"pastel grunge" makes me sad/i'm picking up good vibrations

   

A GIF that I made of one of my wicker baskets

Hi hi hi hi hi. I'm off from school for Memorial Day, so I have time to browse the Internet and criticize everything and be snarky while eating pretzels and listening to Bikini Kill. 

So...yeah. I'm not going to rant about everything because ranting gets boring after a while and I have pretzels waiting to enter my mouth, but I've noticed something called "pastel grunge" lately. It's basically what would happen if a kawaii monster ate all the cats and lolita-based posts on tumblr and traveled back in time to a Nirvana concert to vomit the mixture all over the place, then took an Instagram picture of it to make it look "retro" or whatever. In an article in the Toronto Standard, Max Mosher says, "Picture a combination of Courtney Love and My Little Pony, and you're most of the way there."

There's just something about it that irks me. I honestly don't know. Maybe it started when I saw someone wearing a shirt with the Nirvana logo with a bunch of kawaii necklaces, and when I asked if she liked Nirvana, she said, "Um, who?" Or maybe it was when I saw someone for the hundredth time with fluorescent hair and some sort of skull somewhere on their outfit. I don't know. 

I'm not trying to offend anyone, so if you read this and said, "UGH, so offensive! You suck!" then I apologize. I'm probably contradicting myself because I've had purple hair twice in my lifetime, but I guess my only annoyance comes out of either seeing the same thing every day, or when people wear things of significance to other people without trying to find out the real meaning. I don't know. I have the same problem with Nu Goth (a.k.a. 75% of Lookbook a.k.a what this blogger describes as an "unholy alliance") for the same reasons. 

If you haven't stopped reading by now, then good, good. I'm in a weird good mood, both because of the fact that I have no school today, and because the Internet has given me a reason to like it again. Behold, the Holy Grail of fashion/snarkiness:

 

I spent my entire Sunday going through twenty six pages worth of this stuff from a tumblr called Unknowledgeable Fashionista, which has both memes and screenshots of when people get names and terms in fashion wrong, etc., including the forever cringeworthy "Channel." (seen below)

Anyway. In relation to what I was talking about before (grunge), there is a great article that I read on style.com called "Baby-Doll Dresses Rise to the Occasion"  that talks about the revival of the 1990s and the kinderwhore fashion. 

                 

Above: Hedi Slimane's revival at Saint Laurent (left), Christoper Kane's (right)

Azzedine Alaïa's, which was superb. I'm in a dot coma. 

Anna Sui 

Chanel

Versus Versace 

I have an exciting blogiversary post up later (I know, I know, it's been two days, don't judge me), so...woohoo. I'm bad at ending posts. I'm actually supposed to be editing an article right now, so I should stop procrastinating for once. 

-Britney 

household saint

Well, HI.
Everything has been weird lately, and a heat wave is bearing down on New York. I haven't been able to wear stockings in about a week, which is a big thing for me, because stockings are my life. They are essentially, a SECOND SKIN for me. 

I don't really have too much to say right now. I just thought I'd share a few pictures that I took around my apartment. In the outfit picture, my jean jacket is from Macy's (I bought it last summer), the Frida Kahlo shirt is from F21, and the skirt is from H&M. The necklace is homemade and I like to think that a cult like The Source Family used it as a healing crystal and that one day Joan Baez will crawl out of it, dust of her guitar, and serenade me. 

-Britney

mad girl's love song

                    

(Source)

(Source) 

(Source)

(Source unknown-it might be tumblr)

Hey there. I don't have much to post; this is basically a hodgepodge of different things that have been a part of my life lately/some inspiration. 

                                                                                           -Yours truly, Britney 

P.S. Sonic Youth is undoubtedly amazing, which is something that I only realized yesterday.

endless, nameless

It is Friday, April 5, the day that Kurt Cobain put a gun to his head nineteen years ago and decided to pull. It is Friday, April 5, and death surrounds me.

I am on a bus on the way to school, listening to Nirvana’s In Utero on my cassette player (as a sort of tribute to Kurt) and staring up at the grey-coated sky through the window, which is stained with patches of moisture from the light rain. One of the characters in the book that I’m almost done reading is having a prefuneral-he is dying of cancer, and wants to attend his own funeral, so he gets his girlfriend and best friend together and listens to their eulogies devoted to him. A small part of me finds this narcissistic, but as I think about it, the entire concept of viewing life after death and the world existing without someone is too much to handle.

There is a specific sadness associated with death. It’s intertwined with a fear of oblivion and knowing that something inexorable exists, no matter how much we don’t want it to. Both living forever and dying are horrible in their own ways; there is no complete solution, which makes it worse.

A while ago, I experienced the worst form of dejection that I have ever known. It was a time when I feared death yet never stop thinking about it. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want anyone around me to die.  While my other friends who battled with depression sought solace in suicide attempts and thoughts of ending their lives, I could only live, which I found hard to do when thinking about the future. It lasted for a few years, going on and off until I met with my school’s guidance counselor about it. It stopped after that, and now, for a few moments, it reappears. I cannot help it; I cry. I cry for Kurt. I cry for the character having the prefuneral and everyone who will have to eventually wake up in a world without him. I cry for the fourteen dead people that exist for each one of the living. I cry for the living as well, for having to know that this thing called death exists.

“Look on the bright side, suicide…” I cry even more, thinking about how Kurt Cobain must have felt in those final moments. Did he think about how that final second on Earth would feel? Did he think about what would be waiting for him once the gunshot penetrated his brain?

The book that I was reading talked about leaving behind a legacy. When we die, who remembers us? When they die, too, are we lost, our ashes claimed by wind and blown away from existence? Did Kurt wonder if almost two decades after he died, people would listen to his music and cry? I can only wonder, like I do with everything else, as I step off the bus and into the rain.

                                                         

age of consent (spring vibes '13)

HI. I'm currently up late finishing up some entries in my creative writing for school while trying to juggle my feelings of extreme happiness and excitement (writing this post, gathering up all of my emotions and ideas and thoughts to put here) while dealing with some sadness: this post, as well as this Rookie diary that I wrote for the week. There's just this big blob of adolescence (which I'll touch on more a bit later) and death and nostalgia surrounding me, and I'm not sure of how to escape it.

 

A moodboard that I made. I feel like a lot of spring moodboards are full of brightness and Technicolor (even though winter to spring really is like running from a tornado and into a land full of Munchkins) and other things. I think that's how I felt before in winter, but now I feel more forest inspired than say, a meadow or a pool like before (while those both play roles in my overall perspective, they aren't the central themes). Ghost World, Freaks and Geeks, and The Virgin Suicides are a big part of that (suburbia and the '70s, because you have to admit, F&G is stuck in the era of the shag rug (Exhibit A: Lindsey & Sam's house, which is green & brown). There is also ADOLESCENCE as a whole, because it obviously isn't absolutely amazing and puppies and sunshine, although puppies would make sense because they poop a lot. Adolescence poops a lot, which is something that I think we can all agree on.

CDG ad that I edited/annotated 

(Source-Odyssey and Oracle)

Two pages from  one of my journals. The left page stemmed from the bottom section that I started writing on the right ("Diaries"). (ALSO-My normal handwriting doesn't look like this. I just felt the need to clarify this.) I started thinking about The Virgin Suicides, but really thinking about it-every time I read it, I feel connected to it more, in a way. The first time I read it, I don't think I really saw it for what it was; like with what many people do with Lolita, I romanticized a tale of obsession, one that made the subject(s) of desire out to be otherworldly creatures. Upon reading it again, I realized that it was really about a group of men who refuse to let go of an obsession with the group of girls across the street. This time around, I really got involved in the adolescence aspect of it, which is something I've been doing lately whenever I read literature, watch a television show or a movie, listen to a song, etc. J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is the epitome of teenage rebellion, but not really rebelling in the way that we are used to, like steal our parents' liquor and getting drunk in the basement, or hating everyone and everything just for the hell of it. Holden Caulfield, the main character, rebels because he (a) dislikes many people based on the fact that he views them as "goddamn phonies" and (b) holds onto youth in a way that isn't sexualized like Humbert Humbert's, but because it's so full of innocence and the mind in it's supposedly purest form, before humans make the transition into becoming possible phonies. My spring vibes (sort of based on my playlist for the season, "Age of Consent") are centered around this idea of what adolescence is, and how there are so many different perspectives on it. In an interview Rookie conducted with Sky Ferreira, she spoke about how so many pop stars are sexualized in a Lolita-esque, schoolgirl way, even though adolescence is this really difficult time full of zits and awkwardness, which is so right; people like to have this fantasy of what growing up is, when really, it is just this ideal that hardly compares to the real thing.

I'm going to post the rest of this later, because I have so much to say (including a playlist focused around this theme, more moodboards, more talking), but my computer hates me.

                                                                                                                 Yours truly,
                                                                                                                          Britney

(Originally posted on The Fashion Aviator, my other blog)

sometimes i think sitting on trains

Isn't M.I.A just the absolute kewlest? (I feel like I'm going to regret the use of that last word,  but STILL.)

She has an amazing, eclectic style that is entirely unique and reflected in her music. My favorite songs by her are "Paper Planes" and "XXXO." Her real name is Mathangi "Maya" Aprulpragasam, and her stage name (M.I.A.) is a play on the word Maya.

(Commence topic change.) I want summer to come already. Looking at great clothes (like the ones above) makes me happy until I look down and I'm in some stupid snowsuit or whatever. I'm done wishing for spring because spring = school and frankly, I'm beginning to hate that, too. 

I actually had a pretty fun spring break. I got together with some of my friends on Monday to celebrate one of my best friends' birthday, and it was great. We went gallivanting all over Park Slope and eventually ended up in Prospect Park, which we spent hours in. There were swans and a Bat Cave (made by one of my friends, which is this cave thing that had a tunnel that you and one other person can hide in-it goes pretty deep into the Earth) and walking next to creeks and climbing over fences in a desperate attempt not to fall (that last part about falling was mostly me).  

                   

(Source of this incredible rosette that I am lusting after) 

Hope you guys are having a great spring break!

-Britney

the laws of passive aggressiveness

1. Subtle bitchfacing is key. (i.e. Make "lol r u that stupid?" = "My face hates you but I'm going to smile anyway.")

 

(Source)

2. "i hate u so much omfg" should now be "You know, there's just something about you..." The key is saying it the way you would up a stained shirt and say, "Yeah...this just is not going to work." A tongue click, shaking of the head, and slightly squinted eyes are optional but add to the line.

3. "omg plz do my h.w. i am so screwed wtf" is turned into "Do you know the answer to this question? Wow, you're so good at this! Surely you can do this problem, too...and I was having a little trouble with this one, too...you'll do all? Really? Aw, you don't have to. You insist? Well, thanks!" Add a smile and a little shrug. Then go back to eating your sushi and staring at your latest infatuation until all fifty of the science questions are done. 

4. "move out of the effing way OMG" will be, "You know what, I'm tired and I have no time to deal with this. My LIONFISH died yesterday. I just want to get to the space behind you, okay?" (The lionfish part can be replaced when any other fish, except for a goldfish, because those things die all the time. It's a bit scary. They have a lifespan of about five minutes.) 

5. "hey there i rly rly lyke u and maybe we should go out?" = "Your face. I like it." 

6. "omg i am 2 lazy 2 finish this blog post" is now "Stay tuned for more!" 

-Britney,
Queen of the Chronic Bitchface

The seemingly permanent position of my face

point of no return

"The boy walked like a cat, lithe and full of purpose, with lives to spare. He walked past the record store where Marni worked, hoping she would not see him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her; she was strange and liked serenading him in Bob Dylan songs (last time it had been "The Times They Are A-Changin"). "-the rough draft a short story that I'm working on that is going absolutely nowhere.

Long time, no blog. I'm feeling particularly uninspired (except for being excited about a pair of holographic sneakers that I bought today), so I'm going to post an a/w 13 review that I have on my other blog. Enjoy, you snazzy cats. 

                                                                            Versace

                     

                                         

This is what Cher Horowitz would be wearing if she were in an all-girl rock band in the 1970s. It's minimalism with an edge. I like the contradiction of the coat with the bodysuit (which I thought was a swimsuit at first). The fur-trim was nice.

 

More Cher H. I can't really say that I like this dress that much; the way the plaid and the leather was mixed didn't really do it for me, and I wasn't too fond of the boots, which remind me of those awkward plastic things that people put umbrellas in. I like the bag, though.

                         

I have mixed feelings. I like the white leather! I don't like the shoes. I like the belt and the use of it! Oh, CONFUSION. At 2:33 A.M., you just had to visit me. I never liked pencil skirts, so I'm a little biased in this situation.

                           

This satchel is something that I'd definitely wear. All the elements miraculously don't clash. (Two different colored furs, chains, buckles, leather)

                            

This feels like something you'd find in Hot Topic. I'm not liking the pants, esp. the length, because it seems to cut off at such an awkward angle.

                          

Eh, the...necklace is nice? I don't know. The coat is pretty rad.

Overall, the collection was pretty monochromatic and felt a little...obvious? Like, the whole black + white with a leeeeetle touch a gray was drawing into the whole "punk" idea too much, so at times some of the clothes came off as Hot Topic-y (which I mentioned before). I liked some of the accessories, though, like the fur trimmed satchel and the necklaces. There were things like the fur-trimmed bodysuit & the coat, so yeah, it wasn't bad or anything.

                                                                      Moschino

                          

This outfit is great, esp. the dress because of the shape and the yellow collar. The socks & heels would look nice with other outfits, too.

                          

Peplum pants? Eh.

                          

Christina Hendricks in Mad Men if someone shoved her into a time machine heading into the 21st century.

                          

I don't like the M emblem. The heels with socks are great, and I like the jacket. The use of roses throughout the outfit are nice.

Everything else was basically jackets and more M emblems (ugh) and somewhat ugly hats and riding stuff. It was better than Versace (I'm sorry, Donatella, but your "vunk" wasn't that appealing to me) in my opinion, especially in the way that the main prints (crimson red, plaid) were used.

                                                                      Dolce & Gabbana

                                           (a.ka. my style bffzzzzz and partners in fashion crime)

                       

                                                Stefano and Domenico, you clever devils, you.

                           

I like the shape and length of the dress. The print is nice; it's like one of those really old Italian churches, and I don't know why I'm saying that, because that was obviously the inspiration. Shut up, Britney. Ugh. MOVING ON.

                           

This brings to mind a cool nun. I don't know what's wrong with my brain. But that is what this brings to mind.  Or like, a nun who's been excommunicated for being too cool and she's on her way out of the convent with her bitchface and red shoes and lace. I need sleep ugh.

                           

The shorts. The shorts are great. Can I marry you, o shorts? The top proves that Dolce & Gabbana remain the masters of iconography. I like how these pieces were paired together.

                           

-COMMENCE ULTIMATE BITCHFACE- The layering is perfect. I'm not the biggest fan of gray, but this is so nice. A little too "I'm on my way to work at a somewhat stifling office and I'm also a middle aged woman" for me, though.

                         

Okay, SO,  bear with me here, but remember my nun theory earlier? On American Horror Story: Asylum, the head of the asylum, a nun named Sister Jude wore this red slip underneath her nun suit (because I honestly don't know what it's called), and this brought back memories, man. This is what a younger Sister Jude would wear underneath her nun suit (that is now my new favorite phrase).

                        

The pointed gold shoes are rad. I don't have any close-ups because style.com hasn't posted any for this show yet. I like the shape of the blazer/jacket. At first I wasn't sure if it was only because of the way that it looked with the shorts, but in the ten minutes I took to visualize in different outfit scenarios, I realized that it would look great with other pieces of clothing.

                                                                  Christopher Kane

                       

Weird metallic camo thing, anyone? I don't like camo, so I could be biased. I like the structure of the dress and the buckle placement.

                         

MORE. CAMO. I like this...dress? It's a dress. I like the pleats, and for some reason this reminds me of a raincoat, but I like it.

I liked the shoes in both pictures. Everything else was fur and camo and buckles, and that's too much for my four eyes at this time. My eyesight is pretty much equal to that of a grandmother's.

                                                                 Chloe Sevigny for O.C.

                        

This was one of my favorite collections because it was obviously inspired by the '60s, but not in the generalized way that everyone else is doing it in (i.e. Edie Sedgwick in almost EVERYTHING??? Too much of a good thing is bad, guys.) This was amazing because it showed all the different sides of the decade instead of focusing on the main trend . There are outfits that can fit underneath work, play, just hanging out, and anything in between. The ones above (which hold a SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART right next to the Dolce & Gabbana duo) remind me of being a kid and playing around (left) and going out to dance (right).

                      

Is anyone else getting serious Suzy Bishop vibes from the outfit on the right? I think it's the colors and the bag and the socks.

                       

So much CONTRASTING in each picture. The outfit on the left is really nice and reminds me of a mash-up of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby and Courtney Love c. 1990s.

                       

                       

These were the ones that stood out to me the most, and since I've had this post saved for a few days now, I don't think that there are anymore designer lines that stood out to me as much as these (if there are, I'll make another post). Fear not! I have saved Meadham Kirchoff for next time, because it deserves its own post. Seriously, you guys, this is the most perfect thing in my life since Grimes.

Well, homework awaits me. So does Nashville.