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Radar Online has a feature called "Handbags of Horror", which asks the question, "Have designers, desperate for shock value, been turning to horror movie villains for inspiration?"
Ingrid Patchwork Hobo by Isabella Fiore, inspired by Chucky!
Ruffled Bag With Chains by Be&D, inspired by the Mummy.
And my own contribution to the fun:
85th Gucci Limited Edition, Medium Boston Bag, inspired by the Yeti.
What does it mean to be a kid? According to Jim Taylor, a marketing expert who recently studied teenagers' preferences, "Having a Gucci scarf is part of being a kid today."
An article in today's LA Times explores the heightened awareness that young kids have for luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. The owner of Kitson, a high end LA store, jokingly calls these young consumers "ABC Girls", for Armani, Blahnik and Chanel -- since they wear everything branded.
Why is there such an awareness? Some of it is the parents, who dress their kids up in designer clothes as a way of showing their affluence. However, much of it is the media. The kids read US Magazine or Teen Vogue or see Nicole Richie carrying a particular handbag, and they learn to identify and covet particular brands.
A Gucci scarf seems pretty harmless. Likewise, a modest Gucci bag. Why worry when a 'tween gets chic? Unfortunately, these items are the fashion equivalent of "gateway drugs". The marketers hope that the 'tween won't stop at the scarf. That as she ages, she'll stay loyal to the brand and keep acquiring new pieces. If the marketing of these labels weren't so toxic, this wouldn't be problematic.
However, do we really want a 12 year old aspiring to look like this?
Is it any wonder that the incidence of eating disorders is increasing in "younger age groups, as young as 7 years," that "30 - 40% of junior high girls worry about weight," that "40% of 9 year old girls have dieted," or that "40 - 60% of highschool girls diet," or that the incidence of eating disorders has "doubled since the 1960s."
What next? Underweight babies sporting Gucci diapers?
60s fashion model, and America's Next Top Model judge, Twiggy, has weighed in on the "size 0" controversy. Though she says she finds the trend "terrifying", she puts the blame on.....Hollywood actresses!
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Twiggy says:
They go on about banning size zero, but I think Hollywood stars are the worst perpetrators. Most models are naturally long and gangly, while a lot of these young girls in Hollywood have gone on extreme diets.
Their concave chests and bony arms are terrifying. It's scary to think that normal teenagers are tempted to copy them. I'd love there to be more larger models, but it's just not going to happen. Designers love to design for slim girls.
OK....So according to Twiggy, we should blame Lindsay Lohan, Mischa Barton and Nicole Richie for the deaths of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston and Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos. Perhaps Twiggy indulged in too many brain-warping chemicals during the swinging 60s.
Then again, should we expect anything else from the first model to launch a thousand eating disorders?
In today's Rush & Molloy, there's a shocking quote from fashion designer Valentino:
Asked about the Madrid Fashion Week ban on too-skinny models, the designer said, "When you present clothes for the first time on the runway, you need to have somebody with a very elongated body. If you have a big girl, it's impossible. I don't know why we have to change just because Madrid came out with a fat girl."
Meanwhile, models are dropping left and right due to eating disorders.
Of course, should we truly be surprised that a fellow who has distorted his own face through excessive amounts of plastic surgery might have some nutty thoughts about women's bodies?
Stef forwarded me another picture of her Gucci bag getting the fate it deserves. Stef has put her bag in the trash! Will the bag escape before the it hits the curb? Stay tuned!
Of course, this isn't the only time Stef's Gucci bag has experienced an indignity. It was previously attacked by pumpkins. Wendy Brandes' Gucci bag was dissed by her dog. My own Gucci bag has also suffered. It's been stomped on, left bound and helpless, put in a washing machine, and more. - Basically, it's the ultimate fashion victim.
If you have a Gucci bag in distress, please forward me the gory photos at BoycottTheBag@aol.com. Don't be a fashion victim, turn your bag into one!
Unlike most of my friends, I avoid "Grey's Anatomy" when it airs. The characters are annoying, the storylines improbable. If I want to tune out with the tube, I'll watch some reality show. And except for "The Flavor of Love" (it's too gross), I'll watch just about any reality show over "Grey's Anatomy." Plotlines, cast changes, entire seasons of Meredith Grey's hand-wringing have passed me by.
As a result, while flipping through the channels a month ago, I spotted a scene where a woman with a body similar to mine was dancing around in her underwear. I paused because the scene was so unexpected. To my amazement, it was a scene from "Grey's Anatomy." The actress wasn't one of the incredibly thin leads, like Sandra Oh or Ellen Pompeo. Instead, it was the size 12 Sara Ramirez. Prior to this, I wasn't familiar with the actress and all her accomplishments (she got a Tony for her work in Spamalot!) but it was so startling to see a woman with a fairly conventional physique on prime time, that Ramirez got -- and held -- my attention.
Last night, only days after concluding their "Ugly Vanessa" segments (where Vanessa Minnillo was turned into a size 12 and subjected to lots of "Ugly Betty" style humiliations), Entertainment Tonight profiled Sara Ramirez as a sex symbol with curves. During the piece extolling Sara Ramirez's fuller figure and her willingness to buck Hollywood's impossible standards for physical perfection, I kept waiting for a reference to Vanessa's work. Not surprisingly, there was no mention.
Is it too much to ask for a little editorial consistency? Ugly is a size 12....Curvy sex symbol is a size 12.....Then again, Entertainment Tonight's ambivalence is a lot like our own. We applaud those rare women who can embrace their bodies, while simultaneously worrying that our own bodies are inadequate. We know that others may view anything bigger than thin as ugly -- and maybe we share this belief as well. Here are some comments from a Grey's Anatomy Fan Blog in the wake of Sara Ramirez's underwear dance, that captures this perfectly. Comments after the jump.
That said, I must confess, I really want to know where she shops. Any insights would be appreciated!
It's not clear if this Gucci bag has been attacked by pumpkins, or if the bag is a binge eater and tried to snack on one too many. Whatever the case, the pumpkins are winning.
Stef McDonald, the woman responsible for this shot, says that her Gucci bag was "a victim of mischevious pumpkins. They were naughty little gourds, calling out -- let us play in the bag, let us play in the bag!"
Stef's Gucci bag was lucky. My own Gucci bag hasn't fared quite as well. Here are some pictures of what it has been subjected to. But don't feel sorry for the bags. They deserve it.
If you are inspired to torture your Gucci bag, please forward the pictures to BoycottTheBag@aol.com. Thanks, Stef, for sharing!
Yesterday, Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died as a result of complications from anorexia. Reston was 21 years old and weighed only 88 lbs. At 5'8", her weight was appropriate for a pre-teen less than 5' tall.
At the end, Reston's body-mass-index (BMI) was a mere 13.5. A BMI below 17.5 is considered an indicator of anorexia, and a BMI below 15 is considered an indicator of starvation. When Madrid held its fashion week, it banned models with a BMI below 18. If only Reston had resided in Madrid instead of Sao Paulo.
Who's to blame for the unhealthy practices of the fashion industry? The designers? The stylists? The fashion editors? The modeling agencies? They all are. Sadly, the victims are the models who promote the clothes and the women who buy into these toxic visions of beauty.
Was it murder? Was it suicide? Or was it a little recreational auto-erotic-asphyxiation? Whatever the case, this Gucci bag was gasping for breath.
Of course, this isn't the first time that I've tortured my Gucci bag. My washing machine almost drowned this bag. This was't the first time my Gucci bag got tangled up in ropes, either. My favorite was torturing the bag while wearing my favorite Ralph Lauren boots. There's nothing like a heel crushing a bad bag, to really put that purse in its place.
If you have any pictures or ideas, please let me know at BoycottTheBag@aol.com. Let your bag know how you feel about Gucci, and share those feelings with the rest of us!
I was watching Entertainment Tonight this evening, and saw something completely unexpected. Inspired by the show "Ugly Betty", Vanessa Minnillo went under-cover as "Ugly Vanessa". Nick Lachey's main squeeze, a very pretty woman, subjected herself to six hours of transformation so that she could assess whether or not pretty people are treated differently than ugly people.
As exposés go, this one is pretty tame. As you can imagine, when a hot blonde chick goes to a nightclub, she gets treated like royalty. When a poorly groomed brunette with bad clothes and stringy hair goes to the same nightclub 24 hours later, she's left hanging out at the curb. Wow. Who'd have thought?
Here's "Ugly Vanessa" being ridiculed by passers-by (note that the woman on the far left has a body similar to "Ugly Vanessa's" - so what's the joke???):
What woke me up during the ET segment was the assertion that Vanessa wore a Size 12 fat suit, to create her "Ugly Vanessa" persona. Minnillo is not short -- her Wikipedia bio says she's 5'8". As a consequence, Vanessa is quite a bit different than the average American woman, who's between 5'4" and 5'5" and weighs 163 lbs. Moreover, the average American woman wears a size 14.
So....."Ugly Vanessa" is taller and marginally slimmer than the average American woman. Eek!
Between Hollywood's definition of ugly, and fashion's narrow and perverse definition of beauty, it's no wonder that we're depressed by ready-to-wear and consoling ourselves with handbags.
