How Victoria's Secret Saved Me $9,000+, and Then Some...

In typical female fashion, I have my insecurities. Luckily for me, I'm pretty confident [sometimes to a fault. I read a Chester French interview once where they said something along the lines of "When you're this arrogant, you're always disappointed because you always think you deserve something more."] Sometimes my curtain of vanity does fall however and I do feel self-consciuous about my flaws.

Now, I'm not on Heidi-Montag's level, but I do think if you have a part of you that's actually preventing you from being happy, and modern medicine now allows us to fix it, then why not? I personally spent many of my teenage years drooling over perfect breasts. This is probably a combination of various factors... my fascination with magazines, expose of women in the media, evergrowing size of what's an average cup, and attending a high school where a new rack was a perfectly acceptable Sweet 16 gift. [Unless, of course, your parents sucked and made you wait for graduation. Oh, the woes of prep school.]

I think, thankfully, I grew out of this phase-also because of various factors. I never realized this because I'm so young, but as you get older, the amount of things which exist to fake having the perfect body are really... well, I can't even describe their extent. There's a product for everyone, underwear that'll make you drop a couple of dress sizes for women, undershirts that will make your manboobs look like poster-worthy pecs for men. Lotions, dyes, remedies for any possible ailment, and a few more to prevent any which may surface. You name it, it'll be fixed.

I guess for two main reasons I got over my desire to go under the knife and come out a few cups bigger. One- I can pay a much smaller fraction of the cost of surgery, suffer zero pain, and not make permanent changes. Two- If I, or you, or anyone, keeps up with the standards, you'll never win. And it's so easy to fake it nowadays. I find it terrifying personally, but Victoria's Secret makes a bra that will instantly make you 2 entire cup sizes bigger. Doing too much? I think so. Personally I can suffice with less: I am in love and content with the Pink Push-Up... Is this is some small way fashion > medicine? I am so telling my sister, the pre-medder, the smart one of the family. Take that (;

Guilty pleasure, so girly and dumb and fun and I just ♥ it.

GaGa's male alter ego, Jo Calderone.

You left me Speechless.

Kudi and Kanye song, I really dig it.

Just some radom things I'm throwing in 'cause they blew my mind today.
Unfortunately I'm going to be a Twihard wannabe in a few hours, wish me luck.
♥ Lini.

Export me.

Before anything, I would like to say I know this layout looks dumb. I will fix it. Eventually, when I figure out how & have access to faster internet & my darling Mac.

Maybe it's those legs of those soccer players, but something about the World Cup makes me antsy to go back to Europe. Or, maybe it's because it's Pizza Friday, some tradition some boys in my life have created which is really just an excuse to consume massive amounts of pizza midafternoon on, well, Fridays obviously. Either way, take me back, allora! S'il vous plait! Gracias.

Rich in history and taste? I'm sold.

mmmm, Nutella.

This seriously is perfection. I am sadly not a simple girl, though at times I was. Spumante, prosecco, moscato, champagne... anything bubbly, sparkly, glittery, I gotta have it.

Talenti Gelato, in Country Peach Chapagne Sorbet.

This will fix your face. I can't put it any other way. It just makes everything better! I just bought one this past week, and I love it. Worth the price, they had to export the clay from Italia after all!
Umbrian Clay Treatment Bar from Fresh Cosmetics.

I miss Milano & Europe so bad, every single day.

♥ Lini.

Seeing Double

My sister and I occasionally enjoy mocking people who publish confessions on Twitter. She does it more so because they're admitting them online, I generally laugh because I cannot believe some of the things I'm reading. [I particularly enjoy reading confessions from people I personally know, and I personally know are 100% lying!] But, alas, I'm gonna pay it forward here and make a confession of my own.
I guess I like to think of myself as a quasi-design advocate. I think organizations like Save the Garment Center are really important and protect the integrity of not only hard working people, but of design itself. People always tell me "Oh, the good thing about fashion as an industry is it never dies. People will shop no matter what!" See, that's almost a problem. Quality > quantity. We don't really need to shop as much as we do, but should rather invest in higher quality.

Being a "sell-out" is generally viewed as a bad thing. You ditch your friends? Sell out. You changed who you were for money? Sell out. I think mainstream fashion is just selling out. It's cheap and excessive. It buying into trends that are mostly fleeting rather than discovering your own personal style and building upon it. Clothing isn't disposable, or at least it shouldn't be.

Here comes the part where I admit something. I can go on and on all day about this distaste I have for mainstream "fashion" consumerism. So can anyone who claims to hate sell outs. But you know in the end, you give in a little. And how can't you? At least with fashion, sometimes I have no choice but taking the easy way out. So, here I sit. Telling you that I drooled over the above Burberry twisted leather sandals, $795 price tag and all. I also happen to sit here typing this at my unpaid internship [shhhhh!]. As much as I'd love to fling my money across the pond to Mr. Christopher Bailey, I simply haven't got any to do so!

[Side note: I have no idea if Christopher Bailey designs the shoes at Burberry or not, forgive me if I'm mistaken.]

I instead bought these. My pair is the indentical color as the above. My sister went and bought the same ones, much to my dismay. The cost for mine? $25. I have yet to wear them, shall I blame lack of occasion or guilt?

My guilt lies not in people buying less expensive things- so hear me out. Believe me, I understand designer prices are not exactly affordable. But they charge that much because they are artists. If these other companies want to sell cheaper products, go ahead. But they should design the cheaper products themselves instead of blatantly plagarizing. And no, this is not my opinion. Law suits have been filed, just saying.

One's Diane Von Furstenberg, the other... well I won't name names, but really?

Lust Item:

La Perla 2008 Limited Edition bra.

This is trimmed in 14 carat gold.

Not exactly practical, but painfully gorgeous.

I like my money where I can see it...hanging in my closet.

SJP.

♥ Lini.

What's a picture worth again?

So, so adorable.

& forever.

I read a lot, and I can't say it's all very good or useful. When I read anything online, I especially cannot say it's good, useful, or true. For example, I read a very serious article claiming beauty trends next year would showcase the makeup depicted above and drawn-on unibrows for women. I've spared you all the photographic evidence of the latter. So, essentially, I read with caution because as fun as those painted lips look, I refuse to accept they're going to become a trend. I don't really think they're going to become a runway trend, and editorial trend, an anything trend. I think I will never see these lips again. But hey, I could be wrong.

In my readings I came upon an article with a title along the lines of "How Twitter is Making Us Better and Happier People". I had to read this because 1. I really don't understand the novelty of Twitter to the extent everyone else seems to & 2. I'm addicted to reading articles with outlandish claims. What can I say, I'm just a product of my generation.

I expected to find the contents as implausible as women willingly donning monobrows, but I was actually surprised. The basic point which I took from it was by reaching out on Twitter and other social networks, we're able to make light of situations which would normally stress us out. By me tweeting "Omfg. My family is getting so damn annoying. Cannot WAIT to move out!" and having people tweet back at me, suddenly an aggravating situation has become a topic of conversation. Or, you could say "Just got laid off, but fuck it, who wants to go celebrate not having to wake up early and make that awful commute anymore!!" And suddenly you have amazing plans for your evening, people who are also unemployed reaching out to you, and a newsfeed of things to occupy your now jobless self with. It's like suffering is the key to popularity because the more outrageous your life is going, the better tweets you'll have, and the more attention you'll get, and the happier you'll be! I'm not sure if I'd consider this the key to true joy in life, but it's something, no? Even the word tweet sounds cute!

Maybe it's merely justifying how much time we spend online, or how much of our lives we broadcast to the world... Typing away the events of our day and hitting enter so our "followers" can keep up with our every more. Maybe Twitter just wants us to believe we're being benefitted. Whatever it is, I never really thought of social networking sites as the secret to anyone's happiness.

I apologize for how sloppy these entries are sounding lately. I am just so tired, I feel old. Twitter should work on figuring out the secret to enternal youth next, like really.

On that note, I love the Uffie/Pharell video for ADD SUV. Check it out, one of her best songs in my opinion.

♥ Lini.

Primary Reasons

I'm feeling blue.

But seeing red.

They call me mellow yellow, quite rightly.

Dresses from Resort 2011.

1. Hanii Y texture + royal blue = such luxury.

2. Stella McCartney, the construction in the back is beautiful.

3. Balenciaga should really consider sponsoring my shoe collection. I love everything they put on feet.

Resort is such an awesome season. It was basically created for women to buy tropical clothes in the middle of the winter and fly off to exotic locations. So, it's just a completely made up, completely unnecessary, and completely fabulous season. Spring and Resort things are always my favorites.

Nothing new, but since this weekend I can't get the A-trak remix of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Heads Will Roll out of my head. As a side note, Orlando is sort of an awesome city. I ignorantly thought it was just theme park central and a college town, but if you know where to look.. aka Downtown in certain spots, it's an awesome time.

♥ Lini.

On the Other Side

Girl crush, always & forever. No one let me cut my hair like this and now it's getting played.

I had no idea so many people wore clothing made out of latex... Like a lot of people. I find it a little bizarre. I only know this thanks to some research on GaGa's god-awful Alejandro video. Like really, other than when she ate the rosary I didn't like it at all. She is trying too hard to make "art". And it makes real art look flimsy. I need her to win me back again because I want to love her again. I really did love her, sigh.

I cannot talk about how perfect this is.


One guess as to why this might be even more perfect.
A cool designer who I don't know that well made this, feel free to check it.

I had a bunch of stuff to say but I feel le tired.
I'll try and keep it short, for all our sakes.

At my internship, I sit for a large part of the day at my desk. Across from me sits the other intern, so naturally we talk a lot. I mean, we're there for hours. Plus we're females. So anyway, I think I've finally begun to see both sides of so many general life situations, whereas I previously only saw my own. I think this is a result of her stories and just me growing up/getting older I suppose. For example, she'd talk about how frustrated she'd get when the guy she was seeing previously wouldn't text her, call her, or just ignore her in general...but they'd get along so well in person, it made very little sense. I can relate. Then, a few days later after thinking about this she realized she had been doing the same thing to the guy who liked her currently. Not because she didn't care. Not because she was even ignoring him. He just didn't fit the way the guy did before. He was cuter, nicer, smarter... all of the above. And she really does care. But for some reason she couldn't really put the effort into it. Yet, I can relate to that too and they're opposite attitudes.

I have had so many people frustrate me. Hasn't everyone? Not just guys, but people in general. Employers who don't answer phone calls or emails. School partners on a project who don't work as hard as I do. Little actions and tasks that just make me angry because I know I would have handled them better had I been in charge of taking care of excecuting them. But, to be honest, aren't we all guilty of playing both sides? Obviously if I'm being frustrated, someone's frustrating me. At one point however, that person has been frustrated by someone else. And I'm no saint myself. I've ignored calls. I've ignored emails. I've never slacked off on projects that affect other people, but that's just me.

It's just easy to get frustrated, but it must be so much easier to do the frustrating since we're all victims of it constantly.

Karma is a bitch, I pray to God she always haunts you.
-Gym Class Heroes

*I'm not condoning this, I just think it seems to happen a lot.
♥ Lini.

ps: I ♥ this song. I'm not sure how I feel about B.o.B yet, but this is contagious, thanks Pepper for contaminating me!

Tell Me Lies

It's coming! I'm sad I work during some of the games but all is well. I really like this poster a lovely friend of mine saw in a NYC subway and took a picture of for me. Usually people are taking pictures of Sriracha or articles on vajazzling and deciding I need them for my collection, so this was a nice change.

Not that I don't love Sriracha or the fact that vajazzling is actually real.

I can't stop thinking about corruption. Not on a huge massive scale, but more in the vein that I think every industry has it's little tricks. I had a professor, probably one of the best I ever had, tell our classe some stories about things happening in the fashion industry.

You know how sometimes you'll look in catalogs or online and then get something and it arrives... and it's really not at all what you were shown? Well, that's because it's literally really not at all what you were shown. She told us often they're still making samples when it comes time to do all the publicity for a season, so they'll actually photograph an entirely different product because theur finished one isn't done being made yet. Once she left a shoot, walked down the street, bought a pair of pants resembling the ones being made, and gave them to the model to wear. And those pants from a completely different store, brand, designer, etc. were marketed as theirs.

I don't know if anyone else finds this unnerving, but I really do. That's just one small example, and I'll always remember it because it was the first story like this I heard from someone who really knew what went on the inside. And, that's just fashion. What do doctors secretly do? Or bankers? Or people who make your food? [I've seen Waiting, and I've been a high school student in America, I actually know way too much about what people do with your food, nevermind.]

How much of what we're shown is actually real? When politicians write letters or post words of wisdom on their websites, do they even proofread what "they're" saying? Who actually writes these things? I mean, maybe they really do. Maybe it's some intern or secretary. If so, I really want to meet these interns or secretaries. Of all the industries in the world, and all their tricks, the one I wonder most about is the government. If you're out there, I'll tell you all the fashion horror stories in the world. Just tell me what's real, what's not, and who Michelle Obama's personal trainer is.

And I love these things today:

1. Leather & Linen together. Why don't people use this more? It breaks up how heavy leather is, and looks super nice in lighter colors. This vest looked much nicer in person, but here's an idea. Also, because Intermix likes to break my heart, I'm in love with this dress and the detailing around the armholes and neck.

2. I want to live in this video.

3. New York Magazine > Style.com for runway pictures. Sort of. More designers, and really incredible ones.

C'est tout!

♥ Lini.

Soul Pop, Wonky Pop, Soda Pop

Passion Pit playing in Bristol.

Passion Pit playing with Bright things.

[Before I start my rant of the hour, I would just like to say the internet really weirds me out. Today more than usual. I have to do a lot of research for my internship online, whereas prior to this I would pretty much just prowl the world wide web for things I personally enjoyed. Blogging culture, I must say, is much more fascinating and much more gigantic than I could have ever imagined. You really have no idea who is reading what you're saying, or how they feel about what you write. I found myself thinking "Wow, this person is really ignorant!" on multiple occasions. Then I remembered I blog myself, woops. I won't delude myself into thinking a billion people read this, but I honestly have very little idea who does and I wonder if they ever think I'm really ignorant.]

That's beside the point though, just a thought.

Next week I'm going to Orlando to go see a Passion Pit show. Yes, I know they're playing in Miami. I don't know why we're going 300+ miles away when they're going to be in my backyard, but it's fine, I don't ask these music junkie friends of mine questions when they take me places. I told another friend about this intended trip, much to his aggravation. He says that whole music scene is just "soul pop", mindless, silly, and bouncy. I really don't understand where he got this term from, I just know he fervently hates everything of the sort and finds it aggravating to listen to.

Sleepyhead by Passion Pit. [Watch the video, it's awesome.] And here's a full playlist.

I personally, and obviously, find Passion Pit and all "soul pop" enjoyable to listen to. I actually find pretty much everything enjoyable to listen to, which is why I hate when people say things like "Oh, I love everything but country." Or, "Weezy allll day, erry day."

1. I bet there's a few country songs every single person likes. At least one. Don't hate. Country artists do sing about things other than pumpkin pie and pickup trucks.
2. I can jam to No Ceilings too, but there is more to life than Young Money and Lil Wayne, believe me. I watched his VH1 behind the music, I was impressed. But I'm also impressed by things like Mount Rushmore, surgeons, and a million other underrated things people seem to forget about while they're too busy taking champagne showers in the club while Nicki Minaj wears something surprisingly fashionable yet obscene in the background [I promise that wasn't sarcastic, I love this song.]

But anyway. My point is people spend so much time stuck within a genre of music or assuming they hate other ones. You shut yourself off to so much that way. You could, no- you are missing out.

I've gone through so many phases with music, I think I've literally been intensely infatuated with about fifteen completely different kinds at some point or another. And, even when I find stuff I like, I'll still listen to anything new.

Someone said to me once he doesn't really understand where all this music rivalry and hate comes from. As a metal/screamo fan himself, he said he went through a rap phase before finding out he preferred the scene he's currently into. Through listening to both these types of music he realized everyone's really saying the same thing. It's love, it's hate, it's money, it's problems, it's sex, it's whatever. What are songs about? What is art about, really? There's common themes which will always be expressed that all of humanity shares. Whether someone growls it alongside a distorted guitar or moans it through a synth, aren't they really saying the same thing? I love covers by really random people who do songs you'd never expect them to. Like that one. I love them because I love when people mix things around and explore things outside their field. Everyone's about street cred in some way or another, not wanting to seem uncool. For some uncool is country, or for others "soul pop", or for a few hip-hop is just offensive. Thankfully nowadays it seems you could remain successfully within your genre and still work outside it, so hopefully the uncool stigma will fade out slightly.

Everything's about fusion nowadays. You can get steak at a sushi bar, then eat it off some girl while drinking a mojito and this is considered really trendy. Kanye West blogged about Passion Pit, and I'm pretty sure he isn't a "soul pop" artist. You can branch outside your comfort zone and find something different, even if it's one song or artist you like. I promise they're a human too. Like you, they eat, breathe, drink, and sleep and I guarantee at some point you've shared common experiences in life you could probably relate to in their music. Listen and you might hear it.

Lastly, everyone cheer for the Flyers in the Stanley Cup because I'm not trying to lose a really dumb bet I made. Woops, part two in this post.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.

Mr. Marley

♥ Lini.