Category: Things/People I Like

Viva Sophia

There’s no better cure for a case of the Mondays than a heaping serving of glamour and sensuality. (Staying home and not having to work is also another remedy, of course.) And nobody embodies both better than today’s birthday goddess, the legendary Sophia Loren!

Three decades after that movie, La Loren still rocked it in 1994’s Ready To Wear. She was in her sixties in that movie! I’ll be lucky if I look a third fifth tenth good as her when I reach my sixties.

Also, Ready To Wear is a must-watch for all the 90s fashion heads (like moi).

New Month, New Nails

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How dare I go over two months without hooking up my nails with new paint? The colors I used may not be autumn-esque, but we’re technically not in autumn just yet so I’m safe with these mauve shades. What I used this go-round: Zoya’s Rumour and China Glaze’s “You’re Too Sweet” (the glitter on the middle and ring fingers). The CG one is like pink diamonds on my nails when light is shone on it. Lovely!

Stylin’ For September

Various blonde models on US Elle magazine, September 1991. I have this now-30-year-old issue in my collection! And obligatory: models and fashion nowadays don’t look this lively! 

It’s a new month yet again, and once upon a time in the world of fashion magazines, way before they became run down by excessive use of actresses, reality show trash heaps, and girls of nepotism, September was seen as its most important month. The likes of Vogue, Elle, W, and Bazaar released their “Fall Fashion Issue” that were thick as a Big Mac, and the model who graced the cover of that issue was seen as the face of fashion that season. Because the so-called fashion mags these days bore (and sometime annoy, depending on who gets the cover) the fuck out of me, I look back at a few of my favorite September covers to not only properly serve me FASHUN, but to remind me of how great fashion mags once were. And if you notice a 90s bias, I’m not apologizing for it!

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Linda Evangelista on US Harper’s Bazaar, September 1992. That was THE cover that resurrected Bazaar from middling mediocrity (see their covers before this one, and you’ll know what I mean) and positioned them to be another stylish rival to the giant that was Vogue. I have many issues of both Bazaar and Vogue from the 90s, and while Vogue had the clout and most of the top photographers, I felt like Bazaar was more palatable compared to Vogue, from its unique storytelling in their editorials to the mesmerizing typography, designed by the great Fabien Baron.

Kirsty Hume on Vogue Italia, September 1994. Leave it to the foreign fashion mags to show its US counterparts how to really serve a cover. Vogue Italia (aka Italian Vogue) was that stylish bitch back in the day. Fall 1994 fashion was all about wild, disco-inspired glamour, the antithesis of all those dreary, grunge looks from the previous year, and this cover (along with Bazaar’s infamous September cover that same year) captured the mood of the moment brilliantly. Photographed by the legendary Steven Meisel, the cover is giving me Helmut Newton/Guy Bourdin vibes. Adore!

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Kate Moss and her brother Nick on US W magazine, September 1995. This is brilliant because of one thing: dude in a kilt on the cover of a fashion mag.

Linda Evangelista on US Vogue, September 2001. This issue is now 20 years old?! I remember buying two copies of this because I was sooooo excited over the return of Queen Linda. I didn’t even know of her comeback until I saw it on the newsstands. (What social media? This was 2001, kiddos.) Easily my second-favorite Vogue cover of 2001 (with the cover of topless Penelope Cruz still tops).

Catfight Friday!

Do you miss bold, take-charge female characters in primetime dramas exchanging catty eyes and bitchy barbs while oozing delectable style like I do? Enjoy this vintage (duh!) clip of Melrose Place on this Flashback Friday featuring the 90s answer to Alexis vs. Sable: Amanda vs. Lexi!

The last minute of the vid is pure twisted gold. So mean, so bad, so sorely needed in today’s play-it-safe pop culture landscape. And soooo rich of Amanda to say that, might I add!

A Few Good Things…

Not even waking up (abruptly) to a shitty charley horse on my left leg can stop me from talking about some good good in my life!

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1) Library book sales rule! You get to support your local library and fulfill your inner book slut. I forgot that libraries had reopened, and here are my latest additions to my personal library. Paid $8 for it all. The DVD has 3 movies and I got them for a whopping one buck. And the bottom book originally retailed for $45. Also, yes, I haven’t owned Waiting To Exhale until now (even though I watched its movie adaptation and listened to the soundtrack many times over).

2) All those millions spent to push inane propaganda to show you’re the good guy in the proposition, and it ends up being overturned. All together now: hahahahahahaha! I laugh because my temp delivery job from last year was a gig job, and I also voted No on that awful proposition.

3) Some people in my apartment building sometimes leave free stuff. Food, clothes, Dollar Tree shit that get sold for $10 at Goodwill, etc. Whoever was the person who left an unopened case of Trader Joe’s Almond Ring Danish, muchos gracias and take my air high-five.

4) My recent Covid test, which I wanted to take after attending that jazz festival last week and massaging bodies for a living, turned out Negative. I haven’t done a Covid test since February, and the lines for them are long again. But, hey, I’m proof that that masks, vaccines, and believing in science works!

Monday Hotness

Courtesy of this mid-90s pic of today’s birthday stud Steve Carrell, giving us precious eye bleach with his I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Fabio realness! 

And because some of y’all can’t get enough of The Office (like me), here’s a bonus clip featuring the best of Michael Scott getting his Casanova on. Not sure why they included his famous “bankruptcy” quote at the end, but if that moment makes you cream your panties, so be it. 

PS: yes I went to that jazz festival and I’ll post about it soon. 

Pic courtesy of this old Dlisted post (and damn that the video where that pic came from is gone)

 

Listening To… (8/11)

Because I need some music while I work on creating an eBook, I shall play the finest Garbage for my ears!

I don’t know how I got the urge to listen to the bewitching voice of Shirley Manson after going without it for so long (how dare I!), but I’m riding the wave. Twenty-five years after these songs came out and they remain refreshing as rain after a drought. And if “Stupid Girls” spoke out against the try-hard bimbos of the 90s, the message can very much apply to the try-hards of social media and wannabe-A-listers from reality shows these days. The lyric “You pretend you’re anything just to be adored…” alone is enough to make the tragic eyebrows of a TikTok “influencer” fall off.

Also, Shirley’s red hair during that era is current redhead goals for me.

He’s Got All The Moves!

This is one of those times when the side action in a sports game is more spectacular than the game itself. And the dance moves of this security guard (?) of the Tampa Bay Rays is everything! He’s gettin’ down as if Maury told him “You are NOT the father!” after some crazy-ass woman accused him of being the baby daddy. (By the way, future accused baby daddies who go on Maury need to watch this entire clip to learn some dance moves in case they’re not the father). The exuberance this security guard radiates can power all of Florida’s energy grids and reduce a hurricane to a measly rain cloud. He’s that amazing. Forget the Z-list who-dats of “Dancing With the Stars”, Dancing Security Guard is the real dancing star here!