This is just too weird:
Australian researchers are making dresses from fermented fabric, using bacteria to grow slimy dresses from wine and beer.
Archive for the 'Fashion' Category
If you walk down Queen Street Mall on a weekday afternoon after 3pm-ish, through the narrow bit going from Albert St towards the Myer Centre between the now water restricted fountain and the seats, it’s like navigating emo alley. Never have so many ripped fishnets, black band tshirts and designer haircuts shared so much space with so much black hair dye. Well, maybe. I’m exaggerating, because I now learn, courtesy of a local tv news show in Grand Forks, North Dakota that emo is, well, TEH NEW EVIL. Yep, making mix-tapes and wearing uber tight jeans and having a myspace can lead to… death! Don’t worry, though, the Sheriff’s department is on the case. Vid over the fold.
Since we’ve got one Valentines day thread going discussing boy bits, I thought we should emulate the ABC and go for some balance.
Well known breast blog [for the irony challenged, follow the link] Feministing links to a cultural history of breasts and bras. It’s a pretty light hearted read, but it got me thinking about the tension in bra design between comfort/support and sexy. I don’t need, I think, to spell out the gendered nature of this dichotomy. Which then got me thinking about how the least favourite Valentines day present for a lot of women, I think, is sexy lingerie, often marketed as “a present for you and her”. Now some gals might be into it. With a bit of a swimsuit fetish myself, who am I to judge whether suspender belts and “size enhancement” bras might not be to some women’s taste. But, isn’t the whole point of buying a present for your partner/main squeeze/love of your life/blah blah to demonstrate your care and affection for her not for yourself?
Elsewhere: MsFits looks at the tackiness that is the classified Valentine.
As skepticlawyer observed at Club Troppo, the topic of the sexualisation of young girls through advertising and fashion caused quite a stir in the blogosphere. The context for the discussion was David Jones’ law suit against the Australia Institute. While free speech was also an important theme of these recent debates, the interest and intensity show that discussions of the relationship between sexualisation of young girls and the public sphere touch some pretty sensitive spots. (It might be interesting to pause and wonder why there’s no discernible debate over the influence of advertising and pop culture on young boys’ sexuality.) One irony of such discussions is the fact that articles about the pernicious influence of pop culture on adolescent and tween sexuality often end up playing to the same celebrity hype and hyperbole that they purport to critique or dissect. A case in point is Newsweek’s piece on “Girls Gone Bad”.
Todays SMH: Sex, lies and advertising: DJs sues over child exploitation claims
IN WHAT is believed to be a world first, David Jones begins a legal case tomorrow in which it is suing the left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute and its executive director, Clive Hamilton, over claims the giant retailer’s advertising eroticised and sexually exploited children.
The case, in the Federal Court in Sydney, is thought to be the first time a court will consider the sexualisation of children in advertising.
The retailer is suing under the Trade Practices Act, claiming the institute engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. The avenue of suing for defamation was closed to big companies after the introduction of uniform defamation laws in January 2006.
Continue reading ‘DJs sues thinktank over report on sexualised images of children in advertising’
I wish to condemn the fact that summer has finally arrived in Brisvegas after a remarkably pleasant November and December, and it was so bloody hot and humid I only had about three solid hours of sleep last night. And I didn’t even have jetlag as well like Jo Jacobs:
Last night, our minimum temperature was 23.4°. About 5 minutes ago, and for most of the night it’s been 26° or 27°, but what actually matters is that the high humidity just this week in Brisbane has meant that the apparent temperature for most of the night has been hovering around 30°.
Anyway, time again to condemn. So here’s a seventh open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this week? Which evil political, cultural, social and religious phenomena need condemnation? How has 2007 annoyed you so far?
You can condemn anything except clothes free college parties attended by Ivy League kids.
We seem to have a habit of doing this, so that’s good enough reason to do it again.
I still reckon George Pell frocks up better than most Hollywood types, but if you’d like to challenge that assessment, or just comment on the gowns, go for it. By the way, will Glenn Milne be at the Golden Globes?
NB: New readers may be pleased to know LP is your one stop shop for ecclesiastical fashion discussion.
“Really, they are so badly dressed … I will put them all in black to teach them good taste,”
So spake Coco Chanel, and a fashion icon was born. I’ve always loved that the little black dress has evolved so much and at the same time has remained so constant. I also love that, unlike the stilletto, or the corset, the little black dress is designed to feel good as well as looking good.
The LBD changes every year to reflect current fashions, body type - even weather. It can be perfectly appropriate at a picnic with friends or at race-day with the Queen. It can have many different meanings; it can be sexy, formal, casual, posh or fun.
Guy Trebay in the New York Times Style section says:
Shifts of taste and style are trivialities, of course, without any serious meaning. But they do perform one important function, as Proust pointed out: they notch our hours and moments and decades and leave us with visual mnemonics, clues by which to remember where and in which dress and what jeans (and wearing what cologne) one was at a particular time.
Consider how Madonna’s choice of LBD can be used to illustrate each incarnation of her long and successful career (if you have dial-up, you may just want to imagine the rest of this post):
An interesting piece in Spiked Online talks about the new “values” that we are teaching our children:
Here, the authorities are trying to attach meaning to children’s everyday mundane activities; government targets are being pursued through activities such as children walking to school or running down to the park, or even just fidgeting.
Video games are okay, apparently, so long as they involve activity. Groby Community College in Leicestershire introduced the game Dance Dance Revolution to encourage reluctant girls to exercise. The Nintendo game Wii received cheers from some quarters because it increased kids’ activity levels. Meanwhile, McDonald’s is considering replacing play areas in some of its US restaurants with kiddie gyms, to help them burn off the calories.
I don’t think I’ve seen a better obituary for neoconservatism than this:
Of course, the article cites neocons who hold true to the idea that neonconservatism will make a comeback, and considering the length of time that platform shoes have managed to remain somewhat in vogue the idea isn’t completely out of left field. Bad ideas can have staying power if they appeal enough to a particular demographic.
Here’s Canada’s bad ideas of the year.
In fashion terms, though I kinda like it, I’m not sure that using cartoon characters as runway models will catch on. [Flash may also be a bad idea. To get to the picture in question, click on dresses and then on the dress on the right.]
And I wish to condemn the bubble dress, known in some Brisvegas circles as the pumpkin dress. It only looks good if you’re over six foot and size six (and preferably if your legs are over six foot too). But even then it doesn’t look very good.
Over at Footpath Zeitgeist, where Mel cooly dissects the ‘meaning’ of certain hipster fashion trends, she has a post about whether certain fashion items can or should be called silly or labelled ‘bad taste’. By dismissing some fashion as inherently stupid, Mel says:
We’re not only creating arbitrary categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste; we’re also creating a bogeyman of ‘bad taste’ — saying that it doesn’t follow the same embodied, pragmatic and affective processes that ‘good taste’ does. That it can only be observed with farcical incredulity and that people with ‘bad taste’ are fundamentally retarded in some way because they aren’t ashamed of the way they look.
Ok, I know I was rude about Fashion_Suicide (it’s still ewwww btw…), but I’d back London Sunshine over the pathetic (nay, bathetic) Sam and the City any day of the week. I first fell for London Sunshine when she wrote the most acerbic piece I’ve seen yet about Heather Mills-McCartney-BECOMING POSH.
I mean, where else but the Fairfax papers hit-whoringdom website is there even a “dating blogger”?
I mean, even nerve.com, a NYC-centric dating site [and incidentally it’s where you can go to meet your bisexual literature PhD from Columbia dream boy/girl], retired its Cinesthesia blog in 2004. [Tag = “A sharp-eyed femme dates and mates in the East Village.” Whatevs, darling.]
But back to my point. Check out this post. What more important dating question could there be than:
Let’s have some feedback from the boys – are you looking for a greater spectrum of colour or are you happy with the natural look?
She even mentions the real Sam in Sex and the City!
Just sayin…
It’s Jessica Simpson, who’s taken to making new, ahem, friends via social networking.
So, you know all those profiles on MySpace that claim to be Jessica Simpson? Well, those are not hers. Oh, Jessica Simpson is on MySpace, but she’s hiding behind a fake profile so she can meet guys online. According to Life Style Extra, Simpson has become addicted to the “social Networking” (read: Dating) site, and goes online every chance she gets.
“A source told Britain’s More magazine: “After she split up with John Mayer, she set up a MySpace page to meet new people. She did it in a fake name but got really into it. She’s totally addicted. Whenever she’s at home, she’s on her laptop.”
Jessica is said to be seduced by the freedom and anonymity internet dating provides.
The source added: “Jessica loves the idea she can use the internet to look for a man who’s interested in her personality. She pretends to be this shy Texan girl.”
Now I’m not sure if it’s really the best thing to lie to prospective love interests online, but somehow, I don’t think the guys will dissapointed when Jessica shows up to the date, rather than some “shy Texan girl.”
On the other hand, the 30 year old stockbroker with a Porsche our starlet has been chatting up might turn out to be a 14 year old junior high kid. I hope she likes him for his personality.
Continue reading ‘If you go down to Myspace today, you’re in for a big surprise’
Tonight’s Four Corners featured the burgeoning practice of cosmetic surgery and highlighted the biz aspects and the contestation within the medical profession over who can do it. [You can watch it streamed online here - if you have really good broadband]. I thought it largely missed its mark - aside from some early and interesting comments from social anthropologist Meredith Jones, there was little discussion of what drives people to surgical makeovers, and for that matter it didn’t highlight the fact that men are increasingly getting into the act. Nor were the real issues about the subsumption of medical expertise by the language and law of competition in the market more than touched on. At least for the first set of issues, that’s not so for the fabbo new book Beauty Junkies by American writer Alex Kuczynski. There’s a great review of the book by Toni Bentley at The New York Times, which describes the final frontier for one such Junkie, Mrs X (among other insights):
Mrs. X also visits two or three plastic surgeons about three times a year to discuss what needs fixing. She has been injected with Gore-Tex, Botox and Artecoll, and is a member of a Restylane frequent-user awards program. (How many miles of Restylane gets you a freebie?) She has had liposuction and breast augmentation — in, out, then in again, but bigger — and has “done� her eyes and brows. “She is,� Kuczynski notes, “among her peer group, considered the norm.�
Last year, Mrs. X crossed the final frontier with labiaplasty — getting that whole mess down there cleaned up, tightened up and, as it were, re-virginized.
There’s a strange new feature at Suicide Girls:
Fashion_Suicide is a project of SuicideGirls. A global team of all SuicideGirl street photographers brings world fashion to you, from high to low, punk to posh. Today’s photo comes to us from SG Brit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Are you a SuicideGirl with a discerning eye for fashion and a passion for street photography? Drop us a line at Fashion_Suicide and contribute your own vision of the world.
It’s named appropriately, as discerning fashionistas can also observe here and here (shamefully the latter effort is from Sydney).
And it’s not exactly taking off. Says Fractal:
Good God…Please tell me that outfit is some sort of joke, or this is a “What NOT to wear” column.
I think we at LP can do better. Use this thread to submit the fashion dos and don’ts of today’s world. I’ll kick off over the fold with the inappropriate outfit to wear when you’re getting a celebrity divorce. Yes, folks, it’s Heather Mills-McCartney seeking to achieve her apparent aim of becoming the new POSH.
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