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Beautiful Women Over 40: Salma Hayek, 45 makes the cover of Lucky Magazine

10 Apr

I was sooo happy when I received my May issue of Lucky with Salma Hayek on the cover!    The shopping-and-fashion mag tends to have lots of under 35 starlets from both TV and movies on the cover, many of them I’m either unfamiliar with or just don’t care about.  But Hayek’s life, how she’s managed her career, and what she thinks of herself are important reads for any woman at any age.

Some of the key takeaways from Jean Godfrey-June’s feature on Hayek ,for me, were about how she views her body and her skin.  She admits to being short and curvy (read: not fat) and sometimes wanting to be smaller.  Yes, the world around us sometimes makes us want to hide our breasts and behinds as they are so often objectified.  Thus, we might fear that we, too, are objectified–and who knows that better than a celebrity, who may be picked apart at any  moment for a change in her face, or what she eats, or anything….

Hayek also admits to acne when younger, taking Accutane, and the resulting skin sensitivity.  She also mentions her grandmother’s beauty concoctions (my mom had some too!) , her own Nuance beauty line, and NOT having Botox.

Now, how many of our celebrities can admit to *that* one?  Not many, that’s for sure, and a whole ton of the over 40 set seem to be addicted to the stuff.  Rumor has it that some dermatologists are recommending it for women in their late 20′s and 30′s.  Here’s her thoughts on Botox and skin:

“Botox, trust me I’ve been tempted—but I resist! Think about what happens to your muscles—and your skin—if you’re sick and don’t move for a few days. It all atrophies! Plus, if you freeze a muscle in your face, other muscles have to compensate! And once you stop, what does that look like?” Before I can issue a rebuttal she offers another theory: “You know Latin people? African-American people? How our skin ages more slowly? Even though we’re dramatic, we move our faces, we eat higher-fat foods, we’re the ones with fewer wrinkles—it makes you wonder.”

IMO, what one eats definitely has an effect on one’s skin.  I know this from my own experience.  Yes, some of it is genetic, but also if you eat good fats–extra virgin olive oil, avocados, salmon–and this helps skin integrity. Eating these kinds of mono unsaturated fats is a good idea at any age.   Staying out of the sun and out of tanning beds helps too.  The late 70′s and early 80′s were big on tanning, and  I got a lot of ribbing about being “whitey” during that time when I was in my teens.  However, it’s paid off in the long run.  Even the dermatologist I saw last week for a sun-un-related skin condition remarked that my overall skin was quite nice. :)

Yet, Hayek, indirectly, brings up another point about our perceptions of beauty:  it has always been more acceptable for Latin and African-American women to be curvy.  Anglo, and those of us who resemble the Anglo side of our heritage more than the more “ethnic” sides tend to be overly concerned about our weight because the image of the perfect Anglo-Saxon Protestant American woman is one that also reflects the Nordic marauders–tall, slim and blond– who contributed to that gene pool.  So, if one is not identified as Latina or African-American, there’s this odd assumption that to be anything but tall and thin and small-breasted is somehow an indication of  weakness…

I could go on about these ridiculous assumptions, and their roots, but I digress. .

All in all, Hayek is, perhaps, one of the healthiest women in Hollywood today, and this profile gives us a peek into how we, too, could foster healthy attitudes about our bodies as we are getting older,  to no obsess over our minor imperfections, and how to, ultimately enjoy our lives.

 

 

 

Don’t hate Samantha Brick because she’s beautiful (but you might hate her for writing about it…)

6 Apr

I found out about this extraordinary little article with the overly-long headline–There are downsides to looking this pretty’: Why women hate me for being beautiful–by British journalist Samantha Brick through some friends on Facebook.  My reaction to the article was “wow, that’s a ridiculous, trite and mediocre article,” but their reaction, and the reactions of a whole lot of other people, has been pretty virulent.   I can totally understand why, too….

Brick makes a point to tell us, right off the bat, that she gets free things from men all the time because of how “beautiful” she is, and that women are very mean to her because of her beauty…..

Honestly, the opening paragraphs of the story, where Brick details all the gifties is pretty hard to read because she gives the impression that she blows off all this attention as par for the course:

“. . .And whenever I’ve asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing: my pleasing appearance and pretty smile made their day.

While I’m no Elle Macpherson, I’m tall, slim, blonde and, so I’m often told, a good-looking woman. I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to being pretty — the main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks. . .”

The “luck” seems to be that she’s been genetically gifted with certain looks.  But the “luck” is in the getting of said gifts–and making a point to give us three examples and the impression that this sort of thing happens on a daily basis.

Now, over the years, I’ve had my share of men who have thought I’m fabulous–the thing is, though, in the grander scheme of things, in the grander scheme of my awful ex husband, the bullies in middle and high school, and the nasty thugs in nightclubs,  hearing about it tends to be a rare occasion.  A giftie is an even more rare.  Maybe that’s American men, or maybe it’s that  I’m just an old broad now and was out of circulation when Brick was getting her attention.   But when I have received gifts, I’ve been pretty well shocked and amazed by them.  I don’t expect anything from anyone, so it’s pretty much a “wow, what’s *that* all about?” kind of thing.  I will be gracious and say “thank you” to the person, probably blush, but….wow….I certain wouldn’t think it’s necessarily going to happen again…

Maybe that comes from living in a place that’s saturated with media–where we are constantly surrounded by the plastic surgeried and way-too photoshopped stars and starlettes.   We are continually told that they are so far superior to us, but that if we just work out hard enough, and maybe make enough money to fix ourselves up, that maybe, we, too, can be as gorgeous beauteous beauties as they are…..Oh horse puckey!

When I was in college, there was a chick in the house I lived in, who made it a point to always tell us how much men loved her because she was a six-foot tall blonde  (sorry I’m just a stumpy brunette.)  I always thought her constant statements to this effect, and her constant bragging about how much sex she was getting, came from a deep and annoying well of insecurity.

I sort of feel the same way about Brick–that there’s something lurking deep-down that propelled her to write this article–which yammers on and on and on, in a rather narcissistic manner, about how hard it is to be Brick.   It’s that exact narcissistic tone that causes the reader–in particular, this reader– to be less than sympathetic.   There’s a fine line between healthy self-esteem and narcissism, and thinking and writing as if you are the  *only* woman with this particular problem, doesn’t help you make your case.   Seriously.  Brick couldn’t find any other women who’ve had these sorts of things happen to them?  Really?  Did she even bother to find any?  Or was this all the exercise in vanity that it sounds like?

 

Granted, I won’t get a free bottle of champagne from a pilot any time soon–but maybe that has more to do with the fact that I fly usually wearing comfortable clothing, no makeup, never First Class, and on Sardine Can Airlines, where I doubt they even know what Champale looks like…..

 

Which raises another issue about Brick’s plight that might make some sense of it:  Western Culture sees the tall, slim blonde as the “golden girl,” a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Ideal Woman.  It’s what makes millions of women spend millions of dollars on millions of bottles of hair color every year so that they might appear to be a Golden Girl Goddess.  The satirical novel “The Bergdorf Blondes” lampoons a particular kind of  upper-class New York based Golden WASP Girl that still makes her home in NYC (and probably always will–because she has social class status.)   So, I’m sure that, when certain men see Samantha Brick, she strikes a chord with them, sends a signal that she may be some upper crusty Golden Goddess Girl.

 

So what?   So what if that’s what some men believe her to be.  I understand why some of the people I know may have been really peeved by Brick’s little tirade, but I don’t get why so many others should be so darned peeved.   To me, it seems like the public’s reaction to Brick’s narcissistic narrative was just as bad and almost pathological.  I probably won’t come up against this woman in my lifetime, so why should I take what she’s written so personally and try to knock her off her self-erected pedestal?    When I think about it, it seems that a whole lot of people have a whole lot of spare time to get themselves all worked up over some overly self-important Brit.

 

In my world, I’ve got bigger fish to fry–other things to do, better people to read about and good friends to hang out with.  I can’t be bothered looking up and reading any of the negative nonsense directed at Brick.  Reading her article was enough thankyouverymuch for me think she’s a very silly woman who I can ignore while I get on with the business of my life, and making my life better.   What really matters is how I feel about me, and what Brick feels about herself has no impact on me.

 

So, no, Samantha Brick, I don’t hate you–and that doesn’t mean I think you’re as beautiful as you say you are, or that I’m as pretty as you are, or that neither of us is all that hot.  It just means that I’m perfectly happy about me,  and I don’t need to dredge up vitriol for someone I’ll never meet.  I don’t need the negativity that comes with “hating” or wanting to hurt someone because of what she thinks of herself.

 

And neither should you, dear readers.  Neither should you.

How to feel good about the way you look, without having plastic surgery like Megan Fox

30 Mar

One of my favorite snarky reads (and I don’t read a lot of snark. who needs the negativity?) is Jezebel.com.  And today the blog raised a very important issue regarding plastic surgery and self-esteem.  In It’s Going to be Awkward When Megan Fox’s Baby  Comes Out With Megan Fox’s Old Nose Dodai Stewart contemplates what might go on when the plastic surgery’d star comes face to face with her original face in tiny baby form.  Can she consider her own baby beautiful?:

It’s curious to me, because I wonder if you can tell your daughter that she is beautiful and lovely — and mean it — if she has the old nose that you hated. Or, if you can, do you realize what you’re saying? You’re saying that your old nose, the one you had sliced open, destroyed and rebuilt by a doctor, is actually not that bad.

My Mom had a nosejob.  Luckily, neither my sister nor myself came out with my Mom’s hawklike original nose.  But that’s ok.  My nose came out like the other noses on Mom’s side of the family, so I ended up looking partly like them anyway.  Even if I did come out with that hawklike nose, who knows what it would have looked like on the rest of my face, which is, after all, part my Dad.

Unfortunately, now, in my 50′s, it’s the jowly part of my Dad’s face…

Later in the post, Stewart brings up how Fox has had around $60 grand worth of plastic surgery, and *still* feels bad about herself.  That’s kind of sad, when you think about it.  The post notes that Fox told Rolling Stone that she has low self-esteem and feels “insecure about everything.”   It sounds like Fox will never be able to get enough things about herself surgically fixed in order to feel good about herself.

Bottom line is this:  we can’t surgically fix away whatever it is that is bothering us that would make us dramatically re-arrange our faces and bodies.  In my Mother’s case, and also in mine, it was people in our lives, people who were supposed to love us, and didn’t, that contributed to our low self-esteem.  My Father was not the nicest person, and being in a marriage with him took its toll on my Mother and me.

The biggest contributing factor to low self-esteem is how the people who are supposed to love us treat us, not whether or physical appearance is or is not a certain standard of perfect, nor all the bullying we experience at school.  If those people in our homes do not love and accept themselves, they are incapable of loving us, and thus our self-image and self-esteem becomes damaged at its core.

Nowadays, while I’m far from the perfection that is someone like Megan Fox, I’m not unhappy. I’m pretty darned happy. Sure, there are photos of me out there that are pretty godawful, that even I look at them and go “ack! what a frumpy old lady!!” But occasionally, when my makeup’s right, and I’ve had a good night’s sleep, and I’ve bothered to make an effort with my wardrobe, I’m not all that frightening.

As a matter of fact, here is Megan Fox and me, side by side:

Keep in mind that Fox is a movie star, more than 20 yrs younger than me, and has had a bunch of plastic surgery. I haven’t even had Botox, and I’m over 50. Oh and the pic was taken by me, in a bathroom mirror in a hotel in Lower Manhattan and not photoshopped in any way. I blame my good complexion on my Mom ;) …..

That’s part of what makes me not feel bad about myself–my good skin.  The other part consists of  taking care of health; making sure my makeup is done right; wearing clothes that are modern and well-fitting.  Oh, and a lot of emotional work on myself,  a group of very good friends,  love, and some admiration from time to time….

Because beauty comes from the inside, and not what one does on the outside. Especially as one gets older….

It’s sad that Megan Fox appears to have such a deep hole of insecurity that not even a beautiful, new baby might fill.

For the baby’s sake, I hope that’s not the case.

What is Female Beauty? : Transgendered Beauty Queen disqualified from Miss Universe Canada

27 Mar

UPDATE: As of April 2, 2012 the Trump Organization has reversed its decision and will allow Jenna Talackova to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant.

Jenna Talackova “knew” she was a girl at age 4, even though she was in a boy’s body.  By the age of 19, she’d undergone gender reassignment surgery.  Shortly afterward she began competing in beauty pageants for transgendered individuals.  Her goal has been to go beyond trans pageants, and she found herself representing Vancouver and about to compete for the title of Miss Universe Canada…..that is, until she was disqualified…

Various reports on Ms. Talackova’s disqualification have raised the question of whether or not she should have been disqualified because she is transgendered.  The reason for the disqualification, however, is somewhat more complicated.  The Miss Universe Pageant–a franchise owned by Donald Trump–in its rules states specifically that a contestant must be naturally born female.  According to a pageant representative–shown in this CTV report–Ms. Talackova misrepresented herself and was thus disqualified from the pageant.

Ms. Talackova is searching for legal representation and is seeking to file a discrimination suit against the pageant.

While there appears to be sentiment favoring Ms. Talackova, the reports I’ve seen do not show anyone who may not care if Ms. Talackova is transgendered, but also may feel that she violated the rules of the Miss Universe Pageant.

It makes me wonder if there are other rules–such as those governing excessive facial plastic surgery or specifically breast implants–that might disqualify a naturally born contenstant.  Does the standard of “natural born female” apply only to those who have not had surgery to change their gender?  It would seem to me that these are important questions.  If a biological female can dramatically alter her appearance with plastic surgery, does that make her then *not* a natural born beauty, even though she is a female?  And might that also be a consideration when we consider beauty….

In our new century, the idea of “beauty” for some, has more to do with art and artifice, in the altering of oneself with cosmetics, fake hair, teeth wihitening, and padded bras.  For some, it goes as far as to have surgery, thus correcting and making “beautiful” what might have been considered plain or ordinary by some arbitrary and mostly subjective standard.

Pageants themselves are artificial and, IMO, ridiculous. What is their true point and purpose except to give some women an advantage over others based on how well they can alter their physical appearance and present the image of ideal feminine beauty.

Do we really need these kinds of ideals anymore?  Do we really need young women competing for scholarships based not necessarily on their intelligence but on their physical appearance and some semblance of talent (usually a talent that is associated with upper economic classes.)   Or are beauty pageants and their scholarships the equivalent of the football scholarships for young men?

But back to Ms. Talackova’s dilemma.   Is it really discrimination or just a matter of her violating the rules and misrepresenting herself?  And what of the natural born female contestants and radical plastic surgery?  If a female who has undergone radical plastic surgery–along the lines of, say, a Heidi Montag level of surgery–would she still be allowed to compete?  If so, what does that say about female beauty? that it is best when it is altered by a surgeon’s knife than when it is natural?

If the pageant allows for radical surgery on natural born women, then it seems to me that radical surgery to appear and become exactly like a natural born woman, both inside and out, would make it possible for a transgendered person to compete in a non-trans beauty pageant.

And then it should make us question not just the idea of pageants overall, but how skewed the pageant industry has become on the issue of “natural” born and beautiful female.

Just my $.02

Average Woman Looks at Springtime Shoes (and what they say about you)

26 Mar

Spring is here!  The weather’s getting warmer, the trees are budding and the forsythia is in bloom!  Which means it’s time to put away the suede shooties and shearling booties (mostly) and start thinking pedicures and peep-toe pumps.  That is, if it doesn’t snow the first week of April….

On the Spring 2012 Runways we saw a lot of what we’ve been seeing and wearing: sky

gorgeous Meredith platforms available at charlotteolympia.com

high-heels, chunky platforms, and barely-there flat sandals in every color of the rainbow (almost) including color block.  This is definitely one of the most exciting springtimes for shoes I’ve seen in years!

But let’s face a few small facts:  it’s hard to get around town in sky-high heels.  Chunky platforms on over 40 legs aren’t always fun, let alone attractive.    So what’s a woman to do?

Christian Siriano "Michelle" ballet flat at payless.com has a trendy keyhole peep-toe.

My favorite fashion guru, Bill Cunningham, recently noticed that women in New York City (a place where it’s important to be quick on your feet) have put the huge heels in their tote bags, and are traversing the streets in ballet flats.  If you have to move fast, nothing beats a good-fitting ballet flat!   I have several inexpensive pair that I use for kicking around in the spring and summer, esp. when I don’t have heavy-duty walking ahead of me.  That’s the great thing about ballet flats:  you don’t need an expensive pair to look great.

That’s not to say that heels and platforms will go by the wayside.  Not at all!  And if you want to wear them, by all means do!  I’m so looking forward to getting into my 4.5 inch red Guess platform sandals that I bought last year, even if I don’t wear them while traipsing through the streets of New York City or to the local grocery store — although the latter can be lots of fun, esp. if I want to turn a few heads…

Which leads me to another reason why you might want to wear some high heels every now and then.  Not only can they lengthen your legs, but they’re great eye-catchers.  Yes, even if you have a husband or a boyfriend, please just admit that it’s great fun to catch some good-looking guy eyeing up your shoes.  It’s a thrill!  I find it even more fun when the good-looking guys are a whole lot younger than myself (shoes are one of those things that are, well, ageless if you let them be.)   This cute little feature from Glamour.com let’s you in on what goes through the brains of men when they’re looking at your shoes.  Totally darling!

For Fun:   Check out Bill Cunningham’s latest on the beauty of springtime in Manhattan  and my Pinterest “Shoe Fetishist” pinboard of cool, beautiful shoes.

Sunday Editorial: We are all Gloria Steinem Now

25 Mar

it doesn't matter who we are anymore, or our power in media. We all have media, we all have power. We are all leaders of the women's movement.....

Last Sunday, the New York Times ran two stories on Gloria Steinem, both in the Fashion & Style section.   Many of us wondered why these articles were relegated to the “women’s pages” of the Fashion & Style section, and there was some outcry to this effect.  Yet the world has changed greatly since Gloria Steinem, especially the media world, and that the singular rise of social media has given all women the power to be what only one was capable of attaining in a broadcast and paper media world.

The first–Gloria Steinem, A Woman Like no Other–gives a short overview of Steinem’s activism, notes the current situation with the Komen Foundation and the rise of social media.  Overall, the article questions why there isn’t one single leader for women with the unique combination of personal qualities that made Steinem an iconic leader of the women’s movement in the 60′s and 70′s.   There is the admission that there are now “feminisms” vs. one monolithic feminism, and that, in the 21st century, there is “a more inchoate sense of feminist leadership.”  Steinem herself does not see this as a negative, and states, in an email, how “It’s obviously a great sign of growth and success that the media no longer try to embody the bigness and diversity of the women’s movement in one person.”

Indeed!

The second article–My Roommate, Gloria–is a sweet puff piece on how Shelby Knox, while a college student, came to share a New York apartment with Steinem.   In the early years of this century, the press and many others, were ready to anoint Knox the next leader of the feminist movement.  However, it wasn’t necessarily to be.  Knox now works as director of women’s rights organizing for Change.org, and says she is happy to be writing press releases rather than being the subject of press releases.

Maybe this is a part of the “why we don’t have a single feminist leader these days” is that no young woman necessarily wants to be the sole voice of an entire movement.  The glut of mainstream media keeps the camera in one’s face far longer than it should be, and probes the  personal lives or public figures in a manner that might have been considered inappropriate 40 or 50 years ago (think Clinton vs. JFK.)

The 24-hour news cycle has perhaps taught us that only very strong, or very narcissistic, people survive the glare of the modern-day spotlight with their psyches in tact.

Yet the other aspect of all this media is that we have a thriving “people’s media” landscape on the Internet.  The Voice of the People, channelled through various social media platforms, what marketers bemoaned with the Motrin Moms, has become the force for change that got the Komen Foundation to back down from their anti-Planned Parenthood initiative, Rush Limbaugh to lose face for his attempt to shame Sara Fluke, and is currently bringing shame to the Sanford, Florida police department in the Trayvon Martin murder case.

What started–around the time of Shelby Knox–as a “disreputable” and  troubling form of “new journalism,” the blog, the forum, the chatroom, and other forms of what we now called social media, are the places where groups rally around those who first hear the message, then spread the message.  We hear about protests against Limbaugh, and we spread the links to friends on Facebook and Twitter, who spread the links to their friends.  We write about the incidents on our blogs, which are now picked up by Google, which leads to readers that then click the links to other stories or petitions and get others to act.

In the 21st century, with our dispersed and populist media landscape, we have important stories–stories that require activism to create change–dispersed and made viral like never before.  The populist media that so many feared might lead to something bad, is actually forcing change for the good–and is bringing awareness to women’s issues that most of us felt were resolved with the women’s rights struggles of the 70′s.

So maybe, in the 21st century, it’s not the monolithic leader, the attractive and photogenic young woman—a Gloria Steinem– who becomes the image and voice of the woman’s movement, but all of us who use social media platforms to spread information, who are already the voices of a new women’s movement.  Perhaps we are, as the NYT noticed–in the “inchoate” phase of a new, stronger women’s movement that better represents the needs of women across the country.

All that’s needed, right now, are women who spread the word to other women.  It’s the groundswell that demonstrates the power of women.

Maybe at some time, when we are confronted again with situations where only one leader can speak,  one leader will emerge.   Yet that might not even be the case any more.  We may simply have women like Sara Fluke, who have to speak for us in special instances.  There is no doubt that our world has changed because of social media, and so, the ways in which leadership emerges in this new landscape will be different.

Only time will tell.

How to fix Kris Jenner’s latest fashion faux pas

24 Mar

Ah, the Kardashians!  We, the people, have probably had enough of them, but the gossip press sure hasn’t.  The latest was a smack in the tush to K-Momma Kris Jenner for this outfit, which was described as “too young for her age”.   Most of the criticism of the outfit was levelled at the pants.   Those, however, seem the least egregious to me.  After all, you can find that color in pretty much any “old lady” department.  So, I’m certainly not offended by the color–and quite glad they aren’t embroidered with little penguins or umbrellas all over them.

Likewise the black tee isn’t a faux pas.  It’s your usual tee, no biggie.

Where, then, does the outfit start to fall apart?  It’s the accessories!  Let’s start with the shoes:

OMG, where *does* one start with these fashion travesties!  Leopard clogs with something like a six-inch heel.  You have *got* to be joking.  This style, as well as the huge-heeled covered wedge shoes (which I like to refer to as “Frankenstein boots”) and sky-high pumps are, for most occasions, for the young. They tend to give one’s feet an outsized Olive Oyl/Minnie Mouse/Daisy Duck appearance,  and appear to be oh so cute on,  skinny girls in very, very short skirts.

In a term, they’re ugly, and don’t compliment the  pants, esp. if you’re out running errands.  Who wants to run errands in six-inch heels??  Either a flat (if one insists on leopard) or  a mid-heel neutral toned pump would look great with this kind of pant.

The next set of accessories send the death knell to the outfit:

Oh, gosh, where do we start!  First, the hat: what we would call a fedora and the Daily Mail UK calls a trilby.  Whether trilby or fedora, it actually ages Jenner, whom the Daily Mail describes as looking “much younger than her 56 years” (and she might if she laid off half the accessories she’s sporting.)

Next, let’s tackle 3 in succession:  earrings, bag and jacket.  The earrings simply look trashy, as if they came from a Claire’s shop in the local mall.  Sure, wear a big dangling earring if you like, but not a pair that would look better on someone in high school.  The bag, too, is cheap-looking.  Perhaps an oversize bag is great for shopping, but between the leopard heels and the pink pants, a silver over-sized bag is over-kill.   And then the cropped jacket.  Well, at any age, unless you are wildly thin, a cropped jacket will make your rear end look larger than that of the average school bus.   If you have a penchant for motorcycle jackets–even if you don’t own one–an average length men’s style would have looked better here.  Or, quite frankly, a tuxedo-style suit jacket couldn’t go wrong.

Now, take a look at how daughter Kim accessorized an equally bright pair of blue denims: In this case, daughter really does know best:  Kim wears flat sandals with a matching large bag, light-colored neutral toned tee, cropped tuxedo style jacket, and simple large hoop earrings.  The outfit looks just as effortless and far more polished…..

Which brings up one of my most important points for women over 40:  When dressing in trends, make sure you do not look like a throwback to your teens or 20′s.  Kris’s tough chick black-silver-leopard accessories in many, many ways give the look an 80′s gloss.  Nothing will age a woman more than futile attempts to replay her past in her current wardrobe.

Which reminds me:  K-Momma might want to think about getting that signature black dyed short haircut a rest.  That’s another 80′s style relic.  I did it too, back in the ’80′s,  but would never, never think of going back to that.  My gosh! It would be like wearing a pompadour with a fishtail!  While it may look cute and retro on someone in her 20′s,  it won’t make anyone in her 50′s look cute.  She’ll look just retro–like a puffy-sleeved dress in an antique clothing store.

SO…..the moral of the story is:  it’s not the pop-of-color pants that cause the fashion faux pas, it’s the poorly chosen and badly matched 80′s influenced accessories.  If you feel you’d like a pair of brights, go right ahead, but make sure you accessorize in a polished, modern way.

“The Hunger Games” costumer Judianna Makovsky combines past, current looks for film

23 Mar

Today opens the much-anticipated (and hyped) film  “The Hunger Games,” a dystopian fantasy where poor young people are pitted against one another in a battle to the death.  But have you noticed what they’re wearing?  I certainly have noticed, and not necessarily the garb on the star-crossed young folk, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson (who, in the story, are given their own stylists), but also the clothing and coiffures on actors Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, and Elizabeth Banks….

Poor horrible, horrible Effie. I'd rather fight for my life than have to wear this get-up. yeesh!

I’ve been fascinated by the horrific-looking Effie Trinket,  that Ga Ga-esque fuscha nightmare, replete with leg-o-mutton sleeves like I haven’t seen since the 1980′s.  What about Tucci’s blue samurai haircut, Bentley’s weird facial hair, and that the residents of District 12 look like they stepped out of a King Vidor film of the 1930′s.  Well, there’s no coincidence here.  Costume designer Judianna Makovsky (also the costume designer for the Harry Potter films), spoke about her work and influences to the Los Angeles Times and InStyle.com , with the latter of the two a little more (perhaps inappropriately) enthusiastic about translating the film’s looks to our world.

Makovsky, however, was most interested in keeping the looks consistent with descriptions in the book.  For Katniss Everdean’s “girl on fire dress” Makovsky says:  “I wanted the dress to be red, but not so covered in stones that it would look like something out of Dancing With the Stars…”  And, of course, the dress doesn’t actually burst into real flames–CGI helped in that department.

Many of the designers who influenced Makovsky’s “Capitol Couture” fashions include Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rodarte, and Elsa Schiaparelli, queen of surrealist fashion design in the 1930;s and 40′s.  So it’s no wonder that I’m seeing the 1980′s, since Gaultier and McQueen’s work was highly influential back then–and certain motifs and themes keep getting recycled into 21st century fashion.  The Capitol dwellers have been described as “opulent” and other word to connote their high-fashion status.  But with the colored-hair wigs (green, pink, etc) I can’t help but think of the sad-looking women with bizarrely colored wigs in Stanley Kubrick’s classic A Clockwork Orange–another dystopian society movie with kids as the main focus.

A purple-haired pub waitress in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."

Wardrobe for Katniss and other District 12 dwellers is most definitely influenced by workwear of the past.  Makovsky looked at photos from that time period, to get a better sense of everyday fashion. Since there are always more regular folk than fashionistas, the numbers of costumes for the extras (as well as the principals) came from a combination of vintage finds and costumes hand-made and fitted for the film.  With roughly 600 charater extras, there wound up being a total of 1800 costumes just for this group alone!

Makovsky says she hopes that many of the costumes will go on display somewhere after the movie.

Yet there’s another rather silly and superfluous side to all this great costuming.  Lion’s Gate, the Hunger Games film company, decided to go all out with their social media promotions for the film, including a tumblr titled Capitol Couture.  This has to be one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen: everything from the dull colors to the District Style Challenges screams promotion desperation.

Seriously, this is a dystopian film.  Lots of people get killed.  You want to dress like the idiots of the Capitol and the “citizens” who are marked for death?  Really?  That kind of promotion seems tacky and jaundiced, and almost seems to highlight an ironic mocking of fans and moviegoers.  Same can be said for a feature at InStyle.com, which talks about Katniss’ spring style.  Really???  That’s like the Lisabeth Salanader look for H&M.    All I can do is chalk this stuff up to the annals of “When Film Promotions Go Horribly Wrong.”    If film companies and p.r. departments are looking to capture some sort of fashion zeitgeist of these films, they really can’t.  The looks speak for themselves, and audiences will adopt those looks if they find them cool.  Companies cannot manufacture that kind of fashion passion.  It just happens.  Trying to manufacture it only makes them look like the people we’re supposed to be rooting against in films like The Hunger Games.  How Ironic.

 

Indulge your inner retro-sexy Happy Homemaker with Tie Me Up Aprons

22 Mar

If you’re like me, you probably do a fair share of cooking.  And if you’re even more like me, you’ve probably ruined a shirt or dress or something else while you were cooking.   My Mom always used to tell me to wear an apron while cooking, so that I wouldn’t ruin what I was wearing.  So when my friend, photographer Bruce Barone, posted some pictures he took for   Tie Me Up Aprons , I  thought I’d died and gone to clothes preserving apron heaven!

Anita Senkowski, proprietress of Tie Me Up Aprons, creates her unique confections from out-of-production and

NEW!! The REAL Krispy Kreme Girl Apron. A Tie Me Up Exclusive!!

vintage fabrics.  She has a great eye for color and pattern and assembles her aprons with a certain je-ne-sais-quois  that will make you say “hey, that’s wicked cool! I’ve got to have it!”

Considering the new season of Mad Men starts on Sunday–well, you might just need one of these to protect your perfect Betty Draper party dress while serving era appropriate hors d’oeuvres!

If you order now, enter the code HIGHFASHION1 and you will receive a 15% discount on any apron, including the made to order Zen Charmer (from a very limited fabric) This offer extends through March 31, 2012!

Tie Me Up Aprons are hand crafted in Michigan, USA, and ships worldwide (so no excuses you people in the UK, Australia, and everywhere else.)  Tie Me Up takes PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover.

“Like” Tie Me Up on Facebook and follow for the latest updates on the new fabrics Anita’s getting plus other cool news from Tie Me Up.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Barone Photography

Sunday’s Fashion Lesson with Bill Cunningham….

12 Mar

If you don’t know who Bill Cunningham is, you should….especially if you want to learn anything about how to cultivate a

poster for the documentary "Bill Cunningham New York"

discerning eye for fashion and style.  Not to mention the lovely little lessons on the history of 20th century fashion that Cunningham weaves into his weekly fashion videos that are featured on the front of the Sunday  New York Times website

Cunningham has been a  photojournalist for The New York Times since at least the 1970′s–prior to that he was a fashion journalist for Women’s Wear Daily and a Harvard drop-out.  He has been taking candid street photographs of fashionable people for close to 50 years now.  While some might consider his photos “artless” it’s not art that Cunningham is looking to create.  Rather, he documents the ways in which people of all sorts interpret the fashion of their day, as much as he chronicles the evolutions of fashion styles….

For instance, in yesterday’s short titled “Sun Spot”, Cunningham views Paris Fashion Week, the last week of  shows for the Fall-Winter 2012 fashions.  He notes how much yellow he sees on women attending the shows (working women, many still clad in always-in-fashion black) and in the flowers dotting the Parisian landscape.  Cunningham notes that fashion is all a jumble right now, but that women nowadays want fashion that not only fits their lifestyle, but also fashion that they choose and pay for themselves.  In this “modern age” we are not the “decorative women” of the post-WWII 1950s,  who were festooned to represent the affluence of their husbands and who, in their leisure could be nothing more than decorative objects (much to the consternation of a lot of women.)

“When someone else is paying, then you buy something frivolous,” Cunningham says, ” When you’re paying for it yourself, you think twice.”

And that, to me is what marks the difference between adolescent fashion and grown-up fashion.  For adolescents (and the chronological age is variable) there’s spending a whole lot of money for something that is trendy and may look downright awful.  Grown-ups, however, don’t have that particular level of disposable income that so many young people might have…..

So, the young people become the frivolous fashionistas, which, IMO, is what’s plaguing a lot of fashion right at this moment.  We don’t have enough fashion for grown-ups who work, who raise families, who aren’t lounging around sipping smoothies and exercising all day in order to keep their “girlish figures.”

I love, though, that Cunningham is so delightfully sanguine and believes that fashion will turn around and reflect what women need.   This is another part of why I love to watch his photos and listen to him every week: in a fashion world that seems to be constantly unforgiving of women and women’s lives, Cunningham situates fashion in historical context, and, right now, reminds us of the upheaval that may indeed shake out for the best.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to watch Bill’s weekly videos and take his fashion and style recommendations…..

BTW, anybody seen my yellow scarf…… :-)

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