EcoTextile Hub

I've started a new blog devoted to eco innovations, specifically about fashion and textiles. I'm really excited about it. Please check it out!

Masquerading in Chicago

I've been quite inactive lately. My apologies. But here are some pictures from a photo shoot I did a few weeks ago in Chicago with the ever wonderful Moises Martinez.

I have just discovered Hedi Slimane's photo blog. At first, I thought it was just OK. But I kept scrolling and then fell in love.









Hedi Slimane

Shades of green

I'm extremely jealous of anyone who gets to attend Art Basel Miami Beach this year. The annual international art fair is the sister event to Switzerland's prestige Art Basel show. A weekend of going to art galleries, exhibits and cocktail hours and taking in the most innovative art, music, fashion and design sounds like just what the doctor ordered. A dear friend of mine asked me this morning why I didn't go. Ummm, it's in Miami and I am working in Massachusetts, I told her. She suggested we should go together next year because Florida in December would be brilliant. Well of course it would be, but alas, I am poor and, hopefully by then, I will be in graduate school.

But this is the exhibit I'd be going to first if I was there.

What?

So the first Sex and the City Trailer is out. I was initially excited when I first heard that it had been released, but after watching it, I'm greatly disappointed. It tells us nothing about what happens in the actually movie and is just an odd montage of clips from it. The theme is friendship. But take a look and see for yourself.

Sex and the City: The Movie

Hopefully the next trailer will be better. And hopefully this isn't an omen about the quaility of the movie.

NYC bound

Tomorrow I'm going to NYC for work to see a discussion panel on eco-fashion. I've been fantasizing that I'm on The Hills and that I'll be jet setting off in a red eye (except that I'll be on a bus). But I hope to have some really interesting information to report back. And I also plan on going to a few museums, and especially seeing Chic Chicago, since I missed it when it was at the Chicago History Museum.

Tomorrow is also the "most important religious holiday of the year," as Jezebel.com coined the premiere of the fourth season of Project Runway. It has potential to be possibly the most flamboyant and heated season yet. I just hope they can create innovative clothes and that no one sends a model down the runway with a basket on her head.

And speaking of fashion — since this post has turned out to be all about it — why are there still people in the world who think Rachel Zoe has actual fashion sense? The supposed celebrity stylist steals fashion styles and calls them her own. It's fine to find influence in what other people are wearing, but to say that European girls are actually copying celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie is a joke. Didn't anyone tell Zoe that Europe is at least one year ahead of the U.S. in terms of style? When I was in Scotland three summers ago, all the hip indie girls where running around wearing leggings with denim mini skirts, a full year before Zoe dressed any celebrities like that. But someone without a clue decided to publish a fashion book by this woman. And she is also featured in a small clip in December's issue of Elle, where they called her a "fashion headliner." Elle is my favorite fashion magazine, but they've definitely lost some of my respect.

Sorry for taking such a long hiatus from the blog. But I'm back and I've found the most interesting article from today's NY Times.

The story follows public health researchers studying the correlation rap music and sexual activity in today's youth. They discovered, sexual lyrics were not a very strong influencing factor on sexual behavior. In fact, most of the girls participating in sexual forms of dancing maintained control over their own body and personal space. However, it was the content of the rap lyrics that objectified women that were the biggest contributing factor towards sexual activity.

I guess that's a bunch of mumbo jumbo which means rap music doesn't make kids have sex. I wish parents and authorities would take the time to get that through their heads. Banning a certain type of music without understanding how kids and teens relate to it doesn't help. The key is to understand what rap music actually means to them and find ways to use it to teach.

I can personally attest to this. I listened to rap in high school. I "freak danced," as they used to call it (and got in trouble for it once at a school dance). But did that cause me to become sexual active? Absolutely not. It's the same thing as teaching kids about safe sex as opposed to abstinence only. I learned about birth control, but I wasn't rushing off to have sex.

Adults really need to take this research seriously and develop methods to teach kids about healthy sexual activity. Then perhaps the rate of teen pregnancy and ST will drop significantly.