Time to Pay a Visit to Lululemon

"Overdressed travelers pay less attention to the surroundings and more to themselves." Thank GOD my best friend gave me this great quote because my blog-inspiration river was running dry as a milkless cow. (Also let's all be sure to thank God for Wicked, from whence this quote came.) I am about to venture on a couple trips that will involve airplanes, and because of that, I have been thinking a lot about travel wear. Mainly: airplane wear. Seems like most people think of the airport as that one place where it really is okay to wear their pajamas in public.
THEY ARE WRONG.
Not only because you can never wear your pajamas in public, but also because that is downright disrespectful. People are cramped into some pretty close quarters in airplanes, and inadvertently, a stranger's leg will brush against yours. If I were that stranger, I would go through every contortion possible to avoid brushing up against a pajama leg. That's just sick. Also, there are about... a thousand billion people in an airport at any given moment. So looking sloppy, where does that get you, exactly?
I know that it's all about comfort, and that an airplane seat does nothing to make comfortable your favorite jeans, and you may not want to wrinkle your button-up shirt, and that the metal detectors make jewelry kind of annoying, blah. I also realize that many people view airplanes as a one-way ticket to death, so they probably aren't putting a lot of emphasis on their outfit.
But, please, make the world a shinier place! Even if you are going to die, they're going to recover your body, and don't you want to be remembered well? But before your death, everyone else has too LOOK at you! Probably ten people will service you before you even board the plane. Pay them a tiny ounce of respect and please don't flash your thong, poking up through a pair of faded, stretched-out, ripped and past-season Target drawstring Xhilaration polka-dotted poly-blend pants.
Yikes, I just barfed in my mouth.
Anyway, ladies, let's commence a revolution: cute, neat-looking, clean loungewear to wear in public in place of whatever else may have been on your mind. Being confident will make your trip more fun and more exciting, and will make your de-planing a moment of pride.
And a cardigan never hurt anybody!

Ballet Pink Nail Polish

I think that baby pink nail polish, that shade reminiscent of pointe shoes, is symbolic of a lot of things that women should be. Not in a stereotypical way, not like every woman should be doing ballet or figuratively floating around with graceful arm movements. But a woman should be polished and tasteful- pretty in the more intricate senses of the word. With the re-emergence of 90s fashion like some bat out of a plaid hell, these disturbing images of grungy young women are incessantly parading about in my head. I am reminded of my pet peeve (if you can still call it a pet after it has expanded to three times the size of my makeup collection), possibly an idea I hate more than that of being uncontrollably fat: the ill-kempt woman.

I don't know when certain women got it into their heads that they no longer needed to posess a sense of femininity, but could someone take a large stick to these women's viscera? Women through all (mentionable) centuries have been symbols of grace and refinement, so what exactly lead to the invention of fishnets? I grimace when I see a young woman who has seemingly let go of her sense of girliness. You lose a part of your feminine self when you dye your hair an ungodly chartreuse color and don a pair of carpenter jeans. You do nothing for the name of women when you put on a sweatshirt and track pants and go about your business as though no one else will view you all day (unless that truly is the case). Don't we want to inspire people? Don't we want people to be impressed by us, stunned and taken aback by us? That has been the (okay, a) role of women throughout history. Shouldn't a girl be proud of that?

So many college freshman take their new sense of independence too far (as in, they are independent all over your face). They rebel from "the establishment" because it is finally legal for them to do so in ways they never could. They choose to, then, use their bodies as canvases for their statements, and end up a mess of tattoos and dyed hair, zip-up hoodies with hand-sewn patches, puce cordury pants held up with drawstrings... It is a pile of college excreta. What happened to the feeling of freshly-shaved calves rubbing against each other under the clean sheets? Of moisturized hands running serum through your hair? What happened to the satisfying click of high heels and the soft feeling of a silk-lined skirt? Do these girls miss these things?

These rituals that define our femininity need to be upheld! This is what makes us women, and what is so alluring about us: the act of spraying perfume, the buffing of fingernails, hands clasping a pair of earrings at a jawline, the quick swoop in which we tie our hair into a bun before washing our faces. These things are part of what makes us girls, in every decade previously and hopefully in many decades to come. Perfume pulls people toward us and makes them want to stay. A woman's scent will stay with someone and make a very lasting impression. Soft, glowing skin is asking to be touched, and white teeth are more often exposed in a welcoming smile.

I hope that the sense of femininity does not dwindle as the world falls from natural beauty. I want women to inspire and create art and color in this world, to be walking paintings of detail and grace. A good start is a baby pink fingernail.


An addendum: Protest and speak out! Be sassy and strong and braver than the men. Bitch at people for treating you like scum, and do so with the idea of a large and possibly rabid bear in the back of your head. I am not advocating that women give up their voices, I am just saying... You'll run errands anyway, so why not look pretty doing so? And more people will notice your protest sign if it is being held up by a hand of red fingernails.

The Creative Juices, they are a-Flowin'

People will wear the ugliest things, if only they are stamped with a well-known brand name. They will pull out of their closet some tank top from the 80s simply because it is emblazoned with "GAP". It helps that these people live in Kentucky, so we don't have to think about them.
But rich people (who don't live in Kentucky) will choose to wear some out-there outfit, knowing that it cost a couple thousand dollars, just so that we are all aware exactly how rich they are. If something is expensive enough, it can be as ugly as a lap dog (actually, probably accompanied by a lap dog) and still be deemed wearable, only so that people passing by go, "oh, I saw that on McQueen's runway, but I didn't think people would actually wear it." But the wearing would then not have been in vain: the passerby knew that it was Alexander McQueen, and therefore knows that the wearer has lots and lots of disposable income.
Some people may actually wear some potentially hideous stuff in an acceptable way (see Carrie Bradshaw, circa '97). These people are bold, cutting-edge and daringly fabulous, and they look at all us J. Crew devotees and probably chuckle at our cowardice.
Four posts ago I referenced the Lego-ish Balenciaga heels of s/s '08. They're probably the ugliest things you could find outside of the uncensored pics of Britney's vagina, but their design is not about wearability (the shoes, not the vagina). It is about statement-making art, symbolism, publicity, discussion, or maybe it was a drunken bet. They can only be pulled of by high-fashion, and in its world, they are unabashedly Balenciaga. No one has a problem with couture dresses shaped and styled like sleeping bags (Viktor and Rolf, a couple years ago) or with huge sunglass headdresses with cartoon eyes pasted on them (Marc Jacobs, s/s '08).
True, blatant, non-arguable ugliness can only be appreciated in high, high fashion. To infringe upon the copyrights of Missoni, Prada, or DVF is expected, because the clothes don't stand out in a crowd (well, they do, but only to people with brains). But to completely copy a look by an avant-garde designer is risky.
I give you... The Balenciaga version:

And the Steve Madden version:

First of all, you're bound to get caught, and sued. Secondly, anyone who knows fashion will look at the maybe 10 people who will wear these Steve Maddens, and laugh in their face.
Probably fewer than 1000 people will actually wear a pair of those authentic Balenciaga heels, and half of them will be celebrities who were paid to do so. So who will buy these knock-offs by Steve Madden? They are not expensive. They will not be confused for the Balenciagas, especially after one wearing when they will start to fray. And they're made out of plastic.
It seems like with all the natural inspiration in this world, a company could design its own shoe?

I Wonder if Victoria's Secret's Stocks will Go Down?

Apparently bras are so passe at Urban Outfitters... And, oh yeah, boobs too.
I just don't see how these will sell, because NO one in America is that thin. And if they are, there is a good chance they lack the confidence (or immodesty?) to expose their chest with quite such... gusto.
There is just no way to wear a bra under these tops.


























I own that pink dress, so I'm going to have to figure something out...

Just Another Week in Fashion

Project Runway gets moved to Lifetime; its sponsor, Bluefly.com, is possibly going under; and Nina Garcia, one of two judges of the show, has been let go from Elle magazine.
?

Dearest Sasha P,


Please don't smile.


Thanks! Smuah.

See, if they Taught Economics in Sex and the City Terms...

I totally cracked up watching Sex and the City last night- and not for the usual reason of thinking Steve's "Miwanda!" will win some kind of award for most hilarious thing ever. I was watching the episode in which Charlotte goes on a run and a girl riding a horse passes her by. Charlotte has a moment, and the next thing we know, she's at the stables, Carrie by her side, about to mount a horse (since when do they have stables in NYC? I'm excited about that).
The funny part for me was when Carrie mentioned that her "three hundred dollar shoes are covered in horse manure". Three hundred dollars?! Can I get my hands on those, please? Inflation is fun.
Then I got to thinking... (yes, I totally just pulled a "Carrie introduces the theme of the episode" line, and I'm in front of a laptop, too) The show is a half-hour long... So if it were still running now, would they need to lengthen it to fit in her exclamations about "my two-thousand, six-hundred and ninety-two dollar shoes"? It certainly takes up more screen time than "three-hundred". Would they stop having Carrie mention the price, for fear of the time-slot cup runnething over?
This is all totally moot and pointless, but I'm so ready to see what kind of shoes she has on in the movie.
And will she sport... These? They're mildly Carrie-esque.

And cost $4,175.
(That's eleven syllables.)

Zedus Lepidus- Coincidence Major, Nebula!

I just posted about Lily Donaldson's body mass index, receding like the hairlines of cancer patients everywhere (see, I can make jokes like that and you can't). And on that topic, recently I discovered that in Dolce and Gabbana's print ad campaign, Lily Donaldson is standing on the right side of the page in kind of an "oh my God, I'm so thin even this couture dress won't stay put" pose. Which we all have to deal with at some point in our lives, it's kind of annoying but what will you do.
Cute little Gemma Ward, however, has been receiving, shall we say... shit, for being too "thick", as the oh-so-polite New York fashion power women put it. Which is total bullcrap because she looks the best she's ever looked, but that's another post.
The sickening thing is that if you visit Dolce and Gabbana's website, you'll see the same exact body and dress of Lily Donaldson, only with Gemma's head pasted on instead. As if Gemma's body is too "thick" to sell the clothing, but Lily's face is too sickly to sell the clothing, so they just created this perfect model with Photoshop instead.


It makes me wonder:
Will they even need models in another couple years? They could just create them with computer animation, eliminating flaws altogether. Target already did a fashion show using only holograms.
And why do girls still look to magazines for their ideal body weight? You know, those emo girls with all the crazy hair colors, usually accompanied by barrettes shaped like teddy bears, and hundreds of variations of "sad" faces. The models aren't even real people anymore, they're just combinations of different likable parts.
Which top model will prevail on the runway? Lily looks like she'll faint if she walks under bright lights, but Gemma's weight is apparently too much for high fashion.
And... Which model can sue over this- Lily or Gemma?

And the Target Audience is... ?

I just wanted everyone to know that Giorgio Armani is selling roller skates now... That retail at $425.

Also interesting... November's new Tokyo Armani store is a whopping 12 stories tall. It includes the world's first Armani Spa, and an Italian restaurant, and a bar. The man also hopes to expand his Japanese existence with a hotel and Armani-brand private residences.
Can I just say... Overkill? You can wear Armani, eat and drink Armani, moisturize and exfoliate Armani, and now you can LIVE Armani.

MK & A

I think Mary-Kate and Ashley are insanely stylish.
Like, they absolutely stink to high heaven of personal style. People give them a lot of hoo-ha for looking like bag ladies, but they are some fine bag ladies.






































I am totally in love with their first line, titled The Row. It is tres expensive, but so wearable and modern, slouchy and mannish but irrefutably womanly. The clothes look thrown on, but sexed out. You have to have 2 things to wear these clothes:
1. A body comprised of skin and bones.
2. Confidence.














































Their newest, cheaper line- Elizabeth and James- is well-designed and relevant, too. Totally gorgeous.