SOLID GOLD EASY ACTION

Already this LFW, I keep seeing this girl and that same pair of torn Henry Holland tights everywhere:

Internet research (spurred on by seeing a twitpic of her arse circulating the web with the caption “Oh, how are the mighty fallen! First Henry Holland Tights in T K Maxx, and now this?“) suggests that she goes by the monicker of “Lady Bolshie”, and is a seventeen-year-old fashion vagina designer whose nu-rave leotards – with dangling plastic baby heads on the shoulders, no less – would presumably to appeal to a certain other Lady with a known aversion to trousers (I’m reluctant to be the one to solve that timeless conundrum “Which came first, the Bolshie or the Gaga?“, although given that Gaga had six years on her rival, I might speculate that she has the advantage).  It definately isn’t my sort of thing, but then it wasn’t when neon was in fashion either, although I’m fairly sure I remember having a day-glo bracelet with a miniature kewpie doll on it when I was thirteen, if that helps.

Here’s the thing, Ms. Jones (I would be more comfortable using your real name, if it’s all the same with you): I think it’s great that you’ve moved away from Hull and into the big city so young, and that you’re “pursuing your dream” of being an avant-garde vagina designer, and all that other stuff that we’re all supposed to do, but usually forget because we’re busy doing things like being overweight or wearing trousers. Really. If I’d had half that motivation when I was seventeen, I’d probably be doing something far more fabulous right this minute than writing a blog entry, although it must be said that what I lacked in motivation, I (just barely) made up for in body coverage. And I’m certainly nothing if not envious of your willowy teenage thighs, the likes of which, my being the wrong side of twenty by now, are a distant memory to me, synonymous with a time when I also used a fake ID which required me to affect an Irish accent, or when not being carded was, most likely, the high point of a saturday night.

But:

The longer I look at this picture on The Facehunter, the more I start to worry that I’m going to end up like Pete Townsend, insisting that I was “only researching a blog entry”, and that it was completely by accident that I ended up coming within a hair’s breadth of seeing an under-18’s sex parts. I mean, I’m not saying that I was a nun when I was seventeen – I don’t think anyone would ever suggest that – but it’s daylight and zero degrees outside, girl! Honeychile, isn’t your vulva cold? I’m not going to be a total stick-in-the-mud and make the obligatory “look into pants” comment, partly because I am British and therefore am literally looking in your pants right now, but at least look into opaques. I feel like Gary fucking Glitter.

THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

So apparently, Alexander Wang is really hoping that we’ll all start dressing like teenage goths having a sleepover in 1995, possibly watching The Craft on VHS and trying to cast love spells on John in Economics.

I would also imagine that there’s a decent joke to be had from the surname “Wang” and the phrase “As light as a feather, as stiff as a board“, but I’ll leave that one up to you.

EGYPTIAN REGGAE

Yeah, I know. Three weeks! It seems like I only update once a month at the moment, but you should know that I’ve been very busy lately with a number of things. I  would suggest that you might be curious as to what I’d been doing, but honestly, no-one’s to say that you’re reading this at all, given that there are a thousand blogs out there which actually do manage to operate with greater regularity than a teenage menstrual cycle; nevertheless, I’m going to let you know anyway, because I feel guilty and like a horrible blogger, and also because it’s either that or doing my laundry, which is usually depressing.

So.

Finishing the work for my interrim exhibition: Although I’m sure if you like this blog, you’d like the imagery, I’m pretty sure the art stuff is of little interest to you. Don’t feel bad, though. It isn’t of much interest to me either, at the moment.

Boxing up an enormous number of headpieces and sending them to Diane Von Furstenberg: For those of you who don’t know me personally, a backstory – Michael, the guy in blog entry which we will call, Friends style, The One With The Rubber Trousers, ended up designing the gilded, laurel-style headpieces in the DVF S/S10 show, which were sort of like something that a particularly lavish emperor might wear when lounging around in his vomitarium. Ironically enough, after an evening of untangling 60 of the little bastards from each other and trying to pack them into fedex boxes – destination: a department store window or an Olsen twin’s scalp near you –  I felt just about ready to use the vomitarium myself, not least because of an entire weekend spent getting, as Billy Ocean might put it, out of my brain and into your car.

Boxing up yet more things, to be sent to every magazine under the sun: Over the last week, I’ve also started interning part-time at a fashion PR firm in Shoreditch, which represents designers like Julian J Smith and Christopher Shannon, so I’ve been filling more boxes than John Terry (Hey now!) in the run-up to fashion week, as well as pulling clothes for everyone from Dazed & Confused to i-D. While this has been extremely fulfilling – tiring, but enjoyable – it’s also becoming increasingly apparent that I am not only a) often the heaviest person in the room, but b) always the most unkempt. Anyway, I’ll be doing some of the seating at On/Off this season, so if you see an orange-haired girl with a clipboard  (bleached denim by PRPS and  body language by Mounting Sense Of Inadequacy) do come over and chat, as I could do with the support.

Recieving the greatest Valentine’s gift of my short life: In the form of one of these pigeon-foot pendants by R/P Encore, which was sent to me as a press gift of sorts after attending their launch last LFW:

Reading everything every written by Hamilton Morris, that drug guy from the Vice website, and subsequently developing a creepy internet crush on him:

For whatever reason, since the latter half of my teenage years, I’ve been constantly attracted to Jewish men, with very few exceptions. Seriously. I don’t know if it all started in my childhood with my obsession with Schmedrick, the cartoon wizard from the Last Unicorn, but I’m a shameless Hora now, and there’s no going back. The other thing I am near-fetishistic about in a partner, incidentally, is language, grammar and spelling, to the point where if I’d had a pretty good date  (read: one night stand) with someone, but they texted me aterwards and invited me to a gig and said “There [sic] on at 9, c u then“, it would be well and truly over before it had begun. Imagine my delight, then, to read all the Hamilton Morris’ Pharmocopeia articles on Vice (possily one of the last good things going on there) and find out that, as well as being well-written and pretty intriguing, they were written by a seriously bangable 22-year-old Jewish guy, who is apparently trained in biochemistry and looks as though he weighs about six stone on a fat day. I actually made the extremely mature and classy move of adding him on facebook and then saying absolutely nothing, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a move that always ends in unequivocal success, especially when used on someone who lives in a different continent. What can I say? Don’t hate the player, hate the game. I’m just always going to be a winner, you guys.

Thinking of sacking this blog in and then starting afresh at a time when I’m not simultaneously trying to finish a degree, do an internship and decide what the fuck I’m going to do for a job in three months, for real: Self explainatory, I think. We shall see. Or, you know, whatever.

THE HAIR SHIRT

Hoo-boy! I have a meeting with someone at an East-end fashion PR firm tomorrow, and I’ve no idea what I’ll wear; given that my all-important art uni deadlines are looming in a week, I’ve spent most of my time recently wearing faded t-shirts, worn-out leggings and an extra layer of blubber, so God knows how I’ll make myself look presentable in time.

 One thing I have given a trial run this week is a leather t-shirt, which everyone is saying is the best costume for the day cira 2010, along with all the usual “romatic ruffled” safari-suit bullshit that’s usually kicking aound in Spring. I inherited a cap-sleeved, leather shift dress, two sizes too large and with a fucking great hole in the hem a couple of months ago, leaving me with no choice but to hack it off into a top – it might not be how Celine make theirs, but I’m a woman of limited means, and every dog deserves its day, or something. Unortunately, this dog didn’t look as clean and utilitarian in her leather t-shirt as a runway model and looked, in fact, not unlike the fictional character Bruno, or an extra from a Bruce LaBruce film called “Crocodile Done Me“, so it seems I’ll be skipping this season’s “it” item in favour of something else.

Having redyed my hair to a faded orange (I choose to think of its palor as being a bit grunge, like Kurt Cobain after a bottle of Head ‘N’ Shoulders, rather than the result of a terrible bleach job), I’m starting to feel an interest in khaki again, because of the way the two colours look together – kind of Christiane F, but with less smack and more carbs:

Beaten-up army jackets, especially, have been popping up everywhere on the streetstyle photos from Milan at the moment, albeit on men, so provided I can grow a sizeable beard before London Fashion Week, I’ll be right on trend. Also on my wishlist: this necklace from a brand called Does Not Equal, which you may have seen on the Di$count blog:

And maybe also this model, photographed for GQ by Tommy Ton:

I love the huge hat, I love the fag-smoke, I love the sheer, unadulterated beauty, I love it all. I’ll level with you – I’m not sure if this is a man or a woman, but much like Eddie Murphy, I operate on a strictly don’t ask, don’t tell basis, although unlike Eddie Murphy, I’d probably never fuck Scary Spice, so I like to think that I can still affect an air of moral superiority.  If anyone knows who s/he is, answers on a postcard in the shape of Princess Diana to the usual address. 

(If you want to keep the gender a secret, though, that’s cool. I just love surprises, don’t you?)

LONESOME COWBOYS

Boots, designed by a certain Mz. Iris Schieferstein by marrying a golden, cloven hoof and a pistol:

>=

 Discuss.

(My head feels a fuck of a lot like that guy’s right now, incidentally – I figured y’all’d be tough enough to cope with it, since it’s from a Cronenberg film and all. We’re all grown-ups here, right? – so I’m hard-pressed to make a more coherent update. Between you and me, I was so out of it on a combination of flu and lemsip earlier that I actually wrote “greatful” in an email. Don’t worry, though; if I find myself using “unbenounced” instead of “unbeknownst“, I’ll have someone take me around the back like Old Yeller. )

GRACE JONES LOVES TO BONE

Tell me, honestly – did you ever want to wear nerd-glasses, a patchwork chubby and men’s thermals before you saw this picture of Aurel Schmidt? Granted, she looks like a pimped-out, crayola-coloured Harry Potter in pouchy, greying smalls, but I ain’t mad at that. I’m also not mad at having got my hands on that old fox chubby from Cancer Research, thanks to a timely repayment of a debt from my boyfriend – it sucks lending money, but it’s always like a little birthday getting it back , no? – so it’s been a pretty good day for fur overall, I guess. I’m currently sitting here knee-deep in work, contacting publishers and distributors and talking to a friend who just moved to, of all places, Outer Mongolia, where he’s going to raves underground and taking drugs that they refer to only by their effects, like characters from Dances With Wolves. F cut off all of his huge, curly mane last night in a fit of pique and I hate how it shows off his skeevy moustache, but what can you do? A fool and his facial hair, I’ve heard, are rarely parted. 

Can you see why I don’t update this shit every day? I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m fucking dull; maybe if I spent my time blowing people behind dumpsters or photographing my outfits, we’d be in business, but right now I’m stumped. I did make a tumblr today, though, so there’s that – have a look, if you’re into that sort of thing, which, let’s face it, you might be:

http://trashforce.tumblr.com

I swear, I’ll let you know as soon as anything interesting happens. Or, you know, even if it doesn’t. Whatever.

 (Also: I think everyone who has really blonde hair – the absolute fucking palest blonde, like the spun sugar that they make candyfloss from, or fibre-optic angel hair from a christmas tree – should take a leaf out of Nadia’s book and spray the tips a pastel colour. Don’t believe me? Go to http://www.discount.au.com right now and see for yourself. I’m not even going to wait here to see if you agree, because we both know I’m right. I pretty much always am.)

THRUST IN ME

Sometimes I have a still from this – of Nick Zedd as the woman, holding the “Suicide” book – as my userpicture on facebook. And unfortunately, or maybe fortunately,  people I’ve actually met sometimes think it’s me. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, huh?

HEY RITA, WHAT’S THE PRICE OF HAYWORTH?

Urgh! If a terrible wedding means a marriage full of good luck, then an awful new year’s eve had better mean a fucking great 2010, because that was quite possibly the coldest, grossest, soberest night of 2009. There is absolutely no way that it should take two and a half hours to get from Dalston to Elephant and Castle, snow or no snow, and regardless, that is several miles too far to travel in order to drink cider from a bottle and watch people snort coke off a Boris Mikhailov book to the somewhat dubious soundtrack of Parliament Funkadelic, so if anyone asks, you should tell them that I went to a hugely opulent orgy and spent the turn of midnight eating hor d’erves off a whore’s, um, derves, alright?

I guess the only thing left for me to do is to talk about New Years’ resolutions, but you already know what those are, because you’re not stupid; losing weight, updating my blog more frequently, dressing better, blah blah blah ad nauseum. Resolutions are never fucking interesting, because, like dieting or trying to look chic every day or writing interesting bon mots about your life on a daily basis at any other time of the damn year, you’re inevitably doomed to failure – if you like drinking beer (I do), and eating bacon (I do), and being able to wear forgiving layers in lieu of a bodysuit and a smile (of course), you’ll probably carry on doing those things, regardless of whether it’s a new calendar year. Maybe it’s a better idea to set yourself some realistic, short-term goals which are easy to achieve within the next couple of weeks, e.g:

1. See Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy at the Rio: I’ll level with you – I’m only as interested in the Beatles as your average, adult person who doesn’t own an acoustic guitar or deal pot. No, really! I’m for real! I’m not one of those people who wants to debate whether Abbey Road is a better album than Let It Be, or whether Ringo was pointless or secretly hilarious, and the only solo single by a Beatle that I own is Temporary Secretary by Paul McCartney. Furthermore, I’m not so into Sam Taylor-Wood either, not least because there is photographic evidence of her making Robert Downey-Junior cry, and I have no desire to see David Beckham sleep. But my God, have you seen her nineteen-year-old fiance (incidentally, I actually saw someone spell it ‘pheyonce’ the other day without a trace of irony)? Jesus fuck, I’d like to hold more than his hand. That poster where he’s wearing the nerd-glasses? I swear to God, I’m pregnant just thinking about it.

2. Buy the vintage fox chubby I saw in a charity shop today: This will almost definately have gone by tomorrow, but what do you expect from me? It was £50, and that requires me to drum up an additional £40 to add to my frankly insulting budget. It’s a cheap and pathetic life being unemployed (anyone who calls it ‘funemployed’ is an asshole), but I figure what I spend on the coat, I’ll save on not having to crank up the heating in this breezy fucking warehouse. I’m nothing if not resourceful. Aren’t you proud, ma?

3. Stop myself from drinking beer by drinking a lot of spirits instead: This one’s a no-brainer, although it’s not really my brain I should be worried about.

4. Go back to having ridiculous, clown-coloured hair: Remember when I had red hair, and I linked to this photoshoot by Moni Hayworth?

Well, it’s looking good again, helped along by an entry by Nadia on The Foxyman about bright, primary hair colours and the fact that my boyfriend said that red hair made me look “The most bangable“. Ah wish ah kneew haw to quit yeew, brightly-coloured clown hair. Still, if it’s going to increase my strike rate in 2010, pink bathwater and  expensive conditioner are a small price to pay. Every cloud, etc.

Why don’t you tell me what little new year’s victories you’re planning? I’ll try to make blogging at least every week one of mine, but who are we kidding – you’re never going to put out anyway, so what’s the point?

Oh, what? You thought I actually wanted something else from you? Well, bless you! Aren’t you just the cutest!

“ISN’T THAT THE MOST PERVERSE THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD?”

I know it’s cool to hate Christmas, and believe me, usually I do, but you don’t have to be such a big didactic baby about it. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t rather be spending the holiday in Aspen, as opposed to the bumfuck countryside, but look on the bright side; at worst, Christmas has blessed all women everywhere by legitimising the idea of blaming a surprise pregnancy on a single steamy night with the Almighty. At best, it gives us all a chance to rejoice in song, to wassail, to love and appreciate our fellow man and perhaps even – four or five glasses of mulled wine later – to appreciate aforementioned man in a slightly more blasphemous way behind a photocopier at an office party.

Something I do hate, however, is the cold. I hate the ruddy cheeks, I hate the watery eyes and – most of all – I hate degenerating into a grey-skinned Kerry Katona type after a month of alternately being blasted by the wind or taking shelter indoors with disgusting, low-grade greasy food and a university deadline. I bet people who go to Aruba for Christmas end up looking like Penelope Cruz after ten days (please, God, send me the body of Penelpe Cruz!), and don’t have to subsist on liquidised vegetables for the sake of fighting off a streaming nose. My lower lip, which is beestung at the best of times, has, thanks to my lazy and haphazard manner with chapstick, cracked open like an apocalyptic landshift, sending the whole thing pink and enormous and guaranteeing that, at some point over the next week, I will bump into someone I used to be at school with and they will assume that I either have a) herpes or b) a terrible plastic surgeon.

That aside, I’m thinking I should probably do some kind of Christmas wishlist, just in case Santa follows me on Bloglovin’ or something; everyone else appears to be doing it, and far be it from me to have original content, because I am nothing if not a mindless and suggestible blogging drone. Besides, I’m getting into Polyvore a little late, and I like that it makes me feel like Cher from Clueless, if Cher from Clueless was actually quite poor and didn’t own any of the outfits on her computer screen, and sometimes went to the all-you-can-eat buffet in her pyjama bottoms. Rock and rollllll!

I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you where all the non-vintage items are from, because I know you probably read a ton of these things and you’ve seen them all before (alright, fine: the glasses are Ann Sofie Back, the sweatshirt is Actual Pain, the loafers are Louboutins, the wedges are Ashish for Topshop, the cape is from Bess, and the ring and bag are from Westwood). If any wealthy benfactor is reading this who might be thinking of trying to sling their wealth at me like Ronnie Wood at a teenage Russian, but is put off by the fact that I have a partner – don’t despair, you rich weirdo! Money can buy you love, especially from someone like me, who sees it as something of a novelty and is more or less desperate to get her hands on those Louboutin loafers at any cost.

The rest of you peniless ingrates – merry bloody Christmas, and a happy New Year. I’m off to pour out some mulled wine and turn on the fire, because it’s still incredibly fucking cold  - I’m like The Talented Mrs Nippley up in here.

Peace out, Ho Ho Hoes.

I GUESS YOU COULD SAY SHE WAS A SEX FIEND

That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. I’m coming out of hibernation to talk about this outfit:

Catherine Baba, you make my heart hurt. What the fuck is even going on here? I have never wanted anything more than I want this velvet fur weirdness right now; it makes me feel like I’d rather press on with the tattered, bohemian half of my wardrobe and eschew the studs and leather until this whole rock ‘n’ roll thing blows over on the high street. Because really, however many people have caught onto the concept of wearing a pair of shredded jeans, how many are actually going to commit to looking like an insane, destitute noblewoman who has a cat and a raw-silk turban for every day of the year? It’s the perfect crime. It’s also not neccessarily going to prevent you from getting laid – especially if, like Baba, you play your cards right and throw in some slutty spandex leggings and vertiginous heels – because men are so fond of perpetuating the stereotype that mentally-ill women are somehow more exciting lovers and will, presumably, take one look at your tapestry coat, silk pyjama top and Wonka-esque sunglasses and assume that you are, as they say, “a goer”. A quick google search pulled up a picture of her wearing this coat again:

This time, as predicted, with a turban, albeit a bedazzled one. That faded crimson velvet drives me positively crazy, maybe because it reminds me of the curtains in a theatre (The smell of the crowd! The roar of the greasepaint!), or maybe because I’m a sucker for people who can wear that old-timey mothball shit with aplomb and still appear thoroughly modern and culturally relevant. It’s something you’re born with, I guess, inherited from a debutante mother or a Mitford grandmother and generally reeking of wealth. Case in point: at a magazine’s Christmas party this week, I wore a deliberately dull ensemble of spandex leggings, a short, grey marl sweatshirt and huge black platforms, and then tried to affect a casual, moneyed (ha!) insousiance by accessorising with enormous, jewel-crusted earrings and flinging my fur coat over one shoulder a la Baba. Admittedly, when I left the house I was walking tall, thanks to the aid of a potent cocktail of confidence, comfortable shoes and slightly restrictive control-fit leggings, but  - lest we forget that your narrator is the fashion equivalent of Larry David – my excitement was short-lived thanks to a concerned well-wisher who asked me “Do you need somewhere to put your coat?” about fifteen minutes after my arrival. I considered telling them that I was working ”A Look” but, realising that this probably wasn’t going to fly two minutes into our aquaintance, I reinquished the coat with a heavy heart, consigning myself to an evening of being That Woman In The Sweatshirt in a room full of party dresses.

I bet Catherine Baba never has to put up with this bollocks. Bah, humbug!

In other news, am still trying to decide what the hell I’m going to do with myself on a larger scale immediately after graduation – do I want to intern with a magazine? A stylist? Work as a freelance writer? At this rate, I’m going to need to get my own intern to help me make a fucking decision. The position would be unpaid, obviously, and the only requirement would be that you are better organised and better connected than myself; I would add some other, more explicit requirements, but what do you want from me? I’m a lady, you know.

(And don’t think you dyeing your hair entirely black has escaped my notice, Ms. Guiness. I’ll get to you in my own good time.)