Leandra Medine's Blog, page 658

The What I Wores

The best part of the end of fashion week is my being given legitimate enough reason to Google my own name without having to explain my recent search history to my husband who looks at me horrified whenever he finds that I’m looking at myself on the Internet.

“Research!” I will wail.

“But you live in your own head, Leandra, you don’t have to Google you to learn more about you,” he will logically retort.

But he doesn’t understand that in order to bring you what is subjectively “the best” of what I wore during Fashion Week in New York, I do have to Google myself to learn more about me.

So what did I learn this season? Frankly, that nothing I wore was particularly best. In fact, a lot of it erred on the side of worst. And this isn’t my fishing like a pro-sea bass killer for compliments; this is simply my addressing a discouraging condition of what it means to care about what you look like and how difficult that becomes when the calendar strikes February and you live in New York. Why? Because we don’t get to choose our clothes.

Our clothes choose us. If and when you attempt to pick out a look, what you will find is either frost bite or a mental blockade that stifles the neurotransmitters that help build cool outfits. The physical manifestation of this handicap looks like this:

Yikes.

I know exactly what I wanted to achieve: lithe legs fostered by heels in a pair of slim and high-waist vintage style jeans that would counter a jacket that is so suitably 70s inspired it could bounce off the wash on the jeans really well, and then catch a similarly colored cardigan and opposite boots, brought right back in with the implementation of a red neck scarf. Of course, the problem is that sometimes the ideas we have internally aren’t approximated in real life, which is fine for the most part — if you have time to change. But when you don’t, and are forced to meander among women you have deemed heroes and like-minded, otherwise individuals who more often than not trade in the currency that is a good shoe-to-pant ratio, you might find yourself feeling deflated. So much so that you take it out on fashion week, or worse, your city, and attempt to renounce it all together.

Until that beacon of hope shines bright once more and you’re just like, ah, this must be what Stella felt like when she got her groove back.

But it fades so quickly, you know? The next 15 degree day rolls around and you’re liable to fuck up again.

That’s My Look! Personal Best-Ofs from NYFW

When Taylor Swift’s “Style” comes on at the bar, your heart starts to beat a little bit faster because it’s your song playing — that is your jam.

And when a model walks down the runway in an outfit that stops you silly, you Instagram it to the world because that is your look — the one.

You can take the girl out of kindergarten and place her in the real world, but you can’t take the kindergarten sandbox mentality out of the girl — at least not when it comes to the aforementioned music or fashion. It’s over these two realms that we consistently declare immediate ownership.

We’ve touched on the idea of social proprietorship before; that Instagram and Twitter give us a platform to tell others we have great taste without needing to technically own the shoes or sing the song.

Or maybe it tells the world that you have unique taste — or no taste at all, because really, what is taste if not precisely what pleases or displeases your tongue?

Whatever the reasoning, one thing remains: we feel the need to share it. To tell someone else that J.Crew’s pink suede Fall ’15 collection fringe skirt is currently in our emotional possession so that, just in case it’s seen on another human, we retain the claim that it was ours first. And though I really do mean us — Leandra, Amelia, Esther, Charlotte — I also mean you. So after you scroll through the above picks of our respective ten looks from New York Fashion Week, tell us which ones are yours.

And don’t worry about overlap — we’re all adults here. We can share.

For all of our coverage from New York Fashion Week (even though, yes, it’s now London Town time) click here. 

Pregnancy on the Runway in London

Fashion is an establishment that vacillates so frequently and broadly that its diversity bleeds out of the actual clothes (now exhausted by the miraculously simultaneous deaths and births of every decade that has influenced it) into its supporting corridors.

Take, for example, its models. For a period, they were obtusely underage. When that blew up in the kind of pedophiliac flames that are wont to espouse frustration on the Internet, 18-to-early-twenties became the, for lack of a better word, norm.

When that got too normal, dames well into their golden years — think Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent, Joan Didion for Céline, Linda Rodin for the Row, and the entire cast of Ari Cohen’s Advanced Style for Karen Walker — became a point of celebration.

And when it wasn’t about the models? It was about the spectators who watched them from the front row. Toddlers sat aboard their editor parents’ laps during September’s New York Fashion Week. Kim Kardashian saw to it that this trend proliferated with the appearance of North West this past season, too.

Even different genera of mammals have had their fashion “moment”; Grace Coddington did, after all, put the cat on the map that is style and its overtures. Dogs have taken the catwalk too in the past two years, and as recently as last Tuesday, there was a King Charles Cavalier being street style-photographed as though he were Miroslava Duma.

So what’s next? According to London Fashion Week, pregnancy is at the helm of a new frontier. Alice Temperley sent two models, both distinctly pregnant, down her runway on Sunday in a show that beautifully honored the female form in its different permutations and challenged the definition of formal wear with knit details and thick coats and some scarves.

Both fetus-carriers, one in several layers of black and the other in a sequined evening dress worn with black flat suede combat boots, looked spectacularly fresh and more impressive than, say, I do, zero months pregnant. This might beg the question of what happens next for those of us 5-foot-what? mortals. Will we begin to scrutinize even our co-opted-by-a-second-life-bodies — the holy grail of time that no woman has heretofore blamed herself for body-image shortcomings?

Or will we stop using “I feel pregnant in this” to self-deprecate in the name of embracing our baby — or otherwise — bumps?

Girls: Season 4, Episode 6

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Leandra Medine wrote:

Stream of initial thoughts below — pick up where you’d like!

“You can’t just waltz into town and eat someone’s cereal” — Hannah projects, either her own behavior or Adam’s.

Marnie and Dezi having sex to their own music. Why is she always wearing a shirt during intercourse? Window into her insecurity or inability to get to the BARE bottom of who she is?

“How can we have completely different takes on a band that we are both in?” Kind of like your relationship.

Mimi-Rose drops the a-bomb — heavy. Did Adam deserve to be involved in that decision? My instinct is to side with him because I’m rooting for Hannah, but Mimi-Rose Eleanor’s confidence and conviction in her own decision does make me wonder if it was her moral obligation to share with him the abortion previous to it. She didn’t lie, she just withheld information until his opinion was…kind of futile.

Then again, though, she is kind of manipulative, no? This — “Wanting you is better than needing you because it’s pure” was weird to me.

Meanwhile, Hannah is now selfless. And using the word flummox. Which makes sense seeing as she now wants to be a …teacher?

The plot thickens — at the hand of real meat! I am very pleased.

On Feb 23, 2015, at 1:18 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

Okay, we have to start with Mimi-Rose’s abortion. (And that means all of us — I expect you people to “chime in” as MRH would say, below.) As a longtime defender of my own uterus, I am more or less biologically obliged to side with my gender in issues of what my high school guidance counselor would call “reproductive health.” I have a hard time saying that Mimi-Rose did the wrong thing. The womb is hers. The choice is hers. Yay. Feminism. But I do think that the callousness of how she went about it is tough to celebrate. And when Adam tucks her in to bed again at the end of the episode, the whole relationship — so pure! So adult! So strange! –feels a bit like an act. For all of his foibles, Adam has always seemed to insist on more transparency than that.

And while we’re on the subject of consequential decisions, let’s discuss the seventeen million steps forward that our Girls and guys took this week. Marnie sounded like an almost real person at brunch. Jessa managed to speak without offending a single profession, ethnic group, or religious sect. Elijah dated a politician, and Ray elected to become one. And our Hannah is going to be responsible for the general happiness and fulfillment of teenagers. This is probably the most misguided plan of all time. But my soul sang a little bit. It really did. The music was so jaunty and her dress was so nice and her resume looked real.

I got the teeniest bit excited for her. I really did. Besides, shouldn’t kids learn to have absolutely no expectations of anything or anyone? That seems like a valuable lesson, right?

But shall we discuss the cereal moment further? And can we talk more about pajamas on the show, in general? Between Mimi-Rose’s and Hannah’s matching sets and Elijah’s deeply uncomfortable underwear, I suspect there is a lot there. You know?

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Leandra Medine wrote:

Pajamas as a window into the soul. Abie likes to say that I am a “versatile sleeper” because some nights I sleep in nothing but underwear and others in sweat pants, or pj sets — the whole enchilada. I just say that I am acutely reactive and air conditioner conscious.

I’m too tired to draw metaphors between the matching sets of MR and HH and the tighty navys of Elijah (so glad he’s back) but worth bracketing within their night cloth choices is Marnie’s long sleeve t-shirt. In the wise, inquisitive words of Kenan Thompson’s DeAndre Cole: Wussup with that? Kind of makes me feel like Brian Williams may or may not be the silent fifth girl — manipulating her motions from a higher plane.

If he is, I wonder whether it’s respectable or juvenile. And speaking of the delicate line that demarcates respectable and juvenile: Will Shoshanna ever find a job?

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

You know, the thing about Shosh — and especially Shosh last night — is that she’s in the exact stage of life that I’m in. She’s looking for a job, trying to figure out what she wants from her life, making dramatic speeches, mixing prints. So, I get what she’s going through and so do my friends.

Lately, I’ve been giving probably more thought than is normal to trying to figure out which of my friends will stop working after they get married. Motherhood is a pretty high calling, and I have only the most respect for women who choose to pursue that as a career. But it’s strange to imagine people that I have only known in the context of competitive academic environments taking a step back to mind the homestead. When Shosh suggested that she might not want a job, I started to think about how the Girls measure success and achievement. How bad do they really want it? Does Shosh want to be a kept wife? Does Marnie really want to make it as the female half of the next She & Him? Will teaching satisfy Hannah, who has always seemed to model herself after, like, Zadie Smith? And what the hell does Jessa want? I have truly no idea.

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 10:49 AM, Leandra Medine wrote:

So you’re touching upon a really interesting and important question, which is what defines success, right? It’s such a unilateral question, though, because it varies so intensely person to person and then again from life stage to stage. If you’d have asked me what I saw as success when I was 17 and recently broken up with, I’d have said getting him back. If you’d have asked me that question six months ago, I may have said x amount of steady page views per month for Man Repeller and if you ask me that now, I’ll probably say a big ass healthy family because I have babies on my mind.

So, I find it hard to look at the question of how badly any single one of them really want “it” because “it” is such a volatile entity. The only character I imagine as not quite invested in achieving, well, anything, is Jessa. Which is probably worth talking about in and of itself. Also, though, re your penultimate question: teaching could very well satisfy Hannah in the short term because she will be among to kids who have no choice but to take her rhetoric as fact, and all she wants, really, is a group of cheerleaders among her.

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Mattie Kahn wrote:

Is that what “helping people” is really a euphemism for? Is that what she craves? Gratitude? Because maybe it suggests that her existence has actual consequence? It’s sadder, but more interesting to think of this professional development in those terms.

Then again, maybe that’s true of all of us. Phoebe Buffay tried to hunt down the selfless good deed. She never found it. Most of us do good for at least some kind of positive reinforcement. According to Marnie, Mother Theresa just wanted to have more Twitter followers than Kim K.

Anyway, I think you’re probably right. At any given moment, we think we know what “it” is that we’re after. The truth is we have no clue. But does it help us to internalize that and stay humble about our ambitions? Or is it better to pretend that we have it all figured out? That whatever we think we want really is “it”? Effort is so damn hard. It takes so much work. I sort of need to believe that I know what I want right now. Otherwise, I would rather sleep a few extra hours each night.

But maybe that’s just the millennial in me.

Denim Is Spring’s Best Friend

Allow me to take a break from complaining about how annoying February is for a moment to admit that technically speaking, spring is going to be here soon. Soon-ish, according to that groundhog, but soonish is better than never and no offense, but groundhogs are rabbits with bangs.

The thing about spring, though, is that the weather is weird. It’s transitional and fussy. One day it’s eerily warm and the next day it’s like, “LOL, PSYKE, COLD AS ICE. Enjoy your goose pimples!” And then it throws floral confetti in the air while blasting a trumpet filled with gold fish because you guys, like I said, spring weather is weird.

Here are some weird things spring weather does that no one really talks about:

– Spends a lot of time at the American Museum of Thumbnails and Gumbo

– Can recite Enya’s entire musical anthology backwards and in Latin

– Refuses to use public swimming pools

But sort of similar to how we’re stuck with February because we’re family friends and we’ve known Feb our whole life and bla bla bla, we’re stuck with spring weather. The good news is that along with spring weather comes its best friend. They’re kind of a package deal. I’m talking about denim.

Denim is like that really cool girl who was nice to everyone at school. Denim sits at every cafeteria table. Denim is athletic, academic, and into theater. You’ve never gone to one of denim’s parties and regretted it, and likewise you’ve never invited denim to one of your parties and wondered what you were thinking. Denim is so nice that while spring weather is technically “lucky” to be best friends with denim, denim tells everyone how lucky she is to be best friends with spring weather. They are the perfect pair.

Let’s use one of my friends, Leandra (playing the role of weirdo spring weather), and the OG of denim-wear, Gap, to demonstrate.

Denim (like these Gap dark-wash jeans) can layer under the spring skirts you want to wear, which you’ll then want to top with cozy thick knits in case that weird spring breeze comes on down to Buffalo Town.

As you can see here, denim can also be worn during weird spring weather as…drumroll, please!…just jeans. But you’ll wear them with an oxford shirt (thank baby Jared Leto that the sweater won’t be an outdoor requirement for much longer), a Fran Lebowitz-ian long blazer, a bowtie, and camp socks OTP. Over The Pants.

But why camp socks in spring?

Why male models!

Here’s a suggestion: ask spring weather if it wants go on a double date with you, your bff, the great outdoors, and denim. Maybe you’ll see that weird rabbit with bangs. Let him know that spring may be delayed, but you’ll be ready. In fact, you can’t wait.

Part of a collaboration with Gap.

What Would You Have Worn to The Oscars?

The Oscars are to Paris Fashion Week what the Golden Globes are to New York Fashion Week in that the latter two events are mere warm ups for the big swinging, heavy weight lifting champions that remind us with a kind of equanimity why art — entertainment – with its dexterity to suspend real life, keeps the wheels of human survival in motion. Because without it, what are we left with if not just death, taxes and dental bills?

But that warm up — the sort of set of jumping jacks to a squat sequence, or glass of wine to a tequila bender — is an important sharpening component that doesn’t quite allow for the same level of spectator engagement without its presence. This was acutely on display last night at the Oscars, where the red carpet dresses that were all but shit on what had been on tap at the Golden Globes. Call it the aftermath of an especially long fashion week that reframed the references of various stylists or just simply a splash of novelty from designers who tested their own comfort zones (I’m thinking specifically of the pearl contraption Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein put together for Lupita Nyong’o) but it was good.

So good that our commentary kind of fell flat. How many times could a triad of writers remark over the course of a two hour pre-show that [insert celebrity here] looked great? How many eye rolls could we have assigned to Khloe Kardashian’s clearly JV approach to red carpet fashion before our lids gave up on us? And so, we turned the camera unto ourselves, posing the question of what we would have worn to the Oscars.

Amelia couldn’t answer, which makes perfect sense given how fundamentally fickle she is (she can’t even decide whether she wants coffee or water when she sits down for brunch) but my assumption is that she’d have placed a formal pony at the crown of her head, no doubt.

Esther settled on this, from Christian Siriano’s Fall 2015 collection:

Which we just realized Solange Knowles actually did wear last night. How about that?

And as for me? I’d have made like a tropical Kermit drinking daiquiris on a beach with Bruce Jenner somewhere not far from Monte Carlo in Rosie Assoulin.

There is a possibility I could have made the Worst Dressed List according to the anterior Kardashian, but would have been a victory among the denizens of real fashion, no? Of course, the truly important question here is what you would have worn. So, what is it? There is a very wealthy bank of collections behind us to re-imagine yourself as last night’s Julianne Moore. Do share.

Images via E! Online

London Closets: Pandora Sykes

Only one other person has ever accessorized so successfully with a bathtub that it began to feel like a moral obligation to attempt to follow suit. That was Daria Werbowy under the watch of Céline and Juergen Teller, but today in a fashion week edition of London Closets, Pandora Sykes, fashion features editor and “Wardrobe Mistress” at London’s The Sunday Times Style, makes a case for the same curious appliance.

Observe as she embroils what’s vintage with what’s new and provides a dose of whimsical novelty to a horse that effectively died on its way in last week: le 70s. With flatform loafers, flare leg pants and a couple of coats set to make statements, Sykes may very well be the blonde, nose-ring laden CPR that brings it back to life. Again.

Monday:

Never knowingly without my Saint Laurent witch booties. Also wearing Saks Potts fur, vintage sunglasses and a Free People dress.

Tuesday:

I call this my coal-mining look. Vintage suede is the best. I’m wearing a vintage  suede jacket, trousers from Olive Clothing, and my Saint Laurent booties.

Wednesday:

Bookended by my verdant friends. These flares are by an amazing chick named Monique who runs the LA label Whore de Culture. She customised these Elizabeth & James flares for me. I’m also wearing a Zara coat, Proenza Schouler tee and Free People booties.

Thursday:

On a shoot, I found the world’s deepest bath. Shirt is Vilshenko, jeans are customized Levi’s CT by Net-a-Porter, and sandals are Stella McCartney.

Friday:

Cat burglar. In my favourite knitwear designer, Bella Freud knit. Also wearing a Reformation dress and Saint Laurent booties.

Saturday:

Today I’m chatting with designer Charlotte Simone about her upcoming lookbook, which I styled. Taking a break with a semi-sit. Jacket is Saks Potts, jumper is Zara, button-down suede skirt is vintage and flatform loafers are Gucci.

Sunday:

We’ve reached the end! I’m wearing a shirt by London designer Shrimps for her tea at Sketch. I know you Americans think we have tea all of the time, but I can assure you I drink less tea than you eat brunches. Jacket is Tommy Hilfiger, jeans are Topshop and mules, Malone Souliers.

AND ONE FOR GOOD LUCK:

Here I am wearing one of my favourite new labels, Cecilie Copenhagen, who works magic with keffiyeh fabric.

Baum Und Pfedgarten belt, Topshop jeans, ASOS pop socks, Sandro brogues and Liberty London bucket bag.

Best Micro Trend at the Oscars? Show Ponies.

A lot of people are currently very upset with the state of Jared Leto’s Oscar hair. It’s fine, but it looks like he took a shower, left the house and let it air dry. Not acceptable behavior — according to the Internet — for the poster boy of Pantene and the man who taught the world to ombré.

In fact, it’s undocumented, but I am fairly certain that Leto also started the doughnut bun before anyone else.

However, just as Meryl Streep so gracefully displayed tonight, sometimes it’s okay to take a step back from what you’re best at and let someone else share a bit of spotlight.

In tonight’s spotlight: Leslie Mann, Jennifer Lopez and Dakota Johnson for their excellent displays of formal ponytails.

Fancy ponies.

Show ponies, if you will.

It takes confidence and a great forehead to wear a ponytail with black tie. There’s complexity to the underlying notion that while a ponytail’s intention is to appear casual, the dress and venue and college tuitions hanging on the earlobes below each swept-back mane say, “I read and understand the dress code requirements of the evening.” Pan up to the hair again though, and it’s a little bit of anarchy.

A little bit of…”Yes I’m wearing Spanx, but I could also participate in a hands-free pie eating contest without getting cinnamon goop in my hair.”

Or a lot of, “I got my hair done but hated it then panicked and then this happened.”

Either way, hats off to you, ladies. Way to win the hair awards tonight, and for remembering to never underestimate the power of some dry shampoo and a black elastic. Can I get a neigh-men?

For our red carpet coverage that was at one point live but is no longer live since it’s now post-red carpet, click here! And just talk a bunch in the comments. 

Welcome to The Oscars

Important note before we proceed: this live blog is starting at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. because there was an argument among the parties involved regarding E! and its televised place de naissance. Amelia couldn’t find the channel on her weird cable box while Esther, as if a fixture left over from The Stone Age remarked that she was watching on channel 7. I attempted to redirect both troglodytes to channel 696 which rendered nothing at all. Amelia finally E! on channel 164 and so, here we go.

Amelia: STEVE CARRELL IS LIKE MY IDEAL HUSBAND

Leandra: Can you expound upon that?

Amelia: LAURA DERN’S BLOWOUT FOR THE WIN AGAIN

Leandra: Do you think she uses a Con-Air blow dryer?

Amelia: Steve Carrel is HILARIOUS, handsome and seems like an insanely nice human

Leandra: He reminds me of your dad

Amelia: Guys the back of Marion Cottillard’s dress is gorgeous. Wait til she flips it and reverse it — watch her get made fun of in the tabloids though. UGH SEACREST GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY

Esther: She looks like a trypophobic guy’s nightmare in the best way

Leandra: Who’s this guy?

Esther: David Oyelowo

Leandra: What’s his significance, other than being the owner of the most unique marsala three-piece suit?

Amelia: Is this our first live marsala sighting?

Esther: The lead actor from Selma

Leandra: Oh gosh, I thought that Selma reference was directed towards Hayek. I don’t know why I’m allowed to own a computer.

Esther: Michael Keaton is on now!!!

Leandra: Wait, Felicity Jones, this was my hairspo? OMFG LUPITA!!!

Amelia: Pearlspo!

Amelia: LOLOLOLOL! OH STEVE [Carrell]! YOU SLAY ME!

Esther: Steve is so unrecognizable without his foxcatcher nose

Amelia: I’m unleashed

Leandra: Is Chrissy Teigen contoured or does she just have the worlds best cheek bones?

Amelia: Both

Esther: World’s best cheekbones

Amelia:  Chrissy Teigen is having the best year ever huh?

Esther: By osmosis through John Legend

Leandra: John Legend got me through the great break up of 2007.

Amelia: How many oysters died for Lupita’s dress?

Leandra: It reminds me of the evil orphan caretaker from Annie because Lupita is literally one of the women dripping in pearls

Amelia: OMG, Miles. I love him. This is too much. Is that his date?

Leandra: She can’t pronounce her designer!

Amelia: Okay, I am exercising my right to remain silent.

Amelia: I am so jealous for everyone on west coast time because when this ends, they still get to watch girls and go to bed at a normal time.

Amelia: Guys, would you have worn red shoes with that red dress?

Esther: Guys. Julianne Moore — her power is insane

Amelia: (Hello remember when she and steve carrel were married in crazy stupid love?)

Esther: No disrespect, but where does Khloe fit in here?

Amelia: Adult women do not say “twinsies”

Leandra: Neat smile

Leandra: GUYS! NEW OSCAR! From the runway to Sienna’s boday boday.

…

Leandra: Not sure why I haven’t said this yet but “Oscar at the Oscars”

Esther: Zukie just remarked on Giuliana: that woman is remarkably skinny

Leandra: Naomi Watts looks wonderful — I’m pleased to see so many smart decisons. Do you think this is a byproduct of the still-in-progress fashion weeks?

Amelia: Smart and dark — Naomi, Kate and Sienna are all wearing dark smart unfussy dresses

Esther: Crazy to see stylistic differences between the Oscars and the Grammy’s

Esther: The Apatows! Leslie Mann is killing it and so it Judd’s drink of choice

Amelia: I can’t wait to see what Emma Stone is wearing

Leandra: I can’t wait to see what Amber Thiessen is wearing

Leandra: …I mean Tiffany. I can’t even execute a pop culture joke properly.

Amelia: 6,000 oysters, RIP.

Amelia: Kate Blanchett has the best skin, it is actually psychotic.

Leandra: Is it, though, Amelia? Like do you think her skin needs to be institutionalized?

Amelia: I do! If she told me she licked Manhattan subways to get that skin, I would lick Manhattan subways too

Esther: I read she licked Manhattan subways, Amelia

Esther: I’m sick of the thigh slit business

Leandra: Khloe loves Rosamund Pike’s dress because it reminds her of her own.

Amelia: She’s wearing the same shoes that what’s her face wore to the prom in She’s All That.

Leandra: Pre-show high: Khloe Kardashiwhat calling Zoe Saldana’s pink gown, replete with satin train, better suited for DATE NIGHT.

Esther: Should Dakota be wearing grey? Or are my expectations too high?

Amelia: Wearing red is hard to pull off, which isn’t anyone’s fault but that rabbit. What’s her name? Rebecca Rabbit?

Esther: Jessica

Amelia: Oh yeah. You guys, tbt: here are the shoes Rosamund Pike is wearing:

Leandra: WHITE IS A BIG TREND? Reese Witherspoon looks beautiful. I am pretty impressed with the fashion and blame fashion week for it. Anyone else?

Amelia: I am impressed too. The stylists definitely went to fashion week and went, “Ah, ok time to be a lady…”

Esther: Speaking of which, is Downtown Abby on tonight?

Amelia: Who’s going to wear a kilt tonight?

Leandra: Why is Gwyneth’s skin the color of a tan mom’s?

Esther: Her dress screams, “I am consciously uncoupling.”

Leandra: “I have a vagina, hear it roar!” (Followed by a whisper…)

Amelia: A queef? Let’s vote on who this is: J Mendel? Zuhair? Ellie Saab? #formalpony?

Leandra: Nicole Kidman looks like such a cool fish, if I caught her I would 100% throw her back in. I hated the rainbow fish. I just feel like the mother fuckers around him should have been happy for his beautiful scales and not tried to rip them off him to the point where he was forced to give them away. It’s like, you don’t miss me accosting Alexa Chung and begging her to cut her legs off and insert them on me?

Amelia: Is that what happened in that book?

Leandra: He’s not a fighter, you know? (the rainbow fish, I mean).

Leandra: You dress as a couple?!?!?!??!??!?@!@!@?

Amelia: Do you also wear bff necklaces that break apart?!

Esther: The women on this panel are having way too much “fun?”

Esther: Emma Stone is here.

Amelia: I love her so much. Sometimes I think I am her then remember I am not and I eat 10 waffles at once.

Esther: Sometimes I think I’m Keira Knightley and then remember I’ve never acted in an English period piece.

Amelia: Is  there ANYTHING more awkward than Red Carpet hand placement for a woman? This is why everything needs pockets.

Esther: Is that why Lady Gaga is wearing red cooking mittens?

Amelia: I can’t wait until the Fat Jewish and or other meme-proliferating accounts make fun of Scarlett Johansson (where you can tell everyone was trying really hard to not be mean) and compare her to Old Gregg.

Amelia: Leandra how many press releases have you gotten so far?

Leandra: 38. You?

Amelia: So many.

Leandra: Thing Abie just said: “Twitter.com has so much going on right now”

Amelia: That’s my favorite website, Abie.

Leandra: Instead of, I think, just simply, “So many people are tweeting the Oscars.”

Esther: Did he say dot com?

Leandra: YES

Esther: Very important.

It is important, but that’s a wrap for the marsala carpet coverage! Follow us on Twitter and Snapchat (man_repeller) for live Oscar show coverage.

The 5 Stages of a Hangover

Stage 1: Denial

Your first reaction to waking up on top of all your covers — spooning your laptop, crusted pasta sauce remnants sitting in a bowl on your floor — will be, this is not happening. Someone else decided to eat late night pasta. Someone else decided to wear flannel-lined pajama bottoms and open all of the windows in your bedroom. As you run around closing said windows in an inside out and backwards “going out top,” you agree firmly: This. Is. Not. Happening.

This defense mechanism shields you from the harsh reality of day until the next stage blinds you with rage once you realize your wallet is empty.

Stage 2: Anger

As denial begins to fade, the stinging pain of reality reemerges. This will happen after the fetal position but before the attempt to put on day-pants. The main slots in your wallet are empty:

1. License

2. Credit card

3. There’s no third thing. You never carry cash because hello, it’s 2014 and you’re a broke 25-year-old.

How could this have happened? Why do you insist on making drinks to drink and then drink them and get drunk?! You have no one to blame except for everyone you have ever met because this is all their fault. Help.

Stage 3: Bargaining

Helplessness and vulnerability have taken the wheel. If only you didn’t go out. If only you decided to work late instead. If only you stayed in and re-watched Harry Potter, numbers 5-8. (Goblet of Fire kinda sucks, gotta start with The Order. You’re hungover, not a moron.) And shots of tequila? Why?

Dear God, Dear Abby, Dear Prudence, Dear John — anyone! If you make this feeling go away, we all promise to do better.

Stage 4: Depression

You won’t do better. You are the worst. In this period of grief, sadness and regret dominate your every thought. Why did you even think to chose “Stay” by Lisa Loeb as your karaoke song when you know damn well that Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” kills every time? Every time! Perhaps, all you really need is a hug…maybe with some cream cheese, bacon, and tomato in the middle. With a bagel on the outside. You need a bagel. What you need now is actually a bagel.

Stage 5: Acceptance

With food, love and elastic-waist pants, you too can find acceptance. Whether it eventually takes the form of a 45-minute hot shower, a 12-hour nap or a Good Wife marathon, you’ll find solace at the end of a hangover. Misery loves company, Bloody Marys can substitute a meal if there’s bacon in it, and Sundays are only scary if you let the terrorists win. Enjoy your last hungover-free hours like an American and eat some goddamn ice cream.

You deserve it.