"Beach Bodies" (05/22/09)

Summer is not a good season to be a tabloid junkie. While I love gobbling up all the gossip about Brangelina’s ever-expanding brood, I could do without the dozens of glossy pages depicting the best and worst “beach bodies.” Everybody and every body gets panned, from the too slender (Whitney Port) to the too rotund (Angelica Huston, who is still svelte at almost-sixty).

This week, Star harassed everyone who bared it on the beach, from waif-like reality star Whitney Port to super-muscular tennis star Serena Williams. When even the most toned bodies are being criticized for the smallest patch of cellulite, it’s tempting to keep my much-more-ample figure fully clothed. But the size and shape of your body matters a lot less than the size and shape of your suit. If you pick a suit that suits your body, there’s no reason not to feel comfortable on the beach this summer.

Even if you’re years out of high school, go nostalgic and order a suit from Delia’s, the teen emporium. The catalog-and-web site company offers a wide variety of suits for diverse body types. Mix-and-match suits allow you to go skimpy on the bottom and supportive on top. Tall girls can pick out pretty suits made to fit long torsos. Best of all, most styles come in sizes XS–XL. After a traumatic top-losing incident a few summers ago, I am a proponent of one-piece styles. This year, I’m hoping to get the Black-and-White Boy Short One-Piece, which is a halter-top suit with a built-in shelf bra and modest leg line ($44). The classic silhouette reminds me of iconic twentieth-century glamazons like Marilyn Monroe. It’s playful and sexy and provides enough coverage to make me feel comfortable.

Victoria’s Secret also sells sexy swimwear, and despite its reputation for catering only to bodacious beauties, anybody can be beach-ready in one of their numerous cuts of swimsuits. In addition to barely-there bikinis, the company makes tankinis, one-pieces, and monokinis (cut-out one-pieces). Busty bathers can get all the coverage they need in tops in D–DD. Modest, slimming one-pieces are stylish with ruching detailing. Bikini sets start at $29, and mix-and-match separates start at $15.

For high-end beachwear, fashionistas head to Everything But Water, a one-stop swim shop that features suits by eminent clothing labels like Betsey Johnson, Kenneth Cole, and Michael Kors. The suits come in figure-flattering cuts like boy-cut and skirted bottoms for those who would rather keep their lower body under wraps. One-piece styles even come in boat-neck versions, which elongate short torsos or hide upper-body stretch marks. While I don’t think anyone should be encouraged to hide their (highly subjective) physical “flaws,” I commend these brands for making suits intended to make women feel most comfortable.

If you’re not excited to bare all on the beach, another alternative is to throw on a cute cover-up. Beachwear doesn’t have to consist of big, bleached T-shirts. J.Crew has an entire line devoted to cute beach cover-ups that can go from shore to store. Light-colored linen pants are lightweight and crisp, and when paired with a black cami, chunky wooden necklace, and simple leather sandals, are effortless and elegant ($48). Forever 21 has cheap and chic maxi dresses in batik prints adorned with beads, which capitalize on the safari trend ($18–$24).

I wish I could bring myself to put the tabloids away until fall, but I won’t—what if Brangelina adopts another baby in the interim? Instead, I’ll try to ignore all of the body-snarking (honestly, I dream of looking as great as Angelica Huston at 57), and remember that a body-conscious swimsuit can make any day a trip to the beach.

Photo credit: Photo of Jordan Dexter and Alex Long by Shahzad Ahsan, The Maroon

"Sizing Up Fashion's Fascination with the Petite" (05/12/09)

It’s no secret that fashion is obsessed with the miniature, such as waif-like models and short shorts with a half-inch inseam. However, on Saturday night, students who gathered in Hutch Courtyard to celebrate the beginning of the Festival of the Arts (FOTA) were greeted by a larger-than-life fashionable figure: “Gigantic Fashion,” a monumental eleven-foot dress designed by fourth-year Michal Lynn Shumate.

Shumate’s gargantuan garment was inspired by her knowledge of fashion’s love of the tiny. An art history major, Shumate just completed a thesis paper about fashion installations in which she discussed the House of Victor and Rolf’s presentation of their most famous designs on porcelain dolls in a gigantic doll house.

Also curious about fashion’s caricature of the large and ostentatious, such as enormous hoop skirts and opulent headdresses, Shumate wondered how dramatic changes in scale would affect the perception and reception of a garment. Clearly, when it comes to fashion, size matters. “Clothes are supposed to be worn. It’s not a painting,” Shumate pointed out. Generally, viewers are able to imagine themselves in the clothes because the items are scaled to the (granted, unrealistic and idealized) proportions of the human body. Shumate was curious about what happens to a viewer’s perception of clothes when the items are so clearly unwearable and fantastical.

Shumate’s enormous dress required Herculean effort to make. The circumference of the dress’s large skirt measures 20.6 yards, and the whole outfit required more than 42 yards of fabric. The project required 50 hours of sewing, almost three times as long as it took Shumate, who has designed for FOTA and MODA fashion shows before, to create human-sized ensembles. While constructing the dress was extremely time-intensive, Shumate faced other difficulties as well. “Working on the project was difficult because every time I wanted to work on it, I had to find a space large enough to accommodate all of the fabric,” she said. “If I wanted to spread out the fabric, I had to have a room-sized space.”

Working on the dress presented the problem of how to maintain a high level of craftsmanship while working on such a large scale. “Quite a bit of math was involved,” Shumate said. “I had to make X and Y-axes to figure out where to put things, and had to plot points along the edge of the pattern.”

Once the dress was finished, Shumate faced the trying task of figuring out how to display her mega-sized project. Fourth-year Katherine Greenleaf, who works as a scenic designer for University Theater, designed and constructed a structure to hold up and stabilize the garment. The dress is displayed on an adapted human frame constructed out of a lumber box, plastic bags, and a rough armature of a bust and torso to create the allusion of an hourglass shape. The faux-hoop skirt is made from rubber tubing.

Perhaps the most nerve-wracking aspect of the production was its final phase—installation in Hutch Courtyard. Because of the space limitations imposed by the garment’s size, Shumate had never seen her creation in its standing position until the end of the seven-hour installation process. “It was too tall to erect in the studio where I was working,” she said. “I knew that the measurements should be right, but I wasn’t positive everything would come together.”

Despite the stressful situation, Shumate kept calm, which was a welcome change for a designer accustomed to anxiety before a show. “The experience was much different from doing a fashion show, because my nerves eased up as the project went on,” she said. “With a fashion show, I’m too nauseous and nervous to eat the day of, and it takes a full day to recover. Once I started installing [the dress] and realized that it could be done, I relaxed.”

Shumate says that one of the biggest challenges she faces as a designer is combating the accusation that fashion is either “frivolous, or stuffy and boring.” With her intelligent, immense project, Shumate proves that big style and big smarts create big, beautiful results.

Photo credit: Tom Tian, The Maroon

"Trash and Treasure" (05/05/09)

Last summer, scavenging for curbside treasures became part of my morning routine. The loft I sublet in New York’s Union Square neighborhood happened to be right next to a theater company. Every morning as I strolled down the street to get my breakfast bagel, I would stop to check out their dumpster. The theater was doing a huge renovation and was tossing out some gorgeous seats and parts of old sets. My roommate and I salvaged some of the choice pieces, which were slightly flawed but far too appealing to be left in the trash heap. Our finds were “shabulous”—the perfect combination of shabby and fabulous.

Unfortunately, shipping some of the items back to Chicago was out of the question, and I had to leave them behind. However, upon coming back, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is plenty of awesome abandoned furniture to be saved right here in Hyde Park. May and June are major months for yard sales, which means great deals for students shopping on a budget. Here are some tips for rescuing furniture from the refuse pile.

Sleep in and Score:

Hawkeyed early birds will rise at the crack of dawn to bag the best items, but these early finds will be out of a student’s price range anyway. Go later in the day when the pickings are slimmer and the prices lower. As the sale winds down, sellers who don’t want to drag the unsold merchandise back inside will often lower the price to get it off their hands. If you arrive right at the end of the sale, some items may be discarded and up for grabs. Last spring, my roommate and I picked up a massive leather couch, an antique secretary desk, a computer table, and a chest of drawers, all of which we got for free at the end of yard sales. These unsold items may be a little rough around the edges, but with a little T.L.C., you can get them back in shape.

Pile on the Paint:

Take a trashed table from shabby to chic with a fresh coat of paint. When refurbishing a table or desk, it’s easier to go for a darker rather than lighter color because you can useW less paint. A coat of matte or glossy black paint can lend contemporary sophistication to a simple silhouette, such as a bold square end table. If you are reluctant to paint the entire piece of furniture, think about sprucing up the surface with some stencils. Affordable stencil patterns are available at any craft store, such as Blick on State Street.

You could also create a personalized keepsake by using decoupage to affix photographs, postcards, or drawings to the furniture’s surface. My distressed old desk got a facelift when I covered the surface with beautiful postcards my friends and family had sent me from their trips around the world. Decoupage is a more permanent technique than painting: You can’t paint over it, and it’s difficult to get the items off. However, it’s the quickest, easiest, and least messy way to take your furniture from battered to beautiful.

Add Drama with Drawer Pulls:

Don’t leave an item behind because it’s missing drawer handles or knobs. Instead, take the opportunity to bring an outmoded piece up-to-date with stylish decorative knobs. When I worked at Anthropologie, I swooned over the delicate porcelain knobs with dainty floral patterns. Even if the item you rescue from the garbage heap has its knobs intact, think about switching them out in order to make the piece fit with the rest of your furniture.

Things to Avoid:

In order to score a great piece of furniture, you’ve got to do a little detective work. Be wary of suspicious smells—no matter how heavily you Febreze a piece of furniture, if it reeks when you buy it, it will stink up your apartment. Similarly, if you’re scoring a piece of furniture you found lying out on the street, examine it for water stains; it may have gotten wet and become moldy.

As the adage says, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. With these tips, you’ll be prepared to take your loot from dilapidated to dreamy. Happy hunting!

"Fashion and the Less-Fair Sex" (04/28/09)

There’s a question that’s been bothering me ever since President Obama was criticized by some conservative circles for sitting at his desk in the Oval Office without a suit jacket: What are the standards for men’s fashion? For me, the question becomes even more mind-boggling when it comes to dressing for spring and summer temperatures. Sure, men can go shirtless and wear jean shorts and flip-flops. But should they?

Fashion-forward women know that new trends spring up each season. Wearing last year’s tough gladiator sandals with this year’s demure Liberty print floral dresses is a faux pas. While I know how to forecast seasonal trends for women, I’m totally clueless when it comes to guessing how men should dress for the warmer weather. I turned to stylish third-year Sam Chereskin to help lay down some ground rules for looking cool as the weather warms up.

I’m an advocate of eschewing seasonal trends in favor of creating a personal style. The guys seem to be with me on this one. Chereskin points out that while the style of women’s clothing changes every season with fleeting trends, men’s style is consistently based around a set of timeless styles and cuts. “Usually, seasonal iterations by designers only reflect variations on a theme,” Chereskin says. He favors brands like Kenneth Cole and Calvin Klein, who both produce tailored, tried-and-true staples that can be mixed and matched to create a look that marries casual comfort with elegance.

Summer is synonymous with sandals, but flip-flops can’t go from beach to boardroom. While they’re totally acceptable when you’re lounging outside, sandals look totally out of place when you’re leading a presentation. If you’re wearing a dress shirt and pants, you’re too dressed up to be wearing flip-flops. If you work in a creative environment where employees dress down in jeans and T-shirts, you might be able to pull off simple Havaianas in basic black. Otherwise, go conservative in leather loafers and super-low socks.

Even if you know where to wear sandals, you still face the considerable problem of figuring out how to wear them. There is no scenario in which the combination of socks and sandals is anything other than a misstep. As Chris Rovy, fashion correspondent for the style-savvy website AskMen.com, points out, the point of wearing sandals is to air our your feet after a long, sweaty, stinky winter of being shoved into thick socks.

On a scorching summer day, it’s tempting to want to show some skin. When it comes to shorts, how short is too short? Don’t flash any thigh. “Almost all men’s shorts options, I think, exist in a two-inch margin of error around the knee. I tend to wear shorts at it or above it,” Chereskin says. Calf-length shorts look sophomoric and skater-boy, rather than sophisticated. Chereskin also suggests that if you’re going to show some leg, you should make sure you’re choosing a classy fabric. Linen or khaki shorts are great options, but “denim shorts are a no on all occasions,” Chereskin says.

To tuck or not to tuck? How do you wear summer shirts without looking sloppy? “Don’t tuck in your t-shirt without an overshirt,” Chereskin says. Tucking in a polo shirt is advisable only at a country club. If you’re not on the golf course, stick to styles that don’t require tucking. Stores like the Gap and Old Navy sell affordable, body-conscious crew neck and v-neck shirts that look polished without looking too preppy. For a sleeker look, you can tuck in a button-down, but “you need a good-looking belt to make it work,” Chereskin says.

While I still don’t fully understand the reasoning that the President needs to be wearing a suit and tie in order to convey respect for the weight of his job, I am starting to get a grip on the politics of men’s fashion. Ultimately, it seems that looking great is a matter of self-confidence and intuition. “I feel that being well put together, or well dressed, is as simple as making sure that you are wearing your clothes and that they are not wearing you,” Chereskin says. That attitude is always en vogue.

"Shape Shifters" (04/14/09)

When a nude Beth Ditto graced the cover of the February debut issue of Love, the new U.K. based Conde Nast publication, I hoped that Vogue editor Anna Wintour would take the hint.

Ditto, the obese lead singer of The Gossip, beat out skeletal supermodels Agyness Deyn, Raquel Zimmermann, and Kate Moss, as well as fellow singers Iggy Pop and Courtney Love, to land the coveted spot on the cover of the premiere, icon-themed issue. Despite the generally dismal state of publication sales, the issue sold well, a fact that I hoped boded well for Wintour as spring—and Vogue’s infamous “Shape” issue—approached. Maybe seeing the big success of a sister publication could tip the scales for Wintour and her infamous obsession with slenderness.

Unfortunately, this year’s edition of Vogue’s annual “Shape” issue was another plus-sized flop. The magazine, which hit news stands in April, fails to register as anything other than a pejorative, perfunctory nod to political correctness.

The cover, featuring beautiful Beyonce, was splashed with incongruous claims, at once declaring that “Real Women Have Curves” and offering readers a chance to “Work It!” for “Longer Legs, Leaner Lines, and a Sexier Silhouette.” Other cover lines advertised “Fashion for Every Figure, from Size 0 to Size 20,” as well as a feature on plastic surgery and “Designing the Perfect Body.” The offensive implication is that bodies only exist in sizes 0–20. Stores like Banana Republic have petite sections, which carry to the most diminutive figures, like size 00. Torrid, Hot Topic’s plus-size sister store, carries angsty apparel up to size 28, and Lane Bryant sells dainty dresses in sizes 14–32. Even its half-hearted attempts to be inclusive reveal that Vogue doesn’t really believe in fashion for everybody, but only some bodies.

As soon as the cover was leaked by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton on March 13, the feminist blogosphere was up in arms. Commenters on Jezebel, a feminist pop culture blog, railed against the magazine’s description of “real” women. One commenter suggested that “to imply that curves make a ‘real woman’ does injustice to women who aren’t so curvy, and can be just as damaging to women’s self-esteem as the super-skinny standard.” By setting up a category of “real women,” with its own eligibility standards and size limitations, Vogue adds insult to injury for those women who already feel inadequate in comparison to the models who usually grace the pages of the glossy magazine. If a woman is neither a model nor a “real” woman, based on the limiting Vogue standard, what is she? Vogue seems to think that she is either entirely unfathomable, or not worth acknowledging.

Things didn’t fare much better inside the issue. The magazine profiled women with specific body types: thin, curvy, short, tall, and athletic. I was nauseated by writer Sarah Mower’s affectionate quip that sisters Charlotte Gainsburg and Lou Doillon “treat being thin like a birthright.” The gamine girls, daughters of skinny-style icon Jane Birkin, are thrilled to be thin. The pair, who are actresses, occasional models, and, in Charlotte’s case, an accomplished singer-songwriter, are quoted as saying that they’re psyched to be slender because “it’s great for dressing.” The two young mothers both agree that they “hated” their post-pregnancy bodies and couldn’t wait to lose the weight. Even in an issue dedicated to bodies of all shapes and sizes, the writer suggests that clothes look best on super-slender frames.

Pixie-sized pals Olivia Thirlby and Zoe Kravitz are featured as girls who manage to be both small and stylish. Thirlby, an actress best known for her roles in Juno and The Wackness, and Kravitz, a pseudo-actress-cum-musician best known for her social schmoozing and her rocker dad, Lenny, are both approximately five-foot-three. The magazine claims that this height “imposes fashion limits.” Five-three is only really remarkably short in comparison to supermodels’ Amazonian stature. Portraying the beautiful, slender girls as facing severe sartorial challenges just goes to show the extent to which Vogue’s standards are relative and un-relatable.

L’Wren Scott and Doutzen Kroes were used to illustrate tall and athletic bodies, respectively. The thing is, for both women, these attributes weren’t fashion challenges, but the pre-requisites to successful modeling careers.

Cute crooner Adele was the representative of the “curvy” girls. The article spent most of the time chronicling her much-lauded musical career, but the accompanying picture was disturbing. Her picture was also the only one in which the shape of her body is obscured: she’s lying at an angle that flattens her body into the bed, and wearing clothes that camouflage her figure. Skinny Doilan’s lithe legs are prominent in her picture, and Scott dramatically drapes her long body across a chaise lounge. The fact that Adele was positioned in a way that didn’t show off her lovely figure only goes to show the degree to which Vogue’s “Shape” issue really takes issue with many kinds of shapes.

Ditto’s cover wasn’t enough to get Wintour to see the big picture. It’s going to take more to convince her that everybody and every body can be beautiful.

"Traveling Light" (04/07/09)

Much of my spring break was spent taking notes in airport terminals and snoozing in train stations. I took a working vacation to the East Coast, where I waded through archives and visited friends along the way. My research turned up some great information for my B.A., and my experience traveling solo on a student’s budget forced me to learn how to travel efficiently without sacrificing my style and, more importantly, my sanity.

Size Matters

As I struggled to drag my stuffed suitcase up the perilously steep steps of the hostel I stayed at in D.C., I was partially relieved that my baggage was only carry-on sized. If your bag is big enough to check, it’s far too big to haul all over the city. If you’re traveling on a student’s budget, chances are you’ll be taking buses and trains rather than cabs, so you’ll continually have to wrestle with your unwieldy belongings. Another advantage to the carry-on is the peace of mind that comes from always knowing that your bags will arrive with you, which is particularly important were you to make a mad dash for your connecting gate after your incoming flight is late. It was (almost) easy to sprint through LaGuardia to make my next flight with my rolling suitcase bouncing behind me.

Size also matters when it comes to beauty products. I learned this lesson the hard way last year when my favorite fancy lotion was tossed at the security check in O’Hare. If you’re heading out of town for a week or less, the travel-sized products at drugstores will carry you through. To save even more room in your cosmetics bag, opt for products that do double-duty. I swear by Vaseline lotion with aloe and cucumber ($1 per fluid ounce), which nourishes and moisturizes my skin and has a light, fresh scent that I use in lieu of my liquid perfume, which I leave safely in my bathroom at home. Smith’s Rosebud Salve ($6) is a multi-purpose lipbalm with a cult following and is an indispensable beauty aid for travelers. While I use it on my lips for a non-sticky shine, some of my friends use it to soothe cracked hands and cuticles and even as moisturizer for aching or blistered feet. This is one item I would never leave home without

Easy Access

Because I am fanatical about carrying all my notebooks and papers around with me, my carry-on tote bag was jam-packed throughout the break. Much to the chagrin of the businessman behind me in the security line, I had to unpack my entire bag in order to remove my laptop from its case. He started groaning and complaining under his breath when he noticed that I was struggling to undo the zipper on my boots. Well-traveled passengers like him breezed through security with streamlined, well-organized briefcases and easy-off loafers while I was waddling to the nearest bench with my boots half-off, trying to stuff my belongings back into my bag. Next time I travel, I’ll ditch my boots in favor of cute leather ballet flats from Aldo, which I can slip off for the security check. I’ll stash my laptop in a bright Vera Bradley case with handles so I can tote it to the checkpoint without having to frantically rummage through my bags.

Layer Up

Traveling in layers makes room in your suitcase and also helps you combat chilly airplane cabins. I’m fearful of flying and like to be asleep before the plane takes off so I don’t crush the hand of the unsuspecting passenger next to me. I can sleep easy when I’m swaddled in a chic scarf that serves alternately as a throw and a safety blanket. Fashionistas can choose the luxe cashmere blend variety at department stores, but I like the $5 pashminas I scored in New York’s Chinatown last summer. They’re pretty and patterned, so after I’ve gotten some shut-eye, I can drape them over a cardigan for a relaxed spring look.

Traveling is stressful—you have to endure long lines, frustrating delays, and public transportation systems seemingly designed by someone with a sinister sense of humor. While getting tired and lost is probably inevitable, with a little organization and light packing, you can at least arrive in one stylish piece.