This ad may be vintage, but take a look at the rounded glasses, the bold lips, and sharp collar of the patterned shirt - this woman could very well have walked off a spring '10 runway. This woman ain't no silly housewife wither; those arched, slightly critical eyebrows demand only the best, which is (presumably) why she's drinking Budweiser.
Yeah girl. You know what's up.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Marc Jacobs resort was perfection. Circle-skirts, A lines, and square-pocketed suit sets in gorgeous soft pastels invoked 60's silhouettes, which I adore but were not the selling point to me. No, I was nabbed by the abundance of polka dots and the occasional red, white(or creme), and blue color scheme that I can't seem to get enough of.
Also a few looks seemed to me to invoke a certain queen of the pastel-printed resort wear...
Lilly Pulitzer, anyone??
all photos: Fashionista.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Just found this video of shots of New York, accompanying one of my favorite Stones songs.
Excellence
I'm no secret fan of the 50's and 60's vamped-housewife style (cat-eye sunglasses? 8 articles of leopard-print clothing? penchant for red lipstick? check, check, and check). The trend has been on the rise since AW09, and this recent Rihanna spread in Elle proves it's finally hit the public conscious. Absolutely stunning, airbrushing aside. But, because this popularity will last maybe 6 months (and yield a fast-fashion boom before fading away), I'm paying homage to the woman who consistently keeps it alive and who inspired me about 4 years ago in a Harper's Bazaar spread: Dita Von Teese.
1955 Dior Haute Couture suit set (with unshown matching cape)
Tweeted yesterday, this photo fills me with both jealousy and unflagging admiration.
Interview is generally my favorite of all the many many magazines I subscribe to / frequently read; they have a much wider range of the arts and their stories are more dialogues than articles, far more insightful than the stereotypical magazine profile on both the subject and the interviewer. Though the April issue arrived, for some unknown reason, about 2.5 months late, I'm completely willing to overlook that as it's one of the more thought-provoking I've seen in awhile, in both good ways and bad. Generally I don't dissect my magazines like this but these few things really got me and were worth sharing.
The Good First, their usual relatively-up-and-coming music profile was on Wild Beasts, who I discovered this winter and really haven't gotten the acclaim they deserve. The maybe 350 word piece managed a near perfect description for such a short article; I won't go into detail, but will simply quote: "bacchanalian musical explorations... for naked midnight runs through the forest". Yes and yes.
Continuing with great music, their playlist included four EPIC choices: The Magnetic Fields' 'You Must Be Out of Your Mind', Karen Elson's 'The Ghost Who Walks' (which I highly recommend downloading), Elliot Smith's 'Bottle Up and Explode' and Taylor Swift's 'Forever & Always'.
Second, the Michael Alig article was amazing. Don't know who he is? Wikipedia that shit, stat. I'd known of New York's early 90's Club Kid scene the way one generally knows about CBGB punks or the Misshapes parties - one of those New York movements that defined a generation way before my time and whose aftereffects resonate today in ways I'm mostly unaware of - but never really read anything in-depth about it. The interview not only unabashedly painted this segment of New York fringe life in equal tones of glamour and depravity but showed what a drastically different place the city is today. True, Giuliani's crackdowns yielded a safer city, but one that's missing the random insurgency of rebellious youth social scenes that have so characterized the nightlife there. A great quote mentioned that "[the nightlife] is the lifeblood of the city, and I[Alig] don't know why it's taken them so long to realize that. Anything stylish or hip or cool that's come out of New York in the last 25 years has originated in nightclubs". Which isn't entirely true but does hold a lot of merit; while I haven't been around long enough to know what may or may not be missing from eras past, it's plain enough that the time when fantastically face-painted and costumed revelers hopped from bar to bar like one large club-going family is past, especially since the scene today requires a bit of money. Whether you are the patron or the owner, you probably have significant amounts of disposable income. The Club Kids were eschewing the Warhol Factory stipulations of fame, money, or beauty; now, we're right back to holding those three in high esteem again, only with the consumer culture itself as a rallying point instead of an artist championing that materialism. Living in New York now, this article was a fantastic profile. Also, as a final note, it's insane to think that someone alive today has never used the Internet or a cell phone - Alig has been in prison since 1996 and has knowledge of technology but never come into contact with it. Interesting to think what you'd miss if you were cut off from technology today for the next 14 years.
The In-Between In the Jersey Shore story/interview with the show's four guys... the Situation compares his show's craze, and his own fame, as equal to the Beatles 3 times; Vinny has a poli-sci degree and cites a cushy government job a back-up plan if he fails as an aspiring actor, and also idolizes Leonardo DiCaprio to the level that he's constantly asking himself, "What would Leo do?"; Pauly D explains everything when answered the question "Do you have any role models?" with "Not really". Funny because they hilariously believe these things, bad because... well, these people share a nationality with us. Bar Refaeli as the female model companion is stunning. awesome. But there's a terrible pun of a picture with her mining sucking a dick, that's actually a 6 foot sub held by The Situation. misogynistic. Terry Richardson was the photographer, and he is the worst human being to ever lay eyes on another's body.
The Bad They did a profile on Justin Bieber. Very very brief, but still double the length of aforementioned (and more deserving) Wild Beasts. It's no doubt the kid has a decent set of pipes and an uncanny knack for driving tweens into early hormonal overdrive, but it's not like he's starved for press attention. Leave the Biebs to Tiger Beat; Interview is better than that.
The ultimate worst: there's a huge story with accompanying spread on Ke$ha, whom I despise. Her music is generic pop and not particularly different from anyone before / contemporary to her, neither edgy nor soulful nor vocally exotic; her self-perpetuated image I think is supposed to come off as Christina Aguilara circa Dirrty video but actually is more along the lines of 'homeless unshowered crack wench'; she is egotistical without any talent to support it - it's arrogance, not healthy pride. I think she's absolutely insane. And NOT in a good way. If I didn't think all these things before reading the article (I did), I would definitely think them now (she just makes me cringe more, to the point of seizure). The spread is her in terribly styled clothes, consisting of a leather jacket, some weird sheer and striped shirt, orange high socks, and weird white sandals with platforms that look like those terrible foamy Sketcher platform sneakers, covered in body paint. It's not in the least bit provocative, physically or fashionably. She then opens her mouth and cements her IQ/sanity somewhere around nonexistent by citing that she believes she was JFK in a past life. She oozes 'desperate attention whore' with her explanation of her use of glitter as: "Apparently most animals are instinctively very attracted to glittery things - our brains are just drawn to them. So I figured, Why not smear it all over my face?" and then saying she loves making out with men with beards because the glitter sticks in them and 'marks' the poor fellows as 'hers' because the sparkles are difficult to rid for about three days. Oh, let's not forget her great display of family values either; she'll apparently call her mother to tell her about the blow job she gave the night before, to which the great maternal instinct kicks in and responds, "Ke$ha, you slut". Really? Are we honestly championing this kind of girl as a beneficial product of modern society? Nothing about this girl is remotely special. She is not talented. She is certainly not a role model - her music and videos are blasted everywhere and teach impressionable young minds that smearing one's unshowered body in glitter, wearing ripped clothes, and having negligible values are desirable and produce popularity. Way to go, America. Picked a winner right here.
I can't quite say this was the best issue I've ever read because the Ke$ha/Jersey Shore/Beber bandwagon inclusions are total disparities from everything I love about the magazine. However. I still love it very much, and if it wasn't already off newsstands I would urge you to go pick up a copy right now.
"A new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later."
-Diana Vreeland
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