Hazellyn regularly changes her color palette to match the season or her mood. On the day we shot this photo, she was dressed in flowery, neon green (with hair and eye shading to match). The Greenwood Academy of Hair graduate and Macy's sales associate (in the juniors department) takes a cut-and-paste approach to her clothing and accessories: a little vintage here, a little name brand there, and a couple department store staples create a scintillating composite.

Green scarf, gift. "I got that one from my mom. I've had it for a while."

Bracelet by Kenneth Cole, $25 at Macy's (1601 Third Ave, 506-6671). Hazellyn's no brand whore, but she does give it up for one label in particular. "Kenneth Cole is worth it because of the style of their jewelry," she says. "Everything else is just whatever looks good. I'm not really about brands."

Green blazer by Violet, $45 at Nordstrom (500 Pine St, 628-2111). Most department-store shoppers are no strangers to Nordstrom. But only local music-industry types know that the tall, blond, younger-generation Nordstrom, Peter, is a big fan of local math rockers the Ruby Doe. And well he should be, as they recently released a record, Always with Wings, on Loveless, the label Peter Nordstom co-owns with KEXP DJ John Richards and other partners.

Lavender shirt by Karen Kane, $25 at Macy's (1601 Third Ave, 506-6671). Karen Kane Inc. is presided over by Karen's husband, Lonnie Kane. In December 2004, the LA Weekly ran a story about the termination of the WTO's 1974 Multifiber Arrangement's quotas, in which Lonnie Kane was quoted as saying, "L.A. is unfriendly to the apparel industry. It likes the prestige of having a creative industry like Hollywood, but doesn't want 'dirty businesses' like sewing factories. Yet cities tend to lose sight of the fact that we need to have employment at every level and sewing factories provide entry jobs to unskilled and immigrant workers."

Green Windsor skirt, no label, $15 at Aurora Antique Pavilion (24111 Highway 99, Edmonds, 425-744-0566). Located on the trash-to-treasure strip that is Highway 99, the Aurora Antique Pavilion is one of Hazellyn's favorite retail outlets for vintage wear. "No one really knows about the Antique Pavilion, but they have a lot of cool stuff there," says Hazellyn.

Powder blue platform boots (Japanese brand illegible), $90 from Makati, Philippines. Hazellyn has family in Makati, a Philippine city on the Pasig River. On trips to Makati she scores items like an iridescent skirt that's patched with fringe and shoes like the platform boots pictured here. Shoes have a particularly special meaning in the Philippines--who can forget a certain Philippine ex-first lady who fetishized footwear?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves: The Philippines was a Spanish colony for 300 years; the islands were, in fact, named in 1542 for Philip, then heir to the Spanish throne. (Philip become King Philip II in 1556. He sent the Spanish Armada to invade England during the reign of Elizabeth I, his former sister-in-law, but in 1588 his ships were destroyed by the weather, fire, and the Irish. He died 10 years later a broken, ugly man.) The United States took possession of the Philippines from Spain at the end of Spanish-American War (1898), paying a defeated Spain $20 million for the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Filipino nationalists weren't happy and the Philippine War of Independence broke out in 1899. The war lasted for two years; 16,000 Filipino soldiers were killed, as well as 200,000 civilians. The Japanese attacked the Philippines, still an American colony, on December 8, 1941, ten hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Americans lost 60,000 men on re-taking the Philippines, the Japanese lost 300,000, and more than a million Filipino civilians died.

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The Philipines was a republic between 1946-1965. Then Ferdinand Marcos, a strident anti-communist backed by the United States, came to power. Four years after becoming president, Marcos launched a military campaign against communist guerrillas, the first step toward dictatorship. In 1983, government agents assassinated Marcos' chief political rival, Benigno Aquino, an action that led to Benigno's wife, Corazón Aquino, running for president. In 1986, both Aquino and Marcos claimed victory. With his country on the brink of civil war and the streets filled with protestors, an ailing Marcos fled to the United States. Aquino became the first female president of the Philippines.

The current president of the Philippines is also a woman. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been in office since 2001, and on her country's official Office of the President homepage (www.op.gov.ph), she's shown in a soft-focus photo, wearing an electric-blue two-piece suit, surrounded by pink flowers. Her footwear is completely obscured by the flowers in the photo, unlike Hazellyn's blue suede shoes, which are one of the star attractions of her ensemble. *