ULTRA CLUTCH

I've got to be honest and admit that no, I am not a huge movie person. In all actuality, I'm not a huge pop culture person in general - I haven't yet watched Grease in its entirety (though I have watched bits and pieces!) and if I were to attempt to explain the plot of The Breakfast Club other than the fact there there must be some kind of club that involves breakfast, you would be incredibly disappointed.



So you won't be surprised that I've only ever watched the 2007 version of Hairspray. I even saw it in theatres when it came out! The 1988 version, on the other hand, I am completely blind about. I have a "classic must-watch movie day" planned indefinitely and it's probably on the list of to-watch movies - along with all of those movies you'd expect a girl obsessed with all things vintage to have watched (no, I have not watched any Audrey Hepburn movies - I know, I know). So now that I've given that disclaimer about my utter lack of knowledge about the original, I'm going to post about the newer version.

I bought it the other day at the video store because it was on sale (4 movies for $15 total!) and I remember seeing it three years ago and liking how upbeat and peppy it was. Well, when I watched it again last night, I fell in love.

And no, I'm not talking entirely about the plot itself (I have both praise and criticism for the way it dealt with the issues it brought up - though cutely campy and an interesting portrayal of 60s racial tensions, it was overloaded on the schmaltz and very modern robotics as a blockbuster at times). I am talking, of course -



- about the costuming.

I'll just cut to the chase and say that the floral dresses shown in both above images, complete with pastel crinolines and dainty little pumps made my day. Paired with boppy dance numbers and the little moments in the movie that made me laugh, like the snapshot of the pregnant women drinking and smoking in a bar, it's no wonder I enjoyed the movie as much as I did. I'm a sucker for pretty clothes (obviously), peppy dancing and singing that almost makes me cringe (see Glee), and those little moments of irony. Not to mention that Brittany Snow has the most adorable outfits matching perfectly in most scenes with Michelle Pfeiffer's. The matching mother-daughter clothing was like a cherry on top of the sundae.



Look at the image above. The little nautical navy bolero with ruffled sleeves and matching belted dress on Amber I need in my wardrobe right now, and the prints of the dresses of the Collins Council girls are all so sweet. I really love the butter-yellow blouse and patterned skirt of the girl in the back on the left - I wish I had a better photo. And, lastly, the blue cardigan of the girl just to the left of the center - those appliques are so cute!



Frothy party dresses with floral prints and gratituous amounts of tulle? Yes please. The Miss Teenage Hairspray scenes were some of my favourite in terms of the clothing - you can tell how these dresses are such a step up from the more casual cotton sundresses, so it's no surprise that they're all just so gorgeous.

I feel like I need to explain more why I'm raving so much over a bunch of dresses. Watching Hairspray is the same experience I have with Mad Men (or at least those episodes of Mad Men I got around to watching!). As an awkward, very visible Asian girl it's not as if I would particularly like to live in the 50s and 60s; but the camp and the clamouring cuteness of certain cinema moments portraying the 60s, including the entirety of Hairspray, hark back to a time when girls wore beautiful dresses and Zac Efron had beautiful hair. (I'm kidding on the last one. But he should really stick to the dark brown.) It's not as if the era was free of its trademark racism and misogyny and societal expectations that would (and does) shock the world of today... but the clothing chosen to represent the time certainly wishes so.

all screencaps via jeezbee

I just can't help it. The bright colours and the perfectly cinched waists over gorgeous full crinolines of the dresses in this movie made me so envious and so happy at the same time. I really wish I could have gotten better views/caps from the school scenes - you see lovely dresses worn that would be seen as crazy amounts of overdressed today, but I'm loving it. There's just something about the shape and style that looks so pretty on vintage dresses like these!

I'm going to have to go and watch the 1988 Hairspray, if just for the costuming as well, though I'm sure there's plenty more about the setting I'm going to love about that movie! What else should I be watching soon, dear reader(s)? Am I stoked!

much love,
Kai

VOICES PT. I

I write like

Margaret Atwood

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So according to this meme using a biographical piece I'm working on (oooh, mystery - nah, I will probably post it here once I'm done with it, which may be a while considering how pure my laziness writer's block is right now) I write like Margaret Atwood.

I'm quite flattered, as she is a literary goddess.

However, I'm just going to say right now that I do not necessary endorse the expertise of this thing, as a different sample of my writing told me I write like Stephen King, and seeing as I haven't actually read any of his work I don't know what to say to that. Um, tangent.

Anyway, this got me thinking about written voices. I like reading other people's writing - fiction, non-fiction, fanfiction, whatever. I like that the written word is like a little window into someone else's head, and if you know that particular someone else personally then isn't that just a ridiculously powerful thing? But from what I've noticed over the last few years as I've developed my writing is that, for me, the context really distorts the voice. Is that a good thing? I don't know.

Let me give you an example. After I've been studying and it's so late at night that the house is still and I can only hear the buzz of the air in my ears, sometimes I get a compulsion to write, and when I do it is typically adjective-embellished, feminist and/or romantic fiction. Is that my voice? That is probably the voice that the internet tells me mirrors Atwood's style. But to anyone reading this sentence, right now, do you see that parallel? That's the strange thing, that so easily I could slip out of my creative writing shoes and into whatever this is - probably a more personal voice considering the subject matter. And then of course there is my essay voice, which I am told is pure academia tinged, of course, with my flowery tendencies. To me all of these styles of mine are just so distinct.

This makes me think that maybe I'm lost in my voices, maybe I don't actually have one voice. And maybe it's not just me, because it's so easy to read someone else's writing and think huh. That sure sounds different from how I know them. In a world where being independent and recognizable gets you on covers of magazines, maybe that's a concern. If my admitted style idol Dita Von Teese can look exactly herself in a vintage sundress and red lipstick, if you can see a bunch of funky line breaks and punctuation and know that e. e. cummings was probably the author, if you can see puffed-up shoulder pads on a celebrity and instantly say Balmain - why can't so many of us find that streamlined authenticity, that instantly recognizeable it factor?

images from ditavonteesefan.net, style.com; poem by e. e. cummings

I really want to continue this entry and offer you all some huge magical answer to this very thoughtful and slightly depressing quandary of mine, but to be honest I have no idea where to go from here. That's why I'm going to post this as only Part I of some kind of series about figuring out who I am/where my voice is/what the heck a voice is supposed to be anyway - after all, this blog is very much about finding myself, and I think it's something for everyone to think about. What side of you that you present to the world is "the real you"? More unnervingly, do you?

And that's why I'm so flattered and puzzled by the answer of this internet thing. As a parting note, I entered this blog entry itself and got:

I write like

Margaret Atwood

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So I guess maybe I'm more consistent than I thought.

Hm.

much love,

Kai

DIOR, I LOVE YOU

I guess it's kind of funny that my first post of original written content on this blog is one that focuses on what is perhaps my most frivolous interest, fashion. I, in fact, disagree with that verdict.

You see, I'm in love. Maybe it's because, ever since I was a little kid, my mother would step on the plastic pedal of her sewing machine and the sound of the needle thrumming against fabric feeding through would buzz in the air, like many tiny bees saying pthhhlb! pthhhlb! at my pathetic inability to do what my mother could do. I have always wanted to sew and failed miserably, mostly due to my impatience. But I will always hold a high regard for anyone who can cut out a piece of flat fabric, look at it, and turn it into something three-dimensional.

Just like art on a canvas is meant to be pondered upon, considered, and very often paid exorbitant amounts of cash on, something made of fabric is just as thoughtful, thought-provoking and, for what must be the millions of people who rock happily back and forth on their heels when stores put out new collections, just as loveable.

Art, in all its infinite forms, does so many things. Art makes you think, makes you wonder about the things that are presented as a representation of real life, makes you laugh when it's ridiculously silly and makes you, perhaps, cry when it's particularly poignant. Art is so very much a reflection of what you are and what you want to be.

I know that the fashion industry, as well as haute couture itself, is definitely not without its flaws. But sometimes we need to remember that fashion at its roots, at its ideals, and at haute couture, is art that has the full capability to transport you to beautiful places just as a well-penned novel can.

With that, I want to show you some of the Dior Haute Couture Fall 2010 collection. I was surprised to see a lot of mixed reviews about this season, mostly due to the very Galliano tackiness of the bright colours and ridiculous uses of fabric. Some of the looks were creeping over the edge of bright to the side clearly labelled tacky, but with every Dior show I fall more in love with the New Look reinvented over and over and over again.

I'm going to admit that I've skipped to pretty much the end of the entire show with this photo but, you know, whatever. LOOK AT THIS DRESS. The way the black satin seems to gradually give way to the light fabric is incredible. And the tiny hint of green in the dye? So beautiful, and so evocative of the tenderness of new petals.

The black tulle! The buttery yellow tulle! It's as if a flower was supersized and seamlessly sewn into the dress. I adore the back. Kim looks like a dark sprite slipped into the petals of a flower.

The finale dress. Just look at the colours. I am dying ;_;

Hair, makeup, shoes, and a little detail from one of my other favourite looks. The hair is completely ridiculous and I love it. The shoe in this pretty green is so lovely - like ivy creeping up the model's ankle.

Stephen Jones created headgear that looked like a florist's plastic wrap. Someone else contributed the raffia belts. And nature did the rest. "It's the most inspiring teacher," said John Galliano, after a show that was a hymn to all things floral. Part of his research involved studying real flowers, spending an hour watching the light change on a parrot tulip, for instance. ... Perhaps it was the precision of the inspiration that accounted for the show's clarity, not only in the palette but in the delicate techniques. The fronding, the feathering, the ruching, the ruffling—all duplicated the extraordinary intricacies of flowers. Delicate they may be in nature, but his objects of study gave Galliano free rein to be bold.

Tim Blanks @ Style.com

I guess it's good this is just my first runway recap post because I am completely incoherent. Looking at these images makes me wish I was a tiny fairy prancing around in fields of gorgeous flowers made of tulle and satin and chiffon, and as expressed much more eloquently by Blanks, that was exactly the intention. This is art at its finest. I'm not going to lie - I am unashamedly a blind Dior fangirl, and most seasons I see very little wrong being done. Fashion very much attempts to display and fulfil our fantasies, just as so many writers also have. Fantasy, whimsy, that sense of childish excitement - that's what I see so often in haute couture.

...Which is good, seeing as I recently purchased a white tutu from the children's section of H&M. For myself. :)

-

In other news: I'm still getting the hang of this blogging deal! I think my tendency to ramble may be a negative effect but, you know. What you see is what you get - hello, ridiculously long trains of thought! Still, I'm hoping to have something up at least a couple times a week. I do, after all, have lots and lots to talk about (and much more personal thought to be expressed!)

Much love,

Kai

SPELLING

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

Margaret Atwood