THESE!

These are why I'm sometimes almost compelled to spend upwards of $230 for a mass-produced, contemporary cotton dress. So clever! So whimsical! So misleadingly easy to tastefully recreate on a smaller scale in your own home for special events like hip baby showers!

We Came. We Saw. We Thrifted.

Melissa of Purple Deer and I traveled to the exotic Oakland suburb of Fremont yesterday to meet thee luhvely Theresa of Verseau Vintage for an afternoon of 'power thrifting.' If you live in the area, don't bother hitting up the local thrifts any time soon because we absolutely laid waist to the shops. Melissa snatched up all the florals, Theresa scooped up all the modern avant pieces, and I nabbed all of the groovy modish garments. TRUST.

Just Slap Some Paint On It

Living in San Francisco, it's not uncommon to see houses painted in bold colors and avant designs. Typically, though, these houses are not in the city's ghettos since, well, there's usually little to be cheery about there. This apparently is not the case in Brazil, where two Dutch artists have used one of Rio's notorious shanty towns, or favelas, as their latest canvas. The artists call it 'urban renewal,' but I have to wonder if they haven't merely 'modernized' the community's endemic poverty?

If Dress Forms Could Talk

The Way We Were

[ via Life (1946) ]

If I Wrote Ad Copy For Spanx

Shop Update: Days of Summer

[ click photos for details ]

Dear Oscar De La Renta (& Saks)

While I recognize that your target market consists primarily of rich white women who make poor use of their wealth, I am still slightly scandalized by your description of this blouse as 'nude' in color. Perhaps you missed the important memo circulated in regards to this issue back in, oh, 1968? If so, I believe it is filed away in the permanent archives at both Band-Aid and Crayola. Check it.

Sincerely,

Fashionably Distracted Academic

(ps: can we collectively build a list of adjectives that describes the above color without perpetuating hoary notions about race? I'll start: 'Champagne')

If I Wrote Ad Copy For American Apparel

[ shout-out to Annie for providing the original mosquito net snarkasm from which this evolved ]

Sassy's Spa Day

Sassy Mae (aka "Professor Frito," aka "Little Mamma," aka "Ms. Mae") got a much-needed bath yesterday. She also enjoyed a mani and pedi from our in-house cosmetologist, for which she went almost entirely limp. Funny lady.

Gender Trouble

Pictured Above: Chictopia or Fashionable Dystopia?

"If extreme height and exaggerated 'artistic' postures gave the modern woman of [early 20th century] ads a certain claim to elegance and prestige, still she gained stature only in comparison to other, non-fashionable women. In relation to men, as Erving Goffman has intriguingly suggested in Gender Advertisements, distortions of women's shapes and gestures often convey messages about social subordination. Women, Goffman argues, appear in poses that are more 'canted,' more exaggerated and grotesque, more off-balance and tenative than those assumed by men. These stances and gestures imply a sense of dependence...and a willingness to make oneself into an interesting 'object.'"

(From Roland Marchand's Advertising the American Dream, 1920-1940)

ADDENDUM: As a child, I recall feigning a slight pigeon-toe. I also recall crafting faux orthodontic retainers out of paper clips and plastic bracelets. Strange that even as young girls we know to desire so many symbols of youth and handicap.

Dressing For Your Body Type c. Late 19th Century

Books That I Will Someday Write

1. But I Don't Want to be the Janitor: A Children's Guide to Socialism

2. The Woman Who Knew Too Much: How My PhD Ruined My Life (An Autobiography)

3. A Brief History of the Microplane Zester