the witching hour

al jourgensen threatens to shut down this blog in three, two...
Perhaps it's because I just got run down by a bunch of zombies outside Penn Station (excellent marketing on AMC's part; also, the trailer for The Walking Dead features the Walker Brothers classic The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore. Scott Walker + zombies? Fine by me), but I am legitimately excited for Halloween. It could be the fact that I'm actually doing things (Ford Models bash + a party for Convent), or maybe it's because I'm a sucker for all things autumn. I love pumpkins and squash, I love jackets, and I do kind of love witches. Recent years have resulted in Halloween cop-outs (Oberlin College house parties, hanging out in a Fort Greene warehouse for an hour, sitting in Penn Station long past the final drunk train, watching sexy cops and guidos masquerading as supermen stumble and vomit through the LIRR)...and if we're honest, this year is no different costume-wise.

I have a bad habit of planning EPIC costumes and promising myself that this year will be the one to go all out. Instead, I've ended up dressed as a mime (wearing a black-and-white striped turtleneck I'd worn to class three days earlier), throwing on a silly hat and calling it Victorian, and trying to convince people that no, I WASN'T just wearing normal clothes, I was totally dressed like Dieter of Sprockets fame. (Addendum: Kyle MacLachlan looks EXQUISITE there.) Meg had the super-awesome idea of me being Rachael from Blade Runner, but I sadly didn't have the time, patience, or money to buy/make an 80's-meets-40's blazer with huge shoulders. I also don't have nearly enough hair.


next year, i swear
Other ideas included Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice (capitalizing on how everyone says I looked like Winona Ryder when she was relevant; Chelsey nabbed this costume first), every member of The Human League Mk. II (no wig required!!!!), and Jane Lane (wig required ;__;). In the end, I just bought a cheap black bob wig and will go as Random Twenties Floozy. I already have a great reconstruction dress and the false eyelashes, and the decade's definitely hot right now: Boardwalk Empire steeze, right?


anita berber + sebastian droste: decadent weimar idols
I figure it's a good costume for Ford; I'd love to look luxe next to the altogether more glamorous models, who will undoubtedly be decked out in their sexy finest. For future, comparatively casual Halloween weekend adventures (running away from evil ghouls in haunted houses???), I'll take the same wig, hairspray it up, and become...


...the ULTIMATE lazy costume. At least Cesare would involve some meticulous makeup--those black eye triangles!

flotsam/jetsam

Yes.


Yes.


A million times yes!

It's very easy to please me with black and grey, but this editorial from Vogue Turkey's October 2010 issue is so incredibly lush. Shot by Hans Feurer and starring Elise Crombez (good to see her back in VT after they 'shopped her beyond recognition--where did her nose go?), the pieces featured have such an incredible sense of movement; I love seeing so much Yohji Yamamoto and Haider Ackermann in an editorial.



The dramatic coats, hats, and leather gloves (and those Rick Owens wedges!!!) have such an arch, lady-of-the-manor vibe; the way they blow and change shape in the wind is epic, to say the least. Elise is also rocking the deep plum lips of the season without looking like a 90's castoff (am I contradicting myself here? Yes. I don't care).

The newer Vogues are sort of knocking it out of the park lately. (See also "A Lo Twiggy" in Vogue Latin America. It's oodles of fun, and stop me before I say "whimsical" because that word is fucking TIRED.) Perhaps it's because they don't have established reputations; perhaps it's because they're not eating out of a dated, old-guard elite's hand; perhaps it's my own bitterness because I'm exasperated with people like Carine Roitfeld. But heaven knows I want every piece in this editorial.

...except, y'know, that Ann Sofie Back cutout jumpsuit. I don't think that would work.

from boys to men (from NYT sunday styles)

Well, scratch everything I said about men's fashion, body image, and androgyny four months ago; seems Guy Trebay and LEADING INDUSTRY EXPERTS like the editor of Maxim have declared that pipe-cleaner prepubescents are out, and rugged, MANLY MEN are in.


josh brolin + jeff aquilon, both v man
I needn't repeat the obvious about Hedi Slimane's history at Dior Homme and as a photographer. We know he loves youth, pin-thin tailoring, and the indie rock world; he's credited with making those baby-faced androgynous male models on the catwalks ubiquitous. But the industry is tiring of "skinny skate-rats," as Trebay so eloquently puts it, and looking towards older, weathered, more traditionally masculine standards. Which, as it tends to do, leads to really offensive language about the nature of manliness.

"The twink thing seems over. When people open GQ, I don’t want them to feel like they’re looking at clothes on 16-year-olds," Jim Nelson, editor of GQ, says. "When we cast, we want a model with some heft to him and a few years on him. Someone who has aged a little bit and who feels like he’s a man.”

I can understand the movement away from boys who look like they've been plucked out of high school; in difficult economic times, male consumers want to see well-built men who work and do manual labor--men who look like they're mature enough to purchase the goods they're selling. They want their icons to embody purchasing power and heritage luxury, and an emaciated teenager isn't going to do it. (Not to mention I'm not super keen on 16-year-olds being pushed onto the runway, male OR female.) Sam Shahid, creative director of Shahid & Company, says, "Look back to movies during the Depression, and all you saw was real guys like James Cagney. In tough times, people want a strong man." (Of course, it's a rather frustrating point that men become stronger, tougher, and more MANLY post-recession whereas women's skirt lengths just get shorter and heels higher--which I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE is a legitimate socioeconomic theory. Male success is rugged, protective strength, female is overt sexuality. Hmm.)


hedi slimane photography
That said, no matter how snappy and headline-grabbing such language may be, there is no reason to conflate skinniness and youth with a false, or rather lacking, manhood. Other than Levy rather charmingly calling models like Slimane's boys "twinks," the NY Times article also throws around words like "waify," "jailbait," and diametrically opposed, "Real Man" capitalized. I suppose it's the gay male gaze of the fashion industry, as well as the objectifying nature of modeling, turned negative and dehumanizing; just because such a homosexual male demographic of "twinks" exists doesn't mean that every ectomorph in the modeling biz is wide-eyed, immaturely naïve, and effeminate.

If I'm allowed to quote/paraphrase myself, it's the fear of more ambiguous gender presentation in fashion rearing its ugly head again. It's the same reason why Polly Vernon declared that "gobsmackingly lean silhouettes" in male modeling would lead to the mainstreaming of "manorexia" in that old Guardian article--it's not that anyone is really concerned about male body image, just that fashion industry darlings like Cole Mohr ("a model with jug ears and the body of a teenager" as Trebay puts it) are too frail, too awkward, and too delicate to be men. Such notions of the Real Man, or the Mad Men-ification of fashion (square-jawed, mature masculinity, a time-travel symbol of a man who likes a stiff drink and who sports a few lines around the eyes), is just a more microscopically-focused expression of queerphobia and misogyny. It's like the bullshit pipe-dream stories about "curvy" female models: how even now, Lara Stone can't give an interview without the writer making reference to her size 4 physique or her tits, or how putting (a recently slimmed-down) Crystal Renn on your runway or in your Vogue is a sign of progress. (Which, Terry Richardson and Carine Roitfeld, we have a problem.)

holy money, holy love

This past Friday, my friend Maheen and I went to see Swans at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. I'd heard a lot of insanely positive reviews about this tour, drawing on the sonic assault of the new incarnation's performance and Michael Gira's apparent...er, masturbation during the Montreal gig. (Thankfully, friends tell me he hid it behind his guitar. I guess he was as moved by hearing "Sex, God, Sex" as we all were.)


BMT has been host to a lot of intense shows, Throbbing Gristle and sunn o))) among them; it hasn't earned its reputation as "the loudest venue in NYC" for nothing. In my humble opinion, though, this was one of the most impressive, bone-crushing gigs they've ever had. It was a set heavy on material from Swans' latest album, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky (incredible, FYI, and one of the best of the year), but it was quite the treat to hear "I Crawled" and other early songs. Quite frankly, for a show so powerful that it rocked your eardrums to the very center, it was actually quite beautiful, almost religious in its scope. Even though I was a wimp two-thirds of the way through and went up to the old-people balcony seats (even with heavy-duty ear plugs, being shoved against the amp at a Swans show is no picnic), staring down at a packed crowd of rapt, headbanging concertgoers was such an epic feeling. It was a definite treat to be at their first NYC show in 13 years.




Also worth mentioning: before the show, Maheen ran into opener Baby Dee in the restroom. She actually changed into a special, fuzzy dalmatian-print pair of pajamas for the concert. Afterwards, we took a brief trip downstairs to catch Sasha Grey, DJ JonBenet, and other folks spin some tunes at the after-party; the music they were playing was right up my street (I heard the Human League's "Being Boiled," for one), but the middle school dance vibe was not. As Meg so eloquently put it on my Tumblr, "a bunch of aging goths hangin’ around the basement like some sort of David Lynch bar mitzvah sponsored by Hot Topic." Indeed. We cut out pretty early.

Oh, and Steve Buscemi was there. Love Boardwalk Empire.

androgyne, ph. david sims

This editorial for Vogue Paris' October 2010 anniversary issue falls swiftly in tandem with my love letter to Richard Nicoll and the Thin White Duke.


Iselin Steiro bears a pretty fabulous, uncanny resemblance to David Bowie, Cracked Actor times.



Seems the fashion industry is finally tapping into the Bowie inspiration as it always should have been, because I actually don't want to roll my eyes at this. Instead, I'm playing a guessing game trying to match these outfits to their original 70's counterparts. Obviously Bowie never bared his tits in the back of a limo, but he did find a fly in his milk there. Can you match 'em up?

nicolas andreas taralis

photos courtesy of dazeddigital
Inspired by youth/street cults, Old European and Far Eastern tribes, and bleak, black explorations, Nicolas Andreas Taralis (back in action for a second season after a quick stint at Cerruti in 2007) presented an industrial, moody collection that has me psyched for the rest of Paris.


The larger part of me hopes Taralis will hone his aesthetic and make his own, unique statement; I love black as much as the next girl, but fashion's gothic leftfield is overcrowded as is: Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester (whose name practically SCREAMED at me through this entire presentation), 90's Yohji Yamamoto...he's absurdly talented, and he has a knack for hand tailoring (as he should, considering he studied under Helmut Lang), and he deserves to have his own name in (stark, washed-out white) lights.


Traditional garments came undone with low, V-shaped open backs, square mesh jigsaw panels, rips at the hips, and unraveling suspender straps; I fell in love with a pair of carrot pants in a patchwork of mesh and black silks, and his vaporous sheers and cut-out tops led to more literal forms of exposure. I'm also really into the distressed black fabrics dyed and bleached into a sort of industrial floral. I predict really, really good things from Taralis in the future.

what i wore: undead FNO

photo courtesy of obscurealternatives; the satanic mortuaire on the left

My first what I wore today? Or perhaps, what I wore two weeks ago on Fashion's Night Out.
jacket: Helmut Lang
top: Pudel by way of obscurealternatives
pants: Kaylee Tankus
triangle necklace: that damned obscurealternatives again (the three of us matched like a gothy girl band)
balloon: Marni (I'm not kidding.)