Watch out world, here I come! Ok, this picture sucks, but oh well.
Can’t wait to start exploring.
Monday, March 31, 2008
I got a bike!!
Watch out world, here I come! Ok, this picture sucks, but oh well.
Can’t wait to start exploring.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Last Weekend
Last weekend my dear friend Loide was in town. She performed at this great venue in the garment district called the Zipper Factory. It was a great space and she did an amazing job. However, I got NO pictures of her. I am a jerk. I think it was because I was too enthralled in her music! I did get a shot of the two performers who performed after her. The first picture was a woman who was really great, she looked like she was having sooo much fun and she had a beautiful voice. (totally spacing on her name)
This picture is of the final performers [Blk Jak] all the way from South Africa. They were totally quirky and unique and musically forward and put on a great show.
At the after party, I picked up a vinyl and chatted with the band where the drummer told me this funny story. Apparently they just returned from performing at SXSW in Austin and were on the cover of Fader magazine and decided to drive across country in a tour bus (for fun). I thought that was just hilarious, having driving cross country myself twice and asked him what he thought. He said that there was a place called Alabama that was pretty weird, but otherwise it was alright and a good way to see the United States. I would have loved to see the looks on some people's faces to see the four of them get out of the bus at some podunk town in Alabama....
Anyway, it was a fun night.
I haven't posted in awhile. I am alive. Brief rundown...
Barely survived last few days before Spring Break - so tired.
Spring Break came.
Dereck got sick.
I got sick.
Spring Break went.
Back to the grind, still sorta sick.
Don't you hate that?
I had so much planned to accomplish and didn't really do much of it. I did however send off our taxes to be done. One thing checked off the list. AND I am 99% sure that I am getting a bike today, which will be awesome. More to come on that.
Barely survived last few days before Spring Break - so tired.
Spring Break came.
Dereck got sick.
I got sick.
Spring Break went.
Back to the grind, still sorta sick.
Don't you hate that?
I had so much planned to accomplish and didn't really do much of it. I did however send off our taxes to be done. One thing checked off the list. AND I am 99% sure that I am getting a bike today, which will be awesome. More to come on that.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
My new BFF
No, your eyes are not fooling you, it is me and Robert Verdi! I met him at a Fashion/Media event last night at Parsons and now we're best friends. The panel was seriously amazing. So talented and smart (and funny). 
They all gave such good, candid advice and interestingly enough, they all sort of "fell" into the positions that they ended up in. When I say fell, I really mean worked very had and took advantage of opportunities that were presented to them. It made me excited and scared and hopeful as I continue on this journey that I am starting.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Daily Commute
Sometimes I love riding the train. Sometimes not so much. One thing that is for sure, is there is always something interesting to report. Since Dereck doesn’t ride the train much I feel it is my wifely duty to share with him all my woes. Usually it’s something like, I didn’t get a seat today, or someone gave up their seat for me, or I ran so fast, but missed the shuttle, you know, but yesterday was a doozy. Is that how you spell it?
Well here they are.
Number 1. Monday: approximately 8:15am. Walk onto the train to a woman giving a singing sermon. Imagine part talk/part sing. Mostly about repentance/the world ending/etc. Just the kind of stuff you want to hear on the Monday morning after the time change. I found this interesting for several reasons: 1. It was a fairly crowded train, can you imagine if you were rammed up against her and she was saying (singing) these things into your ear? 2. I think she was just simply preaching on her way to work. I don’t think she was asking for money or anything, she just wanted to spread the good word. 3. I was annoyed partly because I was so tired and partly because some of her quotes and interpretations weren’t entirely true. But hey, that is some serious stamina, my train ride was 25 minutes and she was going the whole time! Preach on with your bad self!
Number 2. This is sad. There was a gentleman with a suitcase (pretty sure he was homeless) He was wearing sweats that were wet and a jacket. He kept spraying the wet parts of his sweatpants with air freshener that you would spray in your bathroom at home. Then he went into his speech.
“I am a Vietnam Vet. I am homeless. I have a kidney bag. When I was sleeping on the train I was robbed, after I gave them everything I had they still stabbed me in my throat. I am hungry, I am wet I am embarrassed. Can you please help me out?”
It was seriously so sad. But the problem is that he smelled so poorly. (even with a whole can of air freshner on him) And there was a huge puddle where he had been standing (I think his bag may have leaked). Oh man.
I kept thinking to myself of all the times that I have put whatever bag I am carrying on the floor of the subway and what other types of grime and germs I must carry around with me on a daily basis. I just wonder if he has someplace where he could go. I mean, he must have had some sort of medical care to get the bag.
These are the times where I am so grateful for my blessings. Life could be so much worse.
Number 3. There were two guys (Guy #1, #2) sitting down (they weren’t friends) and there was a woman standing with her daughter. Guy #1 says, “Do you want to sit down?” to the woman. Woman says “Can I have this seat for my daughter, I don’t want her to spill her drink?” The daughter sits down. Guy # 2 says, “Maam do you want my seat so you can sit next to your daughter?” Woman: “No, thank you I am fine.” Guy #2 – I just want you to know that chivalry is not dead. Woman: “No it’s not! Thank you for offering.” Guy #2 “Some people think it’s dead, but it’s NOT!” Guy #1: Agrees
(just in case anyone is still reading, chivalry is not dead)
It was a funny exchange, but maybe you had to be there.
All in a days work.
Well here they are.
Number 1. Monday: approximately 8:15am. Walk onto the train to a woman giving a singing sermon. Imagine part talk/part sing. Mostly about repentance/the world ending/etc. Just the kind of stuff you want to hear on the Monday morning after the time change. I found this interesting for several reasons: 1. It was a fairly crowded train, can you imagine if you were rammed up against her and she was saying (singing) these things into your ear? 2. I think she was just simply preaching on her way to work. I don’t think she was asking for money or anything, she just wanted to spread the good word. 3. I was annoyed partly because I was so tired and partly because some of her quotes and interpretations weren’t entirely true. But hey, that is some serious stamina, my train ride was 25 minutes and she was going the whole time! Preach on with your bad self!
Number 2. This is sad. There was a gentleman with a suitcase (pretty sure he was homeless) He was wearing sweats that were wet and a jacket. He kept spraying the wet parts of his sweatpants with air freshener that you would spray in your bathroom at home. Then he went into his speech.
“I am a Vietnam Vet. I am homeless. I have a kidney bag. When I was sleeping on the train I was robbed, after I gave them everything I had they still stabbed me in my throat. I am hungry, I am wet I am embarrassed. Can you please help me out?”
It was seriously so sad. But the problem is that he smelled so poorly. (even with a whole can of air freshner on him) And there was a huge puddle where he had been standing (I think his bag may have leaked). Oh man.
I kept thinking to myself of all the times that I have put whatever bag I am carrying on the floor of the subway and what other types of grime and germs I must carry around with me on a daily basis. I just wonder if he has someplace where he could go. I mean, he must have had some sort of medical care to get the bag.
These are the times where I am so grateful for my blessings. Life could be so much worse.
Number 3. There were two guys (Guy #1, #2) sitting down (they weren’t friends) and there was a woman standing with her daughter. Guy #1 says, “Do you want to sit down?” to the woman. Woman says “Can I have this seat for my daughter, I don’t want her to spill her drink?” The daughter sits down. Guy # 2 says, “Maam do you want my seat so you can sit next to your daughter?” Woman: “No, thank you I am fine.” Guy #2 – I just want you to know that chivalry is not dead. Woman: “No it’s not! Thank you for offering.” Guy #2 “Some people think it’s dead, but it’s NOT!” Guy #1: Agrees
(just in case anyone is still reading, chivalry is not dead)
It was a funny exchange, but maybe you had to be there.
All in a days work.
Monday, March 10, 2008
DST
Oh Daylight Savings Time, why do you hurt me so? Do you really save time? Or just steal, the few precious moments of extra sleep that I could get?
UUugggghhhh
I am so tired today! AND I have a bad attitude because I feel cheated that I had to give up an hour. It could be the fact that I stayed up until 2:30 working on my third collection or the fact I was working on it all weekend because my teacher only gave us a week instead of 2 weeks for this one. But still. I was robbed.
Anyway, I finished it and couldn't be more happy because I just have a few things to get done on Wednesday and then it's Spring Break, baby! Woo hoo!
UUugggghhhh
I am so tired today! AND I have a bad attitude because I feel cheated that I had to give up an hour. It could be the fact that I stayed up until 2:30 working on my third collection or the fact I was working on it all weekend because my teacher only gave us a week instead of 2 weeks for this one. But still. I was robbed.
Anyway, I finished it and couldn't be more happy because I just have a few things to get done on Wednesday and then it's Spring Break, baby! Woo hoo!
Friday, March 07, 2008
What did you think of this article in the WSJ?
ON STYLE By CHRISTINA BINKLEY
Wasn't Skinny Supposed to Be Out of Fashion?February 28, 2008; Page D1
On Tuesday morning in Paris, as the fashion elite were gathering at the Balenciaga show, 17-year-old model Ali Michael was heading home to the U.S. far earlier than anticipated.
Miss Michael was last season's model du jour, and she looks wraithlike, with a still-developing body and a 23-inch waist. But this season, after gaining five pounds, Miss Michael was told by casting directors for the runway shows that her legs were too plump, according to her mother, Mary Ann Michael, who travels with her daughter to appointments and shows. And so, after doing a string of major supermodel shows in September, Miss Michael snared only the Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris this time around. After walking the runway, her eyes blackened with corpse-like makeup, she said she was sad to be leaving but grateful to Mr. Yamamoto. "This show is special," she added.
Nobody here has been talking about last year's skinny-model cause célèbre, when a few fashion-industry leaders in Milan and Madrid began talking about instituting body-mass-index requirements after the starvation deaths of several models. This year, the models are just as thin -- if anything, they look thinner. This was particularly visible in Paris, which sets modes for clothes and fashion shows around the world.
"I think it's gotten worse," said Nina Garcia, fashion director at Elle magazine and a judge on cable television's "Project Runway," while we waited to see Balenciaga. "In the fashion industry, the models are getting thinner and thinner, yet as a culture, we're getting fatter and fatter."
The Paris runways this week have been as flamboyant as ever, and exceedingly thin models are a big part of the show. Jean-Paul Gaultier assured his continued reign as fashion's enfant terrible by creating a PETA nightmare of fur. Fashion's most famous bony models walked the runway draped in fur that was designed to shock: The heads of the foxes and other creatures went swinging down the catwalk -- eyes, noses, ears, feet, tails and all. The show ended with wild laughter over the sound system -- the huge wicked laugh of a madman.
Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière opened his show with two demure little black dresses that would look awkward on anything but a rail-thin frame. They stood out from the body with exaggerated hips, hiding models' protruding collar bones with a look like armor. Dior went 1960s-Mrs.-Robinson with a finely tailored collection that will make people rush for a martini and cigarette -- and the models, with heavily teased hair and wildly exaggerated eye makeup, were little more than highly stylized hangers for the clothes.
Several designers did grapple with modern concerns. Issey Miyake's show was an eerie ode to love in an apocalyptic age -- he blended jeans, made on special looms that weave fabric to look spray-painted, with fine black suits, run through with understated platinum and gold thread.
Mr. Miyake is right: War, famine, drought and global warming trouble us; we need look no further than the spring flowers blooming in February in Paris to know that change is afoot.
Yet what of the 21st-century problem on his own runway? Mr. Miyake deserves credit for hiring several models of color, but he seemed nonplussed when I asked him about weight. He chose models who are "just suitable for our clothes," he repeated several times.
Bodies Formed to Fit Clothes
So we have bodies being formed to fit clothes, rather than clothes designed to fit bodies.
Model Ali Michael.
"If you look at the girls, they are not beautiful like models were 20 years ago," says Jimmy Pihet, spokesman for the Federation Française de la Couture, which oversees Paris fashion shows. "The girls are thin, they have strange faces. ... At first, you look at them and you're not sure if they're beautiful or disgusting."
This has come about as the fashion industry continues its attempt to seem different while moving in lockstep. Even Viktor & Rolf, who like to make fun of fashion and built slogans like "NO!" and "WOW!" into clothes in Tuesday's show, stop short of certain revolutions. Everywhere on the runways, it's apparent that the emaciated look is still "in."
Mr. Pihet says that France has had laws since 1990 requiring models who are under 18 to obtain health certificates from doctors, and that the Federation receives complaints that the laws are too strong. But he claims that models aren't role models for young girls -- that actresses play that role.
This is a contested point. As any parent of an adolescent girl can tell you, fashion magazines become dog-eared as girls study them for beauty tips.
Thinner Than Twiggy
But it isn't fair to just blame a few designers. In the U.S., France and Italy, casting directors, fashion designers, show overseers and fashion magazines move en masse, and no one is using models who look like models did 20 years ago. In her day, the aptly named Twiggy seemed wildly thin -- but she would look oversized on today's runways.
It's hard to imagine Miss Michael, a willowy, 5-foot-9-inch teenager, being told her legs are too fat. Last season, Miss Michael made herself sick keeping her weight down, said her mother. Miss Michael's reward was to be heralded as the next supermodel.
She opened Lanvin in Paris a year ago and walked the runways of Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Lacroix, Chanel, John Galliano, Dior, Rodarte and others. She appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Teen Vogue and W magazines and was personally congratulated by Vogue's Anna Wintour.
Choices Over Dieting
It's possible to become anesthetized to the models' looks. With heavy makeup, it's also easy to overlook how young many of them are. Miss Michael was "discovered" in Texas at 15.
Her mother, a stunning woman who was once a model herself, said her daughter's model friends have struggled to get thinner in recent months and that her daughter, worried about her health, chose not to starve herself.
"Our bags are packed," said Mrs. Michael sadly as she and her daughter prepared to fly home. Still, she said that she felt a sense of relief that her child was getting out of the fast lane of fashion, at least for now. "I have a really good, good daughter," she said.
Write to Christina Binkley at christina.binkley@wsj.com
Wasn't Skinny Supposed to Be Out of Fashion?February 28, 2008; Page D1
On Tuesday morning in Paris, as the fashion elite were gathering at the Balenciaga show, 17-year-old model Ali Michael was heading home to the U.S. far earlier than anticipated.
Miss Michael was last season's model du jour, and she looks wraithlike, with a still-developing body and a 23-inch waist. But this season, after gaining five pounds, Miss Michael was told by casting directors for the runway shows that her legs were too plump, according to her mother, Mary Ann Michael, who travels with her daughter to appointments and shows. And so, after doing a string of major supermodel shows in September, Miss Michael snared only the Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris this time around. After walking the runway, her eyes blackened with corpse-like makeup, she said she was sad to be leaving but grateful to Mr. Yamamoto. "This show is special," she added.
Nobody here has been talking about last year's skinny-model cause célèbre, when a few fashion-industry leaders in Milan and Madrid began talking about instituting body-mass-index requirements after the starvation deaths of several models. This year, the models are just as thin -- if anything, they look thinner. This was particularly visible in Paris, which sets modes for clothes and fashion shows around the world.
"I think it's gotten worse," said Nina Garcia, fashion director at Elle magazine and a judge on cable television's "Project Runway," while we waited to see Balenciaga. "In the fashion industry, the models are getting thinner and thinner, yet as a culture, we're getting fatter and fatter."
The Paris runways this week have been as flamboyant as ever, and exceedingly thin models are a big part of the show. Jean-Paul Gaultier assured his continued reign as fashion's enfant terrible by creating a PETA nightmare of fur. Fashion's most famous bony models walked the runway draped in fur that was designed to shock: The heads of the foxes and other creatures went swinging down the catwalk -- eyes, noses, ears, feet, tails and all. The show ended with wild laughter over the sound system -- the huge wicked laugh of a madman.
Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière opened his show with two demure little black dresses that would look awkward on anything but a rail-thin frame. They stood out from the body with exaggerated hips, hiding models' protruding collar bones with a look like armor. Dior went 1960s-Mrs.-Robinson with a finely tailored collection that will make people rush for a martini and cigarette -- and the models, with heavily teased hair and wildly exaggerated eye makeup, were little more than highly stylized hangers for the clothes.
Several designers did grapple with modern concerns. Issey Miyake's show was an eerie ode to love in an apocalyptic age -- he blended jeans, made on special looms that weave fabric to look spray-painted, with fine black suits, run through with understated platinum and gold thread.
Mr. Miyake is right: War, famine, drought and global warming trouble us; we need look no further than the spring flowers blooming in February in Paris to know that change is afoot.
Yet what of the 21st-century problem on his own runway? Mr. Miyake deserves credit for hiring several models of color, but he seemed nonplussed when I asked him about weight. He chose models who are "just suitable for our clothes," he repeated several times.
Bodies Formed to Fit Clothes
So we have bodies being formed to fit clothes, rather than clothes designed to fit bodies.
Model Ali Michael.
"If you look at the girls, they are not beautiful like models were 20 years ago," says Jimmy Pihet, spokesman for the Federation Française de la Couture, which oversees Paris fashion shows. "The girls are thin, they have strange faces. ... At first, you look at them and you're not sure if they're beautiful or disgusting."
This has come about as the fashion industry continues its attempt to seem different while moving in lockstep. Even Viktor & Rolf, who like to make fun of fashion and built slogans like "NO!" and "WOW!" into clothes in Tuesday's show, stop short of certain revolutions. Everywhere on the runways, it's apparent that the emaciated look is still "in."
Mr. Pihet says that France has had laws since 1990 requiring models who are under 18 to obtain health certificates from doctors, and that the Federation receives complaints that the laws are too strong. But he claims that models aren't role models for young girls -- that actresses play that role.
This is a contested point. As any parent of an adolescent girl can tell you, fashion magazines become dog-eared as girls study them for beauty tips.
Thinner Than Twiggy
But it isn't fair to just blame a few designers. In the U.S., France and Italy, casting directors, fashion designers, show overseers and fashion magazines move en masse, and no one is using models who look like models did 20 years ago. In her day, the aptly named Twiggy seemed wildly thin -- but she would look oversized on today's runways.
It's hard to imagine Miss Michael, a willowy, 5-foot-9-inch teenager, being told her legs are too fat. Last season, Miss Michael made herself sick keeping her weight down, said her mother. Miss Michael's reward was to be heralded as the next supermodel.
She opened Lanvin in Paris a year ago and walked the runways of Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Lacroix, Chanel, John Galliano, Dior, Rodarte and others. She appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Teen Vogue and W magazines and was personally congratulated by Vogue's Anna Wintour.
Choices Over Dieting
It's possible to become anesthetized to the models' looks. With heavy makeup, it's also easy to overlook how young many of them are. Miss Michael was "discovered" in Texas at 15.
Her mother, a stunning woman who was once a model herself, said her daughter's model friends have struggled to get thinner in recent months and that her daughter, worried about her health, chose not to starve herself.
"Our bags are packed," said Mrs. Michael sadly as she and her daughter prepared to fly home. Still, she said that she felt a sense of relief that her child was getting out of the fast lane of fashion, at least for now. "I have a really good, good daughter," she said.
Write to Christina Binkley at christina.binkley@wsj.com
Sunday, March 02, 2008
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