A Moxie Fashionista

Ulyana Sergeenko Fall 2011 and Spring 2012

2012-01-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

Unlike many fashion designers, Ulyana Sergennko did not study fashion design academically (she has a degree in Philology), but with her passion for clothes and attention to detail she decided to taking her interest in fashion further.

Her debut Fall 2011 collection and subsequent Spring 2012 collection are distinctly inspired by vintage and antique fashion, not only in their style but in their quality, craftsmanship and artistic value. You can view her Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 collections in this post.

Ulyana Sergeenko Fall 2011

Ulyana Sergeenko Spring 2012

My Favorite Fashionista: Ulyana Sergeenko

2012-01-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

Ulyana Sergeenko is a Russian photographer, designer, stylist, blogger, fashionista and occasional model.

Since July of Fall 2011 Couture Fashion Week in Paris, I have noticed her popping up on a lot of style blogs.

I was immediately drawn to the unique beauty, doll-like features, perfect pout, impeccable style and incredible grace – she doesn’t walk, she floats. Anyone who has seen her will know exactly what I’m talking about.

It is impossible to not notice her. Her style is a combination of 19th century Russia with a fifties vibe. The interesting thing is she mixes things up all the time which makes her fascinating to watch plus she’s not a slave to trends. Ulyana subverts a classic approach to dressing by injecting modern elements. As a result, her looks never really appear as though they are historical costumes. On the whole her looks are executed beautifully. Give me Ulyana over Anna Dello Russo and her conspiculously clownish and comical street style any day of the week.

Her credentials are often scoffed at because she’s married to a billionaire, but you can’t buy style, unlike Herve Leger loving billionairess Tamara Ecclestone.

Despite having a lovely head of hair, Ulyana has a fondness for unique headwear.

In the first look she’s quite the modern pilgrim, wearing a plaid maxi dress with a black peplum corset and a caramel felt hat. You could see that perfect pink pout from across the Jardin des Tuileries.

Ulyana accessorizes with a lot of scarves and berets, but my favourite look has to be her modern-day Eliza Doolittle look which she teamed with a Chanel Russian doll clutch.

Ulyana loves midi skirts. Prada is clearly her favourite brand, but she often opts for sheer and lace midi skirts as well as a floral-print skirt from her own Fall 2011 collection.

Her colourful or printed midi skirts are often paired with a simple, solid colour top.

Aside from her love of black and emerald green Prada satin clutches, Ulyana also loves Olympia Le-Tan clutches.

The handmade limited edition clutches provide a quirky touch to her look, which ranges here from ‘Little House on the Prairie’ to seductress to a modern day nun’s habit.

First comes midi, then comes maxi.

Ulyana loves floor-sweeping looks which elongate her slender frame.

Here, her maxis are teamed with her favourite things: a head scarf, another Olympia Le-Tan clutch and a top hat. The final look is, of course, the same Elie Saab dress we’ve seen on Sarah Jessica Parker.

It’s interesting that once again each look has a different theme.

The rest are my personal favourites. Her vibrant colourful dress is still a much loved Prada print which she teams with a Prada satin clutch and Christian Louboutin peep-toes.

Not many can get away with wearing a full-on gown in the daytime, but Ulyana looks stunning in this sheer creation on her way to a Chanel Couture show.

The terracotta chiffon dress is my favourite of all Ulyana’s looks. I love the black lace apron-like front panel, but it’s the accessories which really pull the look together. Her favourite satin Prada clutch and pink ankle boots with red buttons complete this chic look.

We never saw any of the Louis Vuitton Spring 2008 plastic nurse coats on the red carpet, unsurprisingly. Ulyana not only wears her plastic coat during fashion week, but she also wears the embellished black face mask as well.

Attention grabbing or stepping out of the box? I think a mixture of both.

Awesome Chick: Shirley Manson of Garbage

2011-12-23T09:57:00.001-08:00

Do you all remember the 90's and the rock'n attitude, the mini dresses and boots, the grunge, the fishnets and the awesome alternative/grunge band Garbage? Shirley Manson was and still is the frontwoman of the band, and has become a face of 90's alternative with her moxie style, fierce, seductive attitude and doll-like looks. She has caught my attention.

Girlfriend loves tights and boots!

In an A.L.C. striped silk dress.

With her Garbage bandmates at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards

With Gwen Stafani in 1996 at the KROQ Weenie Roast.

Modeling Oliver People's sunglasses for the 2010 Resort Collection with Elijah Wood

Modeling Oliver People's sunglasses for the 2010 Resort Collection with Elijah Wood

Normally I can match a dress to a celebrity the moment I see it on the runway, which also helps me memorize runway looks.

This Marchesa Spring 2010 embroidered black tulle gown with draped sleeves looks like it was made for Shirley Manson, despite that fact that I would never have consider her for this stunning gown.

The singer gives the gown a romantic Gothic vibe I don’t believe Georgina Chapman was going for, but Shirley really works this look.

Hear Bill Murray Read Poems by Billy Collins and Cole Porter

2011-06-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Who wants some Bill Murray? I sure as hell do.

This year, he flew in from filming for Wes Anderson’s new movie Moonrise Kingdom to join the 16th annual Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge. He read poems by Sarah Manguso, Cole Porter, and Billy Collins.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/06/bill_murray_brush_up_your_shak.html

LeBron Jame's Face Catalogued

2011-06-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

You NEED to look at this piece, in which LeBron James’s attitude throughout the NBA Finals is chronicled in facial expressions. It’s brilliant.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/nba-finals-recap-as-told-by-lebron-jamess-facial-expressions/240290/#slide1

The Latest News on John Galliano

2011-06-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

John Galliano arrives at French court on June 22nd. He spoke through a French interpreter, as John Galliano is British.

Before you all read this, I want to make my opinion known. In no way do I condone John Galliano for his remarks and behavior and I do not think his addictions are an excuse, but I do believe he was shit faced drunk. Out of his mind drunk, wasted...gone. He spattered out horrible things like many other drunk people do. We all have seen drunk people, and they do and say stupid shit. Regrettable, despicable things. I do not think his career should be over because of this. I love his work and think he is a genius. He needs help first and foremost. But I do not think he should never design again. I mean, have you seen his work? It's beautiful, brilliant and so Christian Dior. http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/F2011RTW-CDIOR

He made Charlize Theron even more gorgeous:

Now for the news:

Fashion designer, and former head designer of Christian Dior John Galliano told a Paris court on Wednesday that he was so out of control on drugs and alcohol he does not recall hurling anti-Semitic insults at strangers in a bar earlier this year.

Looking thinner than in his last public appearance, Galliano arrived in a hushed courtroom wearing long sandy hair, his trademark razor-thin mustache and leather trousers, prepared to defend himself against charges of anti-Semitic behavior.

He stood as a judge read out charges against him and repeated statements he allegedly made in an incident in Paris on Feb. 24, including "dirty Jewish face", "f-king Asian bas-d I will kill you", and "f-king ugly Jewish b-h"

Asked whether he remembered the insults, Galliano said: "I don't remember very well ... I have no recollection."

"I have a triple addiction," he added. "Alcohol, sleeping pills and Valium."

Galliano's career is in tatters. He was fired from fashion house Dior in March, after a video posted online showed him drunkenly telling a woman he loved Hitler and saying her parents might have been gassed in a Nazi death camp.

French police first questioned the British designer in February after a couple accused him of hurling racist abuse at them on the terrace of a cafe.

Designer Galliano Says He Can't Recall Speaking Slurs

Published: June 22, 2011

PARIS — In a halting voice, John Galliano, the fallen star designer of the fashion house of Dior, defended himself Wednesday against hate-crime charges by insisting he could not remember spewing anti-Semitic insults in a Parisian bar because of drug and alcohol addictions.

Mr. Galliano, 50, appeared in court wearing a subdued charcoal jacket and open-necked shirt, speaking with the aid of a French interpreter who was replaced by Mr. Galliano’s lawyer when the translator had trouble understanding the English-speaking designer.

“I have addictions, I am recovering from addictions and I am still in treatment,” Mr. Galliano said as he stood facing a panel of three judges. Under questioning, he said his addictions to alcohol, sleeping pills and Valium were a crutch to cope with extreme work pressures and financial crisis.

“The drinking started in a cyclical way. After every creative high I would crash,” Mr. Galliano said, adding that the death of a friend and key aide, along with work pressures, exacerbated his drinking.

“Dior is a big machine and I didn't want to lose Galliano,” he said of his own label, which is majority owned by Dior. He complained about suffering panic attacks as he struggled to raise new revenues for his brands for everything from children’s underwear to menswear.

For the one-day trial, the judges evaluated testimony of about a half-dozen witnesses and watched a grainy, 45-second cellphone video that shows Mr. Galliano speaking in a slurred voice. The witnesses testified about two incidents, in October and February, both at a bar in the Marais, La Perle. The video, which involves a third dispute that was not part of the trial, was allowed as evidence.

The actual crime of which he stands accused — public insults about religion, race, or ethnicity — ordinarily ensnares far-right politicians with a clear ideology. The crime carries a penalty of up to six months in prison and a fine of €22,500, or $32,400, though usually the maximum fine is not imposed. As the trial still continuing into the evening, it was unclear when a verdict would be issued.

Despite the attention surrounding his trial, the John Galliano label will go ahead with plans to stage a show Friday of his menswear line for Paris fashion week, which also began on Wednesday.

But for Mr. Galliano, there was no red carpet on Wednesday, just the bare parquet floor in a wood-paneled French courtroom, where a young couple in their 30s testified in detail about their encounter with Mr. Galliano at La Perle, a clash that ultimately resulted in his being fired by Dior.

Mr. Galliano insisted that he had no recollection of the venomous language that witnesses described, or of the comments he made in the 45-second video, which had been widely circulated online, showing Mr. Galliano slurring his words and declaring, among other things, “I love Hitler.”

“He had different expressions, dirty Jew, Dirty Jewish face,” recalled Geraldine Bloch, an art curator whose visit to the bar exploded into a 45-minute encounter with Mr. Galliano in late February.

“At a certain point, he told us to leave because he said I was in his bar and his neighborhood. He finished by saying, ‘I am John Galliano,”’ she said, noting that he also peppered his comments with observations about her hair and what he called her “revolting” eyebrows and boots.

After the video was viewed in court on a wide screen, Mr. Galliano stood and faced the judges and spoke about himself, sometimes in the third person.

“I never had these views all my life,” he said. “These are not the sentiments of John Galliano.”

Ultimately, Mr. Galliano apologized for his behavior, including the video and the dispute with the couple. He said that he himself had faced discrimination for being gay.

“On the video, I see someone who needs help and is very vulnerable,” he said. “It’s the shell of John Galliano.”

Dubbed fashion’s bad boy for his flamboyant and provocative style, Mr. Galliano had helped to energize Dior since he joined in 1996 as creative director, increasing sales and making it one of the jewels of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury empire, run by the billionaire Bernard Arnault.

Yet in court, that flamboyance had vanished. He spoke so quietly that the judge pushed him several times to speak into a microphone.

For every witness who declared a list of insults, he responded in a tired voice that he could not remember.

“I was in denial,” he said. “I was taking all those pills and alcohol. I was in complete denial. I am still in recovery. But I am feeling much better.”

The hearing, which started about 4 p.m. and continued for more than four hours, also included witnesses who said they had not heard any anti-Semitic remarks made by Mr. Galliano. One supportive witness was an English-language teacher.

Others have fashion industry ties — an American fashion student and a public relations employee who represents fashion firms.

At one point, the presiding judge, Anne-Marie Sauteraud, asked his current profession.

“I have none,” he said, almost inaudibly.

Then he issued a plea to the judge to take note of his work, inspired by his travel to diverse countries.

“I know what it feels to be discriminated against,” Mr. Galliano testified, noting that his real name is Juan and that his mother is Spanish. “We moved to south London when I was 6 years old and aware that I was gay. I was sent to a difficult English boys school and you can imagine that children can be cruel.”

Galliano Scandal Timeline:

Galliano was arrested and taken to a police station for a sobriety test, where he was found to be just over the legal limit. Police then escorted him to his home.

February 28, 2011: Galliano is been suspended from Dior. The designer visits a police station in Paris to answer questions about the incident. Just hours earlier, a video emerged of him apparently praising Hitler in a separate incident.

Another woman later comes forward to say she suffered a similar attack in October last year.

March 1, 2011: Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, who is the face of Christian Dior's Miss Dior Cherie fragrance, issues a statement condemning Galliano over the video. "I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano's comments that surfaced today. In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr Galliano in any way. I hope at the very least, these terrible comments remind us to reflect and act upon combating these still-existing prejudices that are the opposite of all that is beautiful."

Dior confirms that it has sacked Galliano in light of the video.

March 4, 2011: The Dior show goes ahead during Paris Fashion Week, without Galliano. Dior's CEO, Sidney Toledano, took to the stage before minutes before the curtains were raised to give a moving speech: "What has happened over the last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal for us all. It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer. However brilliant he may be." With Galliano gone, speculation then fell to who would replace him at the luxury house, with Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy, Haider Ackermann and Alber Elbaz of Lanvin all apparently in the frame April 15, 2011: things go from bad to worse for the disgraced designer after he is ousted by the board of his namesake label, 91 per cent of which is owned by Dior.

May 3, 2011: rumours circulate that Stephane Zerbib, Galliano's lawyer in the case, has quit; Zerbib had previously defended his client in an outspoken interview with an Israeli newspaper. However, a spokesman for Galliano issued a statement saying Zerbib was "dismissed as Monsieur Galliano's lawyer some weeks ago."

June 22: Galliano is due to face charges in a French court over the alleged racist tirades at a Paris bar, which the fallen designer will blame on drug and alcohol addiction. If found guilty, the 50-year-old couturier - considered one of the finest fashion designers of his generation - could face a sentence of six months in jail and a fine of 22,500 euros (£20,000).

Versace for H and M

2011-06-22T13:11:00.001-07:00

I didn't get my hands on the Lanvin for H&M collection because it is at select H&M stores- not the ones at the mall- which is stupid. Most people shop a the mall. So have designer collaboration collections at H&Ms located in malls! Why should I have to drive to an H&M in Washington DC to get the new Versace for H&M collection? And probably see it sold out because I had to drive 30 minutes to get there! The collection with ONLY AT 300 stores. Probably sold out in a day... so get competitive!

I hope Donatella dives into the archives and sends out a "Gianni Versace Couture" from the late 80s to early 90s-inspired collection. It would be great to have the younger generation (whom I assume are big H&M fans) get a chance to wear tons of gold medusas, buckles and multi-color printed everything.

Versace has signed on to do H&M’s latest designer collaboration.

The collection will be big and include two rollouts, one on November 17 including men's, women's, and homewear, and another prespring collection on January 19. The line consists of "iconic" archive Versace pieces repurposed for H&M. More from H&M's press release:

The womenswear collection will be dominated by dresses that express the spirit of the season, featuring studded leather, silk and colorful prints, and accessories including high heels and costume jewelry. The men’s collection will focus on sharp tailoring, including the perfect tuxedo, as well as belts and jewelry for men. For the first time in a designer collaboration at H&M, the collection will include homeware pieces including pillows and bedspread.

“For me this is an opportunity to show to a very very big audience what Versace has been and what Versace is now,” designer Donatella Versace said in a video announcing the collaboration.

According to H&M creative adviser Margareta Van Den Bosch, the collection, which is comprised of 40 pieces for women and 20 for men as well as accessories, will look back at iconic pieces from the brand dating back to the ’80s.

“As a designer I look at the future–I never look at the past, but being the sister of Gianni, the DNA is Versace and I’m going to use iconic Versace pieces of iconic Versace moments which are not exactly always the past but also the present,” Donatella said.

And as if to prime the masses for an accessible vintage-leaning iconic Versace collection at H&M, Lady Gaga has been wearing only Gianni Versace to promote her new video, “Edge of Glory.” Good timing.

I think Donatella changed her attitude from 2008, when she declared she wouldn't do a line for H&M: http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2008/05/donatella_versace_wont_do_an_h.html

The collection is set to hit 300 H&M stores on November 19. Donatella has also designed a pre-spring collection for the Swedish retail giant, which will only be available in countries with H&M on-line sales starting on January 19.

The highlight of the Versace men's show at Milan Men's Fashion Week was not the striped booty shorts or pink suits, it was Donatella — but isn't she always the highlight, in a way? — taking her bow at the end wearing a Versace for H&M studded leather dress.

Sketches from Donatella Versace's Versace for H&M collection

Donatella Versace puts the finishing touches on one of her H&M looks.

The H&M collection will be full of "prints, color and exuberance," Versace said in a statement.

A studded shift dress from the Versace for H&M collection.

Men's looks will focus on sharp tailoring, and the collection will include a tuxedo.

Kate Middleton Denies Designer Freebies

2011-06-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Kate Middleton Won’t Accept Free Clothes, Is Striking ‘Private Agreements’ With Designers

Today in Kate Middleton wardrobe news, royal officials are decidedly being more tight-lipped about Kate Middelton’s fashion choices than almost anything else. The level of secrecy that surrounded her wedding dress was only the beginning.

As we’re sure you’ve heard, William and Kate are about to embark on a tour of North America—starting with Canada, followed by a trip to California. As usual, we’re all wondering what Kate is planning to wear to charm us North Americans at her many scheduled appearances. According to a spokesman for the couple quoted in a story about Prince William’s 29th birthday (happy bday!), it’s a secret, but she definitely will not be wearing anything that hasn’t been paid for. Like the American first lady to whom she has been compared on more than one occasion, Middleton “has a policy not to accept any free offers of clothing.” She also “will not receive any special clothing budget for the Canada and California tour.” However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the decidedly down-to-earth duchess will be wearing nothing but high street labels for her tour. According to People, she is striking “private agreements” with designers to “help build her tour wardrobe,” which presumably means that certain designers have been chosen to dress her (not for free) and those designers have been sworn to secrecy.

Somewhat related–William and Kate’s itinerary for Canada was just released via AP and it sounds like we’ll get to see Kate in much more casual fare than we’re used to, as planned activities include campfires, cooking workshops, a dragon boat race, a canoe trip, a barbecue and a rodeo, for which the couple “will be given 10-gallon cowboy hats and are expected to dress in jeans and casual western clothes for the extravaganza.”

We’ll especially be looking forward to the cowboy hat.

Would You Buy A Candle That Smells Like A Newspaper?

2011-06-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

A New York Times Candle That Smells Like Newsprint

If you've kept around old issues of The New York Times because you kind of get off on the smell, don't worry, you're not (that) weird. A fellow newspaper addict, the now deceased designer-artist Tobias Wong, created The Times Of New York candle, a concept that's equal parts a tribute to the Grey Lady and a commentary on the fate of printed media. The scent is, in a word, newsy, with hints of guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice, with "a powdery note and velvet nuance," meant to mimic the aroma of black ink on newsprint. Realized by Josée Lepage, the Creative Director of Bondtoo, the candle, made in a limited-edition run of 1,000, is available for $65 at Project No. 8 at Ace Hotel and Bondtoo.com. Your apartment's never smelled smarter.

98% of Mexico Can't Afford Oscar de la Renta So Why Is He Their Poster Boy?

2011-06-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

No Seriously You Guys, Oscar de la Renta is the Face of Mexico City

Tuesday, June 14, 2011
This morning, I got a brief announcement that Oscar de la Renta had been named the official tourism ambassador of Mexico City. Yeah, it didn't really make a lot of sense to me either, since de la Renta is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent and still holds very strong ties to the Dominican Republic, despite having renounced his citizenship in 1971. I just got the official Mexico City government agency press release on de la Renta's appointment, though, so I thought I'd share it with you. To be fair, the ambassadorship seems to be more of an award in recognition of de la Renta's achievements rather than a diplomatic or spokesperson-type post.

Oscar de la Renta received recognition today as Tourism Ambassador of Mexico City "in the hands of the Minister of Tourism, Alejandro Rojas Díaz Durán, who on behalf of the Head of Government, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, recognizing the career of fashion designer. Tourism Minister explained that the designer is "one of the titans of fashion" and a recognition of his career, he has held for several decades throughout the world, is the scroll that was given on behalf of the Head of Government. The famed designer Oscar de la Renta said, be very happy in Mexico City, said that all the inhabitants are very warm and mentioned that he longed to return to the capital of Mexico, which has known for many years. And he stressed that during a visit on Friday night at Garibaldi was splendid to meet up with mariachis, sing some songs and visit this landmark of the city square.

He said that many of the renowned Mexican artists and foreign use their designs, and stressed that since the seventies he began to make their designs with the goal of being the best in the continent. He acknowledged that one of his goals is to stay updated on any area and learn the changes of fashion. At a press conference held in a Havana hotel, acknowledged fashion designer in Mexico City feel peace, security and "the music of mariachis, to forget the fatigue." Accompanied by Secretary of Tourism, Alejandro Rojas Díaz Durán, Oscar de la Renta recalled that when he began his career in the United States believed that their nationality was Spanish or Italian by the name, however, said he was proud to be Dominican and to be Latino, deeming that the successes achieved in your life are the product of all Latinos. As a background to the catwalk fashion is now held in the Plaza de Toros Mexico, Oscar de la Renta accepted the award and said to be one of the admirers of the nation's capital, as well as heighten the Latin roots that bind all members of the continent.

At a press conference, Oscar touched on his career in the United States, deeming that regardless of his nationally, the successes achieved in his life are a product of all Latinos.

Wonder if this means he will make like Lagerfeld and take his next catwalk to the streets of Mexico City?

For even more adorableness and his trip to Mexico City, check out the video below! Oscar sings Bachata with Juan Luis Guerra in Mexico City.

According To New Study Brits Buy Half Their Weight In Clothes!

2011-06-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Clothes: Too much, too cheap

In an age of democratic dressing, when women buy 62lb of clothes a year and own at least 20 garments they never wear, Susannah Frankel argues that when it comes to fashion, less is more

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

AFP/Getty

The new Prada shoe, the make-up at Balenciaga, the tights at Chanel, are common knowledge before the first designer outfit has even made it on to the runway

According to the environmental journalist Lucy Siegle, most women now buy half their bodyweight annually in clothes. The writer's new book, To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? (£12.99, Fourth Estate), states that the average female invests in 62lb of clothing each year, has upwards of 20 garments hanging in her wardrobe that she has never worn and owns four times the amount today than she did in 1980.

When a story written by Siegle for the Daily Mail to publicise the book was published at the end of last month, and then featured on the newspaper's website, it was met if not quite with howls of derision, then with a healthy dose of scepticism. Perhaps she's touched a nerve.

Siegle's figures are based on research conducted at Cambridge University into textile imports as opposed to sales, it was argued, and the two do not necessarily tally. It's safe to say, though, that any half-viable manufacturer is unlikely to over-estimate their fabric requirements on a grand scale – that is, throw away large amounts of investment – and stay in business for very long.

Equally contentious appeared to be the fact that women weigh approximately 124lb (8st 12lb) in the first place. Given that we are consistently informed that most of us are sized somewhere between a UK 14 and 16 this seems on the light side. The loaded nature of issues concerning both bodyweight and wardrobe expenditure make it far from surprising that this, in particular, saw eyebrows raised. Still, it's just an evocative gimmick, surely, and the principle behind it – that is, we buy a huge amount of clothing – holds water.

With this in mind, there's more. Women are expected to spend £133,640 in a lifetime on fashion. In 2007, three pairs of jeans were sold each second. Between 2001 and 2005, while spending on womenswear rose by 21 per cent, the price of individual items dropped by 14 per cent. And so forth.

Such facts and figures, for all Siegle's diligence – which is considerable – are unlikely to be wholly representative: statistics are statistics and the way in which we choose to digest them is clearly subjective. Having said that, we only have to look around us to see that there are more clothes and accessories available to buy both on the high street and in more upscale shopping destinations than ever. And we only have to observe the shopping patterns of colleagues, friends and family to know that, to varying degrees, we must be doing our bit to consume them. That much is clear.

But why?

For her part, Siegle is most vocal in the first place about the culture of celebrity endorsement. Until very recently, she claims, we were only interested in what celebrities wore on the red carpet or to a film premiere. Now, though, we are obsessed with their off-duty wardrobes too.

That is also true but celebrity endorsement has been around since the court of Marie Antoinette, the difference today is that far more of us can actually afford to emulate our idols, or we think we can at least – our bankers, struggling with burgeoning debt, might beg to differ. Where we used to look on in spellbound wonder at Marlene Dietrich's Dior gown at the Oscars, say, or Grace Kelly's Hermès bag, and even at Madonna's Jean Paul Gaultier conical bra, we would never have expected, or even necessarily wanted, to own them.

Until the turn of the 21st century this was a purely aspirational and entertaining activity, the stuff of dreams and/or nightmares depending on how we chose to look at it. Now, though, with budget copies of any outfit worn by even the least interesting young hopeful proliferating and images of the same published everywhere from online to the pages of newspapers and magazines, far more of us believe we can actually live that dream.

The rise and rise of Asos.com is a case in point. It may have cast off its original tag – As Seen On Screen – and have an eye on a more credible and far-reaching position in the market but the premise the business was originally founded on remains the same.

More significantly, Asos, like all other online shopping destinations, allows us to purchase clothing at the mere click of a button, making poring over a garment in a store, returning on two or even three separate occasions to consider just how much we want or need it redundant. Neither do we save up for clothing the way previous generations did, appreciating them far more just for that. Shopping for clothes is now a practice as undiscerning as many of the products we shop for. And that is regrettable.

Blame the so-called democratisation of fashion if you will. Images straight from the catwalk – and the inevitable fast-fashion copies that go with them – are also everywhere. Formerly, the designer fashion industry was a closely regulated concern – as late as the mid-1990s, all photographers at the international collections were accredited journalists required to sign forms limiting the use of any images to prevent plagiarism.

And if, since the mid-20th century, the world's leading couturiers, including Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, might have been persuaded to sell their patterns to American department stores, any buyers paid good money for them and their execution and distribution was closely guarded with a view to protecting exclusivity. Today, the shows are an all-singing, all-dancing, all-blogging, all-tweeting media circus. And consumers can "get the Marc Jacobs look" or whatever, only hours after the designer's biannual New York show has taken place, and this despite the fact that the prototype, which is high-end and therefore takes longer to produce and is necessarily more expensive, won't go on sale until almost half a year later.

The new Prada shoe, the make-up at Balenciaga, the tights at Chanel, are common knowledge before the first designer outfit has even made it on to the runway. And where such material used to be seen as news – admittedly not necessarily hard news, but news nonetheless – the purpose of which was to show people what they might, or might not, like to wear six months down the line, it now fuels a consumer habit that might be described as full-blown addiction.

The effect of this has been huge across the board. If we accept that it is now almost impossible for designers to copyright their ideas – and much has been written about the time and money involved in tracking down and removing everything from catwalk-inspired pieces deemed too close for comfort to blatant counterfeiting – then they are forced to take action in other ways. And so they have.

We may not have the budget to pay for a straight-off-the-runway, so-called seasonal statement piece, but we can and do buy designer sunglasses, bags, hosiery, shoes or even just an itsy-bitsy keyring/mobile-phone trinket to go with them. And just as the high street famously turns over clothing at breakneck speed with new drops appearing in any self-respecting fashion store on a weekly basis, so designers too have upped the ante with the aforementioned small-accessories market booming and pre-collections, cruise collections, all-year-round classic collections, multiple diffusion lines and more freshening up of the formerly proud-to-be-impenetrable designer stores.

With this in mind, where it was once not uncommon for fashion's biggest names to force consumers to knock at a locked door to gain access to their hallowed portals "by appointment only," today anyone and everyone is welcome at the vast majority of even the most elitist retail outlets where they will be greeted, if not quite with open arms – some things never change – then certainly without having to break in.

At the same time, and to establish a point of difference, fashion's big names are ensuring that their main line collections are more complex and therefore more difficult to interpret. And that is reflected in their price. The customer who is prepared to spend a three or even four-figure sum on her so-called seasonal statement piece does not want to show up at the party and find a half-dozen other women wearing the same.

The Independent regularly receives letters from readers decrying the price of clothing on the fashion pages, complaining, for example, that a dress might cost as much as £200. This is a dangerous mindset and, at the risk of attracting more disapproval, even a decade ago anyone working within the industry would have replied that £200, or indeed far more than that, is a fair price for a garment if it came from a great creator heading up a French or Italian fashion house and was made the country of origin by highly trained craftspeople all of whom were thereby respectably and respectfully employed.

In a similar vein, it was considered a mark of shame for a fashion editor to wear a copy of a catwalk design – we were, effectively, biting the hand that fed us by so-doing. Neither would we have shown high-street clothes mixed with designer looks on our pages or, certainly, demonstrated to people just how they might emulate them for a lower price. Cheap was cheap. Chic was chic. And the two worlds should never knowingly collide.

The basically protestant British mindset decrees that a desire for fashion is rooted in vanity and therefore to be frowned upon. But is it really any more shameful to want to dress in clothing that is interesting and well made than it is to lust after a precious first edition of a much-loved book or to buy a beautiful car?

At best, fashion is an entirely valid vehicle via which to express ourselves and one that can be passed down through generations of women carrying with it as much emotional power as a grandmother's wedding ring or a mother's scented cotton lawn handkerchief. Somehow, though, society has developed in a manner that deems it acceptable for us to descend en masse upon a low-budget store from where we emerge with bagfuls of clothes that we will either wear infrequently or not at all.

The hypocrisy – and indeed outright snobbery – that drives our disapproval of a Wag shopping on Bond Street for more of the same, meanwhile, only their carrier bags are glossy, carry more expensive merchandise and spill over with clouds of tissue paper, is disingenuous in the extreme. Contrary to popular mythology, shopping in the modern world has little to do with budget. It is not the less well off who have caused the boom in cheap fashion but the middle classes in search of a sartorial bargain. Neither are the super rich responsible for the proliferation of exorbitantly priced product. Instead, and as always, supply reflects demand. We choose to buy more low-priced fashion – and just more fashion – now than we used to. And that is more suspect.

"How do they make them so cheap?" It could be Lorraine Kelly's mantra. But, of course, someone somewhere in the world is always going to pay the price. Although there is no guarantee that all designer clothing is made in the best possible conditions, luxury brands that do employ cheap labour are likely to have longer lead times and bigger budgets than their mass market, high-street counterparts. Similarly, it would be naive to claim that price invariably reflects quality but more high-end clothing does generally come with a degree of care attached because those behind it can afford it.

And so, in France, artisans really do tend to make the clothes. In Italy, pioneers of the ready-to-wear industry and the computer technology that goes with it have passed down their knowledge since the 1950s and their expertise is second to none. Should we live in a world where the concept of investment in clothing expires then technicians such as these will die out and innovation and creativity will ultimately suffer for that.

To say that all budget clothing comprises cheap copies of what we see on the catwalk would be to over-simplify the matter. The high street, we all know, has come of age. Topshop sponsors many of Britain's youngest and most vulnerable designers. It also has its own design team which, while informed by designer fashion, is by no means reliant on it. Ditto the aforementioned Asos. However, a huge amount of the fashion we are buying is derivative, brazenly upheld in the press as a low-budget alternative to the real thing. Blame the word "commercial", perhaps, which in itself is misleading. Sell 10 jackets for £1,000 or 100 for £10 and the end result is equally cost effective to the designer or manufacturer, after all.

Of course it's a good thing that fashion is today available to many as opposed to merely the privileged few and Miuccia Prada, to name just one hugely influential name, has probably done as much for our collective fashion consciousness both in this country and overseas as Sir Terence Conran has for the look of our homes

So what's the answer? Buy carefully and buy less, is Siegle's argument and she's right. Consider everything from the origins of any garment, its sustainability and the working practices that went into its creation to whether it will actually add to the quality of your life or not. It almost goes without saying that, if we all chose to do that, the amount of product would naturally diminish to more manageable proportions. It may become more expensive as a result but the planet will only benefit for that.

As for what we don't buy, there's never been any harm in looking, has there? There's an inspirational quality to the best fashion that can and should inform our wardrobe choices and fuel our imaginations to boot. And all without costing us a penny.

Vivienne Westwood Does Some Good- Check This Out

2011-06-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Vivienne Westwood's Ethical Fashion Africa Project

Pictured: The Vivienne Westwood Ethical Fashion Africa Project shoppers (€120)
Vivienne Westwood's Ethical Fashion Africa Project is Exclusively online at YOOXYGEN (www.yoox.com)

For the eco-friendly project YOOXYGEN, virtual store yoox.com has teamed up with renowned British designer, Vivienne Westwood. yoox.com is the only online destination to feature three Vivienne Westwood shoppers created for the launch of Westwood’s Ethical Fashion Africa Project. The shoppers will be available online exclusively in the YOOXYGEN section on yoox.com and viviennewestwood.com starting in February 2011.

Handmade in Nairobi, all bags are created using recycled roadside advertisement banners and safari tents by marginalized communities of women such as single mothers, widows, HIV/AIDS victims and those living in extreme poverty. Vivienne Westwood is launching the Ethical Fashion Africa Project with the International Trade Centre, the joint body of the United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Vivienne Westwood Ethical Fashion Africa Project shoppers (€120) come in three sustainable designs: The “Get a Life” banner bag in a variety of colors, the “Purple Gaia Heart” printed on beige canvas, and the multi-colored “Orb” appliqué embroidered on khaki canvas. All will be available only in yoox.com’s permanent eco-friendly section, YOOXYGEN, which focuses on providing an engaging virtual platform for ethically conscious and fashionable products, as well as featuring exclusive eco-items and special collections.

http://www.yoox.com/

Just In Case You Have No Idea What To Wear When Cooking

2011-06-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

When you're hosting a dinner party, your outfit has to do double duty: It must be suitably festive while freeing you up to cook. Even when she expects to be busy in the kitchen, chef Giada De Laurentiis believes in dressing up for guests. "I want people to feel like I made the effort to look nice because I'm excited about having them over," she says.

When entertaining, chef Giada De Laurentiis likes her outfits to be practical, yet festive.

When she entertains in her Los Angeles home, Ms. De Laurentiis, who is a judge on season seven of the TV show "Food Network Star," as well as hosting her own show, often chooses an ankle-dusting cotton dress. The length "looks sophisticated," she says, but it's still somewhat casual because of the less dressy fabric. She likes cottons with a little stretch and flowing quality—jersey knits are a favorite—so that her movements aren't constricted.

The fabric must be lightweight, as a kitchen "tends to be a lot warmer and can get overheated," she says. She avoids silk, which shows perspiration easily.

The chef also likes empire-waisted styles, as they are loose but "just fitted enough so you don't look like you're wearing a sack." Sometimes she may wear black jeans, which she finds "elegant" when paired with a "floral or printed blouse that adds a little dimension of happiness and color on the top."

Ms. De Laurentiis likes her cooking blouses fitted so the fabric doesn't snag, and she favors three-quarter sleeves. Wrist-length sleeves, on the other hand, "get in your way," she says. "You don't want to be constantly pushing up your sleeves." Ms. De Laurentiis rarely wears skirts in the kitchen as she doesn't want to worry about baring too much when moving around or bending down.

Ms. De Laurentiis typically wears dark colors such as burgundy, black or gray. "Things can splatter and spill at any moment," she says. Although chefs sometimes wear patterned pants in professional kitchens so stains are less noticeable, Ms. De Laurentiis, who is 5 feet 3 inches, believes a printed fabric on the bottom would overwhelm her petite frame, so she limits patterns to her blouses.

On the set of 'Giada at Home' for the Food Network, she wears a lightweight dress suitable for the kitchen heat and loose enough to allow easy movement when preparing food.

To spice up dark outfits, Ms. De Laurentiis relies on accessories such as striking earrings or necklaces that aren't too long. The chef, who wears her hair pulled back from her face to avoid "hair dropping all over" the food, often wears large faux-diamond hoops in the kitchen, saying they "don't get in the way of what you're doing." But she avoids bracelets or rings. "I'm always touching things with my hands. I don't want to get food in my rings," she says.

Ms. De Laurentiis generally avoids aprons, which she feels restrict movement. But the chef sometimes ties on a frilly, colorful half-apron to "add punch" to a solid, dark outfit. Ms. De Laurentiis picks styles with one or two pockets, to store frequently used objects such as a tasting spoon.

One thing Ms. De Laurentiis doesn't dress up: her feet. Eschewing heels, Ms. De Laurentiis usually goes barefoot when entertaining: It "gives a relaxed feel to the whole evening," she says. "I don't believe in wearing heels in the kitchen. I need to move around easily, pull things out of the oven, bend down to pick things up. [With heels] I'm afraid I'll slip and fall."

Whatever you choose, the key is to "wear what you're most comfortable in," Ms. De Laurentiis says. "If you're constantly pulling and tugging at your outfit, you're fidgeting and your heels are burning your feet, your guests are not going to be comfortable," she adds.

TOMS Shoe Guy Gives Sight Like Jesus

2011-06-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

The guy who started the TOMS shoe company that gives shoes to needy children per purchase- is now giving sight to the poor of the world per purchase of TOMS eyewear. Ain't that nice. They aren't cheap, but it's all for a cause.

Article:
http://news.instyle.com/2011/06/08/toms-shoes-eyewear/

Website to buy the sunglasses:
http://www.toms.com/eyewear/

Don't Forget About Dre: A Dr. Dre Flow Chart. Seriously

2011-06-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0068/6272/files/PCL_ForgotAboutDre_large.jpg?101192

Read a flowchart analysis of those who ‘Forgot About Dre’

From the great minds at Pop Culture Labs, a breakdown of the many mother####### who forgot about Dre, for whatever reason (and there are many, all of them considered and refuted).

Bath Spa Students Have Nothing Better To Do Than Make Dresses From Cheese

2011-06-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Damn.

http://www.styleite.com/media/bath-spa-university-cheese-fashion/

Milla Jovovich You Can Finger Gun Me Any Day

2011-04-18T13:18:00.001-07:00

I hope you know how much I love finger guns. The charm of finger guns is that you are shot but you don't die. This is why I would never complain if Milla Jovovich shot me:

Remember Milla Jovovich, it is totally okay if you finger...gun me. I don't bite gorgeous.

Christina Hendricks to Be the Future Mistress to the King of France

2011-04-18T13:13:00.001-07:00

Imagine this new role for Christina Hendricks:

Christina Hendricks plays one of the mistresses of France’s King Louis XV, a flame-haired vixen and political firebrand who keeps marrying courtiers (for appearance’s sake. You understand)….only to see them die in, shall we say, mysterious ways. But though she spends the entire film in mourning, not even grief can dampen the power of her seduction! Opening this summer, power your wigs and pack up your lorgnettes for….MADAME de POMPADEATH.

Random Robert Pattinson Fact and Quote for Twihards

2011-04-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Fact:
Rob's favorite curse word is the British term, “tike,” which apparently refers to a “crude, ill-bred person who lacks culture or refinement.”

Quote:
“I’m not mushy but I have a romantic soul.”

Fine- you guys figured me out. I find Robert Pattinson attractive okay...

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Seemed Like A Cool Lady

2011-04-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Women’s History Month can’t end before we talk about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, one of the consummate writers and letter-writers of the world who would, I like to think, have been delighted to correspond with me.

Lady Mary was the first woman to document Muslim customs like the Turkish bagnio and the first European to write with comparative accuracy about the Muslim women’s world, including her visits to various harems. She was also responsible for bringing the smallpox vaccine (which was used in the Turkish Empire) to England after trying it out (successfully) on her baby son, not that anyone took much notice. Edward Jenner would receive full credit for the “discovery” much later.

Those are the relevant bullet points, and while I’m including them here, she was, as I think the letters below will show, so much more. A tremendously gifted writer, for one thing. Also—and this is key to understanding her, I think—a famous beauty, at least until she was scarred by a near-lethal battle with smallpox. After that her face was badly marked, her eyelashes, which had fallen out, never grew back, and her face–important currency at court, and impossible to hide—became, not precisely a liability, but certainly an occasion for gossip and lost status. Her remarks both on the nudity in the bathhouse and the “ferigee,” her name for the Muslim head-covering, evince a real longing for the anonymity they offer. In particular, she seems to see both as relief from the persistent tyranny of the face. What with the Beauty Myth and the current debates over the veil in the West, it’s a good moment to remember what history has to tell us.

Much of what follows comes courtesy of Isobel Grundy’s fantastic biography of Lady Mary, which I’ve been reading for fun in the bath.

Mary Pierrepont was born in April or May 1689 to wealthy parents. She was their first-born. Her mother died when she was very young. Her father, delighted by her beauty, recommended her as a toast to the Kit Kat Club, the Whig center of power. They refused to toast her until they’d seen her. So she was dolled up and presented at the club “from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another,” until her health was drunk by everyone present. By the by, she was eight. Unlike other women (who were toasted but kept outside), she had actually entered the male center of artistic and political power; she would spend the rest of her life trying to do it again.

She secretly taught herself Latin. I know it’s common to read over a sentence like that without letting it sink in, so may I just repeat: She SECRETLY taught herself LATIN. And apparently pretended to know less of it than she did to give her future husband, Edward Montagu, an excuse to tutor her. Playing stupid is an old, old game, and Montagu, being the twisted root of insecurity he was, required that kind of reassurance.

Montagu was a puzzle. He courted Lady Mary by means of his sister, a good friend of hers. Totally and grudgingly smitten, he dictated letters to his sister and made her send them as if they were her own. Sort of a reverse Cyrano de Bergerac that broke down when his sister-mouthpiece died and he was forced, awkwardly and grouchily, into the open.

In the meantime, Mary and her sisters and friends got crushes, fell in love, and wrote to each other in code, in case the letters were intercepted. (If they were, the women were whisked away to another part of the country and the romance was unceremoniously squashed.) The code worked as follows: A “Paradise” was someone you wanted to marry for love, a “Limbo” was someone you could deal with, if forced to marry them. “Hell” is self-explanatory. By not naming the people concerned, the women ensured that the letters would do minimal damage if found.

Even so, nobody married their Paradise.

Lady Mary’s father was more or less forcing her to marry a Hell, the aptly named Clotworthy Skeffington. Edward Montagu (her Limbo) had been in marriage talks with her father, but they’d broken down. Desperate as her wedding to Clotworthy approached, Lady Mary more or less asked Edward, her Limbo, to elope with her.

Edward hemmed and hawed, but in the end, elope they did, in what might be the least romantic elopement ever.

He became the Ambassador to Turkey, and it’s in the course of her travels with him that we get the incredible Embassy letters, some of which I’m going to reprint here.

Smallpox

But before all that, two years after giving birth to her first child, she got smallpox. We don’t have a sense of what smallpox was like (here’s an extremely distressing modern-day image), so here’s Grundy’s description of the course it took:

The smallpox, which had killed her brother, which she had feared for her husband and baby, had got her at last. After a couple of weeks’ incubation period, the sudden onset of severe symptoms must have frightened her badly. Her two-and-a-half year old son (who, like his sister later, was probably in the habit of playing about the room while she dressed or wrote her letters) would have been sent hurriedly away, with his nurse, to someone else’s house. Her temperature soared to at least 103 degrees F. The sweat pouring from her did nothing to bring it down. For two whole days her pulse raced, her back ached, and her head ached even worse. She was constipated; she vomited; she had a dreadful thirst.

On the third day of her illness the spots appeared, confirming what she already knew about her case. Her fever diminished, but in other respects her condition deteriorated rapidly. First a perceptible redness appeared around the roots of her hair, and within hours the heat, and itching, and pustules spread to cover almost the whole surface of her head and face, her body, and then her limbs. The spots itched; they filled with clear liquid; they went on itching. They ran together over large areas of her body. The word went out that she was ‘exceedingly full’. Her whole skin, both where it was all spot and even where there was space between the spots, was so swollen that her face became literally unrecognizable. The mucous membranes of her mouth and throat, nostrils, eyes, and sexual parts, were also swollen, and terribly painful. Breathing became difficult as her nose and throat closed up; her voice was hoarse and she had to keep spitting up an unstaunchable flow of saliva.

Meanwhile, the talk in town was whether she would live and, more importantly, how she would look:

Those ‘Ladies who know every minute of ye day, what her distemper takes, say she… will be very severely markt.’ Some wit … said ‘she was full and yet not pitted [pitied]‘. Her court career was assumed to be over, and Worltey said to be ‘inconsolable for ye disappointment this gives him in ye carrier [the career] he had chalked out of his fortunes’. (Any more intimate emotion that he may have felt went unreported.) Lady Loudoun thought that with a ‘pair of good eyes’ like Lady Mary’s ‘being markt is nothing’, but only because complexions could be bought. This sounds double edged….”

Lady Mary wrote a about the ordeal in her closing eclogue–”Satturday–the Small Pox,” where “Flavia” addresses the loss of her beauty. It’s sad, but also self-aware, self-deprecating and satirical, jumping in its evocations of pathos from the high culture of portraiture to an embarrassing and joking apostrophe to her vanity table:

“That picture which with pride I us’d to show,
‘The lost resemblance but upbraids me now.
‘And thou, my toilette! where I oft have sat… “

When she arrived in Turkey, she found that they had what amounts in modern parlance to a smallpox vaccine: old women would take some scrapings from an infected person and “graft” them onto a health individual. Lady Montagu, watching this, was so impressed that she ordered that it be done to her little baby son. Here’s an excerpt from her letter to Mrs. S.C.:

A propos of distempers, I am going to tell you a thing, that will make you wish yourself here. The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of engrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox; they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together) the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle , and after that, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in this manner opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly the superstition of opening one in the middle of the forehead, one in each arm, and one on the breast, to mark the sign of the Cross; but this has a very ill effect, all these wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by those that are not superstitious, who chuse to have them in the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed. The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three. They have very rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which never mark, and in eight days time they are as well as before their illness. Where they are wounded, there remains running sores during the distemper, which I don’t doubt is a great relief to it. Every year, thousands undergo this operation, and the French Ambassador says pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has died in it, and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. I am patriot enough to take the pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue, for the good of mankind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment, the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps if I live to return, I may, however, have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of

Your friend, etc. etc.

M

Vienna, Where Every Woman is Old, and Has a Husband and a Lover

Before getting to the Turkish bath letters, I want to pause in Vienna, where she marvels at the court convention, wherein older women are considered more beautiful and powerful than younger ones: “I can assure you that wrinkles, or a small stoop in the shoulders, nay, grey hair itself, is no objection to the making of new conquests.” She observes that “a woman, till five-and-thirty, is only look upon as a raw girl, and can possibly make no noise about the world till about forty. I don’t know what your ladyship may think of this matter; but ’tis a considerable comfort to me, to know there is upon earth such a paradise for old women; and I am content to be insignificant at present, in the design of returning when I am fit to appear nowhere else.”

She writes that most women, once married, go about acquiring a lover as part of their “equipage,” and that unlike England, “getting a lover is so far from losing, that ’tis properly getting a reputation; ladies being much more respected in regard to the rank of their lovers, than that of their husbands.” So much is this the case that it would be rude “and publicly resented if you invited a woman of quality to dinner, without at the same time inviting her two attendants of lover and husband, between whom she always sits in state with great gravity.”

Lady Montagu was herself offered a choice of lovers:

But one of the pleasantest adventures I ever met in my life was last night, and which will give you a just idea after what delicate manner the belles passions are managed in this country. I was at the assembly of the Countess of ___, and the young Count of ___ led me down stairs, and he asked me how long I intended to stay here? I made answer that my stay depended on the emperor, and it was not in my power to determine it. Well, madam, (said he,) whether your time here is to be long or short, I think you ought to pass it agreeably, and to that end you must engage in a little affair of the heart. –My heart (answered I gravely enough) does not engage very easily, and I have no design of parting with it. I see, madam, (said he sighing,) by the ill nature of that answer, that I am not to hope for it, which is a great mortification to me that am charmed with you. But, however, I am still devoted to your service; and since I am not worthy of entertaining you myself, do me the honour of letting me know whom you like best among us, and I’ll engage to manage the affair entirely to your satisfaction.

As she made her way, she took every opportunity to find out as much as could about different customs and world views. Many of her impressions of th Turkish Empire seem to have been shaped by her early conversations with Achmet Beg, her host in Belgrade:

I pass for a great scholar with him, by relating to him some of the Persian tales, [Arabian nights], which I find are genuine. At first he believed I understood Persian. I have frequent disputes with him concerning the difference of our custom, particularly the confinement of women. He assures me, there is nothing at all in it; only, says he, we have the advantage, that when our wives cheat us, nobody knows it. He has wit, and is more polite than many Christian men of quality.

And finally, here is the bath letter, wherein the first recorded encounter between these Western and Muslim women results not, as you might expect, in the former seeing the latter as an oppressed figure of veiled mystery, threatening and unknowable, nor in the latter regarding the former as a perverse or liberated creature.

I am now got into a new world, where every thing I see appears to me a change of scene; and I write to your ladyship with some content of mind, hoping at least that you will find the charm of novelty in my letters, and no longer reproach me, that I tell you nothing extraordinary.

I won’t trouble you with a relation of our tedious journey; but I must not omit what I saw remarkable at Sophia, one of the most beautiful towns in the Turksih empire, and famous for its hot baths, that are resorted to both for diversion and health. I stopped here one day on purpose to see them. Designing to go incognita, I hired a Turkish coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded; the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined with silk, and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the person in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure, and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised.

In one of these covered waggons, I went to the bagnio about ten o’clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone, in the shape of a dome, with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough. There were five of these domes joined together, the outmost being less thant the rest, and serving only as a hall, where the portress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman the value of a crown or ten shillings; and I did not forget that ceremony. The next room is a very large one paved with marble, and all round it, raised, two sofas of marble, one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins, and then running on the floor in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the baths joining to it, it was impossible to stay there with one’s clothes on. The two other domes were the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it, to temper it to what degree of warmth the bathers have a mind to.

I was in my travelling habit, which is a riding dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them. Yet there was not one of them that shewed the least surprize or impertininet curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. I believe in the whole, there were two hundred women, and yet none of those disdainful smiles, or satiric whispers, that never fail in our assemblies when any body appears that is not dressed exactly in the fashion. They repeated over and over to me, “Uzelle, pek uzelle,” which nothing but Charming, very charming. –The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian,—and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces.

I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies with the finest skins and most delicate shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions. To tell you the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr. Jervas [her painter friend, a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller] could have been there invisible. I fancy it would have very much improved his art, to see so many fine women naked, in different postures, some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on their cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen) were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies. In short, it is the women’s coffee-house, where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented, etc. –They generally take the diversion once a-week, and stay there at least four or five hours, without getting cold by immediate coming out of the hot bath into the cold room, which was very surprising to me. The lady that seemed the most considerable among them, entreated me to sit by her, and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty. They being all so earnest in persuading me, I was at last forced to open my shirt, and shew them my stays; which satisfied them very well for, I saw, they believed I was so locked up in that machine, that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband. –I was charmed with their civility and beauty, and should have been very glad to pass more time with them; but Mr W [Wortley] resolving to pursue his journey the next morning early, I was in haste to see the ruins of Justinian’s church, which did not afford me so agreeable a prospect as I had left, being little more than a heap of stones.

Adieu, madam: I am sure I have now entertained you with an account of such a sight as you never saw in your life, and what no book of travels could inform you of. ‘Tis no less than death for a man to be found in one of these places.

Eyeliner, Nail Polish, Fashion, Freedom and the Ferigee

The ladies in the bathhouse may have thought Lady Mary was imprisoned in her stays by her husband, but she would soon start adapting to Turkish dress. In another 1717 letter, this time to her sister, she describes her own outfit and all the strange Turkish makeup practices (eyebrow-shaping! eyeliner! she doesn’t think much of nail polish). Even more interesting: how she explains the veil as an intensely liberating garment, so much so that she thinks of Turkish women “as the only free people in the empire.”

The first piece of my dress is a pair of drawers, very full, that reach to my shoes, and conceal the legs more modestly than your petticoats. They are of a thin rose-coloured damask, brocaded with silver flowers, my shoes of white kid leather, embroidered with gold. Over this hangs my smock, of a fine white silk gauze, edged with embroidery. This smock has wide sleeves, hanging half way down the arm, and is closed at the neck with a diamond button; but the shape and colour of the bosom very well to be distinguished through it. The antery is a waistcoat, made close to the shape, of white and gold damask, with very long sleeves falling back, and fringed with deep gold fringe, and should have diamond or pearl buttons. My caftan, of the same stuff with my drawers, is a robe exactly fitted to my shape, and reaching to my feet, with very long strait falling sleeves. Over this is the girdle of about four fingers broad, which all that can afford have entirely of diamonds or other precious stones; those who will not be at that expense, have it of exquisite embroidery on satin; but it must be fastened before with a clasp of diamonds. The curdee is a loose robe they throw off or put on according to the weather, being of a rich brocade (mine is green and gold), either lined with ermine or sables; the sleeves reach very little below the shoulders. The head-dress is composed of a cap, called talpock, which is in winter of fine velvet embroidered with pearls or diamonds, and in summer of a light shining silver stuff. This is fixed on one side of the head, hanging a little way down with a gold tassel, and bound on, either with a circle of diamonds (as I have seen several) or a rich embroidered handkerchief. On the other side of the head, the hair is laid flat; and here the ladies are at liberty to show their fancies; some putting flowers, others a plume of heron’s feathers, and, in short, what they please; but the most general fashion is a large bouquet of jewels, made like natural flowers; that is, the buds of pearl; the roses, of different coloured rubies; the jessamines, of diamonds; jonquils, of topazes, etc., so well set and enamelled, ’tis hard to imagine any thing of that kind so beautiful. The hair hangs at its full length behind, divided into tresses braided with pearl or ribbon, which is always in great quantity.

I never saw in my life so many fine heads of hair. I have counted a hundred and ten of these tresses of one lady’s all natural; but it must be owned, that every beauty is more common here than with us. ‘Tis surprising to see a young woman that is not very handsome. They have naturally the most beautiful complexions in the world, and generally large black eyes. I can assure you with great truth, that the court of England (though I believe it the fairest in Christendom) cannot shew so many beauties as are under our protection here. They generally shape their eyebrows; and the Greeks and Turks have a custom of putting round their eyes (on the inside) a black tincture, that, at a distance, or by candle-light, adds very much to the blackness of them. I fancy many of our ladies would be overjoyed to know this secret; but ’tis too visible by day. They dye their nails a rose-colour. I own, I cannot enough accustom myself to this fashion to find any beauty in it.

As to their morality or good conduct, I can say, like Harlequin, that ’tis just as it is with you; and the Turkish ladies don’t commit one sin the less for not being Christians. [HA!] Now I am a little acquainted with their ways, I cannot forbear admiring either the exemplary discretion or extreme stupidity of all the writers that have given accounts of them. ‘Tis very easy to see they have more liberty than we have. No woman, of what rank soever, being permitted to go into the streets without two muslins; one that covers her face all but her eyes, and another that hides the whole dress of her head, and hangs half way down her back, and their shapes are wholly concealed by a thing they call a ferigee, which no woman of any sort appears without; this has strait sleeves, that reach to their finger-ends, and it laps all round them, not unlike a riding-hood. In winter ’tis of cloth, and in summer plain stuff or silk. You may guess how effectually this disguises them, [so] that there is no distinguishing the great lady from her slave. ‘Tis impossible for the most jealous husband to know his wife when he meets her; and no man dare either touch or follow a woman in the street.

This perpetual masquerade gives them entire liberty of following their inclinations without danger of discovery. The most usual method of intrigue is, to send an appointment to the lover to meet the lady at a Jew’s shop, which are as notoriously convenient as our Indian-houses; and yet, even those who don’t make that use of them, do not scruple to go to buy pennyworths, and tumble over rich goods, which are chiefly to be found amongst that sort of people. The great ladies seldom let their gallants know who they are; and it is so difficult to find it out, that they can very seldom guess at her name they have corresponded with above half a year together. You may easily imagine the number of faithful wives very small in a country where they have nothing to fear from a lover’s indiscretion, since we see so many that have the courage to expose themselves to that in this world, and all the threatened punishment of the next, which is never preached to the Turkish damsels. Neither have they much to apprehend from the resentment of their husbands; those ladies that are rich having all their money in their own hands, which they take with them upon a divorce, with an addition which he is obliged to give them.

Upon the whole, I look upon the Turkish women as the only free people in the empire: the very Divan pays a respect to them; and the Grand Signior himself, when a pasha is executed, never violates the privileges of the harem (or women’s apartment), which remains unsearched entire to the widow. They are queens of their slaves, whom the husband has no permission so much as to look upon, except it be an old woman or two that his lady chooses. ‘Tis true their law permits them four wives; but there is no instance of a man of quality that makes use of this liberty, or of a woman of rank that would suffer it. When a husband happens to be inconstant (as those things will happen), he keeps his mistress in a house apart, and visits her as privately as he can, just as it is with you. Amongst all the great men here, I only know the tefterdar (i.e. treasurer), that keeps a number of she slaves for his own use (that is, on his own side of the house; for a slave once given to serve a lady is entirely at her disposal), and he is spoken of as a libertine, or what we should call a rake, and his wife won’t see him, though she continues to live in his house.

Thus, you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would make us believe. Perhaps it would be more entertaining to add a few surprising customs of my own invention; but nothing seems to me so agreeable as truth, and I believe nothing so acceptable to you. I conclude with repeating the great truth of my being,

Dear sister, etc.

M

There are so many more, but I’ll stop here for now. I’m touched by her observation that both the nakedness of the bathhouse and the extreme coverage of the ferigee eliminate class distinctions (in both cases, the slave can’t be distinguished from her mistress) and the tyranny of the face. There’s so much more—her crazy relationship with Alexander Pope, her eventual separation, her gradual isolation from England—but for now, let’s raise a cup to her, not as a one-time admittee to the gentleman’s Kit Kat Club, but as an institution in our women’s coffeehouse.

Fondly,

M

I Want To Get Legal Permission To Get Lost Here

2011-04-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/03/strahov-monastery-panoramic-image?pid=3251

Seriously check out this incredible library that has been in scenes from the films Immortal Beloved and The Prince & Me.

My future home shall top this library...

Rob & Reese Attend the ACM Awards for God Knows Why

2011-04-18T12:46:00.001-07:00

ROBERT PATTINSON: Hi, Reese.

REESE WITHERSPOON: Hi, Rob.

ROB: So we’re here to celebrate country music because we’re in Water for Elephants, which is… set in the country, I guess?

REESE: I don’t know. I’m just trying to put on a happy face because this is technically my honeymoon.

ROB: Oh, gee, that’s right, you got married recently.

REESE: Yep.

ROB: Sorry that I didn’t RSVP. I travel so much that I didn’t get the invitation.

REESE: …. Yes, that’s it.

ROB: I KNEW IT. You didn’t invite me.

REESE: Well, it’s just…

ROB: We’re about to go on a HUGE press tour together. Spending SO MANY MINUTES in each other’s presence. And we show this whole movie where I look beautiful, and not all psychotic and blood-hungry and emo-depressed or that I have spent a hundred celibate years learning how to play the violin or whatever, and still I get NOTHING?

REESE: It’s not personal, it’s just…

ROB: Awkward! Ha!

REESE: Ha ha. You got me.

ROB: Reese are you secretly pregnant because your nice Marchesa dress makes you look...stocky.

REESE: I'm not preggo thank you very much. And I'm not stocky!

ROB: Let’s go backstage and talk about this. Remember I am dating Kristen Stewart, so I have to diagnose and treat fashion madness all the time.

REESE: Bless you. I will totally invite you to the baby shower.

ROB: … Nah. Unless there’s an open bar.

REESE: It’s a deal.

I Hate This Nylon Magazine Cover: Congrats Emily Browning

2011-04-18T12:36:00.001-07:00

Nylon magazine wants to celebrate the 263 ways you can be beautiful.

Here is a sneak peek at some of them:

#14: Always make sure people know where your breasts are

#18: Any shirt that makes your nipples look like they have been filleted and then blown up is a shirt you must own

#76: Menstrual diapers always go over your tights. Trust!

#121: You can’t spell “panties” without “spite.”

#202: Pants? HA!

I Am Angry at Anne Hathaway

2011-04-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

This Gucci Spring 2011 dress is STUNNING but why, Anne, did you have to do geek chic with THIS dress of ALL dresses?

“And oh, gee, are these old things still here? I was so caught up in doing the crossword and reading charmingly intellectual books about, like, British people and vegetables and whatnot, that I completely forgot to take off my glasses! Honest mistake! It has NOTHING to do with me being worried that hosting the Oscars next to a human fart would taint my reputation.

“But, you know, in case you missed it: I could tutor you in math! Diagram sentences with your daughter, because come on, you totally don’t remember how to do that! I can give you uncomfortable but medically honest sex advice, speak to you in Binary, and rearrange your home library based on the Dewey Decimal System! In short, I am TOTALLY too busy being a brainy supergirl to hang out with James Franco on a daily basis! Because if I did, wouldn’t my IQ be too diminished for me to teach you the metric system… IN FRENCH? I MEAN RIGHT.”

I Like This Look and I Don 't Know Why

2011-04-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

Evan Rachel Wood was awesome in Mildred Pierce by the way. She played (brilliant) Kate Winslet's impossibly horrible bitchy evil tramp daughter. Anywho, I like this look.
It’s sort of Sassy 1940s Gal Who Everyone Believes Is A Secretary But Whose Real Job Is Code-Cracking, Alongside A Dreamy Math Genius With Whom She Eventually Falls In Love/Foils The Nazis meets 9 to 5. That’s a mash-up I can get behind.

Russian Drama Update

2011-04-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Art and dirty language

03/06/201017:17

There’s more to new Russian drama than simply modern material, so take a seat and prepare to be shocked

Russian Fashion Industry Update

2011-04-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Fashion faux pas

18/04/201121:25

Young designers are stuck on a shoestring budget in the struggling industry

I Love John Patrick's Eco-Friendly Fashion

2011-03-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

A Few Of My Favorite Things: A Look Inside John Patrick Organic

In New York City’s East Village over tea and soba and kinpira at Soba-Koh Restaurant I asked John Patrick, the design force behind John Patrick Organic (check out coverage of his Autumn, 2011 collection here) about his favorite things that he absolutely can not live without, and about his design journey so far.

A Few of John Patrick’s Favorite Things:

1. An eternal supply of South River Miso.
2. Short grain brown rice.
3. Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap.
3. The British toothbrush D.R. Harris
4. Organic, Fair Trade coffee
5. Pencils and sharpeners
6. Recycled Paper products
7. Jane’s Flower Oil from Grace Heaven Organic Salon, NYC
8. Hand woven organic cotton shawls (from John Patrick Organic)
9. Canvas hand woven shopping bags (from his own line John Patrick Organic )
10. James Vreeland socks (made in peru from color grown cotton.)
11. Ben Wolf clay pots (handmade in Connecticut).
12. Kinpira from Souen Macrobiotic Restaurant on 6th Ave, NYC
13. Bespoke organic oxford shirts from Charvet in Paris
14. American and British Vogue
14. Raleigh Denim jeans made from cone denim
15. Mc dermott/Mc Gough’s painting of a super hero that says “where’s that wish that I threw away”

In our times it has become commonplace for designers to boast of having their clothes made in the US or locally to prove their low carbon footprint. John Patrick has been doing this for decades; long before it was the green thing to do. An absolute love of every detail of the process is why he closely watched over every seam and button and knew everyone in the factories and specialty shops in NYC’s Fashion District. Designing clothes since 1982, Patrick has always made them in NYC even when the competition took their business to the third world. Seeing the process from beginning to end is what excited him about the business. About a decade ago he made an organic cotton apron for writer friend at Organic Style Magazine. A seed was planted and a star was born.

John Patrick’s Fall/Winter 2011 Show. Photo: Jane Webb

Patrick says that he started making Organic in response to September 11. When the economy and his existing world view crashed as a result of 911 he used that time to rethink his life’s purpose.

As with so many artists the material is the launching point that opens new vistas. A trip to Peru introduced him first-hand to color grown organic cotton and he forged relationships with farmers and textile workers there that led him to live in Lima for a year. While there he began creating new lines using organic pima cotton and alpaca wool. It seems knowledge begets more knowledge. Once he understood the ramifications of just how toxic the textile industry is and how gorgeous sustainably dyed fabrics are, he was converted. John Patrick Organic was born.

In 2008 he was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. The press sat up and took notice because finally organic fashion had a legitimate designer giving it its due. High fashion could be created sustainably without sacrificing an ounce of style.

John Patrick’s Fall/Winter 2011 Show. Photo: Jane Webb

John Patrick likes to claim that he has rediscovered his hippie roots. He has a keen interest in the movement to interest young people in becoming organic farmers. Today he lives in a converted factory building in Albany, NY with his devoted life partner Walter Fleming, who is the bedrock of the business, the silent partner, the secret ingredient that pulls the whole recipe together. John Patrick delights in working at the local food co-op and hanging out with his friends who are involved in the organic farming and permaculture scene in Albany.

After many visits to Japan he has fallen in love with miso and wants to do an internship at a Miso factory. He is also obsessed with soba and japanese veggie cuisine; especially kinpira. Like many others who make the move toward a more natural lifestyle, he is looking for his new home in the world. His love of hand made textiles makes him curious about living in South America, Asia, Mexico and India.

John Patrick Organic’s Fall/Winter 2008 Collection Photo: Starre Vartan

Patrick’s hero is Ghandi and he has adopted his view of peaceful resistance as a response to an ever challenging world bent on self destruction. He is very much a walking paradox: he is a workaholic, doesn’t like owning stuff, doesn’t wear a watch, hates his Blackberry and dreams of living a really simple life in harmony with nature somewhere. His latest collection is a fearless celebration of contrasting textures from henna dyed silks to nubby rugged wool coats and to vegetable dyed leather and classic tweeds. This collection is inspired by the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto studies on the nature of reflection.

John Patrick and model at the Fall/Winter 2008 show. Photo: Starre Vartan

The world is taking notice of the shifting paradigm in fashion and has arrived on his door step to document the occasion. The museums at FIT and Kent State have shown his work. He has been invited as a guest of the Sri Lankan Government to talk about how to create a sustainable/green fashion industry.

The Organic momentum keeps building. He’s creating an exhibit and book about the water of the Ashokan Reservoir. He declined to be the subject of a reality TV show, preferring to keep his life simple. That will be very hard to do considering that the press can not get enough of him. As the reigning ambassador of organic fashion the speaking engagements and interviews never end. In the few still moments that he can find in his life he is always thinking of new and creative directions to take his very big green dreams and the world is eagerly waiting to see where he will go next.

John Patrick Organic is available online at Isetan and Ron Herman in Japan and at Barneys NYC.

Check out the video above, which really encapsulates how and why Patrick does his work.

Ryan Gosling Moves In

2011-01-23T16:41:00.000-08:00

MICHELLE: Hey, Ryan.

RYAN: Michelle. Ma belle.

MICHELLE: Right, yes. The Beatles.

RYAN: I am crazy for you.

MICHELLE: Madonna. Can I play? How about, ‘Don’t stand so close to me.’

RYAN: The Police! Also, sorry. I’m just so drawn to your creamy white torso. I want to spread it on toast and take it for breakfast in bed.

MICHELLE: … R. Kelly?

RYAN: No, Ryan Gosling.

MICHELLE: Really? Since when are you so horny?

RYAN: I DON’T KNOW. I think it’s the scarf. It has me feeling so randy. Like I could drink a shot of rum out of your clavicle. And then leap into your dress, and into your secret garden…

MICHELLE: EW!

RYAN: No, Bruce Springsteen. Well, sort of.

MICHELLE: Man, this is getting scary. I’m gonna shoot somebody.

RYAN: What?!?

MICHELLE: Now THAT was R. Kelly.

RYAN: Cunning. But seriously, I do like that dress. It’s like a painting. A painting of serenity. I can paint, you know. With my fingers. I could turn your fair epidermis into a canvas, that skin like porcelain, one pair of candy lips and your bubblegum tongue…

MICHELLE: John Mayer. Wow, I can’t believe you are quoting Man-Whore at me. Dealbreaker!

RYAN: You thought I was quoting R. Kelly before, but JOHN MAYER is your dealbreaker?

MICHELLE: A girl has to have standards. Does this stuff really work on Blake Lively?

RYAN: I never kiss and tell. But, yes.

MICHELLE: Well, congrats to you and your scarf. I hope you’re all very happy. Laughter is calling for you. Three’s company, too.

RYAN: That one is… wait for it, I know this one…

MICHELLE: It’s Three’s Company.

RYAN: Damn! You’ve bested me in this round, Williams. Well played indeed.

Ashton Kutcher Goes on Sex Ed Rant Promoting his New Shitty Movie

2011-01-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

You'd think a press conference for No Strings Attached, a movie Natalie Portman is probably kicking herself for starring in—nothing like following the critical tongue-kissing for Black Swan with a wet dog turd of a rom-com, Portman—would be as lame as the plot, which is described as "a date movie about twentysomething 'sex friends' who accidentally fall in love," but thanks to Ashton Kutcher, there's actually something to report on here.

While promoting No Strings Attached, Kutcher somehow managed to climb aboard a sex-related soapbox, declaring his beliefs that... well, I'm not entirely sure, to be honest.

Here, read for yourself:
"I think there’s so much that’s not said about sex in our country, even from an educational level. I do a lot of work on human trafficking, and I connect a lot with girls that end up in this trade, if you will. Partially because of a lack of education about sex in the country. Sometimes we get to make films that open things up that people can talk about, and one of the interesting things — I don’t want to veer off on a weird human trafficking thing, but — is that, especially for women in the sex education process in schools, the one thing they teach about is how to get pregnant or how to not get pregnant, but they don’t really talk about sex as a point of pleasure for women. The male orgasm is actually right there and readily available to learn about because it’s actually part of the reproductive cycle, but the female orgasm isn’t really talked about in the education system. Part of that creates a place where women aren’t empowered around their own sexuality and their own sexual selves, and from a purely entertainment point of view, to create a movie with a female lead that’s empowered with her own sexuality is a powerful thing. And if we can give teenage people something to think about from a sex perspective, I would say it would be to open a conversation where women are empowered with their own sexual experiences from an educational level as well as an entertainment level."

Uh huh. Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight: if women were empowered to get themselves off, they wouldn't end up as abducted sex slaves, and this crap-ass movie he's in is going to create a bunch of valuable sociological dialogue.

Well, in case this wasn't enough to make you raise an eyebrow, Kutcher also recently did an interview with Men's Fitness where he predicted that the "end of days" is on its way. He claims to be stocking up on guns, spending hours and hours running the canyons near his home, and learning Krav Maga, a deadly Israeli combat technique. A quote from the interview: "All of my physical fitness regimen is completely tailored around the end of day. I stay fit for no other reason than to save the people I care about."

So Ashton Kutcher's eternally terrible rom-com movies are for the betterment of womankind, and his chiseled bod is for apocalyptic purposes only. Man, I had him ALL wrong. I wonder what altruistic explanation he has for Punk'd and Dude, Where's My Car.

Daniel Radcliffe Sings the Periodic Table of Elements

2011-01-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

I find myself easily amused by Daniel Radcliffe singing the periodic table of elements.
He performed "The Elements" by musical humorist Tom Lehrer on Graham Norton's show, and it's seriously impressive/nerdy/wonderful.

Kirsten's Move to Being Classic

2011-01-08T17:32:00.000-08:00

My initial reaction to this was a big WAH-WAAAAH.

It’s so plain, so crinkled, so BORING and Kiki is ALIVE and VITAL and should be inspiring us to do more than sit in a chair and sniffle. But the thing is, I have to give this credit: the vintage aura somehow also totally suits her. I mean, it’s not like Lady Gaga or Meryl Streep or Miley Cyrus is parading around in this; it’s very Kirsten, so in that sense, even if this might be at Defcon 1 levels of mustiness, I also think it’s possible La Dunst knocked this out of the park.

Channing Tatum Go Back to the Way You Were

2011-01-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

Remember back when it seemed like Channing Tatum cute?

Turns out he’s never really had an intimate relationship with a quality razor, but whatever — that’s not a requirement. I just think the shorter hair worked a lot better than the coif he’s attempting to rock now:

I keep expecting him to try and sell me a certified pre-owned Oldsmobile that smells vaguely of cigar smoke, ointment, and feet.

Great Harry Potter Parody Videos

2011-01-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

Popeater has kindly complied great Harry Potter parody videos for us all to enjoy: http://www.popeater.com/2010/11/19/harry-potter-parodies-video-list/

Harry Potter Puppet Pals is the best, and forever classic. I remember being in 7th grade and laughing my head off. Wait, I am still laughing my head off.

Elizabeth Moss Gets Back at Ex Looking Fabulous

2011-01-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

Ladies, this is how we triumphantly prove to our man what he is missing out on: by looking more fabulous than ever. Take Elizabeth Moss, who recently divorced Saturday Night Live's Fred Amrisen: SUCK ON THIS, EX-HUSBAND FRED ARMISEN THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR TAKING UP WITH A GIRL HALF YOUR AGE.

Renee Zellweger Needs to Let Her Lungs Breathe

2011-01-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

On Renee, this dress is SO tight that I half expect her to be arrested for public nudity because it’s just body paint. It makes sense to me that she’s at CNN’s event for modern-day heroes, because she deserves some kind of medal for squeezing into that thing without ripping it, removing any of her ribs, and/or compressing her lungs to the size of raisins.

Beckham's Glued Dirt

2011-01-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

“Yes. It’s true. Even when I haven’t shaved my neck and it looks like Posh has secretly replaced my hair gel with a box of dirt, I AM STILL DREAMY. HOW DO I DO IT?”

I am Glad Winona Ryder is Back

2011-01-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

I have missed Winona Ryder and I am glad she is making a comeback. Here is an article: http://www.celebitchy.com/129144/winona_ryder_at_39_humble_less_crazy_ready_to_settle_down/

Alexa Ching is SO Overrated.

2011-01-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

I can't stand Alexa Chung. She makes high fashion drab and is too skinny and painful to look at.
I don't like a British person hosting AMERICAN MTV. That doesn't make sense. Here is an article that I love about why people should not like Alexa Chung: http://thegloss.com/fashion/why-alexa-chung-bothers-me/

David Hasselhoff, Did You Look in the Mirror?

2011-01-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

Dave thought upon waking this morn,
“Now what could these fierce shoes adorn?”
Then a shiny black spider
Did bite our Knight Rider
And a Slick Superhero was born.

Beverly D’Angelo has a Martini Hand

2011-01-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

I love how this photo makes it look like Beverly D’Angelo a) has two right hands, and b) has one which is both disproportionately large and clutching an empty martini. Of course, a little large-limbed wishful drinking might explain why D’Angelo showed up at this premiere looking like that crazy lady in the woods who uses roadkill to make coats. She’s more Beav than Bev.

Louis Vuitton's Leg Heels

2011-01-08T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, you’re not mistaken: The heel is modeled after a deer leg. They’re Louis Vuitton, hot off the Spring 2011 runway, but unfortunately I don’t find them graceful and sprightly (a la that professional frolicker Bambi) so much as wonkus and terribly uncomfortable-looking. It draws my attention, too, to the level of foot squish we’re seeing in this minimalist shoe, and then I start to wonder about blisters and chafing, and THAT is some sexy imagery, let me tell you. Apparently it’s actually a giraffe leg, which does at least explain why they don’t evoke Bambi for me, and also, makes me lament the lack of famous giraffes.

James Franco's Mustache to Host the Oscars.

2011-01-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

Remember when you heard that James Franco and Anne Hathaway were going to be hosting this year’s Oscars? When I read that, I was kind of like, “really? Franco? REALLY?” I mean, I know he’s done almost LITERALLY everything else this year, so why not, but still. I am hoping he’d host it in character as Franco, the Artist Whose Canvas Is MURDER (his General Hospital character and yes that is his legal name):
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE WHATEVER ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS. Can’t you totally picture this dude half-stoned and leering his way through Best Short Subject and, like, playing absently with this droopy little ‘stache while Anne talks, and then accidentally referring to Martin Landau as Martian Manhoe or something, while everyone in the front row titters self-consciously? And then the next day all the postmortems will either read, “that was bizarre but weirdly charming,” or, “that was the worst freaking idea since the Snow White debacle,” and yet somehow Franco will just shrug it off and be like, “yeah, and wasn’t my mustache HILARIOUS? Gotta go — my canvas needs some murder paint.” Now that I’ve pictured the way the whole thing is going to play out — as a refresher, it goes: stoned, random, wrong, awkward, drunk, entertained, hungover — I’m kind of REALLY on board.

Selena Gomez, Stop Singing Because You Can't

2011-01-08T16:37:00.000-08:00

Selena Gomez has everything here: a lousy singing voice painful to listen to, the bodice of Miss USA, and the pants of a former Miss USA who has been living out her days in a nursing home taking medication for delusions that she lives in a lamp. And just when you think geriatric genie pants are as bad as things could get, the universe teaches you not to deal in absolutisms.

They are geriatric genie pants with VENTILATION.

Carey Mulligan Sees Colin Firth

2011-01-08T16:35:00.000-08:00

Carey Mulligan’s like, “COLIN FIRTH. I SEE YOU. AND I SHALL MAKE YOU MINE.”

Milla Jovovich Knows You Want Her

2011-01-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

I love Milla Jovovich’s facial expression here.

It’s so fierce and Come Hither, all, “Do you want it? You do. Admit it. No, don’t. This game of cat-and-mouse is so much more erotic, don’t you think? Let us suck the marrow out of our unspoken desire.”

The thing is, I was totally expecting to be all, “NICE CAFTAN.” ButI am not super appalled by this. Milla Jovovich has her own fierce personal style, and it doesn’t look like she’s about to pull up a cauldron and brew up some eye-of-newt juice. It’s more like what I imagine Glinda the Good Witch wears now that she has taken up with the Scarecrow and retired to Palm Beach.

This Vogue Issue is Stupid

2011-01-08T16:08:00.000-08:00

It comes to my attention that I totally forgot to renew my Vogue subscription and haven’t gotten it for three months and didn’t even notice until just now, which is a bad sign for Vogue. I can’t believe I missed the issue where they suggest thoughtful Christmas gifts, all of which are “price upon request.” I also can’t believe I didn’t get to read the article in this issue which will explain why I get fat. My theory is, “too much chocolate, not enough cardio,” but they swear it’s not what I think. Whatever it is, I hope it’s solved by MORE chocolate and even LESS cardio, although considering the source it’s probably more likely that they’ll advance the theory that weight gain is caused by my pesky solid food addiction. Anyhoodle, of COURSE Portman is on the cover.

I Detest John Mayer, Just So You Know

2011-01-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

“Put me in a dark room with a far-sighted girl and I can TOTALLY pass for Johnny Depp! It’ll be like that (http://www.playboy.com/articles/john-mayer-playboy-interview/index.html?page=1) disaterous Playboy interview never happened! I CAN SCORE AGAIN! Thank you, hair follicles. Thank you. Now, where’d I put my scarves?”

Nicholas Cage, Just Be Bald

2011-01-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

I like Nicholas Cage even though I don't actually like him. I have quite the selection of his movies for some reason. On air planes I watch these dumb-ass Nic Cage movies I never got around to seeing and that is because YOU, Nicolas Cage, YOU SIR are a National Treasure. There is no other actor who accepted an Academy Award and then proceeded to make a more delicious and ENDLESS avalanche of totally terrible/awesome popcorn flicks. No other! JUST YOU. So, for the love of Mount Rushmore and its national, treasured secrets, SHOW US WHATEVER IS PERCOLATING UNDER THAT TOUPE. LOVE IT. OWN IT. BUFF IT. It worked for Willis!

Kristen's Stealing Robert's Bit

2011-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

KRISTEN STEWART: Oh, God. Our category is coming up next.

ROBERT PATTINSON: Is it reeeeeally?

KRISTEN: Please don’t let us win best movie. Please. COME ON, INCEPTION.

R.PATTZ: Oh REALLY.

KRISTEN: We’re up for Best Onscreen Team, too, right? I mean, that’s totally Steve Carell and Tina Fey from Date Night, hey? We aren’t even a team! We are more of… an autonomous collective.

R.PATTZ: Really!

KRISTEN: I’m going to be sick.

R.PATTZ: Ew, really?

KRISTEN: Will you stop acting like a moron?

R.PATTZ: Sorry. I just can’t believe you still can’t handle going up on stage for this stuff. We’ve only won eleventy billion of these things. And you look so nice tonight!

KRISTEN: Really?

R.PATTZ: Don’t steal my bit.

KRISTEN: Sorry.

R.PATTZ: But you do. So let’s take a look. Beginning with dragging you up on stage.

KRISTEN: No. No, no, NO!

R.PATTZ: Yes, yes, yes.

Two Heartbroken Souls Unite: Swift and Efron

2011-01-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

TAYLOR SWIFT: Hi, Zac.

ZAC EFRON: Hi, Taylor. You seem blue.

TAYLOR: Haven’t you heard? I just broke up with Jake Gyllenhaal. We were truly in love. We, like, drank coffee together. It was beautiful. So now I’m all wan and trying to cheer myself up with red lipstick.

ZEFRON: I feel you. I just broke up with Vanessa Hudgens. I had to cut my hair to deal with the heartbreak of being a Mature Single Man.

TAY: She should write a song about it.

ZEF: Maybe you could write it for her.

TAY: I’m too busy writing the one about how Jake was my love earthquake until I found out it was all fake and now I think he’s a rake.

ZEF: I hope you get over the heartbreak. Let me know if I can help.

TAY: Wait… maybe… do you want to DATE ME for a while? We could write a DUET about how it all ended gracefully and with mutual respect, right before I write the B-side about how you are a filthy rotten liar.

ZEF: Tempting, but I’ll pass.

TAY: Oh, right, okay. You JACKHOLE. YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS LYRICALLY.

ZEF: Good luck with that.

Ashley Greene, I Love You, But Attain Class

2011-01-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

Ashley Greene, a talented actress with a big career ahead of her, still feels she has to strip to become famous- she posed for Maxim and lounged around the beach naked in body paint for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. But no, she is not done selling herself: she let her boob greet us on the cover of Allure magazine. It is so sad, Ashley Greene, that you landed her biggest magazine cover by not wearing a bra.

I refuse to post suggestive pictures on my website thank you very much.

Josh Duhamel's Texting Lesson

2011-01-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

If Fergie had been with him yesterday, this shit would not have gone down the same way.

So Josh Duhamel, after escorting his wife to the BillBoard Women of the Year event in New York, where she was named the Woman of the Year, then boarded a plane for Kentucky that was delayed. He was texting and refused to stop despite being asked three times, going so far as to deride the flight attendant who kept asking him.

According to TMZ, the flight attendant was not impressed, had the plane turned around, called the cops to come on board and threw him off the flight. Duhamel’s publicist’s response to this?

“He’s sorry.”

I don’t know why people bother fucking around with airline/airport staffers. I see it all the time. Someone starts huffing and puffing about their personal TV system not working, to the point of abuse, and they get shut down by the authorities as soon as the aircraft reaches the gate. Was it worth it?

The last time I was traveling, some asshole was pissed off that he couldn’t get an aisle seat and wasn’t able to check in early online because he doesn’t have a computer. He was spit-yelling at the agent upon check-in, pointing his finger in her face and calling her a bitch. Later on I noticed that he was on my flight. She found him an aisle seat but it was next to the toilet. And this was a plane destined eventually for Australia after a stop in Vancouver. From the look on his face, he knew he was in for a stank. It amazes me even more the people who throw a stink in the security line. Yeah I know there are stringent rules nowadays. But maybe I’m too simplistic. Because the alternative is that my plane might explode. So... please... go ahead and pat me down, it’s all good.

If ever there was a time to swallow your own shit and take it up the ass once in a while and plaster on a smile and be amenable and ask nicely, it’s at the airport and on an aircraft. Those people do not mess. But they are much more patient and accommodating to celebrities. Real ones. They let them hide in the bathroom, they give them extra snacks, they hustle them through security, if of course they know who they are. Even though you aren't actually a douchebag- seriously Josh- you should have put the cell phone away. Or text when the stewardess wasn't looking.

Colin Firth Should Have a Talk Show

2011-01-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Colin Firth and his wife Livia were in Paris last night for the French premiere of The King’s Speech. Have you seen it yet??? YOU SHOULD. I tell you- it will WIN BIG. Because it must, I tell you again. She it. It will make you smarter.

As you know, Firth is, at present, the favorite to win Best Actor. Things can change, anything can change, but there is no question, on this performance he is worthy of it, and on reputation and career accomplishment, he certainly has earned it. So he has both boxes checked over Franco and Eisenberg, said to be his closest competitors.

What I love about Colin is that he’s not so up his own ass that he’d bother pretending that he wouldn’t want it. Of course he wants it. He’s happy his film is being recognized, and he won’t be a dick if he doesn’t win, but he’s not fronting all nonchalant about the possibility either. It’s genuine. And he’s very realistic about the fact that this time, this time of praise, it’s also rather fleeting:

“I am not taking anything for granted. I think if you wish something like this away, all this attention and all these events – dressing up and being around beautiful and elegant people – it’ll be gone soon enough. It’s not guaranteed for life and I think both Livia and I are pretty good at just enjoying it while it lasts. The downs will be back. There’s absolutely no other possibility. You have to really, really enjoy the ¬moment. I’ve had a couple of meaty roles in a row and I certainly do not take that for granted. I don’t know if it’s going to come round again any time soon so it is a wonderful moment.”

Perfect. Not overly profound or descriptive, he is appreciative, he is realistic, he is EXCITED, and it just is.

Colin attributes some of this attitude to what life is at home:

“I do lead a very boring life but family is the secret. But I’m not romanticizing about my family as this wonderful, serene, grounded environment. In fact it’s mayhem. It doesn’t matter how people are reacting to you anywhere else, if you’ve got small children it’s up to you to deal with it and, you know, they are the divas. You can’t say to them, ‘You better behave yourself or I’m going to call my agent’.”

I can actually hear him saying that. If I heard him say that in front of my face I would giggle like a fangirly twit. He’s terribly, terribly funny. In the hot ass way that British men are dryly funny.

Anyway, these quotes are from a good interview with The Mirror. He talks about how he played Bertie, and about how he fell in love with his wife, and about the royal reaction to the film. Not a bad read: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/01/02/colin-firth-says-i-m-no-sex-symbol-115875-22820640/#ixzz1ACBKiwNC

Bertie, of course, had a stammer and the story of his struggle to speak in public is The King’s Speech. In real life though, Helena Bonham Carter says that Colin can’t shut the hell up. In fact, he and Geoffrey Rush both:

"I did find it funny that as soon as the camera was turned on he'd have difficulty speaking [playing a stammerer] but as soon as it's off, honestly, he just talks for Britain! They talk non-stop so it was kind of hard to concentrate. They're both amazing - they should have their own chat show!"

Kellan Lutz Will Climb A Tree for Your Attention

2011-01-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

http://justjaredjr.buzznet.com/2010/02/13/kellan-lutz-climbs-a-tree-reads-a-book/

Back in February, Kellan Lutz wore an all-white outfit, and took the dog for a walk. The paps were around. And he really really wanted to read his book. So he climbed a tree. And was obviously fully engrossed. Photographers took his picture. His fans, the Twi-Hards, who are, as you know, learning impaired, seemed to think this was by accident.

Posing in a tree is about as egregious in famewhore terms as, well, as Heidi and Spencer. So there’s that.

Kellan Lutz was at an event the other day. And someone tried to ask him about...acting, or something. And this is was his answer:

“It’s tough for me to play vulnerable, or be taken serious as vulnerable. People don’t look at me that way. I’m a 6′1″, 195-pound guy. In a studio movie, I audition and they’re like, ‘No, Kellan, can’t play this thing at all.’ It’s nice to find independents that you can have fun doing.”

So what he’s trying to say is that, in his mind, he’s too goodlooking and, like, too fit to be able to convince anyone that he can be tender...?

This, out of Kellan’s ass, is the male equivalent of Jessica Biel complaining that she’s too pretty to be taken seriously for serious parts.

Digging This Kirsten Dinst Interview

2011-01-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

http://justjared.buzznet.com/2010/12/07/kirsten-dunst-covers-blackbook-december-2010/

Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's Cancer is Getting Better

2011-01-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Contrary to widely distributed reports from early Friday, Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch has not fully recovered from cancer. "While I'm grateful for all the positive energy people are sending my way, reports of my being totally cancer free are exaggerated," Yauch said in a statement. "I'm continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer free in the near future."
When Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys was diagnosed with cancer in his parotid gland 18 months ago, the band canceled its shows and put off a much-anticipated album. All this doom and gloom made fans wonder if they had seen the last of the beloved rap-rock group. Guess again. In an interview with BBC Radio 1 (via WENN.com), bandmate Michael Diamond (Mike D) announced that Yauch (MCA) is on his way to beating the disease, saying, "We're really happy about it."

When Yauch was first diagnosed, the condition was considered "very treatable," and in March the gravelly-voiced rapper said he was on the mend after using a vegan diet and Eastern medicine.

Mike D revealed that while the band's upcoming album 'Hot Sauce Committee, Part 1' is still delayed, new music is on the way real soon, including an epic 'Runaway'-type music video.

Emily Blunt & John Krasinski Unite to Form EmSki.

2011-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

On July 10th, 2010, these two got married.

First off, I must freely admit to loving John Krasinski more than I do the average star. Take your Depps and your Pitts and your almost everyone elses, and I will take me some John K. In fact, were it not for the fact that it’s Krasinski who’s legally married, he would trump Ashton Kutcher for me in a heartbeat.

And I love, LOVE Emily Blunt. Because she says she can’t talk about process, because it’s “wanky,” because she acted circles around Anne Hathaway and was somehow kind about it, because, to me, she is the anti-Natalie Portman. She’s a great actress without TELLING everyone she’s a great actress, and that is an achievement.

Now include the obligatory paragraph about how absolutely beautiful they both are, and how very much we like them in pretty, pretty evening clothing…

And I have gotten NOTHING. Nothing. Not one iota of what it’s like to be married to him, nothing about who travels where when someone has a project, nothing about what his mother said when his son married a Brit – barely even a photo (hilariously, if you google them, there is a wedding pic from The Office with Emily Blunt’s face badly Photoshopped over Jenna Fischer’s). I know they’ve been busy, so maybe they decided to take this year for themselves.

Somehow, from these two, I want more. I want the Original EmSki home tour and a long sitdown with Barbra Walters. Is that too much to ask Emily and John Krasinski?

Or am I the one who’s in the wrong here? I love the couple for not being media whores and not shoving themselves and their relationships in our faces (Kardashians anyone?). I mean guys, this is reason why Rachel McAdams is so awesome – she runs around Toronto on the SUBWAY. But seriously, I want John and Emily to kiss eachother to let us know that their romance actually exists and not disappears like Scarlett Johannson's and Ryan Renolds'.

Sofia Vergara: I'm Straight, But Still Call Me

2011-01-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

Modern Family's Sofia Vergara does not look pleased to see the paparazzi in these pictures. I’m kinda glad this dude put himself in harms way to get these shots. I like this woman and I enjoy watching her walk. Call me.

Mila Kunis Sees Through Miley Cyrus' Bullshit

2011-01-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Like everyone else, Mila Kunis doesn't believe Miley Cyrus' claims that she was NOT smoking pot- JUST Saliva. Miley clarifying which drug she used does NOT make her case easier. Mila Kunis is awesomer for having the guts to say what everyone thinks:

http://www.celebuzz.com/mila-kunis-miley-cyrus-was-s288241/

For Twihards: Robert's Pattinson's Nostrils

2011-01-08T14:25:00.000-08:00

I’m throwing in a shot of Pattinson flaring his nostrils because I really like when that happens in a movie. And just in case Twihards are reading my blog.

Are Kate and Wiiliam Allowed to Hold Hands?

2011-01-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, know-it-alls. That’s your cue to shoot your hand straight up in the air with the answer. Comment here. About Prince William and Kate Middleton, who showed up together this weekend at their first official public event since the engagement for a Christmas reception in support of the Teenager Cancer Trust. As you can see, while happy and seemingly in great spirits, they’re maintaining a respectable distance between their bodies. Not appropriate to walk with fingers linked? If anything it would be an arm link then? Handholding is so common. Remember that the next time you hold hands with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/lover. That doing so is just one of the reasons you are not royal. But seriously, the distance between Kate and Wiilliam is Jane Austen novel distance. This is the 212st century, royal lovebirds!

Why Am I Surrounded By Bosoms? Lautner Ponders

2011-01-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

It’s Tom Cruise Jr at the Saints game posing with the Saints girls, willing himself to get through it, like he’s holding his breath, counting down the seconds until he can get away from all those bosoms. Not all 18 year old boys fantasize about being surrounded by scantily clad cheerleaders, ok?
Taylor Lautner is a Professional Machine. It’s about the work, the focus, the commitment, the career, and the fans. Gotta love that kid.

Are you A Rafa or A Roger?

2011-01-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

I love Rafael Nadal. And here he is with Roger Federer posing at a press conference in support of their respective charities.
On December 21st they played against each other in Zurich – Federer won and the proceeds were directed to the Roger Federer Foundation.
On Decemner 22nd in Spain it was Rafa’s turn. He took it in 3 sets to benefit Fundacion Rafa Nadal.

It kills me how Rafa is standing. He’s always so shy, almost unsure. Tennis is such a lonely game. And I suppose that’s why he keeps getting in trouble for always looking at his coach for advice. Then of course somehow he finds a way to rip a backhand down the line and gut out a win. That’s the difference I suppose. Insecurity is definitely a quiver killer. But not when it’s overcome, and in such spectacular fashion. Rafa is ending the year as the world #1.

You’re either a Rafa or a Roger. May the best man win. Rafa.

Kate and William Look Awkward on a Coin

2011-01-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

Critics are screaming "off with their heads" at Britain's Royal Mint's renderings of Kate Middleton and Prince William on a commemorative wedding coin. Some observers charge that it makes the princess-to-be look "plump" and has her royal fiance sporting "Elvis" hair.

That's not all: UK newspapers are suggesting Middleton's visage looks like she had her lips inflated and one royal watcher compared Prince William's minted resemblance to former Vice President Al Gore.

The Daily Mail notes that while the couple's official Mario Testino engagement photos were tastefully airbrushed, the coins have rendered the couple unrecognizable. Middleton looks "masculine" while her upper lip has been "plumped beyond" recognition.
The tabloid gives the mint kudos for discreetly disguising the prince's thinning hair, but complains his "Adam's apple matches the size of his nose." Ouch!

The Mirror complained that Middleton looks "chunkier and older" on the coin and said that while Prince William came out handsomer than his future bride, "he has been engraved with what seems to be an Elvis Presley quiff."

William and Kate Will Scrub Their Own Toilets

2011-01-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

You would think that by marrying a prince you'd get a servant to wipe your ass, a servant to spray lavender oil on your after-BM anus, a servant to pick our your eye snots, a servant to make sure the butter slices fully melt in your baked potato before serving it (I HATE NON-MELTED BUTTER SLICES), etc... etc... The whole point of marrying a prince is so you don't have to live like a dirty filthy commoner anymore. But Kate Middleton will have to continue to live like a dirty filthy commoner, because word is that she won't have any household help after she married Prince William. The poor homeless peasants on the street are like, "It's so hard being Prince Willy and Kate."
Butthole Prince Charles has a staff of 150 that costs around $9.6 million a year, but Prince William and Kate want to live like the normal people do. They will do their own laundry, cooking, and cleaning. They will only employ bodyguards to protect them while they try to live like all of us.

Andrew and Emma: Love on the Bleachers

2011-01-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

I’ve done a lot of shit in bleachers – cutting class, meangirling, several love arguments, drama rehearsal – but I cannot remember if I’ve ever kissed in them.

But I do love the bleachers. I love it when Heath Ledger sings across the bleachers to Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You. I love when Gary Bertier’s mother walks into the bleachers during the championship game after her son is paralysed in Remember the Titans. For some reason I always think Molly Ringwald is sitting in the bleachers when Andrew McCarthy’s Blaine comes to talk to her in the rough kids section of school. They should make an entire movie, like a Love Actually style movie, in the bleachers. Is there a bleacher montage somewhere out there? They should make that too. And include this scene out of the new Spider-Man, featuring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, shooting yesterday in LA.

Now I don’t normally find Garfield attractive, but this is the most attractive I’ve ever found him. Maybe it’s because he’s sitting in the bleachers. Maybe it’s the way he’s sitting. I like the way his body lounges. Maybe it’s Emma. Emma improves everyone. Maybe it’s how they seem to be pacing this kiss, all tentative and sweet, and super sexy, as he leans deep left into her face without reaching up to touch it – the hand to cheek/neck then kiss move seems to be so overused lately in movies, non? Total overkill.

Suddenly I’m extra a lot excited to see this Spidey.

Taylor Swift is a Barbie

2010-11-22T12:04:00.001-08:00

"Thanks so much for giving me this award for Serious Grown-Up Mature Boring Achievement. Now that I'm 'dating' Jake Gyllenhaal, I realize that I need to appear older and more sedate than my chronological age implies or it seems sort of creepy -- or it would, if I were actually going out with him, which I am not, except for I wasn't supposed to tell you that. Aren't you glad it's him and not John Mayer, though? Although I actually WAS hooking up with John Mayer and Jake and I are just going on hay rides for OK! And, um, we're also in love. Yes, I forgot that part. Anyway. Yes, now I am an adult. A serious adult. A serious adult who dresses seriously and is dating Jake Gyllenhaal and has put aside childlike things:

"And put ON wigs and serious expressions and looks like a plastic barbie."

Two Dudes with Do's

2010-11-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

Cornel West and Al Raboteau pose, looking like two nutcases.

Christina Ricci Wears a Dunce Cap

2010-11-03T20:51:00.001-07:00

I adore you Christina, but your dress is sinking, thus taking the twins down with it and the dress makes me nauseous. And the red dunce cap. Be aware of where you pose for photos.

OMG Amber Riley is So Cute

2010-11-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Dude, I just love this dress on Amber Riley. The color: Great. The fit: ditto. The proportions: pretty much perfect. The hair: super cute. Bravo.

Drunk Hair

2010-11-01T18:07:00.001-07:00

THOMAS JANE: No, it's just that my manager told me if I went barefoot at a red-carpet event one more time, she'd fire me. I've got bills to pay too, you know? But she didn't say ANYTHING about too-tight pants and greasy drunk hair. GOTCHA!

Grumpy Woody

2010-11-01T18:02:00.001-07:00

LUCY PUNCH: My dress represents all the psychological and sexual knots Woody likes to tie his characters into. Really. It does. It has NOTHING to do with wanting you to fixate on my erogenous zones.

WOODY ALLEN: I'm so depressed. I'm standing next to a beautiful woman who had the Cub Scouts of the USA lock her crotch for a knot-tying merit badge, and a woman who is over 40. Isn't it in my contract that I refuse to be seen with women who are over 40?

GEMMA JONES: Oh, shut it, Woody, I'm internationally beloved for being in Sense and Sensibility and Bridget Jones' Diary and starring as Madam Pomfrey in the Harry Potter movies. And incidentally, I'm supposedly excellent in your latest. So have a coffee and smile and let's get through this Woodsy!

Yes, Kev's Actually Wearing Sunglasses

2010-11-01T18:00:00.002-07:00

KEVIN BACON: We're awesome.

KYRA SEDGWICK: We're the best couple in Hollywood.

KEVIN: If we ever break up, people will RAGE.

KYRA: Don't even say it, Kevin.

KEVIN: I'm sorry, my precious jewel. Shall we talk about your dress instead?

KYRA: I look GOOD.

KEVIN: That's what I was going to say.

KYRA: Although my hair has looked more polished.

KEVIN: I was NOT going to say that, but I did THINK it.

KYRA: Why didn't you say something before I left the house, Kevin?

KEVIN: BECAUSE OF MY STORIED AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

KYRA: How can I argue with that?

Mo and Daugther Time

2010-11-01T18:00:00.001-07:00

SUSAN SARANDON: So, we look awesome.

EVA AMURRI: We do look pretty great.

SUSAN: I'd normally note that you look a bit Barbie, but you're so not the Barbie Starlet type that I'm actually enjoying this sort of playing against type thing you're doing.

EVA: Well, and this dress is very pretty on me.

SUSAN: It is. Can we talk about how well I'm aging?

EVA: AGAIN? Mom, we talk about that all the time!

SUSAN: YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR THESE GENETICS, YOUNG LADY.

EVA: Fine. Sorry. Yes. You look amazing.

SUSAN: Thank you. Now, let's go inside and sell ping-pong franchises to Tom Hanks. He owes me.

HUG TIME

2010-11-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

BEN AFFLECK: We are having SO MUCH FUN that hopefully no one will bug me about why my wife isn't with me, again!

REBECCA HALL: I am the meat in a man sandwich.

JON HAMM: You're the meat in a Hamm sandwich!

JEREMY RENNER: God, I'm short.

BEN: Are all these photos of us clutching at Rebecca and laughing going to start rumors?

JON: Of course! Our Jennifers are going to have to stop reading the Internet!

I Wanna Barf. These Things Are SICK

2010-11-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

LOURDES: Remind me again why we needed this girl?

TAYLOR: BORING.

MADONNA: Because, Lola, she serves a very distinct purpose.

LOURDES: What is that? To make my ripped tights look comparatively hip and beautiful?

TAYLOR: BORING.

MADONNA: No, sweetie. To make America suck on it.

LOURDES: Interesting. Although frankly I think she's--

TAYLOR: BORING.

LOURDES: Exactly.

MADONNA: THAT'S RIGHT, I am the demure one in this photograph... Right?

TAYLOR: DOUBTFUL.

LOURDES: Hey, it knows another word!

MADONNA: Don't taunt the creature, Lola. It's not polite.

Cam and Tom to Uzbekistan!

2010-11-01T17:53:00.001-07:00

TOM CRUISE: Yep.

CAMERON DIAZ: Yep.

TOM: We're still doing this.

CAMERON: Still doing this.

TOM: Knight and Day.

CAMERON: Somehow, it's not dead yet.

TOM: I probably need a haircut.

CAMERON: My shoes kind of look like the bouncer at a nightclub put them on my feet so people would know I paid the cover charge.

TOM: But you still look hot in that dress.

CAMERON: And you look handsome.

TOM: At this point, that's really all these people can ask.

CAMERON: Is this movie going to haunt us forever, Tom? Will we be in, like, Uzbekistan in March, doing promo for this turd?

TOM: Yes, Cameron. Yes. They are going to wring us dry.

CAMERON: If that happens, I swear to God, I'm not bringing any heels. I might not even bring a dress. I might just wear flannel pants.

TOM: Amen to that.

I Think Mr. Smiles in the Background is Cuter.

2010-11-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

ASHTON KUTCHER: We are SO HAPPY TOGETHER! No marital problems at all! OUR BODY LANGUAGE IS NOT AT ALL AWKWARD!

DEMI MOORE: Ashton, let go of my wrist. We look all weird and Cruise-Holmesian.

ASHTON: That's FINE WITH ME, PRECIOUS BRIDE!

DEMI: Yeah. Like that's better. At least I look super hot.

ASHTON: Super hot! NEVER WOULD I STRAY, SWEET WIFE.

DEMI: Whatever. If you REALLY loved me, you'd do something about that hair. You look like you tripped and fell into 1992.

ASHTON: I actually had this hair in 1992! Those were good times. I had just started high school -- HA! Can you believe I was 14 when you were married to Bruce? -- and --

DEMI: Guess what? YOU'RE NOT HELPING. And there's something else you should never do again:

ASHTON: But, that's Chris Brown! He's --

DEMI: There is no end to that sentence that will help your cause.

It All Started With the Stupid Hat Thing

2010-11-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

DEMI MOORE: TOLDJA the stocking cap wasn't going to help your hair situation! IT RARELY DOES. UP HIGH, KUTCH!

ASHTON KUTCHER: Leave me alone.

DEMI: It's a good thing you're pretty cute to begin with. Or I might leave you for Justin Bieber. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA. Get it?
DEMI: Because he's so YOUNG.

ASHTON: I get it.

DEMI: Oh, snap out of it. Just tell everyone the hat and the hair are for a role and then FIND A DECENT ROLE.

Did I Design What You're Wearing Claire? Please no...

2010-11-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

NARCISO RODRIGUEZ: Hey Claire.

CLAIRE DANES: Hi, Narciso! Loved the show last week! You're so talented. And you look as charming as always.

NARCISO: Thanks! And you look....interesting.

CLAIRE: Uh, didn't you design this?

NARCISO: DID I?

CLAIRE: Didn't you? I'm posing with you!

NARCISO: Well. We're friends. Anyone could have designed that. I don't know. I don't know who designed that. Maybe YOU designed it. You did, didn't you? It's an adorable effort. Keep practicing!

CLAIRE: No, I didn't.

NARCISO: Are you sure?

CLAIRE: Yes. Is that your way of saying you don't like it?

NARCISO: It's my way of saying...gosh, it's good to see you. Hey, look, over there! JARED LETO!

CLAIRE: Are you trying to distract me?

NARCISO: Yes.

CLAIRE: Well, that one doesn't work. NOT ANYMORE.

Miley's Native American Inspired Look. This is Not a Joke

2010-11-01T17:37:00.001-07:00

The caption attached to this photo noted -- diplomatically if not with great historical accuracy -- that Miley is sporting a "Native American-inspired look."

And that sound you just heard was every Native American reader of this Web site vigorously typing a press release (addressed to the entire world) in which s/he makes it VERY VERY CLEAR that her ancestors DID NOT and NEVER WOULD HAVE worn leopard print leggings. and that, in fact, they reject any connection with Miley, Billy Ray, and any Cyruses to be named later.

Edward is Milla's Accountant

2010-11-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

MILLA JOVOVICH: Hey, do you have my quarterly taxes ready? I don't want to get a penalty -- weren't they due last month?

EDWARD NORTON: Huh?

MILLA: DUDE, my TAXES.

ED: Milla, I am not your accountant.

MILLA: Are you sure?

ED: YES. I am Edward Norton, noted intense actor and filmic control freak, once romantically linked to Courtney Love, against all probability.

MILLA: You look SO much like my accountant, this kind of cute young dude who always takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeves before dealing with my finances. I always want to tell him to get his shoes shined, too.

ED: SORRY TO DISAPPOINT.

MILLA: God, you're so crabby.

ED: MAYBE I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO DRESS UP FOR THIS.

MILLA: Okay! Jeez! Man, I don't know how Courtney put up with you.

ED: I'm legally prohibited from discussing that.

MILLA: Let's just go inside.

Mom Time for Naomi and Liev

2010-11-01T17:29:00.001-07:00

LIEV SCHREIBER: Hey, honey?

NAOMI WATTS: Yes?

LIEV: You do know we're not just in our living room right?

NAOMI: What, just because I don't have on a ton of makeup and my HAIR looks like I just passed out in a BEANBAG chair because our CHILDREN are really EXHAUSTING, and...

LIEV: No, you always look beautiful to me. I meant... those
NAOMI: What, my satin harem sweatpants with cuffs so tall I could use them as a really complicated and inconvenient beer koozie?

LIEV: Well, yes.

NAOMI: Listen, plays are long. I need to be comfortable. And look! Deep pockets! I can pluck a thigh hair and it gives my neck cords that really tense modely look.

LIEV: And with that, we are in Crazytown.

LIEV'S MOTHER: I really resent that I had to be here for this.

I Loved This Interview with Russell Brand

2010-11-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/10/russell_brand_on.html?f=most-commented-vulture-7d5%3Fmid%3Dfacebook_vulture

M.I.A. is Cooler Than This

2010-11-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

Honestly, wearing a burka covered in lyrics from your album and giving the camera the bird is almost too on the nose when it comes to the Offending People As a Way of Getting Attention sweepstakes. Like, it seems SO OBVIOUSLY designed to get people all worked up that it comes all the way around and turns boring again. You REALLY want to get people's attention in this post-Gaga age? You have to work harder than this.

Awful Cover: Glee

2010-11-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

Don't even get me started. No, seriously. Don't get me started on this. Yes, GQ, the PERFECT person to shoot a cover and editorial spread about a show about teenagers is TERRY RICHARDSON, who's recently enjoyed a tidal wave of press about how he is TOTALLY GROSS to all the underage models who are sent to him! WHAT AN AWESOME PLAN. And what is YET AWESOMER is to decide that the women on Glee should pose COMPLETELY SCANTILY CLAD.

Look, I get that GQ is kind of lad-mag adjacent and that the people on Glee are of age, but when you look at this cover and the shots inside and Dianna Agron looks like a nun simply because she's wearing BOTTOMS, maybe we've crossed a PR-bridge too far. After all, when you've got Lea Michele making her Victoria's Secret face on the cover in her underpants, do you ALSO need her to be eating a lollipop in her panties inside? And also eating a lollipop in her panties with her legs spread and playing with her hair? And, oh, just standing around in her panties -- sans lollipop this time, but threatening to take off her top? I don't mean to strangle myself with these pearls that I'm clutching BUT COME ON. You can be cute and you can be sexy and you can be alluring and you can still wear something other than your panties in every single shot in a national magazine, especially when the other people in the spread range from COMPLETELY (Cory) to kinda (Dianna) clothed. I don't blame Lea Michele for this -- although I have to admit that my reaction to these pictures was to say, "oh, god. She really IS unbearable." -- but I do blame SOMEONE for not saying, "hey, this show is all about how cool it is to be different and talented, so maybe our lead actress -- who is crazy talented and would be even if she were wearing a zombie costume -- doesn't need to be styled like the most important thing about her is her body, just like every other anonymous sexpot in every other lad mag in the world.

I need to go breathe into a bag now. What do you think?

The Smiths: You've Got to Be Kidding Me.

2010-11-01T17:19:00.001-07:00

Seriously, they are not from this planet. They were beamed here from a spaceship called BattleSmith Galactica, and they intend to OWN OUR ASSES with their movies and their shoulder pads and their giant hats and mesh coats and their singles about head-banging (seriously, approximately 80 percent of the lyrics to Willow's finely wrought "Whip My Hair" involve her explaining that she is whipping her hair). If we don't cooperate, that's when we learn what the giant ebony tusk around Jada's neck REALLY does. Hint: It might involve whipping, but probably does not involve your hair. So you might want to save yourself some time and agony, and genuflect.

Kanye is Back

2010-11-01T17:18:00.001-07:00

LISTEN UP Y'ALL. I AM FEELING BEYOND COMPARE, WITH MY SHIRT LIKE SATIN SURGICAL SCRUBS AND MY DANDY POCKET SQUARE, WHICH I WEAR CAUSE I CARE THAT Y'ALL LOVE TO STARE SO I'M JUST SHARING MY FLAIR LIKE THAT WALDORF NAMED BLAIR.

Sienna Graduates Food School

2010-11-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

Given the items she's holding, you'd think she was really stoked to be graduating with honors from Pine Cone Academy for Food Pyramid Mastery.

Daniel's Oogle Time

2010-11-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Is Emma wearing a shorts romper with a triangle of illusion netting in the midriff? Sigh. This makes me want to split my soul into several pieces and hide them inside a variety of meaningful trinkets strewn across the country except I've heard that usually ends poorly. I guess I'll just focus on her cute legs and think of England

Jay-Z's Random Candy Face

2010-07-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

Jay-Z was leaving dinner in New York when some dude (in an unflattering camo hoodie) tried to offer him candy. The look on Jay’s face makes my life.

Now I’ve been accused of not knowing how to be a “true fan” and your first inclination might be to say – oh that’s very sweet, what a nice gesture, and celebrities should be more appreciative, but making Jay-Z eat your candy is SO NOT THE SAME as asking him to sign an autograph and/or a photo.
Like, WHY would he eat your random candy??? And WHY would you PRESUME that he would eat your random candy?
You see Jay’s face? That’s the Random Candy Face.

Kristen Stewart and the Hairtie

2010-07-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

Here is Kristen Stewart promoting Twilight in Stockholm. I love the corset detail on this Zac Posen dress. What I love even more the hair tie around her right wrist. On a more manufactured starlet, that would have been removed. I love Kristen Stewart even more for her hairtie down-to-earthness. See, we can all relate to the times when you just want to throw your hair back and get it off your face. Take a look (at other closer pics) and you can tell she’s been using it for a while because it's worn. Probably because it’s her last. There’s a desperation you feel when you’re away from home on your last hair tie. It’s like you never want it out of your sight.

I am also worried because there is a white missile heading toward Taylor Lautner's gorgeous bronze face and that there is a creepy shah woman with loooong blond hair behind Kristen, willing her magical powers for the hemline of Kristen's dress to actually cover her crotch.

Pin Down Dev Patel and Put a Ring On It.

2010-07-08T14:36:00.001-07:00

Dev Patel- put a ring on her finger already! He is one lucky man. Freida looks stunning in Oscar de la Renta. I am fanning myself. Not literally though.

Gemma Arteron's Oh-So Shiny Hair? But WTF...

2010-07-08T11:52:00.001-07:00

Oh, look at Gemma Arteron. What a pretty Brit. And her hair! Gemma what product did you use? Was it Gemma Arteron Shiny Hair Gloss? But the style ends at her head...

WTF? I am weeping. But I love your shiny hair.

Floppy Moppy Hair

2010-07-08T11:47:00.001-07:00

Model Luca Gadjus (sweet in Calvin Klein) and her partner Max von Gumppenberg are a cute couple, but Max's floppy moppy hair is so not appealing. At all. It looks like a toupee mushroom.

Isabel Lucas Leading a Hippie Song Circle?

2010-07-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

Australian actress and activist Isabel Lucas arrives at LAX with an acoustic guitar in hand... perhaps for a peaceful protest of some sort? Or maybe just for a good, old fashioned sing-along! "Come on, people now, smile on your brother..."

Amusing Red Carpet Moments

2010-07-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

The only person who looks normal here is Mike Tyson. What has the world come to?

Alas, a picture of Ken Jeong not Jeonging around. Here he is with his wife. Aren't they so cute?

Ken Jeong is Jeonging around here. Jeonging is a new term for Ken Jeong doing anything similar to this.

I know, I know, many of Ken's movie roles consist of similar poses and looks such as this, but Ken Jeong is officially awesome. I adore him.

Ah, it's Adrien Brody again. I love ya onscreen, but offscreen, you just can't dress. Here you look like a Persian pimp or a douche bag. Either one. Both.

Adrien Brody is a great actor, not dresser. His chest hair is forming the shape of breasts. That's why we COVER IT UP. What's up with the red scarf? Are you part of the Soviet Youth Program? No. No. No.

Josh Brolin can give the Heimlich maneuver to his wife Diane Lane and still look sexy.

KRISTEN STEWART: I look great.

TAYLOR LAUTNER: I'm wearing layers.

K.STEW: Yeah, but don't I look great? Like, I'm proving I can be hygienic and still edgy at the same time?

T.L.: See, if one more person asks me to go shirtless, I'm going to scream, okay? So Rome gets jacket AND shirt. Deal with it.

K.STEW: You're totally missing the headline here.

T.L.: I am HOPING I will miss headlines like, "Lautner Looks Tautner."

K.STEW: Would you just please stop fixating on the abs that made you famous and check out how awesome I look? I don't shower for just ANYONE, you know.

T.L.: Now I know how Rob felt about his hair. I swear, as soon as we're done with Breaking Dawn, I'm eating Wendy's for two months.

K.STEW: Fine. FINE. Ignore my efforts. But if I decide to quit bathing again and wear only solar-paneled skirts from now on, you have only yourself to blame.

Aren't John Krasinski and Emily Blunt a cute couple?
Well, yes, but I'm distracted by post-coital Streep and a certain Baldwin in the background.

ZAC EFRON: THIS GUY!!!!

ELIJAH KELLEY: Uh... yeah, hey there, Zac.

ZAC: THIS GUY! THIS is the GUY!

ELIJAH: Sure. You too, buddy. Hey, I've been meaning to ask you...

ZAC: LISTEN TO THE HUMOR ON THAT GUY!

ELIJAH: I haven't even said anything yet.

ZAC: I LOVE this guy. He is THE GUY.

ELIJAH: Seriously, listen, this has been bothering me for a while now. Is this just how you look naturally, or do you actually wear four tons of stage makeup every time you leave the house?

ZAC: The WORLD is my STAGE! I am the musical star of the DECADE! High School Musical!

ELIJAH: Okay...well, don't get too close. I look pretty sharp in this eggplant color and I don't want any of that rubbing off on the fabric.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON: So listen up, here, Ricci. I'm going to tell it like it motherf***ing IS.

CHRISTINA RICCI: What? You don't like the dress? Are you kidding me? I didn't get all dolled up in this pretty fuchsia gown just so...

SAMUEL L.: Chill out, Christina, you look great, but I'm going to tell you one thing: It's motherf***ing COLD outside!

CHRISTINA: I know, but seriously, I look totally hot, and I just thought-

SAMUEL L.: Listen, I know you thought, "Oh, Samuel L. is a wacky old mess, showing up in that weird motherf***ing argyle sweater..."

CHRISTINA: It DOES look a little bit like you stole it from the notebook of the Physics Club president, who was designing it for their national competitions.

SAMUEL L.: Did I ask for your motherf***ing input? I don't CARE if you think my sweater looks like it's waiting for some snot-nosed 16-year old motherf***er to go through a gangsta-thermodymanics phase, o-motherf***ing-kay?

CHRISTINA: Uh...

SAMUEL L.: And I don't CARE if you're motherf***ing tired of seeing me with motherf***ing hats on, and I don't EVEN care if my coat looks to you like I think I'm in motherf***ing Wisconsin hunting motherf***ing deer. You get me?

CHRISTINA: It's...a little help here, anyone?

SAMUEL L.: I'm Samuel motherf***ing L. motherf***ing Jackson, okay? And not only do I wear whatever the motherf**** I want, but I look motherf***ing FINE in it, too, because I am a BAD-motherf***ing-ASS. And what this bad-motherf***ing-ass wants to tell you is, you look COLD in your sleeveless dress with your pink frostnipped frozen face, okay? So maybe you should faux-fur-line that motherf***er, or buy a hat, or a motherf***ing mathlete-quality argyle sweater, before your arms fall off. CAN YOU MOTHERF***ING DIG IT?

CHRISTINA: You know what? You're right. It is cold, and my face is about to freeze off. I can dig it, Sam L., I motherf***ing CAN!

SAMUEL L.: Damn, girl, watch your language. There's really no call for that kind of talk. Lord! Somebody get this girl some mouth-soap.

Jessica Biel is in The A-Team? I had no idea there even were any women in The A-Team. In fairness, I may be distracted by Bradley Cooper's abs in the ads. Also distracting:

Is that...a napkin tied around a lace bustier? Because it looks like a dinner napkin haphazardly tied around her breasts, perhaps in the aftermath of an unfortunate table candle/bodice/pinot grigio incident. (Who HASN'T set her breasts on fire whilst innocently attempting to better read the happy hour menu?). Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Yep. Dim lighting in restaurateur = need to peer closely at menu = candle = flames = fiery bodice destruction = haphazard construction of top from dinner napkin.

R.PATTZ: Hello. I must say your hair is looking much better.

EMILIE DE RAVIN: Better than what?

R.PATTZ: On Lost right now it looks like two eagles had a fight in it over who got to nest there.

EDR: Well, but on Lost right now, I am batshit crazy.

R.PATTZ: Yes, but you seem to have picked up a few other ideas from your character. Isn't that a Dharma regulation tarp you've tied up at your thighs?

EDR: This coming from a person whose sideburns look like his ear sneezed.

R.PATTZ: Well.

EDR: Well.

R.PATTZ: Now this is kind of awkward.

EDR: I know. Especially because your girlfriend Kristen is standing over there and I think she wants to gut me like a fish.

R.PATTZ: Oh, she just hates these red carpet things.

EDR: Are you sure? Because you know, we supposedly hooked up during shooting.

R.PATTZ: I know.

EDR: Maybe it's just those pants that are making her angry, and not me.

R.PATTZ: No, it's probably you. Although they are terrible pants.

EDR: Are they brocade?

R.PATTZ: You didn't give her any Dharma Initiative Khaki Dining-Room Chair Covers, did you?

EDR: I think we should stop talking before she sics a Dharma Initiative Polar Bear Of Murder on me.

R.PATTZ: Done.

JENNIFER ANISTON: Wait, where do you want us to stand?

GERARD BUTLER: Over where?

JENNIFER: ALL the way over there?

GERARD: But if we stand over there, you won't be able to take our picture! You're gonna want a shot of this! She's dressed like she's attending the annual Hot Topic Vampire Prom for Grades 7-10!

JENNIFER: And he's TOTALLY going to grab my butt six to twelve separate times!

GERARD: You guys are gonna NEED THAT PICTURE!

KATIE HOLMES: Why am I doing this? Why am I doing ANY OF THIS? What has happened to my life that I am being bodily escorted places while wearing a bathing suit cover-up?

TOM CRUISE: Just don't laugh at her shoes. Just don't laugh at her shoes. Just don't laugh at her shoes.

Need I say more?

Anyone- even Queen Elizabeth II of England- will look like Big Bird when they wear yellow-on-yellow.

Tom and Katie do look scarily alike. Really, when you think about it.

Victoria, I love you, but not this look. You look like Jack Skillington from a Nightmare Before Christmas.

The upward eyes, lipstick and whiteness...

Phil Spector, you scare me with your horrifying hair that looks like a dandelion- I'm giving you benefit of the doubt.

Mel, cut it out, you don't want to look like V from V for Vendetta.

Fortunately, Ryan Gosling's IMDB page claims he was filming a movie called Lars and the Real Girl, the one-line summary of which appears as follows: "A delusional young guy strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet."

At the risk of offending anyone with upper-lip hair -- it's not personal; it's situational, a face-by-face case -- that synopsis would seem the appropriate context for a mustache so cruelly rendered across an otherwise intriguing face.
I'd like to take this moment to thank Great American Actor Al Pacino for kindly demonstrating for us the dangers of too much bronzer. These horrifying photos were taken a mere day apart. Behold! Beware! Bewail!

"And yes, burnishing myself, Ryan Reynolds, to the color of Cosmo Kramer as a turkey WAS a deliberate stylistic choice."

These shiny pants would be a crime against a 57-year old groin, much less one belonging to a spry under-40 like Anthony Hamilton. Seriously, dude, if you pull those up any higher you'll be infertile.

KEIRA: Um, Sienna? What are you doing?

SIENNA: Shh, be quiet. I'm trying to do your silent pouty thing where you look kind of coy and cross and hungry all at once.

KEIRA: Not bad, not bad. But it's better when you open your lips up a little bit.

SIENNA: You mean, like this?

KEIRA: Yes, much better. See how bony our cheeks look? And how it looks like we're about ten seconds away from delivering a disparaging quip?

SIENNA: I love this. I'm going to do it forever.

KEIRA: If you do, I'd appreciate it if you didn't sully my trademark with those weird sleeves. In some lights they look plastic. And are those... bugs? Snakes?

SIENNA: Bollocks, I don't know. I just assume I look fantastic in everything so I don't really pay attention.

KEIRA: Also, I don't wear shirts as dresses. Just a tip if you're going to keep trying to replicate my face.

SIENNA: But you DO look like the star of a cheesy televised ballet about the ghost of a girl who drowned in Swan Lake. Why is the bodice detail of your dress somewhere down around your lower rib cage?

KEIRA: I don't know. I ALSO tend to assume I look fantastic and don't pay attention. Isn't that weird? We're like SISTERS.

SIENNA: Yes! Really hollow-cheeked sisters. Bloody brilliant. Let's go inside and chew on some air.

"What? James Dean was a rebel without a cause; I, Ed Westwick, am a rebel without socks. It's the same. Deal with it."

Keith Urban Leaves The Drugstore With A Bag of Cough Syrup And Three Boxes of Saltines."

I seriously can't wait for the premiere of Whoopi and Andre Talley Up the Goldbergs, the new reality series about Whoopi and ALT's roadtrip through America in search of all of Whoopi's long-lost relatives, premiering this fall on Oxygen.

This is obviously from the episode where they accidentally join a religious cult.

You know you're in dire straits when Kevin Smith is the best looking guy in the picture. And yet he totally is. He appears clean -- both in the sense of "washed" and "not strung out on smack" -- and he doesn't seem to careening recklessly toward death like Fugfleck and Jason "I'm Off Heroin, If By 'Off' You Mean 'Totally Still On'" Mewes. I mean, is Smith fat? Sure! Is he fatter than ever before? Probably! But at least he trimmed that gnarly beard and appears to have a working relationship with soap. The other two fools? Not so much.

For the love of God, Ben Affleck, look in the goddamned mirror and get a damned grip on yourself.

He's bloated! He's sunburned! He's disoriented! He's got a pen tucked behind his ear! What next?

WILL: You. Are. FINE.

ROSARIO: Thanks, Will.

WILL: I don't let just anyone stand next to me, you know. I am a dapper cat. I need someone who can hold their own against the heat of my charm and suavitude. I mean, paisley? Could anyone else wear paisley? No. But I am WORKING this paisley. I have given this paisley a sensual massage and now we've moved on to champagne and strawberries and edible panties.

ROSARIO: Sure! It's true that you're very smooth, Will. I'm happy to be here with you.

WILL: But damn, Rosario, I'm serious here -- you glow. If I weren't already in a happy heterosexual marriage and equal partnership that is indestructible against the force of any human foibles, I would be all OVER you. I mean, in that dress, you look like a bridesmaid, a bit. But in a HOT way. It WORKS. You're the sexy bridesmaid at the wedding that all the groomsmen decide they're going to try and hook up with after the reception, but none of them do because I get there first and woo you with sensitive conversation, sharp wit, and my mad love skills.

ROSARIO: Thanks! You are good for my ego.

WILL: I KNOW how to stroke an ego, baby. I am the master of romance. I will pour scented oil on that ego and light candles and then....

ROSARIO: Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're the man, you'll massage it and then there's champagne and panties. Noted. Now can we go inside and get this show on the road?

WILL: Not until we get one more picture of this hot love triangle between you, me, and my paisley. The world needs to SEE how it's DONE. YOUR MOVE, BECKHAM. I dare you to pull this off, boy.

ROSARIO: This is going to be a long night.

Miss Teen South Carolina tried to be gracious to everyone but the photographers would say, "to your left, your left!" And then quickly say, "your other left" despite the fact that the poor girl was standing still.

For some reason they didn't pull that crap with Common.

Yep, it's me Chris Brown. I'm even pointing to myself. I'm so cool that I wear my hoodie on the red carpet. That's me yo.

Martin Scorsese (L) hugs Stephen Spielberg in front of George Lucas (guy with poufy 'do and grandpa glasses). This is picture to me looks like Martin is going in for the kiss with Steven.

Jodi Foster says "See, that's how you gun them down."

Kyle Gass is real sexy. No wonder she is walking away.

Justin Long is possessed.

Is it just me or does Will Smith appear (from this view) to be copping a feel?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Come on, everyone. I DARE YOU.

KRISTEN STEWART: Dare them to what? Ask if we're sleeping together?

TAYLOR LAUTNER: Oh, please God, no. I so don't care if you're sleeping together.

K.STEW: Right? BORING. I'm not even interested in whether we're sleeping together, at this point.

R.PATTZ: I'm so bored of us that my boredom comes back around to being arousal.

K.STEW: Ew. Not mine.

R.PATTZ: No?

K.STEW: LOOK AT YOU. I am not sleeping with you again, by which I mean for the first time, until you shower and shave.

TAYLOR: THANK YOU. It had to be said.

R.PATTZ: Well, I'm not sleeping with YOU ever again, or for the first time, until you go back to wearing Converse and tight jeans and not brushing your hair. You look like you're playing dress-up in Zoe Saldana's closet.

K.STEW: I think I look nice. And clean. And event-appropriate. AND CLEAN.

R.PATTZ: No no, I like my girls to look troubled and ill-rested and as though they're still coated in the sweat from our fervent horizontal joyride. You know, like me.

KRISTEN STEWART: TAYLOROHMYGOD.
TAYLOR LAUTNER: It's okay, we're in this together.

KRISTEN: I forgot how intense this is. I think some 40-year old mother just asked if she could feed my hair to her sick child.

TAYLOR: Where's Rob?

KRISTEN: I'm not doing photos with him tonight. It's too intense.

TAYLOR: What is? The pandemonium? Or the urge to rip off his clothes?

KRISTEN: EW. TAYLOR. Rob is like FAMILY to me.

TAYLOR: Sorry.

KRISTEN: The kind of distant-second-cousin family that it was okay to marry back in Elizabethan times.

TAYLOR: So...

KRISTEN: Just shut up and tell me I look pretty.

TAYLOR: You DO look pretty!

KRISTEN: Thanks for sounding so surprised.

TAYLOR: Whoops. You ARE totally pretty. I mean it. The dress is even sort of interesting. It kind of looks like something you might have borrowed from Selena Gomez's closet. Not that I would know ANYTHING about what's in her closet, of course.

KRISTEN: Of course.

TAYLOR: Your hair is an awful mess, but you know what? This might be the best it's looked in a while, even so, and frankly I think you're just stuck with it until that horrible Joan Jett hairdo grows out. What were you THINKING wearing your hair like this to this premier?

KRISTEN: I just got sick of being Bella.

TAYLOR: Fair enough.

KRISTEN: So I look okay?

TAYLOR: I think you do. I mean, it's always weird seeing you in a dress.

KRISTEN: RIGHT? That's why I'm changing into leather and an undershirt at the post-party.

TAYLOR: Shoot. Speaking of being naked, I think we've been spotted.

ROBERT PATTINSON enters scene, sees Taylor with arm around Kristen:

THE END.

Any hint of finger guns must be celebrated. If Kristen Stewart had gone through all her Twilight press giving finger guns, our relationship would have gotten off on wholly another foot. I find finger guns hilarious -- both ironically, and then in a way that comes around to being totally non-ironic, sort of the way I love That 70's Show because it's terrible but I also actually legitimately really love That 70's Show and think it's awesome. My friend Katherine actually managed to get finger guns into her college ID picture. It was amazing. Especially as my high school ID could have been subtitled: A Study in Perspiration.

Ken Jeong Jeonging Around

2010-07-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Ken Jeong is thinking: Dwayne, the Rock, you may think you're a thumb's up kind of guy, but I just think you're a douche.

Wait how did I end up in this position?

Can the NIH make a Mini-Me of Ken Jeong? Please.

Attempting to run from the paparazzi. That only works for actors who play vampires.

Some have argued that Ken isn't Jeonging around in this photo- but he is. He is imitating Gabby Sidibe's posture and copying Rob Reiner's facial expression. Genius.

No I won't spank you bro.

I can't help but think that if Ken wasn't already married, this would be his online dating picture.

"Hey, my name is Ken Jeong. I am a doctor, a comedian, and I hit Bradley Cooper with a pipe on the head. Hello." Irresistible no?

Ken, please don't hurt Aubrey Plaza or Anna Kendrick behind you with your mic.

Imitating a confused Kim Jung Il is not a good idea.

This is soooo gross yet funny. I can't believe I'm actually laughing along with him. At him too.

Ken, your MTV Movie Award isn't a football.

Jeonging around with his WTF MTV Movie Award. What better object to do this pose than a WTF award, Ken.

'Jeonging' is a new term for Ken Jeong doing anything strange, 'particular' or funny.

I love Ken Jeong. He has been in so many movies in the last 3 years that he is no longer 'that funny Asian guy.' Most famously he was Leslie Chow in The Hangover. He also had supporting roles in Knocked Up (Dr. Kuni), Step Brothers. Pineapple Express (ninja assassin), Role Models (King Argotron) and the television show (2009-2011) Community (Señor Chang). Ken Jeong has been blending comedy & medicine all of his life. After graduating from Duke University & attaining his MD at the University of North Carolina, Ken completed his Internal Medicine residency in New Orleans while developing a cult comedy following. After moving from New Orleans to LA, Ken started his Hollywood career in 1997.

Johnny Weir is a Moxie Fashionisto

2010-07-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2010/06/johnny_weir_on_his_fabulous_cl.html

Figureskater and moxie fashionisto shares is actually incredible closet!

Q&A: Johnny Weir on His Fabulous Clothing Collection, Fur, and Upcoming Clothing Line

Figure skater Johnny Weir let Bluefly video cameras into his closet so that the nation might ogle his vast clothing collection, which contains much more than controversial fur unitards. Weir has a two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey, one bedroom of which he uses just for clothes — in addition to his two walk-in closets. "I live in New Jersey, and that affords me a lot more closet space than the average New Yorker gets," Weir explained. "And believe me, I need it!" We spoke to him more about his Chanel jacket obsession, fur pillows, Louboutins as art pieces, and his upcoming clothing line.

What is your advice on closet cleaning?
I don’t get rid of anything — I’m such a pack rat. There could be something that I got ten years ago that I wouldn’t get rid of. I have a vintage Chanel jacket that I don’t actually fit into — a very classic Chanel tweed jacket. I just have it as a sort of art installment. And someday I’m going to have a kid, so whether it’s a boy or girl they’re going to inherit a really great wardrobe.

Do you wear women's clothing?
I’m lucky because I’m really small so I can wear men's clothes and women’s clothes.

Do you wear women's shoes, too?
Usually I try not to buy women’s shoes — I have no heels in my collection. I want to buy a pair of Louboutin patent-leather heels just to fit in the apartment as an art installation. I have a pair of Chanel women's boat shoes and a pair of women’s sneakers from Gucci. And I have a small foot.

How do you feel about man heels?
I don’t like the idea of that look — I think it’s not quite right. But there are those situations where you’re performing or doing a shoot where, you know, there’s nothing wrong with a little heel. I think more men should walk in heels and run in heels and see what women have to deal with every day.

How often do you shop?
It depends on the paychecks. It depends if I’m having a good month or a bad month, but if it’s a good month I’ll go and treat myself once or twice a week. I recently got a deal to write a book and I had to treat myself and I went and bought myself a Chanel jacket — a new one, a modern one from one of the recent collections.

What are your tips for closet organization?
I know exactly everything that I have. Whether it’s a tank top or fur coat, I’ll be able to pinpoint exactly where it goes in the house. I have special bins for things I don’t actually wear because I don’t actually need them. And I keep everything color coded, so I have a very strict system of closeting.

You encountered a spot of trouble earlier this year for wearing a bit of fur on one of your skating outfits. Do you own a lot of fur?
I do have a lot of fur. I’m a big fan of fur. I’m not a fan of nutria or fake fur and I’ve taken a lot of flack for that, but it’s just a choice that I make. I travel a lot to Russia and it’s usually in winter when I’m in Russia, so you can’t walk around in a plastic coat and plastic boots when it's minus 40 degrees. I’m from the country, I’ve gone hunting, so I know what happens. I know everything there is to know about the fur industry and I choose to wear fur.

How do you store your furs?
I have one closet that’s special and air conditioned just for fur, but it’s all fur coats and scarves and blankets and pillows and things like that.

You have real fur pillows?
I like to have a furry bed. I like to get cozy even in the summertime. The air conditioning gets cold and I like to snuggle.

How's the clothing line coming along?
We’re meeting with several different producers and people that are willing to help and want to help and are very passionate about me sort of putting my name on some fashions. I’ve been so busy, and it seems like it’s been a long time since the Olympics, but it really hasn’t and I haven’t stopped doing appearances and performing. And I'm writing my single and trying to write my book. And I found a little bit of cellulite yesterday so I’ve been in the gym every day.

What kind of price point are you aiming for?
I want Chanel quality, of course — a different price point, but of course Chanel quality. If I’m going to put my name on it, it’s gotta be good enough for Uncle Karl. Price point? I’m thinking along the lines of All Saints or Topshop — I wouldn’t go crazy and put my name on a heel for $700. I’m not a tried-and-true designer just yet. Maybe when I’m 50 or 70 I can put my name on a shoe for $700.