FOUND: the fancy, former winter coat of one Natalie Toney, unknown but still threatening

More old photos.

I have really clear memories of this day:

Trying to sit still as my brother fastened me with bright things / My bare feet on hot concrete / Intuitively understanding my diva behavior, and enjoying every second of it/ The performance for my parents/ Feeling love as my brother put me together/ feeling “put-together” although I couldn’t name the concept

Children can be such creative users of fashion. Sometimes I’m convinced that my greatest outfits are in the past. My mom told me recently that I dress more and more like I did as a kid, and I take that as a compliment. It’s not that I want to be age inappropriate, but I admire the way I owned my fondness for bright colors and patterns, unabashedly. Little touches could amaze me - a rosebud or a zipper -  inspiring in me a fierce loyalty. For example, I fell in love with my nighties so much that I’d have to wear them out to eat at restaurants. And I still feel that way about clothes. I become obsessed with the things I own, and everyday I wear them, I thank them for our expressiveness. Clothes as imaginary friends. Better playmates for me than stuffed animals. 

I recently discovered this blog, honoring the stylistic choices of bloggers’ MOMS:

http://momstyleicons.blogspot.com/

This is my contribution.

Mom, you look like a fucking wrapped up gift to the world here. In fact, you are GIVING a gift to the world. You are pregnant, and in bows, cos that’s how you roll. And no you’re not an object. You’re just being playful.

Open up those gifts.

You know they owe you.

“THIS COMPACT BOOK ALLOWS YOU TO QUICKLY SCAN MORE COLOR POSSIBILITIES THAN ANYONE COULD DREAM UP IN A YEAR. YOU CAN LOOK AT ONE COLOR AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THAT COLOR IS PAIRED WITH A SERIES OF DIFFERENT COLORS. WHAT SOON BECOMES OBVIOUS IS THAT RED HAS MANY MORE THAN ONE PERSONALITY WHEN PAIRED FIRST WITH BLACK, THEN GREEN, THEN WHITE, AND FINALLY PURPLE. THIS VERSATILITY SUGGESTS MULTIPLE WAYS IN WHICH A SKIRT OR JACKET FROM A PAST SEASON CAN BE MADE TO LOOK NEW WHEN COORDINATED WITH A COLOR NOT CONSIDERED BEFORE. THAT PERFECTLY WEARABLE BUT BORING BLUE SKIRT YOU HAVE BEEN PAIRING WITH A WINE SWEATER CAN INITIATE A WHOLE NEW LOOK WHEN COMBINED WITH A YELLOW SHIRT AND MAGENTA ACCESSORIES.”

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“THE AMERICAN WAY OF DRESS IS BASED ON COORDINATED SPORTSWEAR. IN THE SEVENTIES, FASHION DESIGNERS DICTATED WHICH SKIRT WENT WITH WHICH JACKET; IN THE EIGHTIES, AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE BECOME THEIR OWN DESIGNERS AND COORDINATORS. GONE ARE THE DAYS OF FASHION DIRECTIVES FROM SEVENTH AVENUE. NOW DESIGNERS WHO WISH TO BE AROUND NEXT SEASON MUST OFFER NEW IDEAS AS WELL AS NEW OPTIONS- IN LENGTH, STYLE, TEXTURE AND COLOR. FROM THESE NEW FASHIONS, AMERICAN WOMEN WILL TAKE NOTE OF THE ‘NEWS,’ BUT AN EYEDROPPER’S WORTH OF WHAT IS OFFERED, AND MOST LIKELY COMBINE WHAT IS NEW WITH THE CLOTHES THEY ALREADY OWN.”

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get some colours on

get some colours on

When you’re a devout thrift shopper, you begin to develop intense feelings for certain vintage brands that you encounter over and over again. The inherent mystery of a forgotten brand never truly fades, but slowly, you begin to piece together the details of its “life”, through differences and commonalities you observe in its brother and sister garments.

Sometimes I’m tempted to buy clothes that I don’t even like, just because I’m obsessed with assembling this giant puzzle of vintage brand meanings. With these  clues in hand, your conviction grows until suddenly at some point you decide that Brand X must have been a mid tier department store brand from the 70s. But you’ll never ever know what that brand meant to the first individual who bought it. You can only daydream about the original context.

For me, the labels that are women’s names are especially evocative. They are like dead girls I become infatuated with after glimpsing one or two black and white photographs. I get this intuitive sense of personality, and I want to buy her again and again…because I’ve fallen a little in love with the idea of the person who could embody this brand way back when.

N I C O L A      is one of those “girls” for me.

Going off the theme of my last post, I’ve decided to include some stills from the 1996 film “Firefox”, starring Angelina Jolie and Jenny Lewis, among others. The film explores the idea of radical female community, when a butch, feminist teenage grifter comes to town (Jolie), and attempts to empower a group of diverse high school girls.

Giddy with their radical togetherness, the girls fuck shit up, create mayhem, hold accountable the men in their lives, discover their sexuality, find themselves artistically, and get tattooed to commemorate it all. In no particular order…

YOU GOTTA SEE THIS ONE.

THEY WON’T MAKE THESE ANYMORE.

Here come Dick, he’s wearing a skirt
Here comes Jane, y’know she’s sporting a chain

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And tomorrow Dick is wearing pants
And tomorrow Janie’s wearing a dress
Future outcasts and they don’t last
And today, the people dress the way that they please
The way they tried to do in the last centuries

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Everyone knows that the 90s are like totally in again. But what I would like to remind you of is an oftentimes neglected aspect of women’s fashion of that era. I’m not talking about babydoll dresses or those muted florals that have become ubiquitious at Urban Outfitters. I’m not even talking about the denim or the plaid necessarily, or how freakin’ awesome Doc Martens are.

Instead, I’m thinking about my mom as she picked me up from elementary school. Her long, wide dykey ass shorts and funky button downs. The boxy blazers in tweed and burgundy. The shapeless, oversized sweaters. The stripey shirts that looked like blown up versions of the Target boys’ department…THE TURTLENECKS!

I quoted The Replacements’ song “Androgynous” at the beginning, because I really think it captures this vibe, and successfully nuances the idea of androgyny. Its not so much about pushing for a female masculinity (or male femininity), than accepting that as humans, we’re oftentimes attracted to looks (and the ideas behind them), across a gendered spectrum. The end result of these outfits might not be what we think of as “androgyny” per se, because I think androgyny is too often understood as a kind of bloodlessness. A lack of passion, when what I’m really arguing for is a passionate engagement with the very idea of gender. For me, radical Replacements style androgyny is PASSIONATE FASHION, ready and able to communicate the inherent messiness of our gendered expressions.

It’s about owning up to these complicated attractions in the way that we dress, which may have absolutely nothing to do with the gender of the people we’re attracted to. These looks might even seem to defy our own sexuality, but in fact expand its possible meanings. It’s about finding those pieces that are truly liveable - THAT WE LIVE WELL IN - and the sexiness of pleasing ourselves through what we wear. And this very 90s “queering” of fashion is something I think I lot of straight hipsters forget about when they put together their sexy90slooks.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, I’ve  included some stills from the 1992 film “Singles”:

Here’s also a link to the Replacements song, via YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8J9WssSj7Q

GROUCHO MARX

WILLIE MAYS

THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE JUPITER SYMPHONY

LOUIS ARMSTRONG, THE RECORDING OF POTATO HEAD BLUES

SWEDISH MOVIES, NATURALLY

SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION BY FLAUBERT

MARLON BRANDO

FRANK SINATRA

THOSE INCREDIBLE APPLES AND PEARS BY CEZANNE

THE CRABS AT SAM WO’S

TRACY’S FACE

I bought this book for the photographs, and for the piece of paper sticking out from between the pages. It reminded me of my own self-improvement schemes and pound-downs. You can’t help but see writing like this and feel a little tender. Most of us at some point or other have taken a few earnest notes from a text like this.

And then we decide that we like food too much. Or that we don’t want to be like those people anyway. Or maybe you do succeed like Cheryl Tiegs, and are totally transformed by this. Maybe you even pass this book on to your best friend, like it’s the goddamn greatest thing.

Did she ever lose those 5 pounds? Did she ever learn to look more objectively at herself in the mirror? Did she snack on oranges instead of…those bad things that she really liked?

We’ll never know. What I’ve done though is take all of the text she thought important to highlight, and set it against some of the black and white photos from the book. Maybe it will help to shed some light on them both.

I first started wearing Old Spice in college, when I woke up in my ex-boyfriend’s apartment. On those days, I got in the habit of creatively recombining my previous night’s outfit with a borrowed flannel or tee shirt. I’d finish off the look with a heavy application of Old Spice, after I’d smudged off as much slept-on eyeliner as possible. After many days like this, I decided to buy Old Spice for myself. And it’s still on the shelf.

It’s partially the fucking sailboats…and that crisp, fake apple red.

But it’s also the slightly stinging smell.

I can’t help but feel a little macho as I do my street walk, sizing people up as I go along. On some days, I really do feel as if I could take ANYONE, and I indulge in daydreaming about quick-cut action sequences, where I just fucking terrorize everyone around me for no reason.

Old Spice…helping women feel like “men”