Made You Look: Rachel Roy for Spring

While covering fashion for a daily New York newspaper, I had the chance to attend and cover a Rachel Roy Fashion Week presentation, which are more intimate than runway showings, if less theatrical.

But I was often harried and sent instead one of my colleagues, who was a pro in her beat covering New York's social circuit. Still, I always regretted missing that appointment because I love all things Rachel Roy.

The theme of her Spring 2010 Lookbook is "What To Love" For Spring, and the designer of Dutch-Indian descent asked a handful of gifted gals to share what love meant to them.

What's amazing is that Rachel tapped a few of the chicks I'm inspired by, including Trinidadian renaissance girl Vashtie Kola, an artist, director, and designer, who proves you can do it all-and do it well. And the duo that comprises Nuyorican Queens band Nina Sky, Natalie and Nicole Albino.

With my locks shorn, people often teasingly call me Rihanna, but I was inspired last summer by Nicole's edgy 'do.

"Everything I do involves love and I don't commit to things that don't involve love," says Kola.

We should all live that way.

We Major (Lazer): Nina Sky On Their Own Time and So Flavor-full

In ancient folklore, they say that the witching hour represents the moment when black magic is at its most powerful. Cast a spell, cast off an albatross...

If that's true, then the soreceresses of Nina Sky, Natalie and Nicole Albino, have been boiling up a serious bitches' brew.

To fly-by-night fans, the Queens, N.Y.-born duo haven't made noise since 2004's super-hit "Move Ya Body," but the ladies spent the last five years or so making a label change (Universal to Polo Grounds/J Records), writing music, DJ-ing, re-mixing for artists like The-Dream and J.Holiday, and touring like mad.

Homegrown but Puerto Rican by blood, they have that quintessential New York City-native something that a million June Ambroses couldn't recreate if you ain't have it already (They shout out Pio Pio, for goodness sake, lol! Okaay, A.).



That je ne sais quoi extends from the external - a certain way we put our look together - to the internal - a melting pot mentality that sees culture in every quarter.

In October, their oft-delayed sophomore album, Starting Today, is slated to drop and anyone who's heard early singles like the sugary electro-pop "Beautiful People" or the R&B-flavored "On Some Bullshit", can attest to the growth. Even the vocals are fuller, more lush. (This is the music Diddy wishes Cassie could make.)

On the significance of the album title they've said, "We believe if you dwell on the past, you can never move forward. Our songs now are about putting past experiences to rest and approaching life with a positive outlook.”

Nowhere is this forward outlook more apparent than their collabo with Major Lazer (feat. Ricky Blaze) on the flavor-full "Keep it Goin' Louder", off Diplo and Switch's dancehall-drenched Gunz Don't Kill People, Lazers Do. Pitchfork calls it one of the best pop songs of the year.

Bitches. Brew.