So, I have had a break to do nothing (school and work and not being interested in anything) but today I read the latest Australian Vogue at the hairdresser and I just fell in love with clothes again. Here is a short collection of ramblings and things I love all in the one post because I want to.
1. This miumiu skirt/patchwork style/Codie Young. I love this so much. The skirt is JUST SO GREAT, you guys. And I love how she's paired it with the grey tights, and those structured loafer type shoes that I usually don't really like but are perfect with this look. You couldn't do anything else but smile in this outfit! That sort of patch-work style is so fun but I love the fact it can be structured as well as just a simple skirt like in this photo.
Oh and this Australian model (Codie Young) has fantastic street style. It's quite simple, but she always looks really comfortable and warm wrapped up in layers. Also, I wish I had her hair.
2. Willow Smith. Her pink hair is SO COOL. I get the feeling she does whatever she wants. I heard Will is trying to deal with the emotional stress of his kids. Whatever, she has really cool clothes. And I love the headlines that go with the photos, like 'From popstar to emo kid! Willow Smith sports orange hair and porcupine bag as she dresses in angsty all-black ensemble!'
3. Designer items that are copied by cheaper brands. OK, obviously for the designer it's not so good, but for me? Well...
You can imagine my delight when I walked in to Tony Bianco and saw an almost exact copy of the Celine shoes I have mentioned I think two times on this blog before. My grandma kindly offered to buy them for my formal, and they are so perfect with my dress. Yay! As for the topshop dress, that's on my wishlist...
4. Summer/floral crowns/Dolce and Gabbana. Damn you, rookie mag and your road trip. All the pictures of summer and meetups and icecream and flower crowns... I CAN'T EVEN. Here are some pictures from the installation they did at Space 15 Twenty. So awesome. I want to eat them.
So as I sit here trying to soak up the sun that comes out from behind the clouds on average 3 times a week, I will cry silently and talk about flower crowns. Sorry, here is another lovely photo :'(
Susie from stylebubble is so immaculately well dressed and quirky and her flower crowns are just off the scale. I cannot talk about floral things you put on your head, though, without adding some pictures of Dolce and Gabbana's Autumn 2012 show. Frida Kahlo would be proud.
5. Cibo Matto/Kate Bush/The XX/Major Lazer. "You can go for a week without love - you will die without food." And they are the wise words of Yuka Honda from 90s Japanese girl duo Cibo Matto. Oh, my god. Just watch this music video. They are crazy and I love them. I also included some other stuf that is relevant to my life and that I like. It's my current playlist.
6. The Olympics. Because sometimes when we don't have to watch Australians doing boring things and not getting a gold medal, in that rare moment of peace there is diving or gymnastics. And all is well.
I saw this picture on facebook a few days ago. The accompanying text was: 'like this photo if the person on the bottom is you lol'. I really really hate to sound like an* ANGRYFEMINISTSAVETHEWORLD* but this is wrong on so many levels. The top images are 'thinspo'; images created for the purpose of motivating people to be skinnier. I know that the addition of the bottom image is supposed to be making a joke out of it, like 'OH, fuck that skinny shit. I'm just gonna eat all this junk food' but you're also sort of saying that you believe eating cake will give you fat thighs. I am telling you right now, one piece of cake is NOT going to make your thighs any larger. BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE POINT!
The point is this. It's like you have to choose between these two people:
'that girl' VS 'NOT that girl haha'
crap 'appleworks paint' skills by me
if you think this is great you should see my friend's artistic genius on paint
watch this space
yes maire i'm talking to you
In the facebook photo, the thinspo pictures are 'that girl', and the one having a party by themselves is 'NOT that girl haha'.
OK, here is the most INCREDIBLE MIND BLOWING THING YOU WILL EVER HEAR:
'that girl' DOES NOT EXIST!
DOES NOT EXIST!
DOES NOT EXIST!
'But the photos!' you say. 'The tumblrs, instagrams, the girl at school, the girl I saw at the gym!' Really? You're going to base someone's entire existence on 1. what they look like 2. what they tell you? Ever considered they don't tell you everything? Ever considered that actually, you have no right to judge them and class them into a specific 'type' of person? Especially on the internet. That's the funny thing about the internet, a person has complete control over whether or not to click 'post'. The whole stupid thing about this is that girls think skinny=healthy. And worse, not eating=healthy.
'But slim does equal healthy!!!'
Well, I don't know if you knew this, but you can't tell whether or not someone is healthy just by looking at them.
Watch this Laci Green video for more:
You do not have to put yourself into one of the two mentioned 'types' of girl. You can be healthy without running through forests. You can eat cake and be healthy. Actually, you can just eat cake. Eat cake.
I'm not going to do some 'you're beautiful on the inside' 'everyone's beautiful' etc shit because I don't think that's the problem. I actually hate 'everyone's beautiful' because it's like 'OOOH okay now that I'm the same as everyone else I can FINALLY stop worrying! woohoo!' Today, we have an obsession with beauty and the sometimes ridiculous social standards that are attached to the word. Maybe that's always been the case, I don't know. It just seems like it's reached an extremity.
Some magazines are under fire at the moment for presenting unrealistic images of women and using models that are 'too skinny'. (~if you want to escape from this and take a nice relaxing bath in glitter and radness and girl power, visit rookiemag.com~ p.s that was not spam I seriously love Rookie) People are saying, 'oh, I wish they used real girls in their magazines'. DOLLY Magazine already does this. They use their readers in the magazine and have 'retouch free zones' which I think is great.
But.
You can put as many real, plus-sized, every-day, un-retouched girls in the magazine as you want and it's not going to make a difference to the way we view them. Some may celebrate 'NORMAL GIRLS IN VOGUE!' 'REAL GIRLS MAKE A COMEBACK'. (note: real, normal... again, all we're doing is classifying one 'type' as normal and the other as abnormal. There is no normal!) Girls will still flip through magazines. They will look at the shoots, and they will still compare themselves to the models. I guess after a while we would get used to looking at girls that don't have legs as long as the Yarra River, and maybe the comparison and desire to look thin would diminish. What I'm trying to say is: it's not the magazines that need to change, it's our attitude and our awareness about this issue. That might seem a heck of a lot harder, but it's probably easier than convincing Anna Wintour to... well, to do anything.
There is a great article written by Helen Razer about Vogue and this issue, and I think the last sentence sums up it up well. "If Vogue aspires to make long-lasting change, then it is no longer Vogue."
Don't let magazines (or anyone, in that case) tell you how you should look or how you should feel about yourself. You're the one with the brain, and the body. That means you have control.
I am obsessed with coloured tights at the moment. Why go with black when you can make it interesting and unique by adding a new colour into your outfit?
In images 1 and 2 you can see the coloured tights look being utilised by my favourite designer duo, Meadham Kirchoff. I particularly love the yellow coloured tights in images 3 and 4, and I think image 5 is really interesting in that the tights are the same colour as the shoes.
Hit up Sportsgirl, Topshop and American Apparel if you're looking for tights in a new hue (also note my hilarious use of assonance).
