DREGUBLOG CATEGORY ARCHIVE: Fashion?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
The Hot Comb Bible
Madam Walker was an entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products for black women ... When confronted with the idea that she was trying to conform black women's hair to that of whites, she stressed that her products were simply an attempt to help black women take proper care of their hair and promote its growth. -- Women In History, Madame CJ Walker
Assimilation is a bitch.
Twice a month I got "assimilated" as a kid sitting between my mother's knees either getting my long curly hair braided, or worse, holding the cap from a jar of Afro Sheen over my ear, protecting it from the hot comb as she pressed my hair straight.
This is the penitence countless black women and girls pay to pretend our hair just grew out that way.
Simply because of racism and the works of first black millionaire Madame CJ Walker, the First Lady of the United States cannot rock an afro.
Michelle Obama, definitely black enough ball up her hand in a fist, shout "down with The Man" and rock an afro, cannot do so because the rules of engagement require her to fashion her hard to straighten hair into a killer bob more brutal and precise than the laser-like precision of Condoleezza Rice's killer bob.
I hate the bob. It is, by far, the least attractive 'do. It's corporate black hair designed by committee. It's been marketed and tested as patented follicles that don't scare white folk. Although I don't know how much good it does her with people opening up emails about "Michelle Obama Whitey" tapes only to find Rick "Singin' Like A Negro" Ashley telling them how he's never going to give them up.
But while Rick can ululate like Frankie Beverly and Haddaway, Michelle can't embrace her nappy roots.
It was Sarah Breedlove, aka Madame CJ Walker, who made this dream of straight hair assimilation a reality by inventing the pressing comb.
An ingenious device made of iron, it was comb you heated up on stove whereupon you would apply oil to your hair and sizzle the curls away. Finally, the Western standard of beauty was half-ass obtainable for black women. The hot comb created the black hair care industry and launched the careers of millions of black women who became economically self-sufficient as beauticians. The press n' curl was a lucrative 'do that kept the sisters coming back. After all, a drop of water, a touch of humidity or a slight sweat on the scalp returned the hair to its naturally nappilicious state.
Today, taking natural hair and turning it into something unnatural and making that look halfway coherent still takes work. They can event an iPhone, but they still can create a way to conform black hair to white standards in less than two hours.
The best technique is using hair that's not your hair. Back when white girls were still working a crimping iron and dressing like Mayim Bialik, black girls were mastering the glue, the sew and the braiding of synthetic/"treated" hair grown from the heads of broke chicks in Asia, then textured to better match our wave patterns.
So the secret's out. That is not all of Michelle's hair.
I've seen the older pictures of her. She's done what it took Condi four years into the Bush Administration to figure out. Get some damn weave to fill out that killer bob. Create the illusion of health and thickness to give your natural hair a break, lest it break off.
Most black women with straight hair go for the chemicals, but that can lead to the ever-expanding of your forehead space with the sides and the top breaking off over time. There's nothing worse than a perm that's put in for too long, the acid burning into your scalp leaving it scarred, sore and scabby like you just rolled around the the toxic dust of Chernobyl.
That's why the best method, but the least permanent technique to straighten hair is the pressing comb. You might get burned but your hair isn't going to fall out (unless the presser doesn't know what they're doing).
But black beauticians nowadays look at you like you're crazy if you want your hair pressed over a perm. Perms make more money. Historically a press n' curl was cheaper because you already bought the comb. All you're paying for is time. But rather than charging $25 or $35 for good hair sizzle they want to charge as much as they charge for the perm -- $50 and up.
While money is an issue for me, it's not for Michelle Obama. She probably has her own weavologist, press n' curl genius maintaining that killer bob.
I'm sure that if I asked sweetly my mom would let me sit between her knees again from another round with a jar of pressing oil and tensing up as she gets closer and closer to the back of my ears, but I choose just to wear my hair natural.
After all, I'm not trying to assimilate my way to Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm free, by golly. Free to wear my hair in curly twists and have well meaning, but boundary crossing white folks touch my hair like it's mink coat, petting it and admiring that it's so soft.
It's a pain in the ass, but ... eh ... it's better than bob. Rock on Mrs. O. Rock on.
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Monday, June 2, 2008
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BE KEITH RICHARDS AND ANITA PALLENBERG
Greetings, Dregublog Fiends.
Firstly, I'd like to say that if Anita Pallenberg is your style, then you probably don't shop at Tory Burch, Critically or otherwise.
May I nextly say thank you to the diehards like Phil for hanging around and being generally swell and loquacious as always despite my prolonged absence on the comment-pile. The dirty deed has been done dirt cheap, and I have it on good authority that my new book (drumroll please):
CALIGULA FOR PRESIDENT: BETTER AMERICAN LIVING THROUGH TYRANNY
BOW DOWN AND TREMBLE
...will be OUT and in stores hopefully by September, definitely by October, and definitely before the next presidential election.
In the meantime, there is a new-esque Dregulator over yar ---->>>
....another Critical Shopper in the NY Times extolling quality Eurotrashinita par excellence, CATHERINE MALANDRINO....
....and a lovely shout out from the Great Lady of Salon and MSNBC punditry fame, the lovely and scary-smart Ms. Joan Walsh, who re-discovered my Scott McClellan piece from 2005 and linked to it on her Salon blog.
Anyone who hangs around most evenings arguing publicly with Pat Buchanan is more than OK by me.
In short, there's a whole lot of shakin' going on, and hopefully all the pretty little rocks don't fall out of my head.
Love,
Cintra
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Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Americans, You Look Like Hell
What is America's fear of dressing well?
I recently attended a formal wedding in Oregon, and was astonished by the inappropriate attire that I viewed there. I saw grown men dressed in pleated khaki shorts, polo shirts, and athletic footwear. All that was missing were the backwards baseball caps. As I glided past in my silk gown and fitted velvet jacket, I felt for the bride and groom. As their friends and family, didn't we have an obligation to try to be elegant for their special day? Couldn't we all, for one day, honor the couple's marriage ritual by dressing appropriately? Is it somehow embarrassing, or too emotionally difficult, for American men to behave as if they care?
Until the last couple of decades of the twentieth century, Americans considered dressing well as displaying a sense of pride and purpose. To present oneself as well groomed showed that you cared, that you were deserving of respect, no matter what your income level. It still does, but America has lost that thread, as it were. Part of this decline has to do with the mass marketing of clothing for large business conglomerates, such as department stores and big box emporiums. But one-stop shopping does not a stylish citizen make. Department stores and big-box emporiums cater to the concept of ready-to-wear and off-the-rack. Ready-to-wear is more business baloney that has colluded to make the American citizen look bad while making a lot of money. The sizes are confusing and shift according to brand, and are cut to conform to an arbitrary fit model. No one possesses the same physical proportions; this is one of the gifts of individuality that has been bestowed on us by nature. If a piece of clothing does not fit you properly, you should have it altered. Alterations to fit individual bodies was part of how all commercial clothing was produced, until profit margins took precedence over dressing well.
Wake up America, and understand that Wal-Mart and their ilk are not out to make you look good. Their purpose is to sell cheaply produced, anonymous clothing that wears out quickly so you will have to buy more. While doing this, your individuality will be stamped out. You will lose the knowledge, if indeed you ever had it, of what looks good on your unique form. You will be forced to continue to patronize generic retail establishments, which make their profits by the exploitative practice of outsourcing their clothing production to developing countries. Realize that this is un-American, for America values individuality, freedom, and quality, doesn't it?
The media emphasis on what celebrities don is another marketing ploy of the bigger conglomerates of the apparel industry. It makes average people understand style as something only the wealthy and perfect-bodied can afford. But celebrities work with stylists to create a certain image. They are creating iconography, which is not style. The average American says "I could never look that good anyway." Neither do the celebrities; look at the alternative industry, maddening in its mixed-messagery, that the gossip media has also created: trafficking images of celebrities in sweat clothes, flashing cellulite, schlubbing around on their days off. American people, beware of this trickery! Do not let media double-speak deprive you of your obligation to present yourselves with dignity!
There is an erroneous idea that only designer clothing looks good, and the average American cannot afford to dress well. But style is an alternative to money. Money does not influence wearing clean, pressed, well-fitting clothing. Nice clothing can be found used at cheaper prices than new Wal-Mart-type crap. The stigma of used clothing being the province of the marginalized needs to change if we are to truly embrace green politics as the only viable alternative this planet now faces.
In Europe, people prefer to buy a few well-made and individually tailored pieces per season. The American practice, in contrast, is to blow wads of cash on poorly produced impulse purchases at the local mall to fill an emotional void that has been planted there by a consuming culture.
Looking good is not only for yourself, but perhaps more importantly, it is for other people. You are hurting someone's eyes if you stomp around in fleece and oversized tee shirts, and not only the eyes of aesthetes such as myself. Clothing that fits your body, that flatters your unique physique, will provide you with comfort and confidence. Certain cuts of clothing force better posture. Television makeover shows have flourished under this premise. If you're not sure what looks good on you, bring someone whose style choices you admire, or ask someone who works at the store. Any self-respecting salesperson will be happy to do so. Clearly, this will not occur at K-Mart or Old Navy.
Even so-called anti-fashion movements such as punk have style in droves. It's just that their fashion is not driven by a profit-making industry, but by political expression. Style is not affectation. It is how you present yourself to the world. Get real, Americans, we've looked bad for too long!
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Monday, May 5, 2008
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN -- FETISHY SHOES FOR THE PERVO-IMPERIALIST
Your Critical Shopper gets all French Situationist this week, invoking both Guy Debord and Mary Baker Eddy.
If You Can Read This, You Don't Need A Ruling Class
Oh those wacky French in May, 1968.
They haven't stopped being kinky ever since.
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
THOSE WACKY KIDS HANGING AROUND THE PENTAGON
Well, it seems our pal Charlie at our favorite counterinsurgency blog, Abu Muqawama, is trying to horn in on our fashion criticism turf with a painfully nailing little essay detailing DC summer fashion Don'ts.
Which means, of course, that I am going to have to salt her area of cyberspace so that nothing can ever be written there again. Or maybe I can just get Britain and France to let me claim the cyberspace around Abu Muqawama, and then once all the treaties are signed I can just declare that it doesn't exist anymore. Hey, it worked for Hitler.
But, all imperial ambitions aside, Charlie should be applauded for this Quixotic endeavor -- trying to get army colonels not to obviously dress like army colonels in their free time. If they all heeded her advice, it would certainly do a great deal to beautify parts of DC and much of Virginia.
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Friday, April 18, 2008
LOOK! NEW STUFF! NO, REALLY, IT IS! NEW STUFF!
My Dearest Fiends:
The deadlines are wreaking havoc - havoc I say - here at the Dregublog, but right over there to your right is a brand new Dregulator chock full of all the weird legal information I spent a couple of frustrated weeks trying to squeeze out of various legal outfits (several of whom refused to speak to me because I was not considered to be serious enough.)
THE LAW IS NOT FOR LITTLE GIRLS
I think this is stuff that EVERY AMERICAN HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW and it was a fair pain in the keister trying to get someone to clue me in, but I have made these demoralizing inquiries from the priest class that is the legal profession so you don't have to.
ALSO, I did a little shopping for the New York Times again -- this time at one of Brooklyn's finest $900 shoe outlets.
Con carne,
Cintra
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Sunday, April 6, 2008
SMELLS LIKE QUEEN SPIRIT
The ever-lovin' New York Times sent my Critical Shopping A** to AEDES DE VENUSTAS,
a really cram-packed little place where people of great wealth and means buy $75 candles and $260 perfumes. VAHBULOUSH.
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Friday, March 28, 2008
NO, NO, PRADA SOHO....AND THE DREGS FOR ARMS SCANDAL
WHELLLLL, this was fairly recent in the New York Times -- essentially a warning to avoid heavy traffic by staying away from the dressing rooms at the Prada SoHo .
Earlier today, I confessed my love for El DeBarge on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaeffer, the recording of which you can link to if you have the shameless huevos to feel the stank.
FEEL KINKY SHAME
And there's also a new Dregulator over there, because so many interesting things have been going on in the international munitions world, I wanted to share and enthuse.....*yikers!*
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Thursday, March 6, 2008
AHHH, THE NAME IS GUCCI, BABY -- THE UNCUT VERSION
The Critical Shopper today takes the reader on a multi-floored tour of the new Gucci flagship.
The Times Copy Desk, bless their ironed socks and blow-dried toothbrushes, felt a little uncomfortable with a few of my word-choices. Here is the original version with outrageous profanity (like the word "condom") left in:
CRITICAL SHOPPER: GUCCI
By Cintra Wilson
The brand is strong, the numbers are great...but Gucci seems to be going through a minor midlife crisis. A fling, maybe. Nothing serious.
On a subtle level, Gucci still seems not to have bounced back since the divorce. Tom Ford was the great romance of Gucci's life, after all. They had an enviably exciting run - the old blue-blood finally had its overdue sexual awakening when young playboy Tom swang in, with his condom-tight slacks and groin-deep necklines. They couldn't last, of course; both the markets and egos involved were too volatile. Still, Tom, for all his flaws, really understood Gucci.
Gucci's recent print ads are upbeat and bosomy; a jailbait nymph with pouty lips clambering on rocks with an oily-haired boyfriend. If you squint, they resemble (ahem) George Marciano Guess ads... a fun, flirty style, tackier than one expects of the Gucci legacy.
The new flagship seems architecturally inspired by Hyatt Regency atriums of the late 1970's: Chocolate walls and carpets; smoky topaz glass, grey slabs of twinkling granite.
The store's exclusive 'Heritage Collection' of handbags and luggage seems aimed toward those who aspire to inherited wealth. The centerpiece: A caramelized alligator sarcophagus of a steamer trunk with shiny brass locks such as the Viscount might take on a steamship to the colonies, surrounded by smaller components, like its matching jewelry box. ($33,250 ).
The handbags are perfect for jungle doctors bringing quinine to the heathen: muted green crocodile and pocked ostrich with lacquered bamboo handles. ($3650). Matching ankle-strap pumps had a bamboo dowel lathed and embedded into the perilous needle-spiked heel. ($1980)
These items are decidedly not pre-distressed - these are new family heirlooms, purchased with your freshly minted war and arbitrage lucre.
One ascends to the second floor up a floating marble staircase that resembles a tour through the organs of Liberace's Lucite Wurlitzer.
The menswear suggests that Gucci is giving credit where more credit is wanted. Young brothers in purple lambskin bomber jackets and jeans belted over the knees were gliding around in tinted eyeglasses, greeting each other with knuckle-bumps over large shopping bags.
Gucci seems to realize it owes much of its recent popularity to hip-hop's enduring affection for the Gucciness of Gucci - which, arguably, isn't affection for classic Gucci as signified, but affection for hip-hop's kidnap and brainwash of Gucci, who has been successfully turned out, Patty Hearst style, to represent that cultural revolution of dazzling urbanites.
Yes, Madame, as a matter of fact, we did shoejack these loafers straight off Gore Vidal; they have now been properly swerved.
The new suits are cartoonishly dapper: oversize plaid prints with cigarette legs one ordinarily associates with Vaudeville soft-shoes and hapless Anglo-dorks like Dick van Dyke.
But they will look sensational on Andre 3000.
On the third floor: ample indication that Rosemary's Baby-Doll, maternity smocks are finally being replaced by slim shift-dresses belonging to that Hitchcockian twilight zone betwixt Grace Kelly and Tippy Hedron.
I accosted the assistant, a bespectacled young Antonio Banderas -type, to ask about a lightweight trench-coat. ($2455.)
"Is that jacquard?"
He confessed he didn't know, and slapped his own hand. I agreed, and slapped his hand too. He became very attentive.
There were regrets from other decades: Bea Arthur's 'Maud' was represented in a sleeveless, loud vermillion tent ($2395). A T-shirt seemed to have been Beadazzled by your aunt in 1991. ($495.)
I found them: waistlines. I nearly wept. Clingy, body-conscious dresses in 1940's jitterbug cuts ($1695.)
"I'll take those to the special dressing room," purred Adolfo, my assistant.
"Try thees one, too." He handed me what looked like a Diane von Furstenberg wrap-dress, covered with impressionistic barbells. ($2195)
"But I hate the print."
"Trust me," said Adolfo. "Do you like high heels?"
(Vampish deadpan.) "I like very high heels."
We smiled.
"Show me which ones, I'll bring them in your size."
Moments when straight men make such offers are far too rare in this life.
I found candyapple red leather pumps, with skinny, black four-inch heels, and followed Adolfo to the dressing room.
"Show everything to me," he said. I thought he was being polite.
When I opened the door to swish around in the mirrors seven minutes later, he was seated outside, waiting.
"I am not supposed to say this, but you look really hot," said Adolfo.
Too good to be true. I wondered if Gucci was trafficking in "companionship."
Adolfo delivered armfuls of dresses, and the pumps, in all three flavors. The dress he suggested -- the Ersatz von Furstenberg, was, other than massage oil, the sexiest thing I've seen on my body; LA, TV-sexy in a way I never thought I could pull off. Adolfo insisted on belting it, resulting in a blushing, Cary Grant physical comedy moment that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I tried a black and white gingham with a peekaboo cleavage window. ($1595)
"You should shorten eet," said Adolfo.
"Oh please," I rolled my eyes.
Adolfo got on his knees and began tucking my hem. I pretended the brush of his knuckles against my knees wasn't the kind of small, electrocharged intimacy I've seen as a preamble to letters in Penthouse Forum.
"See?"
He held my dress and indicated the mirror.
A miracle: that little tuck had transformed me, Cinderella-style, into Elle McPherson.
Adolfo, realizing I would do anything for him, urged me to try a silk spinnaker covered with black dots.
My romance with Adolfo abruptly ended.
Suffice to say: 101 Dalmations don't make it right.
As the song says: I've got 101 Dalmations, but a bitch ain't one.
But I bought the red pumps ($525). You must invest in the magic that moves you. They're a vote of confidence for my romantic future: Angels wanna wear my red shoes. Put on my red shoes and dance the blues. I'll click my ruby slippers three times and say: Ciao, Adolfo. There's no place like Rome.
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Friday, February 22, 2008
DREGUSHOPPING, AND CRITICAL ULULATING....
This week's Critical Shopper in the New York Times asks the fashion question of designer Adam Lippes:
Where Art Thou, pie-serving waitresses of the lost Hickory Pit?
(And that, also over there, is a new Dregulator -----> in case you were wondering.)
Caligula has taken me hostage. I eat nothing but hummingbird tongues and am only allowed to wear belts.
I am afraid, but intent on surviving this disgraceful tyranny. Pray for me.
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
HAPPY ST. VALENTINES MARTYRDOM, PANTY SHOPPERS
The New York Times today is featuring my somewhat lurid experience at Victoria's Secret on Herald Square.
I RUV OO
And if you really want to know about St. Valentine, well, all you really need to know is that he was stoned and beheaded by Claudius II. The holiday used to be a pagan teen sex lottery in honor of the God Lupercus, which just goes to show you how much much more fun Catholicism has made everything over the years. In any case, I hope each and every one of you will be my Special Valentine.
Love, Cintra
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Monday, February 4, 2008
FASHION WEEK FOR SALON, A SEX BOOK REVIEW AND A NEW DREGULATOR YONDER --->>
Mes Amis and Fellow Undesirables:
Let me first apologize for being less bloggy than usual due to wall-to-wall, Olympic style, enduro- crash deadlines. Endlessly. Like trying to swallow an entire duffle bag full of hammers. But we got lots of reading material.
For one, there's this little mess on Salon.com I wrote about fashion week in the last 14 hours....
And a fairly hilarious (if I may blow gold up my own slacks) review from the San Diego Union Tribune on a recently released Sex Book (that I kind of trashed....)
AND that there Dreg over there, fist-packed with the usual alarmist conspiracies and toothy Congressional messes that I can't really find enough other people writing about. And Britney, Miss Toothy Mess '08 herself.
In any case, pray for your fashion correspondent. These events are truly mind-numbing.
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COMMENTS
3 words, snob: hot comb alopecia. don't do it! you'll be walking round looking like danny devito about the head! lol.
Posted by: Me Me at July 3, 2008 10:48 PM
Going natural was the best/worst thing ever. No more $50 for a perm or a press n' curl. But about every three weeks I have to spend four hours twisting up my hair. While it's only shoulder length curly, straight it would go down to the middle of my back. I forgot my hair could grow this much, but this is about how long it was when I was a kid.
But I'm always at war with my head because the white folks, Indians and Negroes in my bloodline keep fighting over what hair I should have. The front is Halle Berry and the back is Angela Davis. The sides are Bushwick Bill -- My hair is playin' tricks on me.
At least twisted up it almost all looks the same.
Posted by: The Black Snob The Black Snob at July 4, 2008 10:11 AM
Amen snob! I have the same damn problem.
Posted by: Raina Raina at July 4, 2008 2:31 PM
(found you randomly through Stumble Upon.)
It's a terrible thing, but true, that the new Ms. O probably couldn't get away with any form of natural hair. I kinda hope she does it after the election, just to be spiteful. But, maybe she actually likes it the way it is.
But, white girls can't get away with natural hair either. If it's straight, it should be curled for special events. If it's curly, you should straighten it, or you're a hideous cow. (See: Princess Diaries) Anyone else remember when every other white girl in school had a nasty, smelly perm? And, if it's wavy or doesn't respond well to discipline, or worse, you don't blow dry it every day, you'll never get by in life.
I look forward to the day when women of all shades can do whatever stupid thing they want to their hair... so long as I don't have to blow dry mine or put product in it.
Posted by: brenna brenna at July 22, 2008 10:53 PM
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