à l'allure garçonnière

à l'allure garçonnière is moving.

2011-01-25T20:39:00.008-05:00

one of the main reasons i started this blog was to start conversations. i know i'm not alone in finding that fairly difficult to do here on blogspot with the way the comments are arranged. for that and many other reasons, i have officially moved to wordpress.

update your bookmarks!
change your links!
alagarconniere.wordpress.com

i'll be keeping all my old content up here for archival purposes. from now on, all new content can be found here.

the fat body (in)visible: documentary

2010-12-14T13:06:00.003-05:00

fat body (in)visible from Margitte Kristjansson on Vimeo.

found via definatalie. wow! i just watched this and really enjoyed it. it is a documentary focusing mainly on two fat acceptance fashion bloggers, jessica and keena, and their complicated relationship with being visible or invisible. it is worth watching whether or not you are fat, or know much about fashion blogging. if you're interested in body politics and fashion, it is a real treat.

what really resonated with me is when @9:08 jessica speaks about how her visibility and feeling present is intrisically linked with when she decided to let herself wear "everything i ever wanted to wear." i don't know about you guys, but i can really relate to that. i've written a bit about it before, but that moment you experience (esp. as a young woman) when you look in the mirror and see something you want to see? really revolutionary. especially given the fact that often times, you're seeing what's always been there in the first place, but framed in a way you chose and that you love. whether it be a ratty vintage t-shirt, a super high femme glittery tube top, or a 3-piece suit, you chose to put it on your body and you know you look damn fine.

"In allowing myself to dress the way I've always wanted to but never allowed myself when I was hating my body, I make myself very present for other people." - Jessica

both jessica and keena acknowledge that visibility comes with its ups and downs, but ultimately what i think makes this documentary work is that it isn't a sob story. it is important to acknowledge that fat bodies are hated, but i think it is equally important to acknowledge the great empowering work badass people like jessica, keena, and tons of other fat bloggers and fat acceptance activists are doing and have done.

"There's a lot always what fat girls wear, what fat girls wear, but not a lot on what girls think in relation to what they wear." - Jessica

i'm just putting that quote out there for further writing inspiration. lately i've been talking with some friends online about what fashion blogging has become (or been reduced to?) and about our varying levels of frustration. i think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we are encouraged to look, and to buy... but much more rarely encouraged to think about fashion critically, let alone talk and write about it. are fashion blogs just virtual closets, or can they be something more? that's a whole other discussion, though, but one i would like to have some time soon. i'm really glad jessica pointed it out though.

i could go on and on but i will stop there! take 20 minutes out of your day and enjoy this documentary.

FURTHER READING:
Riots Not Diets (documentary maker)
The Adipositivity Project
Tangled up in lace: the highs and lows of modern femininity (Jessica's blog)
Tangled up in lace (Jessica's tumblr)
Keena's Closet (Keena's blog)
Buttah Love (Keena's tumblr)

More Fatosphere Goodies
Shapely Prose
Fat Acceptance and Feminism (Again) at BFD
The F Word
Big Fat Deal
Bea Sweet
Obesity Time bomb
Unapologetically Fat

movember

2010-11-16T09:13:00.002-05:00

photo by ben currie

my mind is racing these days, a mile a minute. i've been working on quite a few in depth critical posts... but never seem to find the time to finish them off. in the meantime, i think you wonderful readers deserve some eye candy. one of the posts i am working on is a critical analysis of movember, and the gendering of cancer awareness campaigns. i'm hoping to finish it before the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!

but before then, here are some of my best moustaches:

robert de montesquieu served as inspiration for me, posing with the dread pirate roberts
april 2008

with the bearded lady <3 in 2007

the strongman

my very first time doing drag, 2005. please note the chest hair. this is my "lucien" persona.

clearly i do not do drag NEARLY often enough.

what i wore: leaves know they're ending, celebrate their end

2010-11-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

ah, the fall! so beautiful, and quickly coming to an end. i must post these pictures before the snow starts to fall! i don't know about where you guys are, but almost all of our leaves have fallen now here in beautiful québec city. early october is always peak season in ontario and quebec, and i had the chance to enjoy the beautiful colours when visiting my family for thanksgiving/indigenous day of resistance weekend at the beginning of the month.

this is my younger sister's wonderful dog, aspen. she is potentially my favourite four-legged creature on the entire planet, not gonna lie. look at my big goofy smile! how can you not love this dog?

and how can you not love the beautiful fall leaves?

if you're interested in that kind of thing...
dress: 1950s cotton day dress, vintage clothing fair in ottawa circa 2007 i believe?
crinoline underskirt: thrifted
necklace: key from the ste. foy flea market, 2$, chain thrifted ages ago
belt: from le vestiaire, free
oxblood heels: gift from my mother, naturalizer
goofy smile: thanks to my awesome sisters and an adorable puppy.

so with that out of the way, we can talk about more interesting things.

the folk festival de québec is in full swing as of tuesday and i am filled with musical love and lust. anne-marie, simon and i went to see ferriswheel and timber timbre, which was so lovely. timber timbre's music is always so perfect around this time of year, and it's always a treat to hear it live. there are so many shows i'd love to have time to check out, but my time and my pocketbook unfortunately will not permit such things. i do think i'll have to go see lisa bozikovic, though.

this beautiful song, no denial, is about the death of her mother, and features some of the most beautiful lyrics.

brilliant gold, crimson red/ the leaves know they're ending/and celebrate their end

i don't think i've ever heard a more beautiful metaphor for death.

thoughts: the feminist fashion blogosphere

2010-11-10T09:40:00.004-05:00

art by julia pott

lately i've been thinking long and hard about how and why i blog. this is mainly due to some major changes in my life that came about this fall. due to the fact that i've been working full-time for the past month now, beginning renovations in my apartment (inspiration tumblr here), on top of all the normal things life throws at you, i've found my "free" time in short shrift these days. i've had to give up volunteering at the thrift store around the corner after a year of doing so, and really have to focus on how to manage that "free" time. as of this fall, i've decided to let my etsy store close up quietly, letting the listings expire without any kerfuffle or big sale or anything. i've been changing little habits here and there in an attempt to cut back on bad time wasting habits, and have been constantly trying to remind myself what situations are not worth my time. there are simply not enough hours in the day.

"Rheinmetall / Victoria 8" by Rodney Graham. 2003, (Detail) 35-mm Film

but one thing i simply can't put aside, however, is my writing. i've decided, over the past few weeks, that i absolutely must find a way to radical restructure the way i spend my time so that i can write. having a partner who is a part-time poet helps; suggestions of putting aside x amount of time a week to sit down with a cup of tea and setting (realistic) deadlines for myself have been much appreciated. coming from someone who has published a few books, i'm hoping these changes work for me too. i know my biggest problem is that i simply try to juggle too many things all at once: my friendships, my photography, my love of vegan recipes, affection for vintage clothing, passion for my politics, and then coming in last and sadly often least, my writing (about those aforementioned things).

i love writing. i have a huge passion for trying to express my (often overly complicated and elaborate) ideas in an accessible, online space, which is why this blog is here. but the thing is, i don't do enough of it and don't have the time to do my ideas justice. right now, i have 39 files in my "drafts" folder for this blog. THIRTY-NINE. i tend to feel so overwhelmed about where i should even begin, trying to write for a bit, feel anxious and get no joy out of it, and then i end up not writing anything at all. no good. however, last week at work, i sat at an absent co-workers desk (whose work i greatly admire) and saw this quote taped to her computer monitor:

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

those soothing words of reason come from William Zinsser (who, ironically, i have never read). this is something very few people remind me of and that i need to remind myself of more often. writing is work. it is valuable, but it is also difficult. lots of people in my "real" life view my blogging (whether it be the more personal stuff, the absurd stuff, or the very public stuff that you are reading here) as optional and relatively unimportant, and definitely not as what one would qualify as work. and as an anarchist, this is something i struggle with: the search for redemption in the very classic 9 to 5 grind (which, might i add, when you are a journalist feels more like a 24/7 grind) is an endless one simply because it does not exist. it all depends on how and why you work, in my opinion. in the past, i've been let go/pushed out of jobs because i am an independent worker/thinker, which in the employment world means "issues with authority figures" and "insubordinance."

ni dieu, ni maître (self-portrait) november 2010

here at my blog, and in a lot of my favourite kinds of work, i am the one who calls all the punches which has its advantages (i get all the credit!) and disadvantages (very few people but me see it as actual/valuable work!). writing (and by extension, blogging) is work, and i'm going to try to treat it as such. find satisfaction in it as work, feel satisfaction when i accomplish goals i set for myself... even if they are as small as "post a picture the same month/year you took it."

clearly i've talked about these issues with friends who read blogs and read mine. here is a wise piece of advice from iris:

Re: blogging and real work - it totally is (real work). I think you should do only as much of it as you can handle. I really was feeling like I had to keep track of thousands of things at once, my whole life was being processed through this blog filter, like, I need to write about this! This person would love it if I linked to that! It was tiring and you're right, there is no credit in it. I like the tiger beatdown model of "oh shit it's asking for money time again, pay us or we won't post".

this leads me to another point: lately i've been thinking that the simple act of valuing and viewing critical fashion blogging as "work" in and of itself is a feminist act. a close friend of mine asked me why i call my blog a "feminist fashion blog" because i very rarely talk about feminism/feminist issues. i beg to differ. i could ramble on ad nauseum about why i find this space a feminist one, why if you take any of my articles i could give you reasons why i think they are feminist... but i think most of my readers get the point without me having to spell it out. but again, the blogosphere itself is ripe for criticism. the fact that, yes, "anyone can create/have a blog," does not negate that fact that some blogs are deemed more important, reputable, serious, and worthwhile than others... and that these things are constructed through a gendered, race, class, etc. lens.

think about it for a minute: almost all of the most popular blogs (whether or not we discredit gossip blogs) are written and run by men. most of them write about typically gendered "manly" content, such as business and technology. it would be hard to argue against the fact that when men blog, more people tend to take note and more people take them seriously. pair the fact that most fashion bloggers are women, on top of the fact that fashion is hardly seen as a worthwhile or serious enough topic to merit actual critical thought... and here we have what i think is a perfect formula for dismissing fashion blogs as unimportant and frivolous.

art by j. bee

but i am getting off-topic and wandering into unresearched territory. i am writing about the very politics of writing in this space because even though i might be posting less and less, i don't have any plans of retiring this platform. but! i do feel like my readers aren't getting the attention they deserve. i don't have the time to respond to all of the comments and emails i receive, and do justice to the thoughtful, beautiful, and complicated questions so many of my readers ask me. this does not mean they are not valuable or important; rather it means that the world often spins too fast and the bank account too empty to allow me the time to show you that i care.

i just wanted to very quickly acknowledge the most common inquiry i receive: how do feminists who are interested in fashion marry their politics with their critical minds? i don't have a simple answer to that, other than the fact that it is possible to be a feminist and love fashion (i would just encourage you to love it critically).

as long as women will be judged, by their peers, by their families, and even by a court of law, by how they dress, fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as women are told they are what they wear, what brands they wear, how much money they spend on their clothing, etc....fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as fashion advertisers objectify women in order to sell their clothing and products, fashion will be a feminist issue. and basically every time someone asks me "is x a feminist fashion issue?" the answer tends to be yes.

so in the end, i suppose this post is just a really long-winded thank you to all of those who read what i write, who link to my articles, who leave comments, who send me thoughtful emails and curious questions. it's really wonderful to know there is an audience out there who not only wants to read what i write, but engage with it.

2011 will bring big changes to à l'allure garçonnière, and i hope you will be along for the ride, with all its ups and downs. thanks for being along for the ride.

in the meantime, seeing as i have surprisingly never done this before, here are some of my favourite blogs which present themselves as feminist take on fashion.

threadbared
fashion for writers
good morning midnight
fashion abecedaire
fat fashion feminist: whatever the f i feel like
definatalie
nicolette mason
i feel pretty
worn journal
dapperq

if you have any other suggestions, or feel like your blog fits the bill, feel free to leave them in the comments!

LINKS:
F bombs at Threadbared
Is a Feminist & Queer Interest in Fashion Possible? at Good Morning Midnight
Why I feel guilty when I don't blog at Threadbared
Post Feminist Fashion Guilt (i take issue with the term "post" feminist...)
Retail: It's Complicated (the rise of "fast fashion") at Feministe
Feminist Frequency YouTube channel

halloween 2010: i am not your halloween costume

2010-11-01T13:39:00.000-04:00

feminist hulk's costume sounds pretty awesome.

i'm sick in bed, catching up some reading, in books and online. i've been fighting a cold for about a week now, but decided to get dressed up for halloween simply because i knew i would have regretted it had i stayed in bed. i'll share more pictures of my other costume plus some more ones i took of being the shining twins, but in the meantime i wanted to talk a bit about halloween some more.

i went out to two or three parties over the course of the weekend, and yes, of course, i encountered some truly problematic costumes. i counted a good four white girls in bastardized headdresses and warpaint, and had to share the same space as a stranger dressed as a blackface. to top it off, a party i attended awarded a man wearing a turban as "best costume," and was yelling obnoxiously about being a terrorist the entire time i was there. i felt uncomfortable the entire time, but was too sick and tired to engage with him. so, i left.

and that's what most of us do, i think. we leave. if we feel up to it, we try to challenge these people and at the very least ask them why they chose their costume. if they even notice that they are engaging in race-drag, blackface, etc.

I am a human being.

I am not your Halloween costume.

I am not your party theme.

I am not your mascot.

I am not your costume.

this has been making the rounds on tumblr, originally posted by kkeilhauer. i wish there was more information out there about the context, the people in the photo, where it was taken, etc. but the message behind it is pretty simple and great: other people's cultures are not fair game for halloween costumes, theme parties, etc. the dehumanizing effect these kinds of actions have on actual human beings is something we all too often lose sight of.

sheresists is a really intelligent and amazing activist based in guelph, and she shared her thoughts on racist costumes. on the note of halloween costumes, she argues that these costumes can be worse than culturally appropriative acts.

You’re not just taking one thing (for example, a war bonnet) from another culture, you’re trying to mimic an entire group’s racial identity when you ‘dress up’ as them. These costumes are often borrowed from pre-set stereotypes about what another culture “looks like,” how they dress, and how they act. What people fail to understand is that these stereotypes are not benign. They have real, material effects on people's lives and their ability to move throughout the world. They both reinforce and are embedded in relationships and histories of power.

...When you put on a racist costume (especially sexy ‘ethnic’ costumes like the sexy Asian girl costume), you’re speaking back to histories of colonization and exploitation and you’re reinforcing the ideologies that legitimize violent institutions that abuse and sexually exploit women of colour (though, racist costumes speak to a history of colonizing and othering people of colour in general). Whatever your intentions, by sexualizing a different ethnic group, you are saying that it’s okay to fetishize certain groups of people and you’re reaffirming that they are, in fact sexualized and consumable beings. You may think it’s fun, funny, or even ironic, but you probably haven’t experienced the effects of these stereotypes.

she goes on to describe her experiences with these stereotypes, and it's difficult (but important) to read. unfortunately it's not the first time i've heard stories like hers... and i love that she challenges these actions, wants to move forward, and foster change.

now, i thought long and hard before sharing these thoughts and links. did i really want to hold a magnifying glass to racist halloween costumes? is it even worth my time, or my readers time for that matter, to point out that paris hilton - privilege personified - is wearing a racist costume? and i'm not alone in feeling this way. this year, angry asian man asked his readers to share good costumes, instead of railing about the terrible ones:

every year, I write about all the obnoxious, awful racist Asian-themed costumes that are out there. I'm tired of that. I'd like to write about some of the cool ones.

i'm going to take a page from his book. to end on a happy note, i want to share some costumes that made me smile really big. share your favourites in the comments, too!

seriously baby yoda, you are KILLING me!

janelle monae

Natalie as an Inappropriate Unicorn and her friend Heather as Rosie Ritcher from Scott Pilgrim

Pixel Girl wins points for massive creativity and amazing execution

bra-burning second wavers! radical lesbian separatists

ingrid, a friend of a friend of mine, had the most amazing ursula costume!

so, what did you get dressed up as this year for halloween? what are the best costumes you've seen, in person and online? share links in the comments!

LINKS:
One Woman's Costume is another woman's nightmare by Whitney Teal at Change.org
My thoughts on racist costumes by sheresists
The Halloween fallout begins by Native Appropriations
Offensive or Awesome Halloween costumes? at I Am KoreAm
Why you (or your dog) shouldn't dress up as Antoine Dodson for Halloween at Shameless
Great costumes from angry asian man readers

halloween 2010: the shining

2010-10-30T16:23:00.000-04:00

from the shining (kubrick, 1980)

come play with us

forever

dresses: handmade by annemarie,
made with fabric we got at a flea market for 8$
hair clips: 99 cents
white knee socks: 2/5$
ribbons: from my closet
shoes: ours, changed laces to match

total cost: 14$, 7$ each! pretty sweet.

some other fun costumes from last night:

1980s wrestling champion

cute flapper

homemade! from scratch! stormtrooper costume

also, i wrote a little article over at shameless about problematic halloween costumes. read it here.
i'm going to try out another costume tonight, hopefully it will go over as well as this one did.

happy halloween!

women with glasses: usurping the gaze

2010-10-27T09:42:00.000-04:00

check out my new specs! my mother gave me an early birthday/christmas present: a lovely oxblood pair of burberry glasses. thank goodness, because my last pair were beyond scratched up and my prescription had changed a wee bit. i really enjoyed them but you know how it goes, even the best of glasses don't really last more than two or three years. especially when you are too broke to afford contacts and you have no choice but to wear them day in, day out.

here they are for reference:

in a perfect world, i would be able to find a pair of vintage cateye glasses that comfortable fit me, or would have enough money to splurge on a pair from urban spectacles. i think these would suit me quite nicely:

i do have a pair of vintage frames but with clear lenses, but they are a little broken and a little too small for me. here's a picture from when i first got them in winter 2009:

but this post isn't about me! it's about women who wear glasses in general. it's only recently that i've really started to enjoy wearing glasses 24/7 (well, aside from the time spent sleeping, of course). i have a lot more theoretical ideas about women and glasses but those are thoughts we can flesh out another time. here are some photos of women who wear glasses exquisitely well:

Anaïs Escobar

fashion forestry

The woman who wears glasses constitutes one of the most intense visual clichés of the cinema. The image is a heavily marked condesation of motifs concerned with repressed sexuality, knowledge, visibility and vision, intellectuality, and desire.
The woman with glasses signifies simultaneously intellectuality and undesirability; but the moment the removes her glasses (a moment which, it seems, must almost always be shown and which is itself linked with a certain sensual quality), she is transformed into spectacle, the very picture of desire. Now, it must be remembered that the cliché is a heavily loaded moment of signification, a social knot of meaning. It is characterized by an effect of ease and naturalness. Yet, the cliché has a binding power so strong that it indicates a precise moment of ideological danger or threat — in this case, the woman’s appropriation of the gaze. Glasses worn by a woman in the cinema do not generally signify a deficiency in seeing but an active looking, or even simply the fact of seeing as opposed to being seen. The intellectual woman looks and analyses, and in usurping the gaze she poses a threat to an entire system of representation.

from Mary Ann Doane, “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator”

roxanne aka persephassa. aren't these just wonderful? flashy but understated, i think they go so well with her complexion. you can even get the same pair on ebay! roxanne has pretty much the best taste of anyone ever in the history of the world, so it is unsurprising all of her glasses are magnificent.

the girl from hk, ldn & sf
it was so hard to just pick one picture of her, she has so many lovely frames!

one day you will be mine, perfect cat eye frames that are in my price range.
from framesbaby

glasses porn:
vintage eyeglasses
tiraslee and here
persephassa
retrospecs
urban spectacles
frames baby

inspiration: claude cahun

2010-10-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

happy birthday, claude cahun. cahun was born on this day in 1894.

In many ways, Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world's social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun's participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group's artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity. Her photographs, writings, and general life as an artistic and political revolutionary continue to influence countless artists, namely Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.

i think it's unsurprising that i have a very special place in my heart for claude cahun and their art. the 1920s are definitely one of my favourite eras in terms of film, art, fashion, architecture... pretty much all around aesthetically i find it most dear to me. one of my favourite artists working in that era was claude cahun. the playing with identity, the use of photography, art, and clothing to express those different identities... it always stuck with me.

que me veux-tu? (autoportrait double); claude cahun, 1929.

auto-portrait; claude cahun, 1925

i.o.u. (self-pride); claude cahun, 1929-30

"sous se masque, un autre masque. je n'en finirai pas de soulever tous ses visages."

"under this mask, another. i will never succeed in unearthing all of these faces."

LINKS:
claude cahun on wikipedia
thoughts about bahaus + gender
Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman edited by Shelley Rice
(someone, please buy me this book. three of my favourite people, artists, icons combined in one book!)

LINKS IN FRENCH:
De l'Éros des femmes surréalistes et de Claude Cahun en particulier par Georgiana M. M. Colville
Une héroïne impossible: Claude Cahun par Agnès Lhermitte

currently ooing and awing over: sassyfrass

2010-10-25T13:12:00.000-04:00

while procrastinating on the internet during my lunch break, i stumbled upon a most wonderful thing... how to wear a fanny pack and other gay information: a fashion blog

not only is it a great homo fashion post, i am cited as inspiration/instigation for the post itself! a while back i commented that if i could be anyone's internet sugar mama, i would be jb's. we need to queer up the fashion blogging world!

if you are unaware of the awesomeness that is sassyfrass circus (aka jb) in general, i strongly recommend browsing their official website and/or tumblr. she makes awesome zines and posts about epic bike rides and all around happy times.

here are some of my favourite comics of jb's:

ah, the misguided "fat talk" discussions.

unfortunately this resounded with hundreds of people in the tumblr-sphere. it needs to be said. (for a definition of manarchists, click here)

and other awesome stuff jb makes, like zines and patches and posters for shows:

you can buy some of jb's zines here, if you're interested.

please excuse the brevity of this post seeing as my lunch hour ended... five minutes ago.

sharing the love,

exes and ohs - garconniere

vag magazine: laughing with or at feminists?

2010-10-17T17:54:00.001-04:00

a question i get asked a lot when i mention this blog in conversations with friends and strangers is, "well, what is feminist fashion anyway?" and in some ways, that question is an unanswerable one. i like to think that my take on "feminist fashion" is an analysis of fashion from a critical perspective, trying to see ways in which the fashion industry impacts women involved in all levels, from the people who work in sweatshops to the anna wintour's of the world. but i'll stop myself there: while i'm not quite ready to put down a lot of my ideas in writing, this video piqued my interest and reminded me of why the idea of "feminist fashion" is so interesting:

Vag Magazine Teaser 1 from Vag Magazine on Vimeo.

Vag Magazine Teaser 2 from Vag Magazine on Vimeo.

those are the two teasers for a new web series:

VAG MAGAZINE is not your grandma's feminist magazine, though we support her as a woman. Go behind the scenes at this hipster third-wave feminist magazine with founders FENNEL, SYLVIE, and BETHANY, staffers HEAVY FLO (a hero on the roller derby circuit), REBA (truly a legend of gonzo feminist pop culture journalism), and MEGHAN (the lone holdover from fashion magazine Gemma, which the Vag founders bought out with the proceeds from their Etsy shop), as well as enthusiastic intern KIT, as they teach you how to be a better woman.

This six-part web series stars and was created, written, directed, and produced by comedians from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

even after watching the teasers, and reading this description, the anticipation is killing me. i can't help but wonder... will it be my new favourite thing in the pop culture universe? or just another way of laughing at feminists, another reason why i'll have to defend why i choose to identify as feminist? if you couldn't tell, i feel conflicted. part of me is like "yeah! awesome! great! discussions about feminism's relationship to fashion! and hilarity!" and then another part is like "will this be another liz lemon brand of feminism, about thin able-bodied middle class straight white women who make jokes about how fat they are when in reality they are probably a size 6?" (for the record i do not completely loathe 30 rock, even though based on that statement you may be lead to believe otherwise)

i really like the jokes about what makes something a "feminist" garment, and it's hilarious for me to hear jokes friends of mine have definitely made before, about ourselves, and about other feminist-identified folks. what third-waver hasn't made jokes about hippies playing with moonblood and mocking "sisterhood" and universally supporting other women simply based solely the fact that they are women (insert debates about sarah palin here)? part of the humour fellow feminists and i have shared about this has definitely been a defense mechanism, and as a way of blowing off steam when confronted with shitty attitudes and politics. there is a lot of infighting within any anti-oppressive community, feminism included, but how can we address those problems in effective and healthy ways? one of my favourite ways of addressing fucked up and problematic things in pop culture is with humour.

lately it seems like there is a dearth in feminist humour; sarah haskins' hugely popular target women is now sadly defunct, and its replacement, modern lady, is just not up to snuff. could it be that vag magazine will be a place for feminists to get their laughs? i hope so. that said, there are already some things irking me about it; namely, the fact that the cast is mostly white and pretty high-femme, and that most of the jokes seem to be at the expense of these very "extreme" hyper critical feminists... but! i'll stop myself there. really, i can't judge the entire series after only having seen a whole minute of footage. and maybe i'm just feeling a wee bit hypercritical about the whole thing in general. i'll save my thoughts until i've watched the webisodes, which launch tomorrow, october 18th.

edited to add: twitter informs me that both myself and vag magazine follow feminist hulk, so my hopes are now indeed higher for this interesting looking series.

links:
vag magazine
vag magazine on vimeo
vag magazine on twitter
vag magazine wants to put the funny in feminism

13 ways of looking at liz lemon at tiger beatdown
ableism in 30 rock at deeply problematic

what i wore: apple picking

2010-10-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

one of my absolute favourite things to do when fall rolls around is to go apple picking. so earlier this month when my friends ben and april invited us to head up to l'île d'orléans, a twenty minute drive from québec city, i jumped at the chance! here are a few photos.

the bridge to l'île d'orléans. magnificent to visit in the fall!

the island is full of farms and orchards, and it is a great place for me to get local produce and enjoy the wonderful weather we have around this time of year. this was really wonderful, this orchard was right next to a beautiful old barn. i wish i had snapped some better pictures of the inside, but with the sun so bright and only my little point and shoot, this is all you get.

dress: vintage, thrifted in peterborough, 2007
belt: from le vestiaire, free
shoes: gift from simon, mexico city
socks: deadstock menswear! love 'em.
crinoline underskirt: thrifted

all of these were taken on september 19th, and we just finished our gigantic bag. it took us three weeks to finish our 20 pound bag of apples! we clearly overshot and should have gotten a 10 pound bag. instead we tried lots of new recipes, made apple juices and ciders, adding apples to salads, and of course making lots and lots of desserts like apple crumbles et bien sûr! des tartes tatins. i just simply cannot resist wonderful local fruit at such a good price.

also i don't think i've mentioned it before, but i started a food blog a little while ago. it's called "food i want to eat" and it mostly features recipes i want to try. expect mostly vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and/or raw recipes. check it out if you're interested in recipes.

inspiration: advanced style

2010-10-06T11:42:00.000-04:00

this weekend, i was walking down la rue charest on a sunny afternoon, and an older woman caught my eye. she was a waitress leaning out of a window, speaking with a friend. her hair was bright white, except for a streak of neon pink and a dash of purple. on her left upper forearm, there was a small tattoo of a little unicorn's head in black and white. i was in awe. i find it so incredibly refreshing to see older women not get trapped into those boring "how to dress at 40, 50, and 60" scripts that all too many "women's magazines" promote, but at the same time can you blame those who do subscribe to that ideology?

just by taking a quick look at mainstream fashion magazines, we see that the message is overwhelming the same: you are either dressing too young or dressing too old, especially if you are over the age of 30. since you are no longer simply a sex object (with the assumption being that you are a hot sexual nubile young thing in your teens and twenties, but when you're in your thirties you are either a mother, wife, or career woman, or better yet all three!) then you're not really worth looking at or pandering to. advertisers will try and sell you the idea that if you buy our clothes, you will look as young as our models, you will relive your youth, etc. etc, because aging/being old is so completely horrible.

of course, there are exceptions to this boring sexist ageist script. every once in a while fashion magazines turn the attention on their own, like grace coddington, and the runway history makers like linda evangelista, naomi, and kate. but even while purporting to celebrate women of "all shapes and sizes," we all know this is a joke. even with articles hidden in the back, or one editorial that celebrates an actress or singer who is in her forties, older women are constantly being erased or worse, policed. year round, we see that their covers (think of elle, vogue, allure, etc.) feature almost exclusively women in their late teens and early twenties on their covers. the exception, of course, is made when they publish their "age" issue, which now shows skinny, blonde, white women in their 30s! how revolutionary.

gwyneth paltrow (37), uma thurman (38) and kate moss (34) grace the covers of the vogue "age" issues (age when they were on the cover)

but back to my love for the style of many older women i pass on the street, at thrift stores, at the grocery store. one of the main reasons i believe fashion magazines don't pay attention to older women on a regular basis is because they know most of them simply do not give a shit anymore. clearly this is not universally true, but for the most part i think it is easier for younger women to put all the emphasis on their appearance and to buy into the scripts fashion magazines sell them because they are the target audience. they are being pandered to, they see themselves, or at least someone they could aspire to look and/or dress like all the time so it is easier to buy into those illusions and fantasies. based on what many older women have told me, and the conversations i've had with them about fashion and clothing, you often have a better idea of what you want, like, and need which makes it all the more simple to not give a shit about what a fashion magazine has to say about your choices.

seeing this stylish woman this weekend was not the first time i have loved the style, demeanor, and fashion of a person twice, or perhaps even thrice my age, and it's a question that has been on my mind lately. my friend anne-marie has been expressing frustration at ageism in the fashion and beauty industry. around the same time, jezebel posted about a german magazine called brigitte which recently stopped using professional models, and now often posts the age of the "real" women participating in their photoshoots. last but not least, hellovagina was posting some amazing photos of stylish older ladies on their tumblr.

but honestly? the fashion blogging world isn't much better than the fashion magazine industry when it comes to representing older women. anyone who takes a quick glance at fashion bloggers will see that it is a relatively homogenous group; almost entirely white, mostly female, relatively thin (at least falling into the "straight" size category), able-bodied and young. 14 (including tavi) to about 30 years old, max. there are a lot of factors that could lead to this (it's a new technology, youth-target audience, etc), but i'll leave it at that seeing as this post is not about deconstructing fashion bloggers or even criticizing them. rather, i want to call attention to how, in some ways, the fashion blogosphere has created at least a small space for us to call attention to and celebrate stylish older women.

to cut to the chase, here are some pictures of some particularly stylish and savvy older women.

iris apfel

chantal thomas (loving everything except for the shoes)

lynn yaeger

mimi weddell

some photos from one of my favourite street fashion blogs, hel-looks.

Annikki

maritsa

hel-looks

all from hel-looks

and i even found some from a few of my favourite photographers:

photos by diane arbus

the critic, 1943 by wee gee

even the most recent CocoRosie video indulges my love:

as my wonderful friend iris says, "i don't plan on my twenties being my most fashionable decade."

the wonderful helen mirren.

but before i go, i want to make one thing particularly clear if i haven't already; i want to celebrate older ladies style, not police them. i feel like the only conversations we have about older women and their relationship to fashion is how to look more youthful, how to hide the fact that they are older, etc. but i like to think that most of the women whom i posted photos of are the kind of women who say fuck off to those rules. they are the ones who have gotten to a point where they simply do not give a fuck what a fashion magazine has to say about their choice of clothing, or their bodies, etc.

but don't let me have the final word! who are your favourite stylish older ladies? are your grandmothers particularly stylish? share photos! links!

my three all-time favourite stylish older ladies:

anna piagi

orlan

louise bourgeois

vivienne westwood

LINKS:

advanced style
the old ladies rebellion

oprah article on lynn yaeger

what a major ladymag looks like without professional models on jezebel

SHITTY LINKS:

are your clothes too "tween"? on the Tyra

cultural appropriation: still refusing to see the truth

2010-10-01T09:14:00.000-04:00

[a polaroid of a person outdoors, with long brown hair wearing a colourful native american inspired "war bonnet" and bright red lipstick. they are covering their eyes with the back of their hands and is expressionless. the text underneath the polaroid reads "Until mainstream society takes Natives seriously, it won't take Native issues seriously. Carticatures, mascots, costumes and cartoons don't need running water, after all." Sheena Rotman (The Signal)]
a page from kate burch's zine, head dress

in the year since i started this blog, the issue that has generated the most debate and discussion had easily been the critical fashion lover's guide to cultural appropriation. now that halloween is just around the corner, seeing images of white women in hypersexualized racist "indian princes s" costumes is sadly serving as a reminder that this is issue will not go away without a fight. but we can keep the conversations going. sadly, today i feel disappointed, disenchanted, exhausted. it sucks that we still have to keep defending the very basics of why we think people should be thinking about cultural appropriation in the first place. here i go again.

[cartoon: in the first panel, a girl sits in a judge's stall with a gavel. a cat wearing glasses is dressed as a mariachi holding a bag that reads "taco taco." the judge rules "cultural appropriation." this continues with many foods, pizza, "hot stuff," "der very wurst," and a 3 potato salad. the last three panels are as follows: the judge watches patiently as cat sighs and reaches into a mcdonald's bag. in the next panel, the judge is eating fries and cat is eating a burger. the judge says, "it's so sad that the whole world eats mcdonalds." ]

my first reminder that the spirit of cultural appropriation is alive and well was when i was looking for a laugh: this week, i was disappointed with the latest cat & girl comic. i used to really enjoy their sardonic sense of humour, but this... it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. it almost seems to propogate this attitude of "you can't win" if you think critically about cultural appropriation. at the same time, i think i could understand why it would be funny to some people (perhaps it is a jab at the imposed dominance of american fast food culture on a global scale?).

but in the end, the imagery of the judge ruling wether or not a food item can be considered cultural appropriation only serves to remind me that it is really annoying/emotionally exhausting to constantly have to be on the defensive. to constantly have to explain the reasons why cultural appropriation, whether it be happening in a mall food court or on a fashion runaway, is potentially problematic and needs to be challenged. a common reaction when the subject comes up is "who made you the judge of everyone?" sigh. contrary to what many naysayers may believe, no, i don't sit in front of my computer actively searching for white girls wearing headdresses to argue with and judge.

created by elusis

rather, it's that images of models, of clothing catalogues, and of white girls in headdresses at concerts that attack and offend us: those of us who feel like these conversations are important to be having, that we have to ask these questions. i am fed up with it. fed up with seeing "Othered" cultures reduced to shitty stereotypes for uncritical (mostly) white people to buy into, as a product, and then to attack me when i ask them to think about what they are wearing, when i ask them why they choose to wear what they wear. is that such an offensive question? is it really us who are so hypersensitive and who take things "too seriously," or is it you who just wants to refuse to think for two seconds?

which leads me to katrina richardson's amazing article, Accosted by racist costumes. in it, she writes frankly and honestly about getting upset at an art festival after not only seeing two girls wearing headdresses, but walking into an art gallery called "The Eskimo Sisters." unsurprisingly, the gallery is not in fact run by Inuit women, or have any attachment or relevance to Inuit culture whatsoever (which is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Eskimo, which for the record has been frowned upon by Inuit communities and was largely removed from popular nomenclature in Canada and Greenland since the 1970s but is still used in Alaska). rather, according to their facebook page,

Eskimo Sisters is a new space in Providence for music, art, delicious treats, sparklers, general silliness, general seriousness, kittens, puppies, and magical unicorns.

oh, and i suppose the magical northern "Eskimo" people fall right into that category, too! what a perfect name! /bitchy sarcasm. to top it off, the term "Eskimo Sisters" supposedly refers to two women who have slept with the same man. we all know how much we love our racial naivety with a side order of hypersexualization, don't we?

richardson ends up confronting the two girls wearing a headdress, and asking them why they are wearing them. her article is definitely worth taking the time to read it in its entireity, but here are two important quotes:

I understood why the headdresses seemed like an attractive accessory. People want something closer to the ethereal and the spiritual. To look ethnic and feel closer to nature. But is their whim to play earthy mystic for a night greater than mine to enjoy an evening without feeling accosted by racist costume?

she concludes her powerful article with this statement:

I may grow wiser and regret my actions, but even if those women do remain clueless and forget everything I said, I at least made them uncomfortable for five minutes of their night, and right now, that's worth it, to me.

for her sake, mine, and other people who have been taking up this fight, i hope she is right. her experience reminds me of a lot of my own, of my internalized racism as a mixed race french-canadian/abenaki kid growing up. of playing cowboys and indians and always being relegated to the role of the "indian." of my own family's erasure and active denial of our native roots.

image courtesy of native appropriations

mainly, it reminds me last night. i went to see xiu xiu, a free concert organized by the city's university radio station CHYZ 94,3 and i was sadly reminded why i have stopped going to live shows. the entire night, i was distracted by this blonde girl wearing a headband with a few feathers sticking out, and blue paint smeared underneath her cheeks. all her friends had the same paint across their face, and at different points they were passing around the "native" headband.

it reminds me of last halloween, when i spent a half an hour in the bathroom calming myself down after a teenage girl i'd met a few times through mutual friends jumped up on stage to dance with we are wolves dressed as an "indian princess."

it reminds me of all of these times i end up feeling like shit, and have to convince myself that this is just me overreacting. all of these times i overthink the entire situation, wondering what i should do, what i could say, to simply encourage people to maybe think twice before they leave the house dressed up as an outdated racist stereotype.

so i'm trying to think of productive ways we can confront these issues, have these conversations with strangers, without emotionally exhausting ourselves or decreeing ourselves the Official Judge and Jury of all things Cultural Appropriating. here's my first idea.

this week, i got a lovely gift in the mail from kate burch: a zine called Head Dress. earlier this summer, kate asked me if she could quote me in it and i was very curious to see how it would turn out. now that i have a copy to myself, i'm really happy to have been a small part of what is a very informative yet simple to-the-point zine. when i asked her where i could suggest my readers buy it, she simply said that she wanted it to be more of a "public service announcement" than making money. so! print out a bunch of your own copies and drop them off where you think they might be most thought-provoking. a few ideas:

thrift stores where you regularly see "hipsters"
coffee shops in urban areas
music venues/festivals where you have seen aforementioned cultural appropriating hipsters
offending stores that sell clothes labelled "tribal" or "native" or "cherokee" (urban outfitters, forever21, bluefly, etc)

an urban outfitters totem pole jewelry stand. i shit you not.

hell, you could even mail copies to offending designers if you wanted! at fashion design schools.

suggest more places in the comments!

as for distribution, i've got québec city covered (going to translate it this weekend), and kate dropped a bunch around nyc, so readers everywhere else! arm your photocopiers! spread the word. it's nice to think these conversations can leave the blogosphere and can perhaps influence critical thinking. where do you guys live? can someone promise to cover kensington market in toronto? mile end in montreal? bushwick in brooklyn? portland?

so that's what's on my mind lately... i'll leave you with an few excerpts from the most recent post at my culture is not a trend in response to hate mail they've been receiving.

Stop being angry about the distant past. The people who colonized you are dead. Get over it.

Okay, I’ll play your game.

Lets pretend, and put aside the past, the genocide, the theft of land, peoples and language - all things deemed to have happened “long ago.” I’m not going to address these at all.

So here we are- modern day, new slate.

The act of cultural drag is still a problem. This is because systematic racism of Native American people still exists, and is overwhelmingly aggressive. We are still encountering it every day of our lives - in textbooks, at school, going shopping, using government facilities, interacting with the police, with health care systems, with our religious freedom, with the colour of our skin - we are met with derision and antagonism for our mere existence. With words used to keep us in our place. This is not ancient history, it is the every-day existence of a people who are still alive.
...When you choose to dress up like one of us, you erase us. You transform a group of doctors, writers, trades people, teenagers, mothers, fathers, singers — individuals, into one absurd caricature unworthy of respect, identity - autonomy.
...If our countries start to think of us as human beings, then our deeper issues may one day come to resolution as well. Just because my mission seems trivial - what impact could fashion possibly have?- doesn’t mean I’m not actively fighting the system that imposed the ideologies in the first place.

LINKS:

Kate Burch's tumblr

Download at zine library here.

Accosted by racist costumes: Expressing displeasure with something no one else has a problem with means revealing yourself as "the other" by Katrina Richardson

"Eskimo Sisters" in Indian headdresses by Newspaper Rock: Where Native America meets pop culture

Eskimo on Wikipedia

Ohnotheydidn't's feminist livejournal community is currently having a discussion aboutcultural appropriation.

my culture is not a trend

OFFENSIVE HALLOWEEN SHIT I RECOMMEND NOT LOOKING AT:

Adult Indian Squaw Wig with Braids

currently reading: cat party

2010-09-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

anyone who knows me knows of my fondness for cats (well, of animals in general). so when i discovered i love cat party, i was excited and happy to find a blog that combines a love of cats, a love of fashion, and a combination of the two.

seriously.

favourite posts include:

a post about what her favourite L Word characters would wear to a christmas party.
film stills from movies about badass punk girls
a love letter to alber elbaz
an homage to isabelle huppert, oh be still my heart/loins
masculin féminin appreciation of annemarie schwarzenbach
bobs and bad behaviour

louise brooks in pandora's box (g.w. pabst, 1929)

photos of a young kate bush
people we love: edwige belmore, with this choice quote:
Edwige is so cool, she makes Edie Sedgwick look like Stephanie Tanner.

aaaaaaand last but not least, colette with cats:

i love her sense of humour, love of pop culture, and little hilarious jabs at celebrity worship. the perfect balance of kitsch, ridiculousness, and awesome taste. just what i needed to waste my thursday afternoon.

that is all.

have a nice day!

what i wore: matching our surroundings

2010-09-21T14:42:00.000-04:00

last week, my friend anne-marie took me thrifting. as we stepped out of our doors, we realized... we match our neighbourhood!

i absolutely love anne-marie's t-strap shoes, and i could not believe the colour was the exact same as her front door.

we don't mess around here in québec city; we are so stylish, we accidentally end up matching our beautiful surroundings. how about that.

posting these very fall-themed photos reminds me... anne-marie, morgan, simon & i went swimming during the heat wave a few weeks back, and it was possibly my favourite day of the entire summer. okay perhaps second favourite, a close second to swimming in the pacific back in july. i better post those photos before we forget what the summer heat felt like! not to mention all of the writing i have to work on before we come up on the 1 year anniversary of this here little blog.

anyway, back to the grindstone. until then!

art: craftivism at fashion week

2010-09-19T21:41:00.000-04:00

the blogging world is abuzz with fashion week news, talking about which collections are their favourite, what is the hot new colour palette, and who was in the front row. that's fun and all, but how about some food for thought: craftivist Sarah Corbett of the London Craftivist Collective snuck into the London Fashion Week premises to leave this lovely message:

Lowest paid models at London Fashion Week paid £125 an hour. Majority of garment workers in Vietnam paid £25 a month. - love from the Craftivist Collective

this news courtesy of mr x stitch, via the lovely mccall. simple, beautiful, powerful stuff. this amazing team are forcing people to pay attention to the massive discrepancies and rampant abuse of worker's rights, all while using fashion's very own tools, a needle and thread. talk about using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house...

i really like this kind of activism, which has been coined as "craftivism." it's in your face without being flashy. simple and to the point, presenting the viewer with a fact that is confrontational and hard to forget. for some more context, let's look at the london craftivist collective's manifesto:

To expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. This will be done through provocative, non-violent creative actions.

after a bit of digging around, i found that this is far from the first fashion related craftivist activity that has happened! here are some more lovely projects.

and of course, my favourite part: "love fashion, hate sweatshops." click here to read more about this initiative.

courtesy of the sugar paper gang

happy link perusing!

EDITED TO ADD:

the first photo has been making the rounds on tumblr, and i wanted to add what i thought were some interesting reflections and statements.

from antibromide:

Those two statements aren’t correlated. Garments worn in fashion week are not made in Vietnam for pennies an hour. The garments made in Vietnam are the things sold at stores like Forever 21 to people who want to look like they buy designer goods but don’t want to pay designer prices (or pay the high prices of goods manufacured in the United States). Fashion week isn’t the problem, fast fashion stores that will do anything to have goods made faster and cheaper and the people who shop those stores are the problem.

and some wise words from materialworld:

Co-relation point = well, yes but no.

The message is simplistic for impact, but it’s also an oversimplification that cheap brands exploit workers while expensive designer labels don’t. In Australia this has been disproven by rights monitoring agencies including Fair Wear, as labels may outsource for some items in a range only, produce the garments in-house from under-priced outsourced fabrics, or produce multiple ranges for different economic niches with different production ethics in each.

Eco-Chic by Matilda Lee gives a handy, more UK focussed introduction to the unseen supply/demand impacts of trend based fashion, if anyone is interested.

I don’t interpret this as directed at any particular Fashion Week label anyway. More a general, clever, protest of the way global fashion cultures - which Fashion Week sets trends for - privilege women in wealthier nations as objects of desire or consumers over those women in the majority world supply chain as labourers.

i think both people raise very important and interesting points. i completely agree with materialworld's last point: the fact that this kind of craftivism is at least in some manner confronting the unfair and exploitative world of who imagines, who creates, and who consumes fashion. i think this could start a very important conversation about the relationship that fashion weeks around the world have to the "fast fashion" industry that we are so quick to criticize, while simultaneously upholding these unproven statements that the "higher" fashion industries (prêt à porter, haute couture, runways shows, etc) do not play a part in exploitation.

in my opinion, stating something like "fashion week isn't the problem, fast fashion is" as antibromide does is just too reductive for me to swallow.

what do you think?

LINKS:
Craftivist Collective
Love Fashion, Hate Sweatshops
Craftivist Collective's flickr stream
Radical Cross Stitch
DIY

what i wore today: homage to teddy girls

2010-09-12T23:35:00.001-04:00

consider this an homage to a jacket, to a season, and to a stylish group of badass ladies known as the teddy girls.

after a week of intense heat at the very end of august (very unusual and quite historic for québec city) we have finally been blessed with a cool autumn breeze in the air. as much as i love summer, i must say sartorially fall has always been my favourite. it's so much fun to play with colours, layers, textures... ah, tweed, plaid, how i missed thee.

today was one of those lovely early fall days, and so i dug deep in my closet to fully enjoy the autumn air while i ran some errands. here's what i came up with.

.the outfit.

(i feel like i look a wee bit... stoned in this photo)

it's moments like these where i love volunteering in a thrift store; that saddle bag and pair of high waisted pants are my rewards.

.the jacket.

the shoulders! they are just the perfect cut for me.

and even the namesake is perfection; jules was a nickname of mine when i was younger.

this is potentially one of the best items in my closet; it can make a dress more casual, a short and pants outfit fancier, and fits me perfectly. i used to think the sleeves were too short but now i understand. when i found it years ago, i really did not appreciate the treasure i had found. i think i paid $2 for it in a thrift store in trenton, or was it peterborough? by any means, it didn't really suit my style back in 2004, but now that i am a bit older and a little less afraid of looking "serious", every fall i look forward to pulling it out and pairing it with new things. the combinations are really endless. here are two ways i wore it back in the fall of 2008.

.the inspiration.

teddy girls:

Teddy Girl, 1955. by Ken Russell

all photos by filmmaker and photographer Ken Russell

how can you see these photos and NOT want to look exactly like them? they have so much attitude, yet at the same time so much joy. i especially love how in the first and last photos, the boys are almost jealous of all the attention the teddy girls are getting, as if they wish they could be in their "club." sorry boys.

here is part of the essay that accompanied the publication of these images in picture post magazine:

These photos were taken in January 1955 in Walthamstow, Poplar and North Kensington: solidly working class areas of London. The girls photographed embody three of the great issues of the time; class, gender and youth. They are rejecting the drab costumes of class conformity and post-war austerity. They are pioneers for women looking beyond home for a place to be valued. They are young girls blazing a trail that will be followed by youth cultures for decades to come. But somehow Teddy Girls as a group remain historically almost invisible.

how great is that! pretty amazing if you ask me. i wish i could have known some of those teddy girls... hell, maybe some one you brits might have had a relative who was a teddy girl! ask around.

clearly i am not the only person to have ever been inspired by the style of these ferocious femmes. back in 2006, bust magazine had a teddy girls themed photoshoot that i enjoyed so much i scanned to share with friends. here are two:

now if only i could get someone to do my hair, the look would be complete.

inspiration: femme fatales by niagara

2010-09-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

Run by Niagara

darksilenceinsuburbia posted this image quite some time ago, but it's only now that i got around to digging up a bit more information about the artist. a little bit of Litchenstein, a dash of Warhol, swirl it up with a love of ladies with guns in film history and there you have it: the art of Niagara.

her femme fatales evoke some of the most powerful women from the golden age of cinema, joan crawford, bette davis, clara bow... not to mention the "pretty faces" like veronica lake and jane russell. i'm personally drawn to the bold and tough attitude the women have, and totally have my own empowering feminist interpretation of them. here are a few of my favourites:

Bang Bang

Double Shot

I'm Pretty When I'm Angry

Don't Fuck with Me

Fuck Off Outta Here

Double Back

not to mention, the artist herself has quite an impressive and interesting story. she fronted the band Destroy All Monsters (who, as a fan of MC5, i am quite surprised i had never heard of before). here's a picture of her having quite a time in the late 70s:

plus, thurston moore of sonic youth helped to put together a compilation of Destroy All Monsters' music in 1994, since they had never formally recorded. here she is hanging with two of my favourite people, thurston moore and kim gordon.

she seems all around quite badass to me.

current (long) hair inspiration

2010-08-15T11:03:00.000-04:00

things are hectic, happening, hilarious in my life at the moment and i'm away from the computer trying to soak it all up. you would not believe the amount of writing i have in the "drafts" folder on my dashboard, nor the ridiculous amounts of inspiration being thrown at me every single day. so it is not for lack of fodder that i have been absent! rather, lack of time alone with my thoughts and my words.

in the meantime, dear readers, you get some lovely fluff.

in mid-august, my partner's mother gave me a nice set of bangs. the amount of hair i have on my head at the moment is still shocking and surprising to me, but i must admit i am really enjoying it. so in lieu of actual critical discourse about the politics of hair length/texture/colour, i'm simply going to post pictures of people who always made me want to have the haircut i am currently rocking.

needless to say a lot of them are french brunettes.

julie doiron

cat power circa "you are free"

jane birkin

françoise hardy

seriously style icon for life.

eline ros

aretha!

and of course, uncredited images from tumblr

hedy scott, playboy 1965

and with this last heat wave of the summer, i really just feel like doing this:

happy last days of summer!

what i wore today: femme tea party

2010-08-08T18:42:00.000-04:00

pervers/cité is happening in montreal this week, and let me tell you i am wishing i could be there. yesterday, there was a femme tea party happening in montreal at parc jarry from two to five. seriously, how can you resist an awesome (bilingual!) invitation like this one:

Mixer for femmes of all genders and our friends! Come frolic in all your finery and enjoy a terribly refined afternoon of iced tea, cupcakes, games and a fabulous femme photoshoot. Rain or shine.

seriously. what femme is not reading that and thinking "AH I WISH I COULD HAVE BEEN THERE!"

if you're like me, and couldn't make it there, what would you have worn? instead of moping around about the fact that i couldn't meet up with some of my wonderfully sexy montrealer queers, like my friend jesse, i decided to get dressed up anyway, even though i just had a pretty dreary lazy sunday at home and running errands.

here's my outfit:

vintage hat + veil: emmaüs thrift store, qc
necklace: gift from meghan
shirt: zara, thrifted from le vestiaire
black shawl: le vestiaire
gloves: from le vestiaire
sandals: thrifted from village des valeurs, qc.

and then i had tea for one.

did any of my readers out there attend the femme tea party? i can't wait to see the results of the photoshoot! what did you wear? what kinds of conversations did you have? how gorgeous did everyone look?

oh yes! and i almost forgot, i have a little announcement: yeah, sure, i love writing about fashion culture from a critical feminist perspective here, but i like to write about other things, too! film, for one! shameless mag invited me to cover film fridays over there starting next week. i can't decide whether to start with the runaways or youth in revolt... comment there to make requests and all that jazz.

until then,

xo
julia

recommending reading browsing
pervercité - official website
fuck yeah femmes - tumblr
5 feminist conversations i'm over - number 6!

what i wore: perfect july dance outfit

2010-08-08T16:16:00.001-04:00

photos by simon dumas

these were taken near dolores de hidalgo, as liliana, simon and i made our way in search of the san luis potosi desert in early july. it was so much fun to stop and take pictures along the way of our trip, and i'll share more of my favourites on flickr and perhaps here in the near future.

as i was dancing to the music blaring from our little rental car in the middle of nowhere, mexico, i realized that this is potentially my absolute favourite dancing outfit. and i remembered the very first time i wore it: june 2008, at pride in toronto. i had just purchased the skirt from a vintage store across the street at a very discounted price, and hadn't quite found a good way to accessorize it. the day before pride, though, at my best friend morgan's encouragement, i decided to go with a semi-rainbow theme, even though i often find it a bit... ridiculous. sequins, glitter, boas, i can go for and wholeheartedly endorse. even rainbow suspenders, or belts, etc. but a whole rainbow outfit? i wasn't sure it would work. but! in fact it's really just four bright colours.

what to wear to pride is always a big conundrum. there are a whole host of factors a queer must take into consideration:

hotness, of course. and by hotness i mean you gotta be sexy. clearly this definition/requirement changes for everyone, depending on tastes (style wise and sex wise of course). looking sexy, however is not nearly as important as...
feeling sexy.
practicality. this goes extra if you're in the dyke march or any type of parade you've gotta prepare yourself for lots of walking... and that ain't so easy in your favourite pair of 4 inch heels.
weather. pride in toronto falls at the end of june or early july, which is usually when it just starts to get to that smoldering summer heat us canadians long for during our excessively long winters.
and, of course, there is the stereotype that gay men are the harshest fashion critics. are you going to dress for yourself, or for them? (my vote is always to dress for yourself)

for me, this was definitely my pick for best pride outfit. it was great for the heat (although i really wished my hair had been a few inches shorter), for dancing in the parade, for flirting with cute queers, for seeing friends i hadn't seen in months and even years, and last but not least topping off the night dancing to a free hidden cameras show.

while in mexico, i realized that i still love and wear that outfit that i first wore exactly two years ago! but, with my long hair and glasses, i feel like i look a lot different.

aa dress (yeah i know, gift from an ex) worn as strapless top
vintage circle skirt from king of kensington
(i lived on kensington ave. for 8 months and managed to buy this skirt and one other dress... an incredible feat considering my affection for vintage, the selection on the street, and the fact that i was actually flush with cash during that brief time in my life)
vintage shoes from st. vincent de paul, peterborough
leather satchel from value village, ste. foy
wooden necklace from now closed vintage store, montreal

with some lovely ex-peterboroughites, melissa and muna, taking a break from the heat at pride 2008, toronto

OMG J.D. SAMSON
this doesn't really have anything to do with this post or my outfit other than
OMG I MET J.D. SAMSON AND TOTALLY FANGIRLED

so tell me! what do you wear to pride events? do you have a favourite outfit that you first wore years ago and can see yourself wearing years from now?

what i wore: lucha libre

2010-07-30T21:20:00.000-04:00

when we told pati, the housekeeper at la casa d'escritor in mexico city, that we were going on a date to the lucha libre, she exclaimed: "wearing THAT?!" i was wearing what i normally wear on a nice summer day; a simple red knee-length dress with white piping, and comfortable sandals. no no no, she insisted. i should wear a t-shirt and jeans.

ha! me, in a t-shirt and jeans. i thought...

why not.

for those of you who know me in person or have seen what outfits i have posted online... well, i am hardly a t-shirt and jeans kind of person. in fact, i do not and have not owned jeans in a good three or four years now. but my relationship to denim and pants is a whole other story... i scrambled through simon's closet and dug out two of my favourite of his clothing. seriously doubting my ample hips would be able to squeeze into his already skin-tight jeans, i gave it a go anyway. pairing it with his awesome "SCREAMING FLAMING OHMYGAW EAGLE" t-shirt, as we love to call it, a gift from a stylish belgian friend, i found i looked, in fact, quite badass.

and here is some proof.

photos by simon, edited by me.

honestly i've found many people's concerns about what i "should" and "should not" be wearing on the streets of one of the world's largest cities slightly exagerrated... but that said, i really did not end up spending much time in the city itself, and only went out by myself once. in fact, my experience with mexico city have really reminded me of people's reactions when i first moved to toronto: omg you can't ever go out by yourself/wearing that/in neighbourhood x/don't talk to strangers/etc. this is something i could really go on about at length but! another day, another time.

i have three days left in this wonderful country; tonight we are going to celebrate at los toros in colima, simon's favourite bar in the world. tomorrow, we are waking up early, packing a bus with food and friends, and celebrating our three year anniversary while playing in the waves of the pacific ocean. sunday, a goodbye party in mexico city. monday, we catch our flights back to québec city.

i know july has been slow here posting-wise, but believe you me i'll have LOTS to share with everyone in august, i promise.

self-portraits: characters/decay

2010-07-16T15:32:00.000-04:00

a bad habit of mine i've been trying to change is actually sharing some of the thousands of photos i take. i still have ones from last fall i took with the explicit goal of sharing them here and other places online... but here they are, still stagnating and find ways to get lost on my harddrive. but not this time.

on my last day in quebec city before i head to mexico via toronto, i decided to sneak into an apartment in the midst of renovations with some tools of my own: vintage dresses, lingerie, jewelry and of course my trusty pentax. the canon rebel doing the photo taking is courtesy of my wonderful friend ben. here are a handful of the results... i'll upload a few more to flickr later.

also, off-topic: i'm looking for inspiration for a new layout. i still have a lot of love for the one susanna made for me, but i keep thinking back to why i made this blog in the first place... it's time for something more streamlined so you can easily see where else i post online, and an atmosphere that fosters more comments and discussions (i don't know about you guys, but i really dislike the way blogger handles comments and have been seriously considering moving to something more like wordpress). one of my main goals with this blog was to generate discussions and i often end up feeling like we don't get the chance to respond to one another individually.

aside from that aspect, aesthetically i'd really love something vintage inspired and classic, kind of like clevernettle, verhext, celine pinckers or katerina d'autremont. or perhaps i should just go the simple route and go for a nice header, something like cardboard sea has, or the wonderful nikki dekker. last but not least, what do you bloggers use for stat counter? i've been applying for guest blogging positions and things of the sort and the one i've been using for a month is not really cutting it. if anyone has any tips in this html department, suggestions of how to make or adapt your own layouts, your favourite blog layouts, etc, send me an email (juliacaron AT gmail DOT com) or leave a comment! sorry for all the technical boring discussions.

hiatus: on the road

2010-07-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

as you may have noticed, i have been away from the internet for the past little while and will have sporadic access for another week or two. i miss you guys, but it's been a good break. the more time i spend away from the internet, the more i think about what i love about social media and, let's be honest, what i hate about it. remembering what is so great about dis/re/connecting...

but to be brief: i've been having some really amazing experiences here in mexico and i can't wait to write about them and share them with family and friends. i've been listening to (and trying to understand) a lot of spanish, learning how to use an SLR, taking many rolls of film, and traveling all over the place with strangers, lovers, and best friends. writing, thinking, singing, and laughing. i lost my moleskin in estacion de catorze, sadly, but i'm telling myself it is probably the world's way of telling me i may need a fresh start. july has been all about renewal.

to tide you over until i provide you with some more cultural criticism and fashion discussions, here is a mix i made for our nine day road trip through distrio federal, san luis potosi, queretaro, and veracruz. it starts off dancy and ends mellow and slow, with a lot of simon's favourites scattered throughout (i thought i should cater to his tastes seeing as he did all of the driving over the course of nine days). enjoy!

1. a sweet summer's night on hammer hill - jens lekman
2. down in mexico - the coasters
3. swimming - martha & the muffins
4. on vacation - the robot ate me
5. odessa - caribou
6. 16th & valencia, roxy music - devendra banhart
7. timebomb - beck
8. IRM - charlotte gainsbourg
9. desert eagle - ratatat
10. texico bitches - broken social scene
11. you're the one - the black keys
12. drivin' on 9 - the black keys
13. summer light - the cave singers
14. you're dead - richard laviolette
15. game shows - plants and animals
16. wet road - scout niblett
17. jesus loves me - cocorosie
18. chocolate jesus - tom waits

download here

as always, if you like the songs, support the artists by buying their cds
at your local record store and going to their shows!

violent thugs dressed in black: anarchists or cops? policing protesters clothing at the G20 protests

2010-06-29T13:00:00.000-04:00

disclaimer: i wanted to publish this ASAP as i wrote it on my flight from toronto to mexico city, where i will be staying for the month of july. i am not planning to be online very often this month but feel that there are some very current critical issues that need to be addressed immediately. for these reasons i tried to keep this as brief and to the point as possible in order to publish it while my ideas are fresh.

firstly, much of the clothing i focus on (bandanas, hankerchiefs, hoodies) and the colours (black and red) have very long and elaborate histories as well as numerous symbolic meanings in and outside of activist circles which i do not talk about here.
secondly, i want to acknowledge that we could also address serious questions of how police officers not only target people based on what they are wearing, but also based on the colour of their skin. there are many reports that police explicitly targeted native women, young black men, and poc community organizers in their arrests and illegal detainments this weekend.
finally, i want to acknowledge that many people directly affected by the issues G20 protesters were out in the streets to call attention to who decided against being out in the streets for their own physical and emotional well-being: immigrants, people on student visas, people of colour, trans people, people with disabilities, to name a few. these people are often disproportionately on the receiving end of police harassment, intimidation and violence in addition to being subjected to greater potential consequences (namely deportation, sexual violence, serious physical harm). i think it is important to note that while i do not go into detail about these issues in this article, we must acknowledge the important role these people play in our movement(s) and act in solidarity with them. thank you.

this past weekend, i was in toronto for the G20 Summit. i boarded a bus organized by the wonderful anarchist bookstore La Page Noire in québec city with fifty or so other people for the day long trip. i had amazing conversations with some really great people i hadn't had much of a chance to talk to before... our discussions ranged about everything from peaceful protests, why we opposed the G20, our civil rights, to drag kings.

upon signing up for the bus, i had not explicitly planned on attending protests or actions (for many reasons which have, unfortunately, been reinforced after the absolute travesties of justice that have occurred in the last week), and decided to see how i felt once i was in toronto. after the bus ride, a lot of thinking, and many conversations, though, i felt like i needed to be in the streets. in the end, i participated in relatively minor ways over the course of the weekend. this involved things such as yelling out a few chants on saturday around 5 pm near queen's park in response to the obscene police presence, asking questions to fellow protesters, attending the bike bloc on sunday, staying up to date with the alternative media coverage and sharing as much information as possible online. the highlight of my weekend was saturday night, when my friend morgan and i went to colour me dragg: silence this!, originally organized to celebrate resistance to censorship at pride this year. the events that took place on saturday changed that. it showcased incredible talent, and was an amazing, creative, positive night in solidarity with all the members of the queer community who were attacked by police and who were being detained in the makeshift detention centre (more about that awesome event in another post for another day).

but...this is a fashion blog, you are thinking. why is julia talking about the G20 protests? what could this possibly have to do with clothing? because, like i always say, fashion is political. some other readers might be thinking that it is incredibly frivolous and altogether irrelevant to talk about things like "fashion" when over 900 people were arrested for voicing their opposition to the G8/G20 and all that it represents. these events, and the questions about what people were wearing on the streets of toronto this weekend, are intrisically connected. what i really want to talk about here is the emphasis on the sartorial choices made by protesters, "average citizens," members of the press and police officers during this weekend's rampant opposition to the G20 summit in toronto and how it actively held a part in leading to such massive violations of human rights.

surprisingly, there is much to be said here. let's begin with some of the more obvious questions:

how does a protester dress? what does a protester "look like" and who decides what that is?
practicalities: what a protester should wear when participating in peaceful protests and rallies to protect themselves from targeting, harassment, tear gas, pepper spray, etc.
on the eve of the G20/G8 summits, with a $1.3 billion dollar security pricetag, what are police told to look for and who are they told to target to "ensure security" and "maintain the peace?"
policing and legislation around what people are allowed to wear on the streets of toronto as the G20 approached
massive confiscation of black clothing items: what are the assumptions being made about what black clothing means and represents?
how do police present themselves? their very own "costumes" and performances.
how to the police present themselves when acting as agent provocateurs and undercover/"plainclothes" officers?

those are just a few of the ways in which fashion constitutes a very political and important dynamic of what went on in the streets during the G20 protests and continuing resistance in the days following. the physical appearance of protesters and what they chose to wear was highly emphasized and was used as a way to target public hatred and to strike fear in the hearts of the consumers of the media. however, no one seems to be talking about these dynamics. the only things i have found about fashion and the G20 have been incredibly fluffy, insubstantial, and problematic articles published by the mainstream media.

"This easy-to-wash cotton/polyester ensemble will definitely be noticed by police. An optional bandana is made with polyester to protect from noxious fumes, but it also pampers the protestor with the luxury of satin." - from the Toronto Star

actually, they have been more than problematic, they are straight up nauseating. if you google "g20 fashion" - surprise surprise - we are once again exposed the sexism inherent in the institutions the G20 system upholds and represents. there are dozens of stories about what the G20 leader's WIVES wore on the "red carpet." was this a fucking hollywood premiere or was it a gathering of world leaders meeting to make important decisions that have a global impact?! you can even vote "hit" or "miss." yeah, judge the first ladies of the 20 wealthiest countries in the world based solely on what they wear. sounds right to me. at the very least at least they objectify female leaders like the President of Argentina and the Chancellor of Germany in addition to first ladies. and of course it gets worse.

how lawyers should dress in order to avoid being attacked by protesters for wearing suits. because we all know that was the main goal of protesters this weekend; to arbitrarily attack anyone wearing a suit.

sifting through all of this garbage, which is very clearly designed to distract people from the reasons WHY THE G20 IS HAPPENING IN THE FIRST PLACE and why 25,000 PEOPLE WERE OUT IN THE STREETS VOICING THEIR OPPOSITION, all i could do was laugh (well, that's a lie. all i could do was yell and gesticulate angrily and then put my head on morgan's shoulder and watch videos of maru) but then i started thinking about the ways in which "fashion" at the G20 was occurring in a very legislated and calculated way at the hands of police and the law.

in the article in which the photos of lawyers "in disguise" is taken from, many of the quotes illustrate just how pervasive the emphasis on how dangerous clothing can be.

...Mr. Wearing, who is counsel to the law firm Ormston List Frawley, will be dutifully adhering to the “Summit Planning Guide,” a one-page safety tip sheet being circulated by landlords in downtown Toronto.
“If you unexpectedly encounter demonstrators, you will be better treated if you are in jeans and a casual shirt than if you are in a business ‘power suit,” the guide advises.

“You’d be a fool if you were marching around looking like a suit,” Mr. Wearing said on Sunday, speaking through a BlackBerry he says he bought for safety ahead of the summit. “According to everything we read, those who are look like they are engaged in business are somehow the enemy.”
...“Now that we look like demonstrators, how do we convince the police not to pepper spray or tear-gas us?”

these statements perfectly illustrates the ideas propagated by the mainstream media that:

"protester" might as well equal "violent terrorist"
no protesters are lawyers, or any kind of respectable, powerful, suit-wearing folk
aaaand last but definitely not least fucked up: that if you look like a protester, it's your own fault for getting tear-gassed or pepper sprayed. as mr. wearing ponders, how could you convince police not to pepper spray you simply based on your appearance? there is an inherent assumption that if one looks like a protester, one deserves violence and repression at the hands of the state. this statement inadvertently admits that there is explicit profiling going on on the part of police. this in and of itself is not enough: the police have aditionally been manipulating the media, the citizens of toronto, and protesters to try and excuse their rampant targetting, attempts at repression and brutality.

to prove just how truly backwards these notions are, the article concludes with this wonderful nugget of propaganda:

“You don’t challenge that type of event,” he said. “You use common sense and stay out of the way.”

unsurprisingly, the article does not discuss any of the hundreds of reasons why people are "challenging this type of event" and why people are refusing to "stay out of the way." it is serving to explicitly propagate stereotypes not only of what a protester looks like, but that if you "look like that" it is your own fault for being targeted, potentially arrested, and brutalized by police. we see this sort of logic at work in rape culture as well, demanding to know what women were wearing when they were raped and engaging in victim-blaming.

what is important for us to address here is the policing of our bodies based on what clothing we choose to wear when out on the streets during a protest. for me, these negotiations are particularly complicated in addition to being, in my opinion, totally fucked up. i don't change how i dress when deciding to attend a protest from my regular dressing habits. this basically means that i take to the streets in dresses. while i never run the risk of, say, being mistaken for an undercover cop, i do run other risks. i am often forced to negotiate spaces based on my presentation and appearance. i know some other protesters might read me as a bystander if i am not actively engaged, such as leading a chant (which i often do since my voice is very loudy and because i find it really fucking empowering), holding a placard, or being part of the organizations who organize the rallies/protests. from a logistic perspective, it is often harder for me to approach other more "obvious" looking protesters to ask for information, such as where events are happening if they have changed at the last minute, information about arrests, organizations, etc. at times, i have to prove myself as "one of them."

rally against the non-academic misconduct policy february 2008. photo by desiree kretschmar

student solidarity rally - in solidarity with trent's unions, oct 2007
photo by desiree krestchmar

student solidarity rally - in solidarity with trent's unions, oct 2007
photo by desiree krestchmar

national rally for choice, september 2008. photo by julia horel-o'brien

however, it is important to note that this appearance also affords me many privileges. i can often interact with police officers and get important information because i choose not to cover my face with a bandana, because i do not have a hairstyle which marks me as "alternative," because i don't have any facial piercings, and because i am a young "white"* woman. as long as i don't pump my fist in resistance, flaunt my black boots and show my hairy armpits (or otherwise mark myself as subversive) i can generally get away with a lot.

youth being held by police on yonge street on sunday, june 27th at around 3:30 pm. i tried to ask if they were okay, the man in this photo said no, police proceeded to yell at me, shove their hands in my face, obstruct my view of the dozen or so people being arrested, and refused to acknowledge any of my questions.

unfortunately, for the first time for me, this was not the case this weekend. sunday, i attended the bike bloc around the downtown in the early afternoon. afterwards, i visiting an alternative media coop. on my way back to my friend's place, i started asking questions/speaking to reporters wondering why a dozen or so activist-looking types were being cuffed and searched near yonge and gerrard. i was followed (for who knows how long, they refused to tell me) by three police officers in an unmarked civilian minivan while riding my bike down a quiet street. they yelled out their window at me, i stopped and was told i had broken several laws, they refused to clarify which laws other than not making a full stop at a stop sign on an empty street (except for me and said unmarked minivan which was following me), threatened with a $220 ticket, told repeatedly to shut up, that i was being aggressive, that i had no right to ask police officers questions, asked if i was a member of the black bloc or if i knew any, where i was from, what my job was, how long i was in toronto for, where i was staying, and so on and so forth.

i was generally made to feel incredibly intimidated, unsafe, and harassed for a good twenty minutes. as i walked away and they were no longer in sight, i burst into tears.

afterwards, i could not help but think that i had been "lucky." that i would have been treated differently if i had been wearing all black. if i had been wearing political buttons or badges on my clothing. if i had a bandanna around my neck. if they realized i was wearing red and black and that i do hold certain anarchist beliefs. if i were a person of colour. if i weren't informed about my rights. if one of those three cops did not sympathize with me. i could not help but think that i was lucky that i was not arbitrarily detained like many of the 900 other protesters over the weekend. lucky for not being detained or arrested for riding my bike down the street. how fucked up is that. i raise these questions because part of me wonders how much of what a protester looks like plays a part in them being harrassed by police, and how much of it is what actions they take?

every (seasoned) protestor has probably asked themselves these questions at one point or another. what should i be wearing so that i will not be a target for police questioning and other forms of aggression? why was i targeted? what should i be wearing so i can get away as easily as possible from the cops if they charge me, tear gas me, use their batons, shoot at me?

what allows me to walk the streets free of harassment and fear?
what makes me a target?

the most ironic thing about this is that the cops actively use these assumptions and stereotypes about what protesters look like when they act as agent provocateurs and undercover cops.

watch and enjoy:

so moving on to UNDERCOVER COPS. undercover cops actively reinforce these assumptions about what a "protester" looks like. wears black, bandanas, che guevara patches. is a man. this video actively shows that these reductive and simplified pre-conceived notions about what a protester looks like. they use these tactics to discredit protesters. as this video clearly illustrates, protesters are keen to these tactics and often spot these undercover cops and insist they leave. it is also interesting to note that many community activists, protesters and allies do similar things; wearing camouflage clothing or t-shirts emblazoned with the words "security" are a common sight in politicized community and is an interesting way of subverting and appropriating police clothing.

photo of a person smashing a store window who is suspected of being an agent provocateur

even two days after the g20 protests, there are serious questions being raised and reports about the number of undercover cops, agents provocateurs, and other manipulation tactics (why, with the exaggerated police presence on the streets, were two cop cars left unsupervised for such a long period of time?) used over the course of the preparations for the G20 Summit in toronto.

the criminalization and (literal!) policing of our appearances was completely overwhelming this weekend. i know i got away with a lot more this weekend (and by "got away with" i mean "escaped further harassment and intimidation for having participated in peaceful demonstrations because i am a pretty, dress-wearing, young, able bodied woman who doesn't fit their profile of what an activist looks like, save perhaps my black boots") because of my appearance. i wonder if any of the people who are still in the detention centre right now are wondering if they would still be in that detention centre if they had been wearing something else. i wouldn't be surprised.

photos by karol/decipherimages.com

to continue conversations about interactions with police, i briefly want to address my experiences with police officers in riot gear this weekend. as i mentioned earlier, on saturday afternoon at around 5 pm, after hearing about the police cars set on fire, my friend morgan and i hopped on our bikes to go see what was happening for ourselves. as we approached queen's park, the scene was terrifying; not because of smashed windows (i saw absolutely none) or flaming cars (there were none) but because of the sheer number of police officers. and not just police officers. riot cops. faceless, terrifying, robotic riot cops. i have been to more protests and rallies than i can count and i have never seen riot cops.

they absolutely terrified me.

i talked my feelings out to morgan to avoid panic; "they want us to be scared. i'm not doing anything wrong. they are supposed to intimidate me. i'm not scared. they are so fucking scared of us if they put this many cops on the street.

they know we have a reason to be angry. they know we have a reason, AND THE RIGHT, to be out in the streets, OUR streets. they know we are out here because we live in a world filled with injustice and that they play an enormous role in upholding the violent systems of oppression we are out here trying to challenge in any way we can."

photo by karol/decipherimages.com

these costumes and disguises worn by police are used to manipulate anyone who disagrees with the status quo into feeling unsafe if we are out in the streets, and helps those on the "good" side of police (in this case the G20 leaders, government officials, and citizens who have been sucked into the fear machine) to feel protected. in riot gear, police officers are completely stripped of any semblance of humanity. you cannot speak to them. you cannot look at them. you cannot interact with them. you cannot ask questions. all you are supposed to do is be afraid of them. the number of times we were in this crowd and thought we might be tear gassed (for standing there, peacefully protesting, and chanting a few slogans) was absurd and terrifying. after seeing some familiar faces, having some conversations, and calming down a bit, morgan and i decided to leave because the presence of police was simply too overwhelming.

so when the mainstream media is constantly misinforming people about these "thugs in black clothing reeking havoc on the city of toronto," i can't help but think about how much violence i saw go on entirely at the hands of thugs dressed in black clothing... emblazoned with the words "POLICE."

clearly, there is so much to be said about these questions and i could go on forever, but i think i will conclude with this: it is ESSENTIAL not to lose sight of what triggered these questions in the first place: why were people out in the streets of toronto this weekend in the first place? what were the images the mainstream media showed us of what a protester looks like and wears? how do police use our physical appearances in an attempt to repress our voices and to manipulate fear in the public eye? and more generally, what does our clothing say about our beliefs? what clothing marks us as politicized, subversive, as challenging authority?

i felt safe and proud in the crowd of people on bicycles, reclaiming our streets. i felt inspired when hearing speeches by community leaders. i felt empowered reading the wonderful materials the alternative media has been putting out around. i felt safest in the crowds surrounded by people who the mainstream media is presenting as "violent thugs" and "rioters." there is something powerful about looking around in a crowd and seeing thousands of people who were all told to be afraid, to not be out in the streets, but were still there. 25,000 strong. we were still there and we are still here and we will keep fighting as long as we have to.

photos by ben powless

for more political updates and links, please see the past few posts i've been sharing on tumblr. i suggest reading why people are out in the streets (and why you should be too) as well as my link sharing alternative media coverage of the g20 resistance.

*i say "white" because i still have many questions about my racial identity as a french canadian/acadian/abénaki person. i am often read as white, but i know the longer my hair is and the darker my skin is in the summer months i am often mistaken for latino, native or mixed.

(SHITTY) LINKS:
Lawyers trade suits for hiking boots during G20 by Drew Halfnight
G20 fashions for the militant and fabulous by Katie Daubs
Toronto Star offers G20 fashion guide, demonstrates its discomfort with irony The Informer
Toronto G20 Fashions by torontostreetfashion.com
G20 fashions in Toronto, wrap-up of summit by Newsbird's Views
Power Dressing at the G20 - the Globe & Mail

(GOOD) LINKS:
Knowledge is Power Comic - Peterborough Community Mobilization Network
Toronto Community Mobilization Network
- G20 Police Given Extra Powers
G20 Alt Media Centre
Toronto Media Coop
Movement Defence Committee
Rabble.ca
- What big media ignored: 25,000 peacefully demonstrate against G20 policies in Toronto
May Toronto's G20 be the last - The Guardian
Photos of the G20 protests by Holly Norris
Videos of the G20 protests and police brutality at yg20.info
Policing the National Body: sex, race and criminalization edited by Jael Silliman and Anannya Bhattacharjee

UNDERCOVER COP VIDEOS/LINKS
search "undercover cops g20 toronto" on youtube or vimeo
The Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation
G20 Toronto Protest plainclothes cops arresting a dude / scary cop lady
G20 Toronto Black Bloc FAIL: (are they cops, paid by cops, aka provocateurs)
G20 Police used imaginary law to jail harrass demonstrators and jailed protestors in dangerous and abusive "detention centre" - Boing Boing.net
Why didn't the police stop the Black Bloc?

inspiration: body, identity, disguise and performance

2010-06-22T00:06:00.000-04:00

unity ball, montreal, 1996 by pierre dalpé

gender, drag and identity as performance/costume have been weighing heavily on my mind lately. i mentioned in a few earlier posts how the longer my hair gets the more uncomfortable i am with how my gender performance is read. sometimes i really love the subversion of high-femme dress juxtaposed with no makeup, hair fussing, or shaving, but sometimes i think i'd like to be a bit more "in your face" with genderfucking. shave my head. wear more menswear. it might have something to do with my loves, in real life, in film, photography, and of course in fashion.

just this past week i watched an old favourite, hedwig and the angry inch, with a friend, and nearly rounded off my consumption of everything almodovar when i finally got around to seeing la mala educacion. i think i prefer almodovar's films focused on women, but i really enjoyed the film overall.

gael garcia bernal in la mala educacion (almodovar, 2004)

on top of those films, i was recently introduced to montreal-based photographer Pierre Dalpé's work. this past year he has been working in mexico, taking portraits of actors, friends, children, and parades. but for our purposes, let us focus in on his prior work: projects like Personae, Backstage, and Clothes-Minded.

My work deals with the interconnected relationships between the body, identity, disguise, and performance.

his beautiful black and white series really strike me with their beauty and the personalities of his subjects contained within the frame. aside from the fact that they raise questions about gender, performativity, drag, and trans identities, they are simply amazingly beautiful.

here are a few more images from his website, as well as some quotes about gender.

from clothes-minded:

peter, 1990

alex, 1990

there is a real respect and appreciation for his subjects that i think really comes across strongly in these pieces. one wonders, does dalpé also do drag himself? who are peter, alex, manny, julie and colleen? are these his friends, lovers, brothers in arms? are these portraits necessarily deep deconstructions of what "gender" is, or are they just a simple homage to the beauty of these people and how they choose to present themselves? so many potential questions, all triggered by beautiful photographs.

from personae:

saul, sarah and joanne, 1998

jeffrey and ultra, 1998

the forrest twins, 2008

his series personae, on the other hand, clearly makes references to diane arbus and plays more with performance and costuming than his other portraits. the theatrical staged aspect of these portraits really make you wonder about how much our every day gender presentation is... well, staged. interesting food for thought.

There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original. - Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss

Masculinity and femininity are like two dialects of the same language. Though we all understand both, most of us "speak" only one. - Esther Newton

Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act… a “doing” rather than a “being.” - Judith Butler

to end things off, recently i have been poring over the pages of gender relations in global perspective, edited by nancy cook. one of my favourite readings so far has been leslie feinberg's "the giveaway," which focuses on how trans people have been treated by various native communities across north america, and the impact of colonization on those people (who are referred to as Two-Spirited). it is a really powerful text, i highly recommend reading it.

i think it is incredibly important for us to understand who benefits from imposing a rigid gender binary on bodies of all various presentations, especially in lieu of the news of recent medical interventions on young girls with "clitoris deemed too big" by doctors. once again we have to ask ourselves questions about why we are so obsessed with the idea that there are only two sexes, and in order to be socially accepted, we must fit into the very narrow definition of what is an acceptable woman or man.

but! that is another rant for another day, only slightly related to these wonderful images, films, and people. in the meantime, here are some of my favourite parts from leslie feinberg's piece, the giveaway. seeing as today is national aboriginal day, it's quite appropriate to talk about how much colonization sucks and how native people kick ass. reading the whole text really makes a powerful point about resistance and resilience.

The language used by the colonizers [steeped in hatred] to describe the acceptance of sex/gender diversity, and of same-sex love most accurately described the viewer, not the viewed. And these sensational reports about Two-Spirit people were used to further "justify" genocide, the theft of Native land and resources, and destruction of their cultures and religions.

What stunned me (about discovering the Two-Spirit tradition) was that such ancient and diverse cultues allowed people to choose more sex/gender paths, and this diversity of human expression was honored as sacred. I had to chart the complex geography of sex and gender with a compass needle that only pointed to north or south.

.... What was responsible for the imposition of the present-day rigid sex/gender system in North America? It is not correct to simply blame patriarchy, Chrystos stressed to me. "The real word is 'colonization' and what it has done to the world. Patriarchy is a tool of colonization and exploitation of people and their lands."

and of course, i wouldn't let you run away without more potential brain candy!

recommended readings:
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler
Gender Through the Prism of Difference, edited by Maxine Baca Zinn, Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Michael A. Messner
Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body (Thinking Gender) by Jana Sawacki
Gender Relations in Global Perspective, edited by Nancy Cook

zines:
(available for download at the link, thanks to the Queer Zine Archive Project)
Gender Trouble available in zine form (downloadable pdf)

gender and sexuality resource list

films/documentaries:
Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)
...And the rest is drag (King Crip Productions, 2009)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)

as always, i highly encourage people to support your local independent book dealers! and check with your library; if the books you are looking for aren't available, ask them to order them for you.

links: fashion maketh woman, burlesque, and queerness

2010-06-16T23:21:00.000-04:00

my writing was really on quite a roll last week, but of course, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. sadly, when most of my little projects were almost ready to share, post here and on other blogs, i was struck down with a particularly nasty head cold. trying to write/edit when my head it such a congested mess is out of the question... so to tide my wonderful readers over until i can show you some of my own writing and ideas, here are some links worth checking out!

first off, a very interesting event entitled "Fashion Maketh Woman" is happening tomorrow as part of the Intelligence Squared Spring 2010 debate series. for any of my readers on the other side of the pond (aka Westminster), i highly recommend trying to make it out! for the rest of us, there's always the internet!

Featuring an acclaimed panel including Stephen Bayley, Susie Orbach, Grayson Perry and Grazia's Style Director Paula Reed amongst others, the speakers will debate the motion: “Fashion Maketh Woman.”

"Woman is born free, but everywhere is fashion’s slave. Her choices are an illusion: the fashion companies and magazines dictate her purchases to her. She feels compelled to own the latest must-have handbag, believes the key to happiness is the new bondage boot; they’ve told her she’s worth it and without her fashion fix she feels worthless. This, at least, is the story told by those who scoff at fashion. But isn’t that just sour drapes? Isn’t it rather the case that the world of fashion defines the spirit and mood of the age? That the brilliant designers in the fashion houses bring vim and vigour to an otherwise pedestrian world? And that those who somehow think they¹re above it all just end up looking drab and dull?"

The debate is being held on Thursday, 17th June from 18:45 - 20:30 at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, and doors to the event open at 18:00. To find out more, please go to http://events.intelligencesquared.com/current-events.php?event=EVT0213 where tickets are available for £25.00. Half price student tickets are available...
We are streaming it live and on-demand at http://www.intelligencesquared.com/live...

i will be watching the live stream of the event, and i'm really excited! it's free, so if you can't make it to the event, i highly recommend checking it out. i posted about this on monday on my tumblr and a lot of people expressed interest in it, as well. i'm very interested in seeing how class dynamics are addressed. i also adore grayson perry (well, what i know about him, and his deconstruction of conventional ideas of masculinity and transvestism) and i feel like a lot of very interesting and important questions about women's relationship to fashion could begin to be unpacked here. we'll see!

secondly, the debate about cultural appropriation, specifically in relation to native stereotypes, rages on. thankfully, this debate is spreading like wildfire across the internet, and discussions are starting to arise about what actions need to be taken.

my culture is not a trend is really on fire, and a great resource for anyone interested in the topic. i really have to resist the urge to reblog every single one of their posts on tumblr! so good, so honest.
published in january of 2009 (so way before this firestorm of online discussion really took off, which i would say was the spring of this year), see light outlines how to define and identity cultural appropriation. it's been making the rounds on tumblr and i thought some of you might be interested in checking it out.
the comments on threadbared in response to the above pixie market advertisment are also amazing, as we have come to expect, appreciate and adore. all of these spaces we've carved out in the internet give me hope that we can bridge the gap between discussing the theoretical problems around cultural appropriation and the actions we can take to voice our opposition and encourage critical thinking around issues of "post"-colonialism in the fashion industry.

moving on!

via queering

along the same questions of "appropriation," we have this really well written and thought-provoking piece about the politics of the term genderqueer: questioning transphobia: appropriation of genderqueer identities. it is a very informative piece, definitely worth a read.

to end off our link sharing, here are two that the wonderful iris shared with me this week + an email tip-off:

so what's the big deal with transcripts and stuff anyway? - about accessibility and the internet, HIGHLY recommended
what's the difference between lesbian and queer? - if you've ever been confused about the use of the word queer in gay communities, especially with pride weeks happening around the world, now's the time to learn!
dress tiara the merch girl: on challenging burlesque aesthetics - tiara the merch girl is all sorts of sassy and awesome, which goes hand in hand with being a performance artist based in brisbane, australia. here, she talks about about the issues of being a queer, non-white, political performer and how these aspects are particularly... welcome in certain circles. i love the way she clearly outlines ways she wants you to help her. also, follow her blog! it's great.

last but not least, today is my little sister jasmine's birthday. so i thought i would take this opportunity to share the amazingness that is my relationship with my sisters with the internet, with the help of a few absurd photos:

jasmine being a supermodel for my etsy store

and of course, the trio:

justyne (the eldest), yours truly (middle child syndrome right here) and jasmine (the baby)
photo by simon dumas

christmas 2008 (yes those dresses were a joke)

now, to go rest my throbbing, aching head. hopefully this post was coherent!
goodnight!

Love Letters and Cultural Appropriation: Gala Darling

2010-06-08T14:50:00.000-04:00

i'm very excited to present my first guest contributor, and long-time super awesome friend, iris hodgson. iris hodgson is currently completing her masters in philosophy. her research focusses on connecting disability theory to feminist philosophical frameworks. in her free time, she volunteers at Out on the Shelf, OOTS, a queer bookstore in Guelph, Ontario, drinks lots of tea, and longs for folks to have dance parties with.

Fashion blogger extraordinaire Gala Darling knows a thing about creating a signature style: in some parts of the Internet, her cotton-candy hairstyle, positivity-inducing attitude, and recovering-Goth-meets-Sex-and-the-City outfit posts make her an icon. And Darling makes her money precisely because she is so fabulous: readers of her blog shell out extra cash for installments of her e-book, which promises to teach her acolytes the secrets to attaining her magical, glitter-infused lifestyle for themselves.

Gala Darling is so into personal branding that she has a signature signature: she signs off her posts, “Love Letters and Feather Headdresses, Gala xx”.

Yep, feather headdresses. Gala has been a fan of this hipster-hyped accessory for the latest year or so. Every post, she wishes her reader “feather headdresses” as her parting words. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but after months of this, when it finally sunk in that, indeed, she was doing it on purpose, and she wasn’t going to realize that this was Classic Cultural Appropriation Fail, I left a comment on her blog asking what was up with the phrase.

Gala’s response was even more cringe-inducing:

So many things I love are from cultures foreign to my own (hip hop, Indian music, Buddhist concepts, etc.), should I ignore those things because I’m a white girl from New Zealand? My life would be much less fabulous if I did! I absolutely believe that culture is something to be shared, delighted in, learned about & cherished…

Rather than engage with the many reasons that Indigenous peoples might not want to have affluent white women wearing their traditional regalia, Darling speaks to the reasons that her own, very privileged lifestyle would lose some of its lustre if she felt she needed to limit her style choices to things that come solely from her own culture.

In doing so, she basically justifies her use of the headdress as part of her own personal branding by saying that it benefits her to do so. And since Darling bases her income on selling the desirability of her own fabulous lifestyle, and in influencing other young women to find that lifestyle desirable, she is literally appropriating Indigenous culture to benefit her own bottom line.

Last week, in a post promoting the latest instalment of her book, Darling describes the transmission of the electronic copies as “whizzing around our heads right now, landing with a splash in the inboxes of international playgirls, glamorous savages & doll-faced geniuses all over the world!” (emphasis mine).

We know that Darling thinks that (at least some) “savages” are glamorous, as we can see from the style inspiration on her blog. But now, she has portrayed herself as selling her own fashion-forward, magical lifestyle back to the folks she stole it from in the first place. I left an admittedly-frustrated comment on her post calling her out on her language, and so did a few other folks I know, but they have all been deleted.

Back on that original post in February, I responded that the problem with cultural appropriation, as I saw it, is that Indigenous folks face discrimination and in some cases have a history of being legally barred from wearing things like headdresses. The hipster headdress is perceived by others as being “fierce” or “exotic” or “creative” or “bohemian” at the same time that Indigenous people who might want to dress similarly would be perceived negatively for doing so. I said that when you are a person who has not invested any time in understanding the widespread racism that Indigenous people and communities face, or the continuing effects of colonialism on those communities, it is especially insensitive and can be straight-up racist to align yourself with those communities by taking something you think is fashionable and using it to make yourself look cool. I asked Gala to think about how “you are taking from that culture and giving nothing back, not even your constructive support.”

But this most recent comment about “savages” shows that, obviously, she hasn’t thought about it. And the fact that Darling is deleting comments that call her out means that she isn’t willing to publicly discuss it, either.

And that’s bullshit. It is time for Darling to have to publicly discuss her Cultural Appropriation beyond a pithy comment about her fabulous lifestyle. And it is time for her to be asked to answer to similar criticisms being made by other bloggers. Why does her blog depict mainly white women? Why, when she talks so much about self-love and body acceptance, does she post photos of thin women almost exclusively?

I love a good fashion blog. I love talking about outfits. But we have no business allowing the representatives of the fashion blog community to be oppressive. Gala Darling needs to be called out. And we need to step up and do it.

There are lots of resources out there already that talk about cultural appropriation and the hipster headdress. Namely, this post at the Cultural Appropriations blog called “But Why Can’t I Wear a Hipster Headdress?”

There are lotsa reasons why, of course, including this one:

By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you're standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally so your ancestor who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to you. Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? yes. absolutely. but by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.

Two years ago now, Jessica Yee wrote a post about Juliette Lewis’s hipster-headdress appropriation:

But it’s not like this all isn’t a usual occurrence. We in the Native community have to witness this with every kid who dresses up like Pocahontas on Halloween, or every time we turn on the TV to watch the Redskins, Braves, or Indians play. In fact it’s been going on for so damn long that we’re kinda the only race who it’s still happening to on this extreme, public level, to the point where the fight has basically died down. Or has it?
What I find most interesting though about all this imagery, and in particular Lewis’s choice of dress with her band, is actually coming from my raging feminist point of view. In an attempt to appear strong, raw, and unapologetic, people, and in this case, a woman, feels like she has to appropriate Native culture to a pretty extreme extent in order to do a good job of it.

This post, called, “When Non-Native Appropriation Goes Terribly Wrong” identifies and dissects exactly what I fear is happening when young women internalize Darling’s sexy-exoticizing message.
And here’s a recent Threadbared post about appropriation, More Native Appropriations, Heritage Capitalism and Fashion on Antiques Roadshow.
Finally, this tumblr, My Culture is Not a Trend, is a nausea-inducing roundup of problematic hipster fashion.

fuck fashion: taking action against oppression

2010-06-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

this past week, two t-shirts were brought to my attention. the first was this lovely "eat less" number, pictured above, was available for purchase in urban outfitters stores and online. the second was brought to my attention by my friend karina with the subject like wtf??. (un)surprisingly, it is also sold by urban outfitters, and featured an uncle sam type figure holding an unconcious (or dead?) half-naked woman draped in an american flag and demanding that fathers protect their daughter's virginity. unbelievable? believe it:

so here we have two offensive garments, both making comments and in some sense claiming ownership over women's bodies and sexualities (which are so intrisically connected - think about which women are permitted which kinds of sexualities - which bodies do we sexualize, etc): the "women's" t-shirt, clearly tied up in body politics and explicitly pro-ana, and the "men's" t-shirt proclaiming that it is a father's responsibility to "preserve" their daughter's virginity. on top of that, in the second t-shirt, the image of uncle sam as the father is rendered even more offensive and frightening, as though he represents the big bad government lording over young women's sexualities.

the "eat less" one conjurs up debates about who has the right to tell who to eat what and how much. there are so many other aspects of our society that judge us for our eating habits and/or size, why do we need a t-shirt to bark commands at us? aside from enraging me about the fact that this is specifically targetted towards young women, this t-shirt raises some of my serious complaints and concerns about how eating disorders and general harmful "body snark" (as i like to call it) constantly finds its way into (retail and high) fashion, as much as i try to pretend otherwise... as much as we are seeing an increase in "body acceptance" discussions in mainstream magazines and ad campaigns (think the dove "real beauty" campaign), at the end of the day the fashion industry still constantly tries to sell us insecurity and body hate. but that might be something to take up at another juncture.

these products raise some serious questions, mainly... why. why do these t-shirts exist? why are these t-shirts for sale, and who would buy them? are they simply jokes in bad taste that many don't think they should have to stomach? a lapse in judgement on the part of the designer, the company, and its staff? a simple oversight? we can debate the reasons why this specific company thought that selling these items was not only acceptable, but a wise business decision, but that is not why i am calling them to your attention. i am interested in what steps we take, as critical fashion lovers, when we see offensive items like the aforementioned. what questions do we ask, and what actions should we be taking?

in the case of these t-shirts, people took action. understandably, many people were pretty pissed off about these two t-shirts, and not soon after they were noticed, some young women decided to organize a "girlcott" of urban outfitters until the t-shirts was removed from stores. from their facebook page:

Let Urban Outfitters know you won't be buying from them until they pull the sexist clothing items from their store and issue a statement committed to creating and selling anti-sexist items:

Tweet this: TO @UrbanOutfitters - sexism may sell, but we're not buying. Throw out the sexist shirts, make clothes for all! http://ht.ly/1Tz02 #girlcott

Call 1.800.282.2200 and issue a customer service complaint. Tell the representative that you will not buy their clothing until they pull sexist items from the store and site and issue a statement committed to anti-sexist items in the future.

as of June 6th, urban outfitters claims the t-shirt has been pulled. well, not quite. you can't buy it online anymore, but if you go to their stores you can still have your dose of fucked up body image, since it is in such short supply elsewhere. sidenote: for those claiming not to understand why a t-shirt that says "eat less" could be construed as offensive or pro-ana, i suggest reading the comments on the posts linked at the end. i think it's quite clear why it's offensive. what i am really interested in understanding are the specific dynamics at work here in the capitalist/consumerist fashion industry.

in this specific case, let us look at the t-shirt that demands girls "eat less." eating is talked about in these spheres as directly related to body size. the implicit message is that the person reading (and/or wearing?) should eat less, most likely because this t-shirt (without eyes or any sort of vision) has deemed the person reading the statement as being too large or as consuming too much food. how does this make any sense? it doesn't, really. but, a t-shirt like this one feeds into all kinds of other industries, namely the diet industry, which is closely connected to the beauty industry. so we have these three (capitalist) systems, fashion, beauty, and diet, working together to give young women around the world complexes about their bodies and the way they choose to adorn and modify them. ever since i have been interested in fashion, i have been concerned about the links between these systems, and i don't think they are more clearly explicit than in situations like these t-shirts.

but my main concern here is that getting rid of this t-shirt doesn't necessarily change the fact that these systems work together to oppress, humiliate, and objectify women in every level of production. taking the "eat less" t-shirts off store shelves is, yes, a victory of sorts, but it only makes me wonder more about the way the company that thought selling this was a good idea operates. who is behind the scenes? who is profitting? and most of all, is this t-shirt the only place in the levels of urban outfitters where women are subjected to body hate and discrimination?

frankly, i wasn't surprised to see that these t-shirts were being sold by urban outfitters, given their track record (it ain't a whole lot better than american apparel). in my opinion, jezebel commentor everyonesfree couldn't have put it better:

I don't expect Urban Outfitters to be a responsible company, given the racist and discriminatory products I've seen in the past, as well as it's documented stealing of trademarked ideas from indie crafters and designers, but this is truly a sorry excuse for 'fashion'. It is not edgy, it is not harmless, and I would hope that my email and the hopefully thousands more that you get will make the company see how offensive this shirt is.

and this is where i think the problem is. the thing is, me not spending money at urban outfitters isn't really a change of habit for me. my girlcotting of this store won't change a thing about my issues with the way they run their business or what they sell, and my complaints with many other retail giants like them. my questions are more about the effectiveness of calling attention to specific examples of sexism like the aforementioned ones.

are these the things we, as young feminists, choose to be outraged about?
one specific t-shirt, or the problematic ideologies that the t-shirt represents?
are they part of larger struggles?
where does that struggle begin, and how will it end?

so let's say the offensive t-shirt in question is pulled from stores. does that mean the store is now less sexist and fatphobic? what about when the same store refuses to hire a woman, because they don't sell clothing in her size? or because she doesn't fit the "image" that urban outfitters wants to project to its customers? what sizes does that store cater to, and are there problems with that?

what about who makes the clothing in question: are we as outraged when we read the label of the clothing and have no way of knowing what the work conditions were like, and if we did know, would our consumption habits change in any way? how many women were oppressed or exploited in physical and emotional ways, in labour, production, presentation, all of the work that went into selling this t-shirt?

this is not meant to victimize the workers in question, but rather to address some concerns. i am simply asking questions about how and when we express our outrage, and what about. why is it pretty clearly universally offensive to point out a t-shirt that reads "eat this," and unsurprising to have it garner so much attention, while other situations that are explicitly oppressive and, pardon my french, fucked up, seem to receive little to no attention? in the same week, for example, i only heard one brief radio segment about the young men and women committing suicide while working in a factory making computers. were the working conditions in the factories that makes t-shirts for companies like urban outfitters any better, or worse?

photo from marxist-feminism

in honesty, yeah, i do think there are other things to be outraged about, especially this week. i can't seem to escape it. first, the foxconn suicides (as a former factory worker i feel a certain amount of solidarity and sadness) and of course with the oil spill in the gulf destroying ecosystems, killing animals, and ending people's livelihoods... not to mention the israeli attacks of the free gaza flotilla in international waters.

but! if we are going to express our outrage as consumers in the fashion industry, my question remains: what steps should we take, as critical fashion lovers, when we see oppressive systems at work?. what questions do we ask, and what actions should we be taking?

it is great to see people being mobilized and it would be great if these t-shirts were no longer being sold. however, i am wondering what happens when we look at the reasons why this t-shirt existed and was being sold in the first place, and what we can do to actively challenge those reasons and hopefully change them.

i think we, as critical fashion lovers, need to think about and share more productive ways we can challenge oppressive systems when we see them at work, wherever we see them happening. if you have any suggestions, now is the time to share them.

links:

feministing: really, urban outfitters? (the comments are worth reading)
the tummy project: keep tummy shaking on
jezebel: urban outfitters pushes pro-ana movement
the frisky article: urban outfitters wants dads to protect sacred virginity
tips for an effective boycott
facebook girlcott group
if it was my home: visualizing the bp oil spill

end of may getaway: what i wore

2010-06-03T13:25:00.001-04:00

to take a break from the city and the seemingly endless job hunt, i decided to head to la pocatière to visit a good friend of mine, and boy am i glad i did.

this was the house i stayed at. my friend ashlee told me it is the oldest house in the town. all of the other houses that were built around the time the city was founded in the 1670s were destroyed when the english attacked in 1759. this house survived, and dates from around that time. ashlee lives there with four lovely people, a one month old baby, a cat and her four kittens, and a ferret. we listened to lots of 90s nostalgia inducing music while cooking, and watched episodes of malcom in the middle while we weren't enjoying the beautiful weather.

on the last day of my visit, the morning seemed calm and beautiful, another sunny day ahead. but a storm arrived in a flash, the temperature dropped, and then all was wonderful and beautiful again. none of my attempts at capturing the beauty of the storm succeeded, so here are a dozen photos of me enjoying the sun in my new favourite dress.

i think it's supposed to be a slip; i bought it at my favourite thrift store in ste. foy, where they sell things for pennies. literally. this dress was 99 cents.

yeah.

i know.

and the flowers in the backyard matched the colour perfectly! don't take my word for it, here's proof:

this was right before the storm struck

during the storm, i took a few in the greenhouse space of the house. the lighting was really eerie and beautiful, and i found wonderful old wallpaper (my favourite).

and of course, after the storm, we enjoyed a magnificent sunset.

do yourself a favour and watch the sunset tonight.
find a rooftop, a window, a front yard, a park bench.
it'll do you some good, i promise.

midnight bike rides: suit style

2010-05-31T18:16:00.000-04:00

most people who know me know that i use any and every excuse to dress up. halloween, zombie walks, drag shows, theme parties... in fact, even just any regular dinner party at my house often ends up in me and my friends going through my closet, trying on all of my hats and vintage frames. so when i heard about les "cavaliers de la pleine lune," my heart went all aflutter! bike rides AND costumes??! yes! from the invite:

Le temps est venu de chevaucher vos montures pour une autre randonnée nocturne sous l'oeil protecteur de la pleine lune. Le départ se fera samedi 29 mai à 23h sur le parvis de l'église St-Roch. Vous êtes invités à apporter vos lumières, lampes de poche, costumes bigarrés et autres éléments festifs qui feront de cette randonnée une réussite!

loosely translated for you non-frenchies: "the time has come to saddle up and go for a (k)night ride under the watchful eye of the full moon... bring your bike lights, flashlights, fancy costumes and any other festive elements to make this a successful night!" this pretty much amounts to what my ontarion cyclist friends referred to as Midnight Bike Rides, but with some added "fance" as natalie would put it (definatalie is definitely rubbing off on me these days). so i invited a bunch of friends and delved into my closet to see what would be most cavalier for this occassion.

i ended up finding my bow tie and immediately knew what i wanted to wear; my tuxedo style white button up dress shirt, high waisted pencil skirt, backseam stockings, beaten up boots. i decided against suspenders and decided to braid my hair kind of femme-y in the back even with the men's hat. here are some pictures. (excuse the crappy webcam photos!)

karina and i know how to have fun.

i got tons of compliments all evening, lots of comparisons to charlie chaplin and being asked what i was all dressed up for/who i was dressed up as. in reality, i was trying to channel one of my style inspirations. the one, the only, janelle monae. she's has been making the round on fashion blogs (like here at the always wonderful threadbared and over here at dapperq) these days, but i've been a fan of hers for years now! (don't make me prove it)

honestly, i would give anything to have access to janelle monae's closet these days... she rocks spotless saddle shoes, perfectly tailored suits (which do not come cheap, my friends... even the crappy suit i have cost me more than i would like to admit) and beautiful bold bowties.

and of course, if you haven't already seen it, here her latest video for "tightrope" that everyone is going crazy for.

also: the longer my hair gets, the more i want to wear suits, suspenders, ties and bowties... but this topic deserves a post of its own.

speaking of bowties: the lovely dapperqueers blog is having a bowtie contest for the month of june! check out their blog if you want some bowtie wearing inspiration, they post amazing style.

so without further ado, here are some more pictures of the wonderful saturday evening i spent with karina and a dozen other midnight bike riders. what friendly and lovely strangers.

waiting for the other midnight (k)night riders

the crowd assembles! we can soon begin our adventure

as we waited around, two people asked me if i was part of a performance, if there was going to be a play. i suppose wearing a bowtie and hat will do that.

taking a water fountain break after a little ride

we decided to make a little fire by the side of le fleuve st. laurent and ending up having lovely conversations for hours! a really nice group of people.

we headed home around 2:30 in the morning, and will hopefully reunite in a month's time, under the full moon!

ode to hats: part one

2010-05-29T19:24:00.000-04:00

leonard cohen looking quite dapper in a lovely hat

today, on a beautiful sunny day while riding down the street, i crossed a young man in a very dapper hat at an intersection. "j'aime ton chapeau!" i said as i began to bike up the hill in the opposite direction. he smiled.

this evening, whilst sitting on the grassy plains of abraham, a young woman in a nice straw boater (and all around wonderful outfit... ) crossed my path. once again, i said "ton chapeau est tres beau." quite surprised, she thanked me and smiled.

moral of the story: if you wear a hat, it ups your attractiveness to me by 100000% and i will feel obliged to tell you you look nice. and it will make you smile.

also i am going to put on a hat before going on a midnight bike ride tonight. hurrah!

american able: why does fashion have to give us complexes?

2010-05-26T12:02:00.000-04:00

Almost a month ago, Worn Journal posted a condensed version of this interview on their website. It caused quite a stir, being linked everywhere from Jezebel, to Bitch Magazine, to Sociological Images. Today, if you haven't already seen American Able somewhere in the blogosphere, you can catch it on the TTC in Toronto. And you can read the entire extended interview and article here!

A condescended version of this interview was originally posted at Worn Journal on May 3rd, 2010

I remember back when the very first American Apparel store opened in Canada. Its sole location was on Queen Street in downtown Toronto, and I was really, really excited about it. I had just become interested in the question of ethically made clothing; at the time, most of the clothing i bought was second-hand, but knowing full-well that buying used is not a universal solution to the exploitation that happens in all levels of the fashion industry, I was interested to learn more about stores with initiatives like American Apparel.

Unfortunately, after a few visits and purchases at the store, I found myself... slightly underwhelmed. Sure, the stores sure were selling what I had been told they did - ethically made, simple basics - but only in terms of the clothing. In terms of their marketing as an "ethical" clothing store (proudly boasting that every step of production happens in downtown LA, emphasizing diversity among their staff, among other things) I felt as though I had been sorely duped - as a critical very left-leaning feminist - when I saw their advertising splattered across billboards and in magazines. Even though the televisions in their stores screened videos about how much they respect their factory workers, store employees, I felt like the rules were slightly different when it came to the women in their ads. I thought this would be a company that respected people across the board, in every step of the way. But seeing a picture of a nubile young blonde wearing knee high socks orgasming (or simulating orgasm) for the male gaze as a way of selling me a pair of socks made me uncomfortable, to say the least. Things only got worse after I heard rumours of founder and CEO Dov Charney masturbating while being interviewed by a female reporter and charges of sexual harrassment swirled in the mid 2000's. Well, Dov Charney might be masturbating to a slightly different picture if Holly Norris and jes sasche have anything to do with it.

So much ink has already been spilled about what American Apparel has done wrong (and yes, right) as a company. Ironically, Woody Allen has even gotten involved, suing one of their rare ad campaigns that featured something other than a half-dressed hypersexualized woman. But I digress! This is not what I'm here to talk to you about; rather, I want to talk about a refreshing take up of their notorious ad campaigns.

Let me paint you a picture. You’re headed towards a bus stop on your daily commute to work. You notice a gigantic advertisement plastered on the side of the bus shelter - a young, thin, blonde woman wearing nothing but striped socks and a pair of underwear. It’s not even 8 :30 in the morning yet, and you’re sighing at the sight of a woman objectified and hyper-sexualized, all in the name of advertising. How cliché. The problem isn’t even necessarily the fact that she’s half-naked, it’s more that you’re sick of seeing the same kind of woman sexualized in these boring, uncreative ways. What’s even worse is that the fine print of the ad tells you that this is not, in fact, a professional model but rather an every day, average gal. Just like you! Ah, American Apparel strikes again, you tell yourself. As if this speaks to my life.

In my reality, all kinds of people are sexy and sexual: People who identify as queer, as trans, as disabled, as fat, some combination of the aforementioned terms but most generally, as awesome. But in this world of American Apparel and various other “real beauty” ad campaigns making claims of representing the “average woman,” I never see myself or the kinds of people I know. It still doesn’t speak to my reality, and I’m sure it doesn’t speak to a lot of other people’s realities as well.

Luckily, thanks to Holly Norris and jes sachse, we might have to prepare ourselves for a sea change. This May, riders of the TTC in Toronto will bear witness to the critical sass created by photographer Holly Norris who teamed up with her then-roommate and poet/photographer/pornographer jes sachse to satirize the notorious American Apparel ad campaings in a witty, sex-positive way. Their spoofs of the ads, titled American Able, are currently being shown on television screens in subway stations across the city as part of the Contact Toronto What’s the Hype? Exhibition.

One of the most effective ways for feminists to constructively criticize the fashion industry and their problematic ad campaigns is with humour. Many of us have seen Sarah Haskins’ Target Women videos, which are probably the best known contemporary examples of criticizing the rampant stereotyping and sexism that goes on in advertising while simultaneously making you laugh your ass off. Holly and jes’ thoughtful and witty takeup of American Apparel’s notorious ad campaigns is just another way to think about how (and which) women are presented and sold to us in the advertising industry.

To talk a bit about why a photo series like American Able is needed, I caught up with these old friends to ask them a few questions.

Julia : tell me a bit about your goal with this project and how you came up with it. did you bounce ideas off of each other? did you know what you wanted it to look like before you starting shooting?

jes:

Holly was taking Women and Pop Culture I think? We'd lived together during the summer of 2008, sitting through the hell that was the TCSA. Which, naturally got us talking about disability politics. Holly was relatively new to critical dis theory, and would ask me lots of questions, which got us into great conversations. The shoot was Holly's idea, but the actual process was collaborative. The second set was all my own clothing, much of which was American Apparel. So, the poses were all me. The "shane" look was my idea. And the general attitude was mine. But Holly is the genius behind the lens.

Holly :

Originally, it was just a project for a Women and Pop Culture class at Trent University in 2008. While working on the assignment, I saw a photograph on Facebook of the Fat Femme Mafia in a change room wearing tight, shiny American Apparel tracksuits. It got me thinking about how different bodies look in clothing, and how we only see one specific kind of body in advertisements. I had been living with Jes that summer, and we had started talking about disabilities and difference. She does a bit of modeling so I asked her if she could model for this little ad thing I was doing for class and it just grew from there.

Fat Femme Mafia

Julia : there are so many sexist ad campaigns out there. why single out american apparel?

jes:

God. American Apparel is sexy. I dunno about holly but i love their style. Its andro and 'basic' and hipster. Lots of lyrca. Lots of 'your body as is' type clothing. However, model and sales clerk wise? Tall skinny white people. The usual. The fact that AA is hyper sexual appeals to me. The fact that the lens isn't really on an empowered body, is less appealing. Sexy sells. But why does sexy always seem to intersect with misogyny? Ultimately, AA is a popular brand of choice for hipsters. Many of whom are educated. Many of whom are familiar with the provocative nature of their ads. American Able doesn't mock from the outside. It mocks from the inside. I like that.

American Apparel is... oh gosh. predictable. sexy clothes outfitting lotsa variant people but advertising rather conforming depictions. no surprise here. the way my boobs and curved spine and facial difference sits in their sheer vnecks and tighties makes me giggle. one thing about their style is that its provocative. the clothes are made to conform to your shape, as it is. its actually some of the most comfortable clothing for me, because often more structured stuff is hit or miss, too big or too loose or too constricting. i'm not an hour glass, i'm two intersecting ones. i'm leggy and under 5 feet. i'm reeeeeeally tiny in places and pucker in others. i have the bum bum of a 12 year old, and the underwear tastes of a boy (mmmm mmmost days). but i rock the rack of a milk maid. what the hell is a milk maid? anyway. you get the picture.

Holly :

First off, on their ads there are often little blurbs like “Sarah is a student in New York…”, so they are positioning their models as representative of ‘regular people.’ However, they all fit into a specific idea of what a “regular woman” is. More practically speaking, for me as a photographer, it is easier to spoof their advertisements because they have that notable style with on-location shoots, simple cotton basics (which is half of my closet anyway), and helvetica font. It is a lot easier to recreate their ads as there is no need for a studio or for high fashion.

Hilariously enough, I've applied for a job at American Apparel before a few years back when I was in Halifax and desperate for a job. I didn't get a call back from them, but I was in the store a few months later and overheard a lot of gossip about the importance of appearance and of attaching the right kind of sexy headshot to your resumé.

It just seems really absurd that these sorts of objectifications aren't only relegated to their ad campaigns, but are in their stores as well. Even on their website anyone can submit to the contest of "best ass."

Julia : what did you hope people would take away from the american able series?

jes:

It’s Holly’s project, but personally? I hope people see these ads in the TTC, laugh, and put on something skin tight when they go home and stare at their bodies. It’s like an invitation to a healthy dose of vanity. Why does fashion necessarily have to give people complexes?

I’d love to be a model. I love designers and fashion, it’s art on bodies. I guess I love modeling because I feel like I embody a piece of that stare in my own work. That “I see you lookin’ at me” stare. I know I don’t look like a stereotypical model, and I like my body, but I get stared at a lot, in a different way. So when I pose, I have the opportunity to engage with my voyeurs. Or act indifferent about their gaze. Or make them question the politics in their stare. Or seduce them. Or pierce them. It’s really fun.

Barbara Kruger

All this feminist 'oh look at how this woman is being objectified' stuff with respect to advertisements and things, condemning the "ogle" comes from the same fibres as anti-porn sentiments. It grinds against what i know to be true about this culture. us as people. we stare. feminists stare at me. say ableist things to me... shit like this has stopped surprising me. the level of hate we hold toward ourselves and weave into the supposed 'gaze' of the world is obscene.

Holly :

I’m really interested in where it will be seen. It is showing on digital screens that are typically ad space, and has the potential to make people do a double take and question what they are seeing and how it differs from a regular ad. I think the realization that it’s a spoof makes people question and critique why - why do they only ever see able-bodied people in fashion advertising? People with visible disabilities are rendered invisible by mass media, and I think the reactions to American Able really highlight that. Even when there are claims of ‘diversity’ it is usually really lacking, to say the least. One rarely sees people with disabilities in advertising, unless it’s in a group photo and then it often seems more tokenizing than anything else.

American Able featured in the Toronto Star

Julia : the first thing i took away from the photos was a mischievious, sexy sense of humour. what do you think about the place of humour in criticizing media (tv/ads/newspapers) of an oppressive nature? do you think it is more or less effective than, say, boycotts, letter writing campaigns, or other traditional activist approaches?

jes:

Humour is my life. On the surface it’s easy to take me less seriously because of it. But humour also gets you in the door in a way that a rebellious placard never will (lamentably). Writing for Arthur as Arts Editor, I decided to merge news reporting with a first person persona that i think lent beautifully to art coverage. Some people told me my articles were the only thing they read. and i dont take that flattery 100% as credit to myself, but rather the opportunity that satire and wit provides. People still talk about that damn Swift essay, but who remembers any political campaigns from the day? If you can make em laugh, they'll trust you...

I suppose thats where the humour and smirk comes from. i'm 25 and the reality, truth and illusion necessitate each other. you can find that in an ad. in a photograph. in a pick up line.

Me boycotting AA is ridiculous. You show me a fashion line that rocks my disability politics. None of em do! I'll wear what i want to, because my body, like everything else, contradicts itself.

This is too much rambling. But i guess Holly doesn't necessarily know all this when she shoots me. i'm just jes to her. goofy and sexually 'free' and comfy bein naked for her project, for the TTC, whatevs.

Oh i'm so ready to move beyond 'this girl reclaiming her body'. It's not about 'my journey'. Maybe it is for people looking at me lookin at them. But shit. I wish the negative people would just move on.

Holly :

I don’t think it’s necessarily more or less effective, I think they can compliment each other. Because it’s not like someone is out yelling in the street, it’s a piece that you can sit and look at it and inform your own thoughts and opinions on your own. With spoofs, its sort of pointing out the sort of problems with it what you otherwise wouldn’t be seeing.

It’s a really interesting space, I really like looking at spoof advertisements, I love Adbusters, that sort of thing. We live in this culture where we are so bombarded by imagery and advertisements and stuff like that, I really like putting this kind of thing in the space where we’d otherwise be seeing these corporate advertisements we see over and over, and over that really does question and challenge what we’re seeing . Why am I not seeing ads like these in real life. Why aren't bodies like jes' seen in major ad campaigns?

Julia : i've heard rumours that the american able series was even forwarded to the american apparel head offices; what do you think their reaction might have been like? jes, are you excited by the idea that dov charney may have lusted for your hot bod?

jes:

Oh yes. I hope he jacked off. (no but seriously... how effing hilarious is that? I've penetrated the headquarters of the company outfitting hipster worldwide...)

Holly :

American Able was sent to American Apparel in March because there were concerns from One Stop Media, the company that owns the digital screens, that they may be sued were they to show American Able without permission from AA. It was frustrating, as I felt it politically undermined the project on some levels. There was also no reason to sue - the photographs were mine and they do not own Helvetica font. I'm not sure if it actually landed on Dov Charney's desk, but it went to the head offices in Montreal and LA. Regardless, I am glad it was shown in the end.

Julia : tell me about any other projects you are working on right now and where we can see them.

jes:

I've got a lovely exhibit coming up in May for CONTACT which i premiered during artsweek last fall.

i'm also working on a brand new website, crookedcanvas.ca (at the moment you can see some of jes' own self-portraits and other samples of her work on that website)

also... a film project in post production called 'crooked' made with kate taylor... its a documentary-meets-hang out sesh with yours truly. basically it's a first-person narrative exploration of queerness, disability and sexuality - looking specifically as some of the ways in which people with disabilities are working to subvert popular representations of disabled sexuality, which often work to asexualize and fetishize disabled bodies. the film uses both art and humour to probe these complex intersectional spaces in a way that aims to make these issues widely accessible.

yes. what else... uhh... writing a book? i'm writing a book. haha. don't read it.

Holly :

I recently did a research project in Feminist Research Methods on photographic self-representations, looking at my own work, Jes’ work, and Nancy Roberts. I’ve been pretty inspired by all of the work I’ve been looking at. (Keep your eyes peeled for perchance another interview with Holly about self-portraits and the internet! We talked about this for a really long time)

Nancy Roberts

In the future I'm planning on working on a blog with a few friends from feminist research methods class. It's called Getyourcookiestoo.com and we're hoping that it will become a sort of positive online space to talk about sexuality. So far we've talked a lot about pleasure, consent, those sorts of things... in the end it'd be something similar to feministing, covering a broad range of topics. In the works!

Julia : last but not least, i'd love it if you could recommend some blogs, books, or movies that talk about sexuality and disability from a critical sex-positive position.

jes:

Murphy o'myer... um. where do i start! Loree Erickson's film Want, man. i saw some great ones last year. This one called GIMP bootcamp... so great. also... the griffin centre is doing some fabulous work. They started sprOUT - the first (FIRST!) group for queers with intellectual disabilities to talk and hang out and play social programming. they often do stuff at bodies. preeetty ground breaking shit. they also had an exhibit at the AGO from what i understand. there is so much more to add!

vintage bathing suit appreciation post

2010-05-21T11:40:00.001-04:00

from the 1890s to the 1950s

beach fashions by nina leen, 1950

i simply refuse to bathe anywhere that does not provide benches to match my bathing suit!

clara bow in my DREAM romper

what's this? oh you know, just louise brooks having a tea party on the beach.

silent film stars love to hang out at the beach, it seems.
here we have agnes franey and myrna loy (of the thin man fame) in 1929

dorothy sebastian and joan crawford

my favourite, ukuleles and the beach!

fair bathers

from lecondevetement's flickr

more inspiration:
flick groups
vintage swimwear
retro beach
vintage bathing beauties/belles

what i wore today: blossoming spring time

2010-05-20T11:05:00.001-04:00

this is my new favourite dress. on tuesday my friend anne-marie and i hopped onto our bikes and rode for hours out to lebourgneuf, a suburb of québec city, to check out the new value village that had just opened. we found lots of lovely things but i ended up just getting this dress and she left with nothing because everything was absurdly overpriced. another reminder that value village is the "holt renfrew" of thrift stores and to support charity based ones rather than corporate bullshit ones, even if they are recycling.

i ended up shelling out the dough for this dress because it is quite unlike anything else i already have in my closet. at first, on the hanger, i thought it might be a bit school marmy, but thought to try it on anyway. on me, it feels like a dustbowl 1930s era dress. most of my dresses and skirts are knee-length but this one hits right between the ankle and knee and in fact, i think it makes me look even taller. it is perfectly floaty and airy for the lovely weather we've been having this week. i wore it when i worked at the thrift store yesterday and got lots of compliments on it.

after work i decided to go for another bike ride (may is bike month! i've been riding my bike every day) along la riviere st. charles on a lovely bike path which has gorgeous tress with pink blossoms right now. my allergies hate me but my soul feels better after laying under those trees. here are some more pictures.

my new favourite bag of all time. i found it outside the thrift store i work at, and added blue eyeshadow, eyeliner, nailpolish and lipstick to the young chaps. i am thinking about adding a monocle or a pipe to one of the two youngin's.

you can see my lonely bicycle in the upper right corner in this crooked one (the camera was propped on a tree branch)

but more generally speaking, things have been rough lately; i'm dealing with a lot of anxiety and other issues, and i'm realizing more and more as of late how fashion and clothing relates to this. i normally don't have a very hard time getting dressed in the morning (on average, it takes me all of 2 minutes to pick an outfit and put it on, ta-dam!) but lately i have been filled with anxiety and questions. i feel like there is nothing i want to wear, or that is appropriate. even though my closet is bursting, nothing feels right. i change three or four times before leaving the house to apply for jobs or interviews. what should i wear? i am handing out resumés at bars, how should i dress? at hotels, how should i dress? in retail, how should i dress? how should i wear my hair? should i wear makeup (which i normally very rarely do)? i am more concerned with how other people read me than how i present myself, and i feel like i am having a hard time knowing what people want to see.

there is a lot of power in that, in how you choose to present yourself. there are so many things in our lives we have no control of, but what we wear is something we actively choose every morning, whether we frame it as a choice or not. i think this idea relates to my self-portraits as well; i am the one deciding how to pose, what i look like, where to take the picture, when to take it, and whether or not the photo gets taken in the first place (since a lot of people dislike being photographed for any number of ((valid)) reasons). when getting dressed for others, there are very few ways to know for certain whether or not your appearance will please them. you can guess, but it is hard to know for sure, especially with strangers.

but hopefully i will find a good job soon and will feel less anxious and depressed. yesterday, as you can see, i decided to say fuck it and just wore what i felt like wearing and handed out five or six resumés and did a few follow-ups. if i try both routes (parading in a costume that is NOT me, and being myself) then i'm bound to find something.

but don't worry, i'm taking care of myself. cheering myself up by learning new old favourite songs on the ukulele, listening to lots of nina simone, abner jay, and old blues, drinking late night tea on my patio with karina, talking to old friends (thank goodness for skype) and spending more time on my bicycle than on the computer.

interview: self/portrait

2010-05-16T18:13:00.000-04:00

julia : self/portrait from karol orzechowski on Vimeo.

on an early april rainy day while i was in toronto, i met up my friend karol to talk about my self-portraits. he showed this to me on friday and it is really lovely. i'm really happy with how it turned out and hope you guys enjoy hearing what i have to say!

after our interview, karol gave me a few assignments: i had to play a song on the ukulele for him (which you hear in the background, one of which being an original of mine i'm working on) and to take some self-portraits in the bathroom of the café we were in. here are some of them, taken by me and edited by karol.

from the archives: sucke(red)?

2010-05-10T16:06:00.000-04:00

straight from the archives: originally published in february 2007 in Arthur Newspaper. text by kate taylor, julia caron and iris hodgson. design and layout by julia caron.

Activism is about doing something to solve a problem. Buying something isn't a creative or empowered solution to that problem, regardless of what Bono or P!nk will tell you. Activism, by its very definition, is active, so get off your ass, chop up that credit card, and check out your local activist organizations.

this week, my friend salima and i are giving a workshop about women and gender in the media, and we've been digging up old academic papers and clippings to prepare. hence, you guys finally get something from the archives! i've been meaning to do this since the fall. it's been years since i've given a workshop, and it will be my first time giving one in french... i'm kind of nervous, but really excited. here are some things we are going to talk about:

examples of positive representations of women in the media they have seen
ways of speaking back to the media, and of making your own media
graffiti
internet (blogs, videos, etc)
the bubble project
zines

we really want to get the participants thinking about how women in the media are portrayed versus how the women they know in real life are. where is the disconnect? why is there a disconnect? how can we respond critically to sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression in the media in a productive and positive way? i'm going to make a resource list of specific books, websites and videos that speak critically about women in the media, so if you have any suggestions send them my way!

so! all of this to say, thinking about these ideas reminded me of this article i wrote three years ago. i imagine a lot of you remember the GAP (red) campaign and if you do, then you might enjoy reading this piece!

if you'd like to read the article,
you can download it here.

i'm hoping to transcribe it and republish it here but in the meantime, i pieced together a pdf for your enjoyment.

naked lady party

2010-05-06T15:42:00.000-04:00

every spring, i purge my closet. spring 2010 is no different. there is currently a gigantic pile of clothes languishing in my office, longing to find new homes and new uses. so what's a gal to do? throw a naked lady party, of course! a week ago i announced it on facebook:

natalie, understandably confused by the title "naked lady party," asks: "what? a party with naked ladies... what do the prudes do, hide in the closets?" no no! it is a nude optional party! it is just a fun title for what most laypersons refer to as a "clothing exchange" or "clothing swap." the name "naked lady party" simply comes from the fact that during these clothing swaps, at any given moment, there is probably a lady or two who is in various states of undress while trying on new clothing. also, generally speaking it is a ladies-only event but that is debateable (especially in queer communities).

a naked lady party is a great occassion to invite all your friends together to get rid of clothing you no longer wear. it is free, and all the clothes go to a good home.

i follow these rules:

if i haven't worn it in over a year, it goes.
if it doesn't fit anymore, it goes.
if i have planned on altering or mending it and it just haven't done it, it goes.
if i like it and it fits but the colour is terrible on me, it goes.
if it has never fit me in the first place and i just got it because it was cute and only a dollar, it goes.

of course, there are exceptions to the rule. i call them "the special vintage rules." these rules go for garments that are extra special and are more historical artifacts than they are simple pieces of clothing. for example, my prom dress, a 1910 tea dress, has only been worn five times in the seven years i've owned it. it is torn in the bust (in the fabric, not the seams, sadly). it no longer fits me. but it's a hundred year old tea dress. so it stays.

my sister justyne and i before ~prom~ in 2003

in the past few years, i moved quite often. every time i moved, i had to pack, so i also had to get rid of a lot of stuff. this usually meant calling my friends over to let them have their pick of the clothes i didn't want anymore the night before i left town. this made me quite popular in a lot of funny ways. it was a great way to make friends! everyone felt like i was giving them presents when really they were doing me a favour; taking away something i didn't need anymore, and giving it a new life and enjoyment. how lovely.

now, of course, this process is not without its regrets. there are certain dresses i still vividly remember (and sort of miss), and wish i had kept... or perhaps sold on etsy instead of giving them away for free. but this balances out when you organize a clothing exchange instead of being the only person to dole out the goods. you get good clothes from your friends, they get good clothes from you, and everyone walks away happy!

so before you throw your very own naked lady party, it is good to set your own ground rules.

rules:

GUESTS: invite lots of people. in my experience, especially in the era of facebook invites, when twenty people tell you they are coming, maybe ten show up. tomorrow i'm expecting about eight people which is a good number. any more than a dozen can get a bit hectic.
CLOTHING: put all of the clothing in a big pile in the middle of a big room. tell your guests where they can try stuff on if they aren't comfortable changing in front of friends.
MIRROR: have a mirror handy! everyone wants to know how things look on them.
if you host the party at your house, be sure to separate ANY clothing you might have second thoughts about giving away from the gigantic giveaway pile. it sucks having to tell a friend no, they can't have that when you see their eyes light up as they try on one of your favourite dresses that accidentally found its way into the pile.
BE NICE: avoid body snark. for example, when someone tries on an old skirt of yours, don't say things like "oh yeah, of course that would look good on YOU, it totally doesn't fit my fat ass anymore." or even the opposite, like saying "here, try this on, it would fit you since you don't have boobs." avoid criticizing your own or your friend's bodies. just be conscious of your tone.
DON'T FIGHT: if two (or even three) people want the same garment, don't argue. be civil. who needs it? who just wants it because they want it? be adults about the whole situation. it's not complicated.

so those are some basic guidelines!

when i was in montreal two weeks ago for the roller derby tournament, my friend anne-marie and i made our way to the wonderful st. emilie skillshare to check out their clothing swap.

here are some (bad) pictures i took while we were picking through the piles.

this awesome sequined garment hopefully found a good home.

my friend anne-marie got away with a cute little purse and a sweater, shown here.

i left with this AMAZING dress that made me feel like a princess. the people are the skillshare were also so wonderful and insisted i take it, even though i felt bad since i didn't bring anything to exchange! i got compliments on it all day.

happy naked lady parties! wish me luck tomorrow!

clothes with lives of their own

2010-04-30T16:03:00.000-04:00

Las tres hermanas

Quinceañera.

Foto de familia.

Novia cortando el pastel.

Matrimonio.

Mujer posando.

i stumbled upon these photos on flickr the other day and am really quite smitten with them. i thought i'd share them with you here. aside from their obvious aesthetic appeal, i think they really say something about clothing's connection to its wearer... that clothes themselves can be relatively meaningless when stripped of their context and the person who has chosen to adorn themselves with those clothes.

in fact, it quite reminds me of miranda july's now defunct project "learning to love you more," specifically of assignment #55 - photograph a significant outfit. but that's an entire post unto itself!

what do these make you think of? do you find them creepy, interesting, inspiring?

what i wore: red and black

2010-04-29T00:14:00.000-04:00

on my way home from my friend karina's place a month or so ago, i took a lot of photos in the empty streets late at night (or rather, early in the morning) as i often do. this was after our second dress rehearsal.

for the vagina monologues i helped organize and performed in in early march, we decided everyone would wear red and/or black for our stage performances (it's a pretty easy concept). when we decided this, i thought about what i could potentially wear. a few years back, a simple red and black colour combination was one of my favourites and i always found it was an effortless way to look nicely put together. this time around, though, i found myself either wanting to dress entirely in black or entirely in red. my character in the monologues is angry, and this being one of my first acting experiences, i was very concerned with the whole "getting into character" thing, and clothing would be a very important part of this. i asked myself, should i wear all red, because red is associated with anger? but red is also very sexual and sexy, maybe too sexy for my character...

so in the weeks leading up to our dress rehearsals, hemming and hawing over what i thought my character would wear and trying to find a balance with a) what was in my closet and b) what i would be comfortable performing in, i started wearing more red and black in my every day life. i dug out my red coat, which was perfectly timed since the weather was warming up a bit. i added my very favourite black mourning brooch and went out into the world, postering for our event.

a better picture of my beloved mourning brooch, which i learned about here.

as our debut performance drew nearer, i finally settled on two dresses: both vintage black lace dresses i love and feel comfortable in, paired with red tights with black designs worn over top. and of course, my badass boots. i wore red heels for one practice but everyone told me i simply had to wear the boots. they really went well with my character.

1960s lace dress with a backwards collar. it's been with me for five years now, i think.

the second black dress i wore, which isn't seen very well in this photo! but i added a little heart pin that says "carmen" on it to queer it up a bit. (sadly i do not have a lover named carmen, but i do have a good friend of the same name!) and that lovely person dancing with me is karina, who kicked ass with her ode to cunt.

you can see the dress better in my performance (which i've been so indecisive about posting publicly... but if you guys really want to see it i'll post it).

and to wrap up and celebrate the end of the vagina monologues, we met up at the local gay bar for some karaoke. what a night! it was so much fun. it wasn't until i was on my way out the door that i realized i had unintentionally dressed in red and black again!

red followed me that night; went for dinner at a friend's place, which has a red door. was offered red wine to accompany the food. and as i headed out the door, i noticed red flashing lights, which, in québec city, mean you aren't allowed to park because the snowplows will be out.

in conclusion: i quite like red and black together.

life update: april

2010-04-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

on friday, my friend anne-marie and i headed to la musée des beaux-arts to check out an exhibit i've been excited about for months now. "Haute couture. Paris, Londres, 1947-1957. L’âge d’or." enough said, right? i decided to get dressed to the nines (i wore this dress, my new pair of heels my mother bought me, backseam stockings, my favourite new pair of gloves and of course my fur trimmed coat) and check it out for myself. but this post isn't about the exhibit! i'm still working on that.

this week is going to be a productive one; i've decided it so. my boss at the used bookstore cut my hours, my student who i normally teach twice a week is out of town, so i decided to figure out a good way to use all that free time in productive ways. this means: wrapping up all the post- vagina monologues business, writing for this blog, working on articles for calls for submissions for zines/blogs/etc, editing photos, responding to all your (amazing!) comments, scanning found photos and other things, as well as, last, but not least, updating my etsy store. phew! it's going to be a good week.

to top it off, this coming saturday my friend anne-marie is giving me and a few of her friends a lift to montreal to go check out our very first real-life roller derby: BEASTS OF THE EAST. we are really excited and there are even rumours of starting a flat-track roller derby here in québec city. we'll see what happens!

here are some projects ideas i am working on that i hope to share with you guys in the near future, just for a little tease.

fashion as objet d'art: the place of fashion in museums
class, race, gender reflections on the haute couture exhibit
in like a lamb, out like a lion: outfits from winter 09-10 (it snowed yesterday)
reflections on my tumultuous relationship with my digital camera
the story of my hair

the critical fashion lover's (basic) guide to cultural appropriation

2010-04-15T13:52:00.000-04:00

writing about cultural appropriation and racism in fashion is potentially the most controversial topic for fashion writers, with body politics (which isn't completely divorced from these issues) following close behind. those of us who identify as critical, progressive or liberal minded want to think these things will just go away, but cannot ignore all the signs say otherwise; in fact, racism and cultural appropriation seems to be selling more than ever as of late. just look at the fact that white models are still the standard on runways and in magazines, and that outdated, undeniably racist things like blackface will come back and rear their ugly heads in the pages of vogue even in our supposed "post-racial" era.

to be honest, even i have hesistated touching this issue. it is the one that infuriates, perplexes and inspires me most, not only as a fan of fashion but as an activist, ally and writer. in fact, one of the first pieces i ever wrote about fashion was in 2005 about the problematic increasing trend of mocassin or "mocassin inspired" boots for winter. i've tried to write about it since, but there is so much ground to cover that it becomes intimidating (brevity has never been my strong point). with so many visceral and bewildering responses to the issue, it has sadly only lead to a half-dozen unfinished pieces tucked away on my harddrive.

but i can't hold my tongue any longer. i am an avid reader and (generally speaking) fan of jezebel, and with the discussions going on there triggered by adrienne's post at Native Appropriations entitled "Feathers and Fashion: Native Americans Is [sic] In Style" i think it is time for me to put pen to paper and give a sort of "the critical fashion lover's guide to cultural appropriation."

let's begin with the original article in question: while i don't necessarily think Adrienne's article is very clear with its specific criticisms of cultural appropriation, and a lot of her points muddy (i strongly disagree that Outkast is at the very root of this trend, influencing bands like Juliette and the Licks, Bat for Lashes, and Ke$ha, and am prepared to defend that stance) i am excited by the conversations it has triggered. i do think she raises questions that need to be addressed by fans of fashion and participants in hipster culture as of late, questions that i hope to elaborate on here.

what i mainly want to address here are the responses to adrienne's article when it was posted on jezebel, which range from deeply insightful to downright naive and ignorant. instead of taking this opportunity to engage in discussions about the history of colonization in north america, native american resistance/response to these issues, white privilege, or the political power that many different kinds of clothing possess, a lot of people often end up reacting in predictably defensive ways. but don't take my word for it. here are a sampling of comments:

"So... should I not wear minnetonka shoes or feather earrings anymore?" sydbarretsaves

"Am I gonna go to liberal-PC-prison for wearing silver and turquoise jewelry?"

"Really? I'm not allowed to wear a FEATHER IN MY HAIR? Come on" ferociacoutura

"now I feel guilty for loving Adam Ant when I was 12 yo."

as one of my wisest university professors Molly Blyth once said, "guilt is useless unless it leads to action." what does it say about this contentious issue that these are the first questions people are asking themselves, instead of trying to get a more complex understanding of why someone might challenge their choice to wear these things? the fact that these commentors are asking themselves these questions is, yes, a step in the right direction, but the fact that it is happening in a guilt-ridden, dismissive way is pretty disappointing.

unfortunately, for me, they are hardly surprising responses. my very first internet flame-war happened back in 2004 or 2005 on newestwrinkle (for those of you unfamiliar with this community, generally young girls would post pictures of what they wore that week/month and ask for opinions/flattery). a popular (a stylish ((white blonde skinny*)) american girl) and frequent contributor to the community posted pictures from a "cowboys and indians" party she attended. the pictures showed this white-blonde freckled girl with two lines of blue and red smeared across her cheeks, a little headband with a single feather, and of course the (ever popular at the time) mocassins. when commentors like myself and others asked her what the point of this party was and why she thought this was a representation of an "indian," the reaction was astounding. the post ended up generating nearly 200 comments debating issues ranging from racism, stereotypes, cultural appropriation but resoundingly the conclusion was that "fashion is just for fun! you guys take this way too seriously."

the moderators decided to freeze comments on the post, and soon after the original poster deleted the entry altogether. the resounding lesson i, and the handful of other people openly criticizing this costume as (at the very least) problematic and (at the worst) blatantly racist, was that our criticisms were simply not welcome.

in other similar situations, largely framed around "ethnic" or racial stereotype halloween costumes, i have raised these questions to little or no reaction. fashion communities online, and as far as i have seen in real life as well, simply seem to not want to address this important issue at all.

to me, these situations are more than enough reasons for me to try and express why i think cultural appropriation is an important issue for any fashion lover to address, understand, and deconstruct. cultural appropriation can be a very useful tool for critical fashion lovers to navigate these perilous waters of privilege, erasure and ignorance.

my favourite aspect of cultural appropriation is that it can help us begin to deconstruct our sartorial choices and acknowledges the power of clothing as a means of shaping (racial, national, sexual, gender) identity. the exact same piece of clothing can mean very different things to different people (take any politically charged piece of clothing: the hijab, high-heel shoes, doc martens, the keffiyeh, etc) and acknowledging this fact is a very important first step. the very basis of cultural appropriation gets people thinking about questions like, can one piece of clothing "belong" to one culture? what do certain pieces of clothing signify? it moves us away from basic discussions of colour palettes and cuts and styles and trends and moves us towards a more complex theorizing of fashion.

the first time i found cultural appropriation helpful as a framework was deconstructing what makes me uncomfortable in fashion and why. while in my second year of studies at trent university, taking a few native studies classes, i was learning more and more about the long-term effects of colonization on native people in canada. watching documentaries about residential schools, the bureaucratic hurdles communities encounter in struggles for land claims, the third world conditions on reserves in canada, as well as various other institutional forms of racism opened my eyes to the fact that we live in a country that is blind. a country that relegates native people to outdated stereotypes we can tokenize when it suits our government's purposes, but likes to keep its dirty laundry (which in this case could very literally be small-pox ridden hudson's bay blankets) out of sight.

so what does this have to do with the fact that i am uncomfortable when i see a young white girl in a high fashion magazine draped in turquoise jewelry, wearing mocassins and prancing around the desert? because this is the only image we see of native people in north america these days. native american culture is reduced to a trend that can be packaged and sold to profit the fashion industry. native american people are reduced to one dimensional outdated stereotypes, or worse, as an extinct exotic race that once roamed the land, but who no longer live and breathe and resist today.

i have heard a lot of arguments that there are way more important things we could be debating instead of cultural appropriation; that native people themselves don't give a shit if a severely intoxicated white hipster decides to tattoo pocahontas on his leg or if some magazine decides their next nude photoshoot should feature blonde women wearing headdresses. who knows! maybe the jingle dress will be the next hot thing in haute couture, but it doesn't impact the quality of life of the people who make, wear and perform in those dresses.

my response to this is clear and simple; i don't think the issue of institutional racism and discrimination can be completely divorced from the question of cultural appropration. they feed into one another. one would not exist (at least not in the same way) without the other. if we lived in a culture that acknowledged the fact that most of us live on stolen land in north america and that recognized native people as complex, diverse, intelligent people without romanticizing or glamourizing them, i'd like to think that it would put an end to these sorts of reductive stereotypes popping up in fashion, film, music scenes. reducing an entire culture to a simple "inspiration" for your outfit, art project, fashion collection, or photoshoot is disrespectful and unhelpful, especially when we look at the bigger picture.

to keep things brief, i will address two last important issues: context and the fear of the "politically correct" police. in all of the examples given in adrienne's article, they were largely stripped of their context. are all of the examples given equally and explicitly examples of cultural appropriation? in my opinion, not necessarily. many commentors on jezebel pointed out the fact that andre 3000 of outkast is part native and african american, but does this excuse his use of neon-outfitted headdress wearing backup dancers? not really. these are questions i'm still exploring, but it is incredibly important to think about questions of context and intent.

a dangerous thing that can happen in discussions about cultural appropriation is, yes, becoming overly politically correct. when this happens, people end up being silenced and any potential productive discussion ends. everyone ends up getting defensive, but just as bad is becoming righteous. if you identify as an ally, it is fine to give your own personal opinion, but to claim to speak for all native people (as though they compose one homogenous group) is just as problematic as dismissing this as an issue altogether. as with any issue, i highly encourage the critical fashion lover to enter this discussion with an open mind and to be prepared to unlearn a lot of the things you thought you knew.

the biggest problem with the concept of cultural appropriation, in my opinion, is that it doesn't set out any explicit black and white rules for people to follow. as you can see based on the comments on jezebel, people are genuinely confused as to what the "right thing" to do in these situations are, and there's nothing wrong with that. you can't get answers if you aren't asking questions. my advice in these situations is largely about context, intention, and education.

let's say you bought a cute pair of feather earrings and you like how they look. you're white. is this cultural appropriation?

are you going to pair them with a pair of mocassins and skimpy dress in an attempt to channel outdated romanticized stereotypes of native women? then yes, i would say that's pretty shitty.
are you going to ask who made them and where they come from? are they made in a factory with terrible working conditions? are they synthetic? are they from an endangered bird?
how are they marketed/sold to you? are they tagged as "navajo spirit eagle feather" yet made in china and sold by a capitalist chain?
you can claim you like them simply for their aesthetic appearance, but why do you like this particular aethestic?

as you can see, there are a lot of questions you can ask yourself about a single pair of earrings, not all of which relate specifically to cultural appropriation. i like to think of myself as a conscious consumer and like to know where my clothes are from, how/when they were made, that sort of thing.

(for the record, i own two pairs of feather earrings; one i received as a gift from six nations while i was in caledonia at a peace and friendship gathering which i unfortunately lost, the other i purchased at a thrift store for 50 cents)

these aforementioned questions can apply to any number of garments for any person who thinks of themselves as a critical consumer of fashion. ask yourself if you're simply wearing it "because you like it" or because it is trendy, and ask if that is enough for you. everyone has different reasons for what they choose to wear and why, and as long as you're prepared to discuss your reasons without engaging in fucked up discussions ignoring your own white privilege, i say go for it.

phew! so, that about covers some of the basics. to end, here are some comments that popped up on jezebel that gave me some hope:

Dressing up as "a Native American" furthers the already popular notion that they aren't real, diverse, complex human beings. There's a reason that dressing up as a white guy isn't nearly as effective on Halloween; there's no homogenous vision of what White Guy looks like. If you've developed a homogenous vision of a particular race, enough that you could conceive of a good costume, then just fucking stay home for the evening. - choppery

and

if you are a white person who waltzed in here to give your opinion and it was based entirely on how it affects you and your fashion choices, YOUR WHITE PRIVILEGE IS SHOWING. Me, personally, I'm ashamed at how our country was built on the literal and cultural genocide of Native people. It doesn't matter that my ancestors didn't personally do it or that it was like a really long time ago. As an American, I find it shameful. And all I really want to know is, what can I do to show respect to people who are my equals but who are rarely treated that way? Last I checked, appropriating a culture that that has been systematically denigrated is NOT respect. - thesciencegirl wields the

i'm hoping to take some time to speak very specifically about this trend in respect to hipster culture (think roma/"gypsy" people being romanticized in music/fashion) in the last year or two, so this definitely isn't the last you'll hear me talking about this. i look forward to hearing your thoughts! if you're interested in learning more about cultural appropriation from a much more informed source, here are some things you might like to check out.

recommended reading:
black looks: race and representation by bell hooks
national disgrace: canadian government and the residential school system 1879-1986 by john milloy
unpacking the white privilege knapsack by peggy macintosh
me funny and me sexy by drew hayden taylor
"real" indians and others by bonita lawrence
various racialicious posts by jessica yee

recommended viewing:
yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes the cool on vimeo
genocide, assimilation or incorporation: Indigenous Identity and Modes of Resistance lecture by bonita lawrence on vimeo

self-portrait: thoughts

2010-04-13T10:28:00.001-04:00

lately i've been thinking a lot about how my self portraits fall largely into two precise categories:

1) sartorial (documentation/expression/mirror)
2) emotional (capturing a moment/creating a moment)

of course, these two often intersect, but the more i've been thinking about my own self-portraits the more i feel like that is as concise an evaluation i can sumise.

what i wore last week: easter weekend in trenton

2010-04-12T11:46:00.000-04:00

i visited my (birth and chosen) family in ontario last week and had a wonderful time. seeing my sisters always puts me in a good mood. i also finally had the chance to watch an education (which everyone was telling me i had to see) with my mother which i quite enjoyed and found interesting... triggered a lot of thoughts about own feelings about youth, sexuality and clothing as costume/transformative. looking forward to see what carey mulligan will do next.

more generally, i had a lot of time for discussions and reflections on where i'm at in my life right now and where my friends and family are. it was a really good way to put things in perspective, and one of the things that resounded with me the most was my desire to write more. that i can write no matter what is going on in my life, that i never lack inspiration.

i've always been the kind of person who felt like spring was a better time for renewal than the new year, so a lot of changes are in the works for me right now.

without further ado, here are some more pictures of my trenton adventures:

bike rides along lake ontario

this cat hates me. a lot.

shirt: borrowed from my little sister
key necklace: from an antique shop, chain thrifted
skirt: vintage clothing sale in ottawa 2009, $15

i adore this skirt. it is a simple cotton dress with a floral print, which sounds standard enough, but it's all about the little details. the buttons around the waist, the scalloped edges, the colour combinations. i purchased it in november but have had a hard time incorporating it into my wardrobe simply because it is so unique and i wasn't sure which shirts/colours to pair it with. so far black has been simplest, but i also paired it with a pale blue and a bold yellow told and both combinations looked nice as well.

but the story! i haven't even gotten to the story: the woman who sold it to me told me it belonged to her aunt. (background: usually, when you buy vintage, it is standard to ask if it came from a smoke-free or pet-free home, but you usually don't get this much detail) her aunt was a devout jehovah's witness, who never smoked, drank, or married. this does not make the garment pristine, however. it has little stains around the waist but that makes me love it even more (and made it affordable; it was originally priced at $40, then $30, then i snagged it for $15) and the story makes it all the more precious to me. i feel like i want to be particularly debaucherous every single time i wear it. i love having stories like these.

i also did my hair, on a very, very rare occassion. i want to do things more often but the reality is that i own little to no hair products other than shampoo, conditioner and hairspray and i am terribly lazy. i've often said i wish andi could come give me lessons.

my sisters and i headed to the mall in belleville to visit my favourite photobooth and had a mild shock; for a moment it looked as though it had been replaced with one of those newfangled digital contraptions i loathe. but! it was still there. i forgot it i trenton so i can't share the strip with you but here are some pictures from our wanderings:

four inch studded heels. damn they look hot but i could not walk in them. at all. i don't understand how anyone can.

jasmine refusing to pose in her four inch python t-strap heels.

getting engaged to my sister... yeah.

check out that rock.

thanks for reading!

what i wore today: alice or dorothy

2010-04-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

when i got dressed this morning, i thought i was channeling dorothy from the wizard of oz: a blue and white gingham print dress, paired with a new pair of lovely little red t-straps my mother bought me (ha! as if any shoes i'd ever wear could be considered "little"). but as the day wore on, however, my sister and mother both said i reminded them of alice. i like to think it's more because alice in wonderland is re-entering popular culture in a fierce way right now thanks to the remake, but either way i think i looked pretty cute.

what do you think?

my wonderful family bought me a plane ticket to come visit for easter weekend, and the past few days have been a whirlwind. i landed in toronto on wednesday morning, leaving the snow covered streets of quebec city for the sunny summer-like warmth of ontario. of course it is above seasonal; we normally don't see this kind of weather for another month or so, but this year it almost feels like summer!

early in the morning i took my big clunky cruiser to the gas station to fill up the tires, and go for a little bike ride. on the way i stopped by some old favourite places i used to walk along all the time when i was a kid, passed streets i used to deliver newspapers on, and of course saw the train go by.

when i got home, it was so hot i ditched the socks, the sweater and even ironed my dress. in april! april!

dress: emmaus, $5
slip + poofy underskirt: thrifted
shoes: naturalizer, gift from my mother! i love them
vintage queen pin: emmaus, $2

my sister's cat, who i briefly lived with when we went to university together, still quite dislikes me, even though i love her fluffy erratic self.

so there you have it! what i wear in trenton so that people look at me like i am an alien.

this happens every time i come back to trenton: i always feel simultaneously at home and completely foreign. for those of you who don't know me, i lived on military bases most of my youth, which meant moving every 3 or 4 years. we mostly lived in ontario, and the longest i lived in one place was trenton, for my entire high school years tied with five years in peterborough for my undergraduate degree.

as i alluded to, every time i am back here i feel out of place. my sisters, parents and friends often make (well-meaning teasing) comments like "you're going to wear that there?" but anyone who knows me knows i don't change what i wear depending on who i'm going to be with or where i'm going to be. yes, i'll wear that 1950s cotton day dress biking around trenton even though i'll get stared at. yes, i'll wear those three inch heels because i feel like it, even though it means i will tower over strangers and get comments telling me that tall women like me don't "need" to wear them.

so clearly, in the little over forty eight hours i've been in trenton, i've been thinking a lot about how our appearances are read by others as well as performed for others, in a sense. in the past two days, i've seen friends from a few years ago, from high school, as well as people who have known me my entire life, people who i haven't seen for a very long time. how much can we tell about each other, how much we've changed, based on what we're wearing? i've been thinking a lot about these things we see as "normal" for the most part and trying to theorize around them... i'll let you know once i've fleshed out these ideas in more substantial ways.

ALSO: thanks for all your comments lately! i love hearing your ideas and thoughts. a few people have asked me where my contact information is and i noticed i don't have it posted anywhere! i will change this. in the meantime you can send me emails with your ideas or comments to JULIACARON at GMAIL dot COM

what i wore today: sugar shack style

2010-03-29T16:45:00.000-04:00

on sunday, march 14th, simon invited myself, georgina, cristobal and karina to his uncle's sugar shack in bellechasse, québec. i was so excited, since it had been years since i'd been to one and my first time going to one in québec. so i grabbed my pentax and we ran to catch the ferry to lévis. after a short drive and a little stroll through the woods, we arrived to the lovely cabin and were greeted by simon's aunt and uncle. they were very enthused to have guests, especially mexican guests who had never seen so much snow aside from never having been to a sugar shack.

here are some of my favourite photos:

you can see more film photos on my flickr. here are a few digital ones that give you a better idea of my outfit since i suppose that's what we do here on fashion blogs:

happy monday! now back to job applications.

words of wisdom: embodied resistance/oppression

2010-03-29T09:57:00.000-04:00

photo by anja, cross-stitching by amelia (who both have awesome blogs you should read)

march has been a whirlwind and i've been trying to think up ways to update this blog on a more regular basis without getting caught up in not having the time to edit my 3,000 word essays every time i try to write about something. so here is a new little feature that i'll try to do from time to time, sort of like feministing's weekly feminist reader where i suggest some links and you can comment with your own favourite things you've read as of late. i'll start with some quotes that have really caught my attention lately.

The theme of rescue through benevolence underpins power relations and gives expression to those relations in a way that "makes sense." Thus difference, which is threatening, can similarly be recuperated through its conversion into exotica, or its neutralization through containment. In speaking of the exotic, it is apparent that imperial literature was replete with representations constructing women from the East and other parts of the wolrd as exotic Others who need to be unveiled so that their hidden natures could be consumed by the colonizers.

- Mapping Race in the Media by Yasmin Jiwani in Discourses of Denial, entire book available for download in pdf form here.

Sympathy or even empathy that is not coupled with power-sharing is meaningless. Any story that purports to show solidarity or uplift marginalised groups, but is not willing to let us tell our own stories in our own way, is not a friend.

- Stories that Ally versus Stories that Appropriate by Thea Lim, via Racialicious

I am a woman, and present myself as such. This does not mean I am anybody else’s expectation of what a woman is, but my own. I’m always reinventing the meaning of womanhood by just being myself, and knowing that whatever the result of being myself is, it is being a woman. I think that goes for everybody and any gender identity they may have.

- Anonymous, via Genderfork

There is no automatic or axiomatic relationship between a particular sexual act and the identity of the person performing it.

- Anonymous, via fuckyeahfemmes

...When we appeal to some notion of an unmodified or undecorated body, we participate in the adoption of a false neutrality. We pretend, in those moments, that there is a natural body or fashion, a way of dressing or wearing yourself that is not a product of culture. Norms always masquerade as non-choices, and when we suggest that for example, resisting sexism means everyone should look androgynous, or resisting racism means no one should modify the texture of their hair, we foreclose people’s abilities to expose the workings of fucked up systems on their bodies as they see fit.

- Dress to Kill, Fight to Win by Dean Spade (you really need to read the whole thing)

and last but not least, a little less about fashion and more about decor (which has been on my mind a lot these days), a quote from the Globe and Mail: Russell Smith's A lament for the bookshelf:

Bric-a-brac is generally unfashionable now. Designers see apartments full of amusing memorabilia – the matchboxes from Berlin, the Soweto tin car, all the stuff that children love – as dust-gathering and space-consuming. We no longer respect the Cabinet of Wonders as a guiding principle of decoration. So we lose forever the pleasure known to humanity for 500 years of taking a stroll up and down the aisles of someone else’s brain by perusing their bookshelves. Gone will be the guilty joy of spending a rainy afternoon at a cottage with the remnants of someone else’s childhood: their Nancy Drews, their 1970s National Geographics. Without bookshelves, you will never know the warning signs contained in the e-reader of your handsome date – you will not know for months that he is reading The Secret and Feng Shui for Dummies, even if you stay over. You will never be able to ask, as casually as you can, “Did you like this?” as you pull down, as if fascinated, Patrick Swayze’s autobiography.

hopefully that gives you some food for thought! share any great quotes you've stumbled upon lately in the comments.

to end off, a lot of people ask me how i find all of these awesome things on the internet, and wonder if i spend every waking minute of the day online simply googling "awesome things." sadly, it is not that simple and i really don't spend that much time in front of my computer. thanks to people i know both in real life and online, we share our favourite things with each other via emails, our livejournals, our tumblrs and our blogs. (unimportant sidenote: i know lots of people would argue that lj, tumblr and blogs are all "blogs" but i always feel the need to differentiate) and since most of these quotes came to my attention via some of these wonderful people i will give you some links so you can cut out the middle (wo)man! i'm posting their tumblrs because those are their most public places and where they most often share awesome quotes like the aforementioned ones.

bookselves.tumblr.com
sweaterves.tumblr.com/emptystomachs.tumblr.com
definatalie.tumblr.com
transartorialism.tumblr.com
fuckyeahfemmes.tumblr.com

enjoy!

my favourite thrifts: new feature!

2010-03-22T13:26:00.000-04:00

today is the first in what i hope will become a regular feature here: my favourite thrifts. i've been posting my finds for years on thriftwhore but here i will highlight one item per post and tell you where i found it, what i paid for it, and why i think it's awesome. pretty straightforward. so here is the innaugural post of my favourite thrifts.

found: march 2010
where: emmaus
how much: 3$

why it's awesome:

i promised myself years ago i would stop thrifting things for other people; i would only purchase things that i could fit into and that i would wear. i wouldn't simply take anything that i thought was beautiful or interesting or cool home with me just to have it, or to give to a friend, or to maybe one day sell. this, of course, has failed miserably, namely since i started my etsy store in november 2008 and when i stumble upon things like... this dress.

this dress. this dress is made for a child, but it is by and large one of the world's most wonderful dresses i have ever found. i'm sure you're looking at said dress, thinking, "why, yes, julia that is a cute dress, but one of the world's most wonderful dresses? that's quite a statement to make about a simple little 1970s children's garment."

sure, there's no fancy embroidery, or embellishment, or designer tags. it, by all accounts, looks like any old dress a young girl in the 1970s would scamper around the yard in, spill ice cream on, get dirty in. but let us look a little bit closer.

upon inspecting the perfectly sweet peter pan collar, the awesomeness of this garment should become apparent. no? need more convincing? look closer still...

look at the print of the sleeves! there are little children holding placards; they are all protesting for women's liberation, a permissive society and worker's rights! how amazing is that! i can't stop using exclamation marks!

and to top it off, they are the most stylish adorable freckled little protestors you've ever seen.

this one, who holds the sign saying "up with permissive society," reminds me of a turn of the century suffragette. think of the mother in mary poppins.

and there you have it. one of the world's most wonderful dresses i have ever seen.

check out my flickr for a few more photos and for higher resolution versions.

mexico

2010-03-18T00:14:00.001-04:00

for the past few months (oh who am i kidding, years) i've been trying to flesh out my ideas about self-portraits. why i take them, why they are interesting, why i find them so thought-provoking. but since every time i sit down to write about them, i end up writing a novel, i decided to simply share some self-portraits with you guys while i work out some actually writing. i realized i still had yet to share my favourite self-portraits i took while i was in mexico back in december. it's about time i shared them with you.

(view this one larger, it's much better that way)

this one, i love because it's all about the mistakes; i had no idea there would be the shadows of the clothesline and powerlines cast on me. i didn't know i would hear a noise crashing in the kitchen that distracted me so that i wasn't looking (posing) at the camera. my favourite self-portraits are always the mistakes, the surprises.

also, in these photos, we see my uniform from my time in mexico. i bought that dress the first time i went to a tiny thrift store in ste. foy for a whole dollar, and only get to wear it when it's really really hot. so far it was worn for one day in québec city, three days in brooklyn in august, and five days in mexico.

(i tried to recreate the mistakes from the first photo i took in that spot but to no avail)

i might share a few more later, but these are my absolute favourites. to see more or comment on them, you can see them on my flickr.