Survival Zine

I decided at 2AM this my morning to stay up and make a zine of survival mechanisms and just me talking about my favorite things, like CDG, Lady Vengeance, Beyonce, etc. I have not slept yet I am going to go do that soon probably. 

It is 16 pages long and in color and downloadable from my Google Drive, so you can download it and print it out for yourself and forward it to your friends also. The images are colored weird on Google Drive viewer, but if you download the zine, it will be fine. In any case, it is for you. It is for free. Please comment if you read it, so I know you've seen it! I hope you enjoy it and I wish you so much love for 2014. 

Here is the link. I love you a lot, 

Arabelle

a$ap, leather, and a reframing of luxury

When I go to sleep at night (or more accurately, 4:33 A.M on most nights), I'm at my most  delusional from sleep deprivation but also most active when it comes to things I want to talk about. Something about being incredibly loopy makes my mind break open a little bit and I see things a lot clearer in terms of the big picture. Like, the other night, it struck me that most people's idea of "luxury" is pretty outdated, and it's causing some strange hypocrisy and more than a little racism and classism (not that this is new, pft) when it comes to the 'new' luxury consumer. By this I mean -- there are a lot of amazing designers who cater exclusively to the kind of hyper-aware consumer who doesn't buy often, but buys very loyally to a handful of brands, and their aesthetic is deeply based in streetwear, but strangely, these consumers think it's ok to scorn the people who inspire the designers they're buying from. Listen -- luxury is not a static thing, it's no longer a Chanel 2.55 and some YSL heels and Tom Ford lipstick. It's also the limited edition Supreme t-shirt, it's also your leather laser-cut mesh shorts you wear when you're pretending you're exercising (but really just scoping out babes on the High Line), it's paying hundreds of dollars for a fashion sweatshirt. 

 

You don't need to have a lot of material things to be living in luxury. Luxury is about options, quality, choice, not quantity, you know? For example: minimalism is very luxurious. When you're poor or working class, I/you never try to throw things away because you always want to find a use for them. Fixing is more of an option, so you'll keep something even if it's broken for a little while. You don't know when you can get something better so you keep all things mediocre. And the stuff piles up. You might end up hoarding. To intentionally practice minimalism, you have some kind of understanding you will probably always be able to buy whatever you need when you want it. Space is the ultimate luxury: Comme des Garcon's ultimate status symbol is their incredibly sparse store spaces in Tokyo, a place where square footage is rare and prestigious. And Comme is not your traditional purveyor of luxury, with it's boiled and  intentionally torn wools and strangeness, but it's still luxury. Luxury is just as much about the rejection of traditional status items as the appropriation of more 'lazy' items like sweatshirts and sneakers, and the appropriation of pedestrian fabrics and unusual things like manmade plastics. Anti-fashion is still fashion, after all. The language of luxury is the same as the language of privilege. Denying status symbols of what you have doesn't mean you don't have it. It's the same with privilege. They both operate in terms of economics, and capitalism, and identity. When we don't bring these things into a discussion on fashion trends & marketing, we're choosing to ignore the importance of these things to how consumers treat one another. You can argue that brands shouldn't have to care about that stuff, but I am a romantic and I want to believe brand culture at it's best extends to build a community that takes care of one another. I've seen it first hand and have had it myself, so I know it exists, and I know brands are aware of the culture they create or aspire to create. I definitely feel kinship to other black crows of CDG, and I know my lolita friends feel community within loli. 

Which brings me to my real point: no one has the final say in what a brand should mean to someone. Just because you know a lot about this one brand doesn't mean a newcomer isn't any less worthy of wearing their stuff. We're all buying into a personal experience of a universal projection. Hypebeasts making fun of A$AP Rocky for wearing Rick Owens or whatever, and fashionistas making fun of Riri at Chanel Cruise, I see you. And the masculine goth dudes dressed in Rick Owens like to forget Rick is (inarguably) a huge kinky queer dude who loves hip hop (Zebra Katz 4ever) and doesn't take his work very seriously (pony play tails on the runway, goth metal bands suspended in air, photoshoots of him cumming in his own mouth, come on) and he probably loves A$AP Rocky. And people who idolize Coco Chanel seem to conveniently forget she was also married to a Nazi, sold people out to the Nazi Party, and fled to Switzerland because of it. I personally think it's hysterical that now Chanel is best friends with WOC, because it would utterly upset Coco, and anything that upsets a Nazi makes me super satisfied. Basically: all your faves would probably surprise you. There's always more to know about a person and a brand. I don't enjoy taking things at face value -- I'm insufferable that way. 

 Just because you own an item from a brand, doesn't mean you have the rights to dictate your personal experience with the brand to other people who want something from them too. People experience clothes very differently, you know? When I say I love fashion, my love for it is bound up for it in many different experiences, and books, and personal journeys with clothes. I like very specific aesthetics in a handful of designers, and I spend a lot of time researching them and their inspirations and  little to no time reading fashion magazines or trend watching. When someone else says they love fashion, they might mean they love buying fashion magazines and they really like Coach bags and collect them. We're saying the same words, but the stories behind them are a lot different. And both are completely legitimate and neither negates from the other. 

Anyway, that's my super dense fashion feels post for now. Broke it up with pictures of my take on the eponymous "fashion person" outfit I see on old-school industry insiders, the ones who don't dress up for street style photographers -- they slip in and out of the shows to get what they want, and they invariably do it in leather. I really do love this outfit, and the fact you can replicate it throughout all price ranges. I've included links to similar looks, though my take is all vintage. I am not wearing shoes in these photos, because I'm at home and I don't do that because these photos were taken on my bed -- and I'm not wearing shoes on my bedding for the internet. No shoes allowed. Anyway, thank you for reading this wall of text! I hope you leave a comment.

if it's good it's worth it, or, a long ramble about fashion feels.

 Note: This is a long blog post and I know the text of my blog is small, you might want to enlarge it. Also, read the actual paragraphs first and captions second, I only included images so you wouldn't die of boredom. I CARE. 

One of my favorite things to do is visit stores where I can't really afford stuff and obsess over my favorite designers. I try to only buy investment pieces now, which means I spend more, but also, (ideally) less often. The idea of the investment piece to me used to be a super statement piece, usually runway -- because most of my investment pieces are runway Comme des Garcons, haha. Investment pieces don't have to be expensive, just high quality, something you know you would wear for years to come, something that hopefully means something to you, made with quality craftsmanship. This eliminates most fast fashion but also, if you think about it some high end products too. I mean, just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's good.

JW. Anderson Min Skirt, $665. Proenza Schouler Leather Woven Skirt, $648.

There is an inevitable markup for it being a label of repute, but putting that aside, it just might not be made well enough if you look at the stitching, it might not have lining (or be lined properly), it might not fit just so, the fabric might be totally average (why the hell would you spend hundreds on a 100% polyester dress, I truly do not know). I think there is a lot of value in actually going into a store and looking at clothes before you plonk money down. It's not always possible, but it's important. Physical interaction with clothes is the only reason I bother going to events anymore. I don't care about your DJ. I don't care about your catering (unless it's yummy and open bar, let's be real ok), if you're trying to get me out of my hermit cave you better present something worth the trip. Seeing friends is awesome and luckily part of the job since so many of them work in fashion for a living, but I want to be impressed and inspired by the clothes in the industry -- because people revolve in and out of their jobs in New York like musical chairs, but the clothes will stay for years.

The fact CDG used this quote is funny because Rei adamantly doesn't align her work as art, she is a businesswoman. To align herself with Ai WeiWei, a political artist and dissident, is great/funny/strange, just like her. The method in which she does business and brands her company is as political and paradoxical as her designers, and so I love her endlessly not just for the designs her house produces but the method in which they are represented. It's this rebellious, masters-tools-to-fuck-with-the-master's-system approach to things that I look for in all of the brands I admire.

 That being said, there are a few brands that over the years, I've grown to totally obsess over and admire almost as much as CDG. Their craftsmanship totally blows everyone out of the water and it's clear even in a 2D landscape the internet is, but in person, I literally cannot help myself from petting their work hypnotically. It just kind of shouts at you and is utterly impossible to ignore, because it's so good. Literally perfect seams, perfect cuts, perfect lining, the fabric is beautiful, supple, and often intricate. And when you do a little research and realize they source the highest quality products from all around the world just to weave in layers to form the perfect basket weave or the most luxurious, strangely psychedelic brocade, you kind of get overwhelmed. Or at least I do. Because it's really the end result of a long process of a lot of communication between multiple factories around the world (or even the now rare local garment industry), a lot of testing, probably a lot of failing, and all of that work went into every yard of fabric and every button and now it's in your hands. That's so fucking cool to me. That's the perfect balance of art and commerce. That's the fashion system in the purest form.

Ann D. is a fashion saint when it comes to her method to design which is why I'm including her. You should read the quote that goes with this image here.

 It gets muddled with diffusion, with knockoffs, etc -- though it's clear those are parts of the system as a whole now too of course -- and the quality is lost for easy profit margins the farther down the line it goes. But when you see the original, pure end result of a small label's work, it's something I can't help but appreciate and be in awe of. Because yeah, J.W Anderson and Proenza Schouler might be now international fashion names but they still have a very small workforce. Actually, Anderson and his small team (I think maybe 11 others work with/for him?) produce every piece. The name might be big but the workforce is small, and it took so much to get here. And it takes very little to reproduce the material idea and the profits are disgusting, and sometimes the knockoffs are weirdly good, but you know, I'm a romantic and I want the real thing, I want a connection and I want to pay my respect to all of the people. All of the people, not just the famous designer name but their workers, and the factory workers they get their source materials from that often have shitty working conditions. Paying it forward helps sustain so many relationships that are the backbone of practices that make every beautiful piece of clothing we see on the runway, and those practices are dying out or being bought up by LVMH etc in an effort to survive.

Chanel Couture. It is absolutely gobsmacking how stupid expensive a single piece of couture can run you, but also, how much labor goes into it -- hundreds, no, thousands of hours of manual labor and so many people contribute to every hard of embroidery. Feathers from one part of the world, beads from another, buttons from another, fabric woven somewhere else with materials from 3 places.....etc.

Sustainability is a difficult practice to get down even theoretically and as such we don't discuss it a lot in fashion, we're more focused on immediacy and we're suffering for it. I think Karl Lagerfeld is leading the pack in terms of keeping small, high quality fashion manufacturers alive actually, and that is because LVMH gives him free reign and essentially endless spending money. But the details of that deal are pretty vague to me, and I wonder if the places they save are working exclusively for LVMH now or are able to work with small independent designers., ones in the margin. I think if we're going to discuss sustainability we need to find responsibility within ourselves to contribute to that and not expect big corporations to buy up small ones to have them survive. Personal relationships as a consumer seem to be diminishing, and it's a little scary, you know? Because fashion as an industry based on hierarchies means that somebody somewhere is getting screwed over really badly and I want people to care. At the root of it all, my interest in fashion is a feminist one.

Jesus. I didn't expect to write that much. I mean, I think about this stuff all the time but I never really write about it, outfit posts are """""easier"""". But, I don't like being seen as purely a personal style blogger because what I'm really interested and what got me interested in blogging was actual FASHION. Blogging weekly about "look at the cool stuff I'm wearing" is not fashion so much as a personal statement of brand and identity. That's good and all but it's not as interesting to me. I pretty much stopped caring about what I wear anyway because everything I own is nice and goes together because I have a method and it leaves me room to think about stuff I care about. And I care deeply about fashion as a system, as a process to study, as something with theory behind it. So I'm gonna write a lot about actual FASHION because I think if people know more about it as a system that participates in capitalism they will maybe think more critically about what it means on a personal level. By that, I mean as in how its related to personal style blogging, and how that relates to their purchasing power, and the visibility of people in consumer culture, and how that is linked to systems of oppression, and maybe that will bring some change.

This is my version of activism, this is what I have knowledge of and what I know I can provide, and this is something I don't see talked about much in the fashion blogosphere by "popular" fashion bloggers which I guess I am considered a member of. But I want to talk about things that matter in any way that I can. And well, I guess this is how. I hope you actually ended up reading this whole thing and wanna talk about it with me too.

Much love,

Arabelle

 

Lingerie Sunday: Mimi Smith

For this week I thought I'd highlight a really cool artist I've actually been reading about in class. Mimi Smith! Frieze Magazine has a good bio on her work.

Mimi Smith. Timelines Installation (Shoes, Underpants, Undershirts), 1999–2005. Source

Smith was part of the Feminist Art Movement which began in earnest in the 1970's. Most of my favorite artists emerged from that period, Smith is a new favorite but definitely a big one because all of her work deals with the relationship between identity of Women v.s what they wear. It's all very snarky and deals with the cult of domesticity and capitalism and public/private and all these feminist catchphrases and Big Things to Care About. I could wax on and on about these things, but I'm not up for writing an essay. This is just me (hopefully eloquently) fangirling an artist I admire. Anyway.

Mimi Smith. Steel Wool Peignoir, 1966–1966. Source.

I'm very amused by this steel wool peignoir- peignoirs are like old school lingerie nightgown bathrobe situations, you know, like the ones Golden Era movie stars wear-. This is rad because it looks absolutely beautiful and luxurious but it's made of steel wool. It's so snarky and a nice commentary on the reality of domestic labor and the expectations surrounding women.

 Besides that piece though, she did a series called Protectors Against Illness, which is the main reason I'm obsessed with her. In the 1990's, Smith had breast cancer and did this series. The reason why I'm highlighting her on Lingerie Sunday is because of her "Tamoxifan Bra". Tamoxifan is the medication given to women who have had breast cancer; it is a remission drug. The bra is incredibly pretty, but what is unexpected is that it's decorated with Tamoxifan pills.

Protector Against Illness: Red Tamoxifen Bra, 1997, nylon, lace, tamoxifen pills, satin hanger, 16 x 15 inches. Source. Second image is a collection spanning 1993-197, fabrics, pills, vitamins, surgical masks, ribbon, lace, hangers.
Source.

 Long-time readers will know that I have health problems and I have what I call chronic sick people humor. I just like things that talk about pills in a smart and funny way that isn't your average "blah we're all on drugs fuck medication it's capitalists way of enslaving the citizens!!11" discourse. For me, medication is a daily and important part of my life and Mimi's way of combining 'chronic sick people humor' with clothing and material identity really hits close to home for me. I like the discussion she opens up about illness, and protection, and luxury and necessity through pretty frilly things like underwear. I relate to it. It complicates things you might not ordinarily think about.

Protector Against Illness: Black Tamoxifen Bra, 1996, nylon, lace, tamoxifen pills, acrylic paint, satin hanger, 16 x 15 inches. Source.

This edition of LS doesn't really deal with purchasable lingerie which I think people were expecting, but I'm not one to care about other people's expectations. Like I said in my last LS post -- lingerie is as much a method of self care to me as it is a category of clothing. I admire what Mimi did in response to her cancer -- when life hands you some deep shit, you make the most of it. And she did! And it's beautiful. 

politics of presentation

“There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn’t one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, Imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be Enough.” - Marya Hornbacher 

I just want to seriously say that my blogging is probably going to change. Post-CatLadySoul tumblr actualities means more about me and less about dealing with bullshit. I gave a lot of myself in every medium and made myself really approachable and now I want it to be more about me now. And by that I mean like, not about an image I present, not all outfits.... my personal style is kind of whatever now anyway. I want to talk about fashion. The things about fashion that make me fall in love with aesthetics. The things that influence me and ground me and elevate me, and not the surface effects. My personal aesthetics can go whatever somewhere else. It's more about the ritual of it to me right now than the outcome. I am obsessed with rituals.

Take for example, the ritual of getting dressed to go out. Since depression, I have cute clothes and wonderful things to share, but I mostly wear all black, cashmere, big sweaters, Whatever Outfits, and just focus on my makeup. I can pull together a nice outfit blindfolded simply because my closet at my dorm is well edited to the point that it's kind of impossible to fuck up (unless you really insist on wearing slob clothes, which I do, and which is why they have their own drawer so I don't have to face my Cute Clothes) but I usually only have the energy to do so much before I wanna just crawl back to bed and watch Breaking Bad, and lipstick is easier to put on than Comme des Garcons. Privileged Depression Fashion Problems, but you know, I work hard for my money when I'm not depressed. Anyway. When I get dressed now, I zero in on my face and hair because they are the things I see first and most in reflective surfaces, and my black outfits are just there for mood. I just want to see Me now. Remind myself I'm still here.

So this weekend I had my webcam running pretty much all the time as I got ready to go out, just because #narcissism. My makeup process can take anywhere from 5 minutes and out the door to 3 hours, depending on glitter, and effort, and change in plans, and also my Netflix queue. I am just endlessly amused at the fact that I can change my appearance so thoroughly using mica and powder and lighting, you know? I find pleasure in the transformation and the exploration of myself. Clothes don't hold much interest to me in the transformation category at the moment because I don't have the money to spend on the clothes I want anyway, and I'm just Bored, so now my obsession has gone straight to makeup. And it's more fun, because you can do a lot with so little, and it's easier to fuck up, which also means it's easier to discover new things. And I enjoy that a lot. The concentration and skill required to get a perfectly even cat eye, the artistry of blending scarily dark pigmented shadows so you don't look like a clown, obsessively checking for fallout, for unblended areas, for bleeding of lip color, for symmetry. You're constantly busy creating this image, and it makes everything else fall away and that is just such a nice safe haven you know? 

“Busy the body, so the mind can be free” - Wade

 I especially like, though, going through this ritual of conventional beauty but fucking it up a little. Making it wrong and awkward and taking possession of it so instead of hiding behind something pretty, but ultimately hollow, making it raw and exposed and melodramatic. I like developing myself as a character in my head and then releasing it into something else. The process of creating something very pretty and then fucking it up is something I've always been obsessed with, which is why I feel such a kinship to Comme des Garcons & co. I don't want everything perfect and in place, I want everything slightly off kilter. I want it personalized. I want things to serve me. I want the experience of being able to take what hurts me or makes me anxious and turning it against itself and utilizing all the ugly feelings and making them into something I see home in. It doesn't matter what the other people see as long as I see something that gets me through. Consequences come after my process and the eventuality of a process being over means it did it's job, and I'm still here, and that is all I can really ask for.

Jean-Paul Sarte, No Exit

Peter Greenaway, The Pillow Book, 1996.

Things I feel a real connection with at the moment:

• Brian Eno 1996, A Year of Swollen Appendixes. My favorite excerpt: "Art is something that happens,  a process not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen."
• This poem by Shinji Moon.  
• This playlist. 
• This movie.

Ben Vautier

This is primarily a continuation of a text post I did on girlmonstering you can still read here. 

The storm is making the lights flicker so I've got to go pack an evacuation bag. Hope you're all safe and whole. - Arabelle

the weird girl trope.

I have been trying really hard not to say anything brash in response to Isabel's post, mostly because I respect her and consider her a really cool lady who has helped me out on occasion, but I'm really fucking bummed and personally insulted at her last post and I can't not say anything. (And I'm not impressed with the girl-hate going on in the comments section -- a moderated comments section, where people are calling other people shallow for choosing to wear "pounds of" makeup. A lot of those commentors are my readers too, so I'm going to call you all out. Hi, I'm mad at you.) Note, this is 100% my own personal view, and I'm not speaking on behalf of Rookie or Girl Guts, though I do contribute to both. Oh, and I had purple hair. And I have a colorful wardrobe. So, there's that. You can see why I'm kind of insulted. 

Me, in my colorful wardrobe and purple hair, about to perform a ritual to invalidate your existence. 

Listen. I pay attention to all the criticisms I see about Rookie, about GG's, and a lot of time it's 100% valid -- yes, we do need to try harder to be more inclusive. Sometimes we mess up. But what really annoys me is when the criticism about these venues is that they are summarily just Manic Pixie Dream Girl establishments, that they are snowglobes of teen nostalgia about things we might never have experienced ourselves, and that is bullshit. In fact, a lot of the media coverage of Rookie has summarized it to be this little shrine of Tavi's fondness for Daria and whatever for 20 somethings, when it is not that at all. (Putting aside the fact Tavi isn't in her 20's herself yet...) And a lot of the criticisms on Rookie being this shrine to teenage girl nostalgia are really just bizarre to me because.... Rookie is a website for teenage girls. As in, that is the purpose. So duh. That is the space in which ist intentionally occupies. That is who it's for. It's not about you if you're not a teenage girl, though you are welcome to read it, of course. You just aren't the priority.

It's not supposed to be a website dedicated to becoming an adult, it's a website where teenage girls can read stuff about being a teenage girl, and are treated like mature people whose lives revolve around things they care about, and they are taken seriously and their desires and hobbies are celebrated, it's not about their relationship with boys and how to get them to notice you like so many other 'teen platforms' are for. Someone literally wrote, "Why is Rookie pushing a youth-centric agenda? What's wrong with growing up?" And I... I'm speechless, because like..you're missing the damn point. Rookie is a website for the youth. It's about appreciating your adolescence. And if you don't like that, well, ok then, but complaining about it like it is doing you a personal disservice by not doing exactly what you want when you aren't the target audience seems  like a waste of your time and energy. 

Read the about us for Rookie here. Note the distinct lack of "website for twenty something's to be nostalgic about stuff and be twee" in the description. 

I also feel really grossed out and shamed by the idea of me having displaced anybody just for my personal decision of dying my hair purple/green/whatever and for my decision to wear colorful clothes. My appearance isn't a vessel for your own existence to be defined off of. I don't exist just to upset or make you feel more real. We're not being existentialists here. And as someone who has known me / read me / blah blah for years, you know my style is something I treat as personally and as intimately as my thoughts, so for someone to say I have displaced them just for my personal attire, that I have essentially invalidated their own presence in the blogosphere, that is something I take personally, and it hurts and it makes me angry. Because if you leave the blogosphere, that's on you. I've said it before that the blogosphere is fucked up, but it's not something you can blame on the "weird girl" trope, it's something to be blamed on the larger system of capitalism and privileging a more marketable ready to sell appearance over sincerity and unique voices. It's certainly not another person's responsibility to validate you as a person. If you are blogging for validation, you are going to be disappointed, because at what point is x amount of comments going to be enough? How many likes will make you happy? There is always going to be a desire for just one more comment. Just one more reblog. That is so exhausting  and it's putting he power over your insecurities in their hands.You're looking for happiness in other people, and you're shaming them for their own appearances, for them taking up space you wish was yours, when there is plenty space for both of you to exist peacefully. 

If I wear black and white, it cancels out the purple hair, so I'm not a Weird Internet Girl anymore, right? Am I doing this right?

If there is anything, anything that I have ever wanted to make clear through my blogging is that yes, there is enough space for you to be whoever you want, to create your own identity. We should be building each other up, not shaming each other. There is enough of that everywhere already. Celebrate your identity and I will 100% be there with you, as long as you don't fuck with mine. And my identity happens to include purple hair and colorful clothes, but it is certainly not the end all be all, and to be reduced to the trope of being simple another "weird girl" who sells the idea of a cult of perpetual adolescence, it bothers me. Because I don't want my identity to be reduced to that -- it's more than that, all of my personal appearance choices are things I've made purposefully and meaningfully because they help me feel like the person I'm supposed to be, and my own decisions validate the person I hope I am. Everything I wear and do is to celebrate the fact that I exist and I can make my own choices and be whatever the hell I want to be, and none of that takes away from you being the person you want to be. At all. The purpose of my blog is not to make someone else want to be me, it's just to share who I am and hope that someone is inspired enough by my honesty and my sincerity and acceptance that they want to be who they are, too, and to explore who that person might be. This is not a place where I prioritize looking good for other people, it's a place where I prioritize looking good and feeling good about myself and where I can be honest about my insecurities and dreams and my feelings. 

I am not a 2-D Teen Weird Girl of the Internet made to serve you and make you want to dye your hair too, and if you see me as that, you aren't seeing me at all. You have failed to look closer. And that is your loss. 

edit: this post was not to meant to be a "isabel is so wrong let's bash on her" post, so please don't resort to mud slinging -- i've responded to comments in the comments section and i consider the matter closed. thank you for reading.

some notes on napkins.

Visionaire / Comme des Garcons via  rifles @ tumblr

“…the female narcissist is dangerous to patriarchy because she obviates the desiring male subject (loving herself, she needs no confirmation of her desirability from him). in the case of an artistic practice that performs female narcissism (such as wilke’s), the threat lies in its making superfluous the arbiters of artistic value. already presuming her desirability, wilke obviates the modernist critical system; loving herself, she needs no confirmation of her artistic “value.” 

—	amelia jones, body art: performing the subject

“Those who subvert social norms are, ostensibly, people who have forgotten that they can be seen, publicly, at any time. Therefore, when they transgress social norms—by expressing physical affection for a person not visibly coded as the opposite sex, for example, or by being fat and rejecting social and bodily invisibility—they need to be reminded of this omniscient social gaze, and in the absence of institutional discipline, must be punished so they do not transgress again. This is the mechanism by which a dude who sees me in a vividly-colored dress, walking alone as though I either don’t know or don’t care that I am defying bodily norms, feels compelled to scream “UGLY FAT BITCH” at me. He is applying social discipline and teaching me a lesson: Everyone can see you, and your body and/or behavior are unacceptable.”

—	So Michel Foucault and Jeremy Bentham walk into an elementary school cafeteria*

Cindy Sherman Untitled #479, 1975

I have been very very happy lately, friends and parties and Beyonce do that to a person. That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking critically though... and thinking critically makes me feel sad in kind of a detached way. I wrote this the other night on my tumblr, and I collected all of these things on Tumblr too, but I need the conciseness of a blog post with all of them together to understand what I want from art / critique / myself. Anyway, here goes.

I want ridiculousness in fashion. I want ugly. I want destruction, I want imperfection, flaws, ripped seams, extra armholes, mutated glory that when people walk by me they whisper that they just don’t get it. I want to confuse you. I don’t want timelessness. I want everything, right here, right now, no regard for looking regal or rich or calm and collected. Why do I have to be classy anyway? Why do I need to impress you? When I slip on something I love I’m not doing it for you, I am doing it to feel good about myself, I am doing it to be transported into a place in my mind where I am safe and powerful and the cracks in my existence are filled with gold and diamonds and chocolate and goodness. I want to be able to change what I’m wearing mid walk — flip my jacket inside out, upside down, endless options, I want to tear apart what I’m wearing and what I represent and build back up again. I want you to have to think about what I represent, the space I take up. I want you running scared because you don’t understand and I don’t want you to. Every fucking seam of my jacket represents something you can’t have because I don’t want you to. 

This is mine. 

All mine.

 You can’t have it. 

if the clothes fit

Someone asked me if I consider myself a fashion blogger or makeup blogger or what. At first I was offended (I get defensive easily LET IT BE KNOWN) but then I thought about it. It's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, considering the state of this blog. I'm not as interested in "fashion" as I once was, let's start there. As in, I don't spend hours trolling thru style.com archives anymore, taking notes on each and every collection in a Google Doc when I'm supposed to be paying attention in class. It's not as though I'm ignoring fashion, but rather, my focus in the industry is very finely tuned -- now more than ever. I know what I want out of fashion and I'm focusing all my personal style and creativity on attaining what I want out of the industry -- nothing more, nothing less. I think that is what makes fashion empowering to me, as a feminist. I use fashion as a tool of power/personal identity as much as I am used by fashion as an influencer thru my voice in social media. When people ask me about how I can possibly be feminist and be into fashion I feel like the answer should be obvious: it lets me do what I want. The end.  Minh-Ha T. Pham says it pretty wonderfully in this Ms. article:

If feminists ignore fashion, we are ceding our power to influence it.

 I mean, I get why people don't 'get' the fashion industry, I get that the representations of it can make it seem like a totally shallow, soul sucking industry. It can be. The parodies and satire are funny because they are sadly, woefully, true, in a lot of cases. Fashion isn't deep unless you give it depth. Once you put power and thought behind it, put meaning, it becomes something else: agency. Now, this agency can sometimes be at odds with privilege. It can be hard to like fashion when the only versions of fashion we see in popular culture are the ones modeled by skinny young white girls whose bodies don't resemble ours, who're wearing $500 tshirts and $798 skirts and $1000 worth of jewelry on each wrist. Make no mistake: I'm not hating on the people who can afford these things. Because rich people who see themselves in the popular representations, they might be using fashion as a means of identity, too -- it might just be easier for them to do it. There is nothing wrong with being rich, it's what you do with the money that counts. People read designer clothes and see what they want to see, you know? People see expensive clothes and think, "That person has it easy. That person is probably not like me." And it's easy to hate someone for it. I've done it before and I'll probably do it again in the future, I'm not perfect.  But you also have to take into consideration that fashion can't be equivocated to designer clothes -- it's bigger than that and it's smaller than that. Essentializing it into a scene for rich white girls is selling it short. You're dismissing the power it can give you, and that power is one of the most pervasive and widely used forms of communication you can have as a person. I mean, yeah. I think it's really stupid and fucked up that fashion designers don't make space for larger sizes -- I think it's unforgivable, really. And I think there needs to be a change. There is a lot wrong with the industry, but I think at heart fashion can be good, too.

 I think it's weird that people hate on fashion and in the same breath encourage people to "be themselves" and be unqiue. Girls are told we should "maintain ourselves" and in the same breath it's apparently uncool to be girly because being girly means we're dramatic and troublemakers and guys have 'so much less drama' and blah blah blah. All the mixed messages can really fuck with a girl. And I think a lot of the resentment towards fashion can be grounded in self-hate & the special snowflake complex.There's another blogger that said it pretty succinctly:

Jenny Holzer, Source

“Fashion is one of the very few forms of expression in which women have more freedom than men. And I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s typically seen as shallow, trivial, and vain. It is the height of irony that women are valued for our looks, encouraged to make ourselves beautiful and ornamental… and are then derided as shallow and vain for doing so. 

I love fashion. I hate fashion. I can't really live without fashion, because I can't escape clothes. I can claim defeat and pull on sweatpants and keds or jeans and a hoodie, but it's like slipping into someone else's skin, it doesn't feel like me. Fashion gets me into my own space, it's like I can breathe properly. I know that fashion can make people feel really bad about themselves but I think if you subvert it and use it and make it work for you and not the other way around it can be more than you'd ever expect......use the power it has and you get stronger because of it. I wrote a post about agency and fashion a little while ago, if you remember. The words are as relevant as ever:

I always return to the sentiment that my favorite clothes are my armor and my friends. They will never fail me. . . Clothes give me agency where talking often fails. . . I can be a feminist and also love fashion because I believe that your style and how you approach the industry and dissect and create the media can give you agency, give you a voice, give you strength. Passion in any form, like getting dressed (even if that is a simple form), just says that I am here and that I exist and I am not ashamed.

there is no magic word for how i feel

Thrifted Shirt, Vintage Leather Shorts, c/o Rebecca Minkoff Bag, c/o Steve Madden Silver Oxfords, Zana Bayne Harness. It looks like I have a weird rash on my leg but IT'S THE PHOTO FILTER I SWEAR OK

 I was initially reluctant to talk about it (uhm, my being queer) on FP.... it's not that I was ever in the closet, or hiding it from the internet, but FP is a personal style blog and most of my random talking falls into my tumblr. But I have been getting dozens of tumblr asks and emails talking about femme invisibility lately and lesbian self doubt, being uncomfortable with labels, et all and I guess the short of it all is that I've been there too, and I am still there. Being un-straight is hard. For anyone who doesn't identify as strictly heterosexual, we constantly deal with labels, with coming out, with finding others like us, with presentation, with whatever. It is kind of like falling over yourself in the dark, over and over again. Everyone deals with wondering who they like, I guess, but for a lot of queer kids it's not just wondering who they like, but how to translate your feelings about people into a word. Just like, a single word.

Straight kids won't ever have to do that, because their sexuality is normal, represented everywhere, all the time. That is their privilege. They are lucky to have that. Good for them.

Privilege is not something to be ashamed of, and I don't hate straight people, or anyone with privilege.....not on the basis of them having privilege, anyway. It is just imperative that those with privilege acknowledge it. That, of course, is the funny thing about privilege: it's privilege because you don't notice it. It's just there. You don't wonder about it. You don't question it. You dismiss it as the way the world works. Queer kids will never have straight privilege, not in this system, not in this society, not how it is right now, but I mean, it's getting better. But we're still operating under a system where there is one normal, and everyone else is just that: someone else. The other. Queer kids fall into that category.

Now I don't mind being the 'other', and that is perhaps because I don't "look" gay. I don't "look" gay enough to get bullied, I am too femme for people to be like, "look at that dyke," or for people to come up to me and say they've always wanted a gay best friend, or any of that stuff. In fact, lots of people don't realize I'm queer at all. That, you could say, is it's own form of privilege.

I didn't realize there was a word that fit me for a long, long, time. And sometimes there are days that I feel alienated all over again, and I sit lost in thought shuffling through the words that are available: queer, fairy, lesbian, gay, homo, dyke, fag, etc trying to find something that has a ring of meaning to me in it and I can't find anything and I just give up. I do! And I think that is ok. It's scary and weird sometimes, not having a magic word that encompasses who I like, how much I like them, how I like them, and all that stuff the word "heterosexual" or "homosexual" entails, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's different.

 I think we fear that if there isn't a word to describe us, that it means we don't exist or that something is wrong with us as functioning human beings. But there isn't anything wrong with us, it's the system that is fucked. We're changing it though, by talking about it, by acknowledging that it's fucked, that is has to be better, because we have got so much to lose and so much more to gain.

There are so many more things I'd like to talk to you about, and I will, but for now I just wanted to get this out first. I was at my college QSA meeting the other night and we all discussed this exact topic and I wanted to write down my thoughts, so that people who weren't there but want to talk about these things know they are being talked about, and we can talk about it together if you want. This is so, so long, sorry!!!! Anyway. Thank you, love you, bye.

back to school cluelessness

I could say how much I'm totally bummed school is almost back in session, but I would be lying. I'm a huge nerd and cannot wait to spend my entire day at the library and nights sitting in some strangers backyard listening to a very drunk reading of Dylan Thomas poetry and go to basement shows where everyone is basically required to be an english/gender studies/politics major. I love learning and reading and writing 10 page papers and I CANNOT WAIT to do these things.  

Jacket: Pendleton, thrifted Blouse: Vintage dress worn as shirt, thrifted. Skirt: Gift from mom Tights: Thrifted brand new! $0.10 holler. Lips:  Urban Decay Super-Saturated High Gloss Lip Color in Crush.

 In honor of back to school prep, I thought I'd  base the look around my new Modella bag. I took a break from being a goth wabi-sabi ice princess and pulled out colors to do a Clueless-y monochromatic look that is worthy of the backpack. You guys, I am a total sucker for backpacks, especially colorful ones. My Coach sequin backpack is the most used bag I have!   But I want to keep it forever so I put it back in it's duster bag until school starts up again. This is more durable and I quite like it. The magnets are much weaker than the Coach one, but at least it's machine washable.

You might have also noticed my hair color is significantly darker. I dyed it the other day. The vibrant magenta will be back soon enough; that's how my hair looks when it fades over weeks.

Anyway, I know a lot of my readers are high schoolers or about to enter high school and I just wanted to say good luck! High school was such an awesome environment for my creativity and I hope it is the same for you. Just be yourself and don't apologize for it, and you will do just fine. People are jerks but what they say can't hurt you if you don't let it.  If they're giving you looks for trying something new, just throw it back in their faces and smile when they stare. Nothing will freak them out more, trust me. I know it can be really scary to walk down the hallways in something that doesn't fit in, but it is also super exciting and it's ok to wear what makes you happy. Wear things that make you feel alive, isn't that the thrill of fashion? Clothes make you feel things!! So, please remember, you shouldn't have to apologize for being who you feel you are. Ok? Remember this. Always remember this.



On a lighter note, I'm re-reading my favorite feminist light reads in prep for school and also for this film project I'm working on. It's gonna be really cool I think. The Miranda July isn't actually about feminism but it's an interesting.

Speaking of reads, and also school, since you're probably buying textbooks for the new semester I have partnered up with CampusBookRentals so you can get 15% off your rentals. You'll get free shipping both ways and have the option to choose exactly what day to return your books, it's pretty cool. I have 9 codes to give away, all you have to do is comment below and I'll pick randomly. Please comment with your name, e-mail and what you're studying in school (it can be your major or just a class you're taking).

 I'll pick the recipients Wednesday, August 17th and e-mail you the code and also an e-zine I made on fashion and feminism. If this sounds good, comment! x

i let you call me beautiful

“You Don’t Have to Be Pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.”

 - Erin

James Franco for Candy Magazine.

I caught myself putting on makeup today even though I was running late to a presentation (unfortunately I was too late to enter, because of traffic, and so I ended up siting on the train reading a comic book for three cycles between the first and last stop just to make the trip worth it). Anyway, I was doing my makeup, and doing an incredibly pain in the ass kind of braid because my hair is particularly troubling this week and you know, it wasn't very enjoyable but I felt like I needed to do it because it was expected to me because of what I do for work and play: fashion fashion. Somewhere along the way I decided to make what I love, what I do. Even if I'm going to be poor indefinitely and be unsure of my security for quite awhile and you know, get those looks of both sympathy and pity when parents ask me, "What do I do?"

You know, that look. Sometimes I switch up my major when I'm telling parents of friends what I'm in college for, just to fuck with them. "Philosophy and Cinema Studies." And I see their horror, imagining their children proposing those possibilities to them and I cackle inside, I know it's not nice but well, whatever. I mean, I'm majoring in Gender Studies and Journalism, (so honestly I can just tell the truth and still get that reaction of horror) which are two of the lowest paying majors out of all of them. Fun. Promising. Dirt poor. But, you know, I find the future romantic and I am a dreamer, I like to get lost in my own brain and plan and plan and plan and plan, because the future has every possibility of being better than the past and the present, and I bank everything on those possibilities. 

But anyway. Being pretty. Too often it's just a ritual, sometimes I have to yank myself from habit and intentionally dress ugly to make myself comfortable. Because feeling socially acceptable and 'pretty' is different than feeling like yourself, you know? People have to 'put their face on'. People have to 'get ready to face the world' in the morning. There is that old tale, I think it might actually be in the original Alice in Wonderland (or maybe it was a Grimm fairytale? I love those) that the protagonist stumbles upon a princess, who has a collection of faces but no actual face of her own. And I would just stare at the illustrations of the faces for ever, longer than I would even read the story. We're like that sometimes, aren't we? We don't like showing our faces. 

Sophia Wallace and her series on Gendered  Beauty. 

I guess I could make the point of this post the fact we sometimes rely on makeup to approach the world, but that's done and stale. I mean, yes, but it's certainly not all we rely on. Everything we present ourselves as is a point of presentation and construct and our assumed reality. What we want people to see as us. That can mean anything, boy or girl or genderqueer or nongendered or what have you. I am lucky enough to identify as a girl, and so I am a girl, and most of the time because I am a girl I make myself 'pretty' even if I hate the stares and catcalling and honks. But I don't want to have to do that. I don't think I owe anyone anything when it comes to being pretty. I want to do it for me, not someone else, you know? What I present myself as isn't for someone else's benefit. 

I started playing with my gender when I was visiting someone in an elderly home, I have this hat, my black fedora, and whenever I wear it I want to be a boy and wear Dior Homme suits and slouch even more than I do and not be pretty. I feel like it's an act of rebellion just to wear a dudes hat and ill fitting jeans I stole from a boy I used to know. Everything you wear, everything you chose or chose not to do, can be an important choice. You can be pretty if you want to be, or you can not be, but I think, the important thing is that you make yourself aware of the reasons you are doing so, and hopefully you can also step outside your comfort zone and shake shit up. 

Because a dude wearing a skirt shouldn't be sacrilege (!! Andrej!!), a person who doesn't want to be manly but feel beautiful should feel safe to do so, you know, just these small but important things should be allowed to happen. Right? Right. I don't want future children to be beaten or disowned because we're scared of people who aren't like us, or didn't follow the unspoken rules about dudes wearing certain colors or wearing certain clothing or whatever. I hope one day it's just common sense, not abnormal. 

I let You Call Me Beautiful by Marty McConnell (my favorite poet)

let's talk about things

Super attractive screencap face, I know. Also, I apologize for the scrappy  lighting, it was the first and only time I filmed in non-natural lighting sooooooo. I was a little nervous at first as you can tell because I don't want to misspeak but bear with me.

I was reluctant to make a video on feminism (so it's not completely about that) because it's kind of a constant learning process -- my view and knowledge of it's history and many branches expands and changes every day, so if I were to try to discuss feminism in one video it'd instantly become dated because my view has changed a little bit. So I'm not going to be talking about feminism as a political theory until I feel more confident in it. Besides, this is a fashion blog first and foremost. Right now, I just wanna know about YOU and what fashion makes YOU feel.

 I've already gotten a bunch of wonderful and poignant responses through email and on the youtube page but it is only right to post the video here too. Hopefully after watching this you'd like to leave a comment here discussing your relationship to fashion -- in my next video I'll break it down into more specific questions because the private response was so good -- but ummm yeah. This was primarily directed to my female readers because it deals with makeup and things that are typically feminine but the same questions can be applied to others when you replace makeup with something overtly male. Activities or objects that represent gender ideals like makeup and 'manly' things like sports (since it's male dominated?) do you actively participate in them and would you if you weren't male/female/non-binary/genderqueer? Why, do you suppose?

These are topics I think about all the time, and I've filled up a bunch of journals delving into my relationship with it all but I just wanna see what you guys make of it all. :)

sisterhood interrupted

Good vibes rollercoaster! It's like when I'm having an amazing week my best friends have terrible ones. I don't get it. It's hard struggling to keep everyone on the same level of contentment. Is that a word? Contentment? Contentedness? Kanyeshrug.

In any case my Thanksgiving break couldn't come sooner! I love my schoolwork but I could def use a break so I can catch up with non-college friends and get a break from this environment. Also, I prefer blogging at home and I have sooo much to show you guys. I always say that, don't I? Anyway. Here are pictures that have inspired me lately, in no particular order. I don't have credit for all of them (unfortunately) but their original sources can be found on my tumblr.

http://sophieconvey.blogspot.com/

Lately when I look at photoshoots -- and I don't do that as often anymore, mostly because I am not particularly inspired by any photoshoots I've seen recently -- the model casting often incites more thought for me than the actual clothes. I wonder more and more what a look usually worn by a very skinny white girl would look like on a super curvy hispanic or black or asian girl. This isn't a new question by any means but it still remains to be seen in magazines, and I don't think it will be answered anytime soon in a non-gimmicky way. You know, something that lasts more than one issue of a magazine, a movement that lasts more than one season.

 For sure, VOGUE recently had that asian photoshoot, and also Terry Richardson (gag) did that photoshoot of Proenza on one plus sized and one 'regular' sized model, but if I have to count on my hands the time the fashion industry has played with the 'body barrier' then obviously it hasn't done a very progressive job breaking it. But then again, it's not really a top priority, is it. Fashion apparently just looks better and more convincing on skinny people with long hair, right? That's what we're told, that is the idea we end up perpetuating a lot of the time. We're also told that what makeup to wear, when, amongst other things, but of course if you wear too MUCH makeup then you are trying too hard and you're slutty and your pictures are handed out by the self proclaimed Ugly Police.

I dunno what I'm trying to say here, really, I'm just writing out things I've been thinking for a long while now. I have no manifesto written up about how to change all of this. I'm just saying, you know, that I'm very very glad I was never into magazines when I was a little girl, because even though I love them now for the fashion aspect if I were to have looked at them when I was like six or seven and thought everything they told me was right I would be a much different person now, I think. I don't think I'd have end up liking me as I am as much.

Anyway, that kind of talk is for another (longer, more thought out) blog post in the future. Or the zine I am making! Or both! Probably both. Until then, here is a wonderful video that is relevant to my life and probably yours. Lovelovelove! I hope you are happy and inspired and well. Belle.