Op-Eds

Edward DeMarco, the temporary director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, continues to endure blistering criticism for refusing to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to pay for large-scale principal reductions for underwater borrowers (those who owe more than their homes are worth) or to facilitate refinancings for those stuck with high interest rate mortgages.

Before Manolo Blahnik was a famous shoemaker, he was an imaginative boy growing up in the Canary Islands with a chic mother who inspired his nascent love of art. In the early 1970s, after studying literature and architecture in Geneva, he put on his best red-and-white gingham suit and approached Vogue editor Diana Vreeland to show her his work.

California is at the top of “most hated” states, according to a recent national poll. It’s easy to see why a lot of Californians themselves agree with this assessment, after Governor Jerry Brown’s latest scary description of the deepening hole the state is in.

Not everyone was a big fan of the stiletto. Just like Christian Dior’s voluptuous, bell-shaped skirts, the tall, thin heels drew criticism even at the height of their popularity.

For all the criticism of the Dodd- Frank Act, one thing the law does right is fill the informational and analytical blind spots that allowed our economy to unwittingly approach the precipice of disaster.

Named for a type of dagger with a slender blade, the stiletto’s defining characteristic is not so much the height, but the girth, of its heel.

It’s possible, but unlikely, that small differences in culture alone can explain the greater economic success of the U.S. relative to Europe and Japan after the introduction of the Internet.

The archetypal American femme fatale exhibited a funny kind of freedom. Where most of the women around her were subservient and submissive, she slipped across class and gender lines by homing in on a man’s fundamental weakness: his desire for sex.

Two elections took place in the Balkans on May 6, and when historians look back, I think they’ll see a tipping point: The day Serbia ceded to Greece its place as the region’s most troublesome country.

In 1907, Bonito, Italy, 9-year-old Salvatore Ferragamo could often be found intently watching the town cobbler tan leather skins, cut patterns, shape them around a wooden foot-shaped “last” and stitch the pieces together.