Shopping: Object Lessons

Can you purchase a better life? Absolutely, say practitioners of feng shui, an ancient Chinese system of placing furniture and objects in ways that are said to advance careers and relationships, enliven your love life and promote inner peace.

Feng shui consultant Milda Vaivada says there is more to this Eastern practice than most Westerners are willing to admit. Vaivada lectures and conducts seminars on feng shui, and she shows those shopping for a better life how to harness its principles to enhance their business and personal environments. Her easy and practical tips are also fairly inexpensive.

One of the first things she insists upon is de-cluttering. This demands rigorous editing as well as severing emotional ties with sentimental-value items that honestly bring you no joy.

"Eliminating clutter doesn't mean putting junk in boxes or taking it to a storage unit," cautions Vaivada, "because you haven't really gotten rid of it. You've still got an invisible string that stretches from the storage unit right to you. Throw stuff away, give it away, take it to a thrift shop. When you walk by something unpleasant in your home, it lowers your energy level."

Editing extends to appliances. "When you open the refrigerator, you should have a feeling of nourishment and security, not a dread of what you might uncover," she continues. "Clean it out. If you don't cook or eat at home often, keep flowers and a pretty bottle of wine in the fridge." Vaivada recommends the book Clear Your Clutter by Karen Kingston for step-by-step help in banishing chaos.

Vaivada also tells clients to fix things. "The cumulative effect of living with a leaky faucet or a window that doesn't open properly is stress," she warns. "Call a professional. The things you use everyday should work the way they're supposed to. This applies to little things. If your toothbrushes are too fat to fit in the holder, get different brushes or get rid of the holder."

Next, you'll want to eliminate impediments to the flow of good energy, called chi. Encouraging chi to flow toward you is one of the things that feng shui is all about. Don't store boxes under the bed. Remove objects that have sharp corners (it's like aggressively pointing a finger at someone), and take a critical look at your artwork. What's charming in one room may be disturbing in another.

Color affects how we viscerally react to a space, Vaivada says. Select a color keyed to the emotion you want to project or invite. "Red is for energy and might be just what you want for the front door of a restaurant," says Vaivada, "but I wouldn't suggest it for a bedroom. I once removed red chairs from a stockbroker's office because a client sitting in a red chair is distracted and has trouble focusing on the meeting."

Instead, she brought in brown leather armchairs with straight backs. "The client felt secure and enveloped by subtle luxury," explains Vaivada, "but the straight backs meant the client couldn't get too comfortable. He had to concentrate on the purpose of the meeting. I often install green chairs in an office of salespeople because green conveys growth and money." Vaivada also says that the worst thing a chair can be is unstable. It should rest solidly on the floor. Black is the color of career, Vaivada notes. A black door to your office conveys distinction and is good for business. Green plants near the door invite money inside.

Finally, some enlightenment on furniture placement: Your bed should have a view of the door but not be directly in front of it (chi flows away from the room). The desk in your office should face the door because you always want to know what's coming at you. Your stove should give you a commanding view of the kitchen. If your stove is unfortunately positioned against a wall, install a mirror as a backsplash. Mirrors are used frequently by feng shui practitioners to gather light (a good thing) and redirect a bad flow of chi.

Seventy-five percent of Vaivada's clients are men who want to increase prosperity. She believes it's essential to have a reason to adopt feng shui principles. "Although many of my clients start out wanting help for the corporate part of their lives, feng shui almost always extends into the home environment," she says. "Once you experience improvement in one segment of life, it's natural to want success in all aspects of life."

Oh, to be cute, 29 and spectacu- larly talented as a custom jewelry designer. To meet graduate jeweler-gemologist Christine Louwers Paraboschi is to encounter someone who apparently has it all, from marrying Tom, the love of her life, last May (yes, she designed her rings), to calling on her accountant dad, who scouted the location for her showroom, to working well with her mom, who helped with the interior design, to teaming up with 26-year veteran jeweler Harold Dowdy, who works with Paraboschi in the spacious studio that one can see from the chic and modernist showroom.

Everything about this spare and elegant space invites one to focus on the imaginatively styled gems in the brushed metal, beech-wood and glass cases that Paraboschi designed and had made in Miami. You'll also want to notice the glamorous lighting system she installed and the curvilinear ceiling scheme that replicates the swirl of the carpet and counters. Every element in her gallery functions as inspiration when choosing loose stones or collaborating with Paraboschi in designing a piece of jewelry that is yours and yours alone. The artistic designer also showcases a dramatic collection of art glass from all over the world ranging in price from $150 to $600.

Paraboschi says about a third of her clients are young professional women who want to start assembling a quality collection of original jewelry. For about $1,000, a client can get an impressive start. "Many times a woman will begin with a gemstone ring and then work up to a pendant on a neoprene necklace or woven gold neck wire," says the jeweler. "Then she keeps adding, like putting a fringe of diamonds around the pendant or moving on to a bracelet. It's not important that everything match, but most clients like to keep the style the same and most are looking at mixed metals that go from day to night. Today a woman wants jewelry to be versatile and to express her personality. My clients place a high premium on having a unique piece of jewelry."

Paraboschi notices that the popular stones currently are orange garnet, citrine, peridot, the sea-foam green tourmaline and the deep-violet tanzanite. "Pearls remain a constant gem of desire," she adds. "I'm doing a lot of custom projects with pearls; one of the most sought-after is a pendant, that is interchangeable. The bail (the top piece of the pendant) is usually crafted of diamonds and made so that a pearl or colored gemstone can be screwed into it. Recently, Paraboschi notes, a bride ordered one with a black Tahitian pearl and a white South Sea pearl. She'll wear the white for her wedding and for more dressy occasions and the black with sports clothes and professional attire," she explains. "A year or two from now, she'll probably come back for a colored gemstone to add to her interchangeable neckwear."

Paraboschi has a lot of commissions for bridal jewelry, including restringing heirloom pearls and updating inherited jewelry as well as creating original jewelry for the bridal party. Men are especially interested in her collection of various titanium wedding bands because they are light and easy to wear and have a modern look. One of her most popular is titanium and yellow gold that retails for $340. It has a rich, burnished look.

Besides showcasing her own designs, Paraboschi features the work of artists she admires who have studios in California, New York and Massachusetts. She buys loose gems and scouts rising stars in the jewelry world twice a year at shows in Tucson and Las Vegas. Paraboschi's artists work in classical styles and in traditional motifs as well as contemporary.

For an object lesson

in exemplary showroom design, for a look at what's new and jazzy in jeweled accessories and art glass, or just to spend time talking about jewelry trends with a super-competent professional, you will just have to go shopping at Christine's Jewelry by Design. Go the same day you have a manicure so you can try on rings. And if you spend so much time at Christine's that there's not an hour left to cook dinner, just breeze into Jason's Deli next door and take home an appetizing basketful of home-cooked goodies.

Would you buy choco-late from a chic, slender blonde who looks as if she spent a career modeling in Paris? Well, you should. Despite appearances to the contrary, Dianne Mannion and her biz-whiz husband, Tom, have eaten, evaluated, researched and sorted through more chocolate candies and desserts in the past dozen years than you're likely to even see in a lifetime. They are true chocolate gurus, and their reach is global. This couple is so thorough that they can (and will, if you ask) suggest the perfect wine to accompany the chocolates you select from Chocolat du jour.