Trend Report From American Apparel: Sagging Mauve

These are from their vintage selection, priced at $38. As far as shorts go, it is difficult to get more unflattering than this. And shorts are often extremely unflattering.

Here are some more of their lovely pants in similar styles, from their hot new line, "1993 Hospital Waiting Room."

Yes, whether it is greige, mauve, beige or a washed-out puce, they offer a stunning array of colors and looks.


Or maybe those pale mint poly pleated pants were too sleek-looking. so how about this really, really dumpy looking skirt, which is made of polyester khaki chiffon? I already made fun of a very similar skirt, but whatever. The very first post I made on this blog was to hate on American Apparel, and that was three years ago. And look where I am today!!!


I am sooo sick of these dishrag-y tank tops that are always in this dingy color and hang down saggily in order to reveal your naked sides and bra. This one is a particularly fetching design.

Or what about this also polyester but pink polyester satin scarf? It's $26!!! My theory is that American Apparel has tons of scraps lying around and to make use out of them, they're like, "Use this leftover fabric for a 'Wrap It Yourself' beret or take these colored strings and braid them into a 'String Harness' for only thirty bucks!"

Speaking of unflattering shorts, everyone is wearing these 90's style shorts right now. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what makes them so ugly, because I like the idea of high-waisted shorts, but everyone looks really lumpen in this particular style. I think they smush down people's butts while simultaneously creating a pouch-like area in front. In fact, you might say even say that the fupa/flat ass look is the look du jour.

Ohmygod what the hell these clothes are so unbelievably ugly. Like, what the hell?! Do you know what I'm saying here??????? What is wrong with everyone????

More gross tops that look like they are from the 1994 Victoria's Secret catalogue. The textured one is nylon and costs $78. Basically, you are paying money to look like what Dov Charney jerked off to in the 90's. It's a real honor.


Speaking of being jerked off on, here are the photos they show on the website for their $64 jersey sheet set, which comes, exclusively, in white and gray, perhaps the grossest color for sheets. I know all American Apparel ads look like this, but maybe this one is a little more haunting? A little more of a human-trafficking vibe? Oh, who even knows anymore. It's all so distasteful.

Best of Lookbook: We Still Love Saggy Clothing, Looking Waifish

This is entitled "coffee & novels" even though I bet he is really drinking a skim soy latte. This guy seems very influenced by the Olsen Twins. I say he can do better! I'm tired of people saying gay gays dress better than straight men. They both dress bad. I guess this guy has some flair, but it's misplaced. A few more examples:

It's like they're in a costume, but they don't know what they are supposed to be. I guess I appreciate the campiness of it, but I think lots of gays seem to dress in parodies in a sort of version of masculinity, hence the the male cast of Jersey Shore in the Village Voice queer issue, illustrating the "guido ideal." But these looks, like all the looks here, are desperately high-fashiony, except I guess the guy in the headband, who looks more Portland 2008. No one seems influenced by anything cool or really belonging to an interesting subculture, just by what is trendy.






This is a big look for girls. It's a kind of swaddled, diapery look. Everyone is into pants with saggy apendages, like dropped crotches and voluminous ankles. More neutral. More 90's. I think maybe the two bottom ones are wearing the same flowy skort? Isn't it weird that not long ago these ladies would be wearing low-rise Sevens and Juicy suits? Like the guy above, they strive for a rumpled "I just threw this flowy skort on," look.




Also hot: tucking something voluminous into a pair of 501 cut-offs and posing with a fashion hunch.



In: long hair for the ladies. But, not curly, wild long fair. That's gross. It's lank and straight, like the pleats in your shorts. And bowler hats and faux vintage sunglasses and skorts or at least a really big shirt with no pants. Standing knock-kneed and unsteadily, as usual.

Who wore the Smiths T-Shirt Better Competition:

That first guy looks your sixth-grade dream date, whereas the second guy is doing the ubiquitous pigeon-toed 90's floral thing. Which goes to show that gay guys dress no better than straight guys, but also that everyone also dresses the same, basically. Also, that everyone is, as usual, harboring the delusion that they alone control how they dress.

Mary's Musings: Ten-year old Steve Martin fans, RomComs are for Losers, etc.

As a kid, I loved comedy. My main favorites were Bill Murray and Steve Martin, whose dry wit I both related to and adored. I was also a fan of John Candy, another comedian I felt I grew up with. I loved The Three Amigos (something tells me this movie would be significantly less watchable as an adult) Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, the non-corny parts of Father of the Bride 1 & 2 and L.A. Story, Twins starring Danny Devito and Arnold Scwarzenagger (I also have my doubts about that one holding up) and the work of Leslie Nielsen. Many of these movie were copied for me from video-store tapes to VHS tapes, and when the FBI warning would flash on the screen I would be terrified, anticipating a team of FBI agents breaking into my home and seizing my copy of Joe Vs. The Volcano as I watched it for the twenty-second time.

The Naked Gun series, as well as Hot Shots 1 & 2 were movies I rushed to see in theaters. My family saw Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 while traveling through Europe. We first chose to see it in England, but the British wouldn't let me see it as a ten year old, though I was with my parents. (Maybe because of the scathing Queen Elizabeth parodies such as this one?) We ended up seeing it in the formerly communist city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in an extremely Soviet-style, all-cement movie theater. The theater creepily echoed the cement apartment we were staying in, where the lights would shut off if you didn't make it fast enough down the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, we were rewarded with an always ajar-door with red stuff on it leading to the apartment next to ours, where Czech people had violent domestic arguments. These terrifying settings did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie, which I loved. And Anna Nicole was in it, and I thought she was so beautiful. I also selected it as a film to watch at the very last birthday party I remember having, age ten or eleven, a sleepover where I felt alternately embarrassed at the crassness of my selection and annoyance that people weren't watching it.

I also remember when Wayne's World came out. It was really exciting. I was eight, and my mother and I went to see it, but we got there really late and missed the first half, so we stayed in the theater to re-watch it. I later received free or cheap copies of both Wayne's World and the equally excellent Addams Family on VHS from McDonalds as a pack. What a combo!

On a more 90's note, I enjoyed Tommy Boy and the works of Adam Sandler. I loved Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Saturday Night Live as one and a half hours of pure enjoyment. At the end, when the cast waves goodbye and the credits roll, I would feel a great loss. It seemed extra sad because of the dramatic farewell, and I wished I was up there on that stage with my fellow hilarious castmates, signing off at the end of another great show. I didn't have cable, so there were no reruns. In vain, I would stay up, hoping something good would be on. I usually ended up watching the beginning of Showtime at The Apollo, which didn't really satisfy, just as Soul Train or Professional Wrestling would come on after cartoons and I'd watch it much more out of desperation that enjoyment.

Some of these movies have certainly held up- Bill Murray's Groundhog Day (besides Andy McDowell)/Ghostbusters 1 & 2/What About Bob? type movies are light years better than all his stupid mopey Wes Anderson/Jim Jarmusch/Sofia Coppolla roles. Dumb and Dumber is another I will not hesitate to watch if it happens to be on TV, and obviously the aforementioned Wayne's World and The Addams Family are some of the Greatest Films Ever Made. I still like Seinfeld, a middle-school age obsession neatly fitting in with my other dorky passions.

I think most comedy is really age-appropriate only for a precocious nine-year-old, whereas now the retard tingles you get after watching Michael Cera stammer his way through the same movie for the eighteenth time tend to overwhelm any "funny" aspects the movie promises to contain. Luckily, the trend of wacky sports movie died (Thank god the one starring Andy Samburg bombed) but looking at the comedies still set to be released in 2010, it doesn't look pretty. More romcoms starring Kristen Bell, and then more movies starring Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd as a duo, and then Owen Wilson is the live-action Marmaduke movie. Looks like the studios are taking some crazy, creative chances yet again!

Most comedies are geared toward men. Comedies geared towards women are called "romantic comedies," but they're not really comedies. Romantic comedies are not funny. I'm tired of women on feminist blogs being like, "We have to stop criticizing romantic comedies because they're for and about women. There's no shame in loving romantic comedy. Why aren't people ashamed of action movies instead?" Romantic comedies are insulting to women, that's why. The very format of a pathetic fairy-tale romance combined with the forced wacky hijinks of polite society makes me want to kill myself. They are simultaneously boring and embarrassing. They are almost always about women feeling stupid/ugly/single/uncool/bad about themselves. The women are never crass and funny. I think Tina Fey can be very funny, but to me 30 Rock is just like a romantic comedy- it's about hating herself (Like Chelsea Handler, I often get the feeling Tina Fey actually hates all women.)

The last time I regularly watched romantic comedies was in middle school, when friends would take me to see them. Even then, I cringed. I thought about selecting the The Wedding Singer as a movie to see for my birthday party, but after the final scene, wherein Adam Sandler sings a song called "I Want to Grow Old With You" to a very non-80's looking Drew Barrymore, I was glad I hadn't. It made me uncomfortable to watch such such treacle, and it still does.

Sure, action movies are retarded too, but they are exciting and exhilarating, and not always based on some series of horrible, cutesy, faux pas. I don't know how you can compare an entire yacht blowing up or someone getting stabbed in the face with some girl worrying whether she is too fat for her date with Hugh Grant. Only one of these scenarios should be fulfilling some kind of primal urge.

A lot of these modern, "I Love You, Man" style comedies kind of blur the line between romantic comedies and wacky retard comedies, both because the men in them appear to be in long-term, committed relationships with their male friends, and because they also have to resolve a problem with their nagging but inexplicably hot wives or girlfriends. Plus, they are always talking about their feelings. So many women seem to have embraced these kind of comedies, even laboring under the delusion that the men who star in them are attractive and sexually appealing due to their "comedic" "talents." I recently heard a young woman say she would have sex with Jonah Hill if he asked her to. Do you think, fifteen years ago, a lot of guys would be like, "Hey, she's such a great comedian, I'd have sex with Roseanne, wouldn't you?" Talk about a double standard.I mean, it would be cool if a guy said that in a way the opposite would never, ever be cool.

Also, I know I've been ranting a long time now, but I also am so sick of the faux-documentary style format I want to puke. It had already been perfected with the British The Office, some Christopher Guest movies, and Arrested Development, but, instead of thinking of something new, everyone just jumped on the bandwagon to play out a bunch of third-rate versions until it looks really dated and everyone hates it. I feel like I am the only person on earth to hate Steve Carrel and the U.S. The Office. The last commercial I saw for it promised Jim and Pam or whatever their names are having a baby and they were having a baby special episode! Way to stay true to the dry, realistic, melancholy spirit of the original, American colonialist TV producers!

Needless to say, I also hate Judd Apatow and think he directed all the most sexist, trite parts of Freaks and Geeks, which he wrongfully gets credit for and is the greatest show ever.

In conclusion, it's really hard to find funny comedies, and if you want to get high and watch a retarded comedy you haven't seen, please check out Spring Breakdown, starring Amy Poehler, Rachael Dratch, and Parker Posey, which manages to be feminist without being patronizing (alright, I can't recommend the scenes with Amer Tamblyn, but still, the movie is good.) If you are like, "Why is Jonah Hill in all these movies but these famous, established female comedians can't get their much funnier comedy released?", obviously the answer is the patriarchy, and I guess that is also the answer to the question about why I never watched any female-driven comedies or remember liking an female comedians, but we all know that.

Shameless Post About Models! Part Two

First of all, I think it's too bad that the best word ever- fierce- has been co-opted by Tyra Banks and Christian Siriano, former Project Runway winner and current Payless Shoe Capsule Collection designer. Well, mostly Christian Siriano. Tyra did bring an authentic version of the word to the public light.

Anyway, here is my continuation of model posts. This is hot bitch Kristen McMenamy , who had of an androgynous/Sandra Bernhard thing going on. I think there is some story about her where she busted into a room without her shirt and started screaming at someone famous. She fits in with the Gen X 90's post-Supermodel era, which rejected the drag-queen-esque, big haired supermodel for quirky andogyny and an overall more weirdo look. This is when CK One commercials were, like, so hip:

Kristen really is so fierce, and wears the clothes in a way that today's batch of bashful coltish teens certainly do not, kind of like a snotty 1950's style model but with a real face and personality. It always seems like bullshit to say one person is "good" at modeling and another isn't because it mostly seems like standing there, but with her, each photo is like a direct, confrontational challenge to the viewer. Also, she was styled in a way that highlighted her butch elegance, even though she was not a "lesbian model" like Jenny Shimuzu or even a lesbian in real life. She is one of the models I liked when reading Vogue as a kid, and often had a close cropped bowl cut dyed black accented with black lipstick.

Anyway, here she is on the runway lately and she looks awesome though she was forced to wear a humiliating 2010 outfit.

Edited to add more pics, including the Nijinksy and Leigh Bowery-esque one (way more Leigh Bowery than the much debated Lady Gaga, anyway!)

PS: Poor Naomi Campbell. Not really suited to the grunge photoshoot, was she? Speaking of which, I remember that photoshoot and cover and I thought it was so cool and totally inspirational.