Posts Tagged Fashion

“Slave earrings”: Fabulously racist fashion jewelry

Nothing like starting the week off with some racism-inspired earrings to decorate these lobes!

First, it was plantation weddings, now it’s “slave earrings.” Apparently making a mockery of slavery is so chic these days that Vogue Italia decided to highlight it as the newest fashion craze:

Jewellery has always flirted with circular shapes, especially for use in making earrings. The most classic models are the slave and creole styles in gold hoops.

If the name brings to the mind the decorative traditions of the women of colour who were brought to the southern Unites States during the slave trade, the latest interpretation is pure freedom Colored stones, symbolic pendants and multiple spheres. And ...

Nothing like starting the week off with some racism-inspired earrings to decorate these lobes!

First, it was plantation weddings, now it’s “slave earrings.” Apparently making a mockery of slavery is so chic these ...

The Feministing Five: Tavi Gevinson

Tavi Gevinson is a fashion and style blogger whose great eye for clothes and youthful but preternaturally mature voice have taken the fashion world by storm.

Tavi started blogging about fashion and style at the age of 11. Now 15, she still writes about those things, and in a thoughtful and entirely un-frivolous way, but she’s also begun blogging about gender, and culture, and what it means to be a young woman both inside the fashion world and out. Last month, she reflected on how people’s perception of her has changed – and how, in turn, her self-perception has changed – since she switched from glasses to contact lenses. Reflecting on beauty privilege, something that those who move in the fashion ...

Tavi Gevinson is a fashion and style blogger whose great eye for clothes and youthful but preternaturally mature voice have taken the fashion world by storm.

Tavi started blogging about fashion and style at the age of 11. ...

Savage beauty: searching for feminism in the grotesque

“I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress,” says the first of many placards quoting the late Alexander McQueen, in the haunting, horrifying and beautifully curated costume show of the year in his honor, Savage Beauty, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I finally made it to the show yesterday (Miriam went a few weeks ago) and it got me thinking about some of the contradictions and possibilities of a feminist politics of fashion.

My obsession with fashion started early, playing dress-up with my friends in my mother’s rather extensive collection of everything from saris to 80s women’s work wear and continues today with several detours along the way. ...

“I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress,” says the first of many placards quoting the late Alexander McQueen, in the haunting, horrifying and beautifully curated costume ...

Where hip gear and global economic development meet

My column this week is on the one-to-one businesses, TOMS being the most well-known, sprouting up all over the place. But before you go shoe shopping with a big, guiltless smile on your well-intentioned face, read a bit about some of the important distinctions between different types of approaches. An excerpt:

To begin with, giving a kid a pair of shoes manufactured elsewhere undermines the economic vitality of that kid’s community, as many bloggers have noted. Further, as Saundra Schimmelpfennig, a blogger at Good Intentions Are Not Enough, points out, shoes are already manufactured fairly cheaply in countries like Argentina, where Mycoskie was traveling when he decided to start TOMS. Expanding the manufacturing industry in poor countries is often seen ...

My column this week is on the one-to-one businesses, TOMS being the most well-known, sprouting up all over the place. But before you go shoe shopping with a big, guiltless smile on your well-intentioned face, read ...

Alexander McQueen retrospective at the Met

I recently stumbled upon the Alexander McQueen retrospective, Savage Beauty, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I literally stumbled upon it, having visited the museum on a whim with a friend and being led into his exhibit by the throngs of people.

I was absolutely blown away.

I am not a follower of fashion particularly, and have always found high-fashion to be particularly inaccessible to my sensibilities. But McQueen’s work, the drama, emotion and in particular the politics of it captivated me. There was no question that each of his pieces had a political message–they were overtly so. I was fascinated by his use of the human form and the medium of clothing to push our sensibilities, our notions of beauty, ...

I recently stumbled upon the Alexander McQueen retrospective, Savage Beauty, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I literally stumbled upon it, having visited the museum on a whim with a friend and being led into his ...

Guest post: consciously clothed

This guest post on fashion, among other things, comes to us from Jessi Arrington, a designer, creative philanthropist, and as our mutual friend Chris described her, an “outfit scientist.” Her full bio is after the jump.

Raise your hand if you think what you wear matters! I’d like to make the case that it does, and perhaps in ways we’re not really paying attention to.

We can probably all agree that what we put on our bodies on a daily basis impacts the way we perceive each other and ourselves. (Deny this if you like, but listen to Courtney Martin tell the story of how she realized feminism might be for her before you dismiss the idea.) What is ...

This guest post on fashion, among other things, comes to us from Jessi Arrington, a designer, creative philanthropist, and as our mutual friend Chris described her, an “outfit scientist.” Her full bio is after the ...

I can’t decide if I care about fashion

Two undeniably fashionable beings, looking fierce and frankly, divine. via Instaboner, via Le Coil.

Our very own Courtney Martin has famously described her feminist “click” moment, the moment she knew she was a feminist, as the day she saw Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner give a talk on their new book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. Courtney writes, “Amy was plucky and compact, smart without an ounce of pretension, a no-nonsense beauty. Jennifer was her opposite — long and sinewy, bright blond, and yes, wearing fishnet stockings.”

Courtney’s taken some flack for this comment, perhaps most notably from Susan Faludi’s much-discussed piece on “Feminism’s Ritual Matricide” in which Faludi criticizes Martin ...

Two undeniably fashionable beings, looking fierce and frankly, divine. via Instaboner, via Le Coil.

Our very own Courtney Martin has famously described her feminist “click” moment, the moment she ...

VogueParisCadeaux8

French Vogue fashion spread features sexy sexy children

They’ve been selling us women’s clothing using adolescent models for years, so it was only a matter of time before a magazine put couture on kids. An editorial spread in the December-January issue of Vogue Paris features more than a dozen pages of girls – not teenagers, girls – wearing couture, heavily made up and with their hair in up-dos.

The copy asks, in part, “What makeup at what age? How does one wear makeup at 13? What about at 70? Obviously not like one does at 20.” Styling a spread about choosing the right makeup when you’re 13 or 20 or 70? It makes complete sense to choose models who look like they’re about 9.

Predictably, the girls are posed in ...

They’ve been selling us women’s clothing using adolescent models for years, so it was only a matter of time before a magazine put couture on kids. An editorial spread in the December-January issue of Vogue Paris features ...

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