Color Me Some Options

By now it is probably no secret that Uggs are one of my pet peeves. I do not understand them.

                                

 

I have some beef with Ugg boots.  Where do I even start? At any height, they somehow manage to screw with the proportions of the legs of the wearer, usually making them look short, oddly lanky and disproportionate, or both. They look fairly decent when completing a jeans-and-sweatshirt ensemble, but do most people do that? NO. Uggs do not look good with your designer skinnies and Anne Taylor/Hollister tops, dear readers, nor do they accentuate anything when you wear them under shortshorts and mini skirts. The only thing that does is to make you appear as if the wardrobe that dressed you this morning was very confused, or was playing a nasty trick on you. Next, the angle of the top of the foot is not feet-flattering. Combine that with the large round toe and all of a sudden, your feet look really, really big. What every body-conscious girl dreams of, I know. I could go on, but I’ll end with the fact that when they are worn for a matter of weeks, the develop creases that do not support the cause, adding to the snow-boot frumpiness. Hmmm… snow boots… there’s an idea! Maybe these should only be worn in the snow! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that sooner…

 

 

I know what you’re thinking. “They’re comfy and the keep my feet warm.”

Uggs are not the only boots that offer those services, ladies.

If you want a flat, comfy, warm boot, meet…

… Guiseppe Zanotti, Chloe, Bally, Brian Atwood, and Jimmy Choo. They desire to be your new flat-boot-of-choice, in the interest of better style. As you may have noticed, there are many many boots similar to these at numerous off-the-peg retailers as well; the designer models aren’t the only option, as the name is not always what makes the shoe. (Which is why, I gather, many of you and other girls all over the world by Uggs: solely to be a part of the name that goes along with the shoe.) What makes the shoe is the better materials, more defined, feminine shape and the attitude they portray; Uggs to me seem unmotivated, and the wearer always seems tired. (Maybe because they are so heavy? Hmmm. No. It is more of a resigned-tired. “I didn’t know what to wear today so I wore my Uggs.”) Boots like these, however, seem more motivated, determined, chic, studious, glamorous… whatever you want them to be, which is much harder to accomplish with Uggs. Do you see why Uggs are a lasting fad I can’t appreciate? In short, why is such an unflattering, commonly-misrepresentitive-of-the-wearer shoe so popular? Especially when there are such breathtaking alternative options?

If any of you have a guess, or something to say in the defense of Uggs/why they are your flat-boot-of-choice, please enlighten me!

Color Me Quizzed

Surprise: who’s ready for a pop quiz?! And you guys think I forgot….

Can you name the following?

1.

a) Luella Bartley b) Silvia Fenturini Fendi   c) Coco Chanel  d) Alice Temperley

 

2.

a) John Galliano b) Christian Dior c) Christian Louboutin d) Christian Lacroix

 

3.

 

 

 

 

 

a) Silvia Fenturini Fendi b) Erin Fetherson c) Coco Rocha d) Tara Subkoffl

 

4.

a) Nicholas Ghesquiere b) Stefano Pilati c) Marc Jacobs d) Alexander McQueen

 

 

No Cheating! Tell me who you think they are and I’ll give you your score. This is more than a blog, it’s FASHION SCHOOL PEOPLE!

Color Me A Look Alike

I just realized how much my high-waisted jeans

look like Alexander McQueen’s $510 Sailor Pants*.

 

Swanky!

 

 

*Fetch a pair here, if those $510 are burning a hole in your pocket

 

Color Me Articulate, Part Two

Hello again, dear readers! While watching some What Not To Wear reruns with a girlfriend last night, S&C were pointing one haphazardly-dressed, shoe-challenged sweetheart in the direction of some springy espadrille shoes for style as well as comfort. Hearing them talk about “Espadrilles this, espadrilles that…” I realized that seems to be a word many fashionistas, young and old, in-the-know and not, have a problem with. So, all together now, let’s practice some new fashion pronunciations!

• Espadrilles: n.ES-pah-drills.   (An espadrille is a shoe with a short wedge. For fashionistas-in-training, if you find a shoe with a wedge heel between 1 and 2 inches in height, it’s safe to refer to it as an espadrille rather than a flat. Also, espadrilles commonly have a raffia sole, but not exclusively.) Not es-pah-DREE-les, es-PHA-rides, or es-pa-RIDDLES…. other common mispronunciations, which if you employ, don’t be too embarrassed: I was the girl who went around saying es-PHA-rides for the longest time…
• Louboutin: n.LOO-boo-tiehn. (Full name: Christian Louboutin. Fashionistas-in-training, familiarize yourself with this name! In the event that you were wondering: if your Louboutins in question have red soles, they’re real; red soles are the Louboutin signature. Say the name with a French accent and you’ll probably say it right!)
• Madras. n.MAH-drass. (A style of plaid; the “MAH” part rhymes with the “AH!” heard escaping the mouths of fashionistas everywhere who stumble unexpectedly onto a repulsively hideous article of clothing in a magazine or the fashion-faux-pas commited by many American celebrities on the street or red carpet. (Sandra Oh, we know you try hard, honey!))
• Vogue. n.VOHG. (Fashion magazine most associated with the fashion industry. And yes, there are more than one; there are American Vogue and Teen Vogue, British Vogue, Vogue Italia, to name a few; of course there is also a French one, and some other European nations lay claim to their own editions as well.)

Do you remember Part One where I longed for a pronunciation of Gareth Pugh’s name? Well, I have not found it, but I did find this which is extremely fun to listen to even if you know them already, and will be super helpful for those of you who don’t! It is an audio pronunciation for a good handfull of well known designers and fashion houses. Enjoy! Keep articulating!

Color Me Career-Minded

While I have yet to have news on the musical successes of Irina, her contemporaries are making huge strides to keep up with her (rumored?) career. To some the most loveable while to some the most over-exposed, Agyness Deyn has released her first single and I must say: modeling is not her only cup of tea!

(She collaborates with Five O’Clock Heroes for her first number) I could definitely listen to this for hours.

On another musical note, Fashionista reportsthat Jessica Stam has taken post as a DJ with the likes of Leigh Lezark in NYC. Really? Why am I having a hard time picturing Jessica as a DJ? Keep your ears peeled: before you know it Anja will be dropping mad beats too and Lily will be singing with Feist!

 

 

 

** If you missed Irina’s “penguin situation” interview when it was on Fashion Verbatim a while back, watch the first few minutes of this clip**

Color Me Seen Around…

Speaking of models, does anyone who has seen the Michael Antonio Footwear Group ad in the US April Elle know if the model…

… is Chantal from cycle nine of America’s Next Top Model? Do these girls ever get jobs beyond Lot 29 spreads?

Color Me Dotty!

Last summer I found this post on Style Bubble and was inspired to try it myself! I spent an afternoon walking around my secret store (Rose’s… no one seems to have heard of it) finding the most plain, least embellished shoes I could. Then I headed to WallMart for Ribbon and dug around in my Grandma’s craft drawer for velcro dot stickers, and voila! Two pairs of shoes are easily transformed to five or eight pairs in the time it takes to watch one episode of Mythbusters. (Yes, Mythbusters! You never do your crafting to the Discovery channel? No one else is cool like that??)

I took red pointy-toed patent kitten heels and a pair of metallic round-toe pumps, and here’s what came of them…

 

(These are two different pairs of bows, mind you… I may leave the house in some risky things but not this!)

Madeline, much?

(Again, two separate pairs… zebra with or without chunky black stone)

Pleasantly, a friend of mine wanted to add to my collection of bows and gave me a sheet of 3d Martha Stewart strawberry stickers.

At first, I couldn’t decide how I was going to make them work. There were three pairs on the sheet, and making three sets of bows just looked kindof…odd. Odd or minimalist, or like I needed to spend more time on it:

Feedback? Do you percieve: A) oddity  B) minimalist chic C) Wow. Work on this.      Tell me!

What it turned out to be was a combination of the six stickers to be one fruity set of bows:

Kind of retro, no? I am sure going to have fun working these into outfits to come!

Try it yourself, it’s easy:

1. Hunt for the simplest pair of shoes you can find; if there are bows already on the toes, cut them off carefully and recycle them into a set of stick-ons (ooh. Stick-ons. Not a very fashion-friendly term!). I actually had to do that with the metallic flats, and you can probably figure out which bows they came with. (I had to remount them on grey ribbon to make them easier to stick to my new favorite thing, velcro dot stickers!)

2. Once the tops are nice and plain, stick velcro dots on each one…

… and then get crafty with ribbon, scrap fabric, yoyos (the fabric kind, people…although I applaud you if you were to actually put on real yo-yos) , buttons, strawberry stickers… whatever is at your fingertips… and stick the other half of the velcro dot pair on the back of each new bow creation.

3. Switch to match your mood or outfit, and Ta-Daa! The next time you need a pair of shoes, you could always opt for making new bows for each pair of “velcro-dot shoes” you have.

It’s all in a day’s work! Or… an episode of Mythbusters, that is.

Color Me Full Of Questions

While there has been little apparent development over here, do not be fooled: many a post have I been working on since we chatted last! Last week I sat down to lunch with a fellow student Amber Jones, FORD model, to ask her a few questions about her experiences as a teen model and life in the modeling industry.

What kind of modeling do you do?

I do mainly commercial modeling, which is like Dillard’s, catalogs… I have done some Teen Vogue, some runway. It was a small runway show, though.

Really! Who are some of the people you have gotten to work with?

Well, I met Paris Hilton – the runway show was for her; She put it together to see if she wanted to promote this clothing line [of hers], but I don’t think she ever did. It was a really small show! It was just me, the other girls and maybe ten or twenty people sitting in the front row watching, and Paris was one of them.

What is it like to walk a runway? Is it easy to get distracted?

Not really. When you’re on the runway, you can’t really see out into the crowd because of the lights… maybe the first row, but I don’t think it is that hard to be distracted because you can hardly see anything!

I’ve always wondered, is it hard to come up with your looks and poses?

Looks are pretty easy to do, but sometimes [in commercial] they want you to be really cheesy, and sometimes the things they want you to do are just really weird. Walks? The way they want you to do them is kindof hard. I finally got it, maybe two years ago, but even now I don’t think I could do it anymore!

Do you find it hard to “keep it real” in the industry, or when you’re out and about working?

Sometimes. There is a lot of pressure. Like: if you gain three pounds, it’s a HUGE deal. It’s hard being a girl, especially a teenage girl! You get into comparing [yourself].  There is such a huge emphasis on being thin. A lot of girls start [modeling] really young, at thirteen and fourteen, when they haven’t really developed yet so they don’t have a chest, or hips. You know, when they are so tiny? Then they grow up and develop yet are expected to remain that thin. I think it’s so sad when girls are told “You have to lose weight!” or something like that, but sadly it is something I don’t see changing anytime soon.

When you do commercial modeling, especially when working with catalogs I’m sure, you get to be around so many fresh ideas and creative minds. Do you have any idea what it is that makes certain trends take off and others a complete flop?

I don’t know! It’s hard to say. A lot of times [what it will be is ] you have a really good stylist [arranging and shooting the clothes designers put forth in print media], so I think that helps. Otherwise there are a lot of outfits in Teen Vogue and such that are cute but I don’t think people could wear. Like I wouldn’t know how to pull some of it off!

So do you see a lot of discrepancy between the runways and designers to regular, off-the-peg wearing people?

Well, some of the stuff I don’t really see translating into real life. A lot of designer stuff is really crazy… There is some, like Betsey Johnson, who use crazy colors but their clothes are crazy CUTE, you know? But then there are other things that I just do not see any “normal” people wearing. [Colorcast's mind goes to a few Alexander McQueen ensembles and Yoji Yammomoto of old... beautifully constructed, but the question of sitting down remains a huge one]

Do you have any favorite current trends?

Um… not really… I don’t usually get into trends that much. Well, actually, I do really like the look of boots and [colored] tights and shorts with heels: I think that is so cute!. And I love high waisted jeans, but those are so hard to wear right; I don’t think I could pull them off!

What about favorite designers?

I really like Caroline Herrera, Betsey Johnson, Kenneth Cole, Chanel… very classic, very pretty!

Have there been any shoots or shows where you got to wear any really interesting pieces? Like, really absurd crazy pieces? Or, what have been your favorite clothes you’ve worked with?

I did this one spread for Alive magazine about two years ago, and the clothes I got to wear for that spread were my favorite! Chanel, Prada, they were all very beautiful! I also modeled a wedding dress once that was beautiful but it was too long, so when I wore it on the runway it kept billowing under my feet and I kept sliding and wobbling… that was so bad!

AHH! I was about to ask if you have ever had any runway disasters!

*Laughs* Yeah… I almost fell in that dress; it was too big, so there was extra at the bottom that kept getting caught up under my heels. You could hear everyone in the front row gasp!

Are there any designers, models that you take inspiration from or admire?

Not really. I don’t really set any designers or models as role models, but I do really like this one Victoria’s Secret model, Caroline, because she is not stick thin like say… Giselle… but she’s curvier and I think that’s really beautiful!

So, how did you get started in modeling in the first place?

I began when I was fourteen. I was in the mall and someone came up to me, and it turns out that they were a fake agency so it was a good thing that I didn’t sign with them right then. But, that did kindof spark an interest in modeling; it wasn’t something I’d really thought about. My mom started to send in pictures to various agencies, and I was signed with a few and now I’m signed with FORD.

My last question is, if there were any girls who were interested in modeling…

…What would I say to them? Advice? [Snipe! How did she know that was coming...] For someone who wants to get into modeling, I’d say if you want to do it, go for it! If you think you’d be good at it, if you think you have what it takes or think you have the look, send your pictures to different agencies. And if you don’t get it, don’t quit trying. If you don’t get a job it’s not because you are fat or ugly! It all depends on what they are looking for. A client might be looking for a girl with brown hair one day and a redhead the next. So if you don’t get the job, don’t let yourself think it was because of how you look, it all depends on what they are looking for. I mean, you are still a beautiful girl! Just try again, you may be exactly what someone else is looking for. And for girls who are already into modeling… just send out your pictures! Seriously, go for it. I mean, the worst they can say is no!