Leandra Medine's Blog, page 641

NY Closets: Ruthie Friedlander

Ruthie Friedlander, deputy editor of Elle.com, makes a closet case for: a) editing in huge sleeves, b) a cropped denim jacket with a tight jean skirt, c) turtlenecks in May, d) the kind of selfie poses that disregard not a fat gray cat and e) leaning out. So with that, we wish you a very happy, very warm May Monday morning.

Outfit 1:

Casual Mondays are more my thing, because who wakes up on a Monday and is like, “YEAH I WANT TO PUT ON MY FANCIEST OUTFIT!”? I get progressively fancier as the week goes on. So this outfit is basically pajamas, dressed up.

Pants and turtleneck, Zara. Belt, eBay find thanks to Kerry Pieri at Harper’s Bazaar!

Outfit 2:

I recently started figuring out how to wear jeans to work without feeling like a slob. Pair them with a shirt that has ridiculously large sleeves or anything by Australian designer Kim Ellery, and you’re good to go.

Shirt, Ellery. Jeans, Rag & Bone. Shoes, Chanel. Cat, Gracie.

Outfit 3:

Let’s take a moment to talk about volume. It just makes me feel SO GIRLY. And no one does volume like Natasha Zinko (and she does it like her hair!). I just wanna sing “I FEEL PRETTYYYY OH SO PRETTTYYYY!”

Shirt, Topshop. Skirt, Natasha Zinko. Bag, The Row. Shoes, Manolo Blahnik.

Outfit 4:

Dat ass! Love this skirt with all my heart, mostly because Beyoncé AND Kim Kardashian have it.

Jacket, Chanel. Bodysuit, Alix. Skirt, Frame Denim. Shoes, Dior. Cat, Gracie.

Outfit 5:

I’ve loved Jill Stuart since high school and I feel like her clothes have sort of grown up as I have. This jumper is going to see me through spring and summer. Can’t wait to wear it sans turtle and tights.

Turtle, Zara. Dress, Jill Stuart. Shoes, Chanel.

Follow Ruthie on Instagram and Twitter. Want more closets? Click here. 

Oh, Sweet Netflix

Netflix, I do love you.

You’re there when I’m in need.

But please stop all your changing!

It’s too fast! I must plead.

Through the winter snowstorms—

My boyfriend, my best friend.

But just when I feel safe,

The month comes to an end.

Braveheart, it did leave me.

Titanic is long gone.

Before the credits rolled,

Said bye to Meg and Tom.

I’m begging you: Listen.

This carousel must stop.

Keep your films for longer,

Or my subscription will drop.

Words by Emily Siegel, Illustration by Gabi Anderson. Follow them both at Urban Ditty.

The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley and Me

The year 1998 was ruled by two entities: The Olsen twins and sleepovers. The best way to enjoy either of them was to enjoy them together.  A Saturday night without the latest video from Dualstar Entertainment Group might as well have been a school night.

The routine was a simple one. Get in the car, drive to video store, run to “New Releases” section, beg parent to allow for the one-day rental, beg parent for the big box of Sour Patch Kids, give 15 minutes of attitude when they say no to the Sour Patch Kids, thank them for the movie, and follow-up by giving them one word answers the remainder of the evening as to look extra cool in front of my sleepover team.

I can recall the exact night the simple routine became more strategized than a Tinder default photo. It all fell on the shoulders of the much-anticipated release of Billboard Dad: the cool, grown-up movie starring America’s favorite twins. To those who once hoarded the Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley series, this release date was a national holiday.

Unfortunately, at 10-years-old I wasn’t allowed to camp iPhone 6-style outside the local video store waiting for Billboard Dad. This was for two reasons: 1) because I had hockey practice that night, and 2) because I had spent my last dollar bills on a keychain from Limited Too.

Instead, this was a job given to my mother — a job that I had lined out with specific instructions. The first order of business was to make sure she took my best friend along. I couldn’t risk her coming home with the wrong movie. I hadn’t wanted my hands on something so badly since the Princess Di Beanie Baby hit the market. The second part of the strategy involved lining up alternate video stores; I knew this was a hot item and that young girls all over the South Shore of Massachusetts had the success of their Saturday sleepover on the line. It killed me to put such responsibility in someone else’s hands, but I remained faithful. My weeks of planning and countdowns had all led up to this one night.

So there I was. 7 p.m on Saturday night. I had changed into my pajamas: flannel bottoms and a t-shirt that read Hockey Is Life. I was anxiously braiding my American Girl Doll Kirsten’s hair when my mother and friend walked through the door. The look on my mother’s face read defeat.

“I’m so sorry, we tried 3 different places,” she said as my world crashed down. “All sold out. We got The Lion King instead.”

I would like to think I held it together, but I’m pretty sure I broke into sobs. Were my maps not clear enough? Did my calls to all of the back up stores’ front desks fall flat? How? Why?

A few moments passed before my mother looked at me, smiled, and said, “Just kidding,” while simultaneously pulling Billboard Dad out from behind her back.

Victory. My friend and I jumped up and down, grabbed a slice of pizza, then watched Billboard Dad three times. Mission Olsen: accomplished.

Want more Writers Club entries? Click here. 

In Honor of Royal Baby Number 2: Why It’s Okay to Come Second

As Twitter tracked the slow but necessary progress from #RoyalBaby hysteria through #RoyalBaby euphoria to #RoyalBaby inertia, throne-watchers may have experienced a sense of déjà vu for this time almost two years ago when a beautiful bundle of George was born.

But even with the press barrier standing outside St Mary’s Hospital in London, and the vestiges of childbirth pun capability being eked out at ad agencies, something’s amiss.

Paparazzi scrummage injuries were reportedly down 42% on July 2013. A mere 6% of UK GDP was gambled on this new royal’s name, and the Daily Mail assigned less than half its staff to cover the story.*

Second children just aren’t as interesting as firsties. I know because I am one.

I know what it means to be humdrum even before you exist. By the time I was born, my older brother could run, laugh and operate a fork. He was communicating with the dog before I could even chew.

The second child’s development is absent of any real milestones. No gummy smile, no drunken steps, and no first word will ever be as miraculous as its older sibling’s (unless that first word happens to be “mellifluous”or something).

But there are advantages to coming second, as the Princess will eventually discover. Parenting is both more expert and less attentive. Your parents probably won’t drop you on your head, but they might forget your bedtime – and no age is too young to learn about televised cosmetic surgery.

First children are human experiments, learning by doing in the fraught nursery of life, while their younger siblings acquire wisdom vicariously. Lessons I learned from my brother included Hamsters Don’t Like to Fly, Nostrils: The Risks, and Practical Reasons for Not Eating Gravel.

Second children tend to be more robust, primed for adversity by formative years of teasing and practical jokes. Shabby exam results, job rejections, unrequited love – no disappointment encountered as an adult can ever match the discovery that a doll’s hair never grows back.

And most importantly, a wardrobe consisting entirely of hand-me-downs prepares the resourceful second child for thrift store outfit-cobbling later in life. Forget Petit Bateau and JoJo Maman Bebe. All the best-dressed kids are wearing faded dungarees.

Some other good things that came second:

1.) The Godfather II.

2.) Bill Gates, memorably described in an online bio as “sandwiched between two sisters.”

3.) Nirvana’s Nevermind 



4.) Buzz Aldrin, one small step behind Neil Armstrong.

5.) Prince Harry. If ever Matilda needs a role model, her Vegas-loving army hero uncle is it.

Note: statistics mentioned may or may not or may definitely be false.

ICYMI: Chill Out and Catch Up

Dear Friends,

As Max Muller once famously said, “A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man [repeller] cannot live without love.” Have we told you how much we loved you recently? Because you, readers, are the wind beneath our wings. The tweed suits in our wardrobes. The dial hands on our watches and the silk scarves on our wrists. We love you as we do our most reliable bag and our favorite drugstore mascaras.

Which is why we want to give you some very important advice. We urge you to turn off once in a while. You know? Just be. Allow your thoughts to hang ten for a little while, away from the distractions of daily life. Don’t think about the fact that you still have nothing to wear to prom, because we’ve pretty much solved that conundrum for you right here. Don’t think about how you haven’t gone grocery shopping in six months. A minimal refrigerator is chic as hell.

You know what else is chic as hell? A mermaid skirt. So make like a great artist and steal this look. Wipe that guilty grin off your face with some nourishing product and then dye your hair platinum so that nobody can identify you. BANKS told us that style is based on mood anyways, so why not shop for a whole new look? Blend into the masses by wearing suede, or just take a cue from Style.com and disappear all together!

Poof!

Have a good weekend friends,

Get Your Shit Together and Exercise

You listened to the eating tips and took up meditation. Your mind feels more like an alphabetized book shelf than it does the remnants of a library-post-explosion. You don’t even crave cupcakes anymore, but before you charge forward like a bull with abs rock-hard enough on which to cut wood, you’ve got to decide a) how you feel about being compared to a bull and b) whether abs are actually your end goal.

Here’s the thing about working out: it takes mental readiness and if you don’t arrive at a state of good will on your own, you probably won’t get there. So I won’t attempt to wax poetic on the ways in which exercising will make your life better but I will say that it will never get easier if you rely on a soulless treadmill. Or, ugh, eliptical. So consider this edition of Get Your Shit Together the baby steps that turn you into a regular Jane Fonda, spandex notwithstanding. Here are five classes you should totally try and five gifs to prove that you can take the moves with you wherever you go.

AKT

The class in a sentence: Saturday night at da club in sneakers with no alcohol but lots of girlfriends.

Celebrity trainer founder Anna Kaiser says, “AKTread is the perfect blend of cardio/strength/stretch with dance moves you will groove to, sans all the running. The program is designed to work your muscle groups on all planes of motion, while keeping your heart rate up and simultaneously performing strength moves, sometimes on the treadmill.”

An exercise you can do while waiting for the subway:

The Class

The class in a sentence: A 75-minute meditation in a room full of attractive TriBeCa women that encourages yelling and closed eyes to compliment the MULTIPLE MINUTE sequences of burpees. Alternative sentence: if you’re going to try only one of my class recommendations, let it be this one.

Founder Taryn Toomey says, “A completely sweat soaked full-body workout that transforms your brain as much as it lifts your ass — you don’t just get physically stronger, you get mentally stronger.”

An exercise (butt lifts!) you can do while checking nutritional facts on a Kashi box:

Barre 3

The class in a sentence: Ballet minus the headache-inducing bun plus a lot of standing in constipation pose kicking your legs back and forth.

Founder Sadie Lincoln says, “A modern approach to the ballet barre workout that incorporates isometric and dynamic movement, Barre3 feels great in your body and gives you the long, lean lines everybody wants.”

An exercise (thigh lifts) you can do using your coworker’s shoulders as a bar:

305 Fitness

The class in a sentence: College girls getting ready to go out while listening to Katy Perry.

“Inspired by the Miami nightlife scene, you get the ultimate underground dance party by way of a killer workout – complete with live DJ and sick light show. Classes are 55-minutes of nonstop cardio complete with dance moves, sports drills and HIIT for a total body, mind-freeing experience. The music is constantly changing, just as you feel you are completely wiped—the DJ switches the track, and you get so excited, you can’t help but dance. No dance experience required. As long as you’re willing to move your body and just roll with it, you got this.” – Sadie Kurzban, Founder/CEO, ((305)) Fitness

An exercise (jumping high knees) you can do while crossing the street:

Soul Cycle

The class in a sentence: The glazed donut of cardio classes; the intense cycling will put you out of commission for the subsequent 12 hours.

An exercise (push ups) you can do wherever Citi Group sponsored bikes are stationed: 

Does Anyone Else Feel Like 2015 Ruined Suede?

I spent the greater half of two years looking for the suede a-line mini skirt — the kind with snaps down the front which you can now locate wherever garments are sold. And when I finally found it on Etsy, I thought I’d reached outfit euphoria. Never again will I need another skirt, I declared, but like a bad case of peanut butter syndrome imparted on me unwillingly, I could hardly look at it after six months.

For this, I blame 2015.

The year that has been co-opted by the resurgence of the 70s has tainted suede’s good name what with its overzealous use of the fiber on any garment permutation conceivable by the boundaries of your imagination and the trickle down effect that is the life (and therefore death) of a trend.

If in 2012, I could hardly find the skirt of my deceased dreams, in 2015, it is as common place as a pigeon on Broadway. But don’t get me wrong here — I’m not trying to be a fashion snob. I’m not proclaiming myself above the trend. Above any trend, really, but where suede was never quite the literal translation of a bygone decade, it has become the poster child for an era that is forcibly at the top of the collective consciousness. It has lost its zest because of its overt accessibility.

Remember when you could wear a suede jacket without feeling like a cheap version of any number of your 70s icons or to get more meta here, like any number of the models in current Zara or Topshop ad campaigns, posting as any number of your 70s icons? When’s the last time you experienced that?

When the first wave of 70s paraphernalia began emerging on Spring runways last September, the conversation was much more focused on what we, the consumers, are meant to do in the wake of winter fabrics for summer. Suede still felt like something a novelty — the personal style champion’s neon sheep in a sea of black leather. But that black leather has been eclipsed by its more supple sibling, which leaves those champions scrambling, bleeding out into otherwise genres and rejecting the 70s before they even actually get here. So what I’m wondering is this: can it be that as a result of obscenely fast fashion and our expansive access, we could be over a trend before its even de facto arrived or is this just another case of trend inception, ruining the party for its hosts?

Will You Go Tulle Prom With Me?

It is a damn shame that I’m about to turn 27, because I would ball so hard if I was still in high school and my prom was this weekend. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my proms. I went to three: junior, senior, and someone else’s. Junior prom was on a boat, and though my date the worst, you likely know by now where I stand on the topic of floating vessels: at the head of the mast, ya’ll — call me editor-in-chief of the S.S. Hell Yes. 

My senior prom was fine but I have little memory of dancing or promenading in general. I spent the vast majority of my time taking group pictures for MySpace, complaining about my feet and focusing on the afterparty.

(You’ll be happy to learn that the above sentence is the first and only time I’ve earnestly used “afterparty” since high school. We live and grow, you know?)

The prom at which I guest-starred was probably the most fun. I attribute this to my leopard print strapless dress, gold aviators, really solid spray tan and a devil-may-care attitude about shaking my groove thing. No I will not make room for the Holy Spirit, Sister Francis. I do not even go here.

But if I went to prom now? For starters, my outfit would be way more fly. Maybe I’d DIY a tulle skirt and pair it with a leotard then claim that Sarah Jessica Parker stole my look. Maybe I’d do a tuxedo situation plus a red lip sans shirt. I’d definitely wear something dramatic to end the evening. Human disco ball? Sure, why not.

I’d limit myself to five minutes, max, of pictures. I’d hide my phone and really “be in the moment.” I’d dance, I’d sing, I’d request Taylor Twift, and prior to the big night, if a date hadn’t asked me via some insane, grand gesture, I’d ask myself. Two white horses and five dozen red roses, coming right up!

But enough about my gold days. I want to know about yours. In ~500 words, send your prom song to write@manrepeller.com. Tell me the good, the bad, the ugly dresses, the 80s tulle, the 90s tulle, the Avril Lavigne-phase tulle, the Parisian Tuileries. Tell me about how your date asked you, or tell me about how you asked your date. Or maybe you went stag — tell me about that. If you’re about to go, tell me what you’re excited for, or how you hope it will go, or about the horrible experience of searching for a dress.

Whatever your prom story is, I want to hear it, so that we can all live vicariously through you.

Check out past Writers Club entires here.

So Long, Style.com

For all the parental nightmares it once conjured of dark rooms and pale loners and never-ending games of Bubble Trouble, the World Wide Web has facilitated communities so good they rival even IRL crowds.

But long before I found Facebook or turned to Twitter or discovered the chat room that is this website, no URL gave me so profound a sense of belonging as Style.com.

When I came across it, I was fifteen years old and desperate to master a new language. Like savvier women and John Waters before me, I had at last begun to understand the power that clothing could command — the way it could announce a person and define her and make her look older than her diminutive frame might lead unkind adults to assume. Given that I had outfitted myself in oversize souvenir shirts and loose leggings for the full decade before I awoke to such consciousness, the realization was a singular revelation. Now aware of what fashion could do, I was determined to memorize it. Which is just about when I smacked into Style.com.

That was how it felt to me then — like I had walked into something important and huge. The site drafted me into the only league I would ever join, introducing me to players and coaches and the rabid fans that cheered for them. I rooted for all of it.

When I interviewed for a deeply unglamorous internship at WWD a year later, I spoke in a newly acquired rhetoric — charting the course of Proenza Schouler, extolling the virtues of Alexander McQueen and slim silks and gabardine wool, wondering aloud about the evolution of Zac Posen. After it was over, I marveled at my own eloquence. I had become more than proficient. I was fluent. Good thing, too.

Because the hubris made it easier to stand on 42nd Street in the bitter cold and hand out newspapers to harried Fashion Week attendees for three years in a row. As soon as my shift was over, I was allowed to sneak into the back of any show I wanted and watch. This was what it was to be on the inside.

A professor I once knew well told me that you can love almost anything. But you can only like what you understand. It was never enough to worship this industry and these people and the stuff they made and sold. Outside of storefronts and advertorial pages and the contents of my own closet, I had to know it.

Earlier this week, Condé Nast announced that it would reinvent Style.com, transforming it into a global e-commerce platform and transferring the content that sustained so many of us for so many years to a new space that American Vogue will mastermind — voguerunway.com. While I hate to be too nostalgic in this age of present tense, I miss the site already.

But this is not an obituary.

It’s a question. When you first decided to look, where did you find your sartorial resources? Does the prospect of the new Style.com excite you? Does it make you nervous? Does the fact of this overhaul suggest the irrelevance of the critical review? Is it even possible for industry news — entangled as it is in the snare of advertising — to be objective on the web? Does this mean that we have ranked personal — and shop-able — style above the expert opinion? Click, click: Let’s talk about it.

We Combed the E-Comm-Net so You Don’t Have to

Shopping is a funny, tricky process. It can be either cathartic or frustrating depending on whether you’ve already come into the franchise that is your “personal style.” If you have, you might find yourself embroiled in a case of peanut butter syndrome — pushing the same pressure points you’ve been leaning on for months and expecting different results. Sometimes you get them, often you don’t, but there’s this sense that either way, you’re not bothered because you know what you like and when you take apart the reason you’re shopping, you understand that you’re not doing it because you need something new to say something new. You’re doing it because you want something new to say something old.

But say you haven’t come into your style yet, right? You haven’t figured out that you’re going to live and die by a template that will be unflinchingly you. So you approach shopping with the same eagerness you might approach ordering lunch. You need something to nourish you, you want to be smart about it and make sure that after the fact you don’t regret eating what you ate. You want to satisfy yourself without compromising a basic understanding that ice cream cake is not lunch but you also deserve to feel like you ate ice cream cake. So you’re scanning the food display, trying to talk yourself both in and out of eating everything available, becoming kind of frustrated and really overwhelmed and finally, it’s your turn to order but you panic and before you know it, you’re back at work with a rice pudding that is neither satisfying nor tasty. You reflect on what just happened and blame the vast options for your poor decision-making ability.

You think to yourself, Self, there is so much out there, I wish someone would just narrow it down. And then the food metaphor ends and boom: you’re back on ManRepeller.com with a list of twelve items you should look at as a refined arsenal of treats for yourself. Today.

For your loins:

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Striped pants, check. A pair of scalloped overalls (clocking in under $100), double check. Or maybe you’re finally ready to commit to a pair of white jean shorts only you’d rather them be a mini skirt. That’s cool, there’s something for you, too. And because retired gym teachers are trending for spring, you need huge khakis to make your knees look minuscule, but your approach to fabric wide and loud.

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Per the accoutrements, here are two pairs of earrings that will provide the kind of false edge addendum that piercings do without your having to commit to the actual piercings. If you get them, I would recommend wearing only one and letting your other lobe free-ball. Olympia Le-Tan is still for sale at The Outnet and while not cheap, cheaper than it has been. Those red lips could be yours for the very lucrative price of $44. Or free ninety free!

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If I were you, I’d definitely consider a mint green blazer to wear over a Victorian-style sleeveless blouse that is not vintage but rather, from Topshop. They’ll pair great with your new denim skirt and possibly, too, pink sunglasses. Happy Easter! The last blouse is a Nina Ricci turtleneck that’s on sale for $225 and does that cool Victorian thing too.

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And here we have shoes. From highest to lowest, Charlotte Olympia’s crabs are $390. Laurence Dacade’s picnic for your feet are $800. Acne’s mules (which, make no mistake, could become permanent foot furniture for you) clock in at $500, and Amelie Pichard’s ivory, terry cloth brogues will look so cool with your retired gym teacher shorts. Let’s go for a walk.

Oh! And you totally need gold clam hair pins.