Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Most Fabulous of them All



Alternative vintage. Modern Vintage




Vintage in neutral shades.
In fashion, there are so many game-changers, trendsetters, season-followers, and ardent fashionistas, that it has become, both necessary and mandatory, to reconsider the standards by which one had previously viewed style. A great deal of the change spun from the expansion of the industry in itself, as well as a shift in the way people dressed themselves, and ultimately chose to dress others, through their judgement of an outfit on another. It's very rare that there can ever be split opinion between a collection, because design has become so decentralized, that drawing such comparisons is like attempting to spot the differences between heaven and hell. The change is not unprecedented. Further, the change creates the oftentimes attempt to draw a binary between elements of style, and the quintessential definition of fashionable, per se.
Example of effortless, well put together, and clean-looking outfit, clean in the sense of
light, tan, diaphanous, but nonetheless riddled with allure and class. 

Vintage for example, resurfaces back in 2006 when people just stopped wearing platform heels, white-long-coats, customary of short haired creative directors, called Meade or something expensive. Vintage introduced a manner by one live in the past, without being seen as primitive or old-fashioned. It was a statement, moreover, of how the cosmopolitan and modern woman or man could make something outdated fit in. A personal and individual feat, I'd aver, as not everyone could manage to create such an aura of maintenance and equal sophistication about themselves.

The fab one, Kourt Kardashian
spotted in a two piece- unmatching,
though letting each compliment the other.

Style merges from the somewhat subconscious drive, to keep the exterior as well sought after as the interior; a reflection of the personality, thus making it very likely that people could actually tell a lot about you, not based on what you wore, but how and when you wore it, and also to where. Because I think that someone who has risen above, dressing to be in-season or wear what is popular, will comprehend something very not seasonal could through personalized technique actually achieve what it had been ripped away from. I'm not saying there's a way by which a wedding dress could be donned to a tea party, I'm just alluding to the idea that style is interchangeable, and how you wear something, in attitude and on your body, largely influences the determinants by which it is either accepted or ousted.

a four pic collage of Christina Aguilera's silver dress, white-haired days, to her more mature and insightful days.


This is evident in how era after era, we've pinned different poster-girls to our doors, mesmerized by their high-fashion- today something Marilyn Monroe or Sofia Lauren wore back in the heyday won't be worn to the Globes, but in some campaign to retrace or recapture that era, usually in a campaign, and no one would be caught dead today wearing the bright blue spaghetti tops, and spice girl heeled platforms today, even if in 1998 to 2000 they were besotted by the fad, exacerbated by teen queens Aguilera, Brandy and Spears, who made those nothing-fabulous garments look like neon haute cautier.



Elements of modernity have reached astronomical levels of difference, and designers are leaning towards creating clothing that only dresses, but speaks on behalf of the body that boasts it, that is why it's very important that you know your body type and personal style, so as not to ever make the wrong statement, thinking that you're saying something else. It's like when language translation can't be literally translated and is just taken for something else entirely. You could very much wind up being the one person in the world, who single-handedly caused what had been a designers epitome of beauty, to uglify in your lack of personal style and understanding of yourself. Letting the outfit wear you is not a good idea, unless you're not going to be seen or you're an apartment window.


Dignity and a want, not unnaturally cultivated, to mark your appearance with precision, altogether make you conducive to being perceived as a style icon.
Kim's most loved type of dress, long or short.
You don't ever become a self-professed style icon. Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue hasn't even been deemed one, despite her array of transitional fashion apparel and carefully selected accessories, each reminiscent of her poise in the fashion world, whereas someone like Kimora Lee Simons has cemented into such a polythetic cateory of fashion commentary. Although personally, K L Simons, like Kim Kardashian, despite never wearing the same outfits, always manage to make it seem as if they are: figure-hugging dresses, statement-shoulder blazers and blinding jewels are customary enough to make them predictable. Fashionistas aren't predictable, but that does not mean that they don't know how to dress well.

I find that anything looks more alluring and stellar on someone when it was done effortlessly, and the attempt to make that statement, didn't take more time than it did, for Joan Rivers to stretch out of bed. In Hollywood, and the other prominent fashion capitals of the world, namely Milan, Paris, and New York, style has intensified to a point, where there's no real competition between two well-dressed people's outfits, but rather as aforementioned, how well it was worn.
it would otherwise have looked odd, or different,
but Ms. Kardashian manages to make it look like
what everyone should all be wearing anyway.


Believe someone with a godly body and natural beauty like Heidi Klum could make a straight-off-the-runway resort piece look like an H&M piece of fabric that would startle even someone as poorly dressed as Boy George or Courtney-Love, and y'all know it ain't get worse than that blotched up, mascara-stained, vodka-drinking hoe, whose toenails are longer than the industrial revolution ever wished it could be. Some people are like architectural structures- forced to be satisfied as they make themselves comfortable to what they've been shrouded in, namely those people whose outfits are always Tiffany's idea really, or borrowed from Cassandra mediocre closet of dreary and sleep-inducing pieces, that Jesus would have given his disciples to wear; convenience kind of apparel, nauseating and disgusting, unless its Tuesday and your ass 'gon be locked in, for your eyes only.


Sunday, March 10, 2013

Poem: Speak, When Spoken To





Speak, when spoken to.

cluster-expression decked out
the quarter, spent 'tween the
threads of vision - turnin'
grey like an oculus mood
with salts at the foot
then burnt out like a day
with the sun at its rim
disappearing as the tides dim
peg-strength fold in the excuse
alas! cluster-faced-expression
shuts out in the darkest ebb of abuse
putting sight, to no use.

©Raeez Jacobs. Poetry, 2013.


Saturday, March 9, 2013

GlamFurious Activist






I've always been into Human Rights activity, since enrolling to Wits, that is actually. There I joined, Biosoc- which was actually a Biological Society, for the preservation of our fauna and flora, and the ultimate protection of indigenous and extinct animal species, nonetheless, it felt wildly enriching to attach my name to such an organization. Concurrently, I joined the Feminism Society, GALA (Gay & Lesbian Memory in Action), the Disability Unit, as well as Amnesty International, for whom I had subsequently begun performing, during their annual themed, cultural, and human-rights-driven ArtsFests. I performed twice, consecutively, the first time reciting a poignant piece of poetry, entitled, "The Death of Me" to critical acclaim. It felt good to be amid the group of daring performers, exhibitionists, etc that took to expressing their multifarious views toward issues of human tension, prejudice, and subjugation.

The following year, I performed a piece, centered more precisely this time, around violence against women, namely, the then emerging phenomena of 'corrective rape' sheepishly practiced on lesbian women, under the misconception that healing would occur as a result thereof. It was a poem called, 'Medusa', and for once in my life, I could feel the energy I was feeding into the crowd of quiet, attentive, and zealous audience members resonating back to me.


With all that being said, my activism is not only limited to my poetry and other modes of expression, it's greatly innate and associated with a part of my personality- I'm liberal by nature, and it's uniform to find me showing tolerance to all, cognizant of our constitutional rights, and what we had risen from, to be where we presently are. It's not about being grateful, no. It's just about being able to understand that, in order for someone "to be" or to qualify as "normal" by whichever standards, that person needn't live up to whichever ideals are individually or socially harbored. Oftentimes, our expectation and ideals are what taint our propensity to be tolerant, and it's up to us, to question those things.

Moreover, lately I have to come to the conclusion that no matter how hard we try to move forward, we're never going to achieve that, because we haven't dealt, individually, with our sentiments towards certain jurisdictions and systems. I always say, it's okay to be racist, but don't ever think that it's equally okay to project those sentiments onto the people around you, because they just as you do, are bound by a shared ideology- a democracy which deems such mannerisms a criminal offence. It's like that with most of our innate preference and choices, and sometimes they can be lived out and sometimes they can't...not everyone is going to get the chance to live the full extent of their hearts' desire. Understand.



I've signed up to the Amnesty International page, which can be found by simply clicking the following link, as well as the immensely powerful and effective site, Causes on which one can make a difference, by simply signing online petitions and doing sort of virtual rallies, which are then passed onto the respective party members, lawyers, governments, and at times, even Presidents. There's something awe-inspiring about being able to cause change, and participate in some of these activities, that can't usually be reached while sitting in front of your PC.
The world really has shrunk in the digital revolution, and despite all the negative instances by which it is met, it is predominantly and equally, a positive factor...at least so, in the lives of those who don't solely turn to it for leisure and past time activities.
It makes me feel great. You should try it soon, if you haven't already done so.
There are some horrendous human rights violations taking place all around as I type through this post, and I've shared my rejection thereof, by signing various petitions...if you do the same, imagine the difference we could actually make, to the lives of the speechless, destitute, and unprotected human beings, whose redemption could usher in some real good karma. Think about about...give, to get. Get, to give.