My current beast of burden bag
Ahhh, the beast of burden bag. I have always loved me a big ass MEEMAW hand bag. Scratch that – I’ve always loved me a big ass purse of any style. My clutches approximate the dimensions of catalog envelopes and my everyday bags often cause strangers and loved ones to ask if I’m on my way to country for a weekend at cozy, under-siege-by-Laura-Ashley Bed & Breakfast.
what I'm currently carting around in my bag
I’ll be the first to admit I take my bag inspiration from walkers of the evening streets. And when I use the adjective “hooker” it is with great reverence. Not because I have anything meaningful to contribute to the discourse centering around agency as it relates to sex work or seek to misappropriate an experience of those warriors of the fur chubby. I just think many elements of their style – namely their accessories – service the needs of my lifestyle. Oh yes, that was very much intended.
Now, I know our ladies of the eve are much more Y2K and business casual these days, so really my inspiration is more 70s in nature and was chiefly framed by endless viewings of TV cop shows. It’s doubtful fur chubbies have been raged with any conviction or irony free since – oh – about 1978. But the big ass MacGyver bag is timeless.
My first Bueno - circa 2002 - Big Blue
Seriously, you can’t keep me away from any bag that is shiny, pairs well with seasoned citizen cruisewear or is roomy enough for a family of five. And I’m not one of those people who has a big Olsen bag and holds up checkout lines trying to find stuff and in the process pulls out items ranging from a tube of KY to a spatula with gum wrappers and lint stuck to it. Oh no. I’m one of those bag-inside-a-bag people. I have no idea why I have to cart around all that stuff; I only know I wouldn’t know what to do with a modest sized handbag. Thankfully, since we’re all going green, I can always pretend I’m carrying around a suitcase so I won’t kill more planet by carting off my bargains in a store bag. I’ll save my obsession with reusable TJMaxx/HomeGoods $.99 shopping bags for another day.
Buenolicious collection.
When I walk into TJMaxx – or any store selling bags – I head straight for the luggage/computer tote section. If there’s anything worth spending my five cents on – cause you know I’m allergic to full priced items – it’ll be in that section. TJ/Marshall’s/AJ Wright never let me down. They always have something fun and usually ridiculous and almost always made by a company called Bueno. I tell you what, Bueno might not know how to do websites, but they certainly have mastered the art of liberating cash from my wallet in fifteen dollar increments.
Dolly Parton.
Robin Jacks is one of the co-founders of The Southern Girls Convention, a long time friend, co-conspirator and personal hero.
Snarky’s Machine has asked me to write this guest post based on a conversation we had many years ago, probably at a feminist conference somewhere in the South, about the implications of class on our respective senses of fashion. I can barely remember recognizing then that our conversation was specifically about class, even though looking back I can see that it was. I was, at that time, constantly pissed off about the then-trend of radical activists wearing doo rags and hankies on their heads everywhere they went, even if they weren’t doing any actual physical work.
I remembered spending so much of my childhood watching my mom scrub the kitchen floor on her hands and knees with a handkerchief tied over her head, protecting her hair from the dirt my father would track in after working his ass off outdoors all day, from the fur of the five hound dogs who roamed our rural Mississippi property. In the few photographs of my mother that have stuck around from those times, she’s almost always wearing a doo rag. Although there were then and still are plenty of icky appropriative fashion trends in supposedly progressive communities to be concerned about, that one has always stuck with me. The way people wore doo rags then was offensive not just to my sensibilities, but to my person. It was offensive, tasteless ‘working class chic’. It was all form, no function. It was, for Chrissakes, about my mama.
Growing up isolated in 1980’s rural Mississippi left me with few options for tangible fashion icons. I couldn’t dress exactly the way I wanted to; the rural South tends to be repressive that way, both financially and culturally. There was the very occasional trip to the feed store so my daddy could buy my sister and me a cowgirl hat or a pair of boots, and sometimes we’d go to the department store in Memphis and get something fancy, but mostly I was stuck wearing cheap warm-up suits. Back then I spent most of my fashion-centric energy internalizing rather than externalizing, making mental notes for the future.
I watched Hee Haw with my dad on Saturday evenings and noted that the Hee Haw Honeys dressed real nice-like; I hated their corny jokes, but I loved the Honeys’ flouncy square-dancing skirts and plaited-yet-bouffanttastic hair. They were equally wholesome and naughty; I liked that, even though I didn’t quite get what that meant. Dolly Parton was, of course, a key icon to so many little country girls in the 80’s who wanted more than the hand they were dealt. Her voice, body, and personality were big, so much bigger than the shack in the hills where she had come from. I watched my VHS copy of 9 to 5 that I’d taped off of a showing on TV over and over again, memorizing how she walked in heels and wondering how in the heck she got her hair to stay high and curled like that. I spent chunks of time every weekend combing my hair backwards, making it bigger and messier until it ended up being an incorrigibly tangled wad of hair that my mother would have to take apart with baby shampoo and a comb. (To this day, I don’t think she knows how my hair got so tangled all the time.)
My grandmother grew up in small-town Mississippi, in the Delta during and after the Depression. Her father was an oft-unemployed, non-functioning alcoholic, and caring for him at night when he stumbled in shit-faced usually fell on her shoulders. Despite all of this, she was a teenage superstar in her community. She loves to gloss over the bad parts and show me newspaper clippings from when she was voted “Miss Greenville High” and “Most Attractive” during her senior year in high school, rather than “Most Beautiful”; “Most Attractive”, she likes to remind me in her rolling Delta accent, was the one “who was glamorous AND had the personality.”
Her family was dirt poor – her not-quite-right father would walk through the streets of town literally throwing money in the gutters – but my grandmother made a little bit of money for herself by playing the piano on a local radio program, fighting with her father at home at night after she returned home. Their biggest battle royale came after she saw a lady in a magazine wearing a pair of, in her words, “VERY high heeled shoes.” No one else in town dared to wear them, but my grandmother saved her money and bought one of the few pairs that the town shoe store had for sale. She wore them around for the rest of the day, practicing her strut and prancing around downtown Greenville. She was punished severely for it when her father got home; he’d heard about it from everyone who had seen her walking around that afternoon, and as a result she never wore those shoes again. I was never clear if the heels were taken from her, or if she’d made the decision to get rid of them herself. The moral of her story, as she tells it, is that “nice girls don’t wear things like that.”
She would sit across the kitchen table from me with her scrapbook open, telling me that story for the thousandth time, tracing her cigarette ash around and around in her ashtray, making the cherry of her cigarette into a perfect point while muttering, “I really shouldn’t have done that.” But as much as she wants me to take her story as a cautionary tale, I love to think of my grandmother that way- the Most Attractive Girl Of Greenville, Mississippi, saving her pennies to buy an expensive pair of heels that she’d only get to wear once, sashaying down Main Street like she owned it, devising ways to get the hell out of that town and away from her life.
Elinor Burkett - Girl, interrupting.
Burkett told Salon:
What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn’t invited to any of them. And he’s not speaking to me. So we weren’t even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I’m sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn’t get up there very fast.
Did she really just call out his mama? The woman is 87 years old! Even if everything Burkett stated was true – I don’t know much about the case – how does it justify bum rushing the stage, an utter Soy Bombination to what would otherwise have been a triumphant moment for the filmmaker? I can see why Williams wasn’t speaking Burkett. You can’t reason with assclowery.
It’s interesting how this is being framed. Did anyone contact Kanye immediately after his Soy Bombing to get his side of the story? Was he provided a steaming cup of benefit of the doubt? Did he call out Swift’s mom? I don’t think so. I seem to recall an immediate and decisive condemnation of his antics. There were many valid criticisms, to be sure, but a lot of it veered away from the events of the evening and started looking a lot like racism at times.
I suspect Burkett’s obnoxious behavior will be framed in a less hostile manner and she’ll be mentioned in the same breath as the 1974 streaker, as though her behavior was nothing more than an odd Oscar moment. When in reality the attempt to silence a black filmmaker during his speech was all about some seriously unchecked hostility. She doesn’t deserve a forum to air her grievances. Instead she should be using any forum afforded her to apologize to Williams and his mama.
Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman - American or otherwise - to win a Best Directing Oscar
History was made during last night’s Oscar Telecast and that was just the murky depths of fail explored by its woefully inept hosts. Alec and Steve were misfiring like a Saturday Night Special, though in a SNS’s defense, those guns usually cause far less carnage.
Liveblogging with the ladies of Shapely Prose provided suitable innoculation from some the evening’s truly dreadful moments.
Of all the clips from Precious showcasing Gabby’s preternatural talent, the only one suitable for airing involved Precious jacking fried chicken? Seriously? Oh someone should be getting fired for that.
Academy Award winning screenwriter, Geoffrey Fletcher.
Geoffrey Fletcher – the first Black person to win a writing Oscar – had the best speech of the night (in my opinion):
I don’t know what to say. This is for everybody who works on a dream every day. Precious boys and girls everywhere. All the cast and crew, anyone who’s kept believing in me. My two brothers, supported me in every way. My role models, my heroes, Buddy and Todd. My mother, Bettye, angel of my world. My father, Alphonse, who spent so much time with us and taught us everything. I’m sorry I’m drawing a blank right now, but I thank everyone.
emphasis is mine.
As a person who worked on a dream daily, I was moved and inspired. Thank you, Geoffrey Fletcher. Thank you for being understated, truly humbled and a class act all the way. You wanna adapt my novel Bright Neon Love?
Let’s not waste bandwidth talking about the apotheosis of awful perpetrated by So You Think You Can Dance? producers who took ten minutes of my life I’ll be begging for on my deathbed when I’m 982 years old, for a sequence I named So You Think You Can Stink Up The Oscars.
Like adverbs and certain spices, Interpretative dance should be used judiciously.
Once again, The Dude was taking ‘er easy for all us sinners with his smoove and gracious win. And if my livestream hadn’t crapped out, I might have been able to see it.
Mo’Nique was spectacular and if it weren’t for her size and race, I’m sure she’d be considered a “tough broad” in manner of Midler or Babs, rather than “mannish” or “uppity” or “hostile”. How dare she let the work speak for itself.
Speaking of Babs. I tell you what, I knew it was going to be Lee or Kat when Babs strolled onto the stage wearing what appeared to be scraps of various costumes left over from The Main Event. I ain’t mad, though. You can wear a garbage bag when you’ve got James Brolin at home keeping the sheets warm.
Trust me, that’s legwork I wished I could do.
It was incredibly exciting to see K-Big rock the mic two times, though I could have done without the Muzak version of “I Am Woman”.
And Tom, even with a long broadcast, it’s still nice to quickly rattle off the noms before harshing J-Cam’s mellow.
Hey folks, I will be joining the divas of Shapely Prose to liveblog the Oscars tonight, starting at 6 EST.
You can find all the action here
I’m told if you purchase The Best of Yoko you receive a blank CD…
Julie Waters and Michael Caine
Snarky on Important stuffs
Ten Tips From a Grant Insider – Like the title suggests here are ten things you should know before drafting that beg letter for yet another community garden.
No Cookies for you, mutherfucker – Why Snarky hates the term “allies” as practiced by slacktavists.
Pay the lady – Snarky explains why agents of social justice must be vigilant, even at the JcPenney shoe department.
Black Women Need Not Apply – Snarky explores the thin line between preference and prejudice.
Tiger’s Transformation – Snarky watches as Tiger goes from “house negro” to “field negro” with the help of a few adulterous affairs.
Snarky on Snarky:
Discovery – Snarky reaffirms her belief in literary fairy godpeople.
The Pointy Eye – Snarky spends three paragraphs detailing her outfit – oh by the way she also has a coning of the cornea.
Ten Random Things About Snarky – Snarky tells you ten unrelated things that she thinks you should know in order to better enjoy her blog.
Fashion Inspiration: Eyes of Laura Mars – Fashion and film converge in this piece about T-strap heels and murderous visions.
Everything I Know About Life I Learned From Watching Mahogany – Snarky cautions readers to beware of cute boys bearing bullhorns and mentally unstable mentors.
Snarky on Pop Culture:
Such Great Heights – Snarky constructs evidence even Jack McCoy wouldn’t deal away to unpack height bias.
Sidney and Sydney – Snarky demystifies the famed directors Sidney Lumet and Sydney Pollack and only mentions Redford twice.
Two Kings – Snarky does a “Parent Trap” thing on Kube and De Palma with their films The Shining and Carrie.
Ed Lin For President – Snarky fangirls out with one of her literary heroes Ed Lin.
The Audicity of Tropes – Snarky breaks down many of her favorite TV Cop show tropes.
Always a Bridesmaid: Cinematic Female VPs – Snarky lists a bunch of bad ass actresses who have dubiously portrayed Vice President.
Snarky’s Favorite Cinematic Villains – The title says it all.
Not one ham left unglazed on the eastern seaboard.
My first thought after viewing the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 was: Tony and Denzel really need to start seeing other people. Seriously, the thrill is gone with these two. This is the THIRD collaborative fail (Man on Fire and Deja Vu) of the duo that brought you the truly awesome Crimson Tide.
I don’t know if T just accidentally hit “send” on his cell and couldn’t play it off, thus had no choice but to offer D a role completely unsuited to his strengths and talents or if Sam Jackson was busy on someone’s set shrieking motherfucker at an assembled group of character actors delighted by the honor.
Actually Sam Jackson would have been ideal in either role. He has done restrained everymen in films like Die Hard 3 and A Time to Kill and we know he can do non-grating crazed camp (Jackie Brown, Snakes on a Plane). But if T was committed to Travolta, well Jackson has demonstrated chemistry and could have easily provided much needed respite for the audience.
Denzel got steamrolled. It was unbearable.
Look, playa, you can’t chunk Denzel out, put him in some ill fitting khakis and call him an “everyman”. Y’all spent far too much time reminding us of how damn foxy he is. And I don’t care how many beards of menace you give Travolta, he’s not Rickman, Hauer or Walken.
If you want to do Die Hard on a Subway get me Rickman or Eric Roberts or even Deniro. He’s got like eleventy billion kids in college, he’ll do it.
But there was a bright spot.
Old school Tony Scott Player – James Gandolfini.
I would watch this movie again just to see the Gand phoning in his best The Last Castle and pre-Sopranos bag of tricks. Like Stallone, filmmakers believe the simple addition of eyewear will confuse the audience thus making us forget the iconic characters they are better known for. And as the smarmy mayor of New York – wait, didn’t he play that character in The Siege or was he a ruthless general, no that was Willis – he was welcome distraction from the plot, which by this point had run off the tracks just like the subway car, Pelham 123.
Having never seen the original, I am not sure if I’m being unduly harsh. But after being burned by BOTH versions of Assault on Precinct 13, I’m not about to do the legwork.
Jack "Deal 'em Down" McCoy
In the Law & Order universe one meets a recurring group of characters – played by various classically trained, but hopelessly “average” looking actors – who rarely get their due. They are as much a part of the show’s success as Jack McCoy’s eyebrows, Lt. Van Buren’s interrupted curbside lunches for worthless case updates, Det. Green’s teeny tiny notebooks filled with pantomimed crime scene notes and Adam Schiff’s enduring fear of Albany.
Trust me, I’ve been to Albany and I don’t want them on my ass either.
1. The Body Discoverer
Now this is where the rubber meets the road. And you can’t just merely be minding your own business when happening upon the mangled body of a shock jock or a school teacher. No, you really need to be kvetching with your spouse, fumbling for lost keys in your beast of burden bag or perhaps about to finally give your 7th grade crush a kiss. These folks seem rather nonplussed – even for New Yorkers – at finding an unexpected body and rarely seem more than amused by their discovery. They ham it up with the uniformed officers first on the scene and almost never seem to care they missed their dinner reservations, blew off out of town relatives or are going to be late for their shift at the The Spread Eagle.
Lt. Van Buren 'ounding Green
2. The First Suspect
Always good for a laugh, a snarky retort and the stench of stale smoke and body odor that leaps out of your TV and into your home. These folks are all about doing things the hard way, and even as the detective rattle off the list of previous arrests and allude to rap sheets approximating the length of their limbs, the faux perps always seem so indignant. Oh sure, they’ve committed some crimes, but not this one. One tap byVan Buren on the two way glass confirms their “I was at home watching TV/I was in Rikers/I was unconscious” alibi.
3. The Friend/Roommate/Boss/Coworker
They always lie. They always rifle through files, racks of clothing or CDs while blithely offering unhelpful and generally erroneous information to detectives. And upon their second visit from the detectives they always sheepishly state, “Look, I know I lied before.” and offer up some sanitized version of the truth, which usually involves a tawdry affair, embezzlement or refusal to donate precious body organs.
4. The “This Might Not Mean Anything, But…” Person
Now, I’m a super observant person with a spectacular memory, but not even in my wildest dreams could I recall the kind of minutiae these folks can. Never mind they are always a 3rd cousin once removed, or a bookstore clerk that only helped the victim twice or a physician coming off an eleventy billion hour shift, they always remember one specific detail that makes the detectives roll their eyes, suck their teeth and set their lasers on the killer who they now have to keep from boarding a train to Baltimore or a flight to Rio.
5. The Black Lady Judge
I don’t know what their numbers are in real life, but daytime TV and Law & Order would have you believe the courts are filled with chubby, black, medium toned women with eyelids at permanent half mast and with lips perpetually in search of lemons to suck. They range in type from the Jocelyn Elders, “Overruled, but watch it, counselor, or I’ll find you in contempt faster than you can say ‘concrete suite at the steel bar Sheraton’. We clear?” to the C.C.H Pounder type who fight every urge in their body not to say, “I know you aren’t sitting up here asking me for bail?” and instead take a deep breath and calmly state, “Bail denied. Defendant is remanded to custody penning trial.” While generally fair and reasonable, they are not above demanding the lawyers approach the bench, covering the mic with a well manicured hand and threatening to snatch those knuckleheads bald headed if they engage in anymore courtroom theatrics.
M and Bond
I’ve been called square, dumpy, round, puckish-looking. If you said that to an ordinary person, somebody would smack you in the mouth. In my mind’s eye I’m 6 feet tall…
Daniel Craig is an intriguing and complex Bond for a number of reasons, but two that are most charming to me relate to his physicality: his height (5′10) and his hair color (dirty blondish? I don’t know blond shades well). Both characteristics deviate from previous Bonds.
Look, the prototypical Bond is a six footer, dark haired and ruggedly handsome, possessing a cheeky smile.
Connery 6′2
Moore 6′1
Lazenby 6′2
Dalton 6′1
Brosnan 6′1
In perusing female profiles on dating sites, one finds something curious. Now, I’m not a statistician, but I did note with some shocking frequency how many women listed specific height requirements – regardless of their own listed height – and it usually went something like, “I only want messages from men 6′0 and over please.” Leaving aside the absurdity of such a requirement as A) the average height of American men is roughly 5′9ish and B) according to Malcolm Gladwell only 14.5% of the American male population meets such strict requirements!
Numbers do not interest me. They don’t make me feel better, but I realize their importance. Stats are only sexy to me if they help me answer my questions or tell me a fascinating story.
The tallest Academy Award nominated actor is James “That’ll do, pig.” Cromwell at 6′7
The shortest Academy Award nominated actor is Bob “I’m sexy as all get out cause Snarky said so” Hoskins at 5′6.
The tallest Oscar winning actor: Tim Robbins at 6′5
The shortest Oscar winning actor: Joe Pesci at 5′4
Tallest US President: Abe Lincoln at 6′4
Shortest US President: James Madison at 5′4
There’s a lot of cluster fuckage at 6′2 with Obama, Clinton, Bush (41), Washington, Arthur and FDR. And then the 6′0 club: Harding, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush (43), Garfield, Monroe, Buchanan, Ford.
Three of our last FOUR presidents have been 6′2.
Height of Fakey Female President Allen: 6′0 (G. Davis)
Height of Fakey Female VP Hanson: 5′10 (J. Allen)
Height of Fakey Female VP Bennett: 5′6 (G. Close)
Height of Hillary Clinton: 5′7.5 (unverified, but my impression based on judging pics of her and Bill, accounting for the footwear of both)
Heights of my last four boyfriends: 6′6, 6′5, 6′5 and 6′3
Height of my current partner: 6′0
My height: 5′1ish
Height of my doctor: 6′5.5
Height of my best friend (local) 6′5
Height of my (step)Dad: 6′5
Height of my Mom: 5′3
Height of my brother: 6′3
Height of my sister: 4′11
Heights of my celebrity boyfriends:
Morgan Freeman: 6′2
Jeff Goldblum: 6′4
Don Cheadle: 5′9
Kyle Secor: 6′5
Height of my favorite Bond: 6′1 (Moore)
Height of my favorite Bond Villain: 6′1 (Drax)
Height of the last author I read: 6′10 (Crichton)
Height of my favorite director: 6′0 (Pollack)
Actor whose height surprised me: 6′2 (Beatty)
Height of the last TV actor to grace my screen: 6′1 (Gandolfini)
Height of the current villain on my screen: 6′3.5 (D’Onofrio as Edgar)
Height of the heroes in that movie: 6′2 (Smith), 6′1.5 (Jones)
Heights of the last celebrities I snarked on: 5′10 (Clooney), 5′11 (Pitt) and 5′8 (Damon) – It was an Ocean’s 11 thang and oddly enough the heights of the actors I opted to “save” were: 5′9 (Cheadle), 6′2 (Gould) and 6′2 (Reiner)
Heights of favorite characters on my favorite TV show Homicide: Life on the Street:
Braugher: 6′0
Secor: 6′5
Kotto: 6′6
Belzer: 6′1
Johnson: 5′10
Leo: (couldn’t find a listing)
Height of my favorite Baldwin: 6′2
Heights of my current favorite actors: 6′2 (Hackman), 6′2 (Jackman), 6′3 (D. Glover), 5′9 (Cheadle), 6′2 (W. Smith), 6′2 (Goodman), 6′1 (Bridges), 5′10 (J. Cho), 6′3 (Smits), 6′2 (Julia)
Heights of my current favorite actresses: 5′1 (Dench), 5′7 (J. Scott), 5′6.5 (Pounder), 5′10 (Arthur), 5′5 (Oh), 5′0 (C. Wilson)
The story I tell myself about my past partners and their heights:
It has been my experience that the closer a male is to the ideal (in US society), oddly enough the more generous they tend to be (I believe) in accepting the “flaws” of others. The less a male feels he meets the “ideal” the more strictly he is apt to enforce the ideal on his potential partners.
Which, if we follow my “logical” explains why I am surrounded by the 14.5% club.
In my defense, I have to say I eat what’s on the menu and don’t insult the cook. Meaning, I date the people I find attractive who find ME attractive enough to pursue. I am a short, black chunkerbutt in a society who doesn’t appear to have a lot of use for any of those qualities.
Still I’m uncomfortable with my examination. I’m uncomfortable because I subscribe to the belief that we aren’t as much in control of the thing we call desires as we think we are. More over, pop culture, media and what not actively shapes and reshapes what we find attractive. This is not new shit coming to light. We seem to live in a culture where women on dating sites call men of average height “short”, despite not being able to distinguish 5′9 and 5′11 in person (cause they don’t look THAT much different).
I know height. I can eyeball it within a quarter of an inch, even accounting for environmental factors and footwear (dodgy or otherwise). Yet, I was also stunned and humbled at what my height actually looks like in REAL life. And this is where we get back to Dench and Craig. The accompanying photo – despite not being able to see the floor or their footwear – approximates the height variance between my partner and myself. And like Dench, I don’t see myself that way at all. But there it is. It stares at me every time I catch a glimpse of myself and my partner in a reflective surface.
So why care?
I care and am interested because I want to know what my culture instructing me to believe, desire and think. I mean I know all about heightism, particularly as it relates to men in Western society and how it shapes masculinity and notions of desirability. But it’s one thing to read all the papers, analysis and studies, but it’s an entirely DIFFERENT thing to see the results of those papers and studies playing out in your OWN life, particularly when you tout yourself as critically conscious. Actively resisting culturally dictated desires – and I’m not just referring to physical desires – is something I rabidly pursue. I want to like what I like because I like it and not because I’ve been trained to. I want to love Barney Miller because it’s a great fucking show and not because Hal Linden is 6′0 and I live in a society, which actively instructs its citizens to obsessively pursue and desire what is rare and enables those who acquire it to benefit from a status bump simply for their deft acquisition skills.
And fuck yeah on Craig as Bond. Why? Because if we can get a 5′10 blond fucking Bond, we could have a Bond of color, a female Bond and possibly Bonds representing every -ism and that would be made of awesome.
Editor’s Note: Most of the listed heights I know from memory, but if you wish to do your own research a good place to start is Celebrity Heights, which basically is a bunch of people far more committed than me debating height in a generally informative and productive way. As with all off site links, it is not a “safe space” though I haven’t encountered too much -ism tomfoolery, which isn’t to suggest it does not exist there.
Cherish is the word I use to describe...
Contrary to popular tropes put forth by Ronald Regan, in 1986 – at the tender age of 13 – I wasn’t getting jumped into a vicious girl gang or dropping out of high school or seeing dancing government checks in place of my newborn’s pupils. No. Like a lot of girls I was fastidiously engaging in craft fails and fruitless shopping trips in order to approximate Andie’s wardrobe and bedroom decor as seen in Pretty in Pink.
Over the last 24 years I have single handedly become the cardigan and brooch queen. Though I no longer strangle myself with brooches secured at the neck of an oxford preferring instead to move them to the real estate left vacant when I evicted my Carrie Bradshaw silk cabbage roses about five years ago. Nor do I liberate doilies from the dining room hutch and secure them to cardigan collars.
I was particularly obsessed with her selection of cardigans. Her shoes, sunglasses and hair didn’t do much for me. I was far more into Denise Huxtable’s asymmetrical bobs and Diana Ross’s miles and miles of bushy unstoppable weaves.
I remember spending Sunday afternoons watching Pretty in Pink and hopelessly attempting to restyle my boring crewneck sweaters into fashionable copies of Andie’s hot cardis. With the holy grail being the baby blue cardi she wore with floral leggings, some lacy top layered over some other top and scuffed white witchie boots.
What I didn’t realize then was the cardis favored by Andie also happened to be favored by the more seasoned of our female population. Those soft, fuzzy, deceptively angora polyester/tricot/incidentally cotton cardis with dainty pearl buttons were usually found in the same section housing the pull on pants made by a company called Briggs and those other stalwarts of mature lady fashion: Alfred Dunner – or Lord Alfred of Dunner, as I call it – and of course, Sag Harbor. And for these brands you have to rage JcPenney, Sears and the late Montgomery Ward.
I love to be chill.
By the time I uncovered this cache of Andie cardis it was too late for my teen queen craft fail self, but the adult me had died and gone to cardi heaven. Designer Originals is my go to brand for my cardigan fix and occasionally Old Navy. Old Navy tends to be touch and go, but Designer Originals – familiar like a Bowie LP – never lets me down. It was in the clearance racks of hopeless dogs in blotchy colors and varying degrees of ugliness – from oh-that’s-fug to omg-this-cheetah-print-lined-with-zebra-print-and-trimmed-with-giraffe-print-ribbon-is-so-fug-it’s…-ooh-it’s-only-two-bucks – and found the perfect baby blue fuzzy Andie cardi WITH A GIANT TACKY brooch riddled with rhinestones and Cubic-Zarphonia clusters affixed to the left side above the breast. And it was only five bucks! No more ruining perfectly good v-necks or turtlenecks.
An essential element of a volcanic ensemble.
I scored this hot little cardi for six bucks and it’s so Andielicious. The teen queen in me squealed and did a little tap dance when I spied it on the rack sandwiched between a Christmas sweater that was several levels of awful and a tunic that shed it sequins every time it moved on the rack, leaving a pool of glittery disappointment on the scarred flooring.
