated Portland designer and cancer survivor, will launch this summer.
"There's so much more of my story left to live," DeCourcy said.
DeCourcy's background already seems the stuff of many lives. A native of Gresham who listened to the Dead Kennedys in her days at Centennial High School and dyed the hair on her half-shaved head pink, DeCourcy went to Colorado College to earn a degree in finance and then returned to her hometown, starting a job as an accountant at Oregon Anesthesiology Group and marrying Doug Fish at 25.
It wasn't until the birth
Japan, the Noble Land
Concrete canyons of skyscrapers blot out the sky. Freeways, express lanes, railway lines, overhead rapid transport tracks are everywhere. Tall blocks of buildings inset with thousands of small windows rear up towards the light. Then, surprisingly, slow-moving canals glitter beneath giant bridges. These are first impressions of Tokyo as I drive in from the airport. Lots of cars and trucks but no road rage.
On the ground, as we get to the heart of the city, there are throngs of expensively dressed people – girls in short, trendy, flirty skirts, baby doll dresses, leggings and boots (Hello Kitty rules); young and old men in perfectly tailored overcoats and professionally cut hair. Later that night, outside the hotel in the heart of this city of 13 million people, I walk along streets teeming with more people – mostly young. Musicians are playing on a street corner, citizens are relaxing in this urban environment after a day in the office. Tokyo relaxation means window shopping and stopping to talk to friends, or grabbing a bite in any one of a thousand little restaurants.
