…inherently sound pretentious?

Charm bracelets make noise.

Entirely too much jingling.

I am not Christmas.

For the past several months, when trying to visit UrbanOutfitters.com, I have been confronted with this bleak page:

Fail.

Yup. Too bad for you, sucka! No UO shopping is happening on your laptop. No, no. And we’re even going to give you the Québécois error page, since we somehow know that your recent experiences in Montréal were less than fabulous. But do come visit us… Just not online.

Which is probably for the best, considering their ridiculous shipping charges, but there are these boots… Boots that I can’t even show you since I CAN’T GET ON THE WEB SITE! Boots that, if I remember correctly, are only available online!

I forgot this (important) fact when I rushed to the Urban Outfitters store on Yonge St. last week, risking being late to the Owen Pallett concert that I was in Toronto for that night (!), and searched for them, in vain. Instead, I found  another pair of semi-similar boots and bought them—in what was probably the quickest shoe shopping adventure I have ever been on. Maybe I don’t need their website after all?

I just wish I could know why I’m exiled from it! (And how to fix that…)

PS. My UO website exile isn’t the reason that I haven’t posted in an eon; end-of-term/degree academic madness is the main reason for that, as is my involvement with other projects, like Standard Deviation Theatre. But there are other reasons, too, which I intend to discuss in a later post. In the meantime, I hope you’ll accept my well-founded intentions to post more regularly again.

Welcome.

H&M. AA. The initials have landed. In Waterloo.

One with considerably more advertising fanfare than the other. What’s with the H&M billboard in the SLC (which even merited its own Facebook group of pseudo-protestation), a GRT bus covered with their ad, and their dissemination of the most recent issue of H&M magazine to local businesses?

Whereas American Apparel… put up a sign in the window of their future space.

And I neither heard nor saw anything from them about their new store again. A friend and I wondered when the new AA would finally be opening, since the H&M seemed to have announced its future presence afterward and yet opened earlier, until we realized that both stores actually seem to have opened on the same day.

Sitting outside in Uptown on that very day—yesterday, I saw what I thought to be a surplus of hipsters traipsing around, and now I can only expect numbers to increase further (not that I really care, or use the term particularly pejoratively).

And yet, it still feels weird to have an American Apparel in Waterloo, somehow. I mused with my friend Guy about how the AA employees will likely stick out on their way to work, considering the company’s penchant for encouraging employees’ risqué outfits. Maybe they’ll serve to up the ante for loud style in this city.

Maybe I’ll just shop there less. And at H&M, too? Damn. There’ll surely be many others to replace me and anyone else who does so.

Guess I’ll just have to wait around in my one-piece and thigh-highs and see.

Image courtesy of IMDb.com.

A Single Man is a beautiful film. In every respect.

The cinematography is achingly picturesque. Paul mentioned that it was described as “looking like a perfume commercial in every shot,” but that description rings a bit too pejorative for me.

In any case, every scene is beautiful. And the clothing is sublime. Colin Firth’s suits fit him like a dream (and he looks the dreamiest I’ve ever seen him). Apparently Tom Ford even made sure that the suit Firth wore was inscribed with his character’s name on the jacket’s inside pocket. His character is George Falconer—who shines his shoes every morning, wears tie clips, and writes on monogrammed stationery. Style. Genius.

And, most importantly, the story is beautiful, too. Now I just have to read the novel it’s based on.

At times, I wondered if the emphasis on the visual style of the film, which is especially marked by Ford’s frequent close-up shots and deliberate changes in colour filtering, detracts from the viewer’s ability to actually feel the film, which is weighty in terms of both plot and performances. I’ve decided that if the focus on visuals does distract and detract from the emotional impact of the story, it does so only on rare occasion and it is a worthy distraction. It might also serve to create a purposeful distancing effect, to allow for a more critical perspective on the film’s events; while this is Ford’s directorial debut, I have much faith in him. If you see this film, as you should, I suspect you will, too.

(Also, my apologies for the delay in posting again: I’m getting into bad habits, and I partially planned to post on a Wednesday again—ideally followed by a proper weekend post—since I could only see the film last Tuesday night, but that plan obviously failed. I should be back on track now, though. Sorry!)

Quite possibly the best photo I’ve seen of the largely candidly-uncapturable Anna Wintour, taken by (Canadian!) Tommy Ton:

Anna Wintour, captured at New York Fashion Week by Tommy Ton, for Style.com.

Also, on a somewhat related note, The September Issue is now out on DVD. Despite my lack of love for it, I feel compelled to buy a copy.

Also also, I find it funny/interesting when more than one fashion blogger captures and posts an image of the same person. Considering that the original idea of most of these blogs was to showcase people who wouldn’t otherwise get shown, I wonder if it’s an indication of the over-saturation of the market. And, as someone who just wants to make it onto one of the good ones once, I imagine how spectacular it would be to get featured on two of them!

Tommy Ton vs. Scott Schuman.

Also also also, my apologies for the lateness — and resultant partial redundancy — of this post. I was away in Montreal for most of reading week and am still exhausted to the point of being incapable of functioning. More on that trip (likely), this weekend.

Image courtesy of Harper's Bazaar.

“Alexander McQueen died,” read the full body of the text I received from my friend Cole last Thursday morning.

Since I was off the grid (at work, without Internet access), I couldn’t even investigate further and just had to await her replies to my questions: “What?! No way. That’s tragic. How?”

“Suicide. I’m sending you the link now.”

I received it seven hours later. Alexander McQueen, Designer, Is Dead at 40. The article has been updated frequently since then, with the fitting addition of Cathy Horyn to its authorship.

Everyone seems to be writing that a) they are overwhelmingly sad about McQueen’s death, and b) that McQueen was the designer who was the most _______ or the best at _______. For me, he was the one whose runway presentations I longed to see most. “One day, I’ll get to see one of McQueen’s shows.” And shows they were. Spectacles. Theatre even, I would heartily argue.

Tom Ford recently told Vogue that he had never done anything purely artistic until he directed A Single Man; he sees himself as a commercial designer more than as an artist.

Alexander McQueen was an artist, a designer whose collections were both tapped-into and ahead of the zeitgeist. Present and predictive.

Just like the notorious ways he staged them—the descriptions of which are now making their way into his obituaries and tributes: as a retelling of the film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; with models as choreographed pieces on a chess board; with models as patients in a mental asylum; featuring a hologram of the infamous Kate Moss; and, eventually, simulcasted online.

His presentations were art. His designs were art. By all accounts, the construction of his clothing was also masterful. (I wouldn’t know, but I certainly hope to one day.)

Scott Schuman wrote of McQueen’s death that he wished there were someone he could look to, to help him make sense of it, like he believes that Tom Brokaw would have if McQueen had been a celebrity or politician rather than a fashion designer. For me, Schuman—whose writing, while not usually his forte, is rather strong on this occasion—is himself one of those people. As is his partner, Garance Dore. As, too, is Tim Blanks.

And finally, as is Cathy Horyn, whose use of McQueen’s own words resonates poignantly in one of her posts on his death. Speaking of his close friend and champion, Isabella Blow (who committed suicide in 2007), McQueen told Horyn that, “She would never understand that all it came down to was: ‘You just are, Isabella. And that is your commodity.’ She never understood that because of her insecurities.”

McQueen’s genius was his commodity; I will remember it.

Courtesy of VOGUE.fr's VOGUE TV.

I’ve never really had an appreciation for Vanessa Bruno or Lou Doillon before, but this video is one of the best presentations of a collection that I have ever seen. The direction, by Stéphanie Di Giusto, is brilliant, as is the cinematography, and Doillon’s airy, carefree movements mesh perfectly with Gonzales’ music, all of which cohere to capture Bruno’s largely ethereal  S/S2010 collection. Beautiful. Sweetness and light.

I am uninspired.

Image courtesy of www.vogue.com

Just like this month’s cover of American Vogue.

My excuse is a bruised tailbone; I wonder what theirs is.