Hyperkult

Though I’m something of a pop culture zealot, I’ve managed to miss out on many of the biggest entertainment phenomena of our time—often deliberately so. I’ve never seen a Lord of the Rings film nor read any of the books, don’t know what The Secret is, am vampire-averse, and, most offensively (depending on how you look at it), have altogether avoided Harry Potter mania.

Among Potterphiles, author J.K. Rowling is a veritable god. While I don’t share this enthusiasm, after watching her commencement speech to Harvard’s graduating class of 2008 I have garnered an enormous amount of respect for Rowling. And, to further prove that I am as contradictory as they come, I’ll admit that I discovered this video via my Facebook friend feed (perhaps a “repost of a post of a thing that was seen on a blog”).

Her speech, an earnest and thoughtful meditation on “the fringe benefits of failure,” resonated with me. Over the past year my own confrontations with failure have forced me to question my beliefs, motivations, and what continues to buoy my optimism in the face of shit-tasticness. We all need a little pep talk sometimes, and Rowling’s speech helped restore my waning faith this week. I hope it does the same for you.

Totally unrelated post-script: I stole this blog entry title from the show I’m about to see tonight—a triple-bill of Jogger, Daedelus, and Nosaj Thing. This remix is magical in its own right:

Jane Birkin in all her bohemian glory

Note: I wrote half of this yesterday and the other half this morning after waking from a Bordelaise and butter coma. My actual birthday was the 9th, but posting today gave me the chance to include a couple things I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Today is my birthday, giving me permission to be unabashedly indulgent for one day, and one day only. Truth be told, I prefer that these 24-hours pass with little fanfare, which is why I’ve planned a quiet dinner with a few close girlfriends tonight.

Since I have a free pass to be self-serving, though, I’ll use it to share a few of my favorite things in—you guessed it—list form. There’s no binding thread among what follows, save for the fact that I’m really loving, wanting, listening, thinking about, and/or admiring them.

1. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

I recently read a description of this novel, about a crew of “visceral realist” poets on a madcap quest for an elusive literary heroine, that pegged it as Y tu mamá también meets Gabriel García Márquez. That’s somewhat accurate and perhaps complimentary, but also reductive. Unwieldy as its character threads may be, Bolaño’s writing is controlled and lyrically singular. The last time I felt this way about an author was when I picked up Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I now consider sacrosanct text. Only 200 pages in, and I can’t wait for the next 400.

2. The xx, “Intro”

The xx was on many a critic’s Top [insert number] list of 2009’s Most Notable Releases. I wasn’t convinced the first time I listened to the album, but I’ve since come to like the group’s self-titled debut and love “Intro,” its succinct opening track. It’s become one of those songs I stop midway, then jump back to the beginning because I don’t want it to end. Hypnotic and moody, just like I like ‘em.

Photo credit: LuisaViaRoma

3. Rick Owens Padded Leather Jacket

If I could make sweet, sweet love to an item of clothing, this would be it. After trying it on earlier this winter, I can attest to the fact that it fits perfectly and feels like a sumptuous second skin. Now, who has an extra $1,500 they can spare (and that’s on sale)?

Photo credit: Future Classics

4. Future Classics

When I first saw this draped dress in person, I believe my first words were, “this shit is ridiculous.” And it is—ridiculously beautiful, coupling femininity with layered and intricate figure-conscious cuts. I appreciate designer Julie Wilkins’ nod to vintage clothing and the deconstructive edge of each piece, especially. And who needs jeggings when you have sexy, buttoned, stirrup-like leggings like those above?

5. Style a la Jane Birkin

When I get dressed, I’m usually channeling Jane Birkin to some degree, or doggedly attempting to. While I may not be able to pull off the signature bangs, the high-waist jeans, square mini-dresses, and slouchy boyish/feminine look I can do. Pout not included.

Garance, left, and me, right, trying to tame my Canon Rebel XT (ignore the disgusting stained mirror)

6. Garance Doré

Photographer, illustrator, partner of Scott Schuman (a.k.a., The Sartorialist), and the French woman I secretly wish I was. She’s a woman of impeccable style, with an effervescence that comes across in photos and her playful musings about fashion. Devoid of pretense, Doré’s blog offers a refreshing and simultaneously erudite take on what’s happening on and off the runway.

Photo credit: Neiman Marcus

7. Chloé Eau de Parfum and Tom Ford Champaca Absolute

My grandmother on my mother’s side was a rigid disciplinarian who sold fish on the streets of Manila to provide for her family—far from being a fashion or beauty maven in the traditional sense. I only know her through stories my mother has told me, one of the more memorable anecdotes being that she was never without designer perfume. How the woman, who was partial to Nina Ricci and Chanel No. 5, managed to get her hands on high-end fragrances in the face of dire financial straits is equally confusing and impressive.

She passed her love of perfume down to my mom, who in turn cultivated the same appreciation in me. Growing up, I remember my mother smelling of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium, Coco Chanel, and Jaipur, and my own taste tends toward forward florals and spicy aromas. At the moment, Chloé is getting the most play in my scent wardrobe (because I do indeed have a wardrobe, including Jo Malone’s Nectarine Blossom and Honey for bedtime), but Tom Ford’s Champaca Absolute is at the top of my wish list. Did I mention it’s my birthday today?

Photo credit: Neil Leifer

8. The Annenberg Space for Photography

Located on the same hallowed grounds as the CAA fortress building in Century City, the Annenberg Space for Photography is one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon in Los Angeles. I typically like to come here alone (more meditative), and I’ve seen every exhibit since it first opened last year. My favorite of the three rotating collections was themed around L.A. photographers/photojournalism, the work of Julius Shulman and Carolyn Cole being standouts for me. Best of all, visiting Annenberg is free; you’ll only have to pay a meager $1 parking fee post-validation. I visited the space today to see the Ioose/Leifer exhibit and left with a newfound appreciation for sports photography.

Mmm. Caramel icing.

9. Lark Cake Shop, Silverlake

As this is being written post-birthday celebration, I can include Lark on my list. My friend Frances, having heard me endlessly prattle on about wanting to sample the Caramel Cake from this adorable bake shop in Silverlake, surprised me by bringing it to dinner at Café Stella. It was as fantastic and moist as I imagined it, the sprinkle of Kosher salt in between layers of white cake and caramel icing subtly balancing out its sweetness.

Photo credit: The Louvre

10. Lists

My obsessive-compulsive love of organization was recently reinforced by a segment that aired on NPR. Famed Parisian museum the Louvre has unveiled an exhibit about “The Infinity of Lists,” curated in part by Italian writer Umberto Eco. Eco believes lists, even those as mundane as the phone book, can be “poetic” provided the correct intent is present. And that’s where this particular list ends.

Photo credit: Style Rookie

You’ve no doubt heard of Tavi, the 13-year-old wunderkind who belongs to a new garde of fashion writers: teen bloggers. She is as ubiquitous a front row staple as Anna Wintour; she counts the Mulleavy sisters as friends; she is a Pop magazine cover model. She’s a girl, not yet a woman, and let’s not forget that.

A self-professed “Style Rookie,” Tavi maintains a blog of the same name, but if we’re to believe her acutely fashion-literate entries, she’s nothing of the sort. That is, unless the Tavi phenomenon is an elaborate ruse in the same vein as J.T. Leroy. My impressions of Tavi are scattered, but I will cop to occasionally reading her blog and being curious about who this boffo, Rei Kawakubo-loving young lady is.

My issue is less with the wide-eyed aesthete herself than the world that has shepherded her transformation from anon to internet superstar. I wonder under what circumstances, for what purpose such a budding icon is constructed, and by many, revered. What is Tavi’s writing—which seesaws between hyper-mature and rambling tween-speak—teaching us? Have we accepted her as a legitimate expert (Bazaar has), or an avatar of the kind of 13-year-old us adult fashion lovers wish we were at her age—hell, even now?

I am both fascinated and unnerved by the rising Cult of Tavi. The fashion industry routinely turns out star designers, models and false gods, then carelessly discards of them when they are deemed unnecessary. How true Heidi Klum’s tagline rings. It’s admittedly youth and image obsessed (I’ll save the curious sexualization of teen models for another time), and Tavi-idolatry exaggerates these qualities. What this means for a young woman undergoing puberty alongside peers like Aggy and Hamish Bowles is concerning.

Just ask Tim Blanks, whose furrowed brow in Part One of Loic Prigent’s Habillees (several minutes in) says it all:

Wave to the future.

Charlotte in Prada—what's not to love? From French 'Vogue,' December 2007/January 2008

The headline of this blog post is the best I can describe the latest music video from my favorite sylph-like chanteuse, Charlotte Gainsbourg. To me, it is quintessentially L.A., and not just because of the Dodgers hat featured in one vignette, or scenes that look like they were shot at the Beverly Hills Country Club. Much like the city I love so dearly, it’s a hodgepodge of weird, slightly nightmarish but still playful and sun-drenched images that somehow all make sense when strung together.

Enjoy this sample of what to expect from her forthcoming album IRM, which features major contributions from Beck. And after watching, go ahead and give the title track a listen by downloading it for free from Charlotte’s official website. Le sigh.

The man, the myth, the legend: Tim Blanks; Photo credit: men.style.com

I credit my older sister, in part, for pointing me toward the wilds of fashion. This is the same sister who as a 13-year-old would write me letters about her occasional trips to Los Angeles, where she would eat at Georgia (Denzel Washington’s erstwhile restaurant venture) and shop at the Beverly Center—the pinnacle of consumer greatness for any teenager, be it a decade ago or today. “Georgia was popping off back then!” she said in defense when I reminded her of her ’90s romps through L.A.

On weekends, we’d forgo Saturday morning cartoons to watch back-to-back showings of Videofashion Weekly! and Fashion File, which introduced me to the schizoid backstage world of runway shows and the woman I still refer to as my “spirit model,” Christy Turlington. The two of us would lounge around in our pajamas, eating our grandmother’s thin, practically deep-fried pancakes while reviewing the latest collections and engaging in pseudo-intellectual shop talk about what the designers were putting out that season.

Fashion File trumped viewings of Pepper Ann, which made me feel infinitely cooler than my tween classmates, even though I was chubby and awkward and soon to be brace-ridden. Endearing, if a little austere, host Tim Blanks was our lifeline to Gianni Versace’s skintight bodysuits, Isaac Mizrahi at the height of his career, Tom Ford when he made Gucci synonymous with sex, and even long-lost casual wear king Todd Oldham—remember Todd Oldham?! For a sartorially-minded young thing, there was nothing like Fashion File, no one like our man Tim, no better way—save for reading Vogue—for a girl living in the black hole of suburbia to connect with a world far removed from a horribly bucolic quotidian. There were cows in my hometown, so I’m calling that bucolic.

The illustrious Mr. Blanks is no longer affiliated with Fashion File, and when I, on a whim, decided to see what had become of the show since his departure I came across one hell of a hot mess. Maybe it’s because I’m perpetually nostalgic these days (and I’m only 25, for Chrissake), but the show is a specter of what I remember it being as a teen. It delivers fashion coverage produced in the same vein as EXTRA. In a word, blah. There is an interesting segment on “A Day in the Life of Coco Rocha” on the homepage, but I think its appeal owes more to its jig-dancing subject than the way it was put together. And there’s of course no replacing Blanks, whose name I recently saw grace a few Runway Reviews during Style.com’s coverage of London Fashion Week. Good to know he’s still out there rubbing shoulders with Amazonian models and eccentric designers.*

I found a clip from Fashion File’s heyday on YouTube. Watch and be reminded of the show’s former greatness.

*Update: Most of this paragraph should have been written in the past tense. I’ve since discovered that the show was canceled in early 2009 and that Blanks’ replacement was sourced from a reality show titled Fashion File Host Hunt. ‘Nuff said.

I forgot my camera, so my friend's iPhone had to suffice.

It was some combination of dumb luck and benign universal energy that allowed me to score tickets to Thom Yorke’s secret show at The Echoplex on Friday night. Well, secret insomuch as L.A. Weekly tipped readers off to rumors of the show last Wednesday, and on Friday morning it was officially announced that tickets—all things considered, reasonable at $20—would go on sale at noon. Cut to: frantic text messages between my friend Luisa and myself, multiple browsers open to TicketWeb.com, and serendipity intervening to finalize the sale. A verbal stream of “Holy shit!” was all I could muster afterward.

By 7:30 PM, the line snaking around The Echoplex had reached critical proportions—long and filled with antsy fans muttering “Fuck, can we get in already?” My guess is that the unusual holdup had to do with crowd control and the CAA and VIP lists up front. Because, make no mistake, this was one of “those shows”: suited industry stiffs with ear plugs were peppered throughout the crowd, awkwardly shuffling their legs alongside the likes of Kim Gordon, Daft Punk, and the moody girl behind us who yelled something about needing a milk crate to stand on because we were too tall. The hype machine (figuratively speaking, not the website) was working overtime. I was more preoccupied, though, with the fact that we were actually there and about to see Thom perform for a crowd of a few hundred. “This will never happen to us again,” I kept uttering incredulously to Luisa. Granted, I can be hyperbolic at times, but when you’ve grown up listening to Radiohead and are about to see its lead singer preview new songs with his freshly-formed supergroup (including producer Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, Mauro Refosco, and Flea), “excited” doesn’t cut it as an adjective.

His set consisted mainly of tracks from The Eraser, which he went through in order. Live, the band went light on the album’s pervasive blips and bleeps and overally sleepiness, and made them much more danceable. I’ve seen Thom play Eraser songs prior, at least in fan-captured YouTube videos or the odd TV appearance, but I’ve never seen him so effervescent as a performer than Friday night, not even with Radiohead. We’ve all witnessed his frantic “Idioteque” moves, but imagine that flailing, crazed energy consistent over the course of an evening, punctuated by a schoolboy’s grin. What happened to our sulky Radiohead frontman?

I had heard none of the new songs before that night, and the immediate standouts were “Skirting on the Surface” and “Judge, Jury, and Executioner.” Post-show I’ve settled on “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses” as my favorite. I blame the sexy, ominous bass line.

Driving back down Sunset after the show, Luisa and I could only describe the experience, the songs, and his palpable exuberance as so “Thom York-ie.” I count myself lucky to have beaten the odds, the wily scalper/hackers, and a catastrophic TicketWeb crash to have witnessed it.

My designer documentary kick of a couple months ago was preparation for The September Issue’s recent release. The chance to look behind the darkened lenses of “Nuclear Wintour,” as Vogue editrix Anna Wintour is known by some, and what continues to be the only fashion magazine I read religiously, was a voyeuristic (Vogue-ristic?) dream come true. While the movie is not earth-shatteringly revealing, it is transportive, even for audience members who don’t know Thakoon from Chris Benz.

I had the chance to prescreen the film and interview director R.J. Cutler, who previously produced the Bill Clinton campaign documentary The War Room. The politically-minded (and sartorially-challenged) filmmaker was enchanted by Wintour and her Condé Nast family, even if getting Vogue Creative Director Grace Coddington to smile for the camera was a trying task. I’ve posted my article below, which appears in the, ahem, September issue of SOMA. Click on the article for legible text.

Photo credit: Kitsune Noir

I recently resurrected my long-dormant Netflix account, only to be greeted by a queue that stretches 78 films long—88 if you count the 10 titles languishing in the purgatory otherwise known as “Saved DVDs.” The unruly list starts with Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman is a Woman and ends with Louis Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants, but honestly, what I really want to (re-)rent next is The Pelican Brief.

While I contemplate inviting Julia Roberts’ timorous Darby Shaw into my living room, in the interim I’ve been occupying myself with a series of designer documentaries—a mailbox march of red enveloped arrivals inspired by the impending release of The September Issue. (From what a trusted film journalist friend tells me, it lives up to even steely-eyed Anna Wintour’s measure of excellence.)

My first excursion into the world of couture on screen was Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton, director Loïc Prigent’s 2007 film about, arguably, fashion’s most influential designer. Once rebuked—and fired—for his notorious “grunge” collection for Perry Ellis, Jacobs is now an industry darling, evidenced by his elite editorial and celebrity following. The sartorial vanguard’s often unconventional vision has filtered into the wardrobes of mainstream America, with suburbanites waiting with bated breath for the H&M collaboration that may never come. Look to your local designer knockoff kiosk to find rainbow-colored, Eye Love-inspired PVC handbags still selling strong, years after Jessica Simpson paraded her pet “Louis” around on Newlyweds—much to the horror of genuine Murakami aficionados.

Visually striking, but devoid of true depth, I found myself making the most tangential—and maybe inappropriate—of associations while watching the movie. Paul Thomas Anderson, speaking about a 70s porn documentary about John Holmes that informed Boogie Nights, described the Julia St. Vincent-helmed picture as more “love letter” than objective slice of life filmmaking. Then again, I’m not sure how precisely cinematic a documentary about an adult star is meant to be. Nevertheless, the same might be said of Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton, which engages insomuch as it invites viewers into the charmeuse-strewn workroom where Vuitton collections are born, all the while portraying its creator sympathetically. But beyond this hallowed space, where Jacobs compulsively snacks on protein bars while giving the “yay” or “nay” to fabric flower adornments, there was a marked absence of meaningful insight into Jacobs himself.

I was searching for neither a scathing exposé of Jacobs’ drug-addled years, nor lascivious confessionals from ex-lovers, but a genuine inquiry into the Mythos of Jacobs. What we are given instead is, at best, a half-realized portrait of the slim couturier, and a digitally rendered purple fairy flitting about to symbolize “inspiration.” But alas, had Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton been a less benign movie, you probably wouldn’t be able to purchase it at Marc by Marc Jacobs stores internationally, as is now the case. Look for it somewhere between the mushroom key chains and coffee table photography books.

That said, it still gets points for featuring one of my favorite Vuitton collections to date. It’s pretty, fun, and often inspirational, even if it sometimes comes off like a less thoughtful creative patchwork than the LV Tribute Bag at the center of the Vuitton Spring/Summer 2007 showcase.

Official website of Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton