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.)

SATIN IS WAITIN’! SATAN IS WAITIN’!

In a twist of fate which seems more befitting of, say, Rachel from Friends than a normal human being, I returned home this morning after buying some black, skintight, nigh-on-vag-high boots in velvety suede, only to find that I had been sacked. I hadn’t been sacked as the result of any sexual misconduct at work, you understand – I may have seen Jethro Cave in and outside the pub on several occasions but that does not mean I molested him, your Honour, not least of all because I don’t really get him – but was simply one of many who had been laid off due to financial difficulties, due to only being part-time. Obviously, I immediately crumpled the reciept beyond repair to avoid the danger of returning the boots in a fit of good sense, because if anything can soothe the ego-bruising of being unemployed, it’s footwear which edges lasciviously close to one’s babymaker; at worst, the boots might at least give me an edge in securing other kinds of work in a hitherto unexplored avenue, or at the very least, an avenue not yet exploited for financial gain. Maybe there was a higher power at work when I forked over the money for these babies – “If it’s good enough for Mary Magdelene“, Christ might be whispering in my ear “it’s more than good enough for you.” – although if there is, the answer to the question “WWJD?” appears to have changed irrevocably over the last two millenia. 

If I were being completely reckless with my rapidly-evaporating riches, I’d probably also buy this:

Doesn’t that just make the blackened, be-pimpled heart of your inner teenage metal geek beat just a little bit faster?  Isn’t s/he throwing their stubby, tip-exed little fingers (from writing BAPHOMET on their school backpack, duh) up in a salute to Satan right this minute? Unlike the model, I’d probably pair it with leggings or something; I’ve not yet reached the stage where I’m comfortable turning up to social fucntions with a vibe that says “Hey, I have fat thighs, what’s shakin’?“, so much of getting dressed, for me, invariably involves an element of subterfuge and deciet. Still, I think if anything that lends an authentic air of teenage awkwardness to what is, let’s be honest, a beautifully fashioned $400 tribute to the poorly-silkscreened Cradle Of Filth hoodie we may or may not have been sick down during an underage visit to a local rock club. I mean, you may have done that. I didn’t. Whatever, I’m just making conversation. Asshole.

Anyway, it seems like it’s back to the drawing board, so I’m currently applying for part-time positions in P.R. and retail and hoping something sticks, so maybe now isn’t the time to regress back to my school years if I have any hope of being hired. I can always save that for the weekends.

Cider and black, anyone?

(For one of my last shifts at work last week, I turned up looking like a cartoon from Oz Magazine, with wild hair, motorcycle boots, some torn leggings and a poncho straight out of 1976, only to find that this garnered a greater number of tips and a much more friendly reaction from the male clientelle of the bar. What’s that about? I was so far the opposite of bringing my A game, but it worked out in my favour, so I can only assume that my usual lazy waist-up uniform of heavily-studded leather and a faded metal shirt isn’t doing it for the men of Shoreditch anymore. Maybe 1970s wet blanket is the newest “thing” in Shoreditch. Or maybe it’s some kind of Oedipal thing where I remind them of old pictures of their mothers. That’s kind of gross, actually. Forget I said that.

Pictures of the zine I’m working on soon.)

DAUL KIM

“Model Daul Kim was found dead in Paris this morning, her agents at Next confirm. “She was a top model and a great friend to all of us at Next. Please respect her family’s privacy at this time of sadness. We will all miss her very much,” they said in a statement. The cause of death remains unknown at this time, but a source tells the Cut the 20-year-old committed suicide. She will be missed.” – The Cut, 19/11/09

Let this be a lesson to those of us – including myself – who are shallow enough to ever catch themselves believing that they would be happy if only they were taller, thinner, better-dressed, wealthy or more beautiful.

SINGLE GIRL, MARRIED GIRL

I know this might be near-impossible to believe, but last week your irresponsible, foul-mouthed narrator ended up acting as a guardian to a thirteen year-old girl for a couple of hours; one minute, I had been accompanying my old flatmate (a man who, when we lived together off the Walworth Road, routinely went to the chippy in drag) to a Soho sex shop to buy rubber leggings,  trying to avoid looking at the “Itty Bitty Gang Bang” DVD playing on the television screen by examining a nearby buttplug at (ahem) length, and the next we were agreeing to chaperone the proprietress of Maison Bertaux’s sweet and probably  impressionable daughter on a costume-buying trip, under the understanding that the outfit would be age-appropriate and not prefixed by the word “slutty”. Unthinkably, I left Michael alone as guardian for twenty minutes or so before recieving the following emergency phone call:

He (hissing): “I’ve had a bit of bother since you left, I’m in the toilets in Pret A Manger.“

Me: (Fearing the worst): “Oh God. What kind of bother?“

“A…a malfunction.“

“What?“

“A wardrobe malunction! With the trousers! The rubber trousers!“

“Oh God, Michael.“

“They’ve…they’ve split. Pretty badly. While we were walking down Old Compton Street.“

“Please don’t tell me it was on the crotch.“

“(Static)”

“Oh GOD!“

“It gets worse. I was…well…my underwear…“

“Was it bad?”

“You could say that, I guess. I mean…I wasn’t really…wearing any. You know.“

In one fell swoop, both a pre-teen’s innocence and my brief but illustrious career as a babysitter may or may not have gone down the shitter. People say that you should never work with children or animals, but I’d add that you should also never allow children or animals to work with either myselfor my associates – at this point, I was pretty certain that a lifetime of eating bespoke pastries next to paintings by poncho-wearing comedian Noel Fielding was over before it had begun, along with my chance to finally see the mythically beautiful boy who apparently waits tables there, and who may or may not be related to a member of The Clash, depending on who you ask (judging from first-hand reports, incidentally, he’s so good-looking that, were you to fuck him, your vagina would somehow euthanise itself afterwards, nobly, like Hunter S. Thompson knowing his best years were over, although it isn’t always best to believe the hype).  I didn’t even know which part of this particular scandal to add the stupid, uneccessary “gate” suffix to  - “Rubbergate“? “Flashgate“? “Cockgate?” “Accidental-Entry-On-The-Sex-Offenders-Register-Gate“? – when relating it here, which is never a good fucking sign, is it?

The thing to take away from this story might be that you should never, under any circumstances, wear rubberwear around a minor, although I should hope that would be obvious anyway; it might also explain why, thanks to some latent trouser trauma, I suddenly sprang out of bed this week “feeling” wearing sweatpants with heels, something the current UK Vogue also appears to be thrusting towards us with some urgency in the December issue. I’ll admit that there are some cons – men are unlikely to find this A Good Look, for one, and the bunching nature of jogging bottoms ensures that you will definately be required to have A Good Arse from birth to pull it off – but you can’t put a price on ensuring that your crotch is well and truly covered at any given moment, although if you did, I’d say that I’d put the price of around £28 at American Apparel on the idea, because you need a good slim leg to avoid The Kevin Federline Effect. It’s something I’ve learned in recent weeks, and it’s something we can only pray that Lady Gaga learns as quickly as is humanly possible. Fingers (and legs) crossed.

(I have one or two interesting things in the pipeline, but I don’t want to jinx them, so this last paragraph is pretty moot this time around. Still to come in entries soon- t-shirts by Shrimpsauce, human hair jewellery by Bitching And Junkfood, yadda yadda and so-on. I asked a friend what I should write as a closer and he said “I’m listening to the Waynes World Soundtrack and I’m wearing a towel. Maybe there’s something in that?”, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t. Sorry about that.)