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—Yves Saint Laurent
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Backtrack: Perfume Notes: Rochas Moustache, Lookbook: Purple Haze, Beauty Notes: Fuss Free, Perfume Notes: Chanel Pour Monsieur, The Beauty Primer: Blush & Bronzer, Fashion Notes: Affordable Shoes, Perfume Notes: Aramis, Lookbook: Green With Envy, Beauty Notes: A Manifesto Against Clé de Peau
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I don't like lipgloss. I'm not sure why; I just know I felt too old for it even as a teenager, and although I've owned a number of glosses over the years, I've never been as excited over gloss as I get over lipstick. (Granted, I get very excited over lipstick. It's a thing.) Gloss is sticky or slippery, it encourages lipstick to slide off (and much as I love lipstick, I am lazy about reapplying); it feels too thick, too "done". And I think my face looks washed out without some pigment on the lips, which is probably part of why I've never taken to nude lipsticks.
But inspired by this post, I feel obliged to try any Chanel colour called Coromandel, and swatches of Chanel's Rouge Allure Laque in that shade piqued my interest even more. And I have to say, although I'd normally feel absurd shelling out this much for a lipstick, the Rouge Allure Laques are a gorgeous product. Coromandel is a blood red on me, which means it would probably lean orange on anyone else. It's a beautiful shade, but it's the consistency that makes this special. The Rouge Allure Laques are really liquid lipsticks, not glosses; they have intense, concentrated pigment, made even more dramatic by the glossy finish.
This is a thoughtfully designed product, with the usual glossy black Chanel packaging. The doe's-foot applicator is slightly concave at the top, to ease application; the colour stays true; it stays on beautifully, it does not bleed (unless I blot, then it bleeds for some reason), it feels light and balmlike and lovely. This is head and shoulders above any other gloss or liquid lipstick I've tried.
Labels: beauty notes, chanel
12/05/2009 [0]
When it came to Best in Show, I had difficulty this round deciding between two equally worthy shows. Both Isabel Marant and Miu Miu came up with collections that made me stop and look again and again. Ultimately, Isabel Marant won out with a factor that Miu Miu simply didn't bring: the clothes looked wearable. In fact, they looked like they had been worn as they came down the runway, and that is exactly what I want right now. I want to see women wearing clothes that look like they've been worn and loved, not clothes that look like museum pieces to be worn gently or in outfits that look like something that came from a magazine. As much as I love fashion, I am tired of the current phase of dressing in editorial styling. I am all for aspirational dressing - I will never be won over by the likes of Celine or Ralph Lauren - but I am so tired of everyone copping the same look and same attitude to pronounce themselves "individuals." You know what happens when everyone, individual and corporation alike, adopts anti-establishmentarianism? Hot Topic. We are living in an Alexander Wang/Rick Owens/model streetstyle of a Hot Topic moment. Now onto some real clothes.
The Isabel Marant show managed to achieve something very difficult; that is, present very wearable clothes that, when put together, look cool. This is something that fashion largely strives for and that, at the moment, is failing to do. There's a lot of cool clothing out there, and there are some wearable clothes, but rarely do the two meet. This is an example of that meeting. There's nothing very special about the clothes themselves: they're just a mismatched blouse and skirt, an oversized blazer, a belt, a pouch, and boots. It's the fact that they're all roughly within the same color palette, paired with a very slim foundational silhouette, that allows such experimentation with proportion, texture, and assumption (rough with soft, masculine with feminine) to succeed. Plus, the clothes are fundamentally cool. Though impossible to wear, there's nothing cooler than an oversized men's style blazer, or studded ankle boots, or a skinny belt encircling Erin Wasson's waist, or, when it comes down to it, Erin Wasson.
One of the particular successes of this collection was Marant's ability to adopt the best of Paris's fashion-forward designs and translate them in an arguably more tolerable, and certainly more wearable, style. Take the overemphasized shoulder. Marant's placed it on a tweed Chanel-style jacket and paired it with clothing that is neither couture nor immediately identifiable - that is, she made it normal. This is a definite look, but without the excesses and vulgarity that define the work of other designers. It may not be for everyone, but this jacket could realistically be worn through your day-to-day activities. Marant also successfully interpreted the 80s-inspired floral dress so strongly represented in the fall collections (top picture), as well as 80s inspiration overall.
In addition to interpreting fashion for the masses, Marant also took on the trends that would be heavily adopted by streetstylists both in pre-fall and fall, one such trend being leopard print. Leopard print's slowly built up to being everywhere, including Marant's leopard print coats, but I prefer this print skirt. Given how it hugs the body and its neutral print, it both punctuates the oufit while staying in the background of what is an all-black outfit. This is a print that couldn't be seen as ostentatious, matronly, or vintage. It is a very clever way of appropriating a trend to make it wearable and cool. Other trends Marant adopted included studding, leather, knee-high boots, and fur.
I think at least part of Marant's success comes from her basically telling the audience how to wear her clothes in a very realistic manner. Walk away from this show and you know what to pair each item with, and half of those items will come out of the clothes you already own. There are no unrealistic couture embellishments here. It's just a tank top with skinny jeans and a coat, and if you provide the tank top and skinny jeans, Isabel Marant will provide you with the coat. Perhaps a bra is in order, but it seems to me this is a much surer sell than a higher-end designer cutting the perfectly fitted jacket that ultimately, realistically only goes with the rest of that designer's perfectly cut collection.
Overall, I have to say this is my favorite look. It has everything I love: a well-fitted dress, visual depth, eccentricity, and a bit of not really caring about it all. It's that last bit that gives attitude and what we call "cool" to things and to people, and it's that identifiable, personal cool that sold me on this show.
Labels: fashion notes, isabel marant
12/03/2009 [1]
There's a certain perversity to the premise of this music video, and yet, it doesn't come off as sick or twisted at all. The me´lee going on around the ring takes on a carnival quality, where participants are totally free to cast off the assumed everyday mantle of "good behavior"—for how many times do we stifle our natural aggressive impulses for the sake of keeping the peace? Peace is valuable, and manners exist for a very significant reason. But sometimes one just wants to forget all about rules, do as one pleases and damn the consequences.
It's this shock value that makes the video so successful as a work of video art, the medium in which audio and visuals mesh—often the more startlingly, the better. Not simply content to convey the joie de vivre of the song, the video breaks with the conventional concept of joy as well-groomed cheerfulness, instead taking on a quality of riotous bedlam glee—a sense of unadulterated liberty, perhaps more in keeping with the song's exhortations to throw off meanness and regret and live a more vital and genuine life.
It is perhaps counterintuitive that such a depiction of people beating the life out of each other can seem so wholesome, and yet, on further consideration, there is no other way to do it: it is this all-stoppers-pulled quality of the video that keeps it lighthearted, floating just beyond the reach of gravity. Just the thing to cheer one up when one is stewing in emotions so complex and vague that one does not even know how to let them out.
Labels: culture notes, jaurim, music
11/29/2009 [0]
My style generally veers in one of two directions. There is the lifelong affinity for Gothic touches, including lots of black, dramatic necklines, and a general dourness that warms my heart to depths unknown. Then there is the more universally appealing "conservative" look, in which the word "conservative" means "conservative for me." Its fundamentals revolve around true fashion fundamentals, those basic trousers, jackets, and shoes around which anyone can create a very distinctive style. This look evolves more consistently than the Gothic look and currently involves a mix of bright colors, visual depth, and well-fitted blazers and Keds. At the moment, "conservative" for me means something akin to a Scandinavian who's recently discovered vintage 70s Jamaican fashion and Balenciaga's Fall/Winter 2007/2008 show.
Given these somewhat disparate styles - which are not really so disparate when taking into the account of my own very consistent, somewhat eclectic method of putting things together - it can be very difficult to find a bag that accomodates both directions of my wardrobe. In the past, I've typically gone with bags I like and just put them with anything, regardless of whether or not they work with that day's style. I am somewhat pickier now about how I present myself. I am still not going to change out my bag any more than I absolutely have to, but I would prefer to go with a bag that compliments both directions of my style. That said, I have found a bag that very nearly meets that task, that being Louis Vuitton's SC Bag in calf leather.
Designed by Sofia Coppola in conjunction with Louis Vuitton, and at no less than $3,730.00, the SC Bag fits the criteria I set out for in a bag: a basic design that can rest in the background without calling attention to itself, that will not date itself now or in five years, and that, most importantly, has personality. The design is very basic indeed; there is none of the typical Louis Vuitton monogramming, overt branding, or overdesigning going on here. Simply put, had the LV PR machine not churned out its usual shill marketing this bag, a shopper could easily assume it came from one of the many anonymous, very good leather goods shops in Italy. Given the bag's very basic design, it has the ability to assume a good amount of personality depending upon what it's paired with. As seen in the top picture, the bag can go very casual, slung over the shoulder and slouched at the hip. As seen in the above picture, it can also go very expensive when paired with luxe clothing. This is a bag I can easily see slung over my own shoulder when worn with a shrunken leather jacket and Keds or simply handheld when worn with a shift and blazer.
While the SC is beautiful and nearly perfectly fits my criteria, I will not be buying it, though I would be happy to buy something similar. I do not have the budget to buy a nearly $4,000.00 handbag. Even if I did, I don't know that I'd invest in it. I am somewhat opposed to the vulgarity of Louis Vuitton's products, and I am very much opposed to the way in which the company markets the bag on its website. As seen above, the bag is airbrushed. I'm aware that airbrushing is a given in all mass media, including advertising, but the degree to which this bag - a handbag - is airbrushed is ridiculous. All the personality has been taken out of it, so much so that I would say the picture above makes this bag look ugly. It is only in the pictures with Coppola herself, as worn with real clothes and set in real life, that that bag takes on personality and dimension. That's where it's compelling, not in a sterile studio in front of green screen, airbrushed within an inch of its life. It may seem an odd thing to rage about the airbrushing of a luxury handbag, but there aren't that many things of beauty that I am so compelled by as to really take notice of them, and I take great exception to them being dummied down to a palatable, mediocre, middle-of-the-road, mass market level.
For more desirable looks at this bag, as well as the rest of the collection, check out ILVOELV, the irony of this post being that this site is titled "I Love LV."
Labels: fashion notes, louis vuitton, sofia coppola
11/24/2009 [3]
My family was an immigrant family, and consequentially, we marked such holidays as Thanksgiving or Christmas with minimal ceremony, if any, at the same time we had little occasion to celebrate Korean holidays, cut off from the "Motherland" as we were.
Which is a rambling way to say that turkey and gatherings, the traditional accoutrements associated with the winter holidays, were for me supplanted by TV marathons, there being little else to do on long stretches of blank days off. Therefore, most holidays are, to me, associated with one television series or another, especially since I rarely watch TV otherwise.
Thanksgiving: Hourglass
Probably every Korean over a certain age has seen Hourglass: indeed, such was it's popularity that, for the first time in possibly the history of urban life, people were hightailing it to home as soon as work let out just to catch the latest episode (it can be said that Hourglass nearly ruined pubs nationwide).
The storyline follows the lives of three young people from their youth in the late seventies and early eighties—at the height of a military dictatorship and a large-scale, mostly student-led countermovement, all the more furious for the persecution it suffered—to middle age in the turmoil of modernization, globalization, and political restructuring of the early nineties. Go Hyun-Jung's feisty revolutionary—later doing a complete about-face to follow in her father's footsteps as a casino mogul—is arguably the show's center, around whom the three main male characters seem to orbit. (On a totally unrelated note, I was often compared to Go Hyun-Jung's character when I was a little girl, both in terms of looks and personality.)
The trajectory of their lives shadow the history of Korea itself, coming to maturity as Korea "grows up" and develops its presence in the modern world. As such, Hourglass was the first network television show to directly deal with politically loaded topics such as the Gwangju massacre, kidnappings and torturing of dissidents, suppression of free speech and press, and other abuses of civil rights that the then-government would have swept under the rug. Such a history makes ripe fodder for melodrama, but Hourglass is the first of its kind to combine socially relevant criticism and much-needed reflection with good storytelling—following the success of Hourglass, 7080 history has been downgraded to cliché in Korean drama, which attests to the lasting influence of this show. Which brings me to...
Summer Vacation: Friend, Our Legend
Americans are said to "root for the underdog"; in contrast, Koreans are underdogs. Maybe this is why Friend, Our Legend, the "hero" of which is an underdog like no other, feels so quintessentially Korean to me. Based on Friend, a hugely popular movie from the nineties, it follows Han Dongsoo from boyhood, as he comes of age under the stunting influences of prejudice, poverty, and the distant threat of political corruption and turmoil looming like a thunderhead in the background, to adulthood. His only comfort in such a bleak world is his best friend Joonsuk, and it is the vagaries and complexities of their relationship that the show focuses on. Ironically, Dongsoo's friends are no help to him, even proving to be a destabilizing influence in his life. It's a true tragedy that Dongsoo is helped on his way to a painful death by the strife of his relationship with his closest friend. There is no help or consolation in Dongsoo's life, whos as "unlucky a bastard" as they come.
Train Scene
Dongsoo: In the movies, they just jump straight down onto trains, from this height, you know?
Joongho: Yeah, but that's movies. You try that in real life, and you're gone, just like *that*.
Dongsoo: Would someone really die?
Joonsuk: [spits] Oh I dunno. Just the unlucky bastards.
Dongsoo: Unlucky bastards? Why, then I guess I'd die.
Joonsuk: You're not gonna die.
Dongsoo: Wanna bet?
Timeline and theme-wise, Friend follows in the footsteps of Hourglass, but it is more than just an Hourglass clone, for while Hourglass dealt mainly with the effects of large-scale historical movements on individuals, Friend focuses on the interplay of human relations within a certain historical context. This makes the latter series a more complex variation on the same theme, which is befitting, considering that the time gap between the the two series is 15 years.
Spring Break: Neon Genesis Evangelion
How's a little bit of psychobabble, scattered with references to the Bible as well as to obscure biology?
Neon Genesis Evangelion is most often seen through a lens of psychology, and yes, such a dysfunctional cast and a background so obviously Freudian, with religious overtones, = in its set-up (giant robots called "Eva", referred to with feminine pronouns, who house child pilots encased in phallic pods, and which go berserk in moments when the safety of their "children" is threatened, usually by equally monstrous "Angels"... and a Saturnian father figure seeming to control the strings in the background) make fertile ground indeed for shrinks to play in.
However, I personally like to interpret the themes of Evangelion from a biological angle. (Typical med student...) At the beginning, the angels are seen as heavenly destroyers, immortal and almost divine in their capacity for destruction, or alternately, lean and flawless fighting machines not too different from the robotic Evas. Slowly however, it is revealed that both the Angels and the Evas are not only mortal, but very much flesh-and-blood beings, not too different from humans themselves. Their final goal is survival, pure and simple, which in Evangelion is abstracted and conceptualized as "Instrumentality," a beatific state reserved for one species alone... correlating to the biological principle that the equilibrium between species sharing an ecological niche is unstable, that one must drive all the others to extinction in order to survive. Similarly, the angels and the human race are all competitors in the race to achieve instrumentality, which means eternal survival, which is only a step away from immortality.
The beauty of the biological view is that despite being a scientific concept, it meshes seamlessly with the psychological and religious themes of NGE: the garden of Eden, the trees of knowledge and life, salvation, separation from the mother figure and the lifelong yearning to reunite with some higher meaning.
Of course, my interpretation is only one of many. But that's why I like Evangelion so much: it offers a potent brain kick, and every time I watch it again I get something new out of it.
Childhood: The Magic School Bus
And lastly, my fondness for this one reveals all too clearly the fact that I am a child of the nineties. As may be inferred from my description of Evangelion above, I am a dyed-in-the-wool nerd. When I was little, I used to dream—both literally and figuratively—about being in Miss Frizzle's class, sharing sandwiches with dorky Arnold, trading lame jokes with Carlos, going head-to-head with resident bookie Dorothy, and in general, exploring the wonderful world of science with the rest of the gang. Explorations such as these:
How appetizing.
Labels: 7080, culture notes, go hyun-jung, neon genesis evangelion, the magic school bus
11/22/2009 [0]
This particular group post has been difficult for me to write because there have been so many shows that I really, really love. I struggled with narrowing the field until I started thinking about what type of shows I love. Current favorites include Dog the Bounty Hunter, Food Network Challenge and, as always, America's Next Top Model (I was on both Team Nicole and Team Laura). It cannot be said that my taste in television, or in much of anything, is classically "good." Rather than suffer the readers through the parade of eccentricity and manic energy I regularly flip to, I've chosen to highlight five shows that fall somewhere between "good" and "moderately okay."
MORAL OREL
This show is not for everyone. A tough opening sell, to be sure, but broad audience appeal does not come to mind when talking about Moral Orel. Set in Moralton, the "exact center" of the United States, Moral Orel follows the adventures of Orel Puppington as he navigates the world of conservative Christianity, slowly learning what being a Christian, and an adult, is all about. The show's main thematic content concerns the hypocrisy, religious and secular fundamentalism, and misuse and abuse of dogma ingrained in American culture. Satire and earnest questioning aside, the beating heart of the show is the raw emotion lurking beneath Moralton's actions, and it is raw stuff, indeed. I have very rarely seen the level of emotional depth and honesty displayed on Moral Orel, both in real life and in broadcast television. Moral Orel uses the mechanism of humor to guide viewers to and through the fundamental, emotional truths of the show, going deeper and darker with each successive season. It is this quality of the show that makes Moral Orel an engaging experience. In fact, the first time I watched the show, I was so disturbed, confused, and invested in what happened next that I immediately Googled it and learned as much as I could. It is really an exceptional show, both in quality and content. Don't be surprised if you finish an episode much quieter, more thoughtful, and more introverted than when you started it. I highly recommend it, but I'll say it again - this kind of content isn't for everyone.
LOVESPRING INTERNATIONAL
I am possibly the only person in this country who's ever seen this show, and I know I'm the only person who's watched every episode. Lovespring International takes place at a dating agency, following the disastrous attempts of the employees to keep the company, and their own lives, afloat. It's one of the many improv shows that have popped up, and this is possibly why I like this show so well. The actors are given the ability to take their characters' foibles and pathos to dire, extreme levels, as well the room to display genuine chemistry, no matter how poisonous or unhealthy. As a result, the show has an energy and immediateness that heavily scripted shows rarely have, and the actors have the room to more fully and deeply explore their characters' flaws than is the norm. The show is hilarious. It is also, sadly, cancelled, but videos can be found at Lifetime.
QVC
QVC beauty presentations are some of my favorite shows to watch. This stems from the days when I only had basic cable and my viewing choices were QVC, the TV Guide channel, and both Catholic and Baptist programming. The clear choice was QVC. It was a dark seven years.
QVC offers presentations on an extensive selection of high-end beauty brands, including Oscar Blandi, YSL, Philosophy, Smashbox, and most recently, NARS. Presentations generally last between one and three hours and give ample opportunity to get a good idea of a line's general range of products, as well as the chance to see items from brands that do not have widespread distribution (Lucy B., Dalton, Darac, etc.) Obviously, testing products yourself is the best way to go. Television simply cannot account for differences in skin tone, texture, and particular sensitivities. However, I find there is nothing more relaxing than sitting back and listening to the drone of hosts and pr reps shilling products while watching women apply eyeliner and look pretty. QVC beauty presentations don't require thought, interaction, or action of any kind, and really, sometimes that's what you need. At the end of a long day - and I have had many long, hard days recently - sometimes all you want is to hear the warm tone of the television, see pretty pictures, and zone out, and this provides the perfect opportunity to do just that.
RENO 911!
Reno 911! is easily one of my favorite shows of all time. Set in Reno, Nevada, the mock-documentary follows Reno's finest as they fumble every investigation, routine task, and breath they engage in. There are so many, many reasons I love this show, the first and foremost being it's cinematography. Joe Kessler films "Reno" (really, Los Angeles Metro) crisply, throwing all the things I love most about the West into the forefront - the expansive skies that go on forever, the space, the flatness. I am also quite fond of how the show's "boobery" (Dangle's quote, not mine), both intentional and otherwise. There are a lot of mistakes that happen on camera. The actors laugh and break character, and I like that those parts are left in. The show already has an intentionally informal feel, and these mistakes only add to that, leaving the viewer feeling part of a loose gathering of people bumbling along and having a great time. Parodoxically, the best thing about the show is the actors' commitment to character. I have never seen actors more committed to their characters, even keeping in mind the greats (De Niro, Blanchett, etc.) Unlike in scripted shows, in which character arcs are precisely prescribed and circumstances are specifically situational, Reno 911! throws its actors and their characters into a variety of situations and leaves them to their devices. Rather than filling in blanks with contrived dialogue, situations, and storylines we've all grown to loathe, the actors fill them with the characters themselves in all their flaws and frailties. The characters may not be deep, but we get to know them as regular people, just as we'd know our coworkers and friends. Travis Bickle may bring you glory, but I've learned more about acting from this show than I have anywhere else.
THE COSBY SHOW
No matter what else is on TV, I will almost always choose an episode of The Cosby Show over the other offerings. The Cosby Show provides some great memories (25 years of them), and the show is such a part of the American vernacular and cultural history that it's ageless. Yes, it clearly takes place in the 80s, but the specifics of the show are timeless events that happen to individuals and families every day, and I find it incredibly comforting to watch a show in which people like each other, treat each other more or less well, and in which everything is stable and going to be okay. So much of television currently relies on shock value, unstable relationships and settings, and the fear of things quickly falling apart that it's nice to watch something that will not stress me out, worry me, or overly tax my adrenal glands.
Beyond acting as a virtual security blanket, The Cosby Show is really, really funny. I take genuine enjoyment out of seeing Cliff laugh at his kids, Vanessa snoop around, and everything Cockroach. There is nothing harsh about the show or its humor, and while critics have consistently cited this as unrealistic, I would point to it as a truism: comedy doesn't have to be cynical, edgy, or angry to be funny. It has to be true, and there's as much truth to be found in a family - the foundational relationship in most people's lives - as there is in pathos and insecurity. In fact, there's more truth (and comedy) observed in The Cosby Show than in the million iterations of hip cynicism, glib soundbites, and personal insecurity masked as worldweariness that generally make up Comedy Central. The truth is that where there are five kids, there is chaos, misunderstanding, and frustration, and this is the stuff of comedy - pathos. The Cosby Show explores it well through the relationships between functionally healthy adults and children, and it's this point that separates this show from the examples above. As with life, so as in television, where is something completely stabilizing and calming about being in the company of capable people. So I turn on The Cosby Show for a good laugh and for enjoyment, and I turn it on so I can see the examples of solid, grounded people that can seem so rare to find in real life.
Labels: culture notes, lovespring international, moral orel, qvc, reno 911, the cosby show
11/21/2009 [2]
Like Dain, I don't own a television; I watch TV on my computer, mostly through streaming video. Honestly, I don't miss having a TV except on very rare occasions; while it's nice to be able to see every tiny detail of a shot, it doesn't feel necessary with most shows, and streaming video has improved greatly in the last few years.
It's a cliché to say this, but I love The Wire. It's the most engrossing, painful show I've ever watched. It's rightly compared to a novel in which each season is a chapter; the stories are nominally separate, but they build on and enrich each other. It rewards multiple viewings; I re-watched the second season, set at the Baltimore docks, after moving to Halifax, and being able to look out my window and see Halifax Harbour enriched the experience. The show goes a bit off the rails in the truncated fifth season, but the first four seasons are gorgeous, complex, beautifully written and acted, worthy of all the hype.
Breaking Bad helps with my Wire withdrawal. Where The Wire is largely about entrenched drug empires, Breaking Bad is about the process of forming a drug empire, and about the slow, fascinating descent of an initially innocuous-seeming Walter White (Bryan Cranston). One begins the show sympathizing with Walter, and by the end of the second season one is horrified by him, wondering whether this monstrous human being was created by circumstance, or merely revealed by it. Besides The Wire, few other shows have haunted me so much, or for so long.
The third season of Mad Men recently wrapped up, leaving me bereft. Mad Men isn't a perfect show -- it tends to be a little on the nose -- but you can't beat the visuals: the sets, the costumes, the makeup. Mad Men portrays a pre-feminist reality in which sexual harassment, unequal pay, philandering husbands and a hundred other little indignities are widely tolerated. This gives it an unsavoury appeal to a certain number of people; however, at bottom I believe it's a deeply feminist show. I have a seemingly unpopular affection for Betty Draper, pictured here; she's truly awful on a number of levels, but the writing and January Jones' acting combine to create a sense of a woman who was groomed from babyhood to be a dependent housewife and mother, and who is heartbreakingly ill-suited for that role.
And while I love a whole lot of half-hour comedies -- Clone High, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, the British and American versions of The Office, Futurama, and the first several seasons of Roseanne, just for starters -- I can't finish this post without a shout-out to the Halifax-made Trailer Park Boys. This show takes several episodes to warm up to, but after that, it's hilarious: the skeezy ingenuity of the leads, the absurd situations, the parodic yet still oddly effective sweetness. I try to watch the Christmas special every year.
Labels: breaking bad, culture notes, mad men, the wire, trailer park boys
11/21/2009 [0]
People, when they come to visit my yet unfurnished apartment demand how I can "live" without TV. Well, I watch everything on Youtube, mostly, classic films. Who needs a real TV any more? The only aspect of regular programming that is absent is the compulsion to watch all the time. But it limits my selection somewhat, so this is a pretty predictable list.
Daria (I totally remember this issue of Seventeen.)
Six Feet Under
Samurai Champloo
Freaks and Geeks
Blackadder
South Park
Labels: blackadder, culture notes, daria, freaks and geeks, samurai champloo, six feet under, south park, the boondocks
11/21/2009 [3]
Mark Shaw, early black & white studio outtakes (1950s).
Luca Turin once remarked (via Chandler Burr) that masculine perfumery is defined negatively, marked not by what is, but what is not, the absence of "feminine" notes like florals. Vetivers, lavenders, woods, and hesperides often exhibit masculine intentions and proclivities, but are so frequently appropriated by women that distinctions soon blur: Elle MacPherson is loyal to Guerlain Vetiver, Oprah Winfrey's lent her advocacy to Eau d'Hadrien, and Jicky claims everyone from Colette to Sean Connery*. Extremely dry woods are more clearly gendered, but even then there is no true prohibition; on a woman of sufficient self-assurance, Comme de Garçons Hinoki is a playful bid at androgyny, much like the leather garçonne scents of the flapper generation. Only that "sporty" fougère accord, most rarefied in Cool Water but extant in most masculines at varying dosages, is distinctively, exclusively male; alas that ubiquity has simultaneously reinforced and vulgarized the one olfactory claim to masculine identity. By contrast, women can switch at whim between personalities as disparate as A La Nuit or Tabac Blond or Idylle or Organza Indécence or Vent Vert; it hardly seems fair.
Thankfully, there's Pour Monsieur. That glitter of lemon and petitgrain, more pointedly sustained than in most chypres, initially suggests an eau de cologne, but once the hesperides burn off, the composition is the height of subdued elegance, even if, like a bespoke Savile-Row suit, it's the product of meticulous, neurotic, and laborious refinement. And like the finest menswear, all its complexity is trained to such subtlety, a balancing act of extreme difficulty, that it verges on bland: the aldehydes lend the citrus notes loft but don't dominate as they do in Chanel's feminines, the dry, herbaceous spice of cardamom (which picks up where lemon left off) and coriander is countered by a fresh, dewy carnation (which continues the powdery theme of the aldehydes), and the oakmoss, tempered by the resinous sweetness of amber and labdanum, lacks the animalic languor of Coty's Chypre, in spite of the comparisons. To noses trained on ultraviolence—or feminines—Pour Monsieur may come across as positively soulless. On a woman's skin, in fact, it is more likely incite boredom than dissonance; as if, after so many trials of patience and mortification, the conservative Austenian heroine of YSL Y has finally found her perfect and eligible match in Pour Monsieur. There's nothing assertive, as might be expected from such an arch-masculine, about the composition; even the opening, for all its brilliance, is assiduously traditional. It is this very absence of histrionics, however, that makes Pour Monsieur a classic among masculines, the paramount example of negative space in perfumery. Let us face it, when a man walks out in a ridiculous, flashy get-up, whether it's a canary-yellow zootsuit from 1939 or jeans six-sizes too large pulled low over boxers from 1996, we laugh at him for his immature bid for attention—it seems desperate, somehow. Whereas, provided he has the charisma for it, a sober, perfectly cut suit, thoughtlessly rumpled by the end of the day, is madly sexy. Indeed, if masculine perfumery truly is defined negatively, there's nothing more aristocratic, or virile, than a clean, blank slate. After all, is that not the fundamental thrust of every feminist argument, to lodge a complaint against the infinite potentiality of the DWM, who can play every role, any role, and is limited only by ability?
OTHER REVIEWS
Pere de Pierre (Dane)
Pere de Pierre (Thomas)
Basenotes
Makeupalley
Fragrantica
* See the perfumeshrine list for verification.
Labels: cary grant, chanel, chypre, henri robert, mark shaw, perfume notes
11/07/2009 [2]
Sometimes, I harbor these fantasies about being low maintenance. I am anything but.
Since the age of thirteen, makeup has been my primary recreational pursuit, and I have paid it an obsessive, curatorial attention more commonly seen among lepidopterists. I'm not crazy, I don't buy simply to satisfy nesting instincts, as some do. Still, I have far more product than I can readily consume. At the same time, I find myself haunted by an alternate personality, whose life, I imagine, is simpler, and therefore more immediately connected to "what matters", than mine. She uses just soap, mascara, and Smith's Rosebud Salve, down to the last dab. She owns eyeshadow and lipstick, deployed for a kind of clumsy glamour on evenings out, but they've developed that neglected, crusty look that hangs around unloved makeup. She probably wears Premier Figuier. This alter ego doesn't lack taste, you see, she just doesn't care.
Whereas I care too much. I am so terribly, terribly picky. To appease my alter ego, the best I can scrounge up is minimalism, which in truth has nothing whatever to do with being laidback, but is yet another escalation of the obsessive-compulsive behavior that typifies the beauty junkie. I do actually wash my face with soap, but it's artisanal Rhassoul soap from Daybreak Lavender Farms: $50 for a year's supply, from an organic company no one's ever heard of (ultra niche cache), with 1.5 ounces of precious, mineral-rich Rhassoul clay and 33% skin-pampering shea butter, fragranced with vetiver and mandarin. You may well inquire, at this point, why must it be so complicated. And I might retort that, for once, the stuff actually works, imparting a radiance to my skin unlike any product yet encountered, but I'd be missing the forest. The spirit of the objection isn't that I obsess over soap, it's that I obsess in such a highly detailed, complex fashion over... everything I own.
Somehow, this culture of taste, which this blog so amply documents, hits some queer intersection between an abiding interest in aesthetics and my own personal weaknesses as a neurotic control freak. Writing has always refined my intellectual analyses, but it also seems to feed some unhealthy emotional habits. Eyeshadow is manipulable—life is not—one serves as a refuge from the other. This is further complicated by the fact that, on the one hand, I'm absolutely aware of my own evasions, and on the other hand, I simultaneously embrace my own insanities as my own (whilst sneering at others who are less refined and/or incapable by virtue of mind or spirit to embrace their personal insanities) and harbor a guilty suspicion that if I cared less I'd be more in tune with the aforementioned "what matters", the quintessence of life or some shit like that. Minimalism embraces all these complications. It has nothing whatsoever to do with buying less; it may encourage you to buy more. It imposes deliberate and conscious restrictions on one very small and very concrete aspect of your life to fabricate the peace of mind which is almost impossible to acquire if you've got any realistic understanding of yourself, life, and humanity. It also lends immense gravitas to your power of choice—the critic who says no is more reliable than the enthusiast who says yes—which is why all cultures of taste, no matter their peculiar idiom, are so elitist by nature. Taste seeks to set itself apart.
Me, I do yearn for an alternative to making a choice between the brainlessness of popular culture and the delusional pretensions of critique. That alter ego, a kind of noble savage, has no idea that Mitsouko signifies "wit" and "chic" but loves it for how it smells. She has an instinctive attraction to all that is good; it doesn't work that way in our lapsidarian (ultimate choice) reality, does it? After all, she would be wholly ignorant of how the peachy lactone suffuses that muttering, earth-bound, vegetal-rot must of oakmoss with the light of unfailing serenity. And I would rather know how my products tick, why they light that fire in my mind. There's something oddly hopeful in the assurance that there are other obsessives out there, obsessives who cared enough to create products with so many complicated parts.
* Men strive to choose the best variety of women, women choose the men who strive best and most variously. Still, a very, very broad generalization.
Labels: beauty notes, christian louboutin, daybreak lavender farms, guerlain, l'artisan parfumeur, shu uemura, smith's rosebud company
11/02/2009 [0]
SNIFFING
Since I've moved to Korea, which is not exactly scentless, but lacking in olfactory variety, I've become a serial monogamist. While I miss the deeply discounted online vendors and ready samples of the latest niche, the upside has been that I actually use up juice. Lately, I've grown attached to, of all things, Miller Harris L'Air de Rien. It's so skanky for the first few minutes, especially if sprayed, but the drydown radiates warmth—more comforting than outré—the way it lingers on fabrics (for days afterwards) is nothing short of amazing. Musks are popular in Korea, but they're clean, rather soapy, optimistic pink musks, like Guerlain Idylle. By contrast, L'Air de Rien is an animal. If you've ever wondered what Guerlain's priceless and impossibly rare Djedi is like, L'Air de Rien, if rather more modern than baroque, has some of the same spirit.
EATING
READING
Much of the reading I do nowadays is spent revisiting books I myself read in middle or high school. There's almost always a shift in perceptions. Currently: Great Expectations. For such a dank, melancholic book, as I remember it, it is infused with so much humor, and I find myself, almost surprised, laughing out loud. The character of Estella, like so many of Dickens' characters, has always annoyed me because of the lack of dimension, and it's impossible not to wonder at Pip, who knows his love is hopeless, and yet hopes to love anyway. Would any man today be so pathetic?
In competition between women, passive-aggressive bitchiness is perhaps the foremost realm for working out antagonisms, but it's followed closely by the dynamics of taste. We measure each other by how another woman dresses:Gender relations have some oblique influence—commentaries on taste are often thoroughly confused with behaviors regarding the other sex—but as the platitude goes, women really dress to impress other women. Traditionally, and it is still mostly this way, the power that women wield, before it becomes fueled into motherhood, has been the power of choice. The most powerful, most eligible women, the princesses, enjoy the best and widest variety of choice. The man who is thus chosen is elevated to the status of a king among men; the premise of all courtly romances, to win the favor of a beautiful lady. And it would not be inaccurate to assert here, that Pip aspires to greater and greater heights of approval, the more impossible, the better.
WATCHING
DAUBING
I like to scoff at eye creams—an anti-aging scam, and Shiseido Future Solution ($125) is pretty much one of the ripest—but I get so very dry, and this is positively luxuriant. When winter hits, it's difficult to source moisturizers to my cause. So I ignore the copy; it's almost phenomenally absurd.
LISTENING
WEARING
WISHLIST
I've got a running list of desirables:
- powder blue cashmere turtleneck
- It's the time of year for serious, heavy-duty skincare, and I'm thinking of Embryolisse Lait-Créme Concentré, Decléor Cleansing Milk, and for serious emergencies, Daybreak Lavender Farms Healing Essence
- a dildo would be nice, in lieu of a boyfriend (perhaps I shouldn't think of a boyfriend as a ready supply of sex, however)
- MAC Trax and Stila Oasis: plum and gold are shades I've yet to embrace, because of their warmth
- functional shoes, for the bitter cold—O, how I abhor functional shoes!
- Tauer L'Air du Désert Marocain has been on my wishlist forever
Labels: aesop, alfred hitchcock, charles dickens, consumer diaries, ingrid bergman, miller harris, ormonde jayne, serge lutens, shiseido, stealers wheel
10/31/2009 [2]
Scarlett Johansson at The Other Boleyn Girl premiere in Berlin,
rather washed out by flash photography, but no less gorgeous.
To untutored but curious tastes, colorful eyeshadow is perhaps the most appealing, and perhaps the most intimidating, of makeup. A hundred blogs, therefore, and twice as many vlogs, cater to this most entertaining of themes, but these tutorials, in all their abundance, have always felt insufficient to me. Many rankle as nothing more than outrageous vanity, with an impervious shellac of ignorance within and without—these are too easy to find. A handful, such as Temptalia and Michelle Phan, display an admirable knowledge and creativity both, and are well worth attention.
Familiarity with eyeshadow is instructive to some degree, but I prefer to know why, rather than how, which is largely a matter of practice. Eye makeup is by nature highly individualized, determined by the idiosyncrasies of the human face well beyond eye color: the techniques employed for dark, intense brown eyes, symmetrical and almond-shaped, with insubstantial single lids (my eyes, in other words) are entirely different from big, blue, drooping eyes with a curtain of lashes. And yet, these techniques, once you've identified the ones that flatter best, won't vary overmuch according to color, regardless of how vibrant, or various, the pigments used. A smoky eye based around greens demands the same techniques as tawny, golden browns. The shock of ultraviolet, restricted to the lashline, demands no difference in execution from an electric blue. A wash is a wash is a wash is a wash. That said, there are some considerations specific to purples. Unlike greens, which are frequently warmish, and blues, which are almost always cool, purples hit an intermediate position caught between red and blue. This makes purple an easy entry into colorful eyes, regardless of your coloring, though it has an especial affinity for green, blue, and golden brown eyes. If you've got a clear idea of your own coloring, purples are no less useful, insofar that they can hit extremes of warm and cool, from a blue-dusted lavender to a ruddy, coppery berry (even a warm blue, by contrast, still technically registers as a cool shade). As you can see in the images below selected for this Lookbook, the lipcolors can be anything from peachy nudes to rich berries, a clear signification of purple's maverick status.
- If you're still shy about color, the most effortless option is a wash of a pastel, lilac or lavender. A lilac may be tinged with pink, as on the gorgeous Cintia Dicker above, or warmed with gold, such as NARS Sugarland. Pale lavenders behave sneakily like greys—essentially neutral, but that extra shot of color brightens the eye, especially if you're cool-complexioned; I am personally very fond of Chanel Lavande, though Shu Uemura ME Purple 760 is also an excellent option. Mascara alone creates a very ethereal, feminine look, but the addition of shimmered brown liners, either a bronzey gold or a richer sable, adds extra dimension. Pastel purples are especially notorious for lacking in longevity; a primer may be essential.
- Warm purples, of which the reigning iteration is plum, are less shocking on the skin and enjoy, rightly, immense popularity, none more so than MAC Trax, shot through with flecks of gold. Plum integrates well with many skin-friendly neutrals, including gold, silver, pink, and brown, and depending on how it's used, either in the crease or as a wedge or to soften a dark brown eyeliner, plum adds dimension with just a touch of impact. At its darkest, NARS Habanera is an excellent example, plum does wonderful things to green eyes as liner.
- Purple can of course make a vivid statement, unlike the slightly apologetic stance of plums and lavenders. The swath of rather bluish, ultraviolet pigment on Rihanna's eyes approaches radioactive intensity, but the rest of the face is a well judged play on nudes. As in life, daring in eyeshadows should be kept simple and finite; if you like a bold look, there is a certain temptation to pile on multiple pigments. Somehow, the play between restraint and extravagance is immensely appealing, and what makes the potency of this look so effective is its conciseness.
- If plum is much too warm for you, then violet, like Shiseido Hydro-Powder in Violet Visions, is neutrally positioned. Here, Kevyn Aucoin has pulled the pigment back as liner, with mauves on cheeks and lips for subtle reinforcement, so that his friend appears dynamic but not as if she's been assaulted by pigment—refined enough for work. If you desire a cooler iteration, try a dark, smoky lavender, like MAC Shale, as worn by Scarlett Johanssen, in the lead image above. I have also found that Strada, layered over Istanbul, both by NARS, is dazzling on cool complexions, but this combination must be replicated exactly.
- It is certainly possible to create a variant on the traditional smoky eye entirely with purples—a dark eggplant to line, a lilac on the inner half of the lid, plum or violet on the outer, depending on your coloring—but if you find yourself lured by the entire rainbow, you will be pleased to find that purple plays well with many other colors. What's shown in Look #5, from the Clarins Spring 2008 Color Fizz Collection, is only one possibility, and a fairly unusual one at that (gold is perhaps more normative); the way the two opposing pigments of marigold/pumpkin and orchid are split vertically by the eye is a rather clever treatment. But green and purple is no less viable an option, akin to an Impressionist garden, while the combination of purple with blue, or even with pink, takes on 80s overtones.
- Though not violently purple, this is an example of the smoky eye, rather heavy on contouring and Photoshopping. There is a slight tendency here, often seen with deeper purples, towards harshness, but that may just be Jessica Stam, who "somehow" always looks strung out to spite her perfect bone structure.
- Even if you have a taste for intense, saturated color, not all eyes carry eyeshadow well. Eyeliner, however, lets you circumvent that restriction: high drama in small doses. MAC Pearlglide Eye Liner in Rave is a favorite of mine, though like many new shades promoted by MAC these days, it is a limited edition. Shu Uemura Painting Liner in Purple is an electric, blue-inflected violet, and Habanera (mentioned above) is a more serious smoky plum, with silver glitter for levity.
- Here is purple styled to true exoticism, though loosely based on the standard smoky eye, though the pigments are cleanly differentiated from each other for maximum impact. A wedge of pink-toned plum, like NARS Twisted, flits back and forth between pink and plum, depending on its proximity to the chalky white (another difficult shade to pull off). It is that precise streak of black liquid liner, which ties the rather difficult elements together and prevents the look from falling apart.
As for the lips, it is largely a matter of taste. Some of these looks hew to a dogmatic instinct for nude lips to counter dramatic eyes. Others pick up on the purples tones on the lips with mauve, plum, or berry lips. But the unapologetic retro glamour of red lipstick, with the decidedly modern contrast of purple eyeshadow (since these were not pigments available during the earlier half of the 20th century), is also a canny pairing, if you've got a face that carries color well.As for blush, a rosy, cold-whipped flush is lovely against a pastel wash, but otherwise, it should be minimal against a vivid eye. Bronzer is an excellent option is the purple is stark and your coloring is warm.
10/27/2009 [2]
The everyday world itself must be shown to be subliminally spiritual. It is an old idea: The secular world is secretly full of saints who don't even know they are saints. It is they who keep God from destroying it altogether.
~Donald Kuspit, A Critical History of 20th Century Art
The God of Small Things is often compared unfavorably to works like Midnight’s Children, an unjust comparison considering that, beyond superficial qualifications (both novels about recent Indian history) the two works share about as much in common as the writers themselves (one a Keralan Christian and the other a Muslim from Mumbai by birth, in a country where regional, ethnic, and religious differences mean everything). Whereas Rushdie writes veritable tapestries on a large scale, detailing the exploits of multiple generations and entire nations in an ongoing saga, The God of Small Things is a miniature of a scene set in a specific time and place, drawn in painstaking and exquisite detail that yields gruesome facets upon closer examination.At the surface, The God of Small Things is a novel about transgressive love within a repressive society: upper-caste Indian woman falls in love with a pariah, the two embark on a torrid affair, and eventually both suffer brutal deaths as punishment for flaunting the mores of their community. The main characters are all outcasts in their own way: Ammu, who—with "the infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless rage of a suicide bomber"—defies the restrictions placed upon her as a high-caste Indian woman; the twins Estha and Rahel, born of Ammu’s “disgraceful” first marriage, like to play “perverse” word games and ask inconvenient questions as precocious children are wont to do; and Velutha, who with the native dignity of a prince totally incongruous with his status as an Untouchable, refuses to accept his inferior lot in life. Their defiance is passive, not exemplified an any outright act of rebellion: their real "crime" is that they do not conform to the demands of the larger society.
To a reader within modern Western culture, where individuality and the "pursuit of happiness" take precedence over all, it is all too easy to categorically cast the the effectors of these mores as villains, or deride the entire society for being inhumanly repressive (though it is significant to note that individual freedom and rights are a new concept even in the West). However, it is important to note that Indian society relies on its rigid class divisions to maintain order. These divisions (the "Big Things," as Roy calls them) stand in contrast to the titular "Small Things"—a ragged beggar, spiders and mice and cockroaches, misbehaving children—that represent the ambient noise of chaos that pervades even the most orderly lives below the surface. As such, an individual flouting the order of those class divisions amounts to an incarnation of that chaos, threatening to destroy the framework of the whole society.
In order to protect that society, chaos is destined for destruction: beggars meet untimely deaths, vermin are exterminated, and children are disciplined away from mischief and their small games. In that light, the punishment suffered by Ammu and Velutha may be harsh, but it is not totally arbitrary: as oppressive as their lives are—especially Velutha’s—acceptance and even approval is readily available for them if they conform to the roles they are supposed to play. As they refused to do so, their punishment is justified.
This conception of order and justice is further reinforced by the inclusion of a fragment from the Mahabharata, acted out in a traditional Kathakali dance performance transposed from the grandeur of ancient Vedic myth to the all-too prosaic squalor of modern India. Roy's version of the tale focuses not on the hero Arjuna, but his half-brother, rival and antagonist Karna. Reflecting their respective destinies within the saga, Arjuna has been secure in his princely status all throughout his life, while Karna is rejected and demoted to a lower caste simply because of his illegitimate birth. Karna's death at Arjuna's hands is considered justified, not because Karna "deserves" defeat—for Karna is kind, noble, courageous, and generous to a fault—but simply because victory cannot be legitimately his due to his position as an antagonist, at the same time that Arjuna triumphs because he is bound to, not because he merits that victory any more than his enemy does.
When the reader recognizes Roy's clear parallels between this myth and the characters of The God of Small Things, the message of the novel becomes a bit clearer. Despite their shaky place in society, Ammu, Velutha, and the twins are beautiful, full of life, and pure in their desires and motives, in contrast to the drab and bitter characters that populate the rest of their world—very much like Karna—which imbues their deaths and destruction with true pathos. And like Karna's story, Velutha's and Ammu's fate was not a case of the weak being persecuted by the strong (again, a modern Western concept of asymmetrical power relations) but a function of positions and the society they live in. It is a tragic eventuality, in the classical Greek sense of the word: an outcome brimming with sadness and regret, but logically inevitable. Ammu and Velutha's trysts—an open defiance of the "Love Laws," in Roy's highly idiosyncratic language—achive nothing but the destruction of several lives. As with all true tragedies, there is a sense of stasis... or rather, a sense of degeneration, as if nothing ever moves and nothing ever changes, but only decays and falls apart.
Yet, the triumph of tragedy is the movement in stasis, however inapparent. Constant references are made to the titular "Small Things," which embody not only chaos but vulnerability: to insects, to mice and spiders and children, the tender parts of humans and animals... in short, insignificant things that no one pays attention to, are crushed inadvertently, without anyone to care that they are gone. Roy, however, has a keen eye and a deft hand for evoking in writing the tenderness and the odd beauty present in the small details often ignored. Such objects are rooted in nature, and therefore associated with the cyclic destruction and renewal it symbolizes, and it is no coincidence that the triad themes of birth, perpetuation, and destruction also play a central part in Indian lore. A return to one's starting point is not futile: it is the constant act of returning and going that is meaningful.
In this light, both nonconformity and the destruction that follows play a crucial role in the universal scheme of things. Destruction and entropy is necessary to reinforce order and laws that exist (for if transgression never occurred, what would be the use for laws?) or even to create new values entirely. It is no coincidence that Roy places the two pivotal love scenes of the novel at the very end, to punctuate the death and spiritual decay that precedes, for to Roy, degeneration and chaos is the promise of life flickering in the ruins. The god of small things is the god of the overlooked, of the small marvels present even in decay and death, and the guardian of paradoxical life both exquisitely fragile and tenaciously persistent.
The seeming simplicity of this one-shouldered brown dress from Chloé provides a perfect backdrop to any number of small treasures you wish to swathe yourself with. The cut is bold, but the earthy tone, the rough cool texture of the fabric, and the simplicity of its lines all contribute to a decidedly modest, even ascetic effect that all but the most delicately searching glances will gloss over.
Too often, verisimilitude is mistaken for life, forgetting that "lifelike" is the "likeness" or mimicry of another life form, as seen from the outside. It is not life itself, which must come from within. These cascades of yellow sapphires, designed by Ten Thousand Things, will echo the smallest of your own movements, mimicking the dance of light through tree branches, or of dust motes refracting golden afternoon light. Of course, a bangle (or three, or a full row of them) or an anklet could also be a good choice: really, with a dress as simple as the one shown above, you could pile it on, so long as each piece on its own does not overwhelm.
The key to preserving something as fragile as a sand collar—made of the miniscule eggs of moon snails, tinier even than the grains of sand they are cemented with—is hiding it, shielding it from the gaze of all but those who would not vulgarize its delicate beauty. You would have to select very carefully the one who would be privileged to a secret like this, but until the right partner comes along, you can have the enjoyment of Strumpet and Pink's lingerie—designed for the wearer and not the voyeur—all to your own self. Oyster-Catcher is threaded with pearls that seem to hold the diaphanous panels of kelp-colored textured silk together.
"Her shoulders in her sleeveless sari blouse shone as though they had been polished with a high-wax shoulder polish" (44). Sometimes, statement makeup isn't necessary: subtle adjustments can bring to the fore beauty that was already there, only hidden. NARS Multiple Stick in Copacabana brings a subtle sheen to light skin, capturing and holding light where it is needed in order to bring contours to life.
And lastly, for when you want something to ward off the creeping chills of a summer night—for the cut of the dress is rather bare— Loro Piana's ombre stole will flow around your shoulders, neck, hips... wherever you choose to drape it.
Labels: arundhati roy, chloe, loro piana, most wanted, nars, strumpet and pink, ten thousand things
10/25/2009 [4]
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Lettre d'Amour (1777).
Masculines are a dreary prospect to contemplate. It's as if the marketing departments collectively decided it would be best not to confuse the male psyche with a profusion of choices; only in the broadest terms should the masculine identity be determined. Consequently, if a concept is any good, it's been done to death, with a handful of meticulously tweaked, minor variants worth noting. Such has been the fate of the cologne. Before perfume was gendered, it was kölnisch wasser, a tincture of aromatic citrus and herbs, and to 'fumeheads today, this remains the technical definition. In layman's parlance, however, cologne has come to signify "generic man smell"—one of the myriad imitations on Davidoff's Cool Water. Nevertheless, the term still indicates a prominent citrus bouquet of negligible longevity, conveying a kind of suntanned well-being, which is why in 2007, Chanel released its final (if pompous, since it's exclusive and $200) definition by calling their iteration, simply, Eau de Cologne.
Most serious and reputable colognes, in spite of an initial ordination among masculines, evince a discernible drift towards the unisex over time. This ambiguity accommodates subversive twists, but the cologne is still an aesthetic built on lucidity, or more accurately, apparent simplicity; that now infamous overdose of hedione in Eau Sauvage, otherwise the quintessence of classical virility, should assert an astonishingly feminine contrast, a sheer gauze of jasmine petals adrift on a summer breeze rather than René Gruau's hairy legs and damp bathrobe. In Roudnitska's capable hands, it's Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby—comical attire notwithstanding, god bless him for being so comfortable with himself. No surprise that Eau Sauvage, so frequently appropriated by women, putatively spawned Diorella. As befits a master of streamlining, it's only natural that Roudnitska, whose work is introspective and rarely strays far from habitual meditations, made not one, but three exceptional colognes: Eau Sauvage (1966), Dior's Eau Fraîche (1953), and Rochas Moustache (1949)*. 
Eau Fraîche demonstrates Roudnitska's eerie ability to keep his aromachemicals in suspension; after a wild, dark mandarin opening that soon fades into spiced, candied peel, the verdant rasp of its chypre base takes over, with a huge, luminous, seamless, velvety aldehydic accord, stretching languorously to envelop the skin—Mitsouko, but no longer aloof. Moustache is the most surreal of the bunch. From the very first, a sultry, animalic funk, reminiscent of used hay and exhausting sex, makes its presence known. The face has been splashed with cool water, and the suit, even in the heat of passion, has somehow avoided rumpling: a tonic dose of lime, not the relentless vigor of Hermès Eau d'Orange Verte, but rather brief and rather wry. Lurking in the background is a Roudnitska signature: fruits past their bloom and on their way to fermentation, though not at the jeweled intensity of Le Parfum de Thérèse. Just as Eau Sauvage is memorable for hedione and Eau Fraîche is structured on oakmoss, Moustache is really an essay on civet, reinforced by soft, aged leather—not clean, not fresh, as one expects a cologne to be, but dirty. Moustache certainly exudes sex appeal, but it hinges on charisma, and all those devices others must resort to (the face, the body, the clothes, the words, the moves, the money, the status, etc.) are quite unnecessary, so that their effect is all the more devastating. All the same, in spite of their collective habit of subversion, Roudnitska's colognes are not disingenuous. Hesperides are notoriously fleeting; as the habitué of colognes knows, he must spritz, spritz, and spritz again, from a gigantic bottle that laughs in the face of extraits. But each time you refresh yourself with one of Roudnitska's colognes, his meticulously engineered bases are also layered, over and over again, onto your skin. As Moustache reaches saturation point, it slowly expands and embraces its wearer in an impalpable yet distinctive aura of... I can only call it taste.
If this review seems divided in its interests, I'll admit, each time I test one on my skin, I'm convinced that's the best one, until I dab the next one again...
OTHER REVIEWS
Perfume Shrine on Moustache
Basenotes on Moustache
Makeupalley on Moustache
Fragrantica on Moustache
Perfume Shrine on Eau Fraîche
Mossyloomings on Eau Fraîche
Basenotes on Eau Fraîche
Fragrantica on Eau Fraîche
Now Smell This on Eau Sauvage
Pere de Pierre on Eau Sauvage
Perfume-Smellin' Things on Eau Sauvage
Basenotes on Eau Sauvage
Makeupalley on Eau Sauvage
Fragrantica on Eau Sauvage
* Anyone curious about how colognes can be rendered distinct from each other should acquire samples of all three for comparison. Each features a different citrus fruit for its initial opening (lemon, mandarin, and lime), but it's really all about the drydown.
Labels: alain delon, christian dior, civet, cologne, edmond roudnitska, jean honore fragonard, lime, oakmoss, perfume notes, rene gruau, rochas
10/23/2009 [0]
(Apologies for backdating this post; I've been recovering from a nasty flu.)
I remember leafing through a Paula Begoun book when I was about ten, and reading the following sentence: "In general, the fewer products you use on your skin the better for your skin." I'm not convinced this holds true for everyone, but for me it seems more or less accurate: while complicated skincare routines don't do my skin any harm, they don't seem to do any good either. My skin is pale and freckles rapidly in the sun, but it's not sensitive; for example, it barely responds to chemical exfoliants that would burn Dain's skin. It seems that no matter what I put on my skin, I always have the same issues with it: tightness after cleansing, clogged pores, minor breakouts, shininess. As a result, while I might dabble in eye creams or toners (I've become a big fan of DHC's Acerola lotion), I generally stick to the basics: cleanser, sunscreen, and moisturizer.
I grew up using Cetaphil, but I find it leaves behind eye makeup and a slimy film on the face, whereas DHC Deep Cleansing Oil removes almost all makeup and leaves no residue at all. Sorry to harp, but it truly is a great product. I've been wearing sunscreen almost daily since high school, and I've yet to find a sunscreen that I really like, but Olay's sensitive skin formula is odorless, relatively non-greasy, and cheap. Lastly, as I get older I find I need to moisturize my face after showering: DHC's Q10 cream is my current favourite -- light yet rich, and a little goes a long way.
I grew up using Cetaphil, but I find it leaves behind eye makeup and a slimy film on the face, whereas DHC Deep Cleansing Oil removes almost all makeup and leaves no residue at all. Sorry to harp, but it truly is a great product. I've been wearing sunscreen almost daily since high school, and I've yet to find a sunscreen that I really like, but Olay's sensitive skin formula is odorless, relatively non-greasy, and cheap. Lastly, as I get older I find I need to moisturize my face after showering: DHC's Q10 cream is my current favourite -- light yet rich, and a little goes a long way.
Aside from the DHC products, I tend to stick to cheap drugstore products for skincare: Glysomed hand cream is readily available and absorbs quickly. I scatter lip balms around my apartment and in my bags, which means I tend to buy cheap ones, as impulse purchases. I like fairly thick, waxy stick balms, as the thinner kind don't seem to help with my perennially chapped lips: The Body Shop's Cocoa Butter lip balm might be my favourite.
Lastly, although it's an indulgence, I love fancy body butters: my skin gets very tight and uncomfortable after showering, particularly in winter, and scented moisturizers are a wonderful, fleeting way to experience scents that would wear out their welcome as perfumes. My current tub is from the L'Occitane spinoff brand Le Couvent des Minimes: a sweet, fruity take on orange blossom, perfect for a fifteen-minute acquaintance.
Labels: beauty notes, dhc, glysomed, le couvent des minimes, olay, the body shop
10/21/2009 [1]
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