Katie Girl of the Month: Melanie Somerset

Almost four months into 2010, we've got our first Katie Girl of the Month! Not to say there haven't been plenty o' cute friends worthy of the honour, I've been too busy being entertained by my friend Melanie Somerset.


Shopgirl by day and poseur/beer-chugger extraordinaire by night, Mel is one of the most hilariously entertaining gals in Toronto who never misses the chance to break out a couture pose, inappropriate joke or ripped tights (like actually though... Mel is the kinda gal that makes it hard to not name every Facebook album she's in 'The Mel Show') She also doesn't balk when I compare her to Margaret Cho just because she's funny and Asian. I stalked Mel for a while today on Facebook (obvi!) and these are some of my fave shots...

Welcome to Commercial Tripsville!

Thanks to NOWNESS and Youtube's Recommended Videos, I was treated to these little slices of commercial tripsville. There have been many artist-meets-ad campaigns in the past, especially with Dali (just type his name into Youtube's search bar... the results are endless) but these are my two particular faves of today... partly because of how ridic the guy looks on the Fellini train and partly because I am hoping that Lanvin chocolate is secretly connected to Jeanne... Enjoy!

The Future of Fashion as We See It

As I'm sure you noticed, I got a little lazy blogwise over the Euro Fall Fashion Weeks and as it turns out, so did my friend Sarah (aka. Sarah Nicole Prickett, babe of the century and seriously talented Toronto-based writer... check her out!) We got to talking one night about our love/hate for the return of simple dressing, our penchant for bright lips and of course, all those pesky Pugh for McQueen and Elbaz for Chanel rumours.

So, like any proactive and opinionated fashion writers, we decided for the future-good of all, who we think should really be at the helm of taking over these two houses... while we were at it, we planned the future of Maison Martin Margiela and resurrected our favourite legacies, Elsa Schiaparelli and Paul Poiret.

We disagreed on most, both seem to love Holly Fulton, writing in chart form, and doing blog posts by hand at Starbucks.

Here's how we weighed it out...

Toronto Fashion Week One and a Half

Fashion Week in Toronto is one helluva disjointed thing this season, with designers showing over the course of three weeks and 'official' (read: shitty for the most part) LG Fashion Week happening over a few days next week. Here are a few things to write home about so far:

Philip Sparks kicked it all off with a brilliant Moby Dick themed presentation. Brawned-up babes posed alongside an indoor loading dock-like structure of wooden carts, ladders and rope in everything from navy double breasted peacoats to simple sweaters. I'm assuming models weren't supposed to look at you... so obviously that was my mission of the night. That, and sipping on pink gin with berries.

Nada Shepherd launched her Fall collection Avatar style last Tuesday with fashion's first 3D film. The fembot themed work-in-progress burned my eyes real bad and the overwrought video game references were well, overwrought... but I've gotta say that heading to IMAX to see a fashion show was quite thrilling to say the least.


Greta Constantine's Friday night show went kinda like this: "let's get drunk and look at cars and then sit down for a while and watch some clothes". Held at the downtown Audi dealership that YOU CANNOT FIND FOR THE LIFE OF YOU, the Sin City inspired show of about a thousand jersey dresses and babealicious fur-leather getups for gals and zippered punk jackets for gals was a little derivative (ahem, Alex Wang Fall 2009, anyone?) but hella sexy and fun nonetheless.

ps. I stole Greta Constantine images off www.lostinthewilderness.com

Talent Scout: KRUHX

Y'all know how much I love a creative collaboration, and so when I heard about KRUHX, the visual art group who work on conceptual and actually non-clothing-centric photoshoots, I was all over it! Comprised of a photographer (Yana Matusovski), stylist (Jordan Reimer ) and graphic producer (Garrett Naccarato ), KRUHX describes themselves like this: "A lot of the concepts we create might seem unachievable with clothing from stores or showrooms. Instead, we figure out alternative ways to design our creations using any materials we see fit." Sounds like a good ole Dada offshoot to me, eh? I especially love the geometric couture-pose (haha) in the top-right image... go team KRUHX!

Rebecca Morrison the All American Babe

I was in a real wretched mood a few weeks ago after getting home from a rather brutally cold... there was an envelope from Lawrenceville, Georgia waiting politely on my bed, though and my mood was instantly like 'hoooraaaah!' Robin's mom aka. Rebecca Morrison aka. Wiiiing! always sends me the sweetest mail and I had a feeling this time would be no exception.

Lo and behold, what was enclosed in the envelope was downright treasure: 5 vintage photos plus a letter describing the background behind each picture! "Ever since I saw those awesome pictures of your Mom back in the day, I've been meaning to look up some of mine"... swooon! And so here she is Katie Girls, in all her 60's vinyl, white tights, romper and puff sleeved Georgia Peach glory... major babesville, I tell ya!

The Beginning of the End... Lolita vs. Lolita

After all my years of Lolita fascination, what d'ya know, I finally finished the book! I was expecting greatness, as well as great perversion, of course... what I got was all of that and about a thousand awkward me maniacally laughing on the subway in public moments. Is it just me or is Nabakov not only a twisted fuck, but a great comedic genius as well? One of my fave parts of the Nabakov's book (below) and Kubrick's film (above) is the scene where Humbert Humbert makes Clare Quilty recite a poem about why he is about to murder him, right before he does indeed do him in. Interestingly, this little scene opens the movie and ends the book... here they are in both forms... so wonderfully warped!

Because you took advantage of a sinner
because you took advantage
because you took
because you took advantage of my disadvantage
when I stood Adam-naked
before a federal law and all its stinging stars
Because you took advantage of a sin
when I was helpless moultng moist and tender
hoping for the best
dreaming of marriage in a mountain state
aye of a litter of Lolitas
Because you took advantage of my inner
essential innocence
because you cheated me--
Because you cheated me of my redemption
because you took
her at the age when lads
play with erector sets
a little downy girl still wearing poppies
still eating popcorn in the colored gloam
where tawny Indians took paid croppers
because you stole her
from her wax-browed and dignified protector
spitting into his heavy-lidded eye
ripping his flavid toga and at dawn
leaving the hog to roll upon his new discomfort
the awfulness of love and violets
remorse despair while you
took a dull doll to pieces
and threw its head away
because of all you did
because of all I did not
you have to die

Babe of the Biweekly? Vincent Gallo

Not to distract from my reaaaally up to date Fashion Week(s) commentary but Robin was talking about Buffalo 66 yesterday, which totally brought back my long time feelings of love and hate towards the actor/part-time singer/pseudo-artist/filmmaker/sperm-seller/narcissist, Vincent Gallo.

Aesthetically, the man is just what I like: part Pre-Raphaelite, part reformed criminal. Artistically, the man utterly captivates on screen (even when he tells Chloe to suck it in no uncertain terms) and in tune (haven't heard When? buy it!) It's really his larger than life douchebag persona that gets me going (in more ways than one!)...

Aside from hustling his own services on his website (while politely refusing to sleep with women of color and specifying that he'd like to impregnate Jewish women - oh wait, that's me!) and constantly working his own penis into any script he writes... it's what I like to think of as trying to 'pull the wool' that peeves me the most. I had the lucky chance to interview Vinny a few times last year over Fashion Week in New York and he had quite a few pearls to share about New Yorkers who discuss variations of the color white, Rodarte not being stuck in the mental world and fashion shows not being confused with portraits. (I would quote him directly but I'm scared he'll find out and attack!... he has been known to do such things)... I was lucky I was able to hold my tongue and not give him a piece of my mind slash tell him to call me!

So what do you guys? Should Vinny suck it? Or would... well, would you...?