The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 11,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 18 years to get that many views.
Dorigen,
Olivia Palermo will wrestle a grandmother to the ground for a bib necklace.
I’ll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.
And she wears her trophies well, but can real people wear these bibs without them looking like bibs?
Emily
Emily,
You may know that I am guilty of loving a bib necklace. IMHO, you can really dress up an otherwise ordinary outfit with a nice chest-piece full of beads and what-not. I own several, much to the dismay of my dear husband. He calls them amulets and makes lots of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom references when I wear them. I think the bib necklace falls into that category of fashion that women love and men hate.
I recently discovered that there is a new phenomenon in the world of “statement” necklaces: the collar. As its name implies, it is a necklace in the shape of a collar. Anthropologie’s website has an entire page and sub-category devoted to them.
I find the collar at best twee and at worst truly hideous, when expressed in its downmarket incarnation:
The above picture illustrates just how difficult it is to accessorize. You think you’re following a trend and sprucing up your every day look and you end up looking like you just escaped the crafts tent at camp Minnetonka in 1976.
Say what you will about Olivia Palermo – she is probably most famous for being the most horrible person on a terrible show – but bitch knows how to accessorize.
This is an unwearable outfit for 99% of the population and yet she is pulling it off. I don’t know how. That said, I WOULD attempt to rock that bib necklace, but maybe with a solid monochromatic outfit. But I also don’t get paid to offer my advice on mixing high and low fashions. Bitch.
Love,
Dorigen
Hey Dorigen,
Winona Ryder was just asking me…
… “when is a headband ok?” As evidenced by the above, I assume she already knows when it’s not. Ima read, Ima read, Ima read.
Love,
Emily
Emily,
The only time a headband should be worn is to keep your bangs out of your face during exercise. (And that is pronounced “ex-SER-seize”):
I may be going out on a limb by saying this, but headbands are not now, nor have they ever been, an acceptable fashion accessory. Even as a child I was anti-headband. It may be because I have an oddly shaped head and wore huge plastic-framed glasses, making the 80s version of the headband impractical and somewhat painful. I was really irritated with Olivia Newton John for giving the cross-forehead headband a fashion moment.
Meanwhile, OMG, I just watched the video for Physical. There is a LOT of inappropriate man flesh in there!
At any rate, with a glasses frame going a full inch and a half above my natural eyebrow, there was no way the Olivia Newton John was going to be feasible. And unfortunately, in 1984, there was no Kim Kardashian to show me how to appropriately adjust my headband to accomodate multiple accessories at once. Behold the brilliance. Place headband AT the hairline!
Nope, it still looks stupid. The 50s style over-the-head headband never worked for me either. The plastic u-shaped Goody-brand ones from the drugstore pinched my enormous head and also interfered with my glasses, and there’s no way to wear a stretchy “flex-comb” style without looking like a complete asshole.
Actually the over-the-head headband doesn’t really work even if you have a normal-sized head. It comes off as twee and costumy. Ask Emmy Rossum:
I don’t know, though. Maybe I’m just biased. Headbands do seem like they could come in handy when you didn’t have time to wash your hair or have an out-of-control cowlick, but I think it’s safer to just leave them alone altogether.
Dorigen
Dorigen
Please explain a french tip.
Emily
Emily,
According to Nails Magazine, the french manicure is probably in no ways French and was created to be done on short nails to mimic the natural look of healthy groomed nails and would thus match any outfit. First of all, Nails Magazine. Second of all, the French manicure has evolved into something real tacky, along with most other nail art.
I won’t lie, I rocked a french tip in my teens and early 20s. More specifically, I rocked an airbrushed French tip, because I was ghetto. My 1994/95 look was not dissimilar to this:
There were great advances in nail technology in the late 80s/early 90s that permitted the above glory to be accessible to the average lady off the street. All we had before that was the at-home kit, and let’s be honest, I could do a better job with a bottle of white-out.
I don’t know when getting your nails did became a thing. Were there even salons specifically for nails until the mid-80s? Now they are eveywhere and cater to every taste, particularly if your taste is vulgar. I will leave you with this, which… I feel sick.
Dorigen
Dorigen,
Please explain a pointed-shoulder blazer.
Emily
Emily,
I cannot possibly discuss pointy shoulder blazers without first sharing this amazing video of a local TV news anchor mocking two of the Kardashians wearing their matching versions of such:
Priceless. Their voices are intolerable.
Yeah, I don’t know. I am old enough to remember shoulder pads and 80s power suits and am thus old enough to be shocked that they ever made a comeback, but what the hell do I know? And when I think of 80s power suits, I obviously think of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.
Single mother of five goes on vacation, babysitter dies, teenage Christina Applegate (!) lies about age to get high-powered fashion industry job to support family. Amazing 80s power officewear ensues! Wonderful!! How does this movie only have 31% on Rotten Tomatoes? Oh right, because it’s actually horrible. I have seen it at least 10 times. And so have you. Because we taped it off of TV and watched that VHS cassette until no adjustment of the “tracking” knob could fix it.
Dorigen
Dorigen,
Yes. OMG. My favorite part of DTMTBD is when Applegate is daydreaming about her burger (tacos?) truck boyfriend, and clown music plays. Love. Do you remember her herringbone braid? White-wine spritzers? Oh, and those ridiculous fashion uniforms that save the day?! I loved every work day outfit of hers and often think of them when putting together my work looks. Today I wore plastic hot pink shoes with my suit. Work.
Emily
Dorigen,
Please explain a jean short.
Emily
Emily,
The super short super distressed jean short seems to be a thing right now. I recently went out to the shops in my Brooklyn neighborhood looking to buy a pair of shorts to bike in, and was faced with mostly this:
You can’t ride a bike in those. There would be chafing. They are what we used to call, back on the mean streets of 1990s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “coochie cutters,” with slight updates to the wash and rise. The technical term for what you can see just below the hem of the young lady in white’s shorts are her “booty rounds.” 95% of the population should not be wearing these shorts, if only for gynecological hygeine, and yet they are ubiquitous. I just don’t know anymore.
Fondly,
Dorigen
DorEm Answers 