the marie antoinette

Matt's idea of basing his design for Lily's room on the concept of "Marie Antoinette" is a brilliantly wickedly creative and chic solution to the "you want to be a princess" mantra that is being shoved down the throats of every little girl from every direction of our consumer culture. They are powerless against it. (See links below.)

Perhaps Matt could market this decor with the slogan:

The Marie Antoinette :
the room your little princess will lose her head over

Links

What’s Wrong With Cinderella? One mother's struggle with her 3-year-old daughter's love affair with princess culture. By PEGGY ORENSTEIN The New York Times Magazine | December 24, 2006

For more go to my post "consuming girls" which has links to other postings and articles related to the topic.

how to design a room around a puppy . . .

or how a puppy will redecorate it for you

(click on the image above for the full picture of my redecorated office)

detail of laundry basket

consuming girls

the current scene with barbie, bratz, and princesses

The guys on Project Rungay are blogging season two of Project Runway (as is Eric3000). Right now they are writing about Episode 3, when the designers had to create an outfit for the new My Scene Barbie. My Scene Barbie is Mattel's answer to Bratz, which is putting a serious dent into Mattel's monopoly of the market. This reminded me of two very smart (and quite funny) articles that were recently published:

Little Hotties : Barbie's New Rivals
On the rise of the Bratz doll phenomenon.
By Margaret Talbot, New America Foundation
The New Yorker | December 5, 2006

What’s Wrong With Cinderella? One mother's struggle with her 3-year-old daughter's love affair with princess culture.
By PEGGY ORENSTEIN
The New York Times Magazine | December 24, 2006

[ related kih postings : ]

• 2. andrea & michael (see note on girls and glitter)
• back matter feb07
  
• body image
  
• the unbearable cuteness of being : oct06
  
• the unbearable cuteness of being continued
• the holly hobbie chronicles : sept06

the unbearable cuteness of being

a meditation


the non-being in being cute

No one can be the Alison that has been created to fit the lovely creature that blessed us with her presence for those halcyon weeks at the start of Project Runway's 3rd Season. The sweet creature that loves animals and whose world is filled with rainbows and sparkles and care bears: we know she doesn't exist. Does it matter? Not one iota.



Nonetheless, Alison Kelly appears to be a sport of nature: although it feels weird to say this about an adult woman, but she actually is cute as a button.

Here is a show filled with gorgeous models including Heidi Klum, considered one of the world's most beautiful women, and yet it is Alison who has captured the imagination of so many. She is mesmerizing: it is a bit like when you are talking to someone who has those light light blue eyes: you just keep staring at their eyes because they seem so alien.

Don't get me wrong: the models are beautiful. But beautiful is different from pretty and from cute. The models fit a more contemporary standard of beauty. Less northern European. More emaciated. (You win some. You lose some). Alison's appeal is more old fashioned.

This isn't the end: click here to continue reading "the unbearable cuteness of being."

(If that link doesn't work try this one.)

Note to the reader: I am only discussing images presented in popular media, not the actual person. (Please read
For the Record if you haven't already.

bloody elle

(or, as a woman I worked with in London used to say: "bloo-awdy 'ale!")

Let me first say that kora in hell loves the title of this week’s challenge. The only thing better would have been “what the bloody buggery elle is all this then?” But "what the elle" is a little more concise I suppose.

hang on uli #2

(click here for hang on uli #1 - and scroll down)

She did it! Good for our little miami mädchen!

They had to let all four go because they were counting on auffing uli and then she, smart girl: 1. nabbed Nazri, 2. had a house-frau crisis with her first dress, 3. ripped it apart, 4. and in a few hours created the most beautiful hippy dress in the world. Yes, I’d say Uli works well under pressure.

And how cute was uli’s scrunched-up excited face?


That's putting the body into it. And speaking of which, Nazri playing drums was almost as cute as my nephew playing drums:

That is some serious hippy babe cuteness going on there.

I am talking about cavity-inducing ADORABLE, people.
(With effusive thanks to Rich for his inspired posting of this clip because it never fails to make my day and I just had to find a reason to link to it and I am sure I will find more so you should really check out the whole cuteness context for it while you are there because it is hilarious.)


the difference between uli and zulema

(By they way don’t they sound like new brands of alcoholic beverages? “Bartender, give me one uli straight up and a zulema on the rocks.”)

First rule: if you steal someone’s muse you damn well better win with her. Zulema immediately got herself and her “stolen booty” kicked off. Zulema had a bad reputation for the way she treated her models and Uli did not. Zulema humiliated the models with a “walk off.” Zulema had no remorse for what she did and did not have any sympathy for the effect her actions had on the model or on Nick. Uli approached the matter a bit differently.

While I think Michael was really thrown for a loop on this and I feel bad for him, I don’t begrudge Uli too much for what she did. I mean Nazri looks fantastic in everything but you can’t tell me that any other model is more perfect for Uli’s style of dress than Nazri. Michael took the high road, as Tim said, and didn’t flip out. No one ostracized Uli like the group did to Zulema. However, Uli’s choice was one that everyone could understand and she did it in a way that didn’t cause bad feelings.

And the outcome was one of the most winning combinations we’ve seen:

s-mokin'

jeffrey & marilinda

Jeffrey‘s success owes a lot to Marilinda who is another of the very best models. And that girl was so was so damn pretty this week I nearly melted. Lordy! It doesn’t matter if you are man, woman, straight, gay – if that photo of her in the "rickshaw" (really?) didn’t send you reeling head-over-heels in love then you are sorely lacking in romantic spirit.

Do they actually have rickshaws in Central Park these days?

I liked Jeffrey's dress -- but how ironic is it that he made a Holly Hobbie dress?!!!!


check out the holly hobbie chronicles:

• the hh chronicles
• the hobbien mysteries
• when hh hits the runway
• circa 1974

laura & michael

I was just wondering -- what if Laura and Michael combined their dresses?

laura

Laura’s dress was exquisite. She accomplished the difficult task of topping herself. She made the most beautiful of her dresses with the exception of the fact that the v-neck was far too low. But that dress was exquisite and proof that she creates fashion at the highest level, even if its range is rather narrow. It isn’t like that is unheard of in the world of fashion. (See my earlier post on Laura’s win for a discussion of the importance of Camilla.)

michael

Clarissa is truly beautiful but Michael would have done well to pick Amanda. No one can work something like her. She’s the most chameleon-like of the group: put her into anything and she just inhabits the role and sells it hard.

There was really nothing wrong with that dress. It was lovely although the keyhole was too large. Just like Laura's neckline was too low. What is it with these designers?

Poor Michael seems to have hit a roadblock. He will need to work through this to make it to the next level. No one questions his ability. I think the problem is that he has the least experience of the final four and he probably just needs a little more time – and some good mentoring – to get past whatever it is that is holding him back.

Unlike Kara Janx from last season who was the 4th designer and got auffed, we’ve seen that Michael has the imagination and skill and range to really make it some day as one of America’s top designers. With Kara there was a sense that we had seen what she can do. With Michael one feels that we haven’t seen it all yet and that is what makes him more exciting. (And I don’t think his runway show was very strong, but that doesn’t change my argument.) I think he is just in an earlier stage of his development as a designer and when he hits his stride he could be better than all of the other three designers.


another shark sighting

Frankly, I have to say that my interest in pr has waned: too much vincent sucked the joy out of the show. It wasn't interesting; it was just tiresome.

Then there was a 2-week break during which we were able to see the so-so final collections.

For all the producers manipulations to make the show "interesting" they made the dumbest mistake in television -- screwing up the scheduling.

(click here to see the first shark attack warning- and scroll down)


bloody hell – another kih rant

keith

note: please read "for the record" if you haven't already

The previews show Keith at the reuinion, sweating and seething with rage.

It better be good. I want to see bad mommy put him in his place. By which I mean in the corner on a "time out" until he can behave like a grownup who has learned that sometimes you have to suck it up and live in a world where you are not always allowed to do exactly as you please. boo hoo.

Here’s the thing: there are the iconoclasts who see rules as there for the breaking; and then there are the sociopaths who see rules as there for the breaking. Keith is the latter.

That is to say, he thinks that the rules apply to everyone but him because he is better than everyone else. Some people call that that “narcissistic personality disorder.” (In fact, I would call that narcissistic personality disorder.) Combine that egotism with an inability to control one’s anger and that person becomes dangerous.

Keith just exudes that sense of entitlement that whatever he wants should be his to have. The irony is that, given how special he thinks he is, this attitude is as mainstream all-American as you can get.

He reminds me of a spoiled child who is outraged to discover that the world doesn't always give them whatever they want. It is a hazard of the constant ego-stroking done in the name of “nurturing” that creates brats who approach the world only in terms of what they deserve to get. It fosters all sorts of anti-social behavior from just being an irritating wanker to treating waiters badly to whining about getting an A minus when they deserved an A plus to cheating on tests to pathalogically lying to fraternity hazing (whether they are straight/gay makes little difference: it is all homosocial bonding over violence anyway) to thinking that the Geneva conventions' rules on torture should apply to the rest of the world but not him . . .

. . . oh wait, who was I talking about?


"it was a lulu"

In his podcast this week Tim Gunn said of the reunion: “it was a lulu” which made me feel all warm and fuzzy because I haven’t heard that in ages: that is something my grandma used to say and it was nice to hear someone say it again.

now available:

Insouciance & Apéritif review Episode 11 --

Don't miss Runway Model Theatre
(in French -- with English subtitles)

the unbearable cuteness of being continued

old & modern / cuteness & irony

Click here to go to the first part of this article.

If that doesn't work, try this.

(i'm still working on edits and image credits and references and links so bear with me)

When I said that Alison's appearance has an old-fashioned quality, I meant that, while she is obviously considered very attractive and even quite beautiful today, her looks also recall a standard of prettiness from an earlier period and from the world of art and literature.



Her blonde smiling child-like cuteness sometimes makes her seem like she sprang from the pages of an old Dick and Jane reader.


(I think I was one of the last to have used those books -- they were switching to more updated readers by the time my younger brother came along.)

I'm also reminded of the highly sentimentalized Victorian images of cherubic children:



The lace in these photos is material that Alison uses in her fashion designs, which bring elements of Victorian style into modern urban clothing.

These cutesy Victorian images illustrate one of the reasons why ideas about looking so adorable has engendered over-the-top ideas images of Alison and various cartoon characters. It is impossible to take them seriously, or to even see them as anything other than incredibly silly.

Images of darling girls are not just kitchy products of popular culture. Victorian and Edwardian illustrators and painters often portrayed young girls (and young women) playing in the garden or at the seaside, as seen below in works by Pierre August Renoir, Jesse Wilcox Smith, and John Singer Sargent:

(Above, right: Pierre August Renoir, A Girl with a Watering Can. 1876, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

Jesse Wilcox Smith (Little Drops, Betty's Posy Shop)

John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-6, Tate Gallery, London.

Even if you are not ethnically from a northern European background, if you have grown up in this country then you are familiar with this blonde-haired golden girl ideal.

After all, one of our oldest and most sentimental images of a cute child is Goldilocks. (And this image makes a number of different impressions on our consciousness: when I did a Google image search for Goldilocks the images were not all "family friendly.")


Indeed all of this girly cutesy stuff can be a little creepy.

It seems rather unique that someone past the age of puberty can actually have the quality of being cute without some "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" weirdness.

What is cute in childhood usually isn't all that cute as an adult. Just look at the Olsen twins.

The italicized passage below gets into some more complicated ideas that you may want to just skip over if you are just reading this for fun and don't want risk getting a headache!

That is one reason why the adorability of Alison -- even on the physical level -- isn't entirely real. It would be would be too much. Her physical appearance is undeniably cute, but there is also an aspect that is fictional.

What I mean is that this image of what is cute and adorable is something that we have seen over and over again in our lives; it is a history of associated images.

We see a particular look that reminds us of these previous images and ideas and we connect them together. At the most base level this is stereotyping. (See also: "For the Record".) Stereotyping relies on meanings that are only at the surface level.

The more we dig deeper into explorations about what things mean, the more we can develop meanings that are creative and significant. When we are being creative and intelligent about understanding the world then we develop meanings that evolve over time, building up layers of associations. Okay this is a subject that has filled many books and what I just said is not the final word -- but hopefully it provides a brief sense of what on earth I'm trying to prove here. At least it may answer the question of why I'd this nice "young woman on a tv show and "analyze her to death" like this? Because it isn't just about her -- I'm starting with her and digging into the layers of images in an attempt to tap into bigger ideas: cuteness, popular culture and art, memory and meaning.

Alison Kelly is cute in a way that probably -- like puppies and kittens -- cuts across cultures. There are some things, like watching the baby panda cam, that are so cute you can't help but say "awww".


The adorable girl also evokes particular images that come out of things like old story books . . . .and songs about girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes . . . (or is it white girls in gardens with blue blood relations . . . ?)

If the other people on the show have a split between the person they are and the media personality that we see, then Alison has a third persona: the icon of a lunatic hyper-cuteness, a figure that has been invented, mainly via the Project Runway blogs (fourfour has been especially brilliant in engineering this image of Alison).

This image interests me because it has taken on a life of its own that has no need to be grounded in any sense of the real person. (And, not for nothing: it makes me laugh.)

evidence to the contrary

In fact, evidence of the person named Alison Kelly actually shows her to be a rather different person from the cuteness overload image surrounded by rainbows and carebears.

Her closeness with Keith and Jeffrey indicate a penchant for the bad boys. (She's still young, she'll get over it).

I think that nice young man Emmett McCarthy looks like he could be a good influence on her.

(I believe that I just channelled my mother. My apologies.)

Anyway, when you appear that sweet and innocent it would seem natural to rebel a bit, to go against the grain somewhat, just to stake out one's sense of individuality.

Some of the various media outlets have produced something of an Alison backlash (say it isn't so!) among some of the fans.

The main source of discontent was her interview with Entertainment Weekly where she sounded rather bitter at times.

(Note: my experience with interviews is that the best one can hope for is that the person does not publish a so called quote or describe what you are saying in a way that conveys the exact opposite of what you meant. So I remind you that I'm not talking about the real person.)

In that article Alison blamed the models for being too big and having scoliosis for her not winning challenges. She blamed the stylist. She blame dthe judges. She described Laura's clothes as disgusting. She claimed that she was so innovative that she intimidated the judges.

Not surprisingly, like everyone else on the show, she has an extremely high opinion of herself.

It takes some balls to put oneself out into the public eye like this: you have to be confident about yourself. Or else you are insane. They are not mutually exclusive categories.

This doesn't make her a bad person -- no more than it makes Kayne or Laura or Robert or any of the other designers bad people. It just means that she is not, it would seem, as sweet as people originally thought based on her appearance.

Of course that image was so saccharine that any real human being would inevitably go sour. One can only disappoint. I marvel that she manages to sustain this image as well as she does. But then again, perhaps it isn't all that surprising. It would take a master cynic to not be charmed by her expressions of delight and wonder:

Alison also appears to be professionally very precocious as both a savvy business woman and a talented designer who makes fabulous clothes. In fact she is my favorite of all the PR designers (with the exception of Jay McCarroll) in terms of making clothes that I'd be most likely to wear myself. (And if I could afford to I would.)


So none of this really fits the goddess of adorability fostered by bloggers which brings me back to my first point: I don't care that it isn't real and--more to the point--I don't think it matters.

adoring adorability

For one, it's hilarious -- this mix of reverence and absurdity that adores what is adorable.

It is not mocking the world of cuteness but celebrating it's insanity. We know that there is a lunatic quality to hypercuteness: the kind of loopiness that appeals to the most imaginative of all beings: six year old girls.

All that wonder and sweetness and magic festooned in pink and lavender and glitter is, to our adult eyes, utterly idiotic.

Furthermore, if you have ever had to listen to the music from My Little Pony or some other similar thing over and over and over and over again it starts to seem demented in a way that is almost menacing.

(Even more scary is the way these things are marketed, turning evil in the hands of advertisers because they know how impressionable its young target is.)


But the giddiness that comes from cuteness overload is also strangly irrestistable. It is intoxicating to imagine what it is like to be able to transport oneself into this world -- without any cynicism and irony.

Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, a belief in the magic of cuteness is lost along the way.

It is so lost that we don't even notice when it disappears.

And we don't even miss it when it is gone.

elvis costello's alison

The fact that Elvis Costello's most famous song shares her name (and the same spelling) is for me just one more layer to the nostalgia. He's just enough older than I am that his early albums were being released during my high school and undergraduate years: the years of unhealthy obsessions and self-inflicted melodrama that is positively embarrassing a decade or two down the line; the years when one has a penchant for bad boys; the years when one's girlhood is smashed to smithereens.

This was also the time when I attended the most concerts and in a way when popular music played its largest role in forming who I am. Elvis Costello is one of the most dominant of voices on my life's soundtrack. I wore out my tape of King of America playing it on my Walkman as I travelled through Europe in my mid-twenties.

My best friend freshman year was named Alison (also with one L) and so that song was played incessantly. She was bubbly and adorable and it seemed like everywhere she went guys would sing that refrain.

I was too cool for my favorite song to be Alison, of course. When the audience was yelling for him to play "Alison" I was calling for "Riot Act" or some such thing. It is so overplayed (and then Linda Rondstadt had to go and record it, thereby destroying the song for every EC fan) that we forget what a wonderful, sad, angry portrait it is of the way life takes its toll on what we love and how hard it is to let go of the things we love, or once loved.

oh alison my alison

The one Alison cannot exist without the other: the Alison that the world is killing (and, not for nothing, the one that we can truly love) and the imaginary goddess of adorability, bringer of sweetness and light, a lovely flaxen-haired maiden who arrives still trailing childhood's clouds of glory.

So my point is that we may know that she doesn't exist but it is so much more fun to pretend that she does. We need the laughter, for one. And the more the image is pushed to its most saccharine extreme the more enchanted we become.

And that's entertainment.

It's just a tv show after all, but with enough creative use of photoshop, hilarious employment of screen caps, and some highbrow intellectualizing it can almost become art. Almost.



Victorian and Edwardian photographs

Sherman Hines Photography Museum: Adams Family Album

Alison Kelly - Dahl Clothes

I'll provide more references soon . . .