Welcome to a new decade- the Roaring Twenties reborn for a new age of revelers. This is my New Year’s post. We made it, folks!
In the past, I’ve been known to make long, overwrought lists of resolutions I never stick to, so this year I felt like keeping it simple by making myself a mood board to envision the vibe I want to carry with me this year: Staying strong while being soft.
While traversing life’s winding road, obstacles are an inevitability. It’s easy to let them erode us, steal our hope and make us cynical, so it’s imperative that we put things into perspective. Difficulty is what makes us strong. Pressure creates crystals, gleaming bits of beauty that can become sharp and dangerous over time. That’s why we need to remind ourselves to stay soft.
I fully admit to being a pessimist who has a problem opening up to people. I expect the worst. I’ve always told myself that if I have no expectations, or even low expectations, than I can never be let down. And it’s true that I don’t often get let down by other people, but I’m constantly letting myself down by not opening up to all of the possibilities on my path. I need to be soft, forgiving, understanding, empathetic, open and willing to let life take me where it wants me to go, without letting myself become a victim.
2020 is the year we hold each other up and turn our faces toward the future without fear. Just a resolve to make it better, and hope. That’s the most important part.
It’s been over two months since I posted my last article to this website. It’s the longest hiatus I’ve taken since I started this as a hobby project over a year ago. In that amount of time, the Spring/Summer 2020 fashion season came and went without a word from me, despite the fact that I still kept up with the shows and even made lists of all of the collections I was dying to write about here. I just… didn’t.
There are two things I can do in a case like this: 1) I can beat myself up over failing to stick to the plans I previously set out for myself, sending myself into a toxic spiral of guilt, disgust, and self doubt, or 2) I can take stock of my place in life, where these past couple months have taken me, and where I plan on heading next. While the first choice is one I’ve indulged in more times than I care to admit, let’s examine the second option.
That completely obvious to the point of being annoying saying is true (although you don’t need me to tell you that)- life never stops. It doesn’t slow down to take stock of your feelings, and it doesn’t crouch down in front of you when you collapse from exhaustion to ask if you’re okay. It just keeps going. After moving to a new city and starting a new job I didn’t feel entirely qualified for, these past couple of months have been one big game of catch up. I’ve been devoting so much energy into trying to be good and likable in my new career, that everything else just sort of fell to the wayside. I would come home every day and want to become flat, so I could better lay horizontally and do nothing. I stopped picking up after myself, stopped journaling, stopped doing any kind of creative writing at all, including recording my thoughts on the latest in fashion to all four of my fans (hi, mom!).
While this complete abandonment of initiative outside of work may seem foreign to some people who cope with stress by leaning further into their personal projects, it’s a totally normal reaction when rebuilding your confidence from the ground up. It isn’t lazy to put other things aside. It isn’t wrong to want to rest and clear your mind when you get home. It isn’t wrong to forget about your passion project for weeks, months or even years at a time. While time never stops, there always seems to be enough of it (even too much at some points) to start again. In fact, the reason I chose to finally log back into this site after so long is because, simply put, I missed it. That’s another thing breaks do wonders for- rekindling love for passions that may have lost their sharpness over time. Time away helps the heart grow fonder.
So yes, dear reader, I am back with renewed vigor to continue posting about the things I enjoy most in life- and this is just the start of the next chapter of The Young Eclectic.
Benjamin Franklin may have been right when he said that there were only two certainties in life- death and taxes- but Benjamin Franklin wasn’t a woman. If you identify as female, then chances are you’ve worn makeup at some point in your life, whether it be a simple smattering of lipstick, or the full face. However, if you’re a man, it’s more likely that you haven’t spent a dime on a makeup product, let alone even touched one. I think you can see where I’m going with this.
Makeup is a reality of life for women in many countries across the world, so much so that it’s weirder when a woman chooses not to wear makeup than it is for a woman to choose to spend an hour or more putting it on every morning. A recenty survey done by TODAY and AOL revealed that women spend an average of 55 minutes getting ready every day, which adds up to a whopping two weeks (!) of time every year! While there are plenty of other things that go into getting ready, it seems logical to assume a good chunk of that time is spent crafting that perfectly made up face that society has come to expect from us.
And it’s not just time that makeup demands- it’s money, too. A lot of it. A survey conducted by online makeup retailer SkinStore revealed that the average woman will spend $300,000 on makeup in her lifetime. That’s a hefty chunk of change, an amount that my entry-level-salaried mind can’t really comprehend. It keeps getting more expensive with time, too, as the makeup industry explodes and every celebrity and influencer with even an ounce of relevance throws their hat in the ring with their own makeup lines. It’s instant money, because makeup is seen as something women need.
While most women don’t bat their mascara-ed eyelashes at these staggering figures, I find it insane. These are commitments of time and money that are just not expected of men, and there isn’t really anything equivalent to it that men are asked to do that women aren’t. And it seems like we’re just okay with it, because that’s the way that society has conditioned us to be.
The default woman in the media is one wearing makeup. Some celebrity gossip magazines find it newsworthy when a celebrity is photographed without makeup. While there are no legal consequences for choosing to not wear makeup, the choice to go bare-faced can carry social consequences that can have lasting effects in a woman’s life, including with her career. All because there is the preconceived notion that a woman that has her life together is one that wakes up and puts makeup on every morning- a notion that can cause people to react negatively, consciously or subconsciously, to the site of a woman without makeup.
While our culture has made great strides in the fight for gender equality, I still find myself shocked by just how regressive some aspects of our society can be. It was in one of my business classes that I first realized the extent of how deep some sexist ideas are really rooted, when the professor was going into proper interview attire for men and women. While the men’s list included all of the things you might expect- button-up shirt, slacks, tie, dress shoes, well-kept hair, etc.- the women’s list had an additional requirement: Lipstick. It irked me, and I had to keep myself from scoffing out loud, but I chalked it up to the professor being an old man that might have been behind on the times. That was, until I took another business class that listed the same thing, but went even further, explaining it was needed to give the impression that you really cared about your appearance. I can’t make this stuff up, folks. And to make matters worse, this class was taught by a woman. I was mad.
While my anger only went as far as complaining to my friends about it, it stuck with me, which is why I’m writing this now. I don’t want to be judged by the artificial color of my lips, or whether or not my eyelashes stand out. I don’t want people to ask me if I’m tired or sick if I’m not wearing a fake face. I don’t want to be seen as sloppy just because I didn’t spend painstaking amounts of time making myself pretty in ways that men don’t have to, to achieve the same respect. I want to be judged for my knowledge, my work, my personality, my skills, the content of my character.
It just seems unfair to have to fight against those frivolous expectations. And even though I no longer feel pressured by society at large to wear makeup regularly (something that took years to be truly comfortable with), it still bugs me to know that to some, I am classified as “That Girl That Doesn’t Wear Makeup.” Some women may find joy and “empowerment” in wearing makeup, but a great many just feel an obligation. Until there is no longer that insane amount of pressure that caused me to beg my mom to buy me makeup in middle school so I could fit in, and that causes universities to feel the need to teach professional women that they must wear makeup to gain respect, then I can’t see it as anything but a sexist standard to be fought against.
If you follow fashion, and you haven’t heard of Tomo Koizumi at this point, then you’re a unicorn. The Japanese designer debuted his boisterously joyous, vibrant, ruffled organza gowns on the fashion industry’s biggest faces in his first runway show that took place in the Marc Jacobs store in New York during fashion week.
The dreamy, absolutely bogusly-huge dresses were a refreshing change to the normally consumer-focused, fairly serious nature of New York Fashion Week. I was instantly taken by the sheer youth and femininity of the collection, which oozed all of the charm and fantasies of the Kawaii aesthetic of his native country. Koizumi even cites the internationally beloved anime Sailor Moon as being an inspiration for his dresses, which are supposed to act as a sort of armor, or proof of the idea that a woman can be cute AND strong. It makes me wonder why we view powerful women like men, in bland suits and plain makeup. Why can’t a powerful woman wear a rainbow-hued, ruffled dress? These are questions that are yet to be answered.
One of my favorite looks from the collection, this adorable, ruffled gown looks like a traditional Japanese kimono from an alternate reality where everything is whimsical and kawaii. (Photo: Vogue)
But the real topic this show truly brought to mind for me, is the pressure of the debut. While Koizumi had already found some success with his ruffled creations in the kawaii-centric Japan dressing celebrities and pop stars in his signature sugary, architectural designs, he was by no means well-known worldwide- until he caught the attention of famous stylist Katie Grand, who had all of the connections in the fashion world needed to put on such an incredible show. His first show was a tremendous success, launching him to fashion stardom instantly. This vision of the debut just strikes me as unfair, and definitely outside of reality.
I’m not trying to disparage Koizumi or his work- I think it’s all gorgeous and deserves recognition for how unique and playful it is (my favorite piece was one that resembled a ruffle-fied traditional kimono) and I’m glad he was given this stage, so that I could be inspired by his work. I just think that it more cements the idea that the debut, whether it be a fashion show, an acting role, a novel, an academic paper, or any other kind of work, has to be some kind of earth-shaking event that causes the world to see you. And if your debut isn’t like that, then maybe you’re not as good at something as you thought. The fear of the debut flop might even cause some people to not try in the first place.
To put this in a more personal light, I am someone who grew up being told they were “gifted” (ugh) all the time, so I thought that I could be naturally good at anything I set my mind to, and that just simply isn’t true. This ingrained belief causes me to give up on things immediately if I’m not automatically good at them, making it so I never really step outside of my comfort zone and try new things. To put it simply, I am limited by a fear of failure and ridicule, one that continually causes me not to put my work out there. The reality is, most people will not have a spectacular debut, because it is your debut. Firsts are never perfect, and should only serve as a jumping off point to improve your craft and keep trying. If you keep at it, someday the world will take notice. I just wish I could practice what I preach!
Check out some of my favorite looks from the show below:
Cover photo from WWD.com, all other photos from Vogue.com
I think every woman must have, at some point during her life, imagined what her wedding might be like someday- a magical ceremony where, dressed in a luscious, gleaming white gown, you march down the aisle toward your forever-sweetie, who eagerly awaits to receive you, tears streaming down their face. This is your stereotypical vision of a wedding, and according to pretty much every facet of western pop culture, your wedding day is supposed to be one of the most blissful, special days of your entire life, which means people pour A TON of money into each little aspect of it- including the dress. I’m talking thousands of dollars here, just tossed at the nearest bridal boutique for a dress that will be worn exactly once (and maybe more if you have a daughter someday and they happen to want to wear your dress on their wedding day).
I used to have a very particular vision for how I wanted my wedding dress to look, which was something out of a fantasy- a ball gown of epic proportions that would make Cinderella swoon at the site of the dramatic, sweeping skirt. I imagined myself all wrapped up in a veil, carrying my flowers in front of me like a corpse in a coffin, all stiff-armed and painfully formal. And I might have been content with that, if I didn’t end up working in the bridal industry, working with bridal collections and staring at bridal dresses from different designers day in and day out- it’s ruined all of my bridal hopes and dreams.
I love the idea of wearing a unique, designer piece to my wedding (like this dazzling Gucci gown), rather than a traditional wedding dress that has no personality. Source.
All of this to say, if I have learned anything from my current position as an account manager at a company that creates websites that list products for bridal and prom retailers across the world, it’s that all wedding dresses look the same. I’ve become absolutely desensitized to all of the satin and tulle and lace and Mikado silk and beaded embroidery and floral appliques and mermaid silhouettes and A-line skirts and bateau necklines and illusion backs and and and… it’s so tiring, yet equally amazing to me that these designers can all repeatedly create the same overused styles each season and still sell so freaking many! And for so much money- the average bride will spend between $1,300 and $2,00 on the dress for her big day.
Here’s the deal- I made a decision after a straight year of basically injecting all things wedding dress straight into my veins on a daily basis, that for my wedding, I would avoid “wedding” dresses altogether. It just seems to me that since our culture has constructed this narrative around ~being a bride~, women are willing to shovel their cash into buying something just because it has the “wedding” label attached and they get to experience their own As-Seen-On-TV “Yes Moment.” Well, I’m not going to buy into it. Instead, since wedding dresses are so expensive anyways, I decided I’m going to indulge in my love of fashion and just buy a white dress from a designer I love. That way, instead of looking exactly like every other bride out there wearing a dress sanctioned by the bridal industry and marked up to match this arbitrary distinction, I’ll be wearing a unique, designer piece that allows me to show more of my personality. After all, isn’t that what your wedding should be about? Celebrating yourself and your partner and all of the things that made you fall in love with one another in the first place. No “wedding” dress required.
I briefly looked through a few of my favorite sites that carry luxury designer labels and chose my favorite white dresses that I think would work beautifully for any wedding (trust me, I’m an expert!). Check out my picks below:
New Year’s day always feels so bright and fresh and new like the pink scar flesh under a scab. There is nothing but possibility and promise in a new year, a fact many cash in on with endless lists of New Year’s Resolutions meant to shape you into someone better, because there is no better time than the advent of another year to finally start making yourself into the person you always wanted to be. Unfortunately, according to an article by U.S. News, 80% of all New Year’s resolutions will fail by the second week of February. That’s… a staggering amount of failure. And starting off a year feeling dejected about the resolutions that could have been but never were is a great way to begin things on the wrong foot.
But why do we fail at resolutions? Why do resolutions make us feel so bad? Our lofty goals of saving a certain amount of money, or losing a certain amount of weight (the most popular resolutions after the excessive indulgence of the holiday season) can seem overwhelming, leading us to consciously or subconsciously give up before we even try. That’s because we try to change our behaviors on a dime without changing what really matters first- the thing at the core of it all- our mentality, our attitude, our outlook. Failure or feelings of dejection are inevitable if we don’t start small and figure out how to change the way we change ourselves.
Writing down a list of goals can seem like the first step to making improvements in your life, but it really isn’t a requirement for cultivating a meaningful, positive experience for your 2019. All you need for that is an adjustment in your own inner vision.
I’ve lived a life of pessimism and creating distant objectives for myself like “lose 20 pounds” or “get a book published” that do nothing for my self-worth but degrade it. And in the age of social media, where everyone’s best moments and personal triumphs are plastered across 5 different mediums, what you see as your own personal failures begin to feel monumental. This is where the change in perspective comes in, something that I’ve chosen to embrace for myself in the coming months because I’m tired of living in a swirling miasma of negativity. The first thing you have to do is quit seeing anything as a failure. While some things may not go according to plan, “failure” is a reality of life and only serves to improve you as you move along. Every “failure” is a triumph in disguise, even if that triumph is small. For example, if your goal was to find a better job, but none of your interviews panned out, you still triumphed because each interview you had was practice for the next. Just re-framing your thoughts like this can do wonders to improve your confidence and overall mood.
Another way to ensure a productive and successful new year is to start small. Resolutions like mine have been in the past seem so impossible because there is no clear pathway to achieving them. Small, bite-sized goals like “I’m going to make my bed every morning” are much more easily achieved and will lead to a positive, uplifting attitude that will make achieving larger, more challenging goals seem more realistic because successfully achieving goals, no matter how small, will cultivate higher confidence. It also helps to split up these tougher resolutions into smaller bits. Like, if your goal is to save more money, put into place a simple, achievable monthly plan like “I will save $200 from every paycheck.” You would be surprised how much this helps!
While goal-setting can be an important part of reaching where we would like to be in our lives, it isn’t necessary for self-improvement. In the past couple of months, I decided to stop pressuring myself too much, and to appreciate myself for what I am and what I’ve already achieved. While I didn’t lose the weight I wanted, my body is healthy and works so hard at carrying me through life, something I fail to recognize. While I didn’t write enough articles one week, that’s alright, time moves ever-forward and I have an opportunity to do better next week. Improvement isn’t instantaneous and doesn’t always have to be obvious. Like I said before, a simple change in outlook can make you feel like a new person, no resolutions required.
Stress, Materialism and Selfishness During the Most Joyful Time of the Year
My childhood memories of Christmas play out like a movie- snow, pulling mittens over cold hands, getting snow up the sleeve of my coat, winding neighborhoods of colored light, Christmas carols, sleds, New Hampshire frozen lakes, hot cocoa and marshmallows, never enough marshmallows, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch, Santa Claus, reindeer hooves beating against the roof, Christmas cookies, milk in mugs… and presents. Wrapped in shimmering bows and pretty patterned paper, they held everything I dreamed of, and made the season magical.
For young ones lucky enough to receive gifts for the holidays, Christmas seems like a dream, the most joyful time of the year, accompanied by a fleeting sadness the day after because we would have to wait a whole year to sense the magic again. Eventually that magic fades. Slowly, first with the realization that Santa isn’t real (a fact that my parents have never wanted to tell us) and then with the onset of adulthood, where Christmas becomes much more about giving gifts than receiving them.
When I started to buy gifts for others, Christmas lost its luster. I don’t mean to make myself sound like a selfish jerk who only loves to receive and never wants to return the favor- no, that’s not what I mean. I love giving gifts, especially ones that have a lot of meaning that I know the recipient will truly appreciate. What bums me out about Christmas is the fact that gift giving is expected and anybody that doesn’t participate is hailed a Scrooge and painted as a greedy, joyless miser.
What do you get someone who doesn’t need or want anything? Something they don’t want or need. How many holiday gifts have you gotten that you had to pretend you were grateful for? How many gifts have you re-gifted? Yeah, we’ve all probably gotten plenty of presents that were basically meaningless junk all in the name of ~Christmas~. The evening of Thanksgiving, a day we are supposed to spend being thankful for what we have, thousands flock to big box stores to buy even more stuff! And a lot of the time they aren’t even buying gifts, but taking advantage of the mediocre deals for themselves It’s materialism on steroids. Overindulgent and selfish.
Then there’s the stress of it all, my least favorite part of the Christmas season. Trying to figure out what to get someone who doesn’t want anything is stress. Trying to mail the gifts on time is stress. Managing finances is stress. And at the end of the day it seems like it’s all in the name of stuff rather than loving and appreciating your family and friends and significant others.
I would much rather have a thoughtful, well-cooked meal, or a nice trip to a fun place than things that will line my shelves and gather dust. I guess that’s why we can make Christmas whatever we want it to be, despite companies trying to push their rampant waste and materialism upon us. I know the Christmas magic is still there somewhere, I just have to dig a little deeper to find it.
If you are in any way connected to the fashion realm, then you’ve probably already heard all about Dolce & Gabbana’s latest blunder with their Great Show planned in Shanghai, China. An enormous fashion show was planned, boasting over 300 models with thousands of Chinese stars and Key Opinion Leaders (their term for influencers) set to attend. Unfortunately for Dolce and Gabbana, the universe had other things in mind.
Leading up to the show, Dolce and Gabbana released a series of three promotional videos on Chinese social media and their Instagram that featured a Chinese model attempting to eat oversized Italian cuisine with chopsticks, all while a male voiceover attempted to tell the model how to eat the food in a very patronizing, and semi-creepy-sexual tone. As you might expect, this did not go over well, as Chinese people took to social media to denounce the videos as racist because they relied wholly on stereotyping and infantilized the model and Chinese people overall by suggesting that they would not know how to eat foreign foods if presented with them.
Enter Stefano Gabbana- the decidedly filter-less cofounder of the label that has a long history with taking criticism poorly… really poorly. In response to someone letting him know why the campaign was racist, Gabbana responded by saying that China is a “country of s***” and that Chinese people eat dogs. Apparently he didn’t get the memo that blatant racism isn’t good for PR.
In another amateur bad PR move, Gabbana later claimed that those comments were not made by him because his account was hacked, even though, as the much-revered Instagram fashion blog @diet_prada pointed out, Gabbana posted screencaps of the very same Instagram DM conversation on his stories. Mixed messages much?
After enormous outcry and an onslaught of entertaining videos of Chinese influencers destroying their D&G goods in a variety of ways, Dolce and Gabbana’s dreams of holding their “Great Show” died, leaving us with a half-assed apology video and a ton of questions like “Why do we even still put up with them?”
That’s right, folks- the fact that Dolce & Gabbana is problematic isn’t news. The infamous duo (but mostly Stefano Gabbana) has been offending various audiences for years and here are a few of the best (worst) examples:
1. Internalized Homophobia and War On IVF Children
In 2015, Dolce & Gabbana showed their blatant homophobia when they stated that they do not believe that gay people should be able to have and raise children because it went against nature. To make matters worse, they also referred to children conceived via IVF as “synthetic.” Yikes!
Elton John, who had two beautiful sons with his husband through IVF clapped back- “…Shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil their dream of having children.”
2. #DGHatesNaples
In 2016, Dolce & Gabbana created the #DGLovesNaples campaign, where they photographed a slew of models dressed to the nines in D&G with Naples locals. While the idea seems charming in concept, it was deemed offensive in its execution because it often showed the models photographed with Neopolitans in stereotypical roles like pizza maker or peasant.
When the Neoploitan people pointed out why they didn’t appreciate the campaign, Stefano Gabbana responded in the only way he knew how, by further insulting them, saying he will never visit Naples again and that Neopolitans are “the disgusting of Italy.” The D&G PR department should really consider taking Gabbana’s social media privileges away.
One of the images from the Dolce & Gabbana Napoli campaign that featured a Neopolitan pizza maker.
3. Even More Racism
In a recent interview, Stefano Gabbana admitted that after he and Dolce are finished, he does not want a Japanese designer to design for the label. And this comment came soon after the label staged a show in Japan to court the Japanese public. Gabbana really has a terrible track record for showing basic human decency.
4. Body Shaming Lady Gaga
After Lady Gaga’s dynamite halftime performance in 2017, Stefano Gabbana took to social media to criticize her choice in showing her stomach, later retracting his comment and issuing an apology: “I know it’s strange, but finally something real not retouched! The truth, reality. Yesterday I criticized it too, but I thought about it and I was wrong!!!”
While some may credit him for issuing an apology, that doesn’t change the fact that he found the need to comment on Lady Gaga’s stomach to be more important than commenting on her abilities and her outstanding performance- a common issue for women in many industries.
Lady Gaga put on a spectacular show during the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, yet received a ton of unwarranted comments about her body, rather than her kick-ass performance. (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL)
5. Fatphobic Sneakers
How could you go wrong with a pair of sneakers? If anyone could find a way, it’s good ol’ Dolce & Gabbana. They released a pair of sneakers with the phrase ” I’m Thin & Gorgeous” printed on them, something that many people found to be a subtle way of pushing a fatphobic message.
So what did Gabbana do when faced with criticism? You guessed it- he made matters worse with more hateful comments like:
“u think is better to be fat full of hamburger??? Stupid” and
“When idiocy distorts reality!!! incredibile!!!! Next time we’ll write LOVE TO BE FAT AND FULL OF CHOLESTEROL.”
The infamous sneakers that boasted the questionable phrase “I’m Thin & Gorgeous.” (Photo: Dolce & Gabbana)
You can’t make this stuff up, folks. If you decide to support Dolce & Gabbana, then that’s your decision, but in my personal opinion, jerks like Gabbana don’t need anybody to stroke their ego. Just let it die.
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