-Like the idea, for its cheapness potential, but the dresses are exactly how not to shop the kids' section. It's a fine line between Alexa Chung-Peter Pan collar-land and dressing like an actual child. And if you're shopping kids' to save money, not just to make the point that you can squeeze into baby onesies, those prices are a bit steep.
-Hipsters-make-your-food, the pizza-in-Bushwick edition. This was, by the way, the purveyor of the $10-plus personal pie that made such an impression, although that was at their Madison Square Park, uh, pop-up or temporary stand or whatever. The plain pie was less, I think, if not by much, but this one promised to be a green garlic extravaganza, back when that was in season, and ended up having a few shreds of the stuff. Maybe the problem is that once you learn how to make pizza yourself, anything you get out tastes maybe a bit better from having been in a better oven, but also worse because they need to make a profit and the quality, however high, suffers. So... no, I won't be going to Bushwick for the real deal, even though part of me is totally convinced. (Not having any cuttlefish, though, not after that "South Park" episode.)
-What IDF training (and that's so how this worked) is good for: escaping the clutches of a sadistic German.
-I want to watch and/or participate in all of Kei's proposed documentaries.
-Whereas I don't especially want to see heavily stylized photos of Kurt and Courtney's daughter's emerging womanhood or whatever. It seems strange to discuss the lucky lot in life of someone whose father committed suicide when she was a young child, and whose mother... But what to make of the fact that we are now, coincidentally enough in the midst of a 1990s and Nirvana revival, supposed to welcome Frances Bean Cobain as the new Face of Fashion? She is now poised to have one of those "careers" that involve being fabulous and getting photographed looking pleasantly debauched in designer clothes. FBC's achievement thus far is apparently that she has professional photographers capture her in such unusual late-teens activities as looking sullen and smoking cigarettes, the twist being that her face is so very much that of her iconic parents, and letting the photos "leak" all over the Internet. (Meanwhile, the rest of teendom is now trying to avoid being photographed looking sullen and smoking cigarettes, because those photos will be all over the Internet.) This seems a much more blunt approach to self-promotion than the usual child-of-rocker exploits, namely having a modeling/it-girl career that a cynic will understand was behind-the-scenes arranged by publicists, and that would not exist without the famous name. I don't know. I guess on some level, as someone who wore plaid flannel shirts in fourth grade because of Nirvana, baby-doll dresses in fifth/sixth because of Hole, I'd have preferred a Saffy-style result.
I get women past a certain age (around 21) don't necessarily want to look older, but do women really want to look 5? There's a line between looking young and looking like you have no dignity, which is (IMO) what a 30 year old dressed in a peter-pan collar dress looks like. Also, (besides women with no dignity) who actually can wear this look in their every day life? Hipsters with cupcake bakeries? Etsy employees? As a grad student in a discipline known for eccentric dressing, I am completely free from the requirements to dress professionally or conventionally, but showing up in a 5 year old's outfit is maybe a step above showing up in a stripper outfit in terms of appearing to take academics seriously. (No, I take that back. A stripper outfit would probably be better. At least dominatrix signals adultness.) Not to mention, if one is beyond an A cup, the cut of girl's dresses can make the line between "girly" and "maternity" a fine one. (I once almost offered my seat on a bus to a pregnant woman before realizing she wasn't pregnant, she was just a well-endowed woman in a baby-doll shirt.) But yes, I agree. If you're goal is to get more bang for your buck, then the goal is to buy kids clothes that aren't obviously for kids.
ReplyDeleteOr, if you are smallish and like buying clothes, I highly suggest coming to China. The pants here are magic. In the US, I have to try on about 30 pairs before I find one that mostly kind of fits, and here, I swear, every pair of jeans I try on fits and is flattering, even though I don't have the same build as most Chinese women. (Shirts are a bit harder, since I have broad shoulders and a not small chest, but if you aren't super broad shouldered, they should fit like a glove. As it is I can just get away with wearing fitted shirts. Bras are another story...(It used to be I simply couldn't buy bras in China, though internet shopping has made it possible, though experimentation has shown that all bras are extremely padded, regardless of size.) In addition to cheap ready-wear stuff in plentiful supply for those under 6 feet tall, tailoring is ridiculously cheap. My local tailor hems jeans for $1.25, and he does it by removing the current hem and then resewing it on so you can't tell the pants have been hemmed. I brought a pair of wool dress pants I bought in the US that were 2 sizes too big, and he took in the waist and hip area for about $4.75, and again, the quality is such that I can't tell they've been altered. Getting stuff made from scratch is pretty inexpensive too. (Of course, the price of a ticket here would cancel out the savings, but if you ever can get funding for, say, a conference here, I would do it just for the shopping opportunities.) I have to refrain from spending 100s of dollars on clothes here, especially since I am not lacking in the clothes dept. back home.
Finally, I thought Frances Bean was famous for being, all things considered, relatively normal?
Britta,
ReplyDeleteThe dresses in that slideshow looked proportioned for actual babies, making me wonder whether whoever did the slideshow just got lazy and used available images that were of a baby size, not of the kids' 18 or whatever that could cross over into an adult XS or S. It's possible that some of the styles would look less ridiculous if cut for a teen than for a toddler. Of course, when adult women's clothes are designed for junior high school students, maybe the best bet is to at least get the cheaper peter pan collars in the kids' section?
"Finally, I thought Frances Bean was famous for being, all things considered, relatively normal?"
That may have once been the case, but these new photo shoots are what have put her in the news. And the first one, especially, was styled to emphasize how rock'n'roll she is, even though it's unclear what makes her so other than her birth.