Need makeup lessons? Throw away your beauty magazines and just click above to listen to adorable tutorial poster Madison who makes about as much sense as any magazine beauty copy I've ever read.
I can't tell you how many times I've giggled in my own head--well, ok, aloud...to myself about this old SNL commercial I just remembered existed and found thanks to the magic of the Interwebs. It's for a line of premium denim called Bad Idea Jeans.
Whenever I make a mistake, which is humblingly often lately as I've started a knew job, I blame it on my Bad Idea Jeans. Even if I'm not wearing jeans. It makes me feel better.
With the White House teaching white America a thing or two about being black, the topic of "good hair" has garnered its fair share of press recently. When the First Lady took Sasha and Malia on a trip to Rome this summer, a conservative backlash brewed strong over the fact that Malia wore her hair in natural twists rather than having it straightened. A New York Times article followed detailing the struggle black women face over decisions on how to wear their hair. Being a particular fan of the artist Lorna Simpson (that's her work entitled Wigs (portfolio) 1994. above) who has explored black hair as a topic in her career as an artist, I'm more familiar with the struggle than I would guess most white chicks are, but there's still so much to learn. Enter Chris Rock. When the comedian's young daughter came to him in tears one day asking why she didn't have good hair, Rock set to work to discover where the hell she got that idea. The result is an enlightening, eagerly anticipated, and of course funny, documentary entitled Good Hair.
There are so many ways in which women of all backgrounds are expected to torture themselves for beauty. If they can figure out how to sell us something for it, then they can figure out how to make us hate ourselves for it. Makes me think about a lot of things: makeup, skin care, hair removal, lip plumpers, plastic surgery, hair dye...
I can't wait to go to the salon and India with Rock. I'm also strangely intrigued to hear what Maya Angelou has to say about all of this.
I'm about to let you in on one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. It's like this: There are at war within me two equal and opposite forces. One is a sophisticated, design-minded fanatic of fashion with what I can mildly assert to be discernible taste based on a passionate and educated sartorial awareness. The other? Well, it's a 15-year old boy who just shot soda out of his nose while laughing at his best friend who epically failed to reenact that scene from Jackass where they roll billiard balls at similarly shaped sensitive anatomical parts. For the latter force, I blame my father. He thought that because his kids were in the backseat they couldn't hear The Howard Stern Show blaring out of the speakers of our Mazda four-door. I've spent years trying not to laugh at the baser things that predictably tickle my funny bone, thinking I should be above the oh-so-politically incorrect wickedness of the lowbrow. But, ya know what? Screw political correctness! Humor done well is a talent, a golden-bowed gift! I think I still have discernible taste, even when it comes to bathroom jokes. I can sniff out the sub-par and I am not above saluting the truly comical, no matter what the subject matter. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because the fashionista and the fifteen-year-old in me have a secret bonding ritual that I think you should know about. It is awfully, awfully, wrongly good. What is it? Well, it's the (all of the sudden I'm afraid you'll judge me...yeesh) Dos and Don'ts from--no, not the back pages of Glamour(also brilliant!)--VICEMagazine.
I know, I know they often go against any shred of decency that you would hope still exists in the world. They curse, they are filled with lewd, crude, rude, raunchy, sexually explicit gag-inducing visuals and captions. They are culturally insensitive, often sexist, and unabashedly arrogant. But, they are also...funny. Yep, I said it: I think they are funny. Well, not all of them; if they offend me I click the "next" button just a little quicker and move on. But, man when they get it right, they get it so right.
This appraisal of platform flip-flop wearers could not be more accurate; they are a quite predictable sign of greater problems.
You see styley fashion street sites all over, but I love witnessing what the gen pop is really wearing. The Dos and Don'ts what the folks on the street really try and get away with. The thing I like most is that when someone nails the style, they get the props. When they fail? They get torn something new.
Again, these Dos and Don'ts are not for the faint of heart or the humanely sensitive--there are both body parts and bodily fluids on regular display-- but if your inner man child and your innate fashionista need to spend some QT together, sit them down in front of VICE and let 'em at it. They'll play nice as long and your conscience doesn't come home and spoil the party.
Although Mr. President looks darn fine in this here video from his White House Correspondents Dinner speech, fashion is not the focus of this post. Instead, I'm posting it because if you didn't see it, you have to watch it and fall in love with our Prez all over again. He's so funny and cute, and powerful, and...hmmm I'll stop there.
Today The New York Times has a great photo slide show featuring the fabulous First Lady Elect (I think it's finally starting to set in) MicheLLE OBAMA!!!! (oh, there it goes again) and her amazing fashion choices on the road to the White House. I love this photo of her dancing with Ellen Degeneres:
Besides for Michelle, look at how good Mrs. Portia Di Rossi looks. I love her pocket chain and her loose tie.
Speaking of Ellen, she has this great section on her show's website featuring bad photos sent in by audience members and they are hysterical. They come in a few varieties: Bad Paid for Photos, Bad Santa Photos, and Bad School Photos. If you need a pick-me-up, check these out and let the laughter begin. Here's a sampling of my favorites:
Everyone's favorite fumbling, mumbling, Absolutely Fabulous fashionistas survive a fire for the sake of this week's Friday Funny. Stop, drop, get dressed, and let's roll!
Patsy and Edina are my bad day panacea. Pop a clip of them on the telly and you'll feel grand in no time, darling. Happy Friday!
I love the Critical Shopper column in the New York Times. Specifically I love when the people who pen the column, who are obviously used to shopping upscale, take a trip into some of the City's more common offerings. This week, the Critical Shopper falls into the Gap, which has apparently been taken over by excessively eager Euro-spenders.
Much has been made of Patrick Robinson's attempts to rescue the ubiquitous retail chain from its recent khaki doldrums. The Critical Shopper agrees that Robinson's (pictured above) arrival has precipitated some vast improvements, but laments the presence of "gross familiars from yesteryear" including a pair of cargo pants with what he calls "lumpy thigh pockets".
While Patrick's pieces are upping the store's cool quotient, there are still a few too many boring basics to be found. The cuter offerings seem to have been priced out of my usual Gap spending allowance. Also, I couldn't agree more with the Critical Shopper's reprimands for the store's practice of pin-tuck tailoring all of the items featured on the display mannequins. That should be a crime punishable in Misled Shoppers' Court.
If I were the judge, I'd sentence them to finally properly air my favorite Gap advert that never was. It's a friggin' hilarious commercial from the very special mind of Spike Jonze. It was pulled from the air after a limited run in select cities, but will live forever in the YouTube universe.
I've always wanted to do that. Image: Popsugar.com
Are you bored behind your computer screen? Are you wishing for a chuckle inducing diversion? I know you are! By all means, leave it to me to come up with one for you. Fun finding happens to be one of my most highly developed skills. So please, won't you join me in a little game I like to call "Fun with Google Translator!"?
The first step is to head on over to the amazing French street style site, Garance Dore. This is the mecca of chic French fashion chicks from the mecca of chic French fashion, so it's like the holy grail of style sites. Once you recover from seeing the predictably gorgeous, effortlessly elegant girl of the day featured on the website (like Anabel and Julia here below) mouse on over to the right of the screen and click on the link that says "Google Translate Can Be Funny: Click here for the English Translation". Let the invisible electronic Google Gnomes do their magic and voila! Instant hilarity. Here's a sample of what the Gnomes will come up with for the presumably beautiful French phrases that Garance Dore has put out into the virtual world: "Yet, I loved Dior was gay, I strong and want a tutu-dress-in fact we all want dresses tutu, tutu skirts, micro-skirts Fly tutu, I'm too too fan of tenunue following dessussus, I want my tutuuuuu!"
