American Candy

The Skinny on Jeans (Old entry)

rottenfruit — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:41:18 +0000

“Skinny jeans are in!” proudly announces a pop-culture and celebrity gossip magazine, joining voices with with the likes of Vogue, InStyle, and Elle. They feature, as their latest trend-setter and standard-bearer, the very skinny ms. Mischa Barton who seems confident in her choice of skin-tight, mid-blue denim that does nothing to flatter even her tall, statuesque, ballerina figure. On the contrary, Barton looks a bit constrained in the sadistically, or in this case, masochistically tight pants made to wear only with flats or boots. She’s wearing flats, as the summer breeze and latest fashion has already reached L.A. Makes one wonder: Is Los Angeles this nation’s warm-weather-attire arbiter, if not dictator?

I sense that most of the nation would reply in a unanimous “Of course, it’s Hollywood”, but us New Yorkers are more cautious when it comes to the merits of Hollywood taste. Los Angelinos are the slackers perpetually in jeans and shirts, and New Yorkers are the gabardine-strapped, fashion-jean and pocket-book sporting pros: NY mixes high and nay very stylishly.

And just when jeans started to reach their true potential for fashion-wear, some industry Big Brother (of probably LA descent) seems bent on regressing to the days of high-waisted, skinny, badly fitted pants that wouldn’t flatter even the most graceful of figures.

The problem with skinny jeans is simple: They are unflattering in every sense and to every shape. They seem made only for showcasing stylish boots and 80s-inspired tunics and big-buckled belts–obviously trying to bring back some kind of rock n’ roll ideal. Accessorized differently, these jeans are unsuitable, unfashionable, unflattering, unless one wouldn’t mind the hooker-in high-wedges or espadrille look: Spring’s new ‘it’ shoes. Can you pull off this style with short-heeled pumps? Definitely! You must also include a longer than hip-length shirt and some kind of belt or hobo bag to complete the mood you’re going for and hide the inherent flaws of the skinny jean. But what of petite, average and curvy ladies? If the lanky ballerina type must accessorize so much to offset the deficiencies of these jeans then one can only imagine the lengths to which the average woman must go so that she may not look awkward at best.

Barton is the perfect lank lass to illustrate my point of the flaws in this cut. She is tall, thin, curvy (she has a small waist in comparison to her wide hips). She would be the hour-glass if she put on more weight and had a fuller bosom/wider chest. Nevertheless, she has the body that can pull off most wear, and yet she fails miserably with skinny jeans. Her flaws are immediately exposed: wide hip, skinny thighs that do not meet, unarched back and thus no feminine derriere. Amazing how a pair of jeans can reveal all of this. The separation of her upper thighs is highly emphasized by the tapered cut which make her look like an inflatable walking duck. A bow-legged type suddenly emerges! How horrid! Why would a woman want to disfigure herself in the name of a passing trend?

The full-figured, derriere-blessed, and of average height woman stands more to lose. A tapered cut tends to make one look shorter, highlights the hips and buttocks, making them look unnaturally and disproportionately big, and makes thighs look distinctively unfeminine, for the cut does not take into consideration the thin- thighed woman (Barton). High heels are doomed for the closet, for the pairing of these pants with high-heeled pumps or sandals only results in the trailer-trash look. It seems that we are forever to wear boots or flats irrespective of the season. Sure fall and winter showed that there are some cool boots out there and it truly was the season for boot-style, for one couldn’t walk through the streets of Manhattan without noticing the new myriad of colors, material, textures, styles, and heights of boots displayed. But what do we do about summer?

We are told that high heels are in! Round-toe pumps, wedges, espadrilles and maybe a stringy flat here and there. Ahhhh, the flats with the ugly…..oops, skinny jeans, and the heels with a skirt. Strangely, this is quite a feminine season, but unless one is endowed with Sophia Loren’s height, bosom, waist, full-thighs, straight-legs, arched back and perky buttocks one will only succeed at looking like a dried up penguin or duck in the jeans in mention, unless, of course, one keeps on wearing the boots even in a 100 degree weather, the tunic to hide common crotch, hip and thigh problems and of course, the belt to offset the plain drab of the tunic. But must we go to such lengths so that we may wear what the fashion industry deems as the IT item of the season , when that item should have remained in the closet?

It didn’t flatter anyone in the 80s; it doesn’t flatter anyone today—unless of course you ARE Sophia Loren.

But America likes recycling and regurgitating the used, worn, tired and even unsuitable so much so that it has managed to create a mood of total camp for itself. Are we so out of ideas and imagination that we must keep recycling and regressing? Or are our tree-hugging and pop-culture aficionados influencing our consciousness to the point where we’ve unwittingly made a soup of oil and water? Environmentalist sentimentality coupled with money-hungry fashion-industry camp nostalgia? Preservation and grotesque capitalism?

Or is it really just a matter of no fresh, new ideas?

The boot-cut jean I admit I am partial to because of its many flaw-hiding and asset-accentuating cut. I am petite, have a typical Mediterranean arched-back and full buttocks with full thighs……..but I am petite, and therein lies the problem. I refuse to look like an inflated hoochie, which is what tapered, tight jeans look like on me. My butt sticks out unfashionably, and looks too big in proportion to my height so much so that I manage to look even shorter, and even infantile with my big hips and skinny-looking calves—which the jeans achieve to a T. This optical illusion I prefer to leave alone. I love the days–if I remember correctly just last summer–when the boot cut in distressed denim, with its masculine low-rise stretched my height, and induced a sort of city-girl cowgirl’s swagger. It was the epitome of cool. The James Dean of the New York gal.

And now I’m told to go about prancing around like a 50′s Marilyn Monroe? Where’s the strength, the confidence, the cool of the new woman? The edge? No! I prefer the Brigitte Bardot of the cult “Frenchie King” to the fleshy, round, singularly ungeometrical look of miss Scarlett Johannsen who desperately channels the by-gone 50s in an attempt to achieve some kind of perverse Monroe and Lolita look. Some camp is cool and some just isn’t. Bardot paved the way for the cool woman of gabardines, shades, uncurled straight wild hair, and straight, flared pants; The woman of both fashion and functionality; The woman of New York City.

Boot-cut jeans….give the boot to skinny housewifely tapered hoochie pants!

Fashion and frumpiness, Kids edition

rottenfruit — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:58:42 +0000

Why don’t today’s stars know how to carry stylish clothes with cool demeanor? I mentioned in a previous entry how Hollywood ladies today lack gravitas even when stitched up in Gautier couture. Well, I was flipping through several magazines today and was focused on the sections of stars with their kids. The kids look just as frumpy as their parents: Wearing non-ironed clothes, jeans, raggedy shirts, frumpy hats, ugly shoes.

Ugly! But expensive, mind you. Stars go to great lengths to get the most expensive ugly clothes for their kids. Well, i’ve figured it: Kids, since the Victorian age, have always worn miniature adult clothing. Think of Alice in Wonderland . They wore the baby versions of their parents’ clothes. And really, today the same is happening. Only today, grown-ups don’t wear polished clothes. They go about in jeans, sweats, sneakers. And so do their kids.

Little Suri Cruise is an exception to this trend. Her parents seem to want to create a Victorian enchanted universe for her, where little girls look polished and princessy. And why not? I would do the same! I mean no wonder adult stars have no sense of style and no clue on how to present style when it’s handed to them. They grew up wearing slacks, cotton Ts and other frumpy clothes.

CHIC:

UNCOOL:

Britney opens up about wanting to close down

rottenfruit — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:24:13 +0000

I feel for Britney , I really do. Even though she’s a young, hot millionaire mom, I feel she’s still one of the sweetest in the music industry, and someone who got used by a loved one. But, there’s no excuse for the documentary she’s making about her stardom and subsequent spiral to madness. In the trailer below, she says she’s more guarded now and that for a time wanted to shut out the blitz and lead a normal life. Not one year after her admission to a psych-ward, and here she is opening up to the world yet again. And we’re left asking the inevitable: Who are you fooling?

more about “Britney opens up about wantig to clos…“, posted with vodpod

Single Ladies flaunt their ass-ets

rottenfruit — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:00:20 +0000

Just saw Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies‘ video and my initial reaction was “So B. is essentially saying that if you liked my (literal) ass you should’ve put a ring on my finger.” Lovely! The entire video, although displaying great choreography, has Beyonce and her sidekicks point to their derrières, squat suggestively while grinding to the floor, and faux-spanking. So, Beyonce, what you’re saying is that there’s value in a tight female body that can bump and grind, and only then is it justifiable to demand the guy marry you?

Hooray for female emancipation!

Single Ladies:

Slow economy, dying club scene and the revival of synth pop

rottenfruit — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:41:49 +0000

If you haven’t noticed yet, American pop music is going through a major change. For the past 18 years, the standard pace has been slow, with an R&B beat underscoring even the most club-like tunes. Not so of late. The pace has picked up. We’re hearing more and more synth and electro tunes.

Britney Spears’ 2008 album, Circus, testifies to the need for faster, club-influenced tracks. But, what of clubs? Now that the energy in music seems destined for a comeback, club life seems destined for the highway. In this economy, hardly anyone but celebrities can afford nights of decadent booths where the champaign flows and go go dancers flaunt their fringed undies.

Where will all this high energy music go? Will the tide be reversed? I am hoping for a final blow to contemporary R&B beats. Perhaps the need to galvanize into action now that we’re left jobless and lost will give the final boot to R&B sluggishness? I am not clairvoyant enough to predict how this will turn out, but I’ve given you all the pieces of the puzzle. Let me know where fast-paced pop is headed.

Good Angelina is a Voight. Bad Angelina is…?

rottenfruit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:41:41 +0000

In a recent talk to US magazine, John Voight proudly claims that his daughter’s virtues are from his side of the family. Specifically, Angelina’s love of children and ideas about family have been influenced by her paternal grandfather. So, essentially, it’s Voight’s side that cultivated such a love for family in this woman, even though Voight himself abandoned his family when Jolie was just a kid.

“I think that comes from my dad. My dad was a great storyteller and just had this way with kids,” said Voight during his 24: Redemption premiere in NYC. Jolie’s virtues are “part of a legacy of my dad … [they both have] this idea about family.”

Got that Angie? All that’s good about you comes from your father, you ingrate! As for your bad side, well, he made it clear years ago that you had psychotic tendencies and never took credit for any of that.

Carla Bruni on Letterman

rottenfruit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:16:14 +0000

First lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was on Letterman the other night to promote her new album “Comme Si de Rien N’Etait” (As if Nothing Happened.) She wore a drab gray pant suit and sported lackluster brown hair. Why was Vanity Fair’s September cover girl so frumpy, you ask?. It might have something to do with her trying to distance herself from her past supermodel (and hyper-sexual) glamor days, but she’s gone the other extreme, looking positively matronly.

Yes, this new Carla did not seem like the sexual predator many believe her to be. Polyandry? This woman wrecked Jerry Hall’s marriage to Mick Jagger? These are the kinds of questions Carla wants us all to ask. And I did ask in disbelief, until she started talking in that breathy, come-hither way.

The interview was surprisingly boring with Letterman flustering as usual.

On another note: Why was she on Letterman? When was the last time a French actor or singer went on national US television to promote anything?

Britney Spears renames phone-sex: Phonography!

rottenfruit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:42:21 +0000

Well, this is a very fitting song for the bubble-gum crowd. With lines like “And I like my bluetooth, buttons comin’ loose/I need my hands free/Then I let my mind roam/Playing with my ringtone,” the song is the heralding of a new kind of sex education and a surefire pleaser for parents everywhere. Hey, preteens having phone sex is better than actual sex – this way their minds may get corrupted, and they may even experience a ‘premature world-weariness’ , but at least they’ll be physically healthy and not pregnant! So, yea, do your thing Britney: Educate our lusty 10 year olds about technology and its sexual benefits.

Phonography:

Gotta admit it’s very catchy.

And not one to go against the grain, here’s Beyonce with her version of cybersex

More traffic congestion ahead

rottenfruit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:26:58 +0000

How is NY holding up in these dire economic times? Not good! It was recently announced that the City will cut back on public transportation this year which totally contradicts mayor Bloomberg’s vision of a traffic-free NYC. He wanted pretty much all of us to start using more public transportation in an effort to clear up the smog, the traffic, the congestion. But it seems with the new cut bus routes, shut-down subway lines, less trains and longer waits, green NY is a distant dream.

About 1,500 MTA jobs are being cut to accomplish this. And a word to the wise, start carpooling because during midday and after 11PM, trains and buses will have a frequency of at least 30 minutes. Later on, they disappear all together. Oh, and start preparations for subway cars packed much like they are in Japan: like sardines.

Kate channels Catherine

rottenfruit — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:57:36 +0000

The second i picked up December’s Vanity Fair, I said “Wow, she looks like Catherine Deneuve,” not knowing yet that that was the intended effect of Kate Winslet posing with tousled but stiff blond hair with little more than an unbuttoned white coat on, sitting in that charming way Catherine would.

I’ve always had a special fondness for Kate, especially since she set off on her journey of serious film making. Her unaffected, unassuming and disarmingly soft nature was refreshing to see in an industry reeking of affectation. But alas, my enchantment was not to last long! I have yet to read the full feature in Vanity Fair, but one quote sufficed to bring me back from ‘Pleasantville’: When asked about a possible Oscar win this year, Kate responded with, ” Do i want an Oscar? You bet your fucking ass I do.”

Deneuve image shattered!

Really Kate, there is no need for vulgarity, especially while paying hommage to one of film’s most elegant and fascinating women.