It's time to lighten up.

Slip off that sweater. Unclutter that living room. And, best of all, relax. Spring is just around the corner.

After one of the coldest winters on record, we're ready to trade in heavy wools and down parkas for something soft and light.

Fashion Editor Vida Roberts is predicting an airy season for women, with simply cut silhouettes and layers of featherweight fabrics.

Want to play the ingenue? This is your season to seem sweet and pure in a pastel wisp of a dress.

For men, the look remains relaxed. Among the fashion avant-garde, though, there's a new movement toward man-made fabrics that accent the body with an athletic stripe or two.

In home design, the excesses of the last decade are giving way to blessed understatement. When is less more? When it's a room awash in neutrals or a whisper-thin window treatment or a single vase of tulips on a solid pine table.

On the food front, Mary Corey helps us make sense of the mad, mad world of menus, deciphering '90s terms like mesclun, pancetta and duck confit that are now as common as filet mignon and rack of lamb used to be. Not to worry if you get tongue-tied pronouncing tagliatelle once in awhile. The whole point of trying new foods, and indeed new styles of design and fashion, is to simply enjoy.