Friday, November 6, 2009

artists i like and a new addition to my fam fam

it's been a long and slow week. i wrote my midterm for celebrity culture and it went pretty well. it was the first time i ever had to debate about changing font sizes to make the paper shorter. at 9 pages, it was three over the limit but my prof is amazing so i dont think she'll mind.
the subject of my paper, you ask? notoriety of fame and popularity with style blogs, specifically on sea of shoes and style rookie. the blogsphere (what a terrible world) is a democratizing force, since we as bloggers all start off with the same thing- a blank blog. everything is equal and thus popularity is attributed to what must be the individuals, the personalities of some bodies that stuck out with the mass of the anonymous. however, as a medium, blogs are informal, they are informal by nature b/c their intention of creation was an online journal- thus blogs are the hybridization of the public and private self. when reading blogs of other people, we feel close to them b/c we feel as though we are reading their private thoughts and connecting over the impersonal nature of the web. yadayada yada i ponder if tavi and jane actually write their blogs (there are rumors that they dont, ect) and what they would mean if they didn't, i liken it to the hills b/c the hills is supposed to be unscripted, its debatable if it's not but if they were to hypothetical admit that it was scripted, the hills would cease to exist b/c the point of it is to be reality tv and we assume it's real life. even tho it is so obviously scripted and everyone on that show can barely act and the drama is super duper lame.
summary over.
la dee dah, moving on.
two artists im kind of obsessed with and they are subtly influencing my work. could it be b/c the gallery i am a little mouse helper intern at represents them? maybe. but i do enjoy them so.

stephen shore








karen kilimink




my brand new baby, adopted from marni. plum suede platforms, edged in silver.
hello, hello little new ones!




some things i wore this week. the weather done changed on me and i was so upset that i've been telling myself it is quite warmer than it is. i refuse to put away my shorts until it starts to frost. looks up at sky, shakes fist.
i feel like i'm challenging the weather to give me pneumonia but so be it!

you can always tell it's thursday if im wearing mayle. my professor is more in love with mayle than i am. she has such good taste
mayle shirt, sonia rykiel shorts, topshop hat, rachel comey brogues


this outfit felt a lil awkward- it could be b/c the tights are so harsh but the rest of the outfit is light and airy.
gary graham dress, chloe shoes, anna sui snake necklace



i'm off to the met, in shorts with tights, to go see the robert frank show.
adieu!
*c*

7 comments:

Isabel said...

I fell in love with those Chloe shoes when they first came out in like 2007 or whenever. You are so lucky to own a pair!

Do you actually think that Tavi/Jane don't write their blogs? I definitely think that they do.

louise or valentine said...

those chloe shoes are so comfortable, i feel like gretel or heidi in them


i do think that they write their own blogs, actually. a lot of the paper touches on how our demographic is the web demographic so it's not strange that a 12 yr old can start a blog.
i think part of their popularity is tied to being featured on teenvogue.com, i think that is also a factor in the popularity of your blog as well(other than the fact your blog is awesome :) ). i mean, its a huge honor to be featured on a heavily trafficked website, and it adds exposure.
however, i think that jane has a lot of connections in the fashion world via her mother and that is why her blog is so popular. a lot of fashion websites (refinery 29 things of that nature) will not just feature somebody just to feature them, even if they have a semi-popular blog. i don't think kanye west just typed in cool fashion blog into google and she popped up, a lot of these connections demand PR people. and i think jane's mother does help her with her blog a lot as well as her styling. but also i think the main attraction to jane's blog is that she is the living embodiment of vogue wish fulfillment. and what i mean by that is, vogue feels a need to defend it's styling choices (ie with 20,000 dollar dresses, ect) as wishful thinking or a fantasy. i'm not criticizing them, i do view fashion as a design medium and thus art. however, jane is the reality of that idea, she wears all designer clothing and she is 17. she represents the wish fulfillment in vogue, the articles in vogue are geared toward the socio-economic level she comes from. and i think her blog is an escapist for a lot of ppl, like whereas tavi represents the other idea in fashion- that good style transcends money, since tavi wears mainly thrifted clothing.
i think tavi's popularity is tied in with her age, if she were per se a 17yr old with a blog, i don't think she'd be as famous. and i say this b/c, whenever she is written about, ppl always mention her age, always, its part of questionaries, its part of inquiries. i think a lot of ppl are flabbergasted that a 13 yr old has a blog and likes comme des garcons.

all of this being said...
i'm not a huge fan of jane's blog but i'm obsessed with tavi's blog. i also heavily read both of their blogs. it really does come down to this: i think it's really easy to have good, amazing style when you can wear head to toe multi thousand dollar ensembles but it takes a lot more creativity to put together an entire sal val outfit and have it look like deconstructed couture.

Isabel said...

Wow, that's quite the synopsis! And I have to say I agree with every bit of it. I adore Tavi's blog and frankly, I found it ridiculous when that Times article came out about her not really writing her blog! Sure, she's unusual for a 13 year old but that is definitely the appeal!

As for Jane, sometimes it hurts my heart when I read her blog. She has amazing style, but the unlimited budget certainly doesn't hurt either. I never actually thought about her having 'connections' to the industry but that very well could be. I don't know what her parents do for a living, but it must be pretty cushy. It does sort of make you wonder how she got featured in Teen Vogue and American Vogue, not to mention designing that shoe line for Urban Outfitters...

Amelia said...

Those first photos are so cool! I adore your shoes :)

Eunice said...

ahh, i wanna see the robert frank show before it ends this december! i went to ny in september, when it hasn't opened yet. i'm so bummed.

love the marni shoes! i've always wondered, do they run true to size? i really like the gary graham dress. :)

i like tavi too, i like jane as well but i always get this feeling of social inferiority whenever i read jane's blog because there's the evident social and class difference between me and her, therefore, i can't easily relate to her as far as fashion goes. i can't succumb to frivolity as often as she can. not that i'm condemning her or anything, but she's blessed to have those privileges compared to the rest of america. yikes, i kinda got political on that. haha. i'm writing a paper on hans haacke so all these social/class hierarchies are floating in my head.

louise or valentine said...

i hear you,
so eunice and isabel, i have a question then- why read jane's blog if it does make your heart hurt a bit?
i didn't read her blog for a couple of months and then only started again for this paper.
my thing with blogs is that i want to see something that i usually don't see- jane and vogue are kind of similar and i find her style pretty predictable now- like oh i konw you like rick owens and oh here you are wearing it again, and its layered. and you have very high, black shoes on.
she is really lucky to have these opportunities but i'd say she is just as lucky as any other girl that happens to have connections.

Eunice said...

i don't know, there's this profound fantasy when you read vogue, and more so when you read a blog of a real person that embodies vogue.