The 84th Academy Awards Ceremony

   This last Sunday the eyes of the world were in Hollywood, were the biggest stars were attending the 84th academy awards ceremony, but let’s face it, what we really wanted to watch was the red carpet vanity fair.

    But this year was not a red carpet glorious year,  there was too many ohhh…so sweet, and a lacking of WOW!!! This was the year of sweet and pretty girls, and in my opinion Oscars should be all about sophistication, couture, boldness, and this just a few stars chose this path.

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And Oscar of dullest red carpet moment goes to Bérenice Bejo, the Oscar nominated wore an Ellie Saab gown and Chopard jewelry. For me this dress was not proper, this should be her greatest night, she was nominated for an Oscar (what more can an actress ask for), instead of gorgeous she was boring with a not breath taking dress.

Oscar nominated Viola Davis, wore a green Vera Wang, and jewelry by Judith Leiber, when I first saw it I couldn’t believe that this was a Vera Wang, being Wera Wang one of my favorite gowns maker, this dress was just an ugly mess, and an ugly mess that didn’t fit, her bobs were almost saying “hi!” for the cameras, and the dress made her look like a square, besides the dress I really loved the hair, she was bold enough to wear it natural and in opposite of most of people I really liked it.

The always stunning Mila Jovovish wore a beautiful white gown by Elie Saab (white really was the colour of the night), for me one of the best outifits of the night, but I must be true when I first saw it I didn't love it, but the more I see it the more I like it. In my opinion what made this look not just beautiful but gorgeous were the details, as the not over the top diamonds and the fuchsia lipstick, the darker hair and of course her spectacular beauty.

My dear, dear Meryl I swear that I love but this wasn’t your smartest choice; the dress looked like a cheap golden drapery with a belt. She looked heavy and voluminous, but I guess she looked happy, and who cares what she wore, she won the Oscar so I guess every women in the room wanted that dress if they also could win the Oscar. 

I think there aren’t enough words to explain how good Glenn Close was in this Zac Posen outfit, I can’t point one thing wrong in this look, the dress was perfectly build, the back were to die for, and the blazer…oh my God the blazer turn this look into the every dream of a stylist. The bold and risky choice that Glenn made was rewarded because she looked her best, and best than the majority of 20 year old girls attending the ceremony. If there’s a word to describe this look is powerful.

How can a gorgeous  20 years old girl attend the Oscars, the ceremony to see and be seen, dressed like an old lady, I’m not saying dress isn’t gorgeous, it is ( is a haute couture Valentino ), but for a girl with a beautiful body as she has the dress covered too much. Playing save is not for young stars this is their time to experiment; they will have their all lives to dress dull.

Everyone that sees Octavia Spencer in this dress think “where the **** did she put all those pounds”, that dressed made miracles, and I’m sure spanxs helped, was beautifully done and had the smartest design. She looked a million bucks.

I don’t know what to say about this Givenchy couture dress because I don’t think it was fitted correctly ( and because I’m still hangover after the Givenchy Couture Cate Blachete wore last year) maybe because she only choose the dress in that morning day, but I must say that the lower part of the dress was beautiful, is with the upper part that I have problems with, but I think that if the dress was well fitted it would be gorgeous. Everyone that saw this year awards season could see that Roney Mara was trying to get a little bit out of her comfort zone, without losing her personal style, by using a white dress instead of black ( her usual color of choice). But let’s talk about her hair and makeup, because for me if they saved the outfit the bangs and the red lipstick with the clean and fresh face made her even more beautiful and feminine.

 I really like this Alexander McQueen dress I think the tailoring of the gown is exquisite, I love drama of the dress, but this drama doesn’t fit Jessica, she’s too much of a sweet heart for this dress, her look don’t combine with the dress, it seems we are looking at for two different persons. I guess she doesn’t have the powerfulness and boldness this dress requires. But it was a nice trie.

Jennifer we all know that you are single again, but please…that dress (Zuhair Murad) left little to imagination, just not appropriate for the occasion (maybe for the Emmy’s but not for the Oscars) or for her body type, the dress accentuate the curves of the women but she already haves too many of them in result her already big ass looked even bigger (and that’s not cool), this dress is perfect for skinny skinny girls, because if you already have the curves you will look trashy. Sorry

The most influent person for the next 10 years

If there’s a person that changed our way to look in to fashion in the past years that person is Alexander McQueen, he made his fashion shows look like a play, where the characters were the models and story was told us through the clothes.

You can say that it is a bit strange that for me the most influent person in fashion for the next ten years is dead, but in my perspective Alexander McQueen isn’t dead, he had became a legend a myth and his perceiving of fashion is his legacy and it is that legacy that’s going to influence the fashion world. Fashion isn’t just about pretty and sexy girls, is about powerfulness, art, thinking outside the box in fact McQueen said that ““I get my ideas out of my dreams… if you’re lucky enough to use something you see in a dream, it is purely original. It’s not in the world — it’s in your head. I think that is amazing.”

So I think his way of thinking is going to be crucial in the next years for fashion, because new designer see Alexander McQueen as a good of creativity and his impeccable details and tailoring

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to know more about Mcqueen fashion go to:

http://www.fashionist.ca/2011/02/alexander-mcqueen-complete-runway-retrospective-1994-2010.html

From Hollywood to Monaco

She was a movie star, she was a princess, a mother, an inspiration for many designers, an icon. We can she say that she’s had everything done everything, for now I expect you to know who am I talking about, is off course the one and only Grace Kelly

Grace Patricia Kelly was born in 1929 in Philadelphia, and dead in a terrible car accident in Monaco, 1982.

She first started has a model but soon become an actress, participated in more than 40 episodes in TV series and in ten movies, winning a golden globe by her performance in the movie “Mogambo” and an Oscar of best actress by her role in “The Country Girl”. But all changed when she was invited to attend in the Cannes film festival (1955), where she was supposed to participate in a session with prince Rainier III of Monaco, but that didn’t worked at supposed and Grace only met with the prince in Monaco. In a visit to U.S.A the prince once again met with Grace Kelly and after three days he proposed, and off course she said “Yes”. They married in April 18, 1956, the ceremony was broadcasted in Europe and was watched by 30 million people.

She had three children, Caroline, Albert and Stefanie

On September  13, 1982 while driving with her daughter Stefanie (seventeen at the time), Grace had a car accident caused by after stroke who made them crash. She was still found alive, but died I the next day in the hospital.

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Grace Kelly style was always sophisticated, exquisit but at the same time very simple and clean. She was never too posh, always elegant. So you can say that most women of her time were like that, I disagree Grace Kelly was different of the others, she and Audrey Hepburn transformed style and beauty. The standards of beauty before, were that women should look like a pin up (Marilyn Monroe is a great example of that standard of beauty back them), but they weren’t like that, they were tall, skinny the oposite of pin up's and that made their style different too. But it's not just becouse of that, it's something more she had an aura, a glow, no wonder prince Rainier wanted her as a princess becouse she already was it.
Grace Kelly should be an examples for all women, she's an example that more is less.

Right to fashion!

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 19th Article of the Universal Constitution of human Rights.

The idea of the liberty of expression was born in the antiquity, more precisely in Grecee, but forgotten (more a repression) for centuries. Until John Milton and John Locke began to discuss it again. They emphasised the role of the government to proctet this right, and the American Constitution was the first one to use it, in the First Amendment “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

But what the hell fashion has to do with fredom of expression? Everything I say,  becouse clothes most of the times reflect our identity, collective our personal. And we have many examples of countries that don't respect the fredom of expression, regarding clothes, as the muslin countries were women can't walk on the streets without the burka, or even in France were muslin women can't were a burka.
We can look at world history and see that the liberty of choosing what we want to wear has grown with increased of the freedom of expression, and in times of great happiness like the end of the World Wars ( the big  revolution of fashion in the 20's). Until the 20's women and men had a short variety of styles, there were only one style (in the upper class, becouse the lower class dreed the way they could) with many variations, them came the 20's there was an explosion of new things, people were happy and they wanted to forget the war so they change completly the society thus fashion had a big revolution too, what with beginning of the WWII fashion were taken in to a safer ground, with no extravagances, no revolution. The sixties were the birth of fashion as we know it, we have the pop up movment with Andy Warhol and the factory girls, we could started to see a more alternetive crazy society (mostly in the big cities as new York) were people dresses very very differently from what espected not being afraid to show the real "me", we have the hippies, and we have the elegance of Hollywod. So we can see that there were many styles from were you could choose and not just one as it had previously happened, we had the liberty to choose who we wanted to transmite to the world about us. Them we have the seventies the decade of rock and roll and in is finnals the birth of punk and we these two music styles also comes around a fashion style, being the punk style one of the biggest inspirations for fashion of the recent years. And them on and and on...

But as we can see there were a some gradation of what we could and couldn't dress, what was aceptable and what was not, nowadays we see guys with heels mere than I can walk going around Chiado and Bairro alto, girls with shaved hair and all tattooed, basicly today we can see it all, and I gess that is a good thing it means that today we can be whatever we want to be.

Why isn't black the new white?

            Everybody that understands a bit of fashion knows that there aren’t many black people in the industry, not designers, journalists or models, and because of that some people affirm that this industry is somehow racist. I disagree with that I think that the main reason is of course the money, always the money. Fashion is an industry and as an industry is main purpose is making money. And who has the economic power? Who is the higher class? Yes you can say that nowadays that there a few rich and influent black people, but still a minority. So, fashion makes clothes for the people that buy them, being those Caucasian men and women. And that’s why we only see two or three black models, if that much, in a fashion show, or why there aren’t many big houses of fashion with a black person as the leading designer or big magazine editors. So the problem is not just from the fashion but from the society.Of course I’m not saying that this attitude don’t have to change, of course it has.

           

Black people in fashion:

           

          Fashion has always evolved with society, so is not hard to guess what was the decade in where black women and designers first appear in fashion, of course the sixties, 1966 Donyale Luna (one of the Factory girls) was the first girl with African ancestry in the cover of Vogue.

Beverly Johnson, a model and an actress, was the first African American girl to be on the cover of the american Vogue, in 1975

Alek Wek, an model and designer, was the first African girl on the cover of Elle magazine on 1996, Alek Wek is from Sudan, from the tribe Dinka, that's why she has that perfect beautiful skin tone.

Edward Enninful, is the newest editor of W magazine and formereditor of i-D ( At the age of 18, Enninful’s position as Fashion Director at i-D made him the youngest ever fashion director for an international publication), and for him "there's still very few black people in the fashion industry"

Andre Leon Talley, is the former editor-at-large of the american vogue, he is best knowed for his peculiar way of dressing. In 2007 was considered the 45th powerful gay in America, by Out magazine.

Bibliography:

• http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2011/06/edward_enninful_on_why_theres.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Leon_Talley
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donyale_Luna
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alek_Wek

Best presentation

For me the best presentation was the one by Jorge and Yuan. The theme of their work was Gospel, a very interesting and unusual one. The way the work was presented was captivating adequate for the public (teenagers that think that religion can’t be interesting). In general Jorge had a good performance besides some mistakes, that he correct in the next second, that I think he wouldn’t do if weren't nervous, Yuan had the job a little bit more  difficult because she is a bit shy and not has fluent as Jorge.

First of all I’m going to talk about the theme of their work, I thought it was a good theme because the majority of the people think of gospel as a spiritual music of the black communities, and they show us that is more than that that it is a view of Catholicism, they show us the historic perspective for us to comprehend why is the Gospel church more than w think it is. And from my perspective they show and explained that very well they show us a side of gospel that most of us didn’t knew.

The way that Jorge and Yuan presented their work, I think it was good but not great, because besides the great materials they showed us, the movies and songs, the PowerPoint had too many words, and in some parts Jorge and Yuan were even reading from it, besides that little problem I thought that the presentation was perfect, Jorge knew everything about it (we could see that it was him that leadership the team), and could see that besides Yuan difficulties she was trying very hard to do good.    

Thank you, women of the 20's

 I think we, women, need to thank the women of the 20's becouse if them probably we woud still be dressing with the help of a maid that heavy and unconfourtable dresses, we would still be seen as an inferior human being, that only served to have kids and please man needs, that didn't had the right of have a decision. Yes we have to thank the women of the 20's of our liberty being who we want to be.
 Becouse of the WWI women were obliged to work, with the end of the war women continued to work, and notice that men were not a necessity for thenselfes, they were a necessity for men. They gained more liberty, starded to have a goal in life different from being at home taking care of the children. Women in the 20's were given the right to vote, making the rights between women and men equal in paper. So a new women was born, a more confident women that knew that she was equal to men, so she wanted to do things that men did, women started to smoke, drink and have a more bohemian life. They even starded to dress like men, the garçon style (thank you Coco for you marvelous pants), and the hair were a lot more short than before the famous bob.
 So every time you are earing pants, and sneackers think of them, every time you are voting think of them, every time you are in school, or in your job think of them,every time you are in the club drinking a vodka and smoking a cigar think of them, every time that you think that you want to have kids think of them becouse they have given you the choise of wanting instead of being obliged to.

THANK YOU!