There aren't too many of us who can say that we knew what we wanted to do with our lives from childhood. Eugenie Huang of emerging accessories line Deka Ray holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture, but from the time she was only eight years old the precocious talent has been designing strange, one-of-a-kind jewelery that catches the eye.

It was a book about famed sculptor Alexander Calder that first inspired Huang to play with wire, crafting earrings instead of doing her homework. While she pursued a full-time career in architecture, the same obsession with shape, material and form that drove her professional studies also informed her inventive jewelry designs; the resulting styles gently toe the line between statement pieces and over-the-top ornaments: "I appreciate constraint. You can play around with the design, but ultimately the pieces have to relate to your body."

When going on castings, which are in fact interviews that actors go on for commercials, print ads, and films, you are told what the part is, and the "type," meaning what to wear. I have been told to dress as a "downtown type,"  "club goer," or simply "NY hip," or, "You're going in for the role of bartender, or prostitute.'' I'm told my type is the hooker with the heart of gold, the girl at the club that helps get the hurt guy to the hospital, the bartender that defends the nerd: tough with a sweet interior. For each role, you dress appropriately. You're not going to go in for a hooker role in an ankle-length skirt, and you're generally not going to go in for a Mop N Glo commercial in a bustier, pencil skirt, fishnets, and heels, unless of course the casting calls for it.

But that's acting.

In real life, so many have lost their jobs due to Bush's war and the recession that's been created from it, I have to assume there are a lot of people interviewing for all kinds of jobs. In honor of Labor Day, here is my two cents on how to present yourself.

Most important: cleanliness. Even if it is a construction job, show up clean and smell clean. Investigate the place you are going to interview for. If it's retail, dress like you already work there -- if not clothes from the store, clothes that look like they'd be in the store. If it's a casual company, no need to overdress. Overdressing for an interview can make you feel just as silly as you would showing up as a male stripper at a funeral. My point is, know where you're going and dress accordingly.

Side note: It's always good to have an outfit stashed in your closet for a funeral.

Another important thing that people have literally at times not been hired because of is bad shoes. Make sure your shoes fit the job description; don't skimp on them. I know for a fact friends have broken up with people because of bad footwear, and bosses have not hired people because of bad footwear. If you wear a cheap shoe, please make sure it looks like you spent money on it. And don't wear inappropriate footwear. Like for men, a sock and sandal are a no-no, and personally I think it is incredibly offensive (there is a website here dedicated to it for public shaming, enjoy). Even if you are going in for a sporty mountain-climbing shoe store interview, save that hideous combo for your own time. Crocs are also included in this category.

We dress differently all the time for work, exercise, family functions, weddings and funerals, evening and playtime.  Usually I am a proponent of dressing however you want and as badly as you want. There's nothing I love more than taking a chance and the worst-dressed list.  But if you need a job, it's a different story. Sorry, but everyone has to do it. If you are going in for a job as a clown, don't forget the red nose.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Theo Kogan is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Fashion & Design. Her THEOlogy column appeared Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We last saw Lady In Red when she was struggling with her love or lust for a lying and cheating fool, in Lady in Red, Part Deux. Now she's moving on. Here we pick up with her in: Lady in Red, the Sequel.

Dear Theo,

I am moved to tell you I am meeting someone new next weekend.  He is someone that I have known for a while, but not someone I have met in person. His long-time girlfriend moved to the East Coast last summer, and I have just kind of kept in touch with him. It was a long breakup for them.

So, for the last nine to 10 months, I have just gone on with my life and, as you know, gotten involved with someone that wasn't good for me. I feel like this is going to be a fresh start. And I'm certain this guy isn't a cheater.  He lives in the Southwest and is an artist. He's also a member of an art collective, and travels quite a bit.  He's 28.  These young guys just keep popping up.   

I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. Any advice, of course, would be appreciated.
 
Hope you are doing wonderful as ever!

-Lady in Red

Dear Lady in Red,

I am so happy to hear you have moved on and it is great that you're so excited to meet this guy. The best advice I can give you right now is a classic; don't count your chickens before they hatch. And what I mean by this is, wait till you have met him and see if the two of you jive well. I am glad you are certain he's not a cheater, but a traveling young artist is somewhat of a nouveau rock star (like chefs), and I would most definitely be careful. Piece of advice #2: Don't put all the eggs that haven't hatched in one basket yet either.

I am not telling you not to trust him. I am just suggesting that you watch out for yourself and be discerning. Sometimes when we are attracted to the same types of people (for you, young and living in other cities), we are living a lesson over and over until we really learn it. I am not trying to stomp on your bed of roses, just reminding you that when you collapse into that bed, you most likely will find a thorn or two.

Have fun and keep your eyes and ears open for clues. 'Till next time…

Theo Kogan is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Fashion & Design. Her THEOlogy column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every other Tuesday, she answers your questions with her tough-love advice. Send your questions via e-mail or here on MOLI.

Among the novel distractions last week were the goings-on in the Water Cube, another great building put up for the Olympics in Beiing. Its most appealing feature (to me) is that its walls are designed to not just resemble but mimic the properties of bubbles -- soap bubbles, it seems, and the way they fill space entirely. The cube is not really a cube: it's a rectangle, and it may look light, but it cost $200 million to build (by PTW Architects, Arup, and the Chinese construction team).

Given what I said last column about architecture having meaning, about its being intentional in ways most of us wouldn't consider, somehow the idea of a tight enclosure of bubbles containing all that watery athleticism (and the politics thereof) is delicious. The metaphors can't stop: Building as grand laundromat - put in all that terrible human rights stuff, set on double-wash, and out they come, clean as a swimmer's thigh. Building as seemingly transparent (after all, the light moves through those walls, doesn't it) but actually not transparent at all.  Building as made of elements more akin to the brain of a super-swimmer: bubbles, blue and green light, undulations, waves. Building as giant nest made of bubble wrap, protecting the fragile peace, or momentary willingness to suspend awareness, of the international sporting event known as the Olympics. I'll stop before I start saying something like, "China, after all, is as fragile as it is powerful: as if made of china...." Forgive me, for I know not how little I sleep.

My favorite inhabitant of the magic bubble box were the Olympic synchronized swimmers, women with Amazon-hot bods in high-hipped swimsuits, their nightmare-beautiful faces adorned with identical warpaint make-up, their noses turned into cartoon beaks by nose clips. The most extreme case of synchro intensity was the Russian team made of the two Anatasias, with their exaggerated poses and mermaid contortions. They dove and stayed upside-down underwater for long minutes while they kewpie-kicked the air, all to the beat of the music - hey, that was magic. And even when the absurdity reached a zenith -- those fierce girls from Spain wanted to wear lights on their suits and nearly did (take two on "Girl from Ipanema"!) -- the sober genius of the building that enclosed all this dramatic aquaticism was a giant reminder that this is all about science and technique. So the synchro thing seems like a joke, but good luck to the rest of us non-Olympic plebes on ever being skilled or fit enough to look that ridiculous. In other words, it may look transparent, but it's not.

Another aspect of the building that made me smile was the fact that it's a great idea about sustainability, given wings, you might say, by the need for a great building to match a giant occasion. So the building is covered in a plastic called EFTE (100,000 square meters of it). ETFE is a plastic so strong that it won't tear, and yet allows more solar heat into the building than glass.  Might be a great material to make a development out of, someday.

Jana Martin's blog, Making Room, runs every week in the MOLI View's Fashion & Design section.