Seal of Approval: Dancing with The Stars/Beth Ditto

I guess I'm a little late on this one, but Dancing With the Stars is kind of an amazing show. I always heard about it, and was like, "This is the most European concept ever," which it totally is. But it's kind of amazing because it, unlike every other show on TV, is so straightforward. All these "stars" (Aaron Carter!!! Wooooo!!!) have to learn a complex routine with another person, put on a ridiculous outfit, and dance their heart out. That's it. No one gets special treatment (well, the guys don't have to wear heels and wigs and dresses, but at least they have to wear high-waisted pants with a matador jacket and no shirt) and they all just seem, so, well, eager to please. Clearly this is the highest of high camp (especially that one supergay judge), but no one is acknowledging it because they're too busy dancing. It hearkens back to another, simpler celebrity era, when we expected our stars to be all-around entertainers who acted, sang, did impressions, told jokes, tap-danced and smoked a high-tar cigarette all with a smile on their face (That clip is so cool! There is a guy with peg-leg break-dancing for serious. Why is tap-dancing by far the best kind of dancing?)

It's like, what do celebrities really do these days (besides coke?) Nothing! But not on this show! Doesn't it kind of make sense that we expect these people to be skilled at something? And even though the people on DWTS aren't especially talented, at least they're trying. There's something so...humble about it!



I'm still rooting for Kelly Osbourne after all these years, too. Plus, she did do a dramatic dance to "Crazy Train" with crazy hair. And Ozzy came to watch her. I was touched. She seems pretty cool on that show! Apparently she's a crowd favorite!


Secondly, my second Seal of Approval is also kind of late, and goes to Beth Ditto, after I watched this style.com clip of her. Like many hipster feminist types, I first saw The Gossip way back in the early 2000s when I was but a teenager, and it was like, "Here's this fierce cute fat girl who takes her clothes off [in an aggressive/nonsexual way]! Wow!" (It was also like Wow! because we had just seen The Donnas. Remember them? They sucked.)

Kind of like seeing Kelly Osbourne on TV though on a far grander scale (Kelly Osborune was, after all, mostly pretty annoying), it was pretty mind blowing/empowering at the time, so the fact that Beth is actually Famous now is really cool because she is a completely, completely different role model from every other famous pop star today- describing yourself as a "fat feminist lesbian" who grew up "poor" and "butch" on a website owned by Vogue is the kind of thing we need a lot more of. She also seems to really love and appreciate fashion in the outsidery, all-encompassing way that it should be loved. And she is one of those rare people who is managing to affect (however small) amount of political change through art, music, fashion, etc., without being preachy or boring. She also seems to love novelty prints- just like ME!!!!

Should Beth Ditto go on a special episode of Dancing With the Stars? In a word, yes.

Gee, my posts have been so warm and fuzzy lately. Maybe I will go to Urban Outfitters today.

Inspiration: Vintage Feminists

Some of the "First Wavers." That's Emma Goldman's mugshot and portrait. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be so actively political for a woman in the Victorian era!






And "Second Wavers" of the 60's and 70's. Oh man, I love all the portraits of the fist-pumping and whatnot, especially the one of Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Of course, let's not forget the Equal Rights Amendment, which was a big focus of the feminists at that time, never got passed.

Of course the Susan B. Anthony dollar was issued in the 70's, one of the only time periods in which "feminist" wasn't considered such a dirty word:

So, it's Woman's History Month or something, and let us not forget the women who risked their lives to get us where we are today. And also, let's not disgrace their honor by referring to the world we live in as "post-feminist" as if feminism ended because everything was taken care of and all its goals were met, dudes. Clearly has not happened and will never happen as long as people reject feminism. 

Icons and Role Models: Betty Davis

I appreciate negativity and all, but now I feel it's the time to do one of my more positive posts, and that is is about Betty Davis. Betty released three funk albums in the 70s, including a self titled album, They Say I'm Different, and Nasty Gal. She's known for being raunchy and forthright, and though it's unlikely she would be considered quite so "nasty" had she been a man singing the same words, her candor, sass, and grinding growl of a voice are still ahead of their time today- consider songs such as "If I'm in Luck I Might Get Picked Up", or "Don't Call Her No Tramp."

It's always a rare performer who can "own" their sexuality- good examples are early Madonna and Prince- both are people who got in trouble for being too direct, dirty and crass. Artists like this are millions of miles away from the various "sexy" perfomers and pop tarts who are continually thrown in our faces; they, instead, project agency and control when singing about these things, and that seems to be part of what freaks people out. (Not to go too much on a tangent here, but even though I personally did not buy that album/never will, I thought Christina Aguilera's off-parodied Dirrrty or however many Rs it had was a good example of this too- it certainly wasn't dirrrrtier than whatever Brtitney Spears was doing, but the fact that she called the shots and seemed so genuinally into it obviously distrubed everyone.)

If I was to attach an MP3 to this post (does anyone want to teach me how to do that?) I would pick her excellent "Game is My Middle Name."

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Betty Davis looked really awesome. She had the sort incredibly glammed out/space age funk thing that was popular in the 70's (which deserves a post in of itself, really) but also this amazing 70's tramp look with short shorts and whatnot, plus an afro which is a hairstyle I have always been fond of. It's a look that many could not pull off or put together well, but she really manages.

Wow, look at this cover! Covers like this alone are worth having records and not CDs so you can actually see the often amazing cover artwork and photography. Anyway, this shows that funk-space-glam look really well. The back of this onesie like thing flips up to a sort of Egyptian headdress, which is visible on the back of the album. Also, maribou trimmed platform turquoise booties- yes!

Everything about this outfit is 70's, from the high-waisted short shorts to the tied up floral shirt to the turquoisey jewelery to those silver platform boots. (It's kind of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, you know?) God, don't you wish you were a teenage girl in 1973 so you could put up a poster of Betty Davis on your wall and style yourself after her?

Why Neutrals Are Called "Neutral" and Other Lessons

Now when I look back on my outfits from high school, I'm kind of filled with shame. I mean, I can understand the thoughts (I hate school/my teachers /advertisements /"the man"/everyone in every single one of my classes/The Backstreet Boys [Yeah, it seems funny now, but they were actually really popular]/The Paul Frank monkey) and inspiration (David Bowie/ glam rock/ Nancy Spungen/ 1960's "scooter girls"/ some sort of vague riot grrrl thing) behind them, as well as the urge to look extremely different from my Gap-clad classmates, but I guess something was lacking in the execution. I didn't look good with a very short haircut courtesy of my friend while watching Empire Records, or turquoise blue hair (Punky Colors over Manic Panic/Special Effects, okay?), or fishnet shirts (for layering!)

When I discuss my terrible outfits circa 2000 with my friends, they are like, "Well, it was the best we could do at the time/I totally thought you looked awesome/were courageous for wearing that hot pink children's tutu." And this is true. We didn't have a lot to work with, and we were sixteen. We were supposed to be dying our hair magenta and painting our nails black and layering oddly and sneering at everyone and writing our angst on our Converse in Sharpie. To do any less would have been, you know, conforming.

So that's why I find Miia (the one on the top) kind of weird. I mean, yeah, no one could say she looks bad- she isn't really risking enough to do so. But to show such restraint, such a neutral color pallete, such a carefully planned and trendy-- without one stop at Forever 21 (Back in my day, we went to Wet Seal, only it was called Contempo Casuals, the best name ever, and we called it "Contrampo") is just wrong. Miia, only four years ago, you were ten. You have your entire life to dress like Charlotte Gainsbourg and wear gray sweaters over black pants or whatevs. Also, you announce that you like "unconventional combinations like high-waisted shorts with romantic, delicate shirts" but that's not unconventional! Hipsters wear high-waisted shorts with everything these days, especially delicate shirts. As pointed out in a previous post, even Rhianna wears high-waisted and has that hat, so let's not pretend you don't get your fashion inspiration from Nylon/various twenty-eight year olds/The Sartoralist.

So, by contrast, I bring you Juulia, also 14 (As mentioned previously, everyone on Hel Looks appears about ten years older, on average, than their purported age, Miia and Juulia included, but let's say they really are 14 are Ulla is only 26, Tomi is only 16, and Jani is only 25- and straight) Juulia looks liked I wished--or perhaps now wish-- I could have looked in high school, or maybe how I thought I looked, but anyway. The point is, she looks kind of trashy and 80's and punk and has huge hair and is even rocking the forbidden leggings as pants, but she looks amazing, in a Plasmatics/drag queen/brown cowboy boots paired with checkerboard print kind of way.

Juulia, like Miia, looks kind of too perfect to 14, but she looks perfect in a much more awesome, risky, and strange way. She says, "I like to wear jewellery and a big hairdo. My style role models are Madonna in the 80's, Joan Jett and Mötley Crüe." Now these are high school role models I can get behind. If you don't want to look like Joan Jett in high school, at least a little bit, then you have no soul.

Actually, I used to have this (alright, it's still there) photo of Joan Jett wearing, like, a purple leather jacket and mega eyeliner singing stuck to the mirror in my room, and once my friend Emily put on eyeliner using Joan as inspiration, and everyone was like, "You look like Joan Jett!" to her. And by everyone, I mean our small group of friends.

So though we are not all fourteen any longer, and shouldn't pretend we are so that we can wear purple knee socks with green striped tights and dye our pigtails blue, we should all remember that even if we are in our twenties we still have plenty of time to wear black cardigans and tan scarves and look appropriate.

Taking it to the Hoop, in a Good Way

After my last negative post, I felt the urge to post perhaps the original "I liked it": Bjork's swan dress from the 2001 Academy Awards. Asked to come and perform the song she recorded for her film, Dancer in the Dark. Anyway, the point is, she wore an insane swan dress and the American media was like, "What a fashion nightmare! It's totally a 'don't!'" Of course, the Oscars are pretty much there to celebrate mainstream symbols of status/wealth/beauty, and Bjork was using the platform as a type of performance art- particularly noticeable in the picture at left, where she "laid" her egg-shaped purse on the red carpet by dropping it.

Anyway, it's pretty sad that everyone didn't get it and all, and it's still talked about as if it was some sort of big fashion nightmare, but truly, it was awesome. Fashion icons as creative and strange as Bjork are unfortunately few and far between. And the Oscars, as it gets more and more driven by stylists and boring evening gowns, is pretty damn boring. This is, after all, the venue where Barbra Streisand once wore a sheer, glittering, bell-bottomed tuxedo and Cher once wore this. Of course, both these pictures were found on some "Worst dressed Oscars" list because these looks are so simply unflattering and uncouth! I mean, they could have dressed like this!

I Liked It: The "Magic" Edition

Simone pointed out this look to me, after it was it was criticized on both on Go Fug Yourself and eonline's significantly less bitchy but still sometimes funny Fashion Police (it's somewhere in there, anyway) for being you know, sort of insane. Well, it is an insane look, but what's so awful about that? It really does look as if someone has taken a wand to it, and it's exploded in some sort of glittering, feathery frenzy. If witches really did go to balls, I'd like to think they'd wear something like this instead of the much fruitier pink one she wore in the movie. I also think this look of hers is sort of charming in a 1920's, "dancing around the Maypole" type of way, and I think it's nice how Emma Watson takes fashion risks and doesn't just wear the same sack-like tunic everyday like her peers. Also, I'm excited for book #7 and the movie even though they'll probably be sort of disappointing/I'll have lots of complaints about Hermione's character falling into a stereotypical feminine storyline!

The Devil Wears too Much Sequins and Beige

I guess Anna Wintour has stuck with that bob in hopes of crafting a timeless, Diana Vreeland-like iconic look, but it has always looked more to me as if she just loves the wigs. Which seems to go along with her overall look of clothing wearing her instead of the other way around- she takes risks, but she tends to look more nuts/over accessorized than she does glamorous and creative. It's like everyone's afraid to criticize her, but is she really ever going to be cited as a style icon? I don't think so.

Maybe she should have gone with a nice Zum Zum-esque prom dress like her daughter.

Taking Risks

It's all very well and good when you think things have potential on the hanger, but putting them on your body is another story. Being well-dressed is much more about putting things together in a creative, and yes, flattering way than it is about choosing "unique" items and wearing them just because you're into the "illusion" of having nothing but a bra on, when, in fact, you're wearing a mesh shirt for some reason. Case in point: this outfit.

Here we have high-waisted, pleated linen shorts that crinkle rather perfectly into an oversized camel toe (If you try on pants or shorts that pull and crinkle over your hips and thighs like that, don't buy them- they're supposed to lie flat, not look like they're being sucked into your crotch) and a trompe lo'oiel top that I guess is supposed to fool people into thinking you're not wearing a shirt.

Clothing should be fun. You should take risks and wear things that other people are afraid of. But you should also consider whether that item looks good on you, and if you're wearing it because it happens to be popular right now or if it truly is a special item. When your wonderful, unique look also happens to be all over H&M, maybe it's time to rethink your inspiration. And then of course some things are just eternally ugly.