Wesleyan was featured in old Elle Girl issue

Over at the topmodel Livejournal community, a member just dug up an old Feb/March 2004 Elle Girl magazine with a university fashion feature including Kim Stolz '05 (America's Next Top Model, MTVU) and several other '05 Wes alums I can't find on Facebook. Check out the scanned copy:

Thanks to Marianna Foos '08 for the tip!

Update: An industrious anonymous commenter discovered that Maya Amina '05, top center, is coming out with a clothing line this spring/summer. Her historically conscious fashion work is very cool: http://boxingkitten.com/

MGucciMT

Hey I hope somebody's keeping count of this site's MGMT coverage - for all you who can't get enough, here's a video of the recent Gucci Menswear show. Skinny men in ostentatious clothes, set to "Time to Pretend":



For higher quality go to Vogue.com: Gucci Menswear Spring/Summer 2009

Thanks for the tip Xue!

A Night Out With Santogold

The NYTimes' Sunday Styles section features Santi White this week in its "A Night Out With..." feature, in which she lays down some rules to live by:

“I DON’T drink, I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke and I don’t drink after someone drinks my drink.” These are just some of the commandments prescribed and followed by Santi White, better known as the genre-hopping singer Santogold.

...The other night, Ms. White, 32, was sitting on the patio of Castro’s, a Mexican restaurant on Myrtle Avenue near her home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn... Drinking papaya-mango juice out of a bucket-size cup, Ms. White leaned against an orange wall beneath a cobalt sky dotted with cotton-ball clouds.

...Ms. White’s ensemble was an ’80s salute: tight white pants, an oversize yellow shirt and black Reebok high-tops with rainbow stripes and a gold slash.

She poked at her fish with beans and rice without offering a bite to her companions. The two women reminisced about an impromptu lecture given by a drunken art teacher about how to push in your intestines, should they happen to fall out of your navel. They also recalled a harrowing escape: While working as a waitress, Ms. Roomet noticed a man entering the restaurant with a sawed-off shotgun; she summoned Ms. White, who was dining, and they escaped through the kitchen, taking the bewildered staff to safety.

Around 11 p.m. the gang headed across Brooklyn to the club Studio B in Ms. White’s black Escalade. (“I didn’t know what an S.U.V. was when I bought it,” she said.)

Ms. White had been put on the guest list by some D.J.’s who were performing, so they skipped to the front of a blocklong line. Once inside, Ms. White couldn’t find the guy with the wristbands that would get them into the V.I.P. room.

“I don’t go out much,” Ms. White said with a shrug, and wished she were home. The band playing showed no signs of ending (or improving). By 1 a.m., Ms. White could take no more; she would see the D.J.’s spin some other day.

In a few hours, Ms. White would begin a medically imposed vocal rest for at least a week. She had plans to carry a pad and pen to communicate, and possibly to scribble down a few more of her commandments.

NYTimes: Rules to Tour by: A Night Out With Santi White

Sophista-Funk

Tala Bouzarjomehri and Jillian White '08 have started a lifestyle blog, Sophista-Funk, devoted to creative things:

"Sophista-funk is for the person that dares to be different. Lover of art, music, design and fashion, the sophista-funk carves her own space in the world. She is inspired and inspiring, seeking out fun and creativity wherever she sees fit- cause in the end, its all about personal style, baby."

Check it out, link added to "Wes 2.0 sidebar.

MGMT in the Jet Set

Nylon magazine reports a big breakthrough for MGMT - apparently they inspired Gucci's Spring 2009 menswear collection, and were featured heavily in the designer's fashion show this week. Big deal? Seems our collective boner 4 MGMT shows no signs of abating:

A high fashion label pays homage to the hippest band we know... And now it's MGMT's turn, as Gucci creative director Frida Giannini dedicated her latest menswear show to the band. She sent some popsicle-colored suits down the runway, and we all swooned - though of course, playing Time To Pretend during the finale didn't hurt either.

Does this mean MGMT might pair with Gucci officially in the future? Obviously, we're hoping...

This review of the collection is even more effusive, check it out if you're interested in what the Management hath wrought and appreciate fashion industry jargon:

Gucci’s press notes invoked "the new way in which youth and luxury can seamlessly coexist." ...Giannini enlisted MGMT’s "Time to Pretend" ("this is our decision to live fast and die young") to help put her own thumbprint on the heritage of the house.

The Brooklyn duo’s florid style dictated the shape as well as the sound of the collection. The lean tailoring and the neat little leathers that Giannini loves were sneakily overtaken by a creeping jungle of tropical flora and fauna, embroidered, appliquéd, or airbrushed to spectacular effect... Although the relative restraint of black-and-white jacquard tuxes with their tone-on-tone embroidery harked back to earlier collections when Frida was finding her way, the huge amethyst-and-malachite belt buckles she showed them with were definitely picking up signals from Planet MGMT.

- Thanks to anonymous Shoutboxer for the tip.

Urban Outfitters, Right-Wing Cash Cow

Recycled news, but the frequent Urban Outfitters shoppers among you might be interested to know where a lot of your fashionably spent money goes: directly into the pockets of the far-right-wing establishment:

"...Shopping in Urban makes you feel like you are somewhere radically Left-wing, an antidote to the corporate blandness of The Gap. But Hayne is a stanch conservative who donates money to Republican politicians, not least Rick Santorum, a now failed Senator whose views on homosexuality are both bizarre and old-fashioned.

Hayne doesn't give many interviews precisely because he's afraid that college slackers who get to know him will suddenly realise that buying his clothes is like giving cash to George Bush. Once described as projecting a "Dick Cheney-esque aura of no-nonsense grayflannel gravitas", Hayne must be the only retailer whose expansion plans depend on no one finding out who he really is.

Despite the strife in the sector, Urban just beat Wall Street profit expectations yet again. So far, the illusion is holding up perfectly."

Just saying, even if you don't aspire to be a conscious consumer/haven't taken any standard social theory classes, it's hard to miss the cynicism/ingenious irony of taking money from progressive liberals to give to social conservatives. Although this is the place that used to sell Ghettopoly, "Voting is for Old People" t-shirts, and kaffiyehs, so calculated cynicism shouldn't be that surprising.

Links:
- ThisIsMoney: Square Who Got Hip to Urban Chic
- Philadelphia Weekly: Clothes Make the Man

Confirmed: Galliano shameless and unoriginal

First, watch Madonna's original American Life video from 2003, below. For the purposes of this post, pay attention to the fashion show. The show and those clothes are cleary exaggerated, done by someone whose main objective is satire. It's obviously trying to reveal the irony of high society, consumerism, and imperialism, etc... right?



4 years later,
...John Galliano's spring 2008 men's collection:
He's no Madonna. Check out #13. He's actually doing for real what Madonna did for satire, and very late.

Calling All Designers and Models

The Fashion Show is Back and in Full Effect!

Interested in fashion design? Come show the coordinators of this year's fashion show what you've got. Be prepared with a theme (if you have one), the number of pieces you would like to have, and how many models you will need. Sketches are a plus. Meetings for designers are on the following days...

Date: Thursday, February 1st
Time: 6-7PM
Place: Campus Center Meeting Rm. 1

Date: Sunday, February 4th
Time: 7-8PM
Place: X-house basement

Prefer to just look fierce on the runway? Be a model! All you have to do is come to one of the meetings below and just do your thang, walk the runway and have fun.

Date: Sunday, February 4h
Time: 7-9PM
Place: X-House Basement

Date: Thursday, February 8th
Time: 6-7PM
Place: Campus Center MPR

If you can't make the meetings or have any questions, contact LaShawn Springer '08 or Jillian White '08.

Bring on the Blogs

The enemy.

Joe John Sanchez '07 and Emily Greenhouse '08 have teamed up to bring you a brand new Wesleyan blog (YES.) called Well, You're Dressed Wes.

The blog's intention, according to Joe John, is to "showcase clothed wesleyan students." You know, as opposed to, well, naked ones.