Sex Sells

You know, I think Michelle Obama just sealed my vote for Barack. Not because I agree with her (or her husband's) blithering Marxist Lite claptrap, but because, well, let's face it Party People. The gal can dress.


What?

Neither of the candidates have presented me with a more pressing reason for punching the ticket in their favor. So why not the fact that Michelle has almost overnight raised the stock price for Black House/White Market with her decision to wear one of their $149 frocks for her appearance on The View the other day?

eBay's already all abuzz. There's one up for auction right now, a size 6 petite, that's up to $76 and climbing. Marxist, Schmarxist, capitalism will always win so long as The eBay exists. And Michelle – or, for that matter, Barack – isn't going to be anywhere near Congress, so lighten up.

If Michelle does nothing but serve as an example for millions of American women around the country that you can break out of schlumpy without paying an arm and a leg to do so, well, heck. That's a good thing. Besides, who else was going to do it? Hilary? Sweet Jeebus, that woman set fashion back eons with her dogged polyester pant-suiting. You mean to tell me all that money makes such a succulent sound but it can't buy a decent Chanel?

And, despite the fact that Cindy McCain is an awesomely gorgeous woman, well, let's face it. John did not age well. Sorry to say this, but the man looks like a frog. I mean, could you imagine the two of them posing for a photo like this?



I think not.

Which brings me to this additional point of enlightenment. Maybe, after eight gazillion years of buttoned up Bushes, it isn't change the American people want. It's sex appeal.

Phoned Home

Perhaps only those who are fashioned obsessed would be saddened by the news of Yves Saint Laurent's death two days ago. Still, if you are a working woman between the ages of, say, 20 and dead, you can bet his work touched your life in one shape or another.

What Halston was to the dizzy disco queen, Saint Laurent was to the working career woman. He burst onto the Paris haute couture scene at the astonishing age of 19 and two years later took over as head of the House of Dior. It was here that he began to create clothing for women that, in his words: " . . . was not only supposed to make women beautiful, but to reassure them, to give them confidence, to allow them to come to terms with themselves."

Today, we take this for granted. In the late 1960s, however, it was revolutionary. Prior to that, designers decorated women. But Saint Laurent saw fashion as a way for women to find their unique sense of self. Unlike some designers, who went out of their way to create ever more outrageous, unwearable outfits in a continual loop of the Emporer's New Clothes, Saint Laurent never once made a joke out of his work . "It pains me physically," he once said, "to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic, by fashion."

Hence, his first collection for Dior, anchored by the trapeze-shaped shift dress, was all about freedom and ease of wear. That shift remains a working girl's fashion staple to this day. So does the evening suit, whose legacy lies in the designer's famous Smoking Suit, a looser, less angular reinterpretation of the butch-ish silhouette made famous by Marlene Dietrich that suddenly provided savvy women everywhere with an alternative to the Little Black Dress. And can you remember a time when the safari style jacket (ah-hem, Old Navy Spring 2008), peasant blouse, or Palazzo pants have NOT been in style? All Saint Laurent.

(Look – I just found this: my tres chic mother, Saint Laurent-ized! Pay no attention to the fashion disaster with the skinned knee. And we won't even go there with my brother in his Lederhosen.)

* * *

Bo Diddley's death yesterday from heart failure is no less tragic a loss. What Saint Laurent was to fashion, Diddley was to music, a bridge between the blues and rock and roll, inventor of the harder-edged, more driving rhythms that would form the backbone of this new style. Listen to "Who Do You Love," which he wrote in 1956, and you'll hear the revolution coming - not to mention some of the baddest-ass lyrics in all of rock and roll.

Diddley also lived for years right here in the Land of Enchantment. From 1971 to 1978 he was a happy denizen of Los Lunas, where he also served for nearly three years as Valencia County's Deputy Sheriff. During this time he not only continued to make music, but was instrumental in bolstering the financially strapped county's law enforcement efforts, his largest contribution being three highway patrol cars he purchased with his own funds.

RIP to you both.

Mute Monday: Beauty

Mute Monday: Different Strokes

No, No. Please Don't Design

With apologies to Ms R for paraphrasing one of her post titles, you wanna know my greatest fashion pet peeve? When celebretards decide that just because they've paid their dues taking years of advice from some underweight, over-tanned bobble-headed stylist, they're all of a sudden qualified to leave the cozy nest and design their own line of clothing and accessories.

When, really, they should just stay home.

It always ends badly, proving Moi's Fashion Dictum #456:

Celebretard + Fashion Dabbling = Total Disaster

Just look at the sorry ass state of today's perfume industry. A market that used to be dominated by big, bold chypre/aldehyde/leather frags has been successfully skinkified by a plethora of nose-numbing fruity florals thanks to Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Mandy Moore. You know the world as we know it is about to fold when Guerlain, maker of such masterpieces a Mitsouko and L'Heure Bleue, suddenly decides it simply must capture the celebrity-inspired youth culture and puts out a strawberry-infused juice inspired by Hilary Swank.

Instead of doing what we used to do, which is buttoning ourselves up and letting our perfume (think: Caron Tabac Blond and Chanel No. 5) broadcast sex, sex, sex; today, every woman under the age of 80 is trying to rock a Hot Topic crop top, while their perfume says: bite me; I smell like a watermelon.

Still, the perfume industry is the least of my worries. What really has my engine cranked are celebrity clothing designers.

Check out this offering from P. Diddy/Sean John's Fall 2008 Collection.


Now, I ask you: In what universe – gay, straight, or sittin' on the fence – would wearing this outfit not be an occasion for sending the wearer straight to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, just sit your happy ass in there for a bit and think about what your utterly idiotic choice in clothing is going to do to the unsuspecting public?

About the only thing that sweater is good for is smuggling hamsters out of Syria.

How about this?


This sassy lil' number is from Gwen Stefani's Spring 2008 L.A.M.B. collection, which was dominated by, you got it, a naughty school girl theme. With some sequins tossed about here and there to keep the buyers at Neiman's from completely running screaming into the hills. They just got halfway there and said, "Meh, isn't Lindsay Lohan out of rehab by now?"

Look, I know, hell, I understand, that the vast majority of fashion design is about fantasy. It's okay if an outfit says, "If I were a countess slumming on Capri, I'd wear that dress." Or, "If I were a rock star, I'd for sure be purchasing those purple suede thigh high boots." Even, "If I were escaping from Bellevue, then I could see myself merrily skipping out the gates in that bubble skirt and shrunken cardigan."

But there's a big problem if your first thought is, "Wellllllllll, if I were from Mars . . ."

Some celebrities try to distract us by naming their clothing line something totally innocuous and unrelated to their celebrity. Like Jennifer Lopez's Sweetface and JustSweet labels. But she's not fooling Moi. I can sniff out a poorly constructed celebretard knockoff a mile away. With a raging head cold.


You can dress it up in shiny silver and cornea-searing apple green silk, but it's still a freakin' hoodie and tunic dress. And a couple of ho-hum ones at that.

And while I admire Kimora Lee Simmon's for her single minded dedication to grabbing life's gusto with both bejeweled hands (and of course her lucky ducky locking of lips with Djimon Hounsou), her Baby Phat design aesthetic is, to put it kindly, Über Trash on Wheels.


So here's another one of Moi's Fashion Dictums (#674):

The next time your fave celebrity comes along hocking their latest perfume/evening gown/camo cargo pant/bed linen, turn on your heels and walk away. Because, Party People, just as we do not want to go through life smelling like a bowl of fruit salad tossed with a hint of Glade bathroom freshener, neither do we want to look that way, either.

Mute Monday: Diversity

A Fruit By Any Other Name is Boring

What plant we in this apple tree?

Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard-row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple tree.

– William Cullen Bryant

And not, Party People, with the banana tree. I don't care if Mr. Smarty Pants Dan Koeppel spent the last five gazillion years chewing his fingers to bloody stumps in pursuit of his thesis that the banana is, in fact, the fruit that really changed the world.

When you go to the grocery store to buy apples, what happens? Most likely you spend a wee bit of extra time tapping your foot in front of at least a dozen different varieties. There are eating apples and cooking apples and baking apples and apple sauce apples. Apples for broiling and baking and candlestick making. For tossing and dipping and wrapping and snacking. But there's only one variety of banana. It may be green, it may be brown, and if it's ripe, it's a mellow yellow, but it's still one single variety. Ho. Hum.

And not very much fun. Have you ever strolled through an apple orchard in the afternoon of a particularly mellow spring day, when the perfect storm of sun and wind conspire to coax the tangy-sweet scent of apple blossom out from the flower and into the air for speedy delivery straight to your olfactory system, and if it weren't for the fact that every honey bee in a five-county area were at that very moment also inebriating themselves giddy on the scent, you'd gather up an armful of blooms to press to your face and inhale until your senses shut down from sheer gorgeousness overload? No? Try it sometime. And then try it with a banana bush.

So while I'm always in favor of a good bit of paradigm-busting research, in this case, I say: meh.

To Moi, the apple will always be the quintessential foodstuff of the civilized world. I mean, really, Eve bite a banana? How obvious.

Mute Monday: Collection

Finally, the car that Ivan ate. Sigh.

Mute Monday: Elements

And just so no one completely worries (or is that the other way around?):

'Tis Better to Give than to . . . Get Knocked Up?

(Goodness. What a morning. There I was, putting the finishing touches on Moi’s Christmas post, when the Today Show bombarded the airwaves with yet another shock and awe pronouncement: Britney Spear’s sixteen-year-old-sister, Jamie Lynn, has managed to get herself knocked up. Sweet Jeebus in Heaven, these girls are old enough to drop the equivalent of Peru’s GNP on Bottega Veneta bags and oversized Dolce and Gabbana eye wear, but they don’t know from birth control?

It’s taking a great amount of will for Moi to refrain from completely revamping this morning’s post. But because we’re in the middle of Advent here, Party People, a holy, holy time, I will place my commentary on said incident reluctantly on the back burner and save it for a later date [sloppy ass 'ho.])

* * *

The closer I get to the holidays, the more I start thinking about stress. The stress of extra work. Or not enough work because everyone has decided to adopt a cavalier attitude about deadlines (what, suddenly, we’re all European?). The stress of trying, when you have a fractured and far-flung family, to fit in days with the in-laws and days with the parents and days with the niece and days with friends.

Then there’s the stress that builds around gift giving. I know people who find this custom so meaningless, so mired in useless commercial excess, they don’t even stick around for the holidays but instead steal themselves away to some tropical beach or small overseas town where Christmas is more about praising Baby Jesus and stuffing one's face, and not so much about desperate, last minute purchases.

But you can’t escape Christmas. It’s like death and taxes, only sparklier and with more booze.

So I try hard, real hard, to turn the frown upside down and to view the holiday as a time of giving and gratefulness. As a time to honor one’s family, even crazy uncle Charlie with the grubby fingers and the weird politics. To call a long lost friend, even though the last time you spoke, they made fun of your shoes. To spend an afternoon – stone cold sober, mind you – letting a child run wild through Toys ‘R’ Us even if it ultimately means they choose one of those abhorrent Hannah Montana dolls over your suggested gift of an ant farm. And I try to spend even more time in the great outdoors, not just because exercise melts stress, but also to wonder all over again at the magic of creation that constructed itself just fine without concrete and glass. And to marvel at the concrete and glass, too, because they're also beautiful and also part of our world.

I also refuse to pass judgment on any gift I receive. Whether given out of obligation or irony or love, I will honor the fact that someone took the time to think of me, dip into their pocketbooks, and come up with something they think I’ll enjoy. Even if it’s a plastic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer who poops root beer flavored jellybeans. Even if, for some bizarre reason, something about Moi says Birkenstock rather than Blahnik.

And you know what else I won’t do? I won’t re-gift. Now that's a crass practice, right there. It’s one thing to say, “Hey, I got this laser-powered-toe-nail-clipper-blender-drink-maker-nylon-life-preserver-
sweater last year and you know, I just can’t use it. Would you like it?” And of course, it’s perfectly okay to just give the thing away to a local thrift shop in the hopes that it will become some else’s love at first sight. At a mere $1.99.

But it’s another thing entirely to package the thing up, re-wrap in brightly colored paper, stick a big fat red bow on it and pass it off to someone as something you picked out all by your lonesome. Talk about sin, Party People.

Don’t do it.

Dawg Tired?

Too ding dang bad.

Put on your Party Shoes, Party People, pour yourself a glass of champagne and get going. It's Blog Party Weekend!

Two things I know for sure:

1. I'm wearing these shoes and I don't care.


2. I need a really beeg drink.

Cheers to all!
Moi

All I Want for Christmas

Dear Santa,
I know you’re taking up a lot of the slack for God this time of year, so before I add my own voice to the mix, may I just start by saying what a fine job I think you’re doing? Really. The Big Guy Upstairs should just go ahead and hire you on full time for the entire year. You know, kinda like a Heavenly Secretary of State, albeit without the Prada heels.

Anyway.

If you take a moment to look back through my history for the year and ignore that one teensy, eensy moment I had with the jerk off, er, impolite elderly gentleman, in front of me in line at Sam’s Club, you’ll see that my nice outweighed my naughty by what can only be considered a major improvement over last year.

With that in mind, I herewith present you with Moi's Christmas 2007 Wish List:

1. You know how you can innocently start off a Saturday night with a few slices of pizza, a couple beers, and a piece of chocolate raspberry blackout cake and then wake up on Monday morning, a mere two days afterward, and suddenly find five extra pounds attached to your happy ass? But then it takes a papal dispensation plus about five bazillion months of eating cardboard-flavored rice cakes to divest your ass of that extra weight? Well, I’d like that whole process reversed, por favor.

2. I want you to make Brad Pitt’s Christmas wishes come true. Not that I have any special fondness for Brad, mind you, and, no, my dislike has nothing to do with being on Team Anybody. I mean, I've been to Springfield, Missouri. All it takes is about 30 minutes inside one of their Steak ‘n’ Shakes to understand why Mr. Pitt let loose of that golden-glowed, Malibu-surfer-chick-meets-Dolce-and-Gabbana wife of his in favor of a woman whose personality is like one of those pousse-café drinks from Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans: all kinds of multi-colored layers of C-R-A-Z-Y. The man was genetically predisposed to start slummin' at some point.

Nope, with his $500-an-hour personal trainer abs and the $10,000 a month he spends on bottles of what is basically tarted-up petroleum jelly to pamper his delicate facial skin, Mr. Pitt does a fine job all by his lonesome of making Moi go, meh. What I do like about him, however, is the very real passion he has for New Orleans, thoughtful urban development, and innovative architecture.

With those passions in mind, Mr. Pitt is pledging $5 million dollars of his own money and enlisting the assistance of innovative urban planners and architects from across the globe to raise enough money to build 150 new homes in New Orleans's Ninth Ward. All at the cost of about $150,000 each, a pittance by today's $2-bazillion-per-square foot Taco Bell Mansion standards. Still, it doesn't take a math wizard capable of carrying his zeros to know that's nonetheless some mighty mucho dinero right there, Party People.

As S.B. says, let's just forget for one moment Pitt's annoying ass celebrity. The man is doing what we Americans do best: instead of whining and crying and beating our breasts for our gub’ment to do something, we’re saying, fuck the gub’ment. We can do this ourselves. We can open our hearts and our pocket books, roll up our sleeves, and get down to the business of building something.

And sweet jeebus, just look at these homes. They’re so gorgemous, I want to buy one!


So, please, Santa, work some magic so these people who lost everything dear to them can once again know the solace and safety of Home.

3. And before you starting worrying, you can go ahead and slip Moi some of these while you're at it:

Yours in peace, joy, love, and (Christ)ian Louboutins,
Moi

I Knew It

You Belong in Milan

Stylish and sophisticated, you want to enjoy a truly European life - away from tourists! Milan fits you perfectly. Great shopping, high quality food, lots of culture... with very little hype.

What European City Do You Belong In?

I gotta go watch LSU kick some Ole Miss (Bob, why isn't it Ol'?) butt, pay homage to Fabulous 1970s Decor, weep over Elivs, and find me somewhere's a fried oyster po' boy sandwich. Or seven.

In the meantime, take the above Test: What Fern City Do You Belong In? and play amongst yourselves 'til I get back.

Ciao,
Moi

Lazy Ass Excuse for a Blog Post #2

While I firmly believe there is no crying in baseball, it seems that doesn't apply when it comes to NaNo. I don't know what's wrong with me this year. My brain is a hollowed out husk of its former self and my creativity has flipped me the bird. Last time I saw it, it was lounging on the sofa with a six pack of Fresca and a party-sized bag of Cheetos, zoning out in front of Fashion Television's coverage of the Spring 2008 Milan collections (yay! Luisa Beccaria – boo! Gucci Gucci Goo).

So, I will spend all weekend struggling to wrest my creativity out from the sticky-fingered clutches of crap television and trans-fat-soaked snacks. After all, my novel does feature sex and candy and cowboys. That ougtta be worth something.

In the meantime, Party People, let's take a moment to hunt down my creativity and take a gander at what, exactly, it would clothe itself in, given a $5 bazillion lottery win and just the right occasion:

If my creativity worked for a mega wattage corporate-type corporation and they were throwing a mega fabulous Christmas party and my dumb ass creativity had actually managed NOT to fall asleep at its desk one too many times from the stunning boredom of it all and hence didn't get itself barred from an invitation, my creativity would wear this:


And if my creativity's bestest friend in the whole wide world suddenly up and had a wedding, and I mean a REALLY REAL wedding, complete with cocktails and canapes and hot 20 year old waiters, instead of some drunken five minute ceremony at 2 a.m. in Vegas with Elvis in attendance, it would wear this:


And if my creativity were suddenly called upon to attend oh, I dunno, a posh Southern-Style event like the Kentucky Derby or maybe some second cousin of S.B.'s niece's coming out party, it would wear this:



And if I suddenly had to send my fat-ass creativity off to the grocery store for even more Fresca and Cheetos? I'd ask that it for Gawd's sake shed those stinkin' sweat pants and instead drape itself in this:



Finally, if my creativity absolutely refuses to get its fat ass off that sofa and into my office and behind my keyboard, I'm going to make sure, come hell or high water, it's going to spend the rest of its existence wearing this:


Pee yew, Party People. Gucci is just downright poochie this year.