Leandra Medine's Blog, page 657

What’s the Dumbest P.O.S. You Bought This Week?

This is a safe space, right?

Because I have something I need to get off my tissue-turtlenecked chest:

I have an online shopping problem.

If this were an episode of In Treatment, Dr. Weston would probably have me lying down on a marsala La-Z-Boy, scrutinizing my childhood until he finally came to the conclusion that my “condition” was more a case of, I watched too much QVC with Grandma.

But it’s not about the clothes, although I’ve fallen victim to the velvet-choker-pastel-duster-coat wormhole that is Asos more than once. It’s the odd trinkets — the CafePress mugs, tribal iPhone cases, celestial coasters — that really scream, “I’m not sure how you survived 23 years without me, but I guarantee that you won’t last much longer.”

It’s how I wound up with the Lumo Lift, a $100 posture corrector, plus a year’s supply of Retainer Brite (hey, you never know) and waterproof flip-flops that decompress then fold into a pouch the size of my lathered-in-coconut oil palm. Said oil, by the way, is not nearly as rich as the Amazon review said it’d be.

I was frustrated by the local salad store’s Sriracha portions and so do you know what I did? I bought a Sriracha keychain. Actually, Charlotte bought it on a three-for-one deal, but I assure you I pushed her to the brink of that checkout. On Tuesday, I purchased a birchwood double-walled insulated S’well bottle because they promised me piping coffee for up to 12 hours.

There is a hot iron rubber holster collecting a fifth day’s dust since I went rogue in The Container Store on Sunday and convinced myself of its virtue. Have you ever been to The Container Store? It is a minefield of all of your untapped potential. But proceed with caution — you cannot compartmentalize your feelings, my friend.

I’ve ordered everything from a NutriBullet to velvet hangers to a Bauerfeind ValguLoc Bunion Regulator in the name of self-improvement. Just ask Amazon, my trusted companion and staunchest defender.

Just yesterday, he told me I needed this:

For the love of my paycheck, please someone, talk me out of it. Make me feel less alone for a moment and tell me about the weirdest shit you bought today. Fine, recently.

Feature image via HEISME Studio, in post image shot by Leta Sobierajski , both via Things Organized Neatly

Your Friends > Google

Friends are annoying. They are like house plants in that they require attention, water and moderate exposure to sunlight. Put too many in the same room and you’ll suffocate due to lack of oxygen. They can both accidentally kill your cat, and unless you’re an expert gardener or florist, combining them haphazardly ends in visually and emotionally messy results.

There are benefits to friendship and house plants, of course. I am not completely insane. To maintain metaphorical consistency, let us consider that the right friends (and likewise the right amount of plants) help us breathe. They can brighten our moods, and — allow me to elbow your rib as you read this — they keep us rooted. Or grounded, if you will.

But where plants fail at being useful, friends never do. They can give you a ride, loan you half their sandwich, craft a text message for you that is the perfect blend of flirty and cavalier without requiring a byline or editor’s credit, and they can, most importantly, answer your questions better than Google does.

Before you argue, it is true that Google has become alarmingly, suspiciously adept at anticipating what you’re about to ask.

A conspiracy theorist would say that’s because the G in google stands for Government and They have our brains tapped.

A normal person would chalk it up to science. I prefer to avoid scientists and Google altogether and instead ask life’s greatest queries to my friends.

For example:

Google can provide you with addresses and directions but it cannot remind you what the name of that place is by that other place with the weird dude who’s always on the corner where you once got your nails done, and it was raining.

Google can populate a series of songs that match your broad and lazy search for “do do do do do do do do” (“Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega, 1987) but it cannot possibly answer your call at 2 AM when you’re in a full fledged panic because you can’t remember that clapping song you guys used to listen to on repeat in her brother’s car that one summer.

Google can (and will) tell you that you’re pregnant and dying, but only a friend can (and will) examine your highly suspicious rash, then confirm that you’re being a baby (too soon?) and that you’re totally fine.

Google will not accompany you to the emergency room when you counter, “You’re not a doctor.”

Your friend can remind you of your favorite song and recall the middle name of the guy you like. She can spit out the words that haven’t yet reached the tip of your tongue, read your mind, tell you what to eat for dinner and pull up embarrassing pictures of you without your needing to ask.

Google can give you plenty of answers, yes, but at the end of the day, only your friends can water your plants.

Over the Hump: 5 Things for 5 P.M.

Tag All Yo Friends

The friend who introduced me to @BrooklynCartoons said he felt like he’d discovered a cool band before everyone else. He is essentially right: catching an Instagram account before it makes it big is the millennial equivalent of liking Weezer before the Blue Album. Seeing as this account is dedicated to all things millennial (selfie sticks and self-assigned “foodies” abound), start tagging your friends now so you can hold it over their heads forever.

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[@BrooklynCartoons]

Speaking of Discovering a Band Before It’s Cool…

I’m sure you’ve heard George Ezra’s ~*dreamy*~ voice by now, but in case you haven’t, there’s no time like the present.

Way to bring back the art of the music video, George.

A Cautionary Kale

In The New Yorker’s post-modern hipster take on the childhood classic “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” writer Abby Ringiewicz walks us though exactly what happens when you go on a date with a guy who is more or less depicted in the aforementioned cartoons.

[“If You Give a Dude a Kale Chip” via The New Yorker]

Waste Time

A Downton Abbey (diet) rabbit hole has taken me on a strange journey to a YouTube series called Dollhouse Downton. It is compelling and completely weird.

Rated NSFW in that if your boss pops up behind you, you’ll probably cover with “I was just watching porn!” in order to distract them from whatever this is:

I don’t know. But aren’t you kind of glad you know about it?

And if you’ve completed all of the above and still need something to do…

Seriously? You watched all of those weird Dollhouse Abbey videos? Ok. Fine. Why don’t you buy a new blowdryer and then award yourself an Oscar in the category of show ponies (or if you could care less about hair, just tell us what you’d wear). Then, grab your best friend denim and hightail it to digital London where you’ll be able to copy a week’s worth of outfits, skim the runway shows you missed and find inspiration on the streets. Or, stay in New York and catch up on Girls, trends, the weird shit Leandra wore and collect-call your dad. You’d be surprised at the beauty advice he can give.

Image Background via Cooper Hewitt

Micro-Trends at Fashion Week

We can wax poetic about the 70s revival until you’re orange suede in the face but what’s the use? Instead of identifying the overarching themes of the week (see: the anterior decade and Peter Pan’s worst nightmare — growing up), which you can no doubt do yourself, why not shift the collective focus to micro-trends that are as unassuming as a coconut in that they seem to offer nothing other than what stands before you (in the case of the coconut, that means a round, brown, hairy ball; in the case of the trends, that means a middle finger up at Mr. Pan) yet when cracked open are packed with nutrients and sugar that will not give you cancer. Or make you look like a dead person resurrected. Actually, that’s debatable, but here are eight of the mini guys we plan to put to practice as soon as right now.

Patent Leather: Because when the Matrix goes home to sleep, you, my friend, become Seveneth Avenue’s Latrix

Seen at: Isa Arfen, Rachel Comey, Tome, Rag & Bone, Suno, Calvin Klein

How to wear it now: Mostly as a jacket, over silk blouses and Peter Pan collars (see what I did there?) and gray knits, though if you take the Rachel Comey route and go balls-to-the-walls in a jumpsuit, I’d suggest a Victorian-style blouse, which you presumably bought at least one of yesterday, yes?

Fitted Jackets: Double breastuhses are still my breakfast, but I wouldn’t mind a side of curve for lunch

Seen at: Altuzarra, CG, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein

How to wear them now: With high waist, flare leg pants because yesterday we called attention to their indefinite revival.

Non-Skinny Pants: Pizza-crust fanatics, rejoice!

Seen at: Everywhere that pants were shown

How to wear them now: When they’re not denim, wear them with your favorite graphic t-shirt. When they are, punch yourself in the face because you are so excited and opt for a cropped sweater and gold boots. Yes, gold.

Belts! Belts! Belts!: For when your fitted blazer is still a double-breasted “boyfriend” blazer

Seen at: Derek Lam, Jason Wu, Band of Outsiders

How to wear them now: I just told you, dangit. Over blazers that aren’t quite fitted but probably want to be given clause B. Also, though, through loop holes. Ground-breaking — I know!

Tasteful Cut-Outs: Pizza-crust, part two

Seen at: Cushnie et Ochs, Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang

How to wear them now: With poplin blouses under them or if you’re feeling like a kind of Proenza Schouler reincarnate, do you own a fishnet body suit?

Velvet: Like you’re a mystery writer and involved in the most recent crime you’ve been journaling

Seen at: Rosie Assoulin, Derek Lam’s 10 Crosby, Rosetta Getty, Marc by Marc Jacobs

How to wear it now: Just like it’s khaki, or something.

Fabric Neck Covers: Like an umbrella, but for your cervical spine

Seen at: Tome, Altuzarra, Sally LaPointe

How to wear them (or make them) now: Around your neck like they are chokers or doubled-up around your wrist because you are as versatile as a municipal bond. And to make? All you need is one pair of scissors and at least one turtleneck you hate (you can also, by the way, use the non-neck to cut a strip then tie in behind your neck.)

Big Buttons: Go big, or freeze to death on your way home

Seen at: Edun, Derek Lam, Calvin Klein, Victoria Beckham, Marc Jacobs

How to wear them now: The Marc Jacobs way, seeing as he seems to be the patriarch of this trend. So, if you’re not going to glue them to your face à la Raggedy Ann, you may as well glue them to your chest à la Perry Ellis graduate.

And as for what’s not a trend, not not a trend?

Winter Swim Suits: The smartest and least conventional way to reimagine the kind of high brow heat-tech that engulfs you from inside

Seen at: Katie Ermilio and Kaelen. TBD on the international cities.

How to wear them now: Under your shirts, sweaters, pants, over your underwear. On the beach if you’re a lunatic, which hopefully, you are. (What? It gets lonely over here.)

Images via Style.com; more fashion week pizzazz (but not so much pizza) here.

Beauty Secrets from a Cool Dad

Long before soft, mascara-less eyes were a token of confidence, before beauty became more about unveiling than masking and embellishing, cool dads were employing the No Makeup look. Their effortlessness must be partially attributed to genetics, but dads are also diligent about self care. I now share with you the products and procedures that I swear by as recommended by my dad.

Dads love products that are multifunctional, reliable, and definitively the best of their kind. When smelling Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap — wafting out of the wooden cosmetics aisle of an ancient, independent health food store, for example — it’s difficult to not lose admiration for any and all other soaps. Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint is second to none. It’s thin, slippery, squeaky, potent, and effective. The label on the bottle (my dad uses the liquid version, not the bar, so I’m convinced it’s better) is as far-stretching and crazy as about twenty minutes of bouncing around on the Internet, making it the perfect shower reading material. You can use this soap for anything, but I’ve heard that doing so in place of toothpaste is a day-ruiner (unless you’re obsessed with the flavor of peppermint).

Papaw Ointment has become fashionable lately. You can buy it from Net-a-Porter and it now comes in those flat but conical lip balm tubes. My dad has been using it forever, and it will fix what topically ails you. Swipe a generous smear of this gloppy dressing on your lips, your cuticles, your dry elbows, etc. It takes a long time to seep in, which is satisfying. My dad also loves another and very similar product, aptly named Egyptian Magic. It smells like warm, mystical bee’s wax and just as with Papaw, you can use it for anything. It’s a lip balm, lip gloss, lotion, salve, shaving cream, and hair mask, among other things. My dad keeps a large tub of each of these ointments on his nightstand, and I advise you to do the same.

During the warmer months, my dad is adamant about getting (a timed, exact) twenty minutes of morning sun. This event must take place before noon, and must not exceed the allotted time. It will bless your complexion with a summer glow and leave you infused with Vitamin D.

While doing this, you can also check three other beauty musts off of your list: drinking a lot of water, drinking green smoothies, and meditating. You already know about the alleged importance of both of these drinks. You also know — at least vaguely — about meditation. My dad lived in India for eleven years and meditates for a little bit on most mornings. Stress makes you ugly; meditation disappears stress.

My parents each consume about twenty different supplements a day. Taking this many vitamins — a truly insane volume if you think about the sheer amount of capsule material being swallowed — forces you to drink a lot of water. Some of the supplements include fish oil, probiotics, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and Vitamin C. Fish oil is especially good for combating dry skin and making you glowy.

My dad won’t use cleansers or moisturizers that can’t be purchased from good health food stores. Ingredient lists should, as with food ingredient labels, be minimal and solely contain recognizable words. He uses a Zia moisturizer and Tulsi rose facial spray.

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Lastly and most importantly, it’s good to eat dark chocolate — and my dad doesn’t consider anything under 64% dark chocolate to even be chocolate. It should be of good quality, featuring no corn syrup at all. A generous amount of dark chocolate, consumed in delicate squares at any point(s) between lunch and bedtime will make you happier. And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?

What have your learned from your Cool Dad?

Style Takeaways from The Streets of London

The difference between the street style on display in New York and what was in progress until yesterday in London is a matter of choice. And choice is a luxury that any New Yorker knows has been pulled from right under us, definitively surrendered until Uber can no longer feel morally comfortable charging a $50 minimum of its users on a quotidian Tuesday at 11 a.m. just because it is cold.

Choice isn’t all, though — in London, there was color. There was trial and error and a set of smiling children and statement coats that quite literally spoke (see: “Wake Up!”). There were open toe shoes and matching friends (no doubt to the pleasure of one Khloe Kardashian), 70s salutations and suits in as many permutations as there are double-decker buses in the city. But did we learn anything — specifically that New York could not have taught us, too?

Let us ruminate.

1. The friends who choreograph their outfits also get photographed.

2. London is much warmer than New York, as evidenced by Delfina Delettrez.

Unless, you know, it’s not…

3. Primary colors are best served against each other — then blanketed in a cape.

4. If you’re going to remain on the oatmeal-no-sugar train (blasé), do it with a scarf that could double as a sari.

5. If toddlers were a fixture on the front row in New York, they’re optimal concrete catwalk bait across the pond.

6. Shearling is already alive and well. But to my chagrin, so still are rubber soles.

7. Jane Birkin rules — but that seems like a global lesson that won’t thin out.

8. There was a show that presented at a venue near this shop — and it was best to wear red against it:

But in what is the most important difference between New York and London, it appears as though show goers are happy.

They are actually smiling. Which either means the jokes of the street style photographers have gotten substantially funnier since they left New York, or more likely that there’s a kind of energy over there that we, in our overpriced Uber cars, haven’t quite been able to catch. But is it the weather or is it the fashion?

The, uh, gift of intoxicating fashion.

For more fashion week on fleek stories, clicky clicky lemon ricky. 

A Better Laugh for Dating Apps

Are your “ha has” feeling womp womp these days? Your triple bar axles — “hahah” — a little fake? Have you always hated “LOL” because nine times out of ten it felt like a lie? And does your own employment of the “cry laughing” emoji make you want stab your thigh with a Sriracha-covered spork?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, then you have digital laughter fatigue.

DLF typically occurs in those who use more than one dating app. Multiple profiles (Bumble, Happn, Hinge, WebbedToeWeb, etc.) mean multiple polite conversations about such mundane pleasantries as: the weather, work, day of the week, evening plans, and whether or not you have any “fun” weekend plans. These benign chit-chat starters are meant to ease strangers into friendship. The problem, however, is they often result in a dead end of flat laughter.

For example:

A: How’s your week going?

B: Good! Just trying not to freeze, haha/lol.

A: Same, haha/lol.

*Commence coma*

Luckily, there’s a solution to the snooze-fest: the exclamation point!

You read right. It’s minimal, classic, and easy to use. It’s also more honest.

Someone’s dumb joke only warrents a “ha”? Use an exclamation point! Like this: !

Someone’s mildly-funny joke deserves at least two beats? Double the pleasure, double the exclamz: !!

And if someone’s really laying it on thick like I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Professional-Comedy-Night butter? Give them the old three-boom: !!!

There’s no stopping the exclamation point. It eliminates characters (great for Twitter!), it’s slightly elusive (you don’t give up real laughs that easy, bud!) and autocorrect can’t fuck up your cool-factor with a violently unwarranted all-caps dramatization.

The exclamation point can be yours for the low price of free ninety-nine. And if you act now, we’ll throw in the question mark — never write an exasperated “WHAT” ever again! — plus shipping and handling.

Happy laughing!

This offer does not apply to “hehe,” which is a creepy way to laugh and should be used in extremely rare cases.

How to Get a Head Start on Next Season Before You Accidentally Buy Another Pair of Ripped Jeans

One of the greatest circumstances to emerge from fashion week is a clearer sense of what you will want to wear in the upcoming months, which is further punctuated by one’s ability to understand that what she currently wears will likely find itself futile the following season.

This condition is one that only really reveals itself to those who are capable of attending the bi-annual fashion weeks and therefore experience immersion among not just the shows but in the peripheral style of spectators et al that always manage to endure subtle-enough changes to fly over a careless eye as the weeks progress.

Example: starting point green culottes this season in New York turned into late week flare leg, cropped pants and striped socks as well as various sleeveless blouses layered over long sleeve shirts of the same fabric. Ripped jeans turned into sleek, clean jeans and sneakers became loafers. Definitively. So, to save you from the wrath of another pair of pants you will no doubt never want to see again come September, here’s a list of things you will definitely want to wear in their place.

1. Flare leg jeans — both cropped and not.

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2. Fitted overalls and jumpsuits.

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3. Pussy bow blouses, potentially with the aforementioned overalls.

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4. Foot-length, as opposed to ankle length, boot cut pants, either in denim or wool and to stand as the last remaining morsel of 90s paraphernalia on this side of that cyclical river.

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5. More fitted jackets — clap at your curves, they’re here for you.

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6. Victorian-style blouses that might moonlight as turtlenecks.

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7. Suede shearling coats that reveal their curly fur at your cuffs and collar — Etsy will be an optimal source to locate one of these.

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8. Gold boots — I think I’m projecting because I just bought these.

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9. Other forms of gold! The lamé dresses that once seemed indigenous to the 70s will populate the aughts, possibly under shearling coats and definitely to say FUCK YOU in capital letters the next time an “arctic chill” forces you out on a date.

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10. More clogs! In addition to groovy platforms that will fare well with thick knit, charcoal grey socks.

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11. And if you plan to continue forward on that off-the-shoulder bender, you might want to consider a cotton turtleneck from the inside.

Also of note: high waist, a-line mini skirts.

Of course, though, some people don’t know what they want until they’ve determined exactly what they don’t, so here are some things you will probably not care about at all:

Normcore — that means: ripped jeans, super-skinny jeans, mom-style pants, any pants, really, that are too cropped, Stan Smith sneakers (get a pair of Eytys!) and frankly, looking deliberately disheveled.

But then again, style is the most personal conversation one can have with herself — so maybe I’m completely wrong. Just do you.

London in Some Sentences

While we’re over here wrapping the lower halves of our faces in wool, Marques’Almeida is like, hello — use your old jeans as scarves. Why didn’t we think of that?

What I did think of, however, when viewing Peter Pilotto’s collection via laptop was Henri Matisse’s “The Cut-Outs”: the most Instagrammed art of this winter season. If the reference was intentional at all, the nods were minimal, and it was a completely seamless transition from the pixellated prints of the less-grown-up Pilotto.

Also growing up is Christopher Kane — master fabric worker who managed to trick the eye into thinking that it was seeing looping, swirling, painterly lines of fabric when actually, if you’d just take a closer look, it was people about to engage in the art of sex.

At Burberry Prorsum, there were patchy suede pants and groovy floral wallpaper prints and handkerchief quilted coats plus leopard. Designer Christopher Bailey also answered the age-old question: how do I wear fringe without looking like a cowboy? Answer: wear so much of it that you start to look like a beautiful suede tree.

Erdem did leopard too, only his coat had a mohawk down the top of the sleeves. Perhaps it’s his way of reminding us that he does more “just” beautiful dresses — in fact, most impressive were his two coats that started neutral at the neck and by the knees gave way to peacock-gold iridescence.

Pause here for a bathroom break and a stretch and a moment to ask your cube-mate if they’re going to finish all their chips. Now carry on:

There were polo shirts, pussy bows and coffee beans (or baby blimps, tbd) at Mother of Pearl — a label that does refined “cheeky” well without that cheek prompting an eye-roll in return.

Markus Lupfer could have been Mother of Pearl’s sportier sister with his gold threaded pineapples, winged insects, pointy-eared riding hat and the actual bunny rabbits that hopped around because honestly, they are the new cats.

Cat free and proud was Emilia Wickstead who showed handsome curved sleeves on feminine knits. The whole collection was romantic until it wasn’t thanks to a shock of leather-as-latex and lacquered plaid pants. Punk but not at all, you know?

Roksanda’s collection wins for most Instagrammed of London — it erupted over fashion feeds like its own lava lamp swirls of marigold and maroon. The concluding looks boasted giant black tinsel window panes, and the whole collection was a loud cry for fur and color and life.

Though I’ve mostly avoided mentioning the most obvious of decades thus far, Topshop Unique was a cool combination of ’90s Ralph Lauren and you-know-what-year’s Penny Lane, plus a bunch of future-trends mixed in between.

Topshop broke my streak: J.W. Anderson was unapologetically 80s: the power-woman with a message who refuses to succumb to corporate pumps but has, thankfully, figured out exactly how much blush to use.

At Toga, your eye will begin at the shoulder that bears its look’s A-symmetrical sash, then drop, almost too quickly (make sure to pause for the lovely slouch), because all the excitement is happening at the pant hems — except for in one coat, colored bright Pepto pink. That will keep your eyes up for a while.

Finally, Giles was a trip — either on shrooms or Elizabethan fumes — and though the opening looks pretended to be somber in black, the close was a dress that begged if not absolutely required you lift up your skirt and can-can because, yes, you can can.

Thank you, London, for being so much fun.

Images via Style.com. For more fashion week words and whatsits, click here.

What’s the Best Blowdryer?

My bangs are so mean. Mostly because they’re not really bangs, they are “pieces,” but also because they are annoying to manage for someone like me who is a skilled hair ironer (I spent the better half of 2004 at Bat Mitzvahs and 2005 at those of the Bar variety), but knows exactly nothing about what it takes to self-actualize a good blow dry. So much so that I don’t even own a blow dryer.

I used to have one. It was Conair and came with a brush attached but one time I burned my right hand while trying to discipline a flyaway and that was it for us. My mom wouldn’t have it any other way which in hindsight was effectively like splitting sunglass frames from their lenses or something, but I made due with the mandate because in addition to taming my head, that blow dryer was also really loud. Like woke up my younger brother all the time and consistently reminded me that I was a girl, as though a monotonous anthem, during a time when all I wanted to be was invincible.

But I’m there — or rather, here — again. And ready to reclaim my gender. It’s just, I’ve been out of the blow dryer game for a decade. You know what happens in a decade? The difference between butterfly clips and Stan Smith sneakers, an mp3 file and Instagram — so who knows about the technology that has rectified the purported wrongs of my beloved Conair hot-brush, right? Except, probably, for you. Who I would imagine wouldn’t dare fuck your head with an iron and knows a tip or trick I could use, so, pray tell: what’s the best blowdryer?

And who’s the best blowjobber?

I’m kidding!