it always takes me a little while to warm up to lady gaga videos, but once i do, it's full-blown obsession. at the moment, i'm enjoying 'telephone' more via stills than in motion - i think it's the choppy dialogue that's putting me off. pause it at nearly any moment though, and you'll see one kick-ass look after another. i'm really not the type of person who uses the word 'fierce' in any capacity, but it's hard to resist when it comes to gaga.
i should probably start by saying george michael ranks high on my list of favorite male voices - like somewhere in the top five. still, even if for some reason i weren't a huge fan, it'd be hard to resist the vintage vogue editorials come to life that serve as his early nineties music videos.
this one felt particularly resonant as i officially greet spring break after a long stretch of midterms, deadlines, and papers - if i didn't have roommates, i'd probably dance around in my underwear à la naomi.
and since it's friday, let's have another, shall we?
"actually, christie, they have nice lines, a fun, frisky use of color.. all and all, i'd have to say they're really.. not bad."
lately, i've been hoarding images from a website stocked solely with screencaps from the movie clueless, and i spent last weekend rewatching romy and michelle's high school reunion, so you can imagine how happy this picture makes me. it's overtly childish and feminine, with a dash of smut - five leggy lolitas of the me generation daring you to look away.
i've given myself a pretty ambitious to-do list for the week, so i'll be back as soon as time permits. adieu.
i'm loving the fact that clips from both these movies were shown in lecture today.. and that i don't have class on wednesdays. senior spring is shaping up just fine.
there were conflicting reports on the groundhog front today, but i'm gonna claim hometown pride and go with staten island chuck's prediction of an early spring. bring on the florals and rising hemlines.
you'd think eighteen years would be enough time for me to grow out of my barbie habit, but when i stumbled upon a treasure trove of vintage and contemporary commercials and promotional material, it was all i could do to stifle the giddy squeal rising up inside of me. after watching nearly every one, i found it tough to pick a favorite, so i pulled a couple of gems from each decade. equal parts hilarious and fantastic, i'd be lying if i said i'm not still harboring an urge to hit the ebay circuit and start snapping up some of these plastic stunners.
1962: okay, these outfits are actually all pretty killer, but i draw the line at cuffing my chin with glee and using the word "swell." chill out, girl.
1967: the trade-in offer (and that overenthused guy's rapping) is pretty sweet, but i don't think i would have been able to give up one of my beloved dolls to get a new one.. especially not to that creepy mechanical shopkeeper. and is that marcia brady? jan really couldn't catch a break..
1971: wait - orange skin, feather-thin arched brows, and obnoxiously large sunglasses? a couple of wardrobe tweaks and we're looking at jersey shore barbie here.
1973: so mustache = bad guy, but sideburns = hero. this must be why i have such mixed feelings about terry richardson. by the way, what is this doll's hair made out of, anyway? steel wool?
1984: also known as working girl barbie and bonfire of the vanities ken.
1988: very glamourai, no? but it seems sort of awkward to be cozying up to jungle animals while pretending to wear their skins. just sayin'.
1992: wow. well, fly girl threads aside, i really can't take this seriously until she works on those moves.. the spastic shuffle just isn't gonna cut it.
1992: and moving right along from the streets to the trailer park, we have the best-selling barbie of all-time. seriously - more than ten million people bought this very doll. no, i can't figure it out either.
well, its the third day of the semester, so you probably all know what i'm going to say next - things are crazy, i'm getting it together, settling into the school schedule, and so on and so forth.. but what's really tripping me up is the fact that this is my last semester, which means that i'm now looking up jobs and freelance positions and churning out writing samples like a machine in addition to the usual academic hubbub. impending adulthood is indeed a scary thing.
but looking on the bright side, no hiatus is necessary, just give me a couple of days. i've got a couple of posts waiting in the wings for edits and images, so it won't be too long.
in other news, how wonderful is this riley keough spread? color me smitten, sis boom bah.
for a timid bookworm with coke bottle glasses and an aversion to team sports, i somehow managed to get myself pretty scratched and bruised up during my formative years. whether i was gullibly accepting my older brother's ill-fated footrace challenges or skipping through the house with all the grace of a baby elephant, for a while it seemed like i couldn't go a day without drawing blood, breaking skin, or falling down. i still have the scars to commemorate my childhood clumsiness, but for the most part, i don't mind them.
still, there are a couple i could live without, most notably a nick to the eyebrow that refuses to correct itself. back in elementary school, wednesdays were half-days, and therefore the day of my weekly library visit. on one particular wednesday, i must have checked out some terribly exciting tome or other because once outside the library, i took off away from my mother in a giddy half-skip. naturally, i didn't even make it to the end of the block. my foot got caught on a chunk of broken sidewalk, and i pitched forward, nosediving into a cocktail of concrete and glass, as a broken bottle laying on the ground just missed my left eye and sliced into my brow instead.
after my mother got through cleaning me up, chewing me out, and praying over me, she began waiting for my now-sullied brow to grow back in and correct itself. unfortunately, that day never came. with age, my brows grew thicker and somewhat obscured the mark, but it's still there.
in the meantime, i've always been a sucker for audrey hepburn's almost cartoonishly thick eyebrows, and every time i visit the phenomenal cheap thrills, i find myself seriously envying the gorgeous raez's bold brows (and outfits, and poses, and photography..). my own brows aren't what i would call thin by any means, but lately my mission is the thicker, the better, so i ventured into the soho mac store a few weeks ago and bought an eyebrow pencil in stud. since i never wear makeup, this is quite a big step for me. i know better than to step out displaying my amateur handiwork just yet, but until then i'll consider it a minor new year's resolution to master bigger, badder, and better brows - scars be damned.
when i picked up the latest issue of vogue at the newsstand, i was a bit startled by its super svelte heft. of course, unsubstantially-sized january mags are certainly standard fare, but something about this particular issue felt particularly flimsy between my fingers. in the end, though, it turns out that the next decade's first installment of vogue is the glossy equivalent of my personal candy crack, welch's fruit snacks - quick and sweet, but actually nutritious and worth revisiting.
still, despite all the reveling in the past and anticipating future fashions, it was a brief m.i.a. feature, tucked away towards the tail end of the magazine, that stopped me in my tracks. i've been a fan of miss arulpragasam's early nineties fly girl-meets-tribal acid trip vibe for what feels like forever, but year after year of wild style can easily lose its edge, and i hadn't thought about her in a sartorial sense for quite some time. now she's absolutely killing it with this sexy, subdued style, a perfect older sister to her former look that's cleverly described as "iranian-american princess/sade."
when i recovered my lost jewelry back in october, i did a gleeful reassessment of my pieces and found that gold made up the vast majority of the collection. still, i've always opted to wear no more than two golden baubles at once, so as not to veer into gaudy territory. now, i have a distinct urge to pile on as much as possible, forcing the boundaries of poor taste to mingle with a bold, unapologetic sort of elegance that straddles the late seventies and early eighties, reminiscent of tina chow and a young anjelica huston. and the best part is that everyone from topshop to tom binns loves to tinker around with gold, making this an incredibly simple look to emulate. in some cases, it seems that all that glitters really is gold.
i'm in the midst of exam period hell right now, but i wanted to drop a quick line, lest anyone think the silence around here since my last post means that the frenzy of black friday swallowed me up or anything like that. i really hate going weeks at a time without posting, though, so expect a ton of content and -dare i say? - features after the fourteenth, when i finally wrap up this godforsaken semester. speaking of features, my list of favorite videos on youtube is getting out of hand, so i'm thinking about a weekly video feature of sorts.. sartorially/aesthetically lovely music videos, musically lovely fashion videos, and things of that ilk, accompanied by my unfiltered rambling, naturally.
well, i hate to start on a terribly obvious note, but this song - not the album, but this song - is literally getting me through my stay in academic purgatory, not to mention that the video, also on heavy rotation, has yet to get old for me. and somehow the credits via nicola formichetti make everything that much better - now i can make a real go at hunting down that ethereally nurselike rachel barrett dress and that phenomenal red alex noble jumpsuit (i promise i could find an occasion for it). at this level of fangirl-status obsession, it's hard to believe that i used to detest lady gaga merely months ago.. enjoy! be back in a couple of days.
this is the best image i've stumbled upon in a long, long time. audrey was my first style icon and i never tire of returning to her classic gamine appeal.
hope you're all coming out of your post-thanksgiving food comas.. i've never been one to brave the madness that is black friday, but i've decided to venture out and see what i can rustle up this year. updates to come.
"when routine bites hard/ and ambitions are low/ and resentment rides high/ but emotions won't grow.."
it seems like i can barely find time to breathe lately. food and sleep have become luxuries as i struggle to keep up with a deluge of deadlines, bank statements, word counts, letter grades, job listings and such, and the urge to crawl into a dark corner and hibernate is strong. at this point, there's nothing surprising about the cycle. the gray skies begin to mirror my mood - or is it the other way around? - the sound advice of family and friends goes ignored, and frown lines plant themselves stubbornly and conspicuously upon my face as i wait impatiently for an upswing of some sort to occur of its own volition, hoisting me up out of melancholy in the process.
unfortunately, these episodes are not confined to wintry weather or even this campus, which has led to blood tests, awkward therapist interactions, and a series of tense family moments over the years. in times like these, i often attempt to counteract the overwhelming sense of monotony by losing myself between the glossy pages of some fashion magazine or another, firmly pushing gloomy thoughts out of mind, if only for a little while. escapism is the goal, but now this seems somewhat naive in light of the death of daul kim, one of these pages' brightest faces.
perhaps the world that i transport myself to in times of strife, one replete with impeccable ensembles, perfect pouts and no shortage of aesthetic pleasure, may one day materialize in the form of a career. still, i find myself motivated to seek solace in things less ephemeral until then. daulmonster never failed to inspire in life, and now, even in her incredibly tragic death, she's encouraged me to reevaluate, regroup, and retry. once more, with feeling-
"..and we're changing our ways/ taking different roads."
whether it's slim-fitting denim cuffed at the ankle, a plaid button-down ripped off from cameron's closet, or my beat-up marc by marc leather cuff with the latin inscription, there's nothing like a potent dose of simplicity to woo me sartorially. yet i've always loved feasting my eyes on the bold, heavily styled looks of loud ladies like kid sister, la roux, and roisin murphy, so i suppose it's not all that outlandish that i've recently been obsessing over the brazilian bombshell herself, carmen miranda.
on the other hand, my latinophile roommate blair probably thought she was dreaming when i shook up my usual steady rotation of bob dylan to indulge in a bit of samba. as i sifted through youtube film footage of ms. miranda, she drifted out of her room like a charmed snake, quizzically pleased with my newfound interest and gushing with memories of her time in brazil.
but until i make my way down to bahia to see the sights for myself, i'm perfectly content to lose myself in carmen miranda's technicolor musical numbers and flamboyant charm. first off, there's the jewelry - despite the fact that i'm impossibly picky about which baubles i choose to adorn myself with, it's amazing how gaudiness practically dissolves into a buoyant elegance when trinkets are piled atop each other to excess.
i'm mesmerized by the way a simple swish of the hips becomes divinely exaggerated when hidden underneath a floor-length skirt - so mesmerized, in fact, that i just went ahead and bought a black velvet anne klein maxi skirt after multiple viewings of 'mamãe eu quero.' but perhaps even more fun than the instantly gypsy-esque feel that goes along with those long skirts are the shoes that go underneath. considering that i wobble like a young bambi on stilettos, i've long been a fan of the statement-making platform, which is why i'm loving carmen miranda's throughly chunky stacked affairs, preferably peep-toed with shiny hardware and glitz.
i spy oversized pyramid studs, crop tops, charm bracelets, bib necklaces, and statement pieces galore - definitely a posthumous style icon, but carmen set her trendsetter status way back in 1939 when saks created an accessory line inspired by the singer. i'm currently on a personal mission to get my hands on some of these pieces.. let the hunt begin.
some of the my favorite finds were images of ms. miranda's reappropriation of her look to suit wartime america - when not on a twentieth century fox set, that is. a shoulder-padded jacket pinned with multiple brooches, two sparkly earrings per ear, bulbous studs on lady's gloves, a flowing veil, and always those long lashes.
and because everything goes great with some disney, i was thrilled to find this clip of donald duck and jose carioca getting up close and personal with the lady in the tutti-frutti hat:
[image credits: google image search, topshop, barneys, marni]
with the summer quickly coming to a close, i'm slowly recalibrating myself to welcome school and this blog back into my life. i suppose i'll eventually have to buckle down and start packing, but lately i've been spending my evenings just lounging around in my underwear, desperately trying to beat the oppressively humid heat—it's just me and the cats in the house this week and there's no air conditioning.. really.
i'm incorrigibly stingy when it comes to my unmentionables—my philosophy is that few people ever see them anyway, aside from myself, and dropping cash on skivvies just seems like money that could be better spent on other things—but all this time spent in my undies recently has forced me to reconsider my position. chalk it up to my newfound resolution to streamline my wardrobe, but i'm suddenly somewhat exasperated by my meager collection of bras and such, bought as an afterthought and kept long after their expiration dates.
for the first time, i'm finding myself perusing the intimates on everything from american apparel to eres, and while i'm not in the market for anything too outrageous(ly expensive), i'm slowly coming to appreciate the appeal of little lacy things, even if only i know they're there, and this photo set (and this absolutely adorable video) is definitely helping me along. with a few choice purchases, i just might start prancing around the house undie-clad for fun.
stunning, no? these were all taken in east germany during the 1980s. i won't inundate you with the details - the original story is here, and my refinery29 write-up is here - instead allowing the images to speak for themselves.
happy new year! hangovers aside, i hope things are looking all bright and shiny and promising for everyone.
notice anything different? i like lily cole as much as the next chick, but ever since i took down my old sophomore spring'08 banner at the end of the summer, i've been kinda jonesing for it. imagine my delight when i stumbled across the spring'09 lookbook via refinery 29. luckily ms. miller didn't tweak her formula too much - let some friends loose in new york city in sophomore gear (styled by lissy trullie!) with cass bird, recreating the hazy, hot child/summer in the city vibe that i loved so much the first time around. despite the intended 1970s lower east side influence, last spring's lookbook reminded me a lot of the movie kids with a less dated wardrobe. this time i'm getting a little tatum o'neal + kristy mcnichol in little darlings vibe. less talk, more visuals, you say? i got you.
oh, and i'm well aware that this is a totally season-inappropriate post, but i figure it's summer somewhere, right? and as far as i'm concerned, it's never too early to get in the mood.
related:
- chrissie miller @ refinery29, the selby. be warned, she's kind of awesome.
as of this posting, i'm heading back to cambridge with dylan - i'm not due back til friday and i don't relish going back to school, but i had to get up and go somewhere, y'know? i have trouble sitting still. when i get back i'll be writing the first of three papers and studying for finals, but as promised, there will be posts. peace, kids.
