Leandra Medine's Blog, page 593

My Life Coach Lives on My Wrist

A little bossy never hurt anybody. I’ve believed this for as long as I’ve had playdates that lacked itineraries, group projects absent of vision and telephone conversations with insufficient structure. What are our talking points? How long will this last! Why are you still speaking into my ear!

Someone has to take charge and that someone has always been me.

Caveat: when it comes to captaining my own life, I’m a little less rigid. As in…

I forget to call everyone I said I would call.

I read text messages but forget to answer them back.

I workout, yes, but then spend entire workdays without getting off my chair, and we all know that sitting is the new devil.

Then I get very stressed about all of the above.

Friends of mine who are better at prioritizing their insanity have suggested I seek the help of a life coach. This sounds like an excellent idea for anyone who doesn’t mind cheating on their therapist. However, while they are not wrong that I need to get my life in order, they are limited in their views that a coach has to be a person.

I prefer mine in the form of an accessory — right on my wrist where I can see it as opposed to one more person I try to avoid. Efficiency-tip: this Fossil Q Dreamer does the rose-gold trick. link here.

Many tricks, in fact.

It tracks my steps and clocks the distance my feet have traveled. This encourages me to walk to the bathroom rather than roll. Skip to the loo, my darling.

It tells me how many calories I’ve burned, which encourages me to hoof it rather than take cab. This is money saved and a doughnut earned. (Though to be honest, sometimes here I tell it to mind its own business.)

It notifies me of texts so that I can continue to ignore them, but at least know I’m ignoring them. Knowledge is power. (Especially if it’s your delivery guy who texted.)

It makes sure I don’t pet rabid animals, it buzzes when I’m about to take candy from a stranger, and it creates a force field that prohibits me from crossing the street at a red light. Technically it doesn’t actually do these things but the point is that because it lives on my wrist, it’s a permanent reminder of What Would Coach Do?

(As in my life coach, not Coach Taylor, though he’s a great role model, too.)

And best of all: I can personalize alerts of the non foot-tracking variety so that I’m reminded of important things (those people I should call, those texts I need to inevitably return), thus eliminating distractions of all that other mishegas that our phones tend to interrupt us with like a bored toddler: “Hey look at this! Look at me! Look what I can do!”

Suddenly, I am…productive.

I ran all of this by my regular watch and you know what it said to me?

“It’s about time you get your life in order.”

In partnership with Fossil.

Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis. Life Coach Illustrated by Max Dower of Unfortunate Portrait 

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The Thought Process of Group Halloween Costumes

Amy: Guys our group is so screwed. Halloween is in 5 days. What are we being?

Beth: Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Carly: How is it already Halloween?!?!

Donna: I know oh my god what like where did October go

Emma: Well you guys already know what I want to be but you don’t want to do it, so.

Carly: Ok, Em, no.

Emma: WHY NOT??

Amy: Emma.

Beth: Hahahah

Amy: Literally no one will get that we are “figments of their imagination.”

Emma: THEY WOULD GET IT IF WE DID WHAT I SUGGESTED.

Carly: Emma you suggested we dress like figs. Do you know what a fig looks like? Emoji poop, Emma. A fig looks like poop.

Beth: Omg guys! Let’s dress like

Amy: No

Carly: No

Donna: No

Beth: Emoji Poops!

Emma: Emojis are too basic. And everyone’s going to be the new emojis which is why I want to do something unique!

Amy: Shit guys I forgot to add Fran.

Beth: Just add her to this.

Amy: How? Do I just start a new chat?

Carly: Hang on. I can do it.

** Frannie has joined the chat **

Frannie: Hey! Guys what are we being for Halloween?

Emma: Not figments of everyone at the bar’s imagination.

Amy: Trying to figure out costumes now

Frannie: Wait that’s so funny Em and we could dress like figs!

Emma: THANK YOU

Beth: Ha we’re FIGuring it out

Amy: Guys, focus. We have 5 days to work on this, like, no time to order anything online unless we want to spend a billion dollars and no time to go shopping unless any’s office is by an American Apparel

Carly: What if we were One Direction fans?

Beth: Omg but angry mobbing ones!

Emma: Dead One Direction fans because they literally died when they found out the band went on hiatus!

Carly: Yesssss zombie 1D fans with signs that say, “I want to eat Zayn’s guts,” and stuff!

Amy: Ok not to be annoying or whatever but I kind of want to be something hot, you know? Bond girls?

Frannie: Ughhh I feel like I’ve eaten too much this month for that shit

Beth: Haha me too let’s just be ghosts and pull sheets over our head

Georgia: We could do that and say we were trick-or-treaters from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Amy: Oh so nice of you to join us, Georgia

Emma: Georgia! Georgia!

Georgia: Hiii. But how cute would that be?

Amy: How would we see?

Georgia: Uh you cut holes in the sheets

Frannie: That’s a no. We could just go to one of those Spirit stores and pick something out?

Emma: Ew noooo

Beth: No, I can’t handle that long ass line. Ummm we could beeee……

Carly: MOM JEANS.

Amy: Wait, that’s kind of funny, how would we be mom jeans?

Carly: Idk like we’d all wear denim and write “mom jeans” somewhere

Donna: Hey guys sorry I fell asleep/hate you all

Emma: What?

Donna: Auto correct. Um, yea! Mom jeans is funny!

Beth: I’d do that…

Frannie: We could all do our hair like our own moms? Or get wigs?

Carly: I hate wigs but you guys should totally do wigs. What else? Like those plastic 80s eyeglasses and fanny packs?

Amy: Um my mom is chic AF she would never.

Beth: It’s just a costume.

Donna: It’s better than poop figs

Emma: omg

Carly: Ok so we can just all do different mom-cessories but bottom line is we wear all-denim, write “mom jeans” somewhere

Amy: Like on our butts or shirts!

Carly: Yes, done. Easy. So cute.

Donna: I’m in.

Emma: Kk same

Frannie: Downnnn!

Georgia: Into it.

Beth: Done! Next order of business: where are we actually going for Halloween?

Collage by Krista Anna Lewis

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Alexa Chung Makes a Case for the Lamé Midi Skirt

Gucci say, fashion do.

At least that’s how it feels, right?

But what happens when multiple designers are tuned into the same exact frequency? For Fall 2015, which is available for purchase effectively anywhere you can buy stuff, Loewe, Gucci and Christopher Kane showed their own versions of a pleated metallic mid-length skirt. So does that settle it? All hail the dead pant to consider the holiday skirt that keeps on giving?

Recently, Alexa Chung wore the Gucci version with a striped cashmere knit of the same collection and made a pretty strong case for it. So much so that it might seem kind of hard to attempt recreation without the literal pieces at hand. But make no mistake, if there is a will there is a way.

And where there is a way there is a market editor thumbing through racks maniacally.

So here’s a quick breakdown of how to do it yourself.

First, we find the skirt. The cited designers are showing theirs at a price gamut that runs between $700 and $1700.

Tess Giberson, on the other hand, will give you a silver version for $297. Rebecca Taylor has your back for $495 (and is my choice, personally). There’s a $60 version from J.C. Penny, too.

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Great! With that out of the way, let’s talk top. The bright striped sweater is great, but I might recommend two starkly different colored tops layered one over the other in lieu of it. Figure a yellow turtleneck and an orange cable knit, or a red sweater with a pink turtleneck. You can also go HAM and contrast with another form of metallic shirt (like, for example, this funnel neck from Topshop) and then include a run of the mill navy or black or gray sweater over that. Historically, I’m also never above a striped long-sleeve t-shirt. Let’s just stay away from button ups here, yes?

So to summarize, that’s: different colored layers paired together.

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Mas metallics.

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Or stripes.

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As for the shoes — the best part! — there’s really nothing a pump won’t do for a skirt that needs its help.

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Runway Photographs from Vogue.com

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Adele Used to Call Drake on His Cell Phone…

Charge your phone, grab a pair of headphones and pretend to be really busy with a spreadsheet for the next five minutes. Below, it’s your talk of the town for the week.

Adele says, “Hello,” asks the question Verizon has been asking for years.

“Can you hear me?”

(Adele, maybe try calling from a house that isn’t haunted. The wires are literally always cut in haunted houses and ghosts fuck up reception.)

Meanwhile, Drake is like, “You used to call me on my cell phone…”

…But I have told you a million times, Adele, I get shitty service on the Internet. Try my landline.” Good news for Adele is that Mr. G gets excellent reception, and his office hours are reasonable. Girl, call him instead: 1-800-Hotline-Meme.

http://fixmeinforty5.tumblr.com/post/131845179313/so-we-did-a-thing-meet-drakes-dance-teacher

[via Buzzfeed]  

Here’s the thing, though. Drake may have accidentally given Adele the wrong number. Maybe she’s been trying his cell the whole time, but someone else was getting her calls… 

  HELLO @adele is it me you’re looking for…

Three Things I Learned from Wearing Boring Ass Black Trousers and White Shirts for a Week

Stylistically-informed women are always telling other women that the crux of a good wardrobe is defined by a good pair of black trousers and a crisp white blouse. I have never understood this principle. Black trousers make me feel like I’m the kind of person you might find speaking with authority on genomics at a conference in El Paso. (I wish this was true. Two of my greatest life pursuits are learning more about genomics and going to El Paso.)

White blouses are great, but they mostly get to shine based exclusively on the wash of denim you pair them with. Maybe I am not of the ilk of “stylistically-informed” that we’ve grown accustomed to celebrating, but in my experience with both non-colors, they say nothing. When paired, there’s no room to read between the lines because there are no lines and you know what happens in the absence of fashion-ambiguity?

Lots

Of

Snoring.

Still, I was curious, you know, to see if there was something I’d been missing. So I committed myself to a challenge: for one week, I would only wear white blouses and black trousers in order to determine whether they’re all they’re cracked up to be according to the rules of style by [insert your fav magazine-delegated icon here]. Here are three important lessons I learned.

To be frank, I dreaded the week. I asked myself like eight times on Sunday why I was doing this. One of my favorite parts of getting up in the morning is putting an outfit together — determining who I’ll be for that day. With such confined boundaries, I feared getting up would feel like laying down. What I learned in a single sentence is (important lesson #1) that forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do is exactly where creativity gets to shine.

Example: yes, sure, I could have worn very traditional button downs with sleek trousers, but where’s the fun in that? Nowhere in this challenge did I cite that pants couldn’t have their own peplums, or that jackets were not invited to the party. What’s that thing they say? Necessity is the mother of invention?

Item #2. I put no sanctions on footwear (though many women live and die by the pump) and this culminated in the proof of lesson #2, which is a perspective I’ve long held: shoes are the easiest and more concretized way that women can escape from the banalities of life. It might be temporary, but sometimes, that’s enough.

Separately, I thought about things to layer under the shirts and over the pants and next to the sleeves. I forced myself to feel good and it worked. I arguably felt better because I was trying so hard at it. So my third takeaway was: work hard, give it your all, really believe that there’s a fruitful outcome on the horizon and you might not feel happy, per se, but you will feel satisfied. Fulfilled. Which I think is much more gratifying.

In conclusion, here’s the curve ball: white shirts and black pants are a metaphor for life which — by the rules of all that I call important — do, in fact, make them the best garments a woman could own.

Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis

The post Three Things I Learned from Wearing Boring Ass Black Trousers and White Shirts for a Week appeared first on Man Repeller.

So Much More than My Favorite Word

I love words. I keep a little post-it of my favorite ones taped to my computer screen at the big bad-investment-bank I call work. Scrawled across it, in cramped handwriting, lie intractable but beautiful words, like “eponymous” and “Panglossian,” interspersed among satisfyingly onomatopoeic words — like “munch.”

I write for this investment bank. I write about economics, politics and what it means that the ringgit (the currency of Malaysia) has rallied 10% in a week. Things that matter to our portfolio fund wielding clients. Occasionally, deep in the minutia of the GDP data, topics can err on the dull side. So, I spice things up a bit – a little fruity language here, a pop-culture reference there – just to keep the reader on their toes. Push the boundaries a bit.

Banks are, almost by definition, not the setting for this. A culture clash occurs every time I turn up to work in thrifted yellow cigarette trousers or title a report, “If you like it then you should put a ringgit on it.” I watch my editor’s eyes grow wide as my trousers, then cringe as he swipes his scythe through my carefully crafted prose. For weeks I would scowl on the phone to my friend,”This is censorship!”

But is it?

Censorship implies an issue with what I want to say, rather than the way I want to say it. He merely objects to my style.

One lazy Tuesday afternoon, as I flitted between perusing the fashion-blogosphere and the econo-blogosphere, I stumbled across a new one. A new word. It was nestled in an innocuous article about multitasking by the economist and journalist Tim Harford: “Bowdlerised.”

When reading a piece by a familiar author, finding a new word is like coming across a new café or bar just around the corner from your house. You thought you knew the lay of land, but there it is – shiny, full of promise, goading you to type it into Google.

What do you mean, word?

What obscure meaning do you encompass that I have yet to come across?

(A nano-second pause for Google’s servers to spit out their result.)

And then there it was.

Bowdlerize: to “remove material that is considered improper or offensive from (a text or account), especially with the result that the text becomes weaker or less effective.”

Sometimes words are the window-dressing of life. They scrub it up, make it sound important or look beautiful. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, you are delivered a lightning bolt to the frontal cortex, articulating what you have failed to — despite your existing artillery of words — in one single, perfect package. A word that transcends expressive tool; it’s part of who you are.

A word to make you realize…you don’t want to be that word anymore.

I fire up Google once more and type: “How to start a blog.”

Ah, Universe. You work in strange and mysterious ways.

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MR Crystal Ball: Courrèges Might be the Comeback Kid

The early 60s were a golden time among the designers of France — Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Cardin and Cristóbal Balenciaga were into the thick of their respective heydays, creating clothes to accommodate their conceptions of the modern woman. In 1961, André Courrèges bubbled to the surface with his own house, taking the concept of this modern woman and turning her into the future woman.

There’s something satisfying about the way Courrèges shared his purview: shiny a-line mini skirts, and cropped matching jackets; the original mod dress; triple strap low-heel Mary Janes rendered in stark patent leather and geometric cut outs that read ballsy — some of the most naked clothes of the time — and yet still tasteful. There were lamp shade hats and garments that looked like they’d been made from industrial materials used to render the foundations of metropolitan edifices. It was groundbreaking, really, until it wasn’t. As is typically the case with rampant success, his collections became the subject of multifarious hard cases of copy cat syndrome — and with that level of imitation almost always comes a sense of dilution. This is arguably what makes someone like Nicolas Ghesquière or Phoebe Philo or Marc Jacobs so well versed in their trade — no two collections ever look like each other.

But last month in Paris, Courrèges held a fashion show and it was great. On the runway were plenty of body suits — winter’s answer to bathing suits. There were those familiar structural and vaguely architectural jackets, set on contrasting color palettes loud enough to grab your attention without annoying you.Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps called this “Courrèges 101.” New for them may have been the loot of slip dresses and jeans — no doubt two such compromises to wield today’s shopper.

On the streets, you saw inklings of a return. Teen Vogue’s Marina Larroude was spotted in a brown patent-leather jacket and friend-of-Man Repeller, Aziza Azim, recently instagrammed a photo of herself wearing a light pink jacket with a red skirt. I bought a blue version because I liked it so much.

Image via Aziza’s Instagram

The question is, will Courrèges under its new establishment (heralded by LVMH prize finalists, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant) be able to make the splashy sound it did when the house first aired? Does it need to? Back then, Courrèges clothes changed the way we consider fashion. The way we consider the women who wear fashion. His prolific vision was so distinctive, so vastly replicated, that when you consider the clothes of Courrèges today, at least as determined by the runway of last month, you wonder why it looks so familiar. Can art imitate itself? Does that question even make sense? The clothes, the house, the intention — it all feels relevant. That’s what a trend will do. But as with any other, it’s when the hype subsides that true staying power is determined.

Let’s see what happens.

Feature photograph by Willy Rizzo, 1966

Feature collage by Elizabeth Tamkin

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(Don’t) Curb Your Enthusiasm

Growing up, my parents used to advise me, “If you’re passionate about what you do, people will be attracted to you.”

I took this gentle seedling of wise advice and hammered it into the ground. I became passionate about passion. I held up encouraging road-side signs, handed out bottles of electrolyte-fueled water, made up coordinated dance routines to the beat of mildly-rhyming cheers — all in the name of unbridled enthusiasm.

Then reality hit. I found myself working in an industry where enthusiasm denoted something much less desirable: foolish, naive, innocent, ignorant —all words used to describe those who express “too much” excitement. AKA: me.

Nice may indeed be fashionable again — but eagerness? Still lame.

Composure is hard (impossible) for me to maintain. I’m constantly in awe, easily enthralled and chastised for such “childlike” reactions to no avail. Despite my parents’ prediction, it seems no one finds this attractive.

“It will get old,” stoic industry veterans instruct. “It’s not all sunshine & rainbows,” as if my reaction to an awesome opportunity is the result of its newness (and not its awesomeness) or an inability to see the industry’s less flattering features.

Which is probably a bit true. I just know there’s more to it.

Cynicism is safe; getting hurt while hoping for the best is far more painful than when you were already expecting the worst. But being cynical also prevents the rewarding (and revolutionary) long-term power of its opposite mindset.

Would we consider Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and the like to be cynics? Did they adopt apathy to eschew ridicule or rejection? Or because all of the cool kids were doing it? Would we label their enthusiasm as naïve? No!

My affinity for fashion doesn’t compare to the goals of these world-changing leaders. Their enthusiasm, however, reminds me that to be inspired is a gift. It shouldn’t be shameful, because it’s the fire behind the energy necessary to set and meet otherwise unthinkable goals — whatever those might be.

We may conflate the devolution of enthusiasm with maturity, or worse, success; these are things that seem to stem from the passing of time. It’s normal to grow weary. To “know it all” after you’ve been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt and sold it for re-sale at 20% of the original price. That’s life. Devaluing passion in exchange for the exaltation of blasé, however, gets no one off the couch.

Though consistently warned against it, my enthusiasm has proven my greatest asset. It’s allowed me to connect with whomever I meet and remain resilient in the face of rejection. Enthusiasm, I’ve found, engenders more enthusiasm and an ability to see the forest through the trees; the opposite is true of naivety.

Enthusiasm and experience are not mutually exclusive. Enthusiasm is a choice to allow ourselves to be perpetually re-invigorated; to opt for optimism over misanthropy; to prioritize the peaks over the pitfalls. When combined with experience — that’s when its most powerful.

So, sure. Maybe the homemade sideline signs and were a little intense. But sometimes, a little extra electrolyte-filled water is all we need.

Maybe it’s time we start replacing being too jaded to care with caring too much to be jaded.

Ceramic Dino by Brett Kern. Collage by Krista Anna Lewis.

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The Sex and the City Diet, Round 3: Samantha Jones

Cock.

I’m so glad we got that over with, because Samantha Jones, my alter-ego of the week and I, did not see eye-to-eye on that four letter word. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on anything, actually, but you would think that cursing would be an easy task.

“Cock” isn’t really a curse word, though. It’s a verbal glop of mud that somehow found itself as the mascot for big dicks worldwide and cliché pornographic rhetoric. I find the word “cock” in no way offensive, though similar to “cunt” (and what a visual I’m about to paint), I choke on it mainly for its clunky and useless nature as a noun. Sam loves the word, though. She says it a lot.

The word “fuck,” which I have zero problem with despite its equally clipped syllabic nature and the same “ck” cluster as my first gripe, is better by virtue alone because it’s more successful. (Sam says “fuck” less but I say it a lot.) As both a verb and a noun, fuck not only does more, but says more: One can be fucking, or one can be a total fuck. One can get fucked (literally, figuratively). One can also miss their stop on the subway train, screw themselves over (that’s a fuck), then communicate their frustration with the heroic expletive and shout out loud you-know-what.

Meanwhile, a cock is just a cock.

…Unless it’s a rooster, which we don’t have in New York City. (If you’re about to counter with Carrie Bradshaw’s fowl alarm clock in season 3, episode 18, note that Carrie likely lied for the sake of drawing narrative parallels.) Still, it means that during my electively-celibate week as Samantha Jones, Public Relations Extraordinaire, I had exactly zero uses for cock: word, rooster, appendage. This fell in line rather neatly with all of the other various ways I failed on the Samantha Jones Diet.

But first, let’s start with the highs:

1) I took an abundance of selfies that did not involve double chins. It’s not the same thing as commissioning nude photographs of myself, but you know, close enough.

2) I dressed up in less clothes. This is about as naked as a girl can get in October, but I still got down with a cold shoulder. There is something extremely empowering about dressing like the sexiest version of yourself, for yourself. It’s self love of the none vibrating variety.

3) I analyzed zero text conversations with men. What’s the point.

4) Though I do not know a Smith Jerrod, I assure you I know a wide variety of men with surnames for first monikers. This isn’t so much a high as it is the only thing I have in common with Samantha besides not having a child and enjoying alcohol.

5) The Samantha Jones Power Suit and a published cock-count of six. Seven if you include this one: cocktail.

And now, the lows:

1) Getting anything done in a pencil skirt is impossible.

2) I am not equipped for the life of a publicist. I tried it twice in my early career and never got the hang of a headset.

3) I did not flirt with a priest.

4) I did not fly in a private jet.

5) I did not wear a pearl thong.

6) I did not wear fake nipples.

7) I did not hit on our UPS delivery man.

8) I tried to flirt once but fell asleep instead.

9) All male interactions were platonic. (You say draught, I remind you: diet.)

10) I work at a website called MAN REPELLER.

Collage by Krista Anna Lewis

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MR Writers Club: Say It With That Salsa Dancer

This week, to celebrate the unveiling of all the fancy new emojis correlated with the new iPhone software, your task is to write an entire narrative in emojis. (Type it into your mobile device, screen shot it, and then e-mail it in to write@manrepeller.com).

With it, we’d love for you to include a 200 word synopsis not rendered in emojis.

Here is an example of what we mean.

The emoji piece can be as short or as long as you’d like. What will follow this task is simply that the audience will moonlight as Da Vinci code breakers from the time of Leonardo and try to unlock what you’re saying. Only after this point will we publish your 200-word blurb and boom shaka laka, we’re team mates who have worked on and completed a project together, just like business school students in pursuit of their MBAs, minus the hefty Goldman Sachs bonus, plus the moral fulfillment of knowing we can philosophize with animated monkeys and cacti!

You know da drill — submit that baby to write@manrepeller.com by 12 p.m. EST on Thursday, October 29th.

Can’t

W8.

Smell ya later.

Oh! And in case you’re wondering about the significance of my emoji story, it’s a rewrite of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

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