Look Pulled Together: Even when you aren't

We've all been there -- that cursed Monday morning when the alarm clock rings and we can only groan and push snooze. Then we push it again. And again. Gadzooks! Now we're beyond late! And to cap it all off, there's that morning meeting, that presentation or that lunch date we wanted to look so pulled together for. Suddenly we're bolting out of bed, heading for the closet, heart sinking. What to wear?

Not to panic. We asked fashion designers and stylists what to wear when we've got to look pulled together, and fast. We asked them to give us pieces that'll announce, This woman's got it going on - she's neat, organized and on top of things. Here's what they said.

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Global Beauty: How is Beauty Measured?

What makes a face beautiful? Is there such a thing as global beauty -- some standard by which we can measure beauty?

We all have a natural understanding of good proportion. It's easy to agree that an object of art has good proportion, or that a face's proportions are poor -- to narrow, too short, eye's too close-set, etc.

In fact, a recent study showed that babies respond more positively to a face projected on a movie screen if the face is very symmetrical.

Man has been studying the concept of global beauty or ideal proportion since ancient times, and has found that our faces must follow several rules, used by mathematically oriented artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, in order to capture the essence of global beauty. For example:

The distance between our eyes should equal one eye-width or one nose - width

The tip of the nose is about half the way from chin to eyebrows

The angle formed between the base of the nose and the upper lip should be greater than 90 degrees when viewed in profile

There is an ideal ratio between the width of the two upper front teeth, the teeth on either side of them, and the canines when viewed head-on.

This same ratio is repeated when comparing a number of other facial features. And many other elements of nature follow the same rule

...There are millions of beautiful people in this world who don't "measure up" to these standards. Interesting faces, and even more interesting and captivating personalities and personal styles. That's what it's really all about

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Can Mariah Carey, queen of the fashion faux pas, be saved?

Can Andre Leon Talley fix this?

Through her own misguided sense of style, the international pop diva has assembled one of the gaudiest wardrobes in the celebrity world.

She's been caught wearing head-to-toe Chanel on the Aspen ski slopes and climbing a StairMaster in black stilettos on MTV's "Cribs."

Her red-carpet outfits include crooked, cut-up gowns, skintight slit dresses, boob-alicious ball gowns and sequined tube tops with jeans - all reminiscent of the wares at a tacky, sequin-filled wholesale boutique.

But along with last month's unveiling of her new album, "The Emancipation of Mimi," Carey has been trying to add some class to her tacky image, calling on high-profile fashion insiders for help - most notably Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley, as The Post reported yesterday in Page Six.

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Spas and The Man: Mars Goes to Venus

A foot massage at Rancho La Puerta helps Robert Luke, a Houston lawyer, forget his initial doubts about a vacation at a spa.

TECATE, Mexico

ROBERT LUKE is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So when his in-laws organized a family trip to a spa here, he didn't let on that a week of organic vegetables, Feldenkrais and loofah salt scrubs was hardly a dream vacation for a hard-driving trial lawyer with a hearty appetite, a love of competitive sports and a belief that being pampered is a waste of time.

Mr. Luke made the best of it. He satisfied his protein cravings with power bars smuggled from his home in Houston. He enjoyed group hikes up the steep face of Mount Kuchumaa at dawn, then ran the same 3.5-mile trail at full throttle in the afternoon sunshine. He acquiesced to the Happy Hands and Feet treatment his wife, Michele, had scheduled for him, a combination of massage, reflexology and a warm paraffin dip, but said, "It kind of scared me to be so relaxed I started snoring."

That was on Tuesday of a weeklong stay at Rancho La Puerta, a 3,000-acre spread in the high desert 60 miles southeast of San Diego, where health and fitness have been the mantra since 1940. On Thursday, Mr. Luke, 38, was still wishing that there were enough male guests for a pickup football game. He was still complaining that he was hungry. But without prodding from his wife, he had tried a facial, braving the lavender-and-camomile-scented health center and its waiting area filled with white-robed women.

He said he had agreed to the spa because his wife was eager to go and because his in-laws had booked it as a gift to him and Michele, making it hard to refuse. "I was game," he said as she rolled her eyes, suggesting it had not exactly been a slam dunk.

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White jeans beat the blues

Celebrity fans have led to waiting lists at London boutiques, writes Julia Robson

Tight, white cropped jeans are once again the height of hip. Joss Stone, Kate Moss, Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman and Jennifer Aniston seem to be wearing little else. Meanwhile, white jeans by Marc Jacobs, James, 7 For All Mankind and Earnest Sewn have soared to the top of waiting lists at several London boutiques. But haven't we been here before?

Depending on your age, white jeans bring to mind Essex girls, the boys from Wham! and Magaluf clubbers or The Beach Boys and Jackie Kennedy. And when they were consigned to fashion's rubbish tip in the Eighties, it seemed that their days were truly over.

Yet several factors have contributed to their renaissance in the 21st century. "White denim is a good alternative to the current uniform of heels, blue jeans and a sexy top that women have been wearing for the past four seasons," says Suzanne Pendlebury, denim buyer at Harvey Nichols. "White is even better at going from day to evening than dark denim, and cropped styles are popular because they allow you to show off really sexy shoes."

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