Predictions: 2008 is a Leap Year and an election year, which means that fashions will be cautious and unwilling to push extremes. However, the fashion and design industries will loosen their death grip on some of the last few years' more annoying trends. The 70s craze will die down, purses and totes will become a little more functional, and shoes with street wear durability will finally eclipse those maddening 3-inch+ heels. Eco-friendly clothing and products will grow in popularity. The shopping bag design explosion will continue. (Lord & Taylor: back to the drawing board.) 

Resolutions: This blog promises to deliver certain goods in the new year. Entries will be shorter, tighter, and have more links to Library and outside resources. News and comment related to fashion and design history will be culled from newspapers, Newsweek, shelter magazines, good old Vogue, and new, exciting publications. I'll be tracking exhibitions at the "go to" places: the Costume Institute at the MMA, the Victoria & Albert, Cooper-Hewitt, and FIT, among others. And, with my colleagues at the Popular Culture Association in mind, I'll be exploring those often unseen, yet persistent connections that make everything old seem new again. After all, we are all HERE BY DESIGN. And a last resolution that will be no trouble to keep: Henry Salamanca, a good man gone too soon, will never be forgotten by his many friends at NYPL.