Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Studio Soundtracks:
Valerie Yum
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The first time I laid eyes on Valerie Yum was in the sweaty back room of an infamous, now sorely missed Sydney party called Gay Bash. If memory serves me correctly she was being photographed climbing across a black leather couch on all fours, throwing her long hair back over her head, wearing an American flag leotard and no pants. There is a photo of this somewhere on the internet, but in the interest of preserving our friendship I’ll leave it up to your imagination. Not much has changed since then, although both of us have sensible bobs and Val’s gone from occasional DJ sets at underground gay parties to being the first person you call when you’re putting on a fashion event in Sydney. Here’s how she did it:
Valerie's Picks
Beach Riot Gianni Swimsuit
Petals and Peacocks Major Fail Sweatshirt
So Juicy Knit Bralette
UNIF Forever Sneaker
Jennifer Loiselle Pineapple Earrings
Vintage Peter Max Let's Face It Sweatshirt
Vintage Junya Watanabe In Living Color Sweater
Crazy Daisy Handbag
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Features And Shoots: Steak Lunches With Liz Lee
Sorry I haven’t been up on my Lunches posts. It’s not because I haven’t been eating them, but because I haven’t been eating anything I wanna fess up to (good morning Doritos breakfasts). Our newest edition takes place with my friend Liz Lee, born into the public eye via Tumblr and MTV’s My Life A Liz, currently in the world being brand new to Instagram (follow her @lizleedoi), DJing, speaking about art thoughts, and of course…still on Tumblr. Anyway, I dragged Liz to the Valley on a sort of hot afternoon, and if you’re from LA, then you know that’s a total bitch move, but whatever, she came, and we went to Hugo’s. Hugo’s is super important to any clean-eater living in LA, because they generally take a heartier stab at food without just deep frying it. ~*~PRAISE~*~
There are three locations, which you can find on their site. After lunch we tried to hit up a Goodwill down the street, but it was just a donation center. Yet for some reason I went in anyway, just to hear them tell me “this is just a donation center.” Then I talked to Liz about a topic dear to my heart: procrastination.
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Monday, June 9, 2014 Role Model: Gals Of Summer: Hayley Magnus
By all conventional wisdom, actress Hayley Magnus should not have turned out normal. Despite having caught the acting bug at a very young age (“I think I came out of the womb mid-pose!”) the twenty five year old Australian beauty grew up telling the other kids she wanted to be a volcanologist, just to set herself apart (partly due to a few too many Dante’s Peak viewings). Her first real performance was as a pre-teen, as part of something they have down under called Tournament of the Minds, which is some weird hybrid of drama club and debate team they have in school (IDEK). She played a hillbilly who could only speak in rhyming couplets, and had to answer social science questions about the universal time code (no, for real). “It was the nerdiest of nerd things ever!” She insists she had friends and everything, (“do imaginary ones count?”) and after high school landed her first real gig, on popular Australian soap opera Home and Away. From there the quirky, brainy beauty landed a recurring role on a show called Slide, followed by several movie roles, eventually moving to Los Angeles last year. If you think moving to Hollywood has changed her, don’t: her favorite part about living here? “The opossums! They’re hilarious!”
Since Hayley did us the kindness of appearing in our Summer Garden Party editorial, I asked her to plan her perfect garden party. And guess what? It’s weird and charming, just like her:
Hayley's Picks
Ban.do Spotted Head Wrap
Cyndie Skirt
Shoe Cult Straight Laced Oxford
Rainbow Bright Tumbler Set
Chen Chen & Kai Williams Pineapple Planter
Disco Hour Earbud Headphones
Nasty Gal Gillian Boater Hat
Nasty Gal Vanna Dress
Monday, June 9, 2014 Right Now: Ball So Hard
The World Cup kicks off on June 12th in Brazil! That exclamation point (much like many of my exclamation points, to be honest) is feigned, because in regards to soccer, I know about as much as British people know about nachos (in case you were wondering what that means, last time I ate nachos in London, they came topped with BBQ sauce). But I digress: soccer (or football, as the rest of the free world calls it) is cool for many reasons: during World Cup, you have an excuse to go to a bar at 10am, David Beckham, and of course, soccer-related fashion. We rounded up some of our favorite examples of the latter, drawing from the Nasty Gal vintage archives, a Victoria’s Secret fashion show, Carine Roitfeld’s Instagram, and more:
Monday, June 9, 2014 Guest Edit: Guest Edit: #FreeTheNipple
As social-media-ites rally to free their nipples (or one nipple as the hashtag #FreeTheNipple suggests), I’m over here in Japan nipple free. Well, I’m Nippless (TM), to be precise: a Japanese brand of nipple covers that we use to hide the color and shape of the female nipple. I’m still decked out in these circular bandages from a fashion shoot earlier today, a souvenir that gives me the torso look of a plastic dolly. See, in the business of Tokyo fashion, nipples are not “free.” On the streets of Tokyo, nipples are definitely not “free”. It would seem to the outside world that Japan is not exactly at the forefront of nipple freedom…