Fair trade, like other labels such as organic, cruelty-free and sustainable, is another in a series of ethical claims that is gaining a hipster seal of approval
By Liza Featherstone
When Kazi Hossain, a real estate broker in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, telephoned a client recently to describe a house for sale, he played up one of the property's most desirable attributes. "One block from Vox Pop!" he exclaimed. "You know Vox Pop?"

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The fashionistas said super-short minis would be everywhere this northern summer. But it's the maxi-dress that's making waves
By Imogen Fox
Six months ago the style prognosis for the northern hemisphere summer was pretty dire. The world's fashion experts spoke with one voice and announced that this season, the hemlines would be short. Not just mid-thigh short, but excruciatingly, don't-bend-over short.

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Despite some questionable filmic outings, Dunst is one of the very few child actors to have made an irrefutably triumphant transition from child actor to grown-up star
By Hadley Freeman
With her drawn, solemn little mouth, perturbed eyes and often furrowed brow, Kirsten Dunst has often been characterized as the rather serious representative from the young acting crowd. Even as an 11-year-old in Interview With a Vampire, her memorable film debut, her impassive, pale face gave her a more cerebral appearance than any of the older and more experienced actors around her. (Admittedly not difficult when acting alongside Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, but still not bad going for a prepubescent.)

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Establishing museums for the diverse reacial mix of America is a laudable exercise, but fraught with difficulties
By Edward Rothstein
It was only a matter of time. A half-century of intense cultural preoccupation with hyphenated American identity has been giving birth to the hyphenated American museum. Such institutions pay tribute to the hyphen, examining the ways Hispanic-Americans or Arab-Americans or African-Americans or other groups have been changed by the encounter of two worlds, and how, in turn, these groups have made their own indelible contributions.

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By Bradley Winterton
What is Henry James' The Turn of the Screw really about? The answer, though not made specific in the story, is surely pedophilia. Peter Quint and Miss Jessel have seduced their young charges, Miles and Flora, and their ghosts haunting them constitute the children's inability to recover from the experience. A new DVD of Benjamin Britten's opera of the same name, while remaining inexplicit, nevertheless opts to treat the work from an emotional and human, rather than from a spooky, angle.

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