Leandra Medine's Blog, page 360

My Shopping Cart Has One Wheel in Spring and the Other in Summer

Hooray! It’s May! A month that, without fail, has the best mood-boosting endorphins (yes, even better than June) because May is not only high spring, it’s pre-summer. That means you get to enjoy yourself while looking forward to something without worrying about the end at the same time. It’s anxiety-free seasonal sunshine.

And that means shopping!

Though I’ve been preparing for June, I’m trying not to forget about the spectacular now. All my purchases must feel like a fit for this moment in time while also having the capacity to carry me through the end of August.

Pssh. Easy. So here’s what I’m e-cart pocketing:

– A gingham crop top with a little ruffle around the waist that’s under 50 bucks.

– A pair of white, high-waist shorts that won’t give me butt mittens.

– A pretty top. EVERYTHING PRETTY THIS SUMMER.

– A “Florida” tee because it’s cute, so why not?

– A yellow, ruffle-y Hunza G suit. I’m always on the swimsuit hunt, in case you were wondering.

– Geometric acrylic earrings (really cool).

– Cheap sunglasses because I can’t be trusted.

– And these splurge-y shoes –raffia with a bamboo heel — that look unlike anything I currently own. They’re perfect.

I know I said I was enjoying the moment, but I can’t wait. Let it be summer now!

Collages by Maria Jia Ling Pitt.

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12 Great Books to Read With a Flower Behind Your Ear

If April 25th is the perfect date for layers, May is the perfect month for books: not too hot, not too cold, all you need’s a blanket for your butt, a tree to lean up against and something good to read, no bug spray or portable fan (that does nothing) required.

Scroll through the slideshow above to see what we’re skimming. Some of our recommendations are old, some are new, but of course, the list isn’t complete — tell us what you’re reading so we can all join in!

Photos by Edith Young.

Check out our other MR Book Club recommendations here: 10 Works of Black Literature America Needs Right Now, 11 Must-Read Books for Winter Hibernation, 12 Fall Recommendations and last year’s Guide to the Best Summer Beach Reads.

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What I Wish I Knew When I Got Married

The first and last time I wore synthetic hair was at my wedding. The makeup artist who painted my face insisted I wear fake eyelashes, so I listened. My mom insisted that if I was not going to style my hair in an up-do, I wear hair extensions. (She is typically a reasonable woman of taste, I am not sure what happened.)

Again, I listened.

When I looked in the mirror right before our ceremony, I thought I looked crazy but didn’t really care. Here I was, marrying this person I had loved unrequited for three years. It didn’t really matter what I looked like (BECAUSE I WON). At our grand reveal, he patted the floral wreath sitting on my head and said, “Cool.” I told him he had too much gel in his hair. He asked me if I was going to be comfortable, given all the gold chains that were wrapped around my neck. I asked why he had to shave today, of all days.

I don’t necessarily wish anything different about my wedding even though it was, frankly, my parents’ party (I was just invited). It looked nothing like the wedding I had seen in my head. That would have been a backyard dinner party with one long table to seat 75 people. A band would play bossanova music at the top of small hill twenty feet from the dinner table, which would be decorated by tea lights strung overhead. The floral arrangements would look DIY. We’d drink great white wine from Burgundy, or a California red, and as the sun set and it got dark, the smell of cut grass would waft on the breeze. During the silence before each speech — there would be TONS OF SPEECHES — a mass of crickets would sing as if a choir ushering in the start of summer. There would be no hair extensions or false lashes. Just self tanner, orange lipstick and probably lobsters clipped into my ears. But who really cares about the wedding anyway?

I mean that.

Who cares? As long as you are marrying your person, a wedding is simply foreplay. So these are things I’m both glad I knew and wish I knew.

I’m glad I knew: That a wedding is simply foreplay; it genuinely reveals nothing about what your marriage will look like. Had I not been eager to get the thing over with so that I could just be married, I can see how minute details like the stupid floral arrangements, which were purple roses (vomit) even though I wanted them to be white peonies (out of season in June, but whatever), and the ugly-ass feather ornaments decorating the dance floor would have torn me apart. Those feathers turned out to be decent dancing props and frankly, I didn’t even actually notice the flowers until my mom said, “the purple roses turned out fine, right?”

I wish I knew: That what I was thinking when I walked down the aisle held no real value in the grand scheme of the event. I placed so much emphasis on creating this romantic moment — first with my parents (I would thank them using the most poetic prose I could muster while crying hysterically as if my grandest gesture of appreciation) and then my husband (we’d lock eyes and smirk as if we knew we were the luckiest people alive). In reality, my dad almost didn’t make it down the aisle because he was at the sushi bar. I almost didn’t notice because I had a piece of raw salmon struck between my molars, which my mom was picking out with her pinky nail. When they handed me over to Abie, my dad said “Good luck” as if he really needed it. Abie responded, “I’ll take all the luck I can get,” as if he really needed it. That was that.

I’m glad I knew: That getting married when I was 23 meant that because I was still a shell of a human, I would have to grow up a lot. Because I was married, this growth would happen next to another person.

I wish I knew: That I’d still have to do the actual growing up myself. That my husband couldn’t grow for me, or make traversing my 20s any less harrowing.

I’m glad I knew: How to distinguish the illusion of cold feet from genuinely believing that I was not supposed to get married. Before the wedding, I asked my friend’s older sister why no one ever talks about how scary this is. How you decide you’re going to spend your life with, effectively, a stranger. To throw yourself a party to celebrate even though what you should be doing is running a background check. But she said, and this is so true, that after you marry, you forget how scared and anxious you were. It just goes away. You know it’s just the illusion of cold feet when the inner trenches of your gut still tells you to do it. Take this from someone who cried on the first night of her honeymoon because she missed her mom.

I wish I knew: After you get married, you never really get to be your parents’ kid again. You become someone’s partner. The keeper of this partner. If you like being your parents’ kid, take advantage of it. Just the same way we’re told that no matter how long you’ve been with your person, a switch just flips after you get married, that’s true of your relationship with your parents, too. It’s almost like whatever you give to your partner is taken from what you had given to your parents. Which is beautiful, but sometimes I feel like I get so caught up in accelerating to the next level that I forget to appreciate the level I’m on.

I’m glad I knew: That spending your wedding day with your people (family, friends, etc) is really the best part. I got to the hotel at which I would marry at 10 a.m. to be met by my best friend, who had iced coffee for me at 10:30. We basically ate string cheese and smoked salmon all day while my mother ran around with rollers in her hair yelling in Farsi and my dad walked up and down the halls from his hotel room to mine in just underwear and an open button-down.

I wish I knew: Not to wear so many fucking necklaces around my neck! It took Abie and me a joint 95 minutes to get them off my neck at the end of the night. By the time we were done, it was 5 a.m. We didn’t have sex until the following morning, and my wedding band kept poking him so I took it off. I left it in the hotel room by accident and never saw it again. But that’s okay, you know, because, a ring is just a ring. It doesn’t actually mean much.

Photos from Leandra and Abie’s wedding. 

The post What I Wish I Knew When I Got Married appeared first on Man Repeller.

Mara Hoffman on Melding Activism and Fashion

America seems to be fascinated with the idea of being a “girl boss,” but I am most impressed with women who build their empires with social responsibility and a genuine commitment to social consciousness in mind. Mara Hoffman fits that bill. From how she got her start — resisting the cookie-cutter nature of the fashion industry to launch her own eponymous label over 15 years ago — to the moment she decided to radically shift her business to be more environmentally sustainable, the CFDA designer’s career has been a lesson in growth. Her response to our current political crisis is no different.

In a portrait project titled Women’s Work, a partnership with the non-profit advocacy group Art Not War, 25 feminists and activists serve as models for Mara’s newest collection and, in the process, make a statement about the intersection of fashion, beauty and politics. During our conversation, we touch on her journey, the multiple calls to consciousness and change that she has answered in her life and career, what it means to be an “woke” creative entrepreneur and how to push through uncomfortable moments to reach authentic transformation.

Give it a listen above; an excerpt from our conversation is below.

Mara: The main focus, for so many years, was just keeping a company running. I’m still independent, I never took on partners or investors or backers…And then when it starts working, you need to keep it working. You have these people who show up for you every day, and you need to take care of them.

So 15 years pass, and the company gets to a nice place, it’s healthy, running pretty seamlessly…and I’m aware of the harms in our industry. What this industry puts out can be really tragic, on a human level and an environmental level. Our manufacturing processes, in the fashion industry — it’s pretty intense, from the wastage to the pollution (fashion is the second-highest polluter after gas). [I was] rooted in that spiritual place of wanting to do no harm in my life, or towards others, and you realize that you’re participating in an industry that does do harm. I had to make proactive, ballsy changes. And I wanted to change everything.

This was two years ago. I went to my production director and I said, change or die, what do we do?

Erica: Were you scared?

Mara: I was super scared! She’s a Capricorn, and very pragmatic, so she said, chill out, we don’t have to close. We can transform. And neither of us knew what we were doing. I just knew that I had to change our processes. It wasn’t so much on a human level — the factories we were using were hyperly vetted — but on an environmental level. My focus [had] never [been] that. It was always on just maintaining this business. We started from that point, of trying to figure out the changes we can make. It wasn’t about then getting a microphone and being like, hey, we’re sustainable. Cause we’re not. And nobody that is running a fashion business can say that they’re fully sustainable, they’re just not. The only way to do that would be to close up shop. But we wanted to create an alternative for people that do want to buy beautiful things…

Diving into that shift, [I realized] it doesn’t end there. The work doesn’t end on an environmental level. Now it’s a global level. Now it’s a human level. Now it’s a human-rights level. It’s all of those things. I really feel that making those shifts in the company gave me a key to unlock the awareness of the bigger mission I need to be on as a human, not just as a clothing designer or a businesswoman.

Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt. 

 

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From Hot Sauce to Crayons, Spill Your Clutch Guts

In partnership with Samia Kamar.

Samia Kamar is a London-based designer whose bespoke handbags are handcrafted in Florence, Italy. Her clutches do what all good clutches do: accessorize outfits while carrying your essentials — phone, wallet, keys. All it takes is a savvy packer and a creative thinking, however, to use the clutch as a vessel for your personality. For example…

My friend Rachel likes to sneak-attack sleepovers on me. We go out for a drink, she comes over to grab the thing she inevitably left at my place last time and then, next thing I know, there she is: in my bed with brushed teeth and an eye mask, ready for me to tuck her in.

We both turn 29 this year, if you were wondering.

The Sleepover Surprise

Samia Kamar Red Carpet Collection

Rachel and I were college roommates so the routine is equal parts separation anxiety and habit. What surprises me every time is how prepared she is, and how stealth she is about it. She packs a clutch with evening essentials: a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss (she’s the kind of person you see brushing her teeth in airport bathrooms), a clean pair of ‘dwears, aspirin and her contact case. I wouldn’t put it past her to sneak a tiny deodorant in there, but she knows I tend to have an extra stocked.

“Isn’t that annoying to pack over and over,” I once asked. The key, she said, is to dedicate one clutch to be your permanent life carry-on and to never unpack all the stuff. Hard to argue with as she always has great breath.

Another friend of mine carries ketchup in her bag.

The Condiment Queen

Samia Kamar Mijas Collection

She never leaves the house without hot sauce or a shaker of specialty salt. Where most people keep ketchup, mustard and soy-sauce packets in that ubiquitous household mess drawer, she keeps her condiments in her go-to clutch. Let me tell you: She is the person to sit next to at brunch.

The Gamer

Samia Kamar Red Carpet Collection

I’m not immune to this “phenomenon,” only the way I pack is way less useful. I’m the girl at dinner or drinks who is always ready to play a game, so it’s not uncommon for me to have cards, crayons, teeny tubes of bubbles or other distractions in my clutch.

It’s considered rude at some restaurants, I guess, but why else would they give you a giant canvas on top of your table if they didn’t want you to draw portraits of the surrounding patrons or invite neighboring diners to a game of poker?

Our visuals team styled the above Samia Kamar clutches to illustrate the kind of clutch carriers in my life. But these three just scratch the surface. For example, what about the one-woman beauty shop, who has everything in her purse, from eyeshadow to tweezers? What about the friend who never leaves the house without a bevy of pocket-size, gourmet snacks? Between the lot of us, we’ve got to know someone who has found a way to cram in workout clothes too, right?

So what about you? What kind of clutch carrier are you? WHAT THE HECK IS IN YOUR BAG? And can I sleepover tonight??

Photos by Edith Young.

In partnership with Samia Kamar. Follow Samia Kamar on Instagram @SamiaKamarHandbagsOfficial.

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Why Airport Horror Stories Go Viral

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“Spirit Airlines Cancellations at Fort Lauderdale Airport Cause Chaos,” reported NBC News this morning. Half a scroll down, there’s a grainy cell-phone video depicting mass pandemonium. I click to watch. “Security wrestled with unruly passengers as punches flew, leading to at least three arrests. Screams wailed through the under-construction terminal, as officers wrestled passengers to the ground.”

It’s like something out of a dystopian movie directed by Michael Bay. And it’s trending on Facebook, Twitter and every news site, just like other recent airplane and airport incidents. There was the man violently dragged off a United flight. The family kicked off a Delta flight. The Sikh American designer turned away from the airport for not removing his turban. And, of course, the horror stories connected with the travel ban and the massive, nationwide airport protests in response to it.

Each of these stories plays into a broad sense of societal unrest around air travel. A quick read of the situation might indicate that airlines and airports are getting worse. But there isn’t really data to support that.

“[A]re [flying incidents] really happening with greater frequency?” wrote CNN yesterday. “Actually, the little data there is suggests behavior on planes is improving. The number of unruly passengers has been on a steady decline since they peaked in 2004.”

It’s hard not to draw bigger, more sweeping conclusions — like that airports and airplanes have become a media focus because they resemble a contained battleground for so many of the issues America is struggling with. Race relations, class relations, trans rights, gender relations, immigration. The ease with which these moments can be captured and shared means unprecedented visibility, sure, but this feels like more than a social-media trend. It makes me wonder if airports are in the spotlight because they hold a mirror up to society.

They are intense environments, after all, jam-packed with tangible interpretations of everyday power struggles. There’s the profiling at TSA and the classist boarding system. There’s the messy intersection of government regulation and for-profit industry. It’s a complex system that can easily make you feel powerless.

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but airports seem to offer a startling reflection of the American climate right now. It’s no wonder then that these news stories spread like wildfire and that we watch them, equal parts fascinated and nervous. Because not only do they tap into our own latent travel fears and experiences, they tap into our everyday ones, too.

Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt; photos by Found Image Holdings/Corbis and Jim Gray/Keystone via Getty Images.

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I Finally Microbladed My Eyebrows and They Look Stunning

I love my eyebrows, but they require an insane amount of maintenance. This is confounding, as they haven’t been waxed or plucked since 2009. They’re thick, but in some parts my eyebrow hair is almost translucent, so I have to comb them over into place Donny Trump style and then set them with a clear gel probably made of like, horse plasma or koala semen. But on this old face of mine, with sweat that trickles from my pink peachfuzzed pores and hormonal acne that surges to the surface like a tulip in May and lips that I feel benefit from just a touch of Restylane (you know, like, as commentary on femininity…..), my eyebrows are all I really have.

I know I’m on the luckier end of the spectrum of eyebrow-related maladies as I don’t pick or pluck and they haven’t fallen out on their own accord, but I still want more. So I decided to get microblading, a procedure which is almost as scary and literal as it sounds.

I went under the knife with Piret Aava, The Eyebrow Doctor. Piret’s got an Instagram following and her own set of beautiful brows. She’s not really a doctor, but rather an aesthetician and tattoo artist certified in microblading and cosmetic tattoos. Her waitlist is over a year long and her microblading services are a simply mind-boggling $1,500 a session, but due to my incredibly annoying email persistence (“Hey, there”) and the ability to make myself seem more important than I really am (“I’m a writer at Man Repeller…”), Piret let me into her office gratis. I just want to make that clear here. I spent that $1,500 on moisturizer and lean deli meats, I’m sure.

First, she numbed me up, and then she drew a guide around my brows with eye pencil. Like an adult coloring book, only with blood and ink and facial flesh instead of a zen mandala or an English garden scene.

I was apprehensive about the size of the box she drew around my brows and the color of ink we decided on, and I did a lot of fussing about, like going to the bathroom twice and asking Piret to explain her special YouTube influencer-style halo light thing to me, but eventually, we had to get down to business. I laid down on her table, and she went to work with a sterile metal blade. It looked like an X-acto knife with a sparkly purple handle, which I thought was a nice girly touch.

Piret draws feathered strokes in the same direction as hair grows to create a natural-looking optical illusion of eyebrow hair. The blading hurt, but my hearty midwestern pride suffered through it, white knuckles gripping onto my own white knuckles. In all, Piret did about 30 strokes on each brow, but she said that it can be more than 100 strokes depending on your eyebrow fullness.

When I looked in the mirror, I was like “Damn!” My brows looked thick as hell, and not Instagram flat-ombre-brow thick. Just lush and natural and about two shades darker than my normal brows. I made Piret show me the bloody utensils, which she did not permit me to take a photo of, and went on my way. She told me not to freak out if I got home and they seemed too dramatic, or if I woke up the next morning regretting it. She also said not to exfoliate.

By the time I got home though, I was freaking out. They appeared almost black, and the vertically growing hairs on my inside brow corners looked like they’d been put in eyebrow jail, Piret’s thin strokes serving as the bars. I regretted it. I considered exfoliating the tattoo off. Piret told me the brows would last anywhere from one to three years, and I remember waking up and looking in my disgusting toothpaste-spattered mirror thinking, “I’ve ruined my face for my three last nubile years.”

But my sister Julia, whose eyebrows are bigger than Jesus, told me to wait it out. I’m so glad I did.

In two days, they started fading, every day just a hint less dire, until they reached the state captured in this picture.

No offense, but I look gorgeous.

They’ve stayed this shade for about two weeks now, and I’ve gotten tons of compliments, but nobody’s guessed what’s up. In fact, I wanted people to know so bad that I read an essay aloud in a Very Serious Class with an Important Writing Professor mentioning the eyebrow tattoos just so somebody would know. Everyone was like, “Hmm, weird choice.” But then, people not on this website are not entirely my people.

Next week, I’m going back to Piret for my touch-up session, suggested four to six weeks after the initial appointment. I’m going to ask her to microblade a hairy heart of my lover’s name on my bicep, too.

Claire Carusillo is a freelance and fiction writer in New York. She writes a weekly beauty newsletter offering off-label product usage advice. Collage by Maria Jia Ling Pitt; photos via Claire Carusillo.

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What I Should’ve Worn to Prom

My high school didn’t have an official prom. Instead, it was tradition for the senior class to organize an “anti-prom” of sorts, at which you were supposed to wear something absolutely ridiculous like a Halloween costume or an intentionally terrible gown. (What? We were angsty teens.) There were no limos, no corsages, no photos on stairwells — just a bunch of pimply youths lounging around a shabby student center with a dance floor the size of a large elevator and a makeshift DJ booth. The golden years, amirite?

I wore my aunt’s prom dress, which I’m sure was very chic in 1987, but in 2010 looked like a cross between Toddlers & Tiaras and a haunted version of Little House on the Prairie. It was perfectly atrocious.

The cliche of a “bad prom dress” is such a thing. It’s almost a rite of passage at this point, not to mention a source of instant future camaraderie. All you have to do is say the word prom and people will launch into a self-conscious tirade about how awkward they looked.

Why is the bad prom dress trope so universal, though? I have a theory. Prom dresses are bad for the same two reasons red carpet dresses typically fall flat: 1) the whole concept of “putting together an outfit” is thrown out the window in favor of allowing a single garment (usually a dress) to do all the talking and 2) flattery (which can be equated to sex appeal on these occasions) is prioritized over fun.

Given these revelations, I started thinking about what I would wear to prom if I were going now — in the vein of Leandra’s wedding do-over — and devised the following strategic approach:

If I was wearing a dress…

Marissa Webb dress, Zara jacket, Tory Burch shoes, Susan Alexandra clutch and bracelets

I would pair it with a tweed jacket for a healthy dose of octogenarian chic, thereby diminishing the ingenue factor in favor of the wizened cool factor. I would turn up the fun volume with a wide range of quirky accessories, like a clutch that thinks it’s a piece of fruit and bracelets that give normcore the stink eye.

If I was wearing a skirt…

MDS Stripes skirt, Clayton top, Hermès scarf, Erickson Beamon choker, Oscar de la Renta earrings, Paula Cademartori sandals

I would make sure it was nice and noisy, something that swished with every step and twirl, making you smile with your teeth at the sound of it. My top would carry a megaphone of its own — an additional swingy layer on the mille-feuille masterpiece of my ensemble. My hair would be tied back with a silk scarf because I have people to see and dancing to do and can’t be bothered to tuck it behind my ears. Plus, I would want to show off my lily-pad earrings.

If I was wearing neither…

Zara blazer and pants, MR by Man Repeller shoes, Dolce & Gabbana hoop earrings, floral brooches from M&J Trimming

And pantslessness was banned by the school board, I would channel Elton John in a white suit. I would embrace the deep-V of the blazer and wear nothing underneath because YOGTPO (You Only Go To Prom Once), and applying boob tape in the back of a stretch limo is an important character-building experience. I would pin not one but two flower brooches to my lapel in an ode to both corsages and Carrie Bradshaw, and I would make sure my shoes took full advantage of the opportunity to stand out underneath my snow-capped ankles.

Modeled by Nianga Niang, follow her on Instagram @nianganiang. Photos by Edith Young.

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Kim and Kanye’s Children’s Collection is Peak “Not Trying”

If you are the proud parent of a toddler or elementary school-age child and occasionally find yourself thinking, “Gee, I wish I could find a cute choker small enough for my kid’s miniature human neck,” today is your lucky day. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West have launched a collection of children’s clothing called The Kids Supply (it’s pretty kool that “kid” starts with a “k,” huh?), and, yes, there are teeny chokers available for purchasing. There are also graphic sweatpants, graphic tees, baseball caps, dainty dresses made of 100% washed silk and a reversible bomber jacket with a map of Calabasas embroidered on the back. The entire collection is supposed to be Calabasas-themed, ICYMI. Kim and Kanye filed a petition with the state of California to change the spelling of Calabasas to Kalabasas in advance of The Kids Supply’s launch, but approvals are still pending. (That was a joke, but I feel like it would be a salient plot point in the future Keeping Up With the Kardashians episode that will inevitably chronicle the genesis of The Kids Supply, don’t you?).

Whether or not you are a kid or have a kid, I recommend taking a gander at the website because it’s pretty fascinating. Doesn’t the aesthetic strike you as notably JV? Like what a tweenager might have submitted as her final project for computer science class in 1999? Or what your mom might create if she stumbled upon Polyvore collage boards for the very first time? Everything from the rumpled graphics to the font that looks like actual html screams “low-fi.” It’s so DOS.

But hold up — aren’t Kanye West and Kim Kardashian millionaires? Don’t they have the appropriate FUND$ to launch the most spectacular children’s collection and corresponding website to ever tickle the internet’s eyeballs?

Yes. The answer is yes. Ergo, henceforth and thus, we are obliged to conclude that the low-lift look of the branding is 100% intentional. It’s meant to resemble something created by cool youths of the nineties in a garage overnight instead of a project masterminded by two rich people in a mansion over the course of “a few years.”

I hate to say it, but I think we’ve finally reached peak “not trying.” After weathering the rise of trends like plaid shirts tied around our waists, tattered jeans, sweatpants, track pants, shower shoes, jackets intentionally sliding off our shoulders, normcore(!), no-makeup makeup and Vetements, this clothing line — which embodies the “not trying” aesthetic which such vigor it almost feels like a prank — is what tapped the final nail into this blasé coffin we built for our wardrobes.

Right? I guess we’ll find out. In the meantime, talk to me in the comments about your feelings re: chokers for children.

Photo by Alo Ceballos via Getty Images 

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Why Do Celebrities Always Ruin Outfits With Boring Shoes?

Let’s talk about a fun red-carpet shoe.

A fun red-carpet shoe, though it sounds like something your Aunt Cathy uses to describe her date-night footwear, is anything other than a thin strip of leather across the toe and around the ankle. It is any color other than black, “nude,” or “identical match to dress.” It has embellishments, bells, whistles, trinkets. It is cool or weird and adds interest to the outfit. It could be the outfit, quite honestly. But a fun red-carpet shoe does not exist. Celebrities love the alternative.

Observe Selena Gomez at the Met Gala.

This is a gorgeous dress.  Not exactly in-theme with Rei Kawakubo’s avant-garde aesthetic, but whatever. No one was. 

Her shoes, however, while certainly nice (I will take them!), are so boring that I fell asleep while writing and have only just now awoke to finish this sentence. Had she gone with something a bit more like this…

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….she could have taken her outfit to a whole new level.

From the same event, let’s take a look at Paltrow-comma-Gwyneth.

Big fan in general. Top-to-ankle here, she looks great. But her feet ruin the whole thing for me. Black pumps? Was that the only offering?

(Shout out to A$AP Rocky in the back.)

Celebrities have expendable Monopoly money. They also get stuff for free. They have personal shoppers who can hunt down the coolest shoes in town, if scouring Net-a-Porter’s sandal selection is not their cup of tea. Most celebrities don’t live in New York, either, so it’s not like a lack of closet space is their reason for only owning one safe, practical, wear-with-all, foot-focused accessory. They get driven everywhere, so for one night out who cares about comfort and sensibility? After walking red carpets, they’re ushered to seats immediately. It’s frustrating. What is the point of being a celebrity on a red carpet if you are not going to take full fashion advantage?

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I could direct my frustration toward the stylists, of course. Before these red carpet events, it’s the stylists who source the dresses and the accompanying accouterment. They arrive with the options they’d like to see their clients in, including rows of beautiful boats sized according to the celebrity’s feet. As all good stylists know, you must also show up with safe options: the leg-lengthening nudes, the height-enhancing platforms, the sexy strappy sandals. This is like going to a scary-fancy restaurant where the chef thinks foam is a food group, then having the waiter whisper to you, “Psst. We have chicken fingers. It’s a secret, off-menu item.” Of course you are going to choose the chicken fingers! I always choose the chicken fingers, the food and the metaphor. Chicken fingers are consistently delicious, just as fail-proof shoes will always suffice. When your risky dress is aesthetically questionable to the masses, these shoes can keep you from crossing the line onto a Worst Dressed list.

BUT IT IS SO BORING!!!

If you’re a non-celebrity with maximum one or two “black tie” events a year (if that) and your bank account can’t take consistent thousand-dollar shoe hits; when you’re just a girl, standing before a mirror, trying to get her legs to love her, then sure, I’m right there with you. Do the simple pump, the sexy sandal, the hem-helping platform. I’ve got a pair of tan suede sandals I once bought for a wedding that have become my everything, so boring they work better than Ambien if you’re having trouble falling asleep.

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When you have a million red carpets a season and a million dollars to play with, however, why not spend as much attention on your feet? Why not say, “I just got paid for my newest rom-com space thriller. I have this amazing dress that didn’t cost me a cent. I can go one step up from barefoot or, I can use shoes to make this an OUTFIT.” Why not ask, “How can I have fun? How can I get freaky? What shoes are so cool they’d elevate jeans and a tee shirt to icon status?”

I hated her red, thigh-high lace-ups at the Met Gala, but at least Rihanna gets the general concept.

It makes me so mad. Celebrities, we all know you’re beautiful. We all know you’re famous. Why not share the spotlight a little bit and hand the microphone over to your feet?

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Photos via Getty Images.

The post Why Do Celebrities Always Ruin Outfits With Boring Shoes? appeared first on Man Repeller.