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A Strange, New World of Accessories

September 9th 2007 07:07
I don't know when it happened, but the humble accessory, once an interesting pair of earrings, has morphed into strange objects of vogue. I blame this on the co-habitation of the Consumer Culture and the Technological Age. Their love child is Consume-Tech, the dirty beast that requires people to have things, not out of interest or appreciation, but because everyone else has it. You know when someone says, "I'm going to the shops. Would you like anything?", and you feel the urge to make a request, but you can't actually imagine an object in your mind? That is a symptom of the cultural atmosphere of today: you simply must have something, anything at all.


One object that people feel the need to update update UPDATE is the mobile phone. Apparently, for one to be stylish, one must purchase an updated version of these gadgets every two months. I am therefore a total dag, as you can't even get a new battery for my phone and it was only released two years ago. Today's phones hold a microcosm of your world: your address book, your camera, your photo gallery, your video camera and associated home movies, your mp3 player, a radio, navigator systems, mirrors and they may even make phone calls too. It can't be singularly planed either - it has to flip, slide or rotate. Call me Aunty Mable, but I just don't get why something that is hidden most of the time is considered more desirable than a pair of Christian Louboutin's.

Christian Louboutin Prive patent
Christian Louboutin Prive heels. Image from saksfifthavenue.com, drool my own.
VS.
Nokia N90
The Nokia N90: it flips and swings. Image from firstadoptor.com



Another point of interest is the rise in the take-away coffee. The large numbers of celebrities, models and babes carrying their espresso-to-go around town have made ground Arabica in a cardboard cylinder a hot item, metaphorically (and literally too, if your barista is any good). As a result, I am now self-conscious that I'm being seen as a trend fiend for complying to my early morning needs. That bad taste in my mouth is not burnt coffee, but stigmatization.

starbucks Ashley Olsen coffee
Ashley Olsen shows how coffee = cool. Image from betterthanyou.org


Therefore, I have two requests for the beautiful, rich, famous and powerful: please drink your coffee indoors, from a porcelain vessel. And when you do this, talk to people, not at your glittering case of electrical circuits. It would be nice to see people doing vintage acts in their vintage threads.
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Confessions of the cloth

August 27th 2007 13:02
How long did it take you to get dressed today? I had planned what to wear today well in advance of tucking myself into bed last night. Of course, nothing ever goes to plan. I had chosen a Kinki Gerlinki tent dress with puff sleeves, made of alternating thin stripes of red and blue wool. It has Impressionist style tapestry flowers over it. Oh man, I love it. I usually wear it with a black cardigan, as the dress is enough on its own, but today I was just not content with said cardigan. I then spent the next half an hour trying to figure out what to cover my arms and their goosebumps with (I eventually settled for a black fitted spencer underneath). Trying to sleep through the wardrobe bangs and groans of despair, my boyfriend was witness to my little "episode". He was also witness to a much more panicked, and altogether (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) pathetic case of 'I have nothing to wear' a week earlier. This one lasted an hour, and as a result, I was late to university. Yes, readers, I was freaking out about what to wear to university.

When I admitted to a friend the shames of my shallow life, she confided that she too has days where she feels so uncomfortable she wants to "get off the train and go home". Her self-conscientiousness is also a result of the perils of attending a city university (but to be fair, she goes to a university dedicated to art theory, history and practice


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