Turn 'what if' into 'so what'

Social welfare is often used as a mode of delaying reality, especially for the hordes of young people who still find themselves jobless or relying on increasingly tenuous sources of income. When you spend all your time in college, on close to no money and an excess of daytime tv to watch, going on the dole is simply another way of extending the college experience without actually having to go to college.
This might work for a short time (one of my friends has been signing on for almost three years; a fact he often announces with bizarre pride) but eventually real life will come-a-knocking and the realisation will dawn that your life is no longer dependent on the largest volume of naggins and noodles for the lowest price.
To quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". My plans were to spend the summer tootling along as usual in my house, selling some of my clothes on eBay and hopping on a weekend jaunt to Galway with the proceeds before the clouds went from June greige to September's leaden clumps. So, no-one was more surprised than me when I opened my big fat mouth and asked the other half if he fancied moving in together.
Now, after much humming and hawing, we are both poised on the precipice of doing the most grown up thing I've been involved with since managing to tie my shoelaces independently of my mother's help. It is terrifying.
The mild sense of foreboding that clouds what should be an exciting time has nothing to do with our relationship or how much money we have (or don't have, as the case may be). Our chosen abode is eerily perfect and almost impossibly affordable. The problem is not us. The problem lies with the endless parade of 'what ifs' that stream through our minds. What if the money dries up? What if we lose our jobs? What happens if our savings suddenly poof into nothingness at some unseen genie's bidding?
As a generation, we're only just getting used to having the fiscal rug pulled out from under us at no notice, so niggling doubts are suddenly transformed into looming possibilities.
We've gone from being cautious to shrieking at our own shadows.
My advice? Turn your 'What if' into 'So what?' You'll sleep easier at night. You'll display the blithe disregard and head-in-the-sand financial mentality that means that you have finally grown up, looked reality in the face... and decided that you didn't like it.

Item of lust

Inspired in part by finding my granny's old pictures...



Available here

Vintage photos

I moved out of my family home when I was eighteen and my parents have, bit by bit, turned it into a junk room where the only space left is on my bed.  Every time I come home, I find some old clothes or museum catalogues or undies or generally something that I just don't want to see.  This time though, I found a welcome surprise on my bed - a bag of my grandmother's old photos.

I'm allergic...

... to a few things.  Biological detergent and harsh astringents are the first things I can think of.  But I'm allergic to organising my life.

I'm moving into a new apartment in a few weeks and since I'll be moving in with someone, I have to get rid of all the stuff I haven't worn in forever, including clothing that I have fairly serious emotional attachment to (but that I can no longer fit into).

I'm allergic to eBay.  This isn't an attempt to say that eBay is terrible (it's only bad for my bank account) but I just can't seem to get the hang of it.  It took me three hours just to put up eleven listings.  Towards the end I thought that my eyeballs might actually pop out of my head like Judge Doom at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 

My listings are here.  And I've got more items on my Photobucket, so if you see anything you like, drop me a line and I'll give you a quote.  everything is priced to move and anything that doesn't go will be carted off to a car boot sale next week, which will probably suit me right down to the ground.  I just can't hack online selling.

Strictly Irrelevant Sunday - Summer Reading List

It's summer and Ireland is getting an inordinate number of nice sunny days that can only occur when people are taking their final exams.  Murphy's Law dictates to these poor specimens that have to do their finals or college entrance exams that, once they are done and can go out and frolic with the rest of us, the sky clouds over and the weather turns crappy again.

I don't have exams (don't be jealous, I barely have an income either) so when I'm not listing items on eBay and wanting to bash my head against my laptop (more on that later in the week) I can usually be found down the park or in my back garden reading a good book.  Here are a few of my summer picks.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind - A tale of Grenouille, a man with a miraculous sense of smell and no odour.  Grenouille cuts a swathe through 18th century France in search of an unattainable perfume, which eventually degenerates into mass murder.  This book is simultaneously hilarious and grotesque, and is written with a wry disgust for humankind.   Fun Fact - I bought this book when I was sixteen because I had heard that it was Kurt Kobain's favourite book.  I'm not too sure if that's true (I can TOTALLY picture him enjoying it though...), but this is one of my favourite books nonetheless.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham - If you have ever, ever been in an unhealthy, slightly obsessive relationship, then this book will probably make you feel incredibly uncomfortable at how much Maugham knew about human dynamic.  This book is semi-autobiographical and the writing unnerves me so much that I find I have to put it down from time to time.  It's understandably known as one of Maugham's masterpieces and hopefully a massive re-issue of his previous works will mean that he is no longer criminally underread.

The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie - I've been reading a lot of Angela Carter recently and her novels are like adult fairy tales, with strong woman and immoral men, magic, comeuppances and twists and turns that are both human and otherworldly.  This is what the original fairy tales were... Peter and Iona Opie compile 24 of the most popular fairy tales and trace them back to their unsavoury, unsanitised beginnings (Did you know that the Prince from Sleeping Beauty was a rapist?  I don't remember that in the Disney version).  This goes back to last weeks Strictly Irrelevant post about Dina Goldstein's work and how, in fairytales, not everything is what it seems...

The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock'n'Roll by Simon Reynolds and Joy Press - I haven't read this yet, but I'm a big fan of Simon Reynolds' brand of well-researched, passionate musical polemics and his encyclopedic knowledge of almost every popular musical movement.  This book is about rock and roll as seen through a prism of gender - from mysogynistic rock to woman on top.

Alexander McQueen: Genius of a Generation by Kristin Knox.  I don't have this book as it was only released a few weeks ago, so i'm still not sure if it's a cynical cash-in or a loving tribute.  Nevertheless the book is a bit slim at 128 pages, but is chock-a-block full of photos and commentary.  Just a quick FYI though - the book doesn't dip into McQueen's menswear collection, which would lead me to think that this may be more geared towards fashionistas looking for a quick fix rather than a proper overview of the man's work.



Yep, I'm a big nerd.  What is everyone else reading this summer?

Diana Vreeland and colour

Watch the above clip (ignore the fuzzy audio) and you'll see that Diana Vreeland, former editor of American Vogue and contributor to Harpers Bazaar, had a amazing knack for description - the kind of verbal dexterity that I wish I had just so I could walk around the town talking to myself and being utterly confident that every word I say is utterly engrossing.

I've been reading her autobiography, D.V, and it's full of passages and asides that are precise in their description and beyond camp.

Diana talking about post-Nijinsky Parisiennes on the Bois de Boulogne:

"The colours! Before then, red had never been red and violet had never been violet. They were always slightly... grayed. But these women's clothes in the Bois were of colours as sharp as a knife: red red, violent violet, orange - when I say "orange", I mean red orange, not yellow orange - jade green and cobalt blue. And the fabrics - the silks, the satins and the brocades, embroidered with seed pearls and braid, shot with silver and gold and trimmed with fur and lace - were of an Oriental splendeur. There's never been such luxury since. These women looked rich."

Staycation Summer

The summer of the staycation has finally arrived. At the time of writing, the sun is shining, the ash cloud is still proving troublesome and rumblings abroad (of the political and food poisoning variety) makes a foreign holiday a more stressful prospect than it usually is. It's a good idea, this year, to forgo the passport trauma and take your summer sojourn at home. Here are a few advantages to playing house, some of which you may not have thought of.


1. No World Cup awkwardness. Sorry World Cup Widows, I don't have a solution for you. However a staycation means that you will be relieved of the inter-country tensions that are usually a product of several nationalities packed into one place. I vividly remember the 2002 World Cup final of Germany v Brazil, which I watched in a packed campsite in Italy. Every single Dutch person turned up to the match in Brazil gear and gave the death stare to the Germans, who did a lot of awkward shuffling and floor staring. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was anything but carnivalesque and when the final whistle blew, the camp bar descended into a slanging match and halfhearted scuffles not normally seen out of an episode of Eastenders.

2. Green smugness. Calculate how many trees died because your sister decided to backpack in Korea and casually drop it into every conversation. While you're at it, decry her holiday photos as a waste of paper and a mode of releasing harmful chemicals into the air. That'll teach her for going on holidays.

3. No language barrier. No waving your arms around in exaggerated motions trying to mine 'a baguette, please'. No speaking English in a foreign accent or at a volume high enough to blow a speaker in an Ibiza nightclub in a futile effort to make yourself understood. No looking like a culturally insensitive idiot because you didn't absorb anything from your phrasebook. Think about that.

4. More efficient money spending. Every year without fail, Irish women (including myself) storm Penneys and drop a hundred euros on a summer wardrobe of shorts, bikinis and tees totally unsuitable for an Irish climate, wear them on holidays, then never wear them again. Not only does a staycation mean that you'll be saving money on clothes, but put the cost of flights on top of your accommodation budget and presto, you've magically upgraded from a Mallorcan high-rise to a nice five-star hotel in Killarney or Connemara with enough change left over for a nice pony ride and a 99 on the beach. Happy Staycationing!

Last minute SubbaCouture inspiration

Pure Genius.

Archetypes vs. Stereotypes

Archetype - original model: something that serves as the model or pattern for other things of the same type


Stereotype - oversimplified conception: an oversimplified standardized image of a person or group


There's something about the tactile quality or paper and the sheeny gloss that makes looking at a picture in a magazine much more satisfying than staring at a screen.  I love Stern's Fotografie series, which focuses on a different photographer each issue, and is mercifully spare with words, because my grasp of German is pretty dismal.

The next issue, out on June 7th, focuses on Karl Lagerfeld and Claudia Schiffer's collaborations over the past 20 years and will include never seen before self portraits, polaroids and reminiscences that will probably have me breaking out my secondary school German-English dictionary and wondering what the hell der Dudelsack is.

There will be six different covers of Claudia, shot by Lagerfeld in a series of costumes (see them at the ASVOFF site here).  The price is pretty steep, but I'm looking forward to getting mine in the post.

But wait, what's this?



Is it just me or is controversy over blackface in fashion editorials the new, er, black?

Hmm, something's not quite right here but I can't put my finger on it...

Granted, someone probably thought that the only fitting way to accessorise classic 80's power shoulders was with an electrocuted expression and a convoluted Diana Ross tribute.

Maybe someone thought that this was delightfully satirical (though off the top of my head can't think of a satirical connection between blackface, 80's Chanel, Lagerfeld or Schiffer).

Maybe this is supposed to be incredibly post-modern and the intention is to somehow reappropriate blackface as a non-racist form of expression (though that's virtually impossible due to the deeply entrenched racist vein of blackface and no such declaration of reappropriation has been made).

The other covers that I've seen are broad archetypes; Claudia the businesswoman, Claudia the 18th century aristo, Claudia the Muscle Mary.  In this case Claudia is the person and the clothing is the archetypal template she fits into.  However, by disguising the things that signify Claudia Schiffer (like her blonde hair or the colour of her skin) she stops being a person in costume and starts to portray a stereotype.  Which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Photo - Stern Fotografie

How very Insightful

I'm not really a bikini person.  They're just not for me.  This bikini aversion isn't due to low self esteem or disgust at belly baring or the fact that Irish weather is generally so mild that a trip to the beach usually requires a wooly jumper and a thermos of piping hot soup after a brisk dip in the Atlantic.

My problem with the bikini is that I tend to fall out of them.  And I don't play volleyball.  I have to hold onto my sides every time I flip a page of a book while wearing a bikini just in case my strategically placed triangles of cloth held together with floss come loose.  I can't even think about any motion that involves even the slightest wobbling.

Being of the DD+ persuasion (not as much fun as you'd think), swimsuit options are very tight.  Wear a bikini, and risk exposure.  Wear a DD bikini top, and look like you decided to go for a swim in a Marks and Sparks bra.  Most one pieces are either a) utilitarian Speedo-type things, b) high-cut on the hips a la Baywatch circa 1996, c) have those cut outs at the side and front, which make for interesting tribal print tan lines or d) self-consciously retro (which would be my second choice).

Blissfully bereft of all these cliches, I give you the Insight swimwear collection.  I might actually get to venture into the sea this year.






Photos - Insight at ASOS