"Owner of a Lonely Heart" is Stuck in my Head

Why, you ask, am I posting these photos of rags on my blog? Why, they are not rags, but part of the new, minimalist fashion line of the Olsen twins, currently being featured at Barney's, and full of deals and steals like $300 t-shirts and whatnot. This is like how Mandy Moore's fashion line, the annoyingly named Mblem, with the even more annoying description of "vintage contemporary tees" (what the hell is vintage about this? vintage means old, you fools) is supposed to feature that perfect $85 t-shirt you could never find. I don't know what kind of rich people are bemoaning the fact that they can never find a good t-shirt when there is practically no design involved in making them and there are ten million available for $7, but whatever. I guess they are the same sort of people who think American Apparel really makes a well-priced product that just can't be found anywhere else.

Anyway, it's all very fascinating,- I really love that long gray tank dress old MK is showing us in the last picture. It looks very flattering, unique, and well-designed. Apparently "The Row" has sold really well, probably to the same public that buys Britney's perfume and The Jaime collection by Jaime Pressley. I'm really sure that all these "designers" are constantly hard at work on their "designs."

Also, I just spent like twenty minutes trying to find this one photo of Fergie's line for Kipling (remember those hideous nylon bags with the monkey hanging off them that were really expensive and I dreamed of owning in seventh grade?) that I saw in an old People magazine and stared at for like five minutes in order to make a reference to Paris Is Burning in relation to them, but of course I couldn't find the right one, so the pic at the end of this post will have to do, even though it doesn't look nearly as Paris Is Burning as the other one.

But, I admit, I don't really hate the Olsens. I hate aspects of the Olsens, many aspects I guess, but I guess what I appreciate about them (mostly Mary Kate) is that they sometimes look completely psychotic in the name of fashion, and, in their own troll-like way, seem very devoted to it in a way that other self-proclaimed fashion-loving starlets (Lindsay Lohan, for instance) don't. They don't just wear the latest trends their stylist put them in, and sometimes they look crazy, and not just because of their blank and hungry eyes.

As a visual aid, I've added this photo of Mary Kate super Stevie Nicks-ed out at the supermarket, or the one above where she is wearing the fur jacket. She kind of looks like a crazy old lady in these pictures, or a fashionable gremlin. I also really felt jealous of this beautiful vintage lace dress Ashley wore to the premiere of the classic film Troy. I mean, technically I'm against all they stand for, but I'd rather look at photos of the Olsens clothes than of most famous people.

How Boys Should Dress

Here are some photos I saved on my computer of men's fashion. Today's theme is the well-groomed, 20's-esque dandy (not to be confused with the more adorned, foppish, 19th century dandy that I also enjoy.)

This is from some fashion spread. It is the gayest picture ever and I love it. Something about severely side-parted hair is so very retro and neat. Clearly they are all listening in through the door at the boys school on to other boys with side-parted hair jerking each other off.

These guys opened up a Viktor & Rolf fashion show last year. The mist, the tailcoats, the aforementioned side-parted hair, it's all so silent film. I love that they are dancing together too.

This is a film still from somewhere (sorry, I should really be checking my sources here), also looking more than a bit gay. I love that roll-neck cardigan with the tie, it's so proper-1920's man and looks so neat and cozy at the same time. It looks like he is wearing a high collar with rounded tips instead of pointy ones, which is also very 20's.

This is from The Sartorialist, and I think the guy is dressed for some Scottish something or other. Anyway, it is all pretty amazing, especially the matching tartan suitcase. Pulling off a double-breasted blazer with shorts is no mean feat, you know?

I'm pretty sure this is from Clara Bow's It (anyway, it's definitely Clara Bow) where she plays a shopgirl wooed by some homosexuals and wears lots of cute clothes. I love how, in silent films, men always wore tons of eyeliner with their perfect suits. I think this might have been some sort of holdover from stage makeup, and it always makes everyone seem like that much more of a glamorous dandy. The man in the forefront has the high rounded collar again, a cut-away jacket, and baggy pants- kind of a fancy version of the Charlie Chaplin look I talked about in an earlier post.
This is from the same fashion spread as the top pic. The plaid shirts and sweaters and vests look very 40's altogether.

This is from a Gucci fashion show at some point. I love the three-piece suits and the way they are all looking so ultra-snotty with their champagne flutes.

I guess I liked this image because it looked old even though it's just the kid who played Cedric in the Harry Potter movies. On second thought, he looks kind of thuggish compared to the more neatly-turned out men in this post. Where is your tie, young man?

This is from the Sartorialist too. Ohmygod, he's got a monocle! He looks like Teddy Roosevelt, and the way his red vest and handkerchief goes with his gray suit is great.

Nu Rave: Stupid Weak Babies

I know those hoodies with the oversize prints of teddies and whatnot are waning as far as popularity goes, but I never did a post on them, or this whole subset of "juvenile" fashion in general, so I think it's time.

Of course these items are inspired by both the overpriced Japanese streetwear line Bathing Ape and Japanese streetwear in general. Back in the day, Simone and I were obsessed with looking for weirdly printed Japanese clothing on eBay, particularly from the fabulously named clothing line Hysteric Glamour, which I guess now makes more horrible "Andy Warhol"-inspired clothing (ie, a t-shirt with some stripes and a banana on it) but really came through with t-shirts covered in stars and nonsensical ramblings at the time. I remember one of my great regrets in high school was not buying this button-down shirt that had squirrels printed all over it, as well as this t-shirt with sloppily drawn multi-colored skulls on the front.

Of course, things have changed, and now skull prints are so ubiquitous if I see another one I might vom, and wacky novelty prints are all the rage (even though they're never printed on good fabrics or nice clothes like they were in the 40's) and every other damn person had some fugly, pineapple-strewn hoodie on last year. I remember standing behind some thuggish kid who was wearing a hoodie with, like, purple baby bears all over it and thinking, "Boy, this trend is basically to dress adults like babies."

This whole graphic, cartoonish Nu Rave thing, with it's primary colors, copious use of balloon-like sweatshirts, and rompers a plenty, as well as it's deep and yearning nostalgia for such times as 1992, seem to be saying "Weren't our childhoods great? Remember Nintendo and cross colors and neon? Look at my oversize glasses and this 'blouse' I made out of a children's sleeping bag!" As I've pointed out many a time before, there's no wit in "irony" that just points out how we all remember the early 90's.

Plus, hello, the early 90's were hideous. Look at the color-blocked sweatshirt of the girl in the second photo collage! Just look at it! Ohmygod, it's so ugly!

Photos from the De Young

Last week I went to the new De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. It's very modern and looks like an airport; I know it's retrofitted (omg, did you feel the earthquake an hour ago?) and the old De Young was no great beauty but I have to say I prefer the old one. This one has this massive copper-colored mesh overhang and lots of black and ugly track lighting and I am against it. Anyway, here are a few photos I took. They are all pretty crappy in terms of lighting and focus, but the subjects are nice.

This is from the exhibition of socialite Nan Kempner's clothing. Obviously I love clothing shows at museums, and it's nice to see clothing looked at in a similar way that art is. Of course, it seems like the clothing shows are always dominated by the collections of very rich people who bought the sort of couture that was made especially for them, and in this case there was very little vintage, but it was still interesting.

The shape of this coat, whose designer I can't remember (sorry, I didn't know I would be posting it in a blog, but it is modern and maybe Gucci) looks a bit like an early 60's funnel neck coat, with a slight/cocoon/egg shape, but the sort of mod shape is balanced by the felted embroidery/patchwork design, with looks kind of folkloric and fairy tailish. It had such a beautiful fit and was obviously so well made in person; I do think most designer clothes are retarded but occasionally the work on them is amazing, though you see this mostly in older pieces.

This is a Peter Max (of "Yellow Submarine" fame) print from Max/some summer of love type thing they had. I actually love some vintage psychedelic art- a lot of it was inspired by art nouveau, and I love the bright colors and swirling shapes and stuff. (Simone, we should have gone to that show at the Whitney this summer- and gotten totally high beforehand, which would have been lame/awesome.) I have a few of his star sheets in blue (ohmygod, there are towels too! so awesome!) with a similar pattern, and I once failed to bid on some Peter Max curtains and am still depressed. I used to look for Peter Max on eBay years ago but I never spend money on homewares because I don't have a home to put them in but now I think they all go for a lot, even his inflatable plastic pillows (somebody buy me this tooth one for my birthday!) Marc Jacobs ripped off a lot of Peter Max prints back when I liked his clothes.

This was great! It's a knit Missoni two piece "bathing costume" that looked very 70's but was from the 90's. You can't see it, but the belt had four little buttons on it. I usually hate Missoni but I thought this was fab. I was going to say how nice it would be to be rich and buy expensive, impractical knit bathing suits, but considering how many vintage bathing suits I own and how often I go swimming/am in weather warm enough to wear anything short sleeved, I guess I can relate.

I'm Going to be a Huge Tool for Halloween, What About You?

I can only hope this is a photo of someone in a Halloween costume, and the costume is of a lame, poorly dressed hipster trying to be Agyness Deyn. For the love of god people, will you stop wearing huge glasses! Soon the world will no longer be able to handle this many oversized non-prescription frames, and sorority girls are going to be like, "Wow, these totally huge Juicy eyeglasses with no lenses are sooooo cute and totally match my pink Juicy Palestinian scarf!" and your dad is going to replace his Bill Gates glasses with anther pair of Bill Gates glasses in order to be "hip."

I'd Rather See Nu Rave

I just can't tell you how inspiring I find this photo on the left. The way the clothing, the pose, the overall unkempt-ness of the whole thing scream "homeless crack addict!" but the fresh-scrubbed face and shiny hair say, "Surprise! I'm some middle-to-upper class Icelandic hipster girl doing that whole "ratty" thing? Aren't these clothes ugly/great?"

Ohmygod, that filthy bathmat of a jacket, those baggy tapered leopard print pants and that grandma cardigan from 1991, all in various shades of puke, are the exact clothes you see on actual hobos. It's so eternally frustrating that if an actual hobo wears this outfit, the "face hunter" would just walk on by, but but since she is young and rich and "pretty" than suddenly it's supposed to be deeply, ironically stylish. You look like crap, Icelandic girl! Put on a pencil skirt and tuck in your shirt and stop trying to be self-consciously ugly.

This reminds me of this one time I asked Dan and Gerard (I can just reference people I know, right? No one but my friends read this blog, right?) to discuss how this one guy dressed and they were both like "Hobo chic!" and then they were both like, "But not 'chic,'" and I was like, "So, hobo?"

Photos of Inspiration