Things That Made Me Smile This Week

week ending 8/27

Catching up on life with the Big Gay Reverend (follow him on twitter) * The September Elle * Coffee!!! * Getting almost all of my work done before the weekend * Mani/Pedi time * 1st day off in ten days * Ari S Diddi showing up on my mom's doorstep on my birthday * If 30 is the new 20, 27 must be the new 17 * Birthday Cake * Hanging with the gals on the Chic Boutique Tour * Sushibration * Having a boyfriend who is amazing enough to fly out my best friend for my birthday * Chilaxing all weekend without having to set foot in Benetton * Gray, suede, platform pumps by BCBG * Seat confirmed for Fashion Cares

Things That Made Me Smile This Week

OK, sooo my life is pretty much a roller coaster--the kind that is super awesome but can make you sick with so many twists, turns, loops, and drops that can leave your stomach in your throat. In an effort to keep me grounded while my life pulls turns sharper than an ice skate, I've decided to take a page from Gala Darling's blog and list all of the little things that make me smile each week. Sorta like counting your blessings but not so much, you know. Oh and I know the magazine is mirror imaged since I took the pic in Photo Booth.

* Skype dates with the BF * Brunch at Flying Biscuit with BG * Free coffee at the FNO Atlanta press conference * Mint chocolate cupcakes from Cami Cakes * Tan Louboutin spiked loafers, I died * Getting my credentials wrapped up with a bow for Jeffrey Fashion Cares * "Since when did like every dress at BCBG cost $400?" * Spending the week with Toro y Moi, Washed Out, Little Dragon, Tune-Yards, How to Dress Well, Wild Nothing, The Weeknd, & George Benson courtesy of the BF * Seeing the day of work I put in styling and profiling with the Jezebel team on the newsstand, despite them misspelling my name * Going to Fellini's with Patrice after Jezebel's Most Eligible party * Learning all about Namibia via daily emails from the BF who comes home 9/6 * Recapping True Blood with Keisha, Gabs, and Christina at work then Amber via text and Ari while it was on * Seeing my articles tweeted by @FashionCares, @ CarenWest, and @FNO Atlanta, ranks up there with @PeoplesRev tweeting at me * New bathroom decor

Life According to Gamine: Vampire Envy

This is a Gamine original and since I own Gamine, I also own all the rights to this. To see it in its original format go to Life According to Gamine: Vampire Envy.

Like every twenty-something approaching 30, I have begun to contemplate my own immortality. Instead of dwelling on the fact that one day my boobs will start to head south for the winter and that my coolness quotient, being tied to how close I am to 25, will being to drop exponentially the second I blow out the candles on my 27th birthday cake, I have become obsessed with exploring my options for forever delaying my inevitable slip into old age and eventually the coffin. I’ve toyed around with having kids as an attempt at immortality, like most people, but they are damn expensive and require me to have some semblance of a career with health insurance and sanity. I have even begun to explore the fact that my choice to become a writer is more influenced by my narcissistic need to live forever than my desire to write, but writing doesn’t pay until it does. So after careful consideration I’m turning to vampirism, more specifically I’m begging the vampires of Bon Temps–wherever that is–to come and get it.

I’ve really thought this trough after being a student of the vampire myth my entire life, and watching every episode of True Blood. I’d be totally ok with never seeing the sun again, I have a permanent tan thanks to having ancestors from west Africa, and I’d look great frozen at 26 for the next however many years until the world ends, Buffy stakes me, or I meet the true death at the hands of an angry vampire king. I also already wear a ton of black and would have no problem living off of blood–its like a juice fast but jucier.

My decision to embrace life as the undead has pretty much been accepted by everyone except my boyfriend who thinks my dreams of biting necks, glamoring fools, and hanging with Vampire Bill and Eric are no more than teenage fangirl fantasies. I acknowledge that at the heart of my desire are fangirl fantasies where I am less like True Blood’s resident backwoods Barbie and more like the chicly dressed but tough ass nails lady vampires who do nothing but sleep all day and wear vintage Dior at night. While some part of me would love to have one of the show’s main man vamps bite and turn me, another larger part of me refuses to accept that death is begin to blow his icy breath on the back of my neck–my bad that was the a/c. Either way, I am on a mission to join the undead in their quest to do whatever it is that they spend immortality doing, as long as I don’t get stuck hanging with lames like Vampire Bill and this new sensitive Eric Northman who would win me over in real life as a vampire, because thats what vampires do, but would probably annoy the heck out of the vampire me and the real me if he were the real him. (The real Eric Northman is Swedish and no offense but I don’t know anything to come out of Sweden that isn’t a little bit odd. Think about it, Ikea, H&M, Abba, Ace of Base…all odd.)

To satisfy my boyfriend’s curiosity and annoyance with my geeked out fangirl tendencies–he’s sat through Harry Potter and Twilight with me and indulged my comparisons of both series to the ultimate geek trilogy, The Lord of the Rings–he will be the first person I turn as a new vampire. He will also be responsible for turning me if he becomes a vampire first. However we come to vampirism, we will have forever to figure out our careers, how we’ll afford to live, and whatever else you’re supposed to figure out before 30 because I have the same ideas about being an adult at 26 as I had at 16.

Fashion Meets Music: Beth Ditto

This is another MISS orignal for my weekly Fashion Meets Music column. To view this piece in its original format go to Fashion Meets Music: Beth Ditto.

Mary Beth Patterson has been compared to a punk version of Melissa Etheridge, a character from a John Waters’ flick, Pink meets Divine, and a whole host of other characters since she blew up the scene with Gossip (same band as The Gossip) in 2006. While whatever people say she is she isn’t, Beth Ditto is for sure the kind of girl who blows stereotypes out of the water and could soothe a savage beast with her voice.

Hailing from Searcy, Arkansas, this 30 year old performer with more energy than an atomic bomb went from a wannabe singer who thought her weight would keep her stuck belting out songs in the Bible Belt to a bonafide star after toiling for years with her bandmates, Nathan “Brace Pain” Howdeshell and first Kathy Mendonca then Hannah Billie. Since forming in 1999, working the underground club circuit in the Pacific Northwest, changing drummers, and dropping the “the” from their name, Gossip has won several awards, released four albums and experienced the kind of mainstream success that VMA’s are made of.

When it comes to style, this self professed “fat, feminist lesbian from Arkansas” has broken every rule that attempts to confine plus-sized beauties to dark, structured pieces pushing them into the background. If there is one thing Beth Ditto is not, it’s a background type of girl. This one woman revolution dons spandex dresses in bold patterns including the taboo horizontal stripe, shows as much skin than her svelte counterparts, and has been known to love Miu Miu’s (not muumuus) flowy frocks. Whether she’s changing up her hair color, piling on the eyeliner, or proclaiming that she doesn’t shave her arm pits, how punk of her, this girl from the backwoods doesn’t have killer style in spite of her roots she has it because of them. While she’s come a long way from shoplifting from Marshall’s and Goodwill, the style she developed out of necessity has carried her from Arkansas to Paris Fashion Week where she opened John Paul Gaultier’s Spring 2011 runway show.

Although this punk rock, plus-sized charmer may have landed on the cover of Love magazine’s first issue, stark naked might I add, and had her own collection of clothes sold by UK retailer Evans, she has empowered countless girls to be who they are no matter what size they are. In fact, her unique ability to embrace every inch and ounce of her body, something most women struggle do regardless of their size, lead to her contributing an advice column on body mage for The Gaurdian.

Whether you love her for the way she growls and gets down on stage or for her sincerely in your face style, Beth Ditto is for sure the real deal and worthy of our adoration.

Fashion Meets Music: Amy Winehouse

This is a MISS original, making the copy and layout all theirs. To see it in its original format go to Fashion Meets Music: Amy Winehouse.

By now most of the world has heard the news that the 27 club has gained a new member in Amy Winehouse. While this talented, young singer may never get the chance to make the comeback we were all rooting for, her talent and bold sartorial choices will go on to inspire generations of young women for as long as the Internet still stands. Since we have already covered the life, times, and brief career of Amy Winehouse, I’ll skip the pleasantries and get straight to the fashion.

Before exploring 50’s and 60’s girl groups sounds in her Back to Black album, Amy dressed like any other recording star on the rise in her late teens. As evidenced by the album covers for Frank and Back to Black, Amy’s early style was quite tame compared to what it would eventually evolve into. Her dark hair didn’t even have the crown fullness of Snookie’s pouf and her eyeliner had yet to reach Cleopatra-like proportions. Somewhere between the 2003 release Frank and the 2006 release of Back to Black Amy fell in love with duwop and embraced the style of women like Etta James and Ronnie Spector, or Veronica Bennett as she was known during her days with The Ronnettes.

Instead of carbon copying the style of 50’s and 60’s icons, Amy added her own spin on things and came up with a look reminiscent of a character from a John Waters flick complete with skyscraper hair and Tracy Lords like body con outfits. To accessorize her modern girl group member meets pin-up girl style, Amy seemingly used an entire pot of MAC fluidline to draw an exaggerated cat eye that would make Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra make-up artist jealous. On top of the over the top beehive, that sometimes sported a white streak or two, the drape like outfits, and the eyeliner that launched one thousand make-up tutorials, Amy made sure to show off her impressive and always growing collection of ink. Amy Winehouse’s distinctive style was so innovative and in demand that she was asked to collaborate on a 17-piece collection with the Fred Perry label which hit stores in October 2010.

Years after Amy’s “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good” put her on the map stateside, girls are still embracing the modern pin-up look, piling on the eyeliner, and pulling inspiration from Amy’s muses. While her look may have inspired a fad that died out the minute she began to give in to her self-destructive drug habit, the true legacy of Amy Winehouse’s style is in showing her fans that it is okay to be who you are. From Adele and Duffy who benefited from Amy taking the soul revival mainstream and making a way for them to move from the UK to the US, to Lady Gaga who credited Winehouse with making it easier for non-Britney pop stars to have mainstream success, down to the girl next door experimenting with her make-up, we all can learn a thing or two about expressing ourselves from Ms. Winehouse.