Conde Nast keeps sending me free copies of their new venture Fashion Rocks, which doesn't, actually. I'd never buy a magazine with a picture of Justin Timberlake in a tuxedo on the cover. They have a huge spread of divas photographed by the big fash photogs, which is pointless and boring because, basically, the clothes are stupid and the divas aren't fashion models. They're not good-looking enough, and they're kinetic: They look best bopping.
And there's the problem with the clothes....tuxedo with combat boots, mmmmm, MEGO. There's an amazing column by the hippest scenester fashion writer, Lynn Yeager, buried in there, among the 15 page advertising spread of Rihanna doing lip gloss, also boring because she is not a fashion model and doesn't look good/interesting from every crevice and angle which, baby grrl, are already way over-exposed (just been reading about how Mark Spitz blew it after becoming the first human to win seven gold medals: Rihanna, sweetheart, you are no Mark Spitz). Cutlines reading "On Will.i.am, Vivienne Westwood trousers, Diesel sunglasses, Dior sneakers" approach the edgier journalism purlieus of The Times of London Court Circular. Dior sneakers, are you shitting me? Mariah Carey, in an ugly Naeem Khan swag dress, and her ilk, shot by Stephen Meisel, and his ilk? A practically endless spread of Dhani Harrison sort of looking like George and sort of not? Yawn, seriously. I was swept away by the corruption, even down to the accents and the gestures they affect, of the rock establishment watching Tommy Lee and what'shisname, Mr. Carmen Electra, with the eyebrows, on <i>Rockstar: INXS</i>. Blech. This is not rock n roll. Showing the EZ listening establishment in boring couture clothing is not rock fashion, it's Fat Elvis.
Anyway, it's a strangely frustrating production, an effort finally to track the influence of rock and roll on fashion -- a parallel trend both to couture and street/club fashion which has gotten much too little coverage by fashion journalists.
One note. I want an Afro pompadour like Janelle Monae's. To go with my gele, my hoodie, and my kimono.
Cultural appropriation forever.
That is all.
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