Leandra Medine's Blog, page 718

The Long — and Short — Of It

According to the Hemline Index, which was a theory culled in 1926 by a professor named George Taylor at UPenn’s Wharton, there is a direct and decidedly profound relationship between hemlines and the economy.

As the theory goes, when the economy is strong, skirts are short. When it is weak, they get longer. According to a study by Marjolein van Baardwijk, there is a three year lag period between the economic cycle and the lengthening or shortening of hemlines. This should make spectacular sense when considering the maxi skirts of 2011 and the ankle length skirts of 2012 vis-a-vis the American finance bubble not just burst but explosion of 2008.

Where difficultly arises, as far as I’m concerned, is in the most recent trend to re-emerge and subtly re-enter the fashion psyche and that is the proliferation of uneven hemlines. What may have started as the resuscitation of a reverse mullet, leading way to party in the front, business in the back as championed by such designers as Emilio Pucci, Thakoon Panichgul and, uh, Free People has, in at least the last two seasons, become a brazen clutter of disparate lengths on one garment.

Think the theatrical Roberto Cavalli of yonder — only espoused by the establishment of today’s minimalism.

Now consider the most recent fall endeavors of Céline’s Phoebe Philo, or Christopher Kane (who even went so far as to present an uneven hemmed coat), or Dior’s Raf Simons, or Sacai. Consider Nicolas Ghesquière’s Resort collection for Louis Vuitton or the stuff in stores now — like Clare Waight Keller’s dresses and skirts for pre-fall Chloé, or if you’re very lucky, the leftover loot from her spring offering.

If we’re clocking economic insight and taking the Index at face value, what do these collections infer? Where the mullet skirt may have suggested a tale of two cities — one where wealth populated the upper echelons of a singular town and poverty eclipsed a lower degree of the same territory — these uneven hems say what? That our two cities-so-to-speak under one umbrella have become one? Will become one? Free ready-to-wear for all?

Maybe I’m reading too far into this, maybe fashion is just responding to a request brought forward by an anonymous, enterprising pretty young thing to cover her escalating sunspots. Or something.

All Runway Images via Style.com

Lucie Cincinatis, Jacmel & Co

“I launched Jacmel & Co at the beginning of April. The idea started in January when I was down in Jacmel which is a small town in Haiti. It’s a very artistic town. There are so many artists doing great things in the street and I figured there was so much talent there, but they had no access to a bigger market. The story of the bag started with a man who was wearing calabash (a Haitian fruit) as a bag. He put a chord over the fruit. So I asked him to make a bag for me but with leather and I started carrying it around. For two months he was making bags and I was paying him then reselling them, really like a merchant.

But I moved to Haiti full time because I was part of this Jewish organization’s fellowship program and decided when it ended that I wanted to open a little workshop and hire people to make bags.

I’m originally from Brussels. I went to school at Columbia University in New York and worked for a year in the city. I was working in finance and felt very depressed with my job, it really wasn’t a good fit for me, and so I got this opportunity to be part of this six-month Jewish fellowship program where I would teach English to kids or set up an arts and crafts program in Haiti, and because my visa was expiring and I had to leave the states by September anyway, I went.

That was October 2013, almost a year ago. I spent six months in the program teaching in Port-au-Prince, which is the main town. It’s so polluted, so many people, there’s trash everywhere and you’re either part of the very wealthy or living in the slums. I was working in the slums on a landfill with the kids, and then at night, I was going back to a big house with security and a pool and I couldn’t really deal with that. I mean you have that in New York as well, but not as extreme.

I didn’t want to live there anymore so I moved to a beach town called Kabic. It’s maybe fifteen minutes away from Jacmel — where I set up a little bamboo atelier — and you know there are a lot of pretty renowned artists living there.

Right now I have eight people who are making the bags. Four of the women are very good artisans who have mastered assembling it, and then I have three younger kids. They are seventeen and eighteen, and they come after school and they help me with the braiding and to prepare the leather. In Haiti the monthly average salary is 40 dollars but they get paid per piece and higher than that.

The teenagers also help prepare the calabash before assembling them. One of them is the only one who can support his family because his dad died in the earthquake.

I speak French to them, they don’t speak English. They speak Creole. Creole is a mixture of African dialect and French. There is no grammar or structure. It’s as if you were saying “me hungry” instead of “I’m hungry,” but we communicate nicely.

The first step to making the bag is getting the fruit — which is not edible — the calabash. Nobody eats it in Haiti, so they use it mainly to make bowls, so they eat out of it. You can find them in a lot of places in Haiti, the problem is that they come in all sizes and shapes. But it’s also fun because all the bags are unique. I knew a farmer who had a calabash field with a lot of trees – they grow on trees and sometimes you can find twenty of them on a tree. But you just have to make sure that they are ripe. If it’s too early, they’re going to be soft and it can break so its going to be tricky.

So you take the fruit and you cut it. We have to cut it in a very specific way, so this round one we’d cut like this [motions cutting directly across]. And this one is long, so we’re going to cut it like this [motions cutting on a slant].

Then we take out the meat, which looks like…I don’t know what it is. It’s yellow/greenish and smells really bad. In Creole they call it kaka.

Then we let it dry for maybe a day. And then mainly it’s leather preparation. We prime it, braid it and then it’s glued on. Ideally I would want to sew it because I think it would be more chic. But I want to make sure it doesn’t crack.

I’ve been selling a lot, mostly through Instagram, and the bags cost between $120 and $140. They’re all handmade and employ Haitians — the artisans have been great.

There isn’t a pure buy-buy-buy goal behind this. Yeah I want people to buy it, but I want to tell them the story, I want to show them that I think with this product, I’m helping to change the image of Haiti that most people have. You know, even through social media, people see that it’s a beautiful place and that the people are talented.

Hopefully I’ll be still working with artisans for a while. Haiti is very special. It’s tragic and magic at the same time. Its very raw. In New York, I got so disenchanted with charity work, and you know you really want to try and create sustainability, and I think the only way to do that is job creation. Sure, you can just give money, but the money is going to be spent and one day you’re going to stop giving and they’re not going to get anything. It’s the difference between giving someone fish and teaching them how to fish.”

-Lucie Cincinatis as told to Leandra Medine

Photos by Krista Anna Lewis and Charlotte Fassler, feature shot by Mitch Waxman. Learn more about Jacmel & Co. here

What Did You Wear on the First Day of Your First Internship?

Outfits, man. They infer so much but say so little. They mark events as momentous as a woman’s losing her virginity, or first getting her teeth cleaned (what?) and can often function as a memory bank for forgotten events that still somehow live and languish in white space that remains peppered by a pair of gloves here, some red printed shorts there.

In the history of outfits, at least a dozen have amounted for someone’s promotion. Double that toward his or her demotion. And this isn’t even considering the dexterity of the clothes we use to cloak our bodies when we work in fashion, which ironically enough seems to place the emphasis not on what you wear but how you wear it.

See, when I obtained my first internship, I was a senior in high school. The night before I was set to walk through the magical doors that were 11 West 42nd Street, I spent at least 35 minutes considering not what I would wear — that was clear: high waist jeans and a leather jacket from Forever 21, a purple cotton long sleeve dress with black spots all over it by Ella Moss and blue and green snake print pumps, which I had found on sale at Scoop at least a year earlier — but whether I would tuck this cotton dress into my pants or leave it out to run and flap like the Annie that it is.

Eventually, I settled on both. Until 2PM, I would wear a dress over my jeans and after that point, I’d perform a tuck-check and transform the outfit. I’m not sure what I was thinking or why I found it appropriate to “change looks” midday but I was also 17 and potentially had this warped view about the way fashion PR worked, which is to say that it wasn’t work so much as it was a perennial fashion show. As it happened, no one noticed the tuck I’d fabricated, which led me to wonder if anyone had noticed the outfit to begin with. The answer was probably no but I disregarded that, if only to keep my morale high.

I can’t remember what I ate, or who I met, or a single task I had to complete that day, but the first day of my first internship will be forever immortalized because of that tuck.

Do you remember your tuck? Please, tell me everything there is to know about what you wore on the first day of your first internship. If you can’t remember, just ask what Amelia wore on hers. I’ll give you a hint: one authority had to tell another authority not to try to “bang” the intern.

Image by Tyrone Lebon via T Magazine

Stay Gold (for the Weekend)

I attended a birthday party last week where the theme may or may not have been Kidchella, which was supposed to be ironic but it’s like, don’t tempt me with a peasant blouse and a good time. You see, when I RSVP “yes” I like to confirm with the note, “I’ll be there with bells on.” It means I’m dedicated, and already have an outfit planned.

The look was easy (this shirt, these shorts), and I even owned a flower crown from a previous engagement. But I had also recently heard that gold tattoos were trending – first from my 12-year-old cousins, then by word of Pinterest, and finally via every #summervibe photo on Instagram.

I had to have them. They were a little bit kitschy, but undeniably pretty. They wouldn’t be permanent, and let’s be honest: they’re cheap. So after I rounded up enough sheets of gold tattoos to potentially gild the inside of a really expansive chapel, I consulted a friend at Vogue who’d experimented with them before and seemed like a pro.

Arden’s tips were as follows:

1) Make sure you remove the plastic

2) Keep it minimal

3) Or don’t

4) Avoid putting it on your face if you have work the next day

and

5) Amelia, you forgot to remove the plastic

Her advice was solid, even though I only listened to steps #3 and #5, but what I loved most about these tats is that they just weren’t that serious. If I messed up, I could scrub them off. If I got sick of one, same thing. They lasted all weekend when I just left them alone, and they were better than jewelry because they couldn’t fall off my wrist on the dance floor.

Though I’m really not one to give into trends, especially ones that fit into a festival-themed birthday, this particular craze feels so summery, so easy (and so noncommittal) it’s basically a simple answer to the golden question, “Why not?”

Your turn: would you try them?

You can find the Jacquie Aiche tattzzz we used here.

Feature Images via fashionising and style.com

Photos of us by Charlotte Fassler and Krista Anna Lewis

Shorts for When Your Legs Are Not Sticks

Not to Catfish you guys or anything…but…I am not Alexa Chung.

I know. Just calm down and relax.

God bless Alexa, though, and her legs that run the length of the Nile, and her thighs that could cause my own elbows to weep. If had her legs I’d probably forgo pants altogether and instead would exist solely in my underwear bottoms.

A few friends of mine are blessed with such gams — if they weren’t I’d probably assume Chung’s were a beautiful myth, birthed from the mind of someone so offended by bagels that they created an appendage-deity to trick girls into shying away from poppy seed heaven. But these long genetic wonders exist in real life, connected to the torsos of my girlfriends who only do squats when they drop something.

Me, on the other hand. Me, not so much. I’m short, which is cool, and my thighs mean business — a fact that I’ve come to terms with mostly because without them I don’t know what would hold up my butt. And I do workout, and sometimes I take the stairs instead of having a coma, but there are certain moments in every woman’s life where she has to look in the mirror and say, “regardless of gym time, fill-in-the-blank-style is not for me.”

That’s not to say don’t flaunt what your momma give you.

But it does mean know your body. Know your shape, know what works, and then learn how to adapt the look you’re going for into one that makes sense for you. This summer, for example, I’ve finally realized that instead of lamenting about my thighs’ relentless demands to exist, I’m going to accept that denim thongs are not my friends.

But you know what are?

Wide-legged cutoffs with the chop on an angle.

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And skirted shorts. Surfer shorts. Anything to give the illusion of an A-line or boyline, with at least an inch of space required between thigh and hem.

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If there’s a high waist, great. If the hip is dropped low, cool. Yes please to pleats and quasi-athletic cuts. But what me and my thighs definitely need in order to exist in harmony is enough room to make like Sally O’Malley and kick, stretch, kick. That’s all we ask.

Now who wants a bagel?

I’ll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

If Chris Harrison and cable television have taught me anything, it is that there is no shortage of ardor looking to capitalize on the pursuit of “true love.” According to the formula that is ABC, this is typically supposed to happen across the span of six weeks, in a beach villa, on a tropical island, where there is an abundance of the two things that come both free and at a high cost: alcohol and drama.

The Bachelor, and its female counterpart, The Bachelorette, have been chugging along for 19 seasons based on this canon. The success of the series has spawned a slew of spinoffs including Bachelor Pad and Bachelor in Paradise, not to mention the plethora of reality dating shows that followed, including (but not limited to) Mr. Personality, Average Joe, and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.

It’s all become so obvious. For a while, it seemed as though the genre had been reduced to a puddle of Juan Pablo-induced tears until, that is, VH1′s Dating Naked was born.

The show, which premiered on July 17th, follows three young men and women as they meet and subsequently date while naked. Contestant numero uno, Joe from Long Island, put it like this: “Dating naked gives me a way to possibly trust somebody again. I’m here for love. I don’t want beauty and looks. I want somebody that’s going to be there and care for me. There are no secrets. You see me. I see you. Boom.” (Joe’s conviction was tested when Yasmin from Israel tempted and almost snagged him by the fruit of her exotic looms.)

The supposition is that the presence of nudity will allow for singles to date honestly. Host Amy Paffrath’s opener takes a page from the Homeboy’s Guide to Existentialism, stating: “In today’s modern world, we’re supposed to be more connected than ever, but it feels like we’re just further apart.”

Here’s the thing, though — save for the initial shock of seeing a naked stranger, the show is kind of underwhelming if not exactly tantamount on the thrill-scale to every other show swimming in the waters of reality dating. A preview for the newest episode even suggested the powers that be a production team’s scramble to orchestrate discomfort when two contestants are seen being sent on a yoga date, and bent into, er, awkward positions (here’s hoping he had his asshole bleached).

And as I continue to watch the series, I remain unconvinced that the premature display of ones genitals can be the magnet that brings people closer together. Unlike Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid, naturism does little to exacerbate the tension between contestants and their environment. Ten minutes in and the bodies are as unremarkable and hackneyed as the reality TV dating game itself.

It’s just, why? Maybe the deluge of ridiculous reality dating premises have led to a desensitization towards the absurd?

Amy Paffrath hawked the show for its ability to “bring us together” and maybe it has, if only through one collective guffaw. But if that’s the point, where’s the magic, where are our morals and for the love of cable, where is the good television?

Assholes on a Plane

Both Leandra and myself spend ample time on airplanes. In the past two months alone, our asses have wed at least 13 flight seats if you include connections, layovers and an accidental train ride that came in the wake of a diversion (long story, text Leandra for details).

And every time one of the two of us landed, we’d complain about our seat-mates. Together we found that no matter the destination, no matter the flight’s purpose, no matter the hierarchical accommodations, the people on our planes were, fundamentally, exactly the same. And so, similar to the accidental originator of the Buzzfeed list (as in, the artist formerly known as Mitch Albom and his The Five People You Meet in Heaven) we give you the far less eloquent, though equally relevant: Ten People You Meet on a Plane, starting with:

The Frequent Pee-er Miles

Someone takes her Dr. Phil tips and Goop guides a bit too seriously, because while celebregurus love nothing more than to extol the virtues of water, Phil & Gwen definitely did not intend for the Frequent Pee-er to chug the entire Atlantic Ocean prior to departure.

The Freequent Pee-er earns her miles by getting up to pee on the half hour, every hour. You can guarantee that she will have to go during paramount moments in whatever movie you are watching, at the climax of whatever story you are reading, or while you’re falling asleep. Her bouts of “excuse me” and “so sorry” are not sincere because all she cares about is avoiding bloat. She’s selfish and she’s hydrated.

The Manic Snack Packer

This woman got on the plane with a diaper bag full of Ziploc bags which, in due time you will learn, are partitioned by food groups — and make no mistake, every group is accounted for. She’s got her grains, her tupperware full of fruit, the sliced crudite to be chased by cold cuts and then followed by the block of cheese that aisle 35 is complaining about. You’re seeing more food than the average human consumes in the span of 72 hours and yet, there it goes, all of it, into her mouth and down her throat. Mind you, this is a shuttle flight from LaGuardia to Boston.

The Coma Kid

At first you respect The Coma Kid. This dude got on the plane, buckled his seatbelt and passed the fuck out. Screw safety tips — he doesn’t need them. But after a solid three hours, when CK is still asleep, you start to worry: Is he alive? Should you poke him? Hold a mirror underneath his nose to see if he fogs the glass? You could, especially if you’re super bored, but if the Coma Kid wakes up to you hovering over his doubled chin to “make sure he’s still alive,” the rest of the plane ride is going to be really awkward.

Elbow Rest Warrior

You know this person. 6’10, 320. Cross-fit Master, crocodile wrestler. The Elbow Rest Warrior is stoic as a statue, kinder than a panda and yet completely oblivious to personal space. That or he, too, is selfish and can’t understand the elbow rest to elbow ratio. As in, if the person to your left or right is lacking, you must, for the sake of humanity, relinquish control of at least one throne.

The Team Player

The Team Player may have shared the womb with an attached twin at some point in their gestation because this person does not understand that whatever is yours is not actually theirs. Like the ERW, the Team Player sees no qualms in the other-seat-lean. Despite a properly working television set, they find yours more interesting, and if you’re reading a book they’re trying to skim the pages right along with you. If you glare at the TP they will stare right back. And 9 times out of 10, they smell like cottage cheese.

Paranoid Pete

A colonial woman on the wing of the plane is the least of this guy’s worries. He is freaking out, forgot his Xanex, and mark his words: you’re going down with him.

The Baby

But not the cute baby. Not the napping baby who wakes up to coo and smile then falls back into a lactose coma. No. The one with an ear infection and a devil possession and a dirty diaper and two parents who are just like, “Chill, man. You were a baby once too.” False. I was an angel, whereas that thing you’ve swaddled in too many blankets is 100% a shouting alien.

The Child

The Child may actually be worse than The Baby if you’re easily irritated as opposed to just hyper noise-sensitive. The Child is creepy. It stares at you menacingly through the partition of the two seats in front of you, and smiles like Chuckie and whispers shit like, “You’re next.” It kicks chairs and constantly reclines into your lap, and eats stupid snacks like Yogurt Chips and Cheddar Bunnies. When I was a kid, we ate Oreos, and we weren’t allowed on airplanes until we knew how to fly them ourselves.

The Stoic Sitter

Paranoid Pete should never, ever sit next to the Stoic Sitter because she boards the plane with a Chapstick and a smile then doesn’t move for the rest of the ride. Where is her purse? Where is her book? Where is her OK! magazine or her iPod or her friends? What is going on inside the Stoic Sitter’s mind that enables her to sit still for four hours and do not a SINGLE THING? Has she peed yet? Is she meditating? Is she sleeping with her eyes open? Is she…dead? Like Angelica Pickles used to tell Tommy and co: if you have to ask, you’ll never know.

iWork at Google Guy

This dude has too many things to do that require a charger. He has an iPad. He has an iPod. He has an iPhone, a vintage MP3 player, a Google phone, a Blackberry, a Kindle and a Droid. Despite your inability to get in-air wifi, he has been tweeting the whole time from his personal hot spot, has posted three pictures to Instagram and checked in “Over Hawaii.” If the plane goes down due to an issue of mechanic miscommunication, there is a 47% chance it is his fault.

Activity Annie

Activity Annie will not leave you alone. But it’s not on purpose — she’s studying. She’s highlighting. Then she puts her textbook away and now she’s writing. Now she’s texting! And now she’s back in her bag, rummaging through her purse, looking for headphones and then suddenly it’s time for a walk! After 20 minutes, Activity Annie gets antsy, which is when she turns to you and — against your will — tells you all about her breakup. Pay attention. There will be a quiz upon landing.

In the event you’re counting, yes, you clocked that right: This was actually eleven. Eleven of the people you might meet on a plane. And we bet there are plenty more that languish above your ocean, so, go on.

Jokes to Steal

DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS? Friday, Hannah Montanas. It’s Friday.

It’s also August 1. The first day of August. Augusto if you like a flourish. Augusté if you’re like the Yeswayrosé ladies and like to put an E-hat on everything. Augusta if you’re in Georgia. Acca-gust if you’re obsessed with Pitch Perfect. Auguwhat if you’re like WHAT THE FRANK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT AMELIA?

I’m talking about the fact that I would never, ever, let you guys head into a weekend empty handed without a few jokes to blow into the faces of whomever you’re conversing with at this weekend’s pool party or cool jarty. But this comes with a warning: I stole these punchlines off Twitter. So we’re going to have to get creative here to avoid the dreaded “…I’ve heard that before.”

One time, for example, my friend Jess was engaged in a rap battle at a bar. Her go-to battle-move was to spit ALL of the lyrics from P. Diddy’s “Bad Boys for Life.” Since most people don’t know the full song by heart, Jess usually got away with this. But on a fateful Thursday at our college brewsky haunt, dear Jessica met her match when her opponent said, “…I’ve heard that before.”

She lost, and therefore we lost.

Guys, I will not let you lose. The key is to work the joke, or punchline, or funny thought into whatever convo the crew is currently having. Just drop it in nonchalantly, then stand back. If someone says, “Hey I’ve heard that…” just laugh really loudly and throw their phone in the pool.

Ready?

If you’re standing in a circle of people discussing politics, guide the conversation to Harry Potter and the evils of Voldemort. Then say:

Looking back at it now, some of the things Lord Voldemort did were actually quite hurtful — Bridger Winegar (@bridger_w) July 14, 2014

When you inevitably scream at the site of a bee near your face and some asshole is like, “Calm down that bee is more afraid of you than you are of it,” respond:

When I hear animals are more afraid of me than I am of them, I’m like, OK animals, last time I checked, it wasn’t a competition — Bridger Winegar (@bridger_w) July 3, 2014

If some douche wants to compare arm tans and you’re too busy to be bothered, tell them:

Band-Aids have a better tan than I do. — Doug Cooper (@thedougbag) June 24, 2014

(Compare THAT, Tina.) Now here’s one that’s more of an activity than a joke!

A fun game is to write “it looks like a potato” on every photo of a baby your friends post. — Doug Cooper (@thedougbag) January 23, 2013

And I think that if you’re on a date, you should just randomly blurt out this:

Sometimes I like to scream at the birds outside my window while I eat a bucket of chicken so that they know they are not safe. — Doug Cooper (@thedougbag) January 19, 2013

Finally, the next time you suggest filling up a kiddie pool with lemonade from the beverage isle while still at Walmart and someone says, “But we have to drive 5 hours at least to get to the nearest place that even has the suffix ‘mart’ in its name,” scream this:

Don’t even fucking talk to me if you can’t have summertime fun on a budget — Brendan O’Hare (@brendohare) July 12, 2014

And that, my friends, is how you do a weekend. Now can you please give me some new Twitter accounts to read? These 3 guys above just filed restraining orders on me.

Feature Image shot by Matt Irwin for style.com

Easy Approximations

The paradox of summer ease is in how difficult it becomes to remove yourself from the black hole that is comfort.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I understand that comfort can be a tremendous thing in that it can, if prompted to, remove pain from an equation or make you feel safe when nothing else does. On the other hand, though, it can also propel laziness and you know what laziness propels? Atrophied limbs on the one hand and bad outfits — or worse, passive outfits — on the other.

I’ve been doing that thing I tell you about approximately every three months where I stare into a full closet and state the inevitable if not entirely false: I have nothing to wear.

At this point, I will typically revert back to wearing what lackadaisically makes me feel the most like myself, which is often some version of a striped shirt with denim bottom. But what’s been interesting about this most recent tango with the trivial, unfounded lament is that instead of combining reliable looks that I may, though more likely may not have at some past point combined, I’ve been relying on copying myself and re-wearing two or three YOLO-dressing style outfits that I’ve previously put together, verbatim.

So, what gives? Is my mind is so indolent that I can’t move past knocking myself off, or do my limbs just feel too tired to move past the “recently used” section of my closet? Either way, I blame laziness and believe it must stop — life is too short to leave a closet full of goods pristinely folded and unworn. Should you, too, find yourself falling victim to the same cycle, I say that together we use the above five outfits to cull tips and get the wheels of our closets in motion and bounces back in our steps (or, you know, hair).

From outfit #1, tip #1: Forgo blue denim and consider white denim. Pair it with meme-non-colored sneakers.

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Outfit #2, tip #2: Participate in the aftermath of Spring’s plunging neckline trend. That and, why don’t I ever try slicking my hair back tight and complimenting it with funky sunglasses for funky women in North America?

Outfit #3, tip #3: Do not think I am above Birkenstocks just because they are au courant. By combining them with a purse so fancy it is almost alienating, they are elevated. By tying a scarf around my ankle, they’re no longer just another pair of Birkenstocks. The handbag also becomes vaguely more approachable as a result of said ‘stocks and the easy dress buffering the disconnect serves as a welcome reprieve.

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Outfit #4, tip #4: Part a) wear a damn sarong around New York, Leandra! Part b) combine navy with white and don’t let your mind trick you into thinking you look like the kind of sailor Amelia aims to marry.

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Outfit #5, tip #5: Tie a shirt around your waist but don’t wear pants so that the anterior shirt kind of looks like a skirt. Also, ballet flats, man. They’re so back.

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What Makes Someone a Fashion Icon?

In response to the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exhibit featuring “iconic” Beyoncé costumes, New York Times critic Vanessa Friedman argues that although Beyoncé may be a pop culture icon, she doesn’t actually merit the title of “fashion icon.”

Friedman admits that at first this may seem like a “blasphemous” statement. NO ONE challenges the Beygency — she should sleep with one eye open from now on. But as much as you may want to disagree with her, Friedman does make some interesting points. She goes on to say that Beyoncé lacks CFDA accolades (unlike Rihanna), she has yet to “spark” any trends and the products she endorses (which are few) don’t fly off shelves. Furthermore, her own brand, House of Deréon, is practically defunct.

The Cut‘s rebuttal: “Why Would Fashion’s Biggest Critic Slam Beyoncé?” points out that Beyoncé has, in fact, had commercial fashion success, and the “freakum dress” should never be forgotten. I would also add that I have a burning desire for a “NO ANGEL” sweatshirt from the Beyoncé shop. At the end of the day, while she may not be a fashion “icon” per se, Beyoncé has no doubt projected a strong, admirable sense of style.

Before taking any sides though, we first have to ask what makes someone a style icon? The Cut posits:

The definition of “fashion icon” should stop being so narrow and as inaccessible as it is these days. It should be about more than just wearing the most avant-garde or fresh-off-the-runway looks. 

We agree that the term “fashion icon” should extend beyond the realm of celebrity. It is important to remember that at its root, the word “icon”  refers to the representation of a common symbol. Reverence is implied, but if someone’s style embodies any cultural zeitgeist, then they can be considered an icon.

That being said, amazing personal style doesn’t automatically make your next door neighbor an “icon,” since he/she isn’t publicly known. (Unless, of course, your neighbor is Jenna Lyons.)

While celebrities make a conscious effort to shape our culture, it is also possible to be what we call an “accidental” style icon: someone whose personal style is effortlessly enviable. Take someone like Amelia Earhart, whose style remains iconic, yet she had other things on her mind besides getting dressed in the morning. Gloria Steinem is another perfect example.

Contemporary fashion icons are a different breed though — social media and the Internet make it much easier to have just 15 minutes of icon fame. And behind every celebrity is a celebrity stylist, so is it possible to be a truly authentic style icon anymore?

The same way that the rise of secularism birthed an alternative to iconographic art, one could argue that the elite title of fashion icon faces the same fate. Do we really invest emotionally in icons anymore? Do we need them? If Beyoncé — the untouchable demigodess of popular culture — is subject to a deposition of icon status, then perhaps there’s room in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for us mere mortals.

Image via the New York Times