Warmer weather and U.S. income tax rebates have begun to fuel demand for clothes and shoes according to Jones Apparel Group Inc chief executive Wesley Card. Card told Reuters that sandals, T-shirts and lightweight dresses have been selling particularly well over the past couple months. “We saw a definitive pickup as the weather turned. I wouldn’t categorize it as really robust, but there is less inventory in the channel,” Card said, meaning that retailers were taking on less stock to avoid having to take big markdowns to move unsold merchandise. Jones Apparel sells brands like Jones New York, Nine West and Anne Klein, through department stores and its own stores. Card, who has been in the top job for less than a year, said there are mixed views on how strong the second half of the year will be. “I don’t think it’s great, but I think it’s better than the way it’s being portrayed.” Analysts, economists and retailers expect a weak holiday selling season this year as consumer spending has slowed while the average price of a gallon of gasoline has topped $4, the housing market has sagged, access to credit has tightened and food prices have jumped.

But this store, which opened July 2006, is more than a fashion oasis. It’s also an oasis of cultural awareness.

Outside the front door sits the “Perception Receptacle,” a basket with a sign that reads – “Before entering, please dispose of any prejudice, bias or preconceived notion of any type. They will be available upon your departure.”

Merry’s, on Broadway just west of Temple Avenue and next door to Syndicate hair salon, is owned by Merry Colvín, 64, a one-time New York runway model who, in the 1990s, owned a similar boutique in a suburb of Portland, Ore.

Colvín’s husband, Dallas, 71, is the shop’s business manager.

Merry’s carries a vast selection of handmade clothes, accessories and trinkets from eight African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries. She says the accouterment can be a bridge between cultures.

“This store is my personal protest against prejudice,” says Colvín, dressed in a Moroccan headwrap, layered shirt and harem pants along with a tribal necklace from India.

“Prejudice is the root of all evil. The way we have world peace is through cultural awareness,” she says. “I sell things from around the world that people have made with their own hands. When you understand people and their culture, it’s hard to demonize them.”

Inside the shop, browsers will find a different culture on every rack: men’s and women’s kaftans from Morocco and Egypt, men’s and women’s harem pants from India, authentic tribal and cabaret belly-dancing attire, kurtas from India and Nepal and rainbow-colored scarves from Pakistan and Iran.

Colvín also sells an eclectic selection of necklaces, bracelets, belts, hats and vintage Afghan jewelry, as well as Moroccan rugs, Egyptian statuary and lanterns, and salt crystal candleholders from the Himalayas.

She says all her work is one of a kind. Once it’s sold out, it can’t be reordered.

To help build those bridges between cultures, Colvín enthusiastically tells customers the origin of an item as well as the story behind it.

The “Joy Bringers” sandals, with intricate hand-beading, are made by a group of HIV-positive women in Eldoret, Kenya, Colvín says. Each sandal has a tag with a photo and biography of the

Merry Colvín of Merry s Fashion, a unique oasis of Middle Eastern, African and Asian wearables. (Diandra Jay/Staff Photographer )shoemaker.

Colvín also points out the turquoise neck pieces, purses and belts handcrafted by Tibetan refugees living in India.

Merry’s has a devoted clientele. A costumer from the Walt Disney Co. purchased numerous bags of clothing for a Brazilian version of “The Lion King,” and Long Beach-based radio personality Charles “Karel” Bouley (KNX-AM, 1070) owns almost a dozen of Merry’s Moroccan outfits.

Colvín’s fashions are as colorful as her life.

While attending Temple University in 1966, Colvín, a Philadelphia native, says she started fashion modeling for a local department store. Eventually, she says, she was recruited to be a runway model in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., for Oleg Cassini, the fashion designer who dressed first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and was renowned for his simple geometric dresses and pillbox hats, plus Italian designer Emilio Pucci and Diane von Furstenberg.

But in the mid-1970s, Colvín wanted a change of life.

“Modeling was the most inane thing I had ever done,” she says. “It was so shallow.”

After visiting her younger brother in Long Beach, Colvín moved to the area in 1979. She met Dallas a short time later and the couple married Feb. 14, 1980.

A few years later, the couple moved to southwestern Oregon and the tiny hamlet of Agness, an isolated area in the foothills of the Siskyiou Mountains, before settling, in 1987, in Lake Oswego, just outside of Portland.

Colvín was active in environmental causes, such as protecting old-growth trees and saving open space.

On several occasions, she protested forest clear-cutting by having herself tied to a tree.

“That was no big deal,” she says. “I always tied myself to a tree when we were bullied at a protest or someone was threatening to cut down an ancient tree.”

In 1995, Colvín met a local woman wearing a pale blue Moroccan top and skirt, and fell in love with the clothing’s feminine, exotic and sensual look. A short time later, Colvín opened Merry’s Barefoot Boutique.

The 900-square-foot store carried jewelry, belly-dancing attire and garb from Egypt, Morocco and India.

But in 1999, Lake Oswego demolished the block where Merry’s Barefoot Boutique was located and built a new mall. The Colvíns returned to Long Beach the following year.

Colvín worked at a variety of retail clothing stores in Long Beach and Seal Beach, but held onto the idea of opening another fashion shop. When she saw a “For Lease” sign in a State Farm Insurance office – she says her Oregon shop was in a former State Farm Insurance office – her dreams of operating another multicultural boutique were realized.

“This shop,” Colvín says, “is a culmination of my fashion and political life and my desire to help people.”