Holiday

February 2nd, 2012 · Fashion, Musings, Outfits 7 comments
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Dress: hand-made by a friend, shoes: Dr. martens, blouse: second hand, hair pompoms: hand-made

A lot of outfit posts on style/fashion blogs are often preceded by an apology of the supposed frivolity of them and it always irks me a little. Putting together an outfit in which you truly feel good and express yourself can be a challenging task, especially when your identity doesn’t fit our current ideals and ideas. Though it might seem frivolous, the mere act of dressing the way you want can put you at risk of violence and harassment or just general feelings uncomfortableness, which demoralises a person not only in expressing oneself but also in going outside (hating the entire world is just a given). Someone who is openly queer gets harassed on an almost daily basis, even in my city, which is ‘open-minded and left-wing’, said to the heteronormative white hippy population. A fat body, too, adorned in, for instance, tight-fitted clothing, short skirts or whatever you choose is subversive to the idea that a fat person should eternally hide their body. (Let’s all weep for joy at the start of fatshion february, yay!) And again, among a lot of more subversive examples, a relatively normative body and identity like mine deserves visibility as well. All of this because we’re among the increasingly high glamour of big fashion blogs with model bodies and model identities, dressed up in outfits worth a house with their perfect smile in their perfect life, which we look at from afar and wish it were us with that perfect smile in that perfect life. But it never is, is it?

I don’t think this visibility challenges the person being visible and open and proud only either. It challenges every onlooker, every passerby, online and offline. It challenges our ideas about what fashion or style is supposed to be, about what our world is supposed to be, about who is supposed to be visible and who isn’t, it challenges our rigid ideas of beauty (and if beauty is supposed to be this thing we should strive for anyway?). This is important. The visibility of bodies and identities different from what we see all around us is not frivolous. This is what fashion blogging was supposed to be(come). Is it now?

I haven’t been posting regularly and I have shut down looking at other people’s blogs for a while, because I have been feeling miserable. I’ll change that soon. But this is what I wore yesterday, and this is what I will wear today, too, because I’m just lazy and repeat outfits all the time. And I am going to wear it to drink midday while hanging out with friends and being generally fabulous just because I feel like it.

sopa pipa acta

January 20th, 2012 · Musings 6 comments
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All these abbreviations sound so cute but in actuality we need to be revolted by the viciousness of SOPA, PIPA and ACTA. SOPA and PIPA are, in short, a US bill that wants to fight piracy but in effect will do anything but that, all it does is take one more step towards the US becoming a police state and terrorising free speech and with that sharing knowledge. This is about more than piracy, this is about an increasing tendency towards a right-winged police state, this is about censorship, this is about money, this is exerting power and withholding sources of valuable educational information. Look at this lovely TED video for a beautifully concise and comprehensible explanation:

This will not affect the US alone. By the totally fucked up extradition of an UK student the US is showing their intention to exert their power over anyone. Not big bad vicious groups that make money out of putting things online before stealing it, but a UK student who merely linked to copyright infringement material. This is not about the student; this is about showing who’s in power.

In turn ACTA is less vicious and grandiose but it’s still a stand against free speech and a step towards anti-democracy all the same. Not even symbolically; it literally bypasses the EU laws of democracy and privacy. Watch this video for extremely concise info.


It creates a culture of surveillance and suspicion, in which the freedom that is required to produce free software is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative, and exciting.

Via Free Software Foundation here is a petition you can sign. But taking a look at this ‘How to act against ACTA‘ might be more valuable. I am a little sad there is no way to write letters or e-mails instead, though they might be less effective I think a lot of people are more inclined to do that. Plus, I am personally crazy ineloquent when speaking so I could never properly voice my opinion on the phone. You can read Laquadrature.net for plenty of information about ACTA and how to take a stand against it.

If you a faint idea about how internet sharing works you will realise immediately that there is no way it can be stopped. These treaties might not become reality but I urge you to please take a stand against it because the idea behind this is what will really hurt; it is a hugely anti-democratic law with a mindset that will continue to grow in our societies if we don’t vocalise what we think is so wrong with this.

Furthermore, I believe internet piracy is not piracy but sharing because no money is entailed in it, it is people loving things and in turn wanting to share it because of that love. Sharing books, films et al on the internet is very akin to a library but even more democratic since all these things become available to anyone who has an internet connection alone and no money or transport is needed to learn. I strongly believe this should only be encouraged. Knowledge should be available to as much people possible especially in an economically unstable age such as this. However, the way things are going now aren’t correct. But I believe that instead of forcing consumers to revert to an archaic idea of economy, a consumer should be given the opportunity, or various opportunities, to support an creator’s work instead. Louis C.K. has recently proven that this and a beautiful open attitude towards consumers are profitable indeed. The consumers aren’t in the wrong here, the distributors and their antiquated ideas of a bygone capitalist era that has profited in extreme mediocrity is.

And at lastly, I can’t help but ask one question: does the increasing panic over how and what the internet shares point to earnest interest in intellectual property rights or does it point to an increasing censorship and anti-democratic tendencies in our world?

Cherry Bomb

January 14th, 2012 · Outfits 10 comments
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I’ve been wearing variations of this outfit since summer to various degrees of matchiness.

Cardigan: Fornarina, shoes: Neosens, everything else: second hand.

Several years ago my friends and I were failing miserably at life, but mostly college, so we’d comfort each other by huddling around drinking a myriad of disgusting wines while skipping all of our classes. It was simultaneously the worst and best time of my life. At the same time the pixel dress up game, Poupée Girl, reigned among several of us. I have several hazy memories of browsing the furima in heightened excitement in the middle of the night saying ‘THIS DRESS IS FABULOUS’, giggling and giving vitriol commentary on other user’s obnoxious language. One of my friends would dress her doll in levels of unseen matchiness all the time. Mostly one or two colours were used and every little detail would be the exact same shade in a really symmetric use of colour. My other friend and I would occasionally mock her sartorial pixel preference for being creepy and go all out on patterns, layers and random fluffy items ourselves.

But now we can only mock ourselves. The matchiness has infected us both since then. In my friend it has headed in his obsessive interest in interior design. His living room currently features an orange couch, a teal curtain behind it, an orange table on one side and a teal table on the other side with decorated teal vases and orange candles scattered all over that. It’s perfect.

And I have a hard time not trying to use at least one recurring colour in my clothing. This outfit features two colours, similar patterns and even the elastic bands in my plaits match. All I need is blue shoes but sadly I don’t own any.