Mugler Spring 2012

I went through my head with the razor the other day because I am going through a cray cray Britney phase I lost a twitcam bet to Ana. I stopped when I found myself looking like a mix between Formichetti and Ossendrijver.

Bershka sweater + thirfted t-shirt, Nicola Formichetti, Lucas Ossendrijver. 

Among the many nice things I've heard are "Hitler youth", "one septum ring and sailor tat away from hipster", and "ropavejero" which I don't even know how to translate to English. Anyways about Nicola and the Spring 2012 Mugler show. The first segment had these iron ..errrr things?

Kind of like the opening scene in William Klein's 1966 film Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?, where he mocks fashion by reenacting a show with metal sheets as clothing and the ridiculousness of the cult to Editors in Chief

The sporty section between the following parade of dark and pastel/neon-ish suits was mildly interesting. As in Harry Goodwins looking somewhat like he did on that superb Dazed & Confused November 2008 editorial, "Powerful Sportswear" shot by Mariano Vivanco and styled by *ahem* Nicola Formichetti.

Rest of the spread here. On another subject, I will start posting snips and bits of this prose that I'm writing. Those posts will have a different format to allow easy scrolling due to excessive lameness.

The Red Ballon Soup/Dress

I was amusing myself by making a movie list the other day. I can't quite make the connection between making lists and crawling out from an existential crisis, but it felt very reassuring. Slight obsessive-compulsiveness does replace actual joie de vivre when one feels socially lazy, it seems. While going through the narcotic task of unnecessary itemizing I experienced a regression to "Le Ballon Rouge" (1956) by Albert Lamorisse

I saw it some months ago at my friend O's -to whom I own most of the 80's items in my movie list- while having the reddest soup ever thanks to the chef's fortuitous excess use of spices. "Red Balloon Soup", we called it. Two nights and several more alcohol in her bloodstream after our friend the chef would admit resenting our mockery. Good old times. Anyway the film reminded me of another set of balloons I saw recently walking down the runway at Jil Sander's spring  2011 show

 

source: Style.com

It's taken some time for it to grow on me, despite my fondness of Raf Simons' minimalism. I guess couturish maximalism is supposed to strike as unsettling at first, specially coming from him, but the more I see it the more I enjoy it. I would certainly enjoy escorting a girl wearing a balloon dress. Imagine how lovely it would be, striding along holding her arm fretting that she'd go flying upwards the minute I loosen my grip. Maybe they come with a GPS system?

Karl Lagerfeld + Bruce LaBruce

So there's this graphic artist, David M. Buisán, that I stalk like very much. He's from Barcelona, looks waaaaay younger than he really is and was succesful in convincing me not to wear huge framed reading glasses to look nerdy-cool because that's the birth right of every person with reading difficulties. He's also my desktop wallpaper

Anyway. He's constantly collaborating with Guapo Magazine, H Magazine and gets a lot of attention online (see his portfolio here). Earlier this year I was doing my usual stalking liking very much of him and I found this:

A poster he made for the movie Otto; or, Up With Dead People, directed by Bruce LaBruce. Partly motivated by the fact that my friends call me "Otto", I watched it, and loved it, and please notice that I don't love things, but this movie is a whole new level of crazy. It's about zombies; young, gay, anarchist, politicaly-overtoned zombies. It tells the story of Otto, a schizophrenic boy zombie who wanders some city in Germany minding his own undead business until accidentaly he gets involved in a socialist movement by participating in an avant-garde filmmaker's project. LOVE.

In what at first might seem unrelated news, the Vice Magazine interview with designer Karl Lagerfeld has been around the pages I follow too much recently. In related news, there's also that name that's being repeated in the interview, the interviewer's

No less than Bruce LaBruce, as in Otto; or, Up With Dead People directed by Bruce LaBruce. Nothing like pairing a raw independent director with a fashion genious to get the interesting answers

Btw can't wait for his new movie to come, LA Zombie. The site here.

Secret Passion

Old movies. As in having the Turner Classic Movies chanel on everynight from 7:00pm to 1:30am (Honduras time) and it could be longer but then Batman starts and it's in Spanish and I hate dubbing. That passion is one of the reasons why I stalk graphic artist Teresa Dowlatshahi (with her consent, of course) and find her blog to be the most interesting gallery of genuine vintage movie/culture items that represent what society once thought or was wanted to think. That and running the weirdest comic strip ever. And being a feminist. And making me a comic. Yes my stalkerish ways are very effectiveOn the old movies thing. I understand why most people do not pay special attention to them. For one, they're not made for us in the present. So they don't apply to you and me really, they apply to the people meant to watch it. Second, movie-making is now relatively much more available, so many different movies are created and the idea of chosing among a wide variety seems more attractive than sticking to something created for the masses and regulated by a few people, like the Warner Brothers monopoly or the introduction of the Hays Code in 1934. On the Hays Code thing, I always wonder what would've happenned without it. The movie "Baby Face"with Barbara Stanwyck, was released in 1933 and it had a striking sexual content. It's the story of a girl who from the age of 14 was sexually exploited by her father in a bar, then she's influenced by Nietzche's book Thoughts of Season and decides to scape to New York and engage in sex with powerful men to gain wealth and success. Although intercourse scenes are only suggested, still they're assumed to happen. The next year the Hays Code was introduced to regulate sex content in movies and it was forced until 1968, so all movies between 1934 and 1968 had to meet its requirements. For example, "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" (1958)You're right, it's about a women who marries a monster from ousterpace. Ha! I wish all movie titles were like that. Avatar wouldn't be "Avatar", it would be "We Humans Colonize Outerspace" and 2012 would be something like "Mayans Predicted Apocalypse And Only a Few Survived and Then We Didn't Need Pampers Anymore" and then we wouldn't be wasting three hours of our lives anymore. Anyway, this movie is extremely restrictive when it comes to sex and though it is about a marriage, they don't kiss in the whole movie, not even once, not even at the end when the Alien leaves the husband's body and all comes to a happy ending. His wife just sort of puts her lips close to his and then suddenly rests her head on his forehead like she's doing some Maori greetingAnyway, it is exactly THAT what makes old movies valuable to me, because they embody the exact conception of morality, gender, prejudices, aesthetics, norms and many other things present in the majority of society at that time. The arrows that point towards the people meant to watch those movies are clearer to see. Yes, now you have options and that's great, in fact is the only way things should be. What people doesn't realize it's their responsability when labeling a movie "accurate" or "inaccurate" in its representation of a segment of society. And then the task of finding the accurate movies that represent you gets harder, and there's also the fact that you are judged for being represented by them.