Famous Long-Lost Apparel

One of these shots is of a witty take on the idea of the bubble dress from Hussein Chalayan's SS07 ready-to-wear show. The other picture is of Lady Gaga at a performance earlier this March.



I did a bit of research when I saw this, and as far as I understand, Lady Gaga's dress is not the actual Chalayan dress. I mean, the dress in the first shot appears to be two sections of bubbles that meet at the middle (see that white line?), which the version in the second picture is a whole bunch of bubbles all willy-nilly. I cry foul, and that makes me pretty indignant about the whole thing.

First of all, Chalayan is a dynamite designer, but not a name as recognizable to the general public as, say, Gucci or Chanel. If this is a knockoff (as is further suggested in this article)... well, shame on her for being a copy-cat and letting a designer that she so obviously feels inspired by go without the credit he deserves. We all know the power that people in the public eye have to bring attention to the people behind the clothes on their back (barely on, in this woman's case). When Michelle Obama proudly donned Jason Wu for the Presidential Inauguration and the Inaugural Ball, the fashion media made perfectly sure to keep Wu's name on everyone's lips. His career is surely benefitting from all that publicity.

So, does the fact that I-- and some other fashion bloggers and journalists-- am pointing out the fact that Lady Gaga's dress is a dead ringer for the relatively recent Hussein Chalayan mean that he's getting that kind of positive publicity as well? I really don't think so, because there doesn't seem to have been a drove of people pointing out the reference and crying foul. Michelle Obama made it known that she was wearing Wu-- Lady Gaga has not made any mention of Chalayan in respect to her bubble dress. Without being explicitly told, I'm sure a lot of people who saw her in this dress would not have caught the reference (admitedly, I look at a ton of shows, and even I'm not overly familiar with Chalayan's work) or bothered to look it up on more than Google images. Without "her people" or the woman herself saying "this is a dress by this designer" or "this is a dress inspired by this designer," I'm sure a lot of people will chalk it up to her quirkiness and be none the wiser to its origins.

This is wrong, and I'm not even going to go into how ludicrous it is for a pop artist to copy such a unique design without a word about it and expect no one in the world to notice it and get miffed. It's not an LBD or a pink mermaid gown or something. It's a freakin' dress made of bubbles. You're not going to convince me it's a coincidence.

So, your thoughts? Do you think this is the actual Chalayan dress? Do you think it's a knock-off? Should Lady Gaga make a statement about this get-up? Or do you think the fashion police should just snatch her up and throw her in the clink? Comment away!

Letters to J.Crew

Dear J. Crew,

I just wanted to bring a very obvious pricing mistake to your attention.


This is a box I discovered in your men's accessories section. A small box. It's used for putting, like, tie clips or mini-toiletries or something in. I mean, I've never met a man who made regular use of a small, yellow box, so I'm really not sure what kind of manly things are meant to go in it. However, even if the man plans on putting very important things in this little box, can you venture to explain why, in the name of all that is holy and good, you are selling it for $800?! I see nothing special about this box. Even if it is handmade, that does not make it any different than any other box in the world.

Oh, wait, you explained in the product description why it's different and totally worth nearly a grand: it will withstand "the weight of a one-ton elephant."

I totally forgot about that all-too-necessary built-in elephant insurance. I've lost far too many boxes to elephants just sittin' wherever they want to, like they own the place or somethin'. Carry on. This is totally reasonable.

xoxo,
Vanessa

A Weekend in the Life of a College Student

Friday:
Nicest. Day. Ever. My boyfriend and I sat around outside after our classes were over to wait for the van our school has to take students to malls on the weekends. It looks like a rape van. Seriously. The only difference is that it has windows. Real rape vans don't have windows, for obvious reasons. We sat outside in the sun and I made phone calls to my best friend in Texas and my mother while we doodled pictures of people having sex in my abnormal pyschology notebook. I always fear that one day, someone will want to borrow one of my notebooks and they'll flip to a page with poorly-drawn penises and naked chicks all over it and think I'm the sketchiest person in the entire world and probably never talk to me again.

We got to the mall, where our only order of business was for Luke to buy his broke ass a copy of Resident Evil 5. I am serious when I say that he and I had a conversation about how he should conserve the last then-170 dollars he had, and his plan turns out to be that he will buy Resident Evil 5 (done) and then spend the rest on a refill of his prescription (ulcerative colitis in the house!), Ritz crackers, and giant jars of peanut butter, of which he can polish off about 40 oz in, oh, a week. This is a

Needless to say, we have barely talked in the past few days, as he's been very busy saving the world from Las Plagas or whatever the hell it is that causes giant parasites to pop out of people's heads when you shoot them in the face a few times.

Saturday:
Luke finished Resident Evil 5-- the boy is good. I sat around for most of the day contemplating beginning a paper about Othello and how Iago is a fuckin' badass. Unfortunately, "Iago is a fuckin' badass" can't be my thesis statement (my TA would love it, though), so I'm going to discuss how he's a vice character instead. I thought a lot about this for about ten minutes and then proceeded to play DS, look at blogs, and try to beat my current high score in Bejeweled on Facebook. When I play mindless games, sometimes I like to pretend I'm some kind of world-renowned champion at it. There's, like, this big crowd marveling at how awesome I am (kind've like in Dragon Ball Z when some guy is going super Saiyan and everyone's discussing how he's using the hotsu-totsu-matsu-batsu technique), and they're giving me prizes, and I'm facing adversity in the form of ex-boyfriend's sister who somehow manages to score like a million every time, but I eventually overcome and become the champion of Bejeweled-- nay, the world! Does anyone else do this or should I be really embarrassed about what a loser I am?

Then we saw the worst production of FAME in the entire world of musical theatre. I asked Luke at intermission if he wanted to just go and never come back to that horrible place, but we stayed, and it got worse. I always figured that in college, the theatre majors would make up the entire cast of every show, so the singing and the acting and the dancing would be, you know, good. Yeah, no. A lot of the performers are the kind of people that you feel embarrassed for and kind've cry on the inside when they open their mouths, and you just want it to be over for their sake. All of this applies most specifically to the dude with the lead role. The kicker? We were sitting behind the entire family of the kid who was playing the lead role. They gave a standing ovation. We resisted.

After that, Luke began replaying Resident Evil 5 with our friend Dan, who speaks almost solely in sexual innuendo. It was hilarious, and then I fell asleep from how exciting my day obviously was.

Sunday:
Luke and I awoke at noon, ate a mediocre lunch, and he continued replaying his videogame while I thought more about how I should start writing that paper and be a really good kid. Playing Phantom Hourglass is a lot like writing a paper about Othello. I mean, Bellum is a bitch and wants to fuck up everyone's lives, there is a girl who Link probably contemplates killing at some point, there's... okay, it's nothing like writing a paper about Othello.

I had an ice cream sundae for dessert, though, which was really exciting because it had and sprinkles and heath bar bits on it. Right now, Luke and I are getting ready to watch our favorite new trashy show on VH1. It's called Tough Love and it's about a bunch of bumbling women who can't get a man and the kind've Guido-y guy who's going to teach them how to stop sucking and find prince charming. The best parts are when he tells a girl to put away her "fun-bags" or he gets a bunch of men to say their candid opinions about these pretty relationally stupid women, and the women get all defensive and totally think there's nothing wrong with telling a man the first time she meets him that she plans to get married at 25, please and thank you. I recommend you watch it. It's hilarious. I'm so glad there's finally a reality show on VH1 that isn't about a D-list celebrity trying to find love, even though I live for that crap, too.

So that's what weekends are like at college.

The End.

Models Can Be Moose

Check out Saintjana's Picasa Web albums, which are jam-packed with backstage photos from fashion shows. Unlike most of the shots you find at style.com, a lot of these are silly, irreverent, human images of the girls just fooling around before the catwalk.






I don't know about you, but I've never thought of models as girls who I'd love to hang out and be silly with. Now... well, now I do.

(FYI: I was led to this motherload of great pictures by a sidebar in Coco Rocha's actual blog.)

Shoe Blogage

Blogage? Bloggage? I think made-up words are the hardest to spell sometimes.

I promised you about a week or so ago that I'd be telling you about my very first adventure into Forever21 shoes (and ordering shoes online, might I add). I've been skeptical for awhile because of the mixed reviews I tend to see. While I see some bloggers (my main source of fashion know-how, nowadays, so a hearty THANK YOU to anyone reading this right now whose on my daily blogroll!) wearing Forever21 shoes on a pretty regular basis, I've heard my share of "THEY WILL FALL APART THE MOMENT YOU WEAR THEM AND THEN YOUR FEET WILL GROW GIANT BLACK WARTS AND NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU EVER AGAIN!" Eesh. But when I saw these for only about $25, I just had to have them, especially considering that right now it's becoming warm and I realized I had to throw away my old flip flops and that practically the only other summer shoes I have are peeptoe wedges, and we all know how those are not walking-around-all-day shoes. I mean, these probably aren't either, but... you know what? I've accepted how hopelessly impractical I can be.

It took me a little over a week to receive my package, which is a-okay with me. I think it may have seemed to be quite longer, since I was eagerly awaiting my chance to try them on.

Here is the box, because I figured that I absolutely had to talk a picture of the box to a) show you what it looked like in case you wondered, b) show you that it isn't engulfed in flames of fashion doom, and c) be boring. I'm really boring sometimes. Thank you for putting up with me.


I pulled the shoes from the box, with an exclamation of "HOLY CRAP, THESE ARE WICKED CUTE, BUT HOW ON EARTH WILL I WALK IN THEM?!" This coming from a girl who lives in heels. I think these shoes are five inches tall. Five. That means they make me 5'4" (I am 4'11" normally, if it's early in the morning or late at night and you don't feel like thinking about math, or if you just never feel like thinking about math, in which case I totally feel ya). They make me normal-ish height. That's... that's a tall shoe.

So I finally got up the courage to strap these babies on, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. I don't think the leather-- erm, faux leather (really soft, comfy faux leather)-- straps are going to rub my feet in all sorts of painful ways, so that was a good start. But could I walk? I will now show you empirical proof that I was able to walk all the way from my room to the bathroom across the hall. I had to go take pictures in the bathroom, by the way, because I was all alone with no photographer and I don't even have a full-length mirror (RIP the two mirrors my roommate and I have accidentally broken). I figured the lighting was better in there anyway. That was my main reason.

Okay, and maybe being all Myspace-y and taking a picture of myself with the faucet and the outlet and everything-- class-ay. That dress is Forever21, too, by the way, and I am quite pleased with that purchase so far (even though I'm constantly fearing that it will fall apart of its own accord, just because how everyone says those things happen, but I have another dress from Forever21 that's actually held up great after tons of washing and wearing).

Hi, I like to do long parenthetical asides.

Anyway, back on track. Shoes on feet:




You know, I'm quite pleased to say that in spite of how tall these shoes are, I think they're going to be pretty comfy to wear for longish periods of time, not to mention to wear during swanky-ish dinners with the man in my life and such. And, c'mon, how cute? (I'm just waiting for someone to mention the evil that is ankle-straps, but I don't even care-- ankle straps be damned, I love these sandals).

All in all, I think this was a great little experiment, and I'm quite happy with the results. As far as I can tell right now, I'd encourage the rest of you to snag a pair and teeter around in them all summer long. We can be twinsies. I will have to let you know, though, if that whole omg-shoes-fall-apart-get-hideous-warts-stop-being-loved thing happens at some point. Fingers crossed.

In Which You Get to See Me Pretending to Be a Myspace Emo

I'm not going to tell you how hectic and stressful this day has been for me, but it's led me to changing this entry from what I planned it to be (the review of those shoes I promised) to a couple of questions that I have been wanting to ask you lovely people. I'll finish that other post, but in the mean time, you should totally give me some super-amazing advice. If you do, I promise to love you forever and ever and... I don't know, pay you back with kindness? Yeah, that's it.

1. What is your favorite non-Vogue fashion magazine, especially in terms of editorials? I'm tiring of the disappointment I've been experiencing with American Vogue (though sometimes I wonder if this is because it seems that everyone constantly bitches about its inadequacy), so I think I need something to supplement that subscription (I love ads, so it would be silly to part with Vogue), but I can't decide which magazine exactly. Help, for the sake of my fashion wall!

2. I recently discovered that for the first time in my entire life, I am running out of liquid eyeliner. I received a tube of I think some sort of Avon liner from my dearest friend Nicole for Christmas in about 8th grade when I revealed to her that I had never used eyeliner. When I eagerly tried it on, I think it got smeared all over my face, discouraging me from taking it out of my makeup case for the next, oh, four years. Once I tried it again? Love. True love. I mean, so much love I used it for last year's now infamous "Emo Myspace Chick" photoshoot:

such angst

new picz, comment my picz plz?&&<3>

My boyfriend says that the broken heart on my cheek was overdoing it, but apparently he wasn't on Myspace as much as I was.

Anyway, yesterday I noticed the tube is basically empty, and I'm freakin' out. So basically, what is your favorite liquid eyeliner? Since I've never tried any other kind in my entire life (so bad at being a girl), all I can manage do is stare at different little tubes with my jaw hanging down, quaking with fear. I need someone far more knowledgeable than I (aka you) to advise me. By the way, I assure you I'm too uncoordinated to not poke my eye out with a pencil, in case you were going to suggest it.

I'm not sure how posting's going to go for the next few days because I may have a pretty busy weekend ahead of me, so while I try to fit in some lovely, fascinating posts for you guys, ponder these questions and let me know what you think in the comments! Or by e-mail! What fun!

Results May Vary

rinko kikuchi, i-D apr. 2008

*"The sun is shining, it's a brand new day. For the first time in such a long, long time, I know I'll be okay." (Reading this blog is going to make you adore Joshua Radin or be really, really sick of him. I'm hoping the former).

*This action-packed LED-laden sheep-herding (I should receive an award for all the hyphens I just used) is even cooler than all of the sheep-herding in Babe, trust me... I mean I totally didn't watch Babe every day for like a year when I was 6....

"Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind... Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch" - Natalie, Age 9

*I'm not really an expert on makeup or Asia, but I think both are really very cool, so of course I watched this video of a Maiko (apprentice Geisha) applying her makeup from start to finish. I'm kind've a freak and was mesmerized while watching how completely imperceptible this girl's skin is under that white makeup. Also, it's pretty amazing to see how much time and care goes in to her daily routine. I could sure take a page out of her book!

*I really recommend you go to the "Abolish the 'N' Word" site. The intro sequence is a little graphic, but the website contains some great links as well as some tips for making a difference. I really believe it's an ugly, hateful word no matter who is using it (as said so well in this slam poem by Julian Curry).


*Step 1: Take a scrap of paper. Step 2: Write something positive on it ("I love you" is always a good one). Step 3: Leave it somewhere in the world to brighten someone's day.

*I had no idea there was such thing as a chocolate bar with bacon in it. Can someone please try this and report back?

*Leave something witty, fun, sweet, sarcastic, inspirational, poetic, silly, amazing in the comments here at Fred Flare's blog and you might get it displayed in colorful letters on the sign outside the new store in Brooklyn. I loved reading through what it's said every day so far. Let me know if you enter, mmkay?

*I have yet another set of look-alikes:

left: chris heads photo, right: shy guy. i'm not the only one seein' the resemblance, right?

*Safe sex is... quite adorable, actually.

*Get all dressed-up with no place to go. When people ask why you look so fabulous, attribute it to how classy you are or just make something up.

*I've always wanted one of those secret-agenty-type books with a hole in the pages where I could stash my jewels! Now I know how!

*Today is a warmish, sunny day in good ol' New England! I'm hoping Luke and I will get a chance to take a blanket out to the green and doodle in the sun. What I'm saying is, get off yo' butt and get outside, especially if spring's arrived for you, too! You can look at blogs any old time, silly!

above photos by james macari; full editorial here

These are some of the things I'm lovin' this week, but tell me what you think in the comments!

I Want to Wear a Lampshade on My Head

...and I'm not even drunk.








I like the second, fourth, and fifth shots best. What about you?

All of these photographs are by Zhang Jingna. Find more of her gorgeous photography here in her website.

Letters to the Foto_Decadent Admin

from The Face, march 1997

First: the text I am referring to that appeared as an apparent warning to foto_decadent users last July :
This is not a debate community. If you don't like fur (or nudity, or expensive clothes, or very thin models) maybe this isn't the community for you. It's a fashion community. These things exist in fashion. Fighting on a Livejournal community ad nauseum isn't going to change a thing. Argue about it somewhere else. If someone is making personal attacks and being an ass toward you, let me know and I'll tell them to stop being an ass. They'll probably continue to be one but hey that's people for you.


Dear Anteriority/Foto_Decadent Admin,

I would like to inquire as to what you were thinking when you posted what appears to be a timely warning to the users of this fashion-related Livejournal community. While I commend you for not being the typical internetz douchebag moderator whose power over her unseen peasant minions has gone to her head, I disagree pretty strongly with what you have to say here. Hear me out.

Foto_decadent is a community built around a love of "avant-garde" editorial fashion, which suggests that the photos people post are supposed to be in some sense experimental and a little bit out-there, so to speak. Great. But if you're already, in a sense, encouraging people to show pictures that reflect a kind of beauty that challenges the status quo (at the very least, that departs from the idea of "commercial" fashion), does it really follow to then ask people to not question the content of those photos? I agree that editorial fashion showcases clothing that is extremely expensive, and that if you're going to try to enjoy editorials, you probably have to set aside your pragmatism and accept the extravagance as art, even if you don't think that people should necessarily buy a $50,000 dress. I think this is a part of fashion that people almost have to let go, because designer clothing is ridiculously-priced, but without that clothing, there would probably be no photo-shoot; so, okay, maybe don't complain about how expensive everything is, because people are universally aware this is what fashion is today, albeit ludicrous at times. I see fashion as a little bit of escapism from the real world. Fashion, to me, is different than style.

What I don't agree with is that you ask people not to question fur (it seems this is primarily your motive in posting this warning, since it appears outside the parentheses), nudity, or the extreme thinness of pictured models. As far as the fur thing goes, maybe I'm biased because I absolutely abhor the idea of wearing fur as a luxury. Yes, Inuits, go ahead and wear fur because you need to. No, everyone else, you do not need a mink stole or whatever the case may be. I'm going to post this link to a (WARNING!) very graphic video of animals being skinned alive for their fur. These images will never leave my mind, and I challenge you to tell me that hurting another creature like this is okay (NOTE: for the record, I try to keep this blog, my dorm wall that I cover with fashion photos, etc. free of pictures depicting fur, I have never worn fur, and I am not a member of PETA, which I believe has its own serious problems and is another can of worms entirely). On nudity, I personally don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I can understand where there can be a debate over its place in art nowadays in our human-body-sensitive culture. And thin models? I find it hard to believe that a lot of models are actually healthy human beings, because even if they are eating properly, being so slender does have health repercussions. It's also undeniable that people see images of very, very thin women and are brought to question their own bodies against these standards. These women are anomalies and should not be treated as a norm. I don't think there is anything wrong with seeing a skeletal model and saying "I think she's too thin" (in fact, I'm happy when I see people recognizing a line must be drawn, even if I think it should be drawn at a much larger size). Just because something "exist[s] in fashion" does not make it right, and the last time I checked, you don't have to like these things in order to enjoy fashion photography.

Okay, big paragraph. Basically, I think it's ridiculous that you want to take a community that shows images that are, in their nature, controversial to viewers and discourage any discussion of what those images mean. Honestly, it angers me that you want to silence intelligent back-and-forth debate over images. No, foto_decadent is not a debate community, but does being a Pretty Pretty Pictures Place mean that people are only allowed to say "this is awesome!" or "I don't like this!" or "gorgeous dress!" or something of the like? Why not allow people to say "I don't like that so-and-so is wearing fur" and let that turn into a civil debate? Sure, it's your job to quash flame wars and such, but there's a great difference between debate and "being an ass." I don't know, it just gets all up under my skin because it makes the whole site seem so much more shallow to me. Isn't the point of allowing comments on a site so that people can share their opinions? Oy.

Question the idea of beauty in terms of commercial fashion. Be avante-garde! Look at these pictures that are creative and pretty! But if you see something you don't agree with, shut the hell up.

Hmm. Something is amiss.

xoxo,
Vanessa

This One Goes Out to All You Sociology Majors

Q: "So how did Ferdinand Tonnies die?"

A: "He fell down a gemeinschaft!"

(My boyfriend came up with this one while playing Resident Evil 4 this morning. We laughed about it for a good five minutes. God I love him.)

"One for One"

I received an email today from the people at the Joshua Radin site that I thought I would share with all you lovely readers:

"Hey everyone! We'd like to introduce you to a company that is making a difference
in a child's life one shoe at a time.  TOMS shoes was founded in 2006 by a young
entrepreneur named Blake Mycoskie who was overwhelmed by the spirit of the South
American people, especially those that had so little.  He was amazed to learn how
many children did not have shoes and as a result in many cases, could not go to
school and had to deal with other daily hardships that could even lead to infected
feet.  Blake was insatiately struck by the responsibility to do something.  Therefore,
Blake returned home, designed a shoe based on the Argentine apargata and decided
that for every shoe that was purchased he was personally going to take a shoe back
to the children he first met.  One for one! His goal was 250 shoes.  Today TOMS
has taken over 130,000 shoes to children all over the world and Oct 20, 2008 TOMS
began helping children struggling the US as well."

The TOMS website is here. The available wares include very comfy-looking (often) tie-dye shoes and slippers for women, men, and infants (omg I love tiny shoes), as well as some sweatshirts, T-shirts, and hats (though I don't know if proceeds from those directly benefit the cause). Though TOMS shoes are not the most fashion-forward footwear out there right now, remember that giving to those in need is always in style.

EDIT: I just realized that I must've screwed-up the formatting of the text from the e-mail. I fixed it. Sorry about that!

Results May Very

*You know how rap used to be about urban poetry, but now it's about bitches, hos, acting like you're the hot shit, and/or not really making much sense whatsoever? Well, Snacks and Shit is an amazing blog. Like, amazingly funny. Check it out.

*The best cover of "Samson" by Regina Spektor that I've ever heard.

*If you haven't been checking out Shoes and Your Mom to get your kicks (ha), you'd best get your butt over there right now.

xkcd.com is a fan of the classics -- click to embiggen

*I stumbled upon the online shop Shana Logic, and you probably should, too. Everything is very cute, "Indie," and often inspired by small forest creatures or sushi. There's even a few items-- darling buttons, hairclips, earrings, and necklaces-- of which 10% of the proceeds go to the ASPCA. Like she says, it's a great way to support artists and animals at the same time. Just click the "Fashion Fundraiser" tab.

*Does anyone else think R2D2 and this Greek house look a wee bit similar? Maybe give it a really quick glance and squint.

well at least i thought so...

*The Times Online UK interview with/article about Scott Schuman. He seems like such a nice guy. Plus, I love how he says he won't shoot a woman if she's wearing Uggs. Now there's a guy I can relate to!

*I always come back to Francesca Woodman. Her work is ridiculously captivating, creepy, and beautiful.

francesca woodman: untitled (1976)

*There is nothing like writing on paper. It's usually the cure for any kind of writer's block I get while at my computer. Something about a pen and a fresh page in a notebook makes me feel inspired.

*I heart Baryshnikov.

*I'm kinda glad the fall shows are over, how about you? Couture's more my thang, yo.

how i felt by the end of all this business.

*Aaaand one more loverly picture to brighten your day, my dears:

how sick are those shoes, am i right? photo by chen zhun, harper's bazaar china.

These are some of the things I'm lovin' this week, but tell me what you think in the comments!

Go! Go! Go!

I figured I'd let y'all know that Fred Flare is having a one-day sale in honor of St. Patty's Day. 30% off on everything if you enter the code "LUCK" upon checkout. If you've had your eye on anything, now's your chance!

If You Want to Make Me Nervous, Wear a Ski Mask

The more I browse the internet, the more often I find myself completely speechless over the things I find. I really don't know what else to say about giant ski masks with moustaches screened onto them except for the fact THEY ARE GOSH DARN SKI MASKS WITH MOUSTACHES SCREENED ONTO THEM! I think if I saw someone actually wearing one of these, I would laugh, and not in the way they intended to me to, all "haha, you are so hip and witty and do not look sketchy at all," but instead more like "haha, what the hell are you doing with a grey bag on your head?" And I mean, furthermore, isn't the ski mask kind've the universal sign (of choking? that's not it) of being a dangerous person? And not Dangerous like a kickass Michael Jackson tour, or dangerous like my middle name, or dangerous like picking up a gopher that is curiously foaming at the mouth-- I am talking dangerous like rape you and take all the money out from under your mattress, snag the TV, and write creepy messages in blood on the wall (it'll take a lot of Oxy-Clean to get that stain off). I see a guy in a ski mask, and I cross the street, no questions asked, silly moustache or no. I guess they made a good choice of not making the color Dangerous and Nervousing Black, but still. American Apparel, you make no sense to me.

$14 at americanapparel.net

P.S. I realize I have made no reference to the fact that you could wear these while skiing, because ski masks are made for keeping your nose from falling off your face (did I just make two Michael Jackson references in one post without even meaning to?), but I am fully aware of that and I still think that you would just look like a criminal running from the law on skis, so my point still stands.

I Didn't Know What to Post So Here are Pictures of My Room Last Year

Basically, I'm insane and I covered my half of the room pretty much completely (I say "pretty much" because there are two Beatles posters in the mix that went up before I was determined to accomplish this fashiony feat) in pages out of Vogue. I'm trying to do it again this year, but I've found the walls are basically allergic to tape or something and it's been hard keep the whole thing up. I'm going to try to complete it, though.

Anyway, enjoy some inspiration from me and American Vogue for your Monday. Click to embiggen and try to name as many models as you can!








I bet by now you're saying to yourself "I wonder what a bitch getting all that down was." Well, lucky for you my roommate took pictures of that lovely process! (Enjoy my frizzy morning hair and Simply Vera bathrobe-- hot).

the end result= a giant ball on my desk. it was a total bummer I couldn't get it all off in a way that I could disassemble it and take it home or something. it got recycled instead.

P.S. Hopefully in the next few days I will do a review of my first forray into Forever21 footwear/ordering shoes offline. I needed summer sandals and these (in black) were too cute to resist any longer, even though they look incredibly tall on the models. I suppose if this works out I'll be teetering about in style, at least.

P.P.S. Just to let you know, if you ask me questions in the comments, I generally try to respond to them in the comments as well, because I figure some people may also be curious as to my answer. So if you ask me something, check back. I try to be pretty good about that. Of course, if you have something you to ask/say that you don't want made public, I'm always always always overjoyed to receive your emails at vformato@clarku.edu

OMG I LOVE THIS MAN

I was going to do this in the form of a "Dear John Galliano" letter, but I didn't want to let humor and yet more of my rabid fangirlism to detract from the fantastic John Galliano show pictures that I had to share with you. The first fashion show I ever saw was a John Galliano show. If there is any designer that never fails to amaze and inspire me, it's him. I just can't help being amazed at his work. His showmanship is unparalleled, in my opinion, and to me, that's what fashion should be about.

Enjoy these many, many pictures (all from style.com). You will. Believe me.

















A lot of show footage can be found at John Galliano's website, but it's not of great quality and it appears to be only made up of clips. If I find a better version on Youtube or something of the like, I'll let you know. Or, you know, if you find anything... ohgodpleasetellmeIwillloveyouforeverandeverandever.

Needless to say this made my weekend.

EDIT: FULL SHOW VIDEO HERE AND HERE (there's no audio on the second part because Youtube is finicky about what track they'll let play or something. If you find a version WITH the audio, please let me know. I'll do the same, of course, if I come across it).