The New Hope Baptist Church is where I served and preached my first sermon. I didn’t know Whitney, she had already left… Minister of Style: Until You’ve Walked a Mile in My, Her Shoes
New York fashion week is a perfect time to focus on how abusive this unregulated industry is towards young women. The Guardian: The Ugly Truth of Fashion’s Model Behaviour
If we all know what we should be doing – why aren’t we blissed out, self-loving goddesses every second of the day? Dramatis Personae: The Lazy Gal’s Guide to Self-Love
Why not make this day about something more than either cliched consumerism or ritual ranting. Daily Good: Valentine’s Day Wisdom
The bill, its sponsor concedes, has little chance to pass, but the hope is to raise awareness of body issues. MSNBC: Arizona considers consumer alert on ads showing airbrushed women.
Fall seven times, stand up eight! Marc and Angel Hack Life: 10 Good Reminders for Stressful Times
Numerous people have written into Vogue, stating that the photo does not capture Adele because it has been ‘enhanced.’ Examiner: Vogue Trims Away at Adele
Here’s a reason to get excited about Toronto Fashion Week: Soia & Kyo is scheduled to show its collection. I’m the proud owner of three of the outerwear label’s coats: one for fall, one for winter and a trench for Spring! My favourite details about the Soia & Kyo coats is the fitted tailoring (very feminine and you don’t get lost in the coat when you’re thin like me), and large, whimsical collars that combine beauty with practicality (they keep you very warm).
Brand designer, Ilan Elfassy, claims to be inspired by “the ‘hipster urban traveler’, someone who is effortlessly fashionable and stands out in the crowd. I also believe in practicality, and that’s why I create styles that can be worn across the globe anywhere and anytime.” Everytime I wear my Soia & Kyo coats I get compliments and I loved telling the New Yorkers who coveted my trench that it was a Canadian label. One of them went online to buy it making me feel like quite the national ambassador.
Edina and Patsy from Ab Fab are the new faces of Alexis Bittar! I used to love watching Absolutely Fabulous starring Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders, which poked fun at the fashion conscious. My favourite line was when fashion editor Patsy was to interview a sports personalty. “Sports personality?” she said, “isn’t that an oxymoron?”
I don’t want people confusing what I’m about. I just write love songs. CBS: Adele on her body image
I love recycled jewellery, not only because it is eco friendly but because it is a little different to the usual stuff. Style Eyes: Recycled Jewellery
After four years of dispatching fashion news with her signature biting humor, Amy Odell is leaving The Cut. Fashionista: Amy Odell Tells Us About Leaving The Cut
It’s easy to make your relationships more complicated than they are. Marc and Angel Hack Life: 12 Relationship Truths We Often Forget
When I am complimented on things that I didn’t like when I was 13, like my overbite and my mole, that’s when you realize that your imperfections are why people love you. My Fashion Life: Eva Mendes Talks to Marie Claire US about Body Image, Ryan Gosling, and Her Girl Crush on Julianne Moore
Cotton pillowcases are among the worst because they’re super absorbent and take the oil right out of your hair. Lipstick and Luxury: An Easy Way to Prevent Hair Breakage
She can’t seem to get anyone to talk about anything other than her weight, or her recent throat surgery. Celebrity Health and Fitness: Adele Stays True to Herself, Her Body Image, for Her Music
Designers Tory Burch and Tommy Hilfiger both told the New York Times that models that are either too young or too thin are still being sent to them by casting agencies. Fashionista: Ford Cops to Repping Underage Models
As our lives become more hectic, the need to slow down becomes more urgent. Daily Good: The Joy of Quiet
Do you know where your clothes come from? Without saying ‘Topshop’ or ‘River Island’ The Upcoming: Are You Ready for The Good Fashion Show?
Courtney at Those Graces wrote about her Top 3 movies today (only 3 and they remain the same). She chose The Godfather, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Departed and she challenged us to choose 3 of our own. Here are mine:
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Terms of Endearment
City of God
Could you narrow your favourite films down to 3?
Gotta start with Madonna’s phenomenal Super Bowl half-time performance. The woman is such a pro; she never disappoints!
Could fashion’s heavy reliance on unpaid interns be creating an unfair disadvantage for kids who don’t have their parents’ money to back them up? Fashionista: Are Fashion Internships Fundamentally Unfair?
Sometimes the most random everyday encounters force us to stop and rethink the truths and perceptions we have ingrained in our minds. Marc and Angel: 99 Tiny Stories to Make You Think, Smile and Cry
Take a look at a who’s who of the most influential bloggers of color today. Essence: Black Style Now: 40 Fab Fashion Bloggers (via Stylish Thought Facebook Page)
Via Beautifully Invisible Facebook Page
Fashionista posted the above image on Facebook of Tim Tebow as the new “face” of Jockey underwear. Unlike most (all?) other underwear campaigns, the American football player/model will keep his trousers on. I think it’s a bold move and Jockey’s way of saying they have so much confidence in their brand they don’t need to show the product. Many other established brands have done exactly the same thing and I say it works!
Think about Tom Brady for Stetson. You can’t smell the cologne in the ads; he represents an image with which the brand wants to be associated.
What do you think?
P.S. this is hard research and not an excuse to show good-looking American football players
Source: Cashmerejeans.blogspot.com
When we think about ethical fashion, we’re usually referring to clothes, but jewellery is another way we can make a statement about our values. Pippa Small, a Canadian born, London-based artist, anthropologist, and designer, just launched her Spring 2012 collection of ethical jewellery. Already embraced by fans like Rachel McAdams and Julia Roberts, Pippa’s pieces incorporate stones, shells, minerals, beads and other found objects for truly organic treasures.
Pippa furthers her interest in human rights advocacy while practising her art by reviving old traditional jewelry methods and working in Bolivia with the world’s first registered fair-trade gold mine. In 2008, Pippa Small became an ambassador for Survival, the movement for tribal people and the only organization working for tribal peoples’ rights worldwide.
I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am. Daily Good: I Believe in Tim Tebow
What if there were a way to change bad habits without willpower, and with almost no effort at all? No Meat Athlete: The Simplest, Most Important Key to Changing Anything
Changing your life might appear to be a heavy task…But really it all starts with a small step in the right direction. It’s All About Women: Top Ten Life-Changing Tips
The problem is, we go too fast to hear its cues and/or we’ve been brainwashed not to trust our bodies. Weightless: Finding Peace With Food and Our Bodies
Fashionista: Diane von Furstenberg Sides With Christian Louboutin at Louboutin vs. YSL Court Hearing
Right now, 88% of women in India resort to using dirty rags, newspapers, dried leaves, and even ashes during their periods, because they just can’t afford sanitary napkins. Daily Good: The Inventor Who Disrupted the Period Industry
A fashion story, kind of a love letter if you will, inspired by Dolly Parton’s early days when style was big and hair was even bigger! Piewacket: Unlikely Angel (via IFB)
One professor is exploring how Beyoncé has altered America’s views on race, sex and gender. S2S Magazine: Rutgers Offers Course on Beyonce
As you can see, they’re all pretending to be different sizes. Fussy: This is Why I Cannot Shop Online (via Already Pretty)
“Glamour is not cruelty. Glamour is not closemindedness. Glamour is not bigotry or hatred. Glamour is not self-conscious; it’s not trying really hard. It’s just expressing your own truth. I think that’s what the essence of glamour really is, expressing your uniqueness.” — Kevyn Aucoin
I pulled the above quote from Dressful’s Facebook page and was reminded of how much I adored Kevyn Aucoin and what a shocking loss we suffered when he died in 2002. Kevyn grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he suffered ceaseless bullying at school over his being gay, a fact he discovered about himself when he was six. Aucoin was forced to drop out of high school as a result of the abuse and enrolled in beauty school. He took a job at an exclusive women’s shop giving make-up lessons, but the female customers were uncomfortable with a man applying their make-up.
He moved to Baton Rouge where the abuse continued when he and his friends were beaten by security officers. His move to New York to start his career was motivated as much by fear for his life as a desire to be at the epicenter of fashion and beauty. It was while building his portfolio doing free make-up applications for models that he was disovered by Vogue and began working with famed fashion photographer Steven Meisel. During 1987-89 he did nine Vogue covers in a row and commanded up to $6000 for a make-up session.
The most enduring quality about Kevyn Aucoin and what makes me love him so much is that he revered the beauty within every woman and saw his job as one of making women feel beautiful. He considered make-up a tool to help a woman discover herself. He refused to do the make-up of models he felt were too young. Working for Revlon, Aucoin launched a make-up line called The Nakeds which was the first to address all skin tones, a move considered groundbreaking at the time.
According to Kevyn Aucoin:
Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can’t put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do your hair with any sort of fun or joy if you’re doing it from a position of correction.
Perfection is boring. If a face doesn’t have mistakes, it’s nothing.
Today I see beauty everywhere I go, in every face I see, in every single soul.
Yes, but everyone is beautiful to someone.
