Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

The hip, hot new thing in fashion is going for the old. Apparently, recycling last year's dress for this year's New Year's is just the right pose to strike in the year of the Recessionista . While wearing vintage is not new, the twist this year is how to update an old dress and make it few new again. Part of this year's trend is to keep the old and bring something new to the New Year's outfit. The best way to do that is to add accessories that hit dead-centere a few of this year's hot trends: sequins and beads, metallics and shine are great, opaque black leggings and coloured legging high-heeled peep-toes and ruffles are all spot on. For sequins and beads: There are three great ways to bring this to a black dress. I saw a sequined clutch, a big one, at Zara for $70 (I would link to them but HATE their website). It's a great party bag and let's you leave a purse at home. I also found at Zara a beaded shrug to bring a bit of lustre that will draw the eye t...

You know the scene. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman gets iced-out by a snobby shopkeeper because Roberts' character is a, well, a hooker. Mark Startup, CEO of Retail BC, calls it the Pretty Woman Syndrome. That's the belief among people will experience poor service at a luxury boutique if they appear they can't afford many of the items. Well, today, I tested the idea by alighting through some of Vancouver's most elite stores. Starting at Waterfront Station, I wandered through Plaza Escada and Leone at Sinclair Centre, Alfred Dunhill at Howe, Harry Rosen at the Pacific Centre, Gucci and Louis Vuitton at the Hotel Vancouver and, finally, Salvatore Ferragamo on Robson. My goal was to declare I was looking for cheap or affordable designer stocking stuffers for an office gift exchange. My budget was $100-$200. I was pleasantly surprised. The service was excellent and super-accommodating. With the exception of Gucci where sales staff were swamped, I found the shop keepers super...

Sometimes, I worry that I'm wasting my time writing about fashion. Then I realize, there are few men who actually have a feel for writing about menswear. Case in point - this little here article from the Calgary paper...what is it? The Herald? Anyway, I'll assume it was filed by a disgruntled crime beat reporter whom they are torturing into retirement by making him write fashion pieces. I personally like writing about fashion and see it as a pure joy. Tell me if you detect any joy in story . Is this a beauty or what? The whole mess reminds me of something the very fine fashion thinker and sometimes literary pornographer Russell Smith wrote about Indian blog content mills . Both the Herald piece and the example Smith offers share an impenetrable cluelessness, a total quality of daftness... "Watches have hands. They are called analog. Ironically, even though "digital" watches are called so, they have no hands. In Latin, digit means fingers. Fingers are attached to...

My most recent article on leather made it to the National Post . I'm not sure if it's hitting the print edition. Either way, it's nice to know the stuff is getting out beyond Vancouver, once and a while. Lately, I've been wearing a brown leather jacket in a denim cut. It hits two inches above a lower waistband but hits just right with my GWGs. Ah, my GWGs. I've set out to wear them nearly everyday and abuse them as naturally and often as possible. I bought them at the Army and Navy in New Westminster for $29.99. This summer, I swam in the Pacific with them on twice. And I've only washed it once. I've had them since June and only now are they beginning to show some nice whiskering. The experiment continues!

If you're looking for Measure of a Man - my Ideas documentary on the history of suits - you'll find it online here .

Receiving a sweater as a holiday gift can be a big let down. Really, how many of you have had enough with those light, v-neck pullovers of cashmere or mohair that dress well for work and evening-time play? Yes, they are comfortable, contemporary and they do look nice underneath a good sports coat but they also lack surface detail, drama and a sense of substance. Sometimes sweaters like that feel too much like t-shirts. They just don't have enough gravitas and perhaps this holiday there can be nothing worse than another one of its ilk lurking in wait beneath the boughs of a decorated tree. If you have such woolen trepidation, fear not. The winds of change are a blowing. Cut this article out and let your gift buyers know sweaters are manning-up this season. Knitwear 2008 is sturdier, chunkier, and, strangely, kind-of paternalistic in a hip kind of way. It draws inspiration from male archetypes such as navy fighter pilots, rugged outdoorsmen, the Amerian G. I.'s that flooded campu...

Crazy. But all my recent stories about fashion and politics (Palin, sweaters and May's green wardrobe woes) has ignited my interest in politics again. So much so I've started a new political blog called: liberalparty20.blogspot.com I'm not a card-carrying Liberal. I vote differently but I think a strong Liberal Party is good for the country and good for political stories. Look for original interviews and views and maybe one day guest contributors on the site.

Q. What would you do with $150 000 to spend on clothes as a vice-presidential nominee? A. Nadine Spidla of Imaginary Friend : I think it worked for Sarah Palin...She is definitely pulling off the business-person blazer. I think that's working for her. And she's choosing red which works perfect with her complexion. While Nadine of Imaginary Friend recommends a long great coat, your spending spree could put Imaginary Friend's swing coat on the shopping list. And it won't cost a million bucks or even $150 000. Q. What fashion item would you get with an unlimited budget if you had to run as VP? A. I think a great coat polishes up any look. Even if you have to run to store and pick up a carton of milk - you put on a great (over) coat - you look like a hundred bucks, a million bucks. A. Megan Dengerink of Imaginary Friend : You want it to be tailored because the camera adds ten pounds. But for us, while it's not a long coat, our swing coat because it's shorter will ...

I am fascinated by the story. Not because I think it's appalling that someone running for office needs a makeover - but I'd love to know how she dressed before the GOP makeover. Next time around, I'd like to be picked to run as VP. The Republican party has spent $150,000 (£92,000) on clothes and accessories since late August for Sarah Palin and her family, according to records of party spending. ( more from the Guardian ) In my run, I'd buy the Fitzgerald line of suits from Brooks Bros. I'd get knitted ties from JPress. I would still cut my own hair. Admittedly, I wouldn't wear a bow tie. The world may have a US president who is black but the ugliness of prejudice still remains against bow tie wearers.

( Ocean Drive Leather's B-20 and B-18 jackets make fit and proportion the secret to looking good in leather. Courtesy Ocean Drive Leather/Gordan Dumka.) Besides crimson leaves and pumpkins, is there any surer sign of autumn than the arrival of leather coats and jackets? Leather warms against chilly winds and can shed water. Leather also captures perfectly the seasonal melancholy of rain-slicked streets, longer nights and the sense of rebellion a man feels when he leaves behind the summer of childhood and is forced to embrace the cold hard reality of adulthood. As fashion historians Richard Martin and Harold Koda once wrote in their book, Jocks and Nerds, leather is 'wild' and 'the essence' of men 'who sign their defiance of civilization by wearing black.' Leather is totally cool or should be - and it can be if men know how to wear it correctly. Too bad many don't.These last few weeks I've identified a number of atrocious leather faux-pas and found a...

Tonight, Sir Paul Smith presented a slide show about his 30 years in fashion at Holt Renfrew Vancouver. Starting with a 12' x 12' shop in Nottingham, which he rented for 50 pence a week and opened only on Fridays and Saturdays, Smith has built an empire that wholesales to 35 countries and owns 14 shops in England. Smith's talk combined autobiography, fashion philosophy and retail pointers and really underscored the importance of finding inspiration in art, architecture and travel and appreciating colour found in everyday objects. Smith draws ideas from Lithuanian churches painted in aquamarine to seed packets (leading to floral patterned shirts) to tomatoes on a vine. Here are a few of the things he said tonight: On his Spring 1996 cerulean blue suits - "I like to pretend they were Yves Klein blue but the colour really came from a security guard uniform." On his Guatemalan inspired collection - "I didn't go to Guatemala. I went to the library and opened...

JJ Lee - our man of style - brings us little simple items that have stood the test of time and will hold their value no matter where the market goes. Levi's 501 reissue brings back an iconic jeans for women. Q. What will bring fashion dividends regardless if it's a bull or bear market? I think they should be affordable. I see classic iconic style as a form of austerity measures because you're buying something that never goes out of style. Q. The idea is to go from head to toe. What do you have for the top? People are willing to pay $300-$400 for glasses by Gucci, Prada and Calvin Klein. Then, there are hipster brands like Moscot - which do nerd glasses for a hefty price. Instead, I recommend a true stylish frame: Ray-Ban Wayfarers . This style of frame has been worn by the likes of Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, and Audrey Hepburn. Wayfarers have been in production for the last 55 years. For $140, you can pop out the tinted lenses and have a true fashion frame. Q. What d...

I'm going to do it. Buy a digital camera. I will buy a Nikon D40 at 6.1 megapixels because megapixels don't matter. It's enough. To have a leap in quality one would have to use a 24 megapixel camera to double the resolution of an image. Not needed. And my suspicions were confirmed by the New York Times tech columnist, David Pogue . Now why do I need a digital camera. Well, it seems Vancouver designers are under-served by photographers. Certainly it can be expensive. Also, it's hard to get the shot you want for the articles you are writing. If I had Kris Krug or Fiona Garden in tow with me all the time, that would be different. I would shutter up and let them shoot. But we all can't be graced with such lovely company and artists...so I'm doing my own thing. So I may catch what I catch. I'm going digital. To check out my film stuff, go to my photo project: Everybody in New Westminster . Nikon D40 here I come.

In the recent federal leadership debates, the Green Party leader adopted masculinist-politico outfits. Many female politicians feel and look comfortable wearing the standard uniform. However, May did not during the debate. And what do her clothes say? For better or for worse, the dress of female politician comes under greater scrutiny (though both male and female dress choices make an equal impression). The take-away: May IS NOT Margaret Thatcher. Nor is she Hilary Clinton. She doesn't have to be. May's masculinist suit choice had a negative impact on her visual branding. May wearing an out-dated Ghillie collar - that's a suit jacket with a shirt-like collar - paired with an open shirt collar OVER the Ghillie was the most notable. It's just too much. Look at the collars. They crowded the face and presented too many downward angles which gives the impression of slumped posture. I'd like to see her finally put together some of the elements she's rel...

Never say, "It doesn't really suit your body type. Can I try it?" Also never say, "It's a great look. Everybody in New York was wearing it last season You can ask a woman about her shoes and where she bought them but you're not allowed to go out and buy them unless you plan to never see this woman for at least a year Don't even ask about the handbag if it cost more than $1000 When buying the Hermes watch - you know the one your friend arbitrarily wanted since she was 13 years old - make sure you're buying it for that friend and not yourself

From the CBC , Elizabeth May on the release of The Green Party's Green Plan 2 on September 27, 2006. Here's Ms. May from a still at last night's French debate . What does this all mean? Is she staying tried and true to the Green Ethos of reduce, reuse, and recycle. I called out Ms. May on CBC Radio One's The Point today. I DARED her to wear the same outfit again during tonight's English debate. With Ms. May as a role model, no longer will women fear being caught wearing the same outfit twice, no longer will women loathe finding themselves wearing the same outfit as another woman. In the masculine world of dress, two men in the same tie (see Layton and Duceppe) is only an opportunity for convivial recognition - "Hey, we have the same taste!" - perhaps women will now feel the same way.

Today, on The Point I'll be going over the fashion sense of Canada's federal party leaders as they appeared in last night's French debate from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The Point segment will air between 3-3:30 PM local time....however...if you live in a major market like Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver, you'll have to tune in online at CBC.ca and listen to a live link from a different city. My particular point will be: Did Ms. May's sweater-skirt outfit pass muster? TUNE IN!!!

Regardless of today's high temperature, it 'tis the season to be wearing sweaters and I spoke with a twin set of designers - Anthony Castro and Scott Walhovd of the local label and boutique, 212 - about the warm and fuzzy. Bold...fetish...architectural are the trends governing womenswear this season but how do they apply to this season's sweaters? They do and they don't. The idea of bold silhouettes can't manifest in knitwear the way they can in leather goods or structured tailored clothes. That said, Sweaters are chunky with bold collars and details. Another trend s a low-slung aesthetic. It's like gravity has taken hold of dramatically cut soft materials and dragged it down to create the slouchy look. Think swooshes, downward hem lines and neck lines. It's a relief after years of high-cropped clothes like belly shirts and layered looks that have segmented women's bodies between the bust and waist. Now, it's time to look at layering action around ...

This season is about taking all the trends you've been hearing about and wearing these last few months and mashing them together so the separate trends for ankle boots, gladiator sandals and metallics converge in one brassy, black-heeled Gucci. The trend towards SHAPE, TAILORING and ARCHITECTURE melds in to a houndstooth tweed, leather and wood block heeled platform by Marni. And there's still room for subtlety in a Christian Louboutin limited-edition peep-toe pump, the platform is covered and peeps at the toe. Cheeky. All can be found at Holt Renfrew , right now. Thanks, Carla for bringing it to CBC.

Amy Lapsley asked via Facebook: Amy Lapsley at 9:51pm September 17 what do you think of obama v. mccain in the fashion department? My response: JJ Lee at 11:31am September 18 Obama looks great. McCain seems feeble but that's an age thing. I find their attire more invisible than the attire of our candidates. One of the great goals of sophisticated masculine style is to make the clothes invisible. The focus should be on the person. Both McCain and Obama have done that. Because, our leaders are less skilled in dress, they often wear things that draw attention to their clothes - mistakes are noticeable, dressing well is all about "je ne sais quoi"! And you, Amy Lapsley always achieve the quoi!

The Conservative party's strategic deployment of the blue sweater vest to soften Canadians' impression of Stephen Harper has turned the sartorial sensibility of all the candidates into a campaign side issue. Taking the initiative, Harper now owns the sweater. While in previous campaigns politicians have pulled out sweaters to show solidarity with the regular folks, something is different this time around because it worked. It would seem no other candidate can now wear a cardigan, vest or pullover without cuing close clothes watchers to reference Harper's first strike (as seen in the above still from the first volley of Conservative election ads - this one titled, " Family is Everything "). It reminds me of Nike's attempts in the 1980s to initiate branding by electronic colonisation. The athletic shoe maker faded their famous swoosh logo into a field of TV static with the hopes of making electronic snow a visual cue for viewers to see the Nike logo where it wa...

Nine West's ankle boot with pleated vamp and in-step zippers at Town Shoes stays on trend without an early style expiry date. It's ten hours by plane to the latest fashion trends of Paris and Milan, but today we bring it home on Vancouver by Design. We hit the mall and find out what looks have made the jump over the pond and into local shops. Q. How were you able identify fall trends for this season? My usual answer would be that I research on the usual garment trade websites, blogs and view the European runway shows on line and I do do that...but today a took a more shopper/consumer-centred approach. I bought the latest copy of Vogue Magazine - the September 2008 Fall bible - and hauled that mammoth magazine into Metrotown's Metropolis Shopping Centre. Q. Why did you do that? The main reason is I wanted to correlate the trends and hot styles put forward in Vogue and find out how it translated into the boutiques most women would shop at in Vancouver. So, essentially, I went...

Blame it on the power of Pamela Anderson. A chance encounter with the pin-up girl and PETA activist has JJ Lee thinking about leather-free fashions. Q. From what I understand, you've had a consciousness-raising experience with Pamela Anderson. What happened? A. Many of your listeners may not know this, but I'm an associate producer and director for Sounds Like Canada . That's my day job. A couple of weeks ago Pamela Anderson visited us to talk about her new show and a bit about her work with PETA or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She walked in with an entourage of four or five people. Her eyes hidden by a pair of sunglasses and her nose in a Blackberry. More importantly, she came in well-turned out. No sweatshirts and yoga paints for Ms. Anderson. But after she left the studio to carry on her media blitz, she got me thinking about what she wears for shoes and accessories... Q. Being an animal-rights advocate ..... Does she wear leather-free clothes? A. I spoke...

Canada goes for red, gold and white chinoiserie - go to cbc.ca for more pics. Gold, silver and bronze are the only colours that matter in the Olympics unless you're me. Today, I joined On The Coast's host, Stephen Quinn, in studio to talk about Olympic fashion and about which country gets the high score when it comes to high style. Listen . If you want a fuller analysis, read on. Canada has yet to win a medal in Beijing but who cares? A opening ceremony fashion Q & A with JJ Lee... Q. You've decided to focus on the Opening Ceremonies. What are you looking for when it comes to judging a county's fashion acumen during the parade of nations? It's not easy to compare what the countries are wearing -- though I think it's patently obvious to anyone when it comes to figuring out who looks good and who looks bad. The reason why it's hard is because the delegate nations pick clothes for different reasons. Generally, there were three genres of clothes at the open...

Just met Pamela Anderson on Monday. I took her pic with Sounds Like Canada host, Steve Burgess. It's obvious why Anderson is the pin-up and not Burgess. But Burgess had quite a bit of fun with the former Baywatch icon - he donned a lick-and-stick tattoo which explains the open shirt. It would be great to speak with Anderson about leather goods replacement consdering her work with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). I think my next column for VBD on radio will be on leather replacements.

Mark Busse of Industrial Brand Creative had a suit made a while back at my old hangout, Modernize Tailors . Here's what he had to say about the tailor made experience: My fashionista friend and design columnist JJ Lee convinced me to have a new black suit custom made by Modernize Tailors. It’s the first tailor-made suit I’ve ever purchased and as I experience the myriad of choices such as fabric, weight, colour, texture, pattern, lapel style, cuffs, buttons, pockets, pleats, hems, etc it occured to me: This is just like the many choices we make when executing stationery components as part of a client’s brand identity. (read more at Industrial Brand Creative's blog )

Today, I've responded to the pleas of one man. He's 65 years old. A divorcée interested in dating and tuning up his look. He's a very cool dude. A Liverpudlian of the same vintage as John, Paul, George and Ringo with a look reminiscent of Anthony Quinn. And he's short, like me. Read my tips for the shorter man in the Vancouver Sun .

How to wear shorts by the designers of Imaginary Friend , Megan Dengerink and Nadine Spidla. (Speaking of shorts, my next Vancouver Sun column will look at style tips for the shorter man.)

Fashion Tip for Men #1. Obakki shorts (above) drop below the knee this spring but men should hem shorts to their taste, just like they do for pants. This is the latest and the last fashion item for the Georgia Straight. It contemplates men should take a hike when it comes to hemming their short pants. To thigh or not to thigh, showing it is the question I asked a number of fashion cognesceti at Obakki's Spring and Fall preview show a month ago. "Long, baggy shorts have dominated for so many years, it’s hard to imagine men showing skin above the knee. But is it time for a change? Can men finally consider wearing short shorts again? Yea or nay?" Check it out in the Straight .

Allison Wonderland's take on the cropped pant, the Cutie. (My short shorts swan song - this week and next, in the Georgia Straight , you'll be able to read my last two columns. This weeks it's women's shorts. Seven days from now, it will be men's.) Judging by what’s hanging from retailer racks and the derrières of gamines, hottish pants and short shorts will hold sway once again on the beach and on the streets this season. (More)

Starting today, I will be the men's style columnist for the Vancouver Sun . I, in my vanity, asked for a photo byline. It was taken on the fly by Steve Bosch of the Vancouver Sun. I went to their second floor photo studio in the Vancouver Sun building. Bosch seemed harried. No one told him what was what. But he started doing his thing. I had been drenched by the rain and my hair was sticking up at the back. In the print addition, they cropped it so my fly-aways are no longer there. Hard to reproach the way men dress when I look like a navvy . A coworker said, "I never realized you could look so rugged." I think she was being kind. Leaving the Straight was a tough decision but also something I wanted to try. With all the media conglomeration, I wanted to see if I could make some headway in the Global media family. To wit, I made on the front web page of the National Post on Tuesday. It will get plowed under as the day goes...but you can check it out here as well. The Str...

Over the last 18 months I've taken pictures for a personal photo-project Everybody (in New Westminster). The goal of the project is to...well, you can figure it out. Please look forward to additional images. Comments are welcome.

The Vancouver Art Gallery opened this week with an exhibition that wants to change the way people think about comics, animation and video games. It's called KRAZY! Bruce Grenville curated the show with the help of a squad of guest curators who are distinguished practicioners in the fields of manga, comics, graphic novels (aren't these three categories all the same?), animation and video games, including Art Spiegelman - the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic, Maus. KRAZY! is built around the premise that it is time to reconsider the importance of popular "visual culture", ie comics and all, with culture as a whole. And the act of hanging on the gallery wall the work, be they original comic pages or animation cels, will somehow provide the critical space to assess the phenomena. Spiegelman in his opening remarks that felt more like an apologia to the media that the artists included in KRAZY! was "just the tip of the iceberg." But Spiegelman and thi...

Flashing fannies makes for a fashion faux-pas Love this season's renewed ardour for minis and high hemlines. But the now-dead trend of wearing jeans under dresses (finally) still reaches from its grave to deliver a deleterious after-effect on women. Some of this city's beauties have forgotten how to move in a short skirt without flashing the pan. Twice this week, I've had the displeasure of viewing the undercarriage of fellow female pedestrians as they've stooped over to pick up a Georgia Straight (today) and dropped change (yesterday). Now I know how crotch stitching on a set hoses comes together. It does not look good. Jocasta...pass me your brooches. I need to gouge my eyes out. It is incorrect to bend at the waist to reach down. The right way is to bend at the knees and slowly lower your erect torso so that you may pluck something off the ground. With such a maneuver, a woman can display decolletage and honey calves at great advantage and avoid embarrassment.

“Tailor Made: Chinatown’s Last Tailors” has won the prestigious Golden Reel Award for Best Short Film at the 2008 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Directed by Calgary director Leonard Lee and Vancouver filmmaker Marsha Newbery, “Tailor Made” follows 80-something brothers Bill & Jack Wong for one year as they face the reality that they’re getting too old to run the little tailor shop their father opened in 1913…and letting go isn’t easy. With tailoring being a dying trade, finding someone to take over the family business has proved impossible, but Bill refuses to give up. From taking on a fashion journalist as an apprentice, to selling the shop to a young hot-shot corporate tailor, Bill becomes especially determined and pulls out all the stops. Catch TAILOR MADE on The Lens on Tuesday July 15th at 7pmPT (10pm ET), 10pm PT (1am ET) and 1am PT (4am ET) – Newsworld.

Professional photographer Kris Krug offers some pointers on how to make your snapshots works of art... Follow these tips and you'll have great wedding photographs worth posting! (Originally aired in December.) Listen to it through Google Video.

Okay. If you read my last blog about pulling off black tie well, I presented the safe, not-sorry option. But there are always exceptions to the rule. Zac Posen's Met gala outfit is one of them. His shiny blue suit and red bow tie captures perfectly the spirit of dressing up and smartly reflecting the theme of the current exhibition at the Met's Costume Institute, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy . The fashion designer must be a fan of comic books like writer Michael Chabon. Chabon wrote in the New Yorker recently: a superhero’s costume is constructed not of fabric, foam rubber, or adamantium but of halftone dots, Pantone color values, inked containment lines, and all the cartoonist’s sleight of hand. Posen's look is graphic, colourful and it bears classic suit details of the 1940s (low button stance, a ticket pocket and wide peaked lapels). It seems he was inspired by Superman's earliest issues, where you could find Clark Kent in a sharp blue double-breasted, a red ti...

It's about trying but not trying too hard. My recent visit to Toronto to stand as a groomsman coincided with the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Gala . And despite the fact that my close childhood friends are just a bunch of regular Joes (Sean Ingram, left, and F. Galiana), as yours truly, they handled their sartorial responsibilities with aplomb. The same can't be said about the celebrities who attended the grand New York event. With overly long sleeves, long ties and boring notch lapels (shame on you, George Clooney, just stop wearing those bloody notches), the grandees at the ball looked sloppy. In the search for individual expression, many of them ruined a near perfect form of dress. It's always far better, like when one plays the blues, to innovate and improvise within the set structure of a particular form. One can choose a batwing, butterfly or a nifty straight bow tie. There are myriad styles of cuff links and pocket squares as well. Put together right, ...

Hunt and Gather is a one-woman boutique run by Nathalie Purschwitz. She's a former fine artist who has found self-expression in couture and coining clever fashion formulas. Her emphasis is on unique ... one .... or two'ishes-of-a-kind. I wanted to find out what's behind the ideology of her style but first I asked Natalie about why she picked Vancouver's Gastown to establish Hunt and Gather.

Is there life after reality TV? Carlie Wong thinks so. Carlie - who left far too early from Slice's fashion-design-to-the-death, Project Runway Canada - didn't leave the fashion designing to just the show's winner, Evan Biddell. Last month, she put together 32 looks for Toronto's L'Oreal Fashion Week. All the dreeses were made by her industrious hands and they're back-in-black gorgeous. Hear from this promising Vancouver designer on Monday, April 14 at CBC Radio One Vancouver's On The Coast. If you using the radio tune in at 5:50 PM on AM 690. Or listen live by visiting CBC Radio One Vancouver .