Leandra Medine's Blog, page 648

T.GIF!

T.G.I.F: the acronym for thank god it’s Friday or the title of a .gif preceded by the letter T?

In the look book of our lives, there is no difference, so before you fart glitter on your way out of work in anticipation of finally getting yourself a set of extensions that might snowball into an entire text message conversation wherein all of Carrie Bradshaw’s questions are finally answered and you’re left pondering who truly defines the Brat Pack of today (or what’s suitable to keep stowed in your refrigerator), cling onto your best friend’s shoulders and hips and let her twirl you around like the human backpack you always knew you could be!

Bonus points if you show up at the same place, at the same time, wearing permutations of the same effing outfit.

Let’s Do the Date Thing

Congratulations, you dance card diva. You’ve scored a date tonight. Although, come on, look at you — we should be shaking your date’s hand for landing such a catch, right? Or scribbling on a notepad and holding a microphone under his nose while wondering how on earth he managed to land such a radiant, stone cold babe.

What’s that? You think I’m buttering you up and it’s making you nervous?

Fine, you caught me. I am buttering you up — a bit! – because when I told Leandra I wanted to do a “what to wear on a date” story, she not only jumped in my lap to be my model but she nominated herself as stylist.

Let’s consider a few things for a moment:

1) Does Leandra dress ok? Sure.

2) Does Leandra go on dates with new suitors anymore? She’s married, so no.

3) Is Leandra insane? Irrefutably, yes.

So you can see that items 2 and 3 loaned themselves to my mild reservation, hence my butter, hence you being my delightful, toasty bread.

The first outfit is in no way scary, though. Wear this and your date will understand it. He’ll get it. He’ll probably love it! (That’s not the point, I know, the point is that you love it.) But you’ll get it too. You’ll love it. And it’s the type of thing you can wear to a casual office without having frickin’ Deborah being all up in your business like, “OOooooooOoo, why so dressed up?” Yea, I know I normally look hungover on Friday mornings, Deborah. Thursday’s a big night for the ping pong community.

Are you even still reading this?

Great. For outfit one, behold:

I told you you could do this. Our main ingredients are the denim jacket:

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And the flares:

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Plus a white shirt, shoes of your picking (heels if you need the height or flats if you’re freaky — doesn’t really matter here because the pants are covering your hooves) and a clutch because a girl needs a proper receptacle in case she needs to take her man bun to go, if you know what I mean.

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I don’t either!

Outfit number two gets a little more whackadoo. It’s sort of…one of those outfits where you have a lot of time to get ready, you know what I mean? Maybe you got out of work early so you stopped at the wine store. Then you got home, put on One Direction’s Greatest Hits because RIP Zayne (he’s not dead but after that news, aren’t we all?), drank some wine, declared yourself foiiine, and were like, Uh, yea. A giant jacquard skirt — plus a vest — is definitely the way to go on this path to love.

What a fricken’ zoodle. If this outfit doesn’t make for a future It’s Kind of a Funny Story, then I don’t know what does.

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And for dramatic effect, show up in a trench (the element of surprise) then EXPOSE yourself.

It works every time.

(Still standing in front of your mirror naked? Here’s what to wear the rest of this weekend, Tarzan.)

Three Outfit Ideas for This Weekend

It’s late Friday morning and you’re leaving work at 5 p.m. Even though summer Fridays are still months away, your boss has a case of The 50s: that cool condition, which occurs before the novelty of no longer needing to wear a scarf wears off, wherein everyone in your proximity is on the farting glitter train and that calls for a hard stop hours before the usual 7 p.m. exodus. You are thrilled. Your newfangled time means you can get a head start on taxes and go meet your pal Lyra Belacqua at that bar you like called The Bar. But what will you wear, right?

Taking a page from the Chloë Sevigny book of holy-shit-that-is-Style, you might want to pair a black mini skirt with two layers of white (shirt x blazer) and then compliment your color choice or lack thereof with white socks, which say, “I am here to hang out with friends and if you so much as attempt to buy me a drink I will gladly accept because those things are expensive but then I’ll likely knock you out with the heel on my black clog.”

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By Saturday morning, you’ll be like fyugfgbshjgfwtdbdbsjfyrttwkqbfvsyfuryqiu but I gather that once the sun sets, your gibberish will have turned into old English, and that’s when you’ll start planning your evening. Keeping in mind that you refuse to go anywhere lest you can slick your hair back into a tight bun to be complimented with earrings that delicately dance across your shoulder blades, you might want to consider breaking out your most casual party pants, which are actually a pair of cut offs, to be worn with a washed black t-shirt and a double breasted black blazer. I’m not sure if you’re willing to go so far as a pair of black strappy sky-high sandals, but it worked so well for Chloë so my money’s on that re-approximation. I don’t actually know where you’re going but assume that given the outfit, you will own the night like a denim factory owns my legs.

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Which will bode so well for your Sunday, when you hit another home run in a pair of suspenders you found at the American Apparel outlet store on Lafayette street worn with high waist jeans and a graphic t-shirt. Per your feet, comfort clogs. They will soften Monday’s blow.

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Feature image illustrated by Habile Buston

MR Writers Club Prompt: Hometown Glory

Once you begin college, the number one thing everyone asks you is, “Where are you from?” The trend carries on into the real world any time you’re in a situation that involves meeting someone new: at a bar, at a dinner party, in your own apartment building, in the back of a cop car for reasons that we won’t judge but likely had to do with the fact that you stood on top a roof naked and shouted, “I’M SO AWESOME IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.” (Turns out it was.)

We get asked this question — and also, we ask it — because where we come from can tell a lot about us. It explains our funny accents and preference in coffee, or style. It sets personal standards for food (if you’re from California, no east coast burrito will suffice. If you’re from New Jersey, all bagels outside the garden state suck). If the larger part of your adolescence took place in Iowa, then chances are your version of greener pastures is far different than that of someone from Arizona. Maybe the city you grew up in dictated your aggressive need to move closer to trees. Maybe the forest you were born in encouraged you to relocate to a beach.

Sometimes it’s a little bit more complicated. You can be born in one place, raised for half your life in another, but credit a third for setting the scene where you experienced your most formative years.

Perhaps for you, “where you’re from” is much more specific: your block. Your physical home. Your family.

Wherever your idea of from may be, we want to hear your ode to it. Send your 500-word love letter to write@manrepeller.com by 12 p.m. EST on Thursday, April 2nd.

For past Writers Club prompts and entries, click here. 

Pondering Extensions?

My relationship with my hair can be summed up in one word: basic.

I wear my hair shoulder length, parted down the middle, with the two front pieces slightly bent inwards. I’ve kept the same deep brown color my mother gave to me at birth, and the most dramatic change I’ve ever made to it (pre-K bangs aside) was bleaching my tips in 2010.

The hair I admire, however, is often attached to women who’ve taken the pixie plunge, or those who’ve embraced nature and let it run wild. I’m jealous of the girls who’ve adopted the Lizzie McGuire approach: braids one day, pink curls the next. They’re as unpredictable my hair is boring. I envy hair with life. I told a woman I’d just met that her Afro was “so fucking cool!” (my expletive was edited); I cried over a platinum gray undercut and tried to place a red head friend’s locks over mine like a sticky-fingered child trying on her mother’s heels for the first time.

But that was as far as it went. Ultimately, I’d crawl back under the shoulder length, blah version of my security blanket.

Then came the 1970s resurgence. Along with the need for suede and bell bottoms came a follicle-driven craving for long hippie hair. The solution was obvious: take the dive, get extensions. I had doubts nonetheless.

Will long hair make me look younger than my current estimated age of 13? 

Can extensions set off the airport security alarm?

Will they fall off during an unprompted romp through a daisy field? 

Will the owner of the local deli I frequent rip one out during our inevitable scuffle over the price of Kombucha?

Will people look at me differently? Will they think I’m vain? 

Two weeks with these bad boys and I can tell you that the answer to all of the above is a resounding no.

I got my extensions applied by a Bumble and bumble specialist named Alan — a kind and patient man who assured me that so long as I consistently combed out my hair, it wouldn’t morph into a bird’s nest. He used tape to secure the natural hair between the extensions. Despite the adhesive, I was surprised at how weightless they were. I barely felt them when I touched the crown of my head.

Aside from having to blow dry my roots after showering, extension upkeep has proved to be relatively low-maintenance. You are strongly advised not to swim during the six to eight weeks that the extensions are meant to last, but I currently live in Antarctica. If the weather suddenly slips and a pool appears, however, I’d bust out a tankini and break a few school rules.

You’re encouraged to keep all oils and creams away from the roots where the extensions are secured, and it’s recommended to use a conditioning mask once a week on the ends. Easy.

The most obvious benefit of the extensions has been the length. These new, long tresses have remedied my prior lack of hair-flare, but what I’m most pleased with is the volume. I have this cool natural cowlick/swirl/and/or bald spot, and while the extra fluff doesn’t cover it, it’s a nice distraction.

Extensions are a luxury. They are expensive, temporary, and in my case, cosmetic. However, if Aunt Nora’s Christmas money has yet to run dry and you’ve been pondering the idea for a while, I say, treat yo’self. They will transport you to the 70s, add life to your locks, and make Lizzie McGuire’s hair chameleon antics a lot more doable.

The #BratPack is Back

I’ve flipped through enough of Rob Lowe’s Stories I Only Tell My Friends in various Hudson News outposts nationwide to know everything there is to know about the Brat Pack. As my dad and an E! True Hollywood Story I once saw tell it, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, and a few of their BFFs rose to fame in the 1980s. They palled around LA, drank a lot of champagne, and forced teenagers all across America to confront the tedium of their normal existences. It seemed great.

Given a recent photo I spotted of Demi Moore in a bikini and the results of a Google image search for “Rob Lowe AND abs,” I think it’s fair to say that the original clique still has the power to make most of us accept our inferiority. It’s okay. We’re managing.

But while you and I feast our eyes on their chiseled limbs and enviable spandex wardrobes, Vogue has moved on. This week, it anointed a new Brat Pack, crowning Kendall Jenner, Justin Bieber, Ansel Elgort — that sweetie, and a few of their peers the Plastics of our day. The spread, which Mario Testino shot through what looks a lot like the Valencia filter, features selfies of Kendall and Gigi Hadid, a snap of siblings Dylan and Hopper Penn in a moment of deep contemplation, and plenty of bared midriff.

Just as the glossy intended it, the gang looks beautiful and charmed and fabulous. Gigi Hadid is very symmetrical. And yet for all the luster and gleam and decadence, I have to admit: I’m bored.

As far as I’m concerned, this is not the New Brat Pack or Rat Pack or even the latest collection of Bratz dolls come to life. On behalf of a generation that includes Tavi Gevinson and Miley Cyrus, I demand better idols.

And I don’t think I’m alone. My friends and frenemies and I are jealous of more than excellent proportions and lithe limbs. We want to see talent and drive and unbridled ambition. What we want is the Bloomsbury Group, Part II or the Newest New York Intellectuals.

Let’s be honest: I don’t want to be Kendall and Gigi as much as I do Lorde and Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham. In the high school cafeteria that is the culture industry today, I want to sit next to the eternally youthful Iris Apfel and Miranda July. I want better than Bieber. And I bet you do, too.

So, who belongs in our #BratPack? Besides Mo’ne Davis, that is — that girl is obviously in. Who do we want it to be? Who leads the kind of life that merits a double tap? Let’s talk about it.

Images courtesy of Vogue, shot by Mario Testino

4 Ways to Start Your Art Collection Without Blowing Your Budget

A walk-in closet that does not double as your entire apartment. A cabinet full of wine that is more diverse than two-buck-chuck. An art collection that consists of more than a fews posters duct-taped to the wall. These are the things grown-up dreams are made of.

But although our rented homes may be small and our wine budgets low, there is a way to start a diverse art collection and still make rent. That way, of course, is on the Internet, so behold: four sites to jump start your artistic menagerie without having to leave the comfort of your closet and Trader Joe’s merlot.

Exhibition A

Exhibition A is the side project of designer Cynthia Rowley and her husband Bill Powers, an art writer, editor and gallery owner. Working one on one with emerging and established artists like Peter Sutherland, Jeanette Hayes, and Harmony Korine, Exhibition A produces limited edition prints available for as little as $100. Each work is printed in a limited quantity and comes with a signed Certificate of Authentication, allowing buyers to purchase their favorite artist’s work for less than an original while acquiring a piece that isn’t mass produced.

The site releases a new work every week. Many of their artists have gone on to have very successful careers, making their limited edition prints worth much more than the initial selling price. “Collecting art is actually easy and quite addictive,” says Rowley, but go with your gut when collecting. “What you purchase should make you happy every time you see it,” she says, and with over a hundred works to browse through, there’s bound to be something that strikes your fancy.

20×200

Prints for only $24? You might as well just cover your walls completely in 20×200’s massive collection from artists like William Wegman, Bruce High Quality Foundation, and Dorothea Lange. It would be cheaper than painting.

Paddle8

If you’ve got a tax refund to spend and a bidding trigger-finger, online auction house Paddle8 will enrich your art starved soul. Paddle8 is the perfect option for investing in original work by mid-career artists like Eddie Martinez or Sam Falls, or for getting your hands on a real life Bruce Weber print. Check out the many benefit auctions for lower prices and a chance to invest in a good cause (and a nice write-off toward your growing collection).

Grey Area

Art isn’t limited to your walls. It can be as functional as a chair, a puzzle, or even a yoga mat. Grey Area gallery works with a number of cool artists like Baron Von Fancy and Andrew Kuo (of @earlboykins Instagram fame) to create limited edition art objects that you never knew you needed.

And if you’ve already started? Snap a pic of your collection and show us what you’re working with.

Follow Kate Messinger on Twitter, and check out her last story on five female painters to know.

Make Your Own Rope Belt

I noticed a belt by Isabel Marant being sold for $75 on Net-a-Porter last week. Initially I thought: Oh, that seems like a decent deal given the common denominator (multiple zeros to end a number as opposed to just one) among the anterior’s more popular prices, but then I took a second look at the photographed belt to realize that what was being sold, frankly, was a piece of rope. One eerily similar to the version I’ve had folded in my desk for the past three months after I untied it from the vase of an elaborate floral arrangement.

I kept it because I thought to myself: self, this might look cool tied over a dress.

Then last week, when I saw and expressed vague fury for the $75 version by Marant (ostensibly to the chagrin of Esther, whose hunched head perking up with a kind of embarrassed introspect at my acknowledgement seemed to suggest she had fallen for the branded string), I pulled the yacht strand out of my desk and replaced my belt with it.

Call it the world’s most accessible DIY or just a rope around my waist — either way it’s easy, looks cool and will effectively work with most outfits you’ll conceptualize. Try tying it at the waist of a white silk blouse worn with white pants to create a peplum, or just over a plain old dress, or, I don’t know, string a bunch of Doritos through it.

Lesson: Don’t underestimate your next floral arrangement’s garnish.

(And also: even though my pants are high waist and navy, don’t mention the sailor semblance lest you want Amelia to literally try to have sex with me.)

Chalayan turtleneck, Iro jacket, Rachel Comey pants, Superga x MR sneakers, Ralph Lauren sunglasses

Magic

I was eleven years old when I witnessed real magic for the first time.

The television was on, daring me to change channels, when the when the words “Proactiv Acne Solutions!” flashed onto the screen. Two side-by-side photos of Judith Light sat above the bold print. The image on the left was a “before” shot depicting Judith’s zit-riddled visage; the one on the right was her blemish-free “after.” I leaned forward on the couch, mesmerized by the irrefutable evidence in front of me.

Magic.

At the time, my willingness to credit a Proactiv infomercial with supernatural powers may or may not have stemmed from the fact that I had recently attempted a series of failed acne prevention initiatives. I’d even smeared toothpaste on a few pimples the night before my fifth grade Greek mythology play. (I had a starring role as Theseus, so the stakes were high).

I asked my mom if I could order the 3-step Proactiv treatment kit. She agreed. When it arrived a week later, I snuck into the bathroom and diligently applied each product in their prescribed order. I massaged, swabbed, and patted until my face was pink and glowing with the promise of change.

Ultimately, Proactiv failed to relieve my facial woes. The products reduced my breakouts, but they also made my skin flaky and red. I looked like a chapped sailor for a good chunk of middle school.

But none of that mattered. Having drunk Judith Light’s topically administered Kool-Aid, I was henceforth a believer in the magical possibilities of skincare cure-all regimens.

In subsequent years, I latched onto a diverse array of product lineups and skincare kits with the same degree of optimistic fervor. After industriously chasing the perfect system for more than a decade, however, I still had yet to find The One.

I decided my skin problems were incurable. That was it. I ditched the celeb-endorsed remedies and abandoned my quest.

The thing is, once I was finally freed from the rigid bounds of a particular quick fix brand or regime, skincare became less of a chore and more of a delight. I began experimenting with a rotation of products. I ordered Korean serums on Amazon. I crowd-sourced advice from my friends about their favorite exfoliating brushes. I started using Maracuja oil because it’s really entertaining to say. I challenged airport security with my lack of Ziploc baggies.

And then something strange happened. Something — dare I say — magical. When I stopped fighting my skin, I actually started to understand it. No longer blindly enslaved to the latest 3-step regimen, I had the chance to learn what kinds of products worked for me (gel-based moisturizers!) and what kinds didn’t (salicylic acid scrubs!). It was a series of long-awaited revelations.

My enlightening experimentations gradually began to pay off. My skin has improved considerably — in fact, I am pretty much breakout-free these days. (Though I still experience habitual gratitude for the existence of concealer).

This new era of epidermal harmony is both wonderful and bizarre. After years of helicopter-parenting my pores, I’m finally giving them room to breath. The hovering was unproductive at best, boring at worst. You know what’s not boring? Messy DIY avocado face masks. Raiding French drugstores. Spritzing myself with rose water. Layering creams onto my forehead like a Momofuku birthday cake masterpiece.

It’s not magic, but it’s way more fun.

Cheap Sunglasses for Cool Chicks

In the eyes of a baby chicken, all sunglasses are cheep.

In the hands of a human, though, some sunglasses are actually quite expensive. Especially the pair you inevitably lose — you know, the ones that you saved up for and rationalized by reminding yourself that you wear sunglasses every single day, even in the workplace when hungover, which means that these black plastic bad boys were technically a mere 25 cents a day if you’re also exceptionally creative at math.

When you lose that pair, the feeling is akin to chopping your foot off and then taking too long to bring it to the hospital in an ice bucket, causing the doctor to refuse surgery and respond things like, “No can do, pal. You’re officially a pirate.”

Sort of.

Moving on.

The good news is that cheap sunglasses do exist. The best news is that they don’t all “look cheap.” In fact, they look awesome. Just because a pair of tinted ‘specs are colorful, bold, patterned or shaped like Yoko Ono doesn’t mean that they’ll prohibit you from eating lunch for a month. Sunglasses may very well be our most democratic accessory besides stickers in that way.

BUT! You should look for a few key, important things when choosing your pair:

1) They should be irrefutably fun. Let them be the outfit. The glee to your jeans and white tee. For less than $60, who has the time to consider such absurdities as: “When will I ever wear these?”

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Now, you pirate! You’ll wear them now!

2) They should fill you with the same amount of pride (if not more) that you might experience via a pair that likely requires insurance or at the very least, a financial guarantor.

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And not that anyone’s counting figs, but sometimes you don’t need your annoying friend to know that you didn’t purchase your sunglasses directly from the Elton John archives like you fibbed about and said you did. It’s no one’s business whether they’re cheap or cheep or not.

3) Finally, while number one and two posit that cheap sunglasses should feel no less special than a money whopper, they should paradoxically also feel no more special.




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Why? Because sometimes less is more so it has to look like more pretending it’s less in order to cost less but be more. You know?

Or if you don’t know, you’ll get this: sunglasses are not forever. They are ephemeral friends with travel lust; man do they love the backs of cabs and bottoms of oceans. But as the saying goes, if you love someone, let them go. They may never come back, but at least you can still afford a hat.