December 2007

Sheila Fajl Goldtone and Turquoise Hammered Disc Bracelet (Bloomingdales) [Shopaholics Daily]

Just can’t help it, I love bracelets and the more unusual they are, the better I like them. This one caught my eye this morning!! And when you have as many bracelets as I do, you are constantly on the lookout for just one more that will be just a tad more interesting than the last one!!

Available at Bloomingdales

Technorati Tags: bracelets, Christmas shopping, fun stuff, gift ideas, jewelry, wish list

Source: Sheila Fajl Goldtone and Turquoise Hammered Disc Bracelet (Bloomingdales) [Shopaholics Daily]

An $883 Rice Cooker Is Not A “Feminist Victory” [Expensive Shit]

I don’t know who Laura Vanderkam is, but she apparently wrote something called Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues and now today she is here on the Huffington Post extolling the virtues of an $883 rice cooker, and leave it to me to make the obvious point, “Leave it to someone who hasn’t paid any motherfucking DUES to want an $883 motherfucking RICE COOKER!!” but I as I read the following paragraph I found myself positively aching for a certain unforgivably overpriced kitchen luxury of my own.

Like many modern women, I rarely have to cook. So kitchen time becomes a choice, a matter of self-expression rather than drudgery. Which makes all the gadgets fun. That may not have been the first thing our feminist foremothers were fighting for, but it’s a more important victory than most of us realize.

Dude, and I say this in reckless disregard of the Spirit Of Christmas(TM) but sweetie-pie, to think it is legitimate to call a grossly-overpriced consumer product a “vehicle for self-expression” actually pretty much a defeat. (Also, $886 to cook rice?)

Anyway, I love rice as much as anyone. And I love kitchens. I even sort of like cooking, and occasionally I even like buying things. But when it comes to “expression,” words and art and gestures and time put in — like say, the number of labor hours it might cost to pay off an $886 rice cooker — carry a lot more meaning, and a potentially much bigger victory, than some mass-produced appliance, even one that comes from Japan.

So yeah, don’t buy into this “self-expression” crap and take it easy and don’t just throw your money at useless shit like I inevitably will this weekend.

Finding Joy In An $883 Rice Cooker [Huffington Post]

Source: An $883 Rice Cooker Is Not A “Feminist Victory” [Expensive Shit]

Ality’s Wireless PIXXA puts more internet in the photo frame

And we thought we were getting all fancy with RSS-capable wireless photo frames. The new Wireless PIXXA 8-inch WiFi frame from Ality not only works with the likes of Flickr, but syncs with popular online calendars and news sites as well, including a special Photo Messenger feature that allows friends to push embarrassing photos instantly onto the frame and in view of your holiday guests. The 800 x 600 resolution should be plenty, and in addition to the traditional card reader there’s 2GB of built-in storage. Ality should be selling the PIXXA in the first half of next year for $299.

[Via Born Rich]

Source: Ality’s Wireless PIXXA puts more internet in the photo frame

ZiLin Zhang beautiful photos

Zilin Zhang, a Beijing secretary who was born in the gritty northern industrial city of Shijiazhuang, scooped the title late on Saturday on the southern Chinese resort island of Hainan;Now,ZiLin Zhang of China as Miss World 2007.

Source: ZiLin Zhang beautiful photos

A Purple Nautical Tunic & Skirt Combo [Style Tots]

This Lil Miss loves to take pictures. She loves dressing up too. As soon as I put this purple nautical tunic with silver embossed butterfly on her, she was clapping with glee. She couldn’t wait to show Daddy and Big Brother her new outfit. I told her to come back to her room though so she could put on her black mary janes to finish her cute ensemble. When she heard the word “shoes”, she was all smiles.. LOL.

Baby Fashion, Baby Mary Janes, Baby Shoes, Baby Styles, Baby Winter Styles, Infant Girl Tunics, Infant Girls Tops, Infant Nautical Tunics, Infant Winter Fashion, Purple Nautical Tunic & Skirt Combo, Style Tots Fashionista

Source: A Purple Nautical Tunic & Skirt Combo [Style Tots]

Black Beaded Pink Dress [Just a Formality]

The pale pink and delicate beading give this dress a soft and romantic look.

Available at cybernetplaza.com; they ship worldwide.

If you got to this article by some other means than the official website, please visit justaformality.com to view the homepage (and more articles like this one).

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Source: Black Beaded Pink Dress [Just a Formality]

Could Mike Huckabee Change The Way America Sees Jamie Lynn Spears? [Values Voters]

By now pretty much the entire human population has weighed in, in some conversation or comments section or SMS or message board or somesuch, on the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears. And most of you haven’t been positive. “This baby backfired!” cackled celebrity tabloid deity Bonnie Fuller, noting that 135% of Star readers or whatever TOTALLY HATE Jamie Lynn Spears’ fetus. Echoed the editors of Seventeen and CosmoGIRL!: Think of your career! But sometimes a considered judgment is more powerful than a kneejerk one, and, well, ladies and gentleman, your Republican frontrunner for Presidential candidacy has spoken.

It’s a tragedy when a 16-year-old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is going to be now faced with all the responsibilities of honest-to-goodness adult life. I respect it…Apparently, she’s going to have the child and I think that is the right decision, a good decision, and I respect that and appreciate it. I hope it is not an encouragement to other 16-year-olds who think that is the best course of action. But at the same time I’m not going to condemn her. There’ll be plenty of people in line to do that and I always look for the shortest lines.

I just hope that she will make another right decision and that’s to give that child all the love and kindness and care that she can.

Um, okay, so that was yesterday — his off-the-cuff comments in Iowa, though it sort of seems like he was waiting to be asked about it — and as of press time Mike Huckabee was the only candidate who seemed to have spoken out on this issue. Scary on multiple levels is all I’m going to venture right now. But also pretty amusing!

Huckabee Comments On Jamie-Lynn Spears [Popdirt]

Source: Could Mike Huckabee Change The Way America Sees Jamie Lynn Spears? [Values Voters]

British Fashion Council Discovers Airbrushing, Becomes Appalled [Photoshop Of Horrors]

The British Fashion Council, the governing board behind London Fashion Week, has come out against the overuse of airbrushing in England’s magazines. (Dear BFC: we could have told you about this a long time ago.) BFC reps tell the Telegraph that it is writing a letter to the British Society of Magazine Editors and others about “digitally-enhanced body images and the part it plays in magazines in perpetuating an unachievable aesthetic.” The Council is also concerned that the health guidelines for models that they recommended earlier this year are “not being implemented.” The Guardian says that “the recommendations include a ban on models under the age of 16 and non-smoking and drug free backstage environments.”

English fashion authorities aren’t the only international groups getting upset about the current state of the celebrity-industrial complex. The Women’s Forum in Australia released a report in August called Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s Magazines. And guess what they found? The tyranny of perfection perpetuated by women’s magazines makes everyone hate themselves!!

Considering the fashion industry’s widespread apathy about anorexia (according to the Guardian, Karl Lagerfeld said the models just had “skinny bones”; Dolce & Gabbana said that anorexia had “nothing to do with fashion”), it’s hard to believe that the BFC’s suggestions will be truly heard. But who knows? Maybe at some point a faux-celebrity’s photographed cellulite won’t cause a major media outcry. Fingers crossed!

Magazines criticised for airbrushing models [Telegraph]
Model health recommendations ‘not being implemented’ [Guardian]

Earlier:
Here’s Our Winner! ‘Redbook’ Shatters Our ‘Faith’ In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God
Breaking News: Jennifer Love Hewitt Is A Human Being
America Ferrera’s Glamour Treatment, Revisited

Source: British Fashion Council Discovers Airbrushing, Becomes Appalled [Photoshop Of Horrors]

Balenciaga is Beyond Retro

The thing that I have been really lacking and needing in the past few months is time to do my little fashion experimentations that don’t necessarily need a lot of manpower/effort but do need a bit of thought and the shopping trips to facilitate stumbling upon the right raw materials.  Fashion is like my geek subject that I pore over most unhealthily and I only wish I could buy more time to do that. 

When people commented on the ‘WTF’ fabric as being very Balenciaga-ish, when you really think about it, vintage stores/thrift stores/charity shops are absolutely full of floral prints that would all happily nod in that Balenciaga SS08 direction if you so wish.  Personally, I took to the shapes more than the prints in my initial reaction but now, the contrast between the technical body sculpture and the slightly garish original Cristobal Balenciaga prints pushes and pulls each other in all the right ways.

So with some X’mas spare time, and taking advantage of the unusually quiet Beyond Retro in Soho, I picked up a blue floral dress with inbuilt shoulder pads, something of an old lady dress.  Then with some shape building makeshift underwear/padding (black corset, puffball skirt and netting) and some tucking in, an on-the-cheap homage occurs.  It will take a bit of permanent fixing to wear out but the elastic on the puffball skirt is such that, it’s pretty much secure when all the tucking in is done. 

Source: Balenciaga is Beyond Retro

Lisa Hoffman Skincare

If the name Lisa Hoffman sounds familiar to you, then you guessed it right.  Lisa Hoffman is the wife of the legendary (well to us) Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman.  Now Lisa has her own thing to be poroud of: Lisa Hoffman Skincare, which also includes spa collection and fragrance.  Refer to a post on Talking Perfum about the Lisa Hoffman Variations Fragrance Collection here! 

 

Lisa’s message on her website invites all of us to experience the beauty of simplicity.  By that we mean, products that are easy to use a