Stylish Babiis

Ah, babiis*. Munchkins, gremlins, jam-hands, cutie pies, angels, whatever you want to call them, young children are certainly fascinating. For the longest time, I was very adamant about not having children until I got over the fear of ruining their lives as well as the fact that they are so incredibly annoying. I've gotten over that (for now), but small children still make me exceedingly uncomfortable, although I suppose that will eliminate itself with age. I hope. Or do I????? Oy. 

One of the things that has bugged me about toddlers and other little people around the same age is that they just look like a complete mess all the time. I know, they're not really in tune with their personal style because they're barely even people yet (hey, I didn't become a person until I was thirteen, going on fourteen), but that doesn't take away from the fact that as a general rule they don't dress particularly well. I can't decide how much of that has to do with the parents, although I think that factor depends on the child's age. All I know is that I wore Gap and Children's Place clothing until I was, like, ten, and the only time period in which that worked was between the ages of three and five. After that it was just sad, even though it totally didn't have to be. This one's on me. 

With the exception of little divas like Suri Cruise, few children have the means of dressing like a boss even if they wanted to. The other night I got an excited text message from Octavia about how stylish the kids were at a party she was at with her mom, and had I considered writing about this sort of thing on da blogue? It had never really crossed my mind, mostly due to my aversion to those tiny people, but I figured I would give it a shot. Adults and teenagers aren't the only people that exist in the world (THANK GOD), so there's no reason why I should exclude the next generation from my fashion diarizing. After all, little kids have the wonderful advantage of only being allowed to look one way all the time: frighteningly cute. They never have the desire or requirement to look sexy, or sophisticated, or anything else like that. That gives them so many options. Looking adorable is one of the easiest and versatile modes of dress, and little kids are perpetually set to Boo from Monsters, Inc. Below you will find pictures of what you wish you wore when you were approximately five. 

*babii is pronounced bab-ee. This is a word of my sister and her friends' creation, for the most part. It's a fantastically amusing alternative to the generic "baby." 

[Photos by Octavia, with an iPhone.]

I've been staring at this girl's glasses and friendship necklace for about five minutes, trying to figure out why I hadn't thought of that combination. I bet her headband matches her dress. I totally wish I could pull that sort of thing off. 

Okay, come on now! I can't even rock a shift dress like that! Being shapeless and three feet tall really has its benefits. As for the girl on the right, Lucy, the combination facial-hand expression was plenty of cuteness on its own; her dress and boots were really just accessories. 

Last but not least, Charlie, a little munchkin that can colorblock and layer expertly, all while staying parallel to the ground. 

Don't you wish you could go back in time and do it all over again? Yeah, me neither.

I apologize for the lack of posts recently, it's been a rough time and now I'm in a show at school and then there's Fashion Week. But don't worry, I've got a whole crapload of things lined up, including photoshoots, videos, Mardi Gras, and the First Lady.

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Inspired By A Human: Willow Smith

I suspect that you are a little confused right now. I don't really seem like the sort of person that's a Willow Smith fan, I know. The other day I was on Rookie and read something about Willow's new song, which sampled one of my favorite Radiohead songs, "Codex." That somehow landed me on Willow's Tumblr (you know how it goes on the Internet; one minute you're doing homework and the next it's three hours later and you're looking at pictures of Will Smith's daughter), and I slowly realized that she's actually really cool. I was never into her song "Whip My Hair," but it's nearly impossible to deny her sartorial expertise, especially when you keep in mind the fact that she is twelve years old. ...I know.

I really admire the fact that she's created a career for herself despite the fact that she could totally live her life just being Will Smith's kid. I mean, she could've waited until she was in high school, at least, but I'm not one to talk. Like, not even a little. I remember how much of a bum I was when I was twelve, so it's equal parts awe-inspiring and jealousy-inducing that she has a really bangin' wardrobe.

It was surprisingly difficult to find good examples of Willow's style on the interwebz, but here are a few photos of her looking her most, well, Willow-ish.

[Photos via Tumblr and Google.]

Look at that crop of hair! Yowza! 

Can you imagine going to school with Willow Smith? I think I would be that person that makes a lot of Harry Potter references (ie, Whomping Willow) around her. 

A pink mohawk and Chanel flats...Yeah, I was nothing like her when I was twelve.

The fam. The whole Smith crew is just a good lookin' bunch.

I can't even fathom how that Avatar-like hairstyle was created.

Nobody sasses Willow Smith. No one. You know why? She's got Swiss cheese leggings.

I can't wait until she gets to high school. That will be a transformation worth watching. 

I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd posted a playlist, so since it's Sunday, I thought I'd make one. Willow-themed (in theory), of course. 

Don't forget to watch the Inauguration tomorrow! Da Prez is gettin' sworn in!! Can't miss that! 

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Awkward Accolades

Award shows have always confused me. Receiving an accolade is always awkward for at least one of the two parties involved: it's either the humble and modest accepter who is discomforted by the prospect of having to acknowledge their talent, or the audience who has to bear listening to an egotist thanking a long list of people not because they really appreciate their help, but just to make sure everyone knows how many friends they have. I don't know what idiot created the concept of an award show, but they are most definitely imbecilic. Needless to say, I don't watch these programs. The only one I ever watch is the Oscars, mostly because I appreciate good acting and not all movies from this century suck. The Emmys, the SAGs, the Grammys, the VMAs, the Peoples Choice, the Country Musics, the Electropopnotica Hispanic Discos, none of that nonsense goes on inside my house or my brain. There is one exception to this rule of sorts, and its existence stems merely from my love of--you guessed it--fashion. 

You may recall my Chictopia article about the Golden Globes last year, in which I articulated through the use of bolded text my aversion to award shows, but watched them anyway against my will (and really for no reason). I didn't fall into that evil trap this year, but this Monday morning I found myself eating breakfast at 10 am at my dining room table (the only perk of having midterms this week was that I got to sleep a few extra hours one day. Whoopee.) and being urged by several emails in my inbox to 'check out what the stars wore to the biggest award show of the season,' or some absurdity like that. Maybe it was because it was my brain was fried from a weekend chock full of studying the history of the entire world, or maybe it was because the yogurt I was eating was making my tongue tingle and was probably expired, but something told me to go to Harper's Bazaar's website and look at the red carpet looks. So I did it. Call me a crazy, impulsive teenager. To my complacent surprise, there were actually very few dresses that I liked. That sort of served as validation for my antipathy to award ceremonies, like, "Yeah, they don't even dress that well either, so there, media!" Only a few ensembles caught my eye. There were just too many mermaid-silhouette dresses, strapless numbers, super-form-fitting gowns, and an all-around lack of individuality. I clicked through photo after photo and found myself seeing the same dresses over and over. What happened to originality?? Where did it go? Where's the spunk? The spark? It felt like everyone was only dressing themselves in order to show off their bodies, which is totally fine, but that's not the whole point of clothing. Doing that is almost like doing a disservice to your body. You can wear so many bangin' things, so why limit yourself just because you want people to see your mega awesome abdomen? Yes, Megan Fox, we know you are a sex goddess, but being a sex goddess is just so much more fun for everybody if you look like you're having fun while oozing venereal appeal. Dressing oneself is an experimental process, not a monotonous one. I actually had a moment of realization yesterday morning while walking to school that every day is like a new adventure--not in the conventional sense that each day has many opportunities to do new things (mainly because going to school every day rarely yields "new" experiences), but that one has a chance to wear something different. And that's pretty exciting. That being said, let's take a look at who actually took those chances and wore something new and exciting and different. Notice how most of them are some of my favorite women (see: Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, etcetera). 

[Photos via Harper's Bazaar.]

Marion Cotillard in Dior

I guess orange is still going strong. Props to my girl Marion for being bold enough to wear tangerine on the red carpet. It's actually very flattering, and her simple hair and makeup remind me why a) she's a fuqin' awesome lady and b) why she is the face of Dior. 

Lucy Liu in Carolina Herrera

I know nothing about Lucy Liu except that she seriously knows how to dress herself. That Carolina Herrera dress is like a garden made specifically for happy fairies drinking strawberry milk, or something. And it has pockets. 'Nuff said. 

Anne Hathaway in Chanel

Anne Hathaway, my beautiful queen!! She gets two exclamation points! In addition to being a remarkably talented actress and singer, she has joined the short hair club (among the ranks of Emma Watson, Lena Dunham, Michelle Williams, and others) and rocks the socks off of it like no other. Anne has always been a well-dressed woman, but now that she looks more like Saskia de Brauw, it only makes sense that a higher volume of Chanel would have to exist in her life.

Zooey Deschanel in Oscar de la Renta

Zooey is the definition of quirky. She nearly blended in with the red carpet at the Golden Globes, it would seem, and it even looks like her dress is opposing gravity and tilting the wrong way. Zooey just has that power over the universe. 

Julianne Hough in Monique Lhullier

I'm pretty sure Julianne Hough was in a Proactiv commercial a few years ago and was also on Dancing With the Stars. Who would have thunk that she'd turn up on the red carpet in a sparkly glitter princess gown? Fan-cee!

Nicole Kidman in Alexander McQueen

Nicole Kidman was on the cover of Harper's Bazaar a few months ago, so I learned all about her life. Obviously, because a magazine told me that she's awesome, it must be true. Whether she's actually cool or not, anyone wearing Alexander McQueen that isn't Daphne Guinness deserves to be recognized as no less (Daphne is excluded because her and McQueen clothing are essentially one being, anyway).

If you happen to be dressing for a red carpet event such as, say, the Academy Awards, take a tip from the above laydeez and have a really good time dressing yourself. If you look like you're having a blast, people will wonder what you're on if you're just standing there looking all cheery (see: Nicole Kidman, above), and slowly realize that, oh, it's because she has on a unique dress that totally exemplifies her personality and idiosyncratic qualities!

Enjoy your weekend, friends! I've officially finished my first semester. Imagine me doing a very dramatic tribal dance fused with ballet and jump roping, and that is what my brain is doing right now.

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The Slowdown

[Photo by me.]

It was the first tense I learned in French: the present. Even when it was first taught to me in fifth grade, I had trouble using it. I couldn't quite figure out how to describe things that were currently happening because that wasn't how my mind worked. I could write "je chante," but it's a lie. I am not singing. And if I were, it wouldn't ever occur to me that I should or could talk about it (partly because I can't talk and sing simultaneously, and if you can, then I applaud you). If you think about it, the present tense is quite confusing. I could say that I am typing, which is true. But while I was doing that, I was focusing on the end of the sentence, my goal in the near future. Once I was done with that phrase, it was over. My act of typing became a thing of the past. It works that way for everything. That's why the right-this-moment does not exist for me. I guess you could say that that's very fitting for someone semi-involved in the fashion world, and in theory it is. Designers and stylists and editors are always referencing bygone time periods and thinking about what's next. The past and the future. It all worked very well until the present caught up with me and caused a major traffic jam. The passé-composé-présent-futur-simple all in one. You could never conjugate a verb like that. You can never live a life like that, especially not one in the fashion industry. Before you have time to separate the different phases, everyone else has moved on.

I was always terrified of that. I look at every show on Style.com for every major season so that I'm never far behind. Is it necessary to know what 230 designers did for their fall collection? Not at all. It wouldn't even be obligatory if I worked at a magazine, or if I were a designer myself. We all know that fashion moves quickly. It's in the same category as journalism in that every second is precious, but not because it's happening. It's because each moment could be fodder for a new trend, a new design, a new story. "New" is based around the concept of the future, the same way "old" is based around the past. Fashion likes to combine the two and create what embodies the "now," the present. When the now exists, the past and future cease to. It's like when you complete the equation two plus two is four. Now all you have is four. The twos are gone. The inverse of that operation yields the same results. Cut four in half, and you've got two twos. You can't have all three at once. Fashion focuses on the four, I focus on the twos. It has recently come to my attention that I have to choose one or the other (at least at this juncture of my life). As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. (I've always wondered who gets to eat the cake, though, if I don't get to. Does it just sit around forever and get all moldy and nasty?)

For the past three seasons, I went to as many shows as I could during Fashion Week. It's an exhilarating experience, albeit a highly stressful one. I plan my year around New York Fashion Week. The truth is, before I had begun to attend shows, I still enjoyed fashion. This blog was around for months prior to that first ADAM show on September 10th, 2011. Participating in that seven-day-long whirlwind of awesomeness has changed a lot of things in my life, but I often forget that it's just that: seven days. A mere week out of the fifty-two in a year, which is then only one out of--hopefully--eighty more. It's a tiny, itsy-bitsy, baby-sized piece in the proverbial puzzle.

I've been worrying about the fact that I won't be able to participate in Fashion Week this coming season as much as I'd like to. It feels as though I'll lose my already unstable footholds in the industry if I so much as miss a few shows. Will I disappoint my readers? Will I disappoint myself? Maybe all of those things will happen, or perhaps none of them will. I'm slowly realizing that it's okay to not be at the forefront all the time. It really isn't so terrible to not know what people will be wearing in six months at the same exact moment that everyone else finds out. I won't spontaneously combust if I'm not sitting third row at a show, getting photographs of so-and-so's garments as soon as the model steps onto the runway. Sure, it's absolutely amazing to be able to do that, but sometimes it just can't happen. Every so often I will spontaneously combust if I am right in the thick of things. I suppose it really boils down to whether or not I would like to explode whilst in a huge crowd of fancily-dressed people, or be at home all in one piece.

This February, I'm going to take it slow. Fashion Week is a single week, and I'd like to make it out alive.

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Numberwang

That's Numberwang! 

You're probably wondering what is Numberwang, in addition to what Numberwang is. I wish I could tell you. Maybe if you watch this video you'll understand. And then this one. And then this one. 

Not only is Numberwang hilarious, but it also has Alexander Wang's last name in it, which is terribly convenient considering the topic of this post. Wang's eponymous brand has come to epitomize cool girl, effortless chic. He's known for his gratuitous use of black, his phenomenal construction skills, and his inspiration drawn from the French and grunge cultures. Every girl wants to be a Wang girl. I want to be a Wang girl. 

The designer was born in San Francisco in 1983 and grew up in California. He moved to New York City when he was 18 to attend Parsons New School for Design, but ended up dropping out in his sophomore year to launch his women's wear line in 2007. Being the complete boss that he is, he was an instant success. Alexander won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award in 2008 and was granted $200,000 to expand his business. He won the Swarovski Designer of the Year Award in 2009 and 2010 (the 2010 award was for his accessory design skills). It was recently announced in late November of this past year (weird!) that Alexander will become the creative director of Balenciaga since Nicholas Ghesquière left. Basically, A-Wang is completely owning the fashion scene, everyone loves his work, and he's supposedly a crazy dancer. One major, major con is that he's been accused of having a sweatshop in New York where laborers are forced to work 25 hours straight without a break, which is not only really really illegal, but also just ridiculously unethical. It actually makes me feel quite immoral myself to praise him, but his clothes are awesome. I'm vacillating. 

On that note, let's see his stuff, shall we? 

[Photos via style.com.]

FALL/WINTER 2011

FALL/WINTER 2011

RESORT 2012

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

T BY ALEXANDER WANG PRE-FALL 2012

PRE-FALL 2012

FALL/WINTER 2012

FALL/WINTER 2012

SPRING/SUMMER 2013

SPRING/SUMMER 2013

And that's Numberwang! 

P.S. Happy New Year! 2013 is such a pretty number, isn't it? 

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