Leandra Medine's Blog, page 704

I Was the First Person in the World with an iPhone 6

The second most popular I have ever been was the time I went to a bar with a broken shoulder and my arm in a sling. Free drinks, sympathy, song dedications, the works.

The first most popular I have ever been, though, was when I became the only person in America to own the iPhone 6.

It happened by absolute chance in that I threw my perfectly acceptable iPhone 5 off a boat. This wasn’t so much an aggressive, “To hell with technology, I’m on the ocean!” throw as it was a casualty of my expressive nature and inability to make smart choices near large bodies of water. Everyone gasped and one person questioned why I didn’t dive in immediately after it (uh, because it’s not a cat, maybe?) but for some reason I wasn’t too concerned — partially because I had an old iPhone 4 I could use, mostly because I planned to borrow my dad’s phone in the replacement’s interim.

The novelty of having access to my dad’s supremely boring text messages wore off quickly. So did the “vintage feel” of my 4 which I found worked exceptionally well as a door stop or a brick. It was on a Thursday’s whim last week that I couldn’t take it any more so I called up Verizon, ordered my upgrade and then folded my hands like a patient angel in anticipation of a September 24th phone delivery.

Let me tell you: I have never witnessed a miracle quite like the one that walked into our office the very next day. He was from FedEx and he had my brand new phone about six days early, making me the first person in America to own the phone that no one could shut up about.

It should be noted somewhere, I guess, that the only proof I have about me being “first” in the US is that all the news outlets were repeating the same clip of an Australian guy – one of first iPhone 6 owners in the world! — dropping his phone screen-first into the ground. (Been there, done that, my friend. These glass apples fall like buttered toast.) But not one news source mentioned America, and facts are facts: very few people had the “6”at 4 PM on Friday, September 19th 2014, except for me, which meant getting stopped by 15 different strangers who saw the heat I was hand-packing, each one asking if they could touch it.

This was the exact moment I knew what it was like to be 9 months pregnant in Soho.

As a girl with short arms and a large group of friends, I’ve never been weird about handing a stranger my baby/phone before. The difference between someone taking your picture and holding your brand new phone, though, is that in the latter scenario it seems far more likely the entire thing could explode into a million pieces at any moment. Even worse is that each stranger had a billion questions:

“Do you like it?” I guess.

“Is that the Plus?” No, regular.

“But it’s big!” Not as big as your face though.

“It’s so thin!” Plz don’t comment on its weight.

“Does it do anything cool?” Mostly just phone calls and stuff.

“Can it play fetch?” I think so.

“Are you scared you’re going to break it?” Can I have my phone back?

I am not one for small talk or casual conversations with potential axe murderers in Zara so the technology tango annoyed me. But where I did find my brand new phone extremely valuable was in the vicinity of straight men — put to the test on least three separate occasions that weekend. If my glass began to run a little dry, I’d text extremely dramatically with the volume on so as to bring attention to my shiny device. One free beer, coming up! If I wanted to play a song on the juke box but couldn’t find any singles, I’d ask someone to hold my phone while I “looked for something.” Bam — T. Swift would start shakin’ it off ASAP. Even my own friends seemed to like me more. This might’ve had something to do with the fact that I was more responsive thanks to an active phone that wasn’t A) being a door stop B) my dad’s and C) at the bottom of the ocean.

By Sunday, however, people stopped caring; my popularity waned and as of last night my life resumed normalcy. It was both a relief, and sad — kind of like when I relinquished my sling — yet I can’t help but think that if I’d ordered the iPhone Plus, I’d still be queen.

Image on the left shot by Leo Krumbacher for Grazia Germany, Image on the right shot by Chris Craymer for Glamour UK

Flip Your Slip — Dress, That Is

Sometimes my titles try so hard. But on unofficial day 20 of this pervert season that’s not fall but isn’t not fall either, it must be asked: what in the good name of leather slide sandals are you, me, we to wear? It’s too hot for down coats, too cold for white linen dresses and not quite high-time we beef up our fall/winter wardrobes yet. As is always the case when outfitting conundrums rear their sinister heads, street style has the answer. And according to one showgoer in Milan, a good idea is to take your favorite slip dress from summer and wear it over wool, pinstriped pants.

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This will keep your legs and the nucleus that separates them warm but will also allow for you to continue to show off your fancy shoulder tan and how nice your toes look when your feet are still vaguely bronzed and not quite yet restored to that pasty shade of white that veers onto yellow spectrum.

Also of note: hair ties are so cool.

Shoesday Real Talk: Loafers Are *So* Fall, But Is That It?

Shoe shopping can feel like such a surprise attack on a woman’s sense of personal evolution. I know this to be true because every fall, it gets just a little bit chilly and I proclaim with the conviction of O.J. Simpson’s lawyer that this will be the season I finally wear loafers.

Invariably, every season, I end up buying a pair. I entertain myself by wearing them once or twice but by the time it’s cold, I mean really cold, the loafers have been rejected, dejected, left out for obliteration by sleet and its more popular cousins.

You’d think that I would learn but I never do. It’s just…why? Why do I have this flip-switch moment every single season? And really now, why in the good name of all that is leather do I seriously believe that this season is going to be different from every other season? I wish I was writing retrospectively but I’m still a pawn in this pathetic game of cat and mouse, Leandra and shoe. Just two weeks ago, in fact, I found myself hovering over a display ledge at the new Céline shop on Wooster Street where I contemplated the lace up loafers that have been populating Philo’s fall offering for at least the past three years. I didn’t buy them last year, or the year before, but this year, impulse got the best of me and within 15 minutes, I was the vaguely proud new owner of ox-blood brogues, ostensibly made for a cool woman but incidentally to be worn by, uh, me.

So you know, I have worn them more than twice thank-you-very-much. But I’m more concerned with what my propensity for something I come back to over and over — in spite of less-than-favorable results — indicates about a) my shopping habits, b) my style, or how much of it is informed by aspiration and c) which, again, is me.

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On my shopping habits, I think maybe they’re called “habits” for a reason. Perhaps this ritual of looking at loafers and then buying them signifies something that has nothing to do with shoes or my feet at all. Maybe while some women welcome pumpkin spice lattes to commemorate seasonal changes, I use loafers. But obviously there’s more to it. I’m not using a form of footwear or garment that I don’t believe is technically in line with my “personal style,” so it is possible that my style doesn’t quite reflect what actually makes me feel good or comfortable. I say this because, as you know, after I buy the loafers I don’t actually wear them.

Maybe, though, maybe this is a much larger problem. And like Carrie Bradshaw’s one night stand with a psychologist’s-patient-in-the-waiting-room-cum-dalliance before me, I’m only enthralled by the material things that excite me until we can consummate our relationship (as in, until I actually buy them), at which point I lose complete interest.

This is better, I suppose, than the anterior Bradshaw’s problem, though, right? At least I don’t pick the wrong things.

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How Does One “Be” Parisian Wherever They Are?

1. By owning: jeans, men’s shoes, a small silk scarf, a long trench, and “the very simple, but very expensive T-shirt.”

2. By living with, not against, the opposite sex

3. Antithetically, too, by being one’s own knight in shining armor

4. By forgoing plastic surgery

5. By swiftly destabilizing male suitors (And how to do this? Canceling dates last minute, ordering romantically confusing dishes on a menu, forgoes bras, unintentionally, in the summertime.)

6. By becoming familiar with Sartre and Foucault

How Does One NOT Be Parisian Wherever They Are?

1. By being the last to leave a party

2. By abbreviating on text message

3. By foolishly not making your lover think you have another lover (even though you don’t) — this may include sending flowers to oneself, erratically crying and frequent showers

4. By having a big-ass wedding

5. By opening a bottle of wine; though you’re able to do it, let him, because “that’s equality too.”

I was kidding yesterday. I will never actually give up on trying to be French. What do you take me for, a quitter? I am not a quitter. The only thing I have ever forcibly quit were cigarettes the summer after 8th grade when I went to Switzerland and wanted to look cool. Wanted to look French. But I was too young to start chiseling letters into my tombstone then, and you know what they say about people, right? They’re much more effective at completing tasks (in my case, to become French) when they’re alive, so I quit.

I’m happy to report that I’m still alive and as such appropriately equipped to comment on de Maigret and co’s new book How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are, which is from where the above tips have emerged. It arrived at my doorstep on the day of publication during New York Fashion Week earlier this month and in one fell, airplane-perpetrated swoop, I read the whole thing, cover to cover.

French women are such complicated feminists.

They exude the sense that they’re strong and independent and as a result, often are strong and independent but they also lean greatly on the male gaze and the subsequent love it so frequently emits. What makes them different is that this reliance is bolstered by the straight-shooting pursuit of unflinching love. They are very romantic. They’re also to the point. When I met Caroline de Maigret, she told me that there is no such thing as the perfect woman — that “you can’t aspire to be the perfect type of woman because she doesn’t exist.” She also went on to describe the most salient difference between x and y chromosome carriers.

“Women look in the mirror, men don’t, that’s why they have more confidence.”

A ha! Doesn’t it seem as though the ideology is a hugely lucid window into the personal style of the French woman? It’s honest, it’s clear, it’s simple and it makes you wonder why you didn’t think it on your own.

TBH Just Stop

There is nothing better than when someone “gets you.” Sometimes that person is a best friend, or someone you’re dating, or maybe it’s your mom, or your grandpa, or if you’re “one of those” (no judg.) it’s your pet iguana. Sometimes, however, it’s a stranger on the Internet who excels at Twitter. Such is the case with @tbjuststop, whose name is listed as “No.”

To put your name as “No” is already funny.

But it gets better. @TBHjuststop tweets everything that has ever lived in my head and vocalizes it better than I could have. For example:

why do they even include 2014 as an option when selecting your birth year online like u fresh out the womb ready to join gmail

— no (@tbhjuststop) September 6, 2014

And she understands the grueling pains of life:

making plans in a group chat like pic.twitter.com/3vEoiYBlxA — no (@tbhjuststop) September 22, 2014

She’s real. She’s not trying to hide the fact that she likes a little sparkle here and there.

“when women wear makeup they’re basically lying to us” i dont see why i’m being blamed for a man stupid enough to think i have gold eyelids

— no (@tbhjuststop) September 22, 2014

She’s the everywoman, really. A female of the people.

flirting on twitter like pic.twitter.com/OZ8pZbsnBd — no (@tbhjuststop) August 26, 2014

You can just tell she’s lived.

i hate when ur boob starts falling out of ur bra like excuse me ma’am please return to ur assigned seat

— no (@tbhjuststop) July 21, 2014

And when I say she gets me…it’s almost like she is me.

‘Where are you ???’ Me: ‘On my way’ pic.twitter.com/uPkeeGsj9S

— no (@tbhjuststop) August 26, 2014

I’m pretty sure this person is about 15 years old since she frequently talks about being mad at her parents and teachers and homework, but sometimes you a find a soulmate in the unexpected, and sometimes their name is “No.”

[@tbhjuststop]

Confessions of a Fashion Week Virgin

Although I’m a recent college graduate, I was still the new kid on the block this September for my first New York Fashion Week, which felt a lot like going back to school. There was the issue of choosing a first day outfit, new cliques, index cards, assigned seats — I even found myself raising my hand (to hail a cab). The only difference between school and fashion week is that you don’t get in trouble for showing up late.

Having never been to a fashion show by myself before, I arrived at Rebecca Taylor 20 minutes early, which in fashion time meant that I was about 20 days ahead of schedule. There was already a long line though, so I checked-in. My seat assignment card said “P.S.” and after mulling over every possible acronym, I decided that according to the fashion world, I was a Piece of Shit.

*It actually means “Priority Standing.”

I somehow managed to work my way to Leandra’s spot in the front row with the rest of the cool kids. I clearly didn’t belong. Natalie Joos’s sparkling stilettos were a stark comparison to my dirty, worn-out Adidas. But Joos had no airs about her. While we waited, she ate a granola bar. (I asked her how it didn’t melt in her clutch and she replied, “You have to eat it fast.”) When the lights went down, she took her shoes off and sang along to the show’s soundtrack.

At Christian Siriano later that day, I made a point to arrive “fashionably late,” but I was still too early. I took the opportunity to ogle at “Crazy Eyes” from Orange is the New Black (apparently, #OITNB is the new #OOTD) and eavesdrop on editors. Overheard: “Even though I hate her, I still like all her Instagrams.”

At Giulietta the next day, my view was blocked by two toddlers who were BFFS. They sat on their mothers’ laps (who were also friends) and took pictures on their iPhones. It would have been adorable, had they not both been better dressed than me. Chances are, I’ll probably have to work for them one day.

After the Theory presentation the following week, I went to charge my phone in Chelsea Market, but the only place I could find with an outlet was a butcher’s shop. It was a far cry from the trendy restaurant Butcher’s Daughter, and a violent juxtaposition to the presentation of bodies that I had just exited.

I spent the rest of fashion week snooping around behind the scenes at Thom Browne and Delpozo. Pro tip: backstage is where all the food hangs out. Models munched on apples and peanut butter while getting their hair and makeup done. I even caught a couple of them scarf down not one, but TWO chocolate chip cookies. I myself took the liberty of grabbing a sandwich on the way out. I considered it my souvenir.

The most important lesson I learned this week is that fashion can, in fact, be a learning experience. The idea that I wasn’t going back to school this fall, or ever again for that matter, was a difficult transition for me to get used to. But now I know that my education is far from over. Fashion will forever provide me with stimulating, intellectual material and each new season is like the start of a new semester.

Who needs spring break when you have Spring/Summer 2015?

5 Things to Talk About During Monday Happy Hour

Did you survive Monday? If so, celebrate with happy hour drinks. While you’re there, you should talk about these 5 things. For extra points, stand on a bar stool and shout, “Fuck it. I quit!” Keep reading and that will make sense.

1. Hermione has our backs 

Emma Watson gave a fittingly moving speech on feminism for the U.N. – her first as Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women. This “Harry Potter girl,” as Watson called herself, unveiled the gender equality campaign HeForShe, which aims to get men involved in feminism. She received a standing ovation, and Twitter replied with a resounding #yesallwitches. [Vulture]

2. Doing Office Space Proud 

An Alaska news reporter quit on air with the short but sweet, “Fuck it, I quit.” Why? It had something to do with weed.  [Uproxx] 

3. Even More Miss America Facts

John Oliver, TV’s new takedown king, went after Miss America, its scholarship claims and Donald Trump. “How the fuck is this still happening?,” he asked.

…Meaning beauty pageants, not ventriloquism. [The Wire]

4. Why the Empire State Building was Green Last Night 

Yesterday’s People’s Climate March — the biggest in history — brought 300,000 people to New York City, including Leonardo DiCaprio and a few supermodels. [Huffington Post]

Image via Instagram 

5. Now we can really tell the Fanning sisters apart

Ethereal teen goddess Elle Fanning dyes her hair brown, thereby breaking the Internet. Luckily, fans still recognize her. [The Cut]

Milan Street Style Superlatives

In his review of the Dolce & Gabbana show, Tim Blanks wrote that “the idea of getting ‘dressed to kill’ (or be killed) originated with bullfighters.” The models certainly looked it — hence the point of Blanks’ idiom-etymology lesson — especially as they charged the finale runway in their red embellished bloomers with eyes like daggers under severe middle parts.

Milanese show-goers adopted a similar mentality. Fashion’s hardly a bloodsport unless raw heels and blisters are considered (and they are) but dressing was approached with more ferocity in Milan this season than in New York, where normcore trended and its accompanying cushiony, blister-free sneakers dressed the feet of those who looked far more ready to run from a bull than actually fight one.

If there’s one thing the Italians have adopted from American sportswear, however, it’s an iconic catchphrase that I imagine they shout into the mirrors when getting dressed: just do it.

And by it, they mean The Damn Thing.

Now let’s hand out some paper plates:

Best Excuse for Not Being Able to Hear Someone

“Sorry, no, I didn’t catch that. My Dolce floral headphones have carnation silencing capabilities. Can you just text?”

Best Excuse to Say “OMG TWINS”

Because, get it? You guys are dressed the same? You can also do that thing where you’re like, “Omg, great sweater!” Or even funnier, “Ew, worst jacket ever.” And then just throw your head back and laugh and laugh since the joke is that you’re wearing the same thing. Twinning never gets old when you’re aging at precisely the same speed as someone else.

Best High Waisted Jeans

Like they say on the MTA subways, “If you see something, say something.” Leandra and I are on the prowl for the perfect pair of high waisted jeans (these) so please, say something, and tell us where these are from.

Best Excuse to Get the iPhone 6 PLUS

Bigger Screen, bigger letters = less reason to balance your sunglasses on your nose while you squint and curse Instagram for tricking you YET AGAIN into double tapping when you meant to maximize the image.

Best Hair Color

I just really need her colorist to call my colorist and have a chemical chat.

Most Anna Dello Russo

Let’s play a game and guess how many small, professional child actors/dancers she has hiding in there à la Mother Ginger from The Nutcracker

Best Day Ever Award

She is having the most fun in the best outfit and Keanu Reeves’ sunglasses!

Best Reason to Not Throw Away Your Mandals 

It’s the trend that keeps on giving.

Best Solution for Not Wanting to Get Dressed

Add a blazer and you’re fine.

The “What’s Better than Having Your Name

Fendi. They spelled Amelia incorrectly here, but a model delivered it and she was smiling so big that I was like, Fendi how on earth could I stay mad at you??

If Fashion Was A 17th Century Controversial Yet Historic Bloodsport 

Then she just killed it.

Shopping PSA: Être Cecile and I Are Making T-Shirts

I have given up trying to be French. It will not happen. Chiefly because I am American — and technically speaking, there is nothing wrong with being American. If I’m being really honest, I think I’ve heretofore only liked pretending that I want to be French. It makes me feel cooler. Like I am initiated and pretentious in an endearingly snobby way that is naive and therefore relatable because, you know, I’m actually American. But here’s the thing, I still like to pretend that I want to be French for the reason specified in the previous sentence. So I don’t think I’m going to stop. I know it makes me an impostor, but because of a recent t-shirt collaboration slated to roll out before you have to quit t-shirts for sweaters, at least it also makes me a chest-covered impostor.

Have you ever heard of Etre Cecile? It’s a UK-based brand that primarily sells t-shirts and sweatshirts. They are cooler than both bagels and health-food products and you can find them loitering among the pages of Matchesfashion.com, The Corner and Shopbop. Most recently, the brand — which is spearheaded by genius dresser, Yasmin Sewell and her husband — collaborated with fellow Australian psychopath and newly-minted Medine family member, Laura Brown of Harper’s Bazaar fame.

On Laura’s shirts, there are horses. These horses yell “On y va!” or “CHARGE” in metallic block letters and are cast against a background that is both colorful and neutral in that special way that only strategic overstimulation can be.

And now, there’s me. There is me and there are my shirts. Most of which are short sleeved but one is not. It is a muscle tee and mimics one of the three t-shirt styles, set in white, featuring black serif letters that read, you guessed it!, “Am I French Yet?”

The answer will always be no, but at least a conversation will be born 9/10 times. (I know this to be fact.) There is another t-shirt, it is navy blue, and in metallic multi-colored letters the word “Repousse-Mec” is spelled out. This, not coincidentally, is also French. It means “Man Repeller” but also offers us this evolved sense of je ne sais dimensionality because, look at that, we are now bilingual.

Finally, in what is perhaps my favorite t-shirt of the lot, there is the question of whether people truly know that pockets are there for your boob. As such, they are called boob pockets.

Of course, I put the qualm to rest in red embroidery cast over, once again, something indigenously French — stripes, and now you, my friends, are liable to get in on, uh, le plaisir.

Chin chin.

[Etre Cecile x Man Repeller]

Bagels Are Fashion Too, You Know

Nothing has a more dismal reputation in this industry than the bagel. For one thing, there is the ever-present and unavoidable reality that it is not only a carb, but perhaps the densest of its kind, save for stout beer. One Vanity Fair director who shall remain nameless is known just as much for his dexterity as an editor as he is for his hatred of bagels.

In fact he goes so far as to curse them — as in, “fuck you, bagels” — on a frequent basis. Though they’re boiled like eggs as opposed deep fried, the hole-y bread is not exactly healthy. There is no kale involved. No spirulina, no chia, no matcha. And while it may be cool to chug green juice – after your yoga and before your detox — it’s actually a straight up fact that bagels are way may more fashion.

Here’s why:

- Fashion loves a dark subculture. Think punk or grunge or Gareth Pugh goth. Now consider bagels: shunned by the industry, anarchists of abs, consumed while hungover in rebellion against diets. They are subversive, and that is ultimately fashionable.

- They’re a New York staple, like wearing all black, or fashion week.

- They are absolutely brazen about their reckless mixing of media, tastes, textures and prints. Hell yes I will try chive cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin, toasted. Vegetable cream cheese with bacon and tomatoes on pumpernickel? Absolutely. Why not. You can’t stop this stylist.

- Bagels are masters of accessorizing (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic crunch, salt)

- And yet they invented minimalism: plain — ever heard of it?

- They are timeless, whereas things like cupcakes and avocado toast are merely trendy.

- Black Seed Bagels is currently Manhattan’s most fashionable destination, beating out Acme and the like in terms of geotagging, Insta-bragging and Twitter name dropping. When asked, “I love your bagel, who makes it?,” the only proper answer is “Black Seed”…and people can spot a fake.

- The most popular style is an everything bagel. Therefore what you are consuming is quite literally, “Everything.”

Guess what I just had for breakfast? And care to add to the list? Happy Monday!