Leona?

Is it just me or is there something strange about the cover for the "Deluxe Edition" of Leona Lewis's album, Spirit?

Here's the original, with Leona looking how she always looks, all curly and pretty-eyed -

Lovely

But I spotted the new version in HMV recently and didn't even realise it was her until I read her name;

Leona? Is that you?!

Ok, maybe you can argue that her hairstyle and hair colour plus the angle of her face are the main contributers to her looking so unlike herself. But compare the above photo with this one, from The Evening Standard, October 2008, where she's in a similar pose and with similarly styled hair and the difference is fairly obvious...

Whichever way you look at it, she is quite unusual looking as she's got a long face and wide-set features. I think she's beautiful but not traditionally so, and that's what I like about her. But her new album cover screams 'airbrushing', (or drastic wait loss a la Beyonce in Deja Vu, but I don't think that's it). I mean, her face just looks smaller! It's like they've shaved off the bottom of her jaw and chin!

Now I've always said that if 'face reduction surgery' was possible, I'd be all for it, as I have a face of epic proportions, but as far as I know, it's not possible, which leads me back to the airbrushing. I know everyone does it these days, but she just looks so drastically different. It begs the question "why?" because she looked gorgeous on the original cover anyway!

I blame America...

WHY?!

Lady Gaga, I know I'm a bit slow on the uptake but I'm finally paying attention to you and very much appreciate that you are extremely cool. I'm a sucker for a quirky girl, I hold my hands up. But why Lady Gaga, when you're so stylish and quirky and wonderful in all other ways did you decide to go for the boring, dance/pop/electro route with your music?!
I ask this because, having seen this video;



it's quite clear that the acoustic version of Poker Face is so much better than the one that was actually released! And she's got such a good voice! Silly, very silly.
Either way, I bloody love that bow-bun. Do you think that's her real hair?!

A familiar face...

I know, I've not posted for AGES. It's a mixture of getting sucked up by Christmas, having lots of weekends away, working and generally just being a bit crap.

Anyway, my own rubbishness aside, I was in Topshop recently and noticed something...

THIS!!!

"Nice top", you say, "unusual, cute, simple, I like!" Yes, it's lovely, so lovely in fact that I already have something VERY similar that I made myself having been inspired by THIS;

Lanvin have been doing these doodly cartoon face t-shirts for a while now. I first saw this particular style last February and made one myself out of a Primark man's t-shirt I had lying around (surplus item from a show I'd costume designed for, not because I have some kind of weird men's t-shirt collection).

I've just Googled this item and found that myself and Topshop are not the only ones who saw its copying potential - you could buy THIS 'Lanvin Style' tee-shirt from instarshop.com which looks like a dodgy version of ASOS and appears to no longer exist anyway;

Aside from the ribbon being in a different position and there being frills around the neckline, surely this is exactly the same design! Now I know High Street and online stores take inspiration from designer but THAT is ridiculous!

The Same But Different - Wetlook Leggings

I'm finally getting back on track with my blogging after a couple of busy busy weeks - world rejoice.
This week's The Same But Different item is kind of a cheat as leggings go with most things, but I figured wetlook leggings are a bit trickier to wear so I've done two contrasting looks; one is a kind of punky, daytime look and the other is a chic, evening look. The leggings are £18 from Topshop and are certainly not for the faint-hearted (or the claustrophobic...)

Just call me Donatella...

I feel like I'm regressing back to my childhood days of stripping my Barbies of their clothes and mixing and matching all of their outfits. For as long as I can remember I've always loved playing dress up and "designing" clothes; remember that toy, Fashion Wheel, were you created outfits and then crayoned over textured bits of plastic to make the patterns? Pretty basic idea really, like when you colour over a coin, or some bricks, or the dog , but it provided hours of good wholesome fun. My sister had a bridal version and I would literally spend all day creating different combinations of dresses and colouring them all in (a little obsessively now that I think about it...).

Ah, crayons and side ponytails...those were the days...

Well you already know that I spend a little bit too much time on Polyvore, making dream outfits for my future when I'm married to a rich old gentleman named Floyd and have money to spend at Brown's, but I've discovered another website to waste the day on - Style Shake. Now when I say 'discovered' that's not strictly true because I've had an account on there for at least a year and had played around with it a bit before, but it's only recently that I've realised how much fun it is! Kind of like a Fashion Wheel for the Noughties, Style Shake allows you to design your very own dresses, skirts and tops, section by section - you choose the fabric, the colour, the length, sleeves, neckline and you can even add extras like belts and collars. There are literally thousands of possible combinations, from floaty linen dresses to super glamourous silk party ones! But the real beauty is that once you've finished designing, you can choose to have the item made to fit your measurements, so you end up with a one of a kind garment, designed by you and for you! Brilliant!

I've not actually ordered anything from the website as, despite the fact everything's very reasonably priced, considering you're getting a bespoke piece, I'm depressingly low on funds and need to save up for Christmas presents and New Year boozing. But I've read some really positive testimonials on there from people who have purchased things and it sounds like all in all, the Style Shake team run a pretty good tailoring service. They also have a photo gallery showing how some designs would look on actual people rather than on the scary, bald mannequins used on the rest of the site, and they do look really pretty!

Images taken from styleshake.com

Here are a few of my designs - they just go to show how many different possibilities there are!

Now I know that whole 'malnourished' look is in for models, but these guys look seriously ill...

My tea's gone cold...

Last night I worked as a perky, flirtatious drinks waitress at the MTV Awards. I had to carry a tray of drinks and mingle with the VIP guests, which is not actually as exciting as it sounds as the majority of the VIP guests were just rich people who'd bought their way into Very Important Person status. I did, however, serve a drink to Max from Hollyoaks (the one who just died tragically). And Henry Holland. HENRY FRIKKIN' HOLLAND! That's cool. I'm sorry, but it is. His quiff was impressive and he was wearing a floral blazer. And he's so Northern! I love him. What amazed me though was how nobody else seemed to know who he was. After the show when we were waiting to get into the after show party (which we didn't get into in the end, which is a travesty, as we should have done but got screwed over by our boss...) he came out and walked past a huge crowd of celeb spotters and they didn't even bat an eyelid. I actually had to tell the paparazzi who he was, and even then, they didn't bother to take a picture! He's Henry Holland! Is it just me who thinks he's cool? People knew who Perez Hilton was but not him! Fools....FOOOOOOLLLLLLSSSS!!!!

Seriously though, the EMAs were AM-UH-ZIN', we kept sneaking off from our waitressing duties to have a dance. The opening and Katy Perry's entrance was awesome, BEYONCE, Duffy, The Ting Tings, we saw them all, it was wondrous. I would have given my right arm to have actually been in the crowd rather than just serving drinks, but I got £50 off a drunk man so I can't complain...

Katy Perry arriving on a cherry chapstick. And why not?

Hmmmm

I just noticed that Tavi, of Style Rookie fame, featured some photos on her blog from the November 2001 US Vogue editorial of models posing as iconic music stars from the past and present. Some of the models included in the shoot were Devon Aoki (as Yoko Ono, with a male model as John Lennon), Karolina Kurkova (as Marilyn Manson, REALLY weird) and Karen Elson (as Janis Joplin). The general consensus on Tavi's blog was that most people didn't really like the pictures, they're a bit ANTM-esque and, to be frank, just aren't very good. The majority of the musicians featured were legendary artists and such mediocre images almost do them a disservice in some way. That being said, I do think that this one with Sophie Dahl as Debbie Harry is rather uncanny;

Although it's not quite the same thing, the idea of celebs posing as other celebs got me thinking about the Marilyn Monroe shoot Lindsay Lohan did where she recreated the famous nude "Last Sitting" photos shot by Bert Stern (Stern actually shot the Lohan version as well).

When I first read about this, it really, really pissed me off, mainly because I hate it when comparisons are made between Marilyn Monroe and anyone else ("Scarlett Johansson is the new Marilyn!" No, no she isn't), but also because Lindsay Lohan doesn't even remotely resemble Marilyn Monroe and could never in a million years hope to look as gorgeous as she did in the originals. Not only that, but to recreate this particular shoot is, I think, kind of insensitive, as it was the last one that Marilyn did before she died. And it's not as if they're just trying to do something similar to the "Last Sitting" photographs; they were recreated shot for shot, same props, same poses, same hair and makeup. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, but it just seems a bit conceited to me, as if she thought, "Hey I could so look like Marilyn!"

Come off it Lindsay...

I just looked online, and unsurprisingly, there are countless examples of celebrities recreating famous Marilyn images. The website http://www.ms-monroe.com/ has three whole pages dedicated to 'Mirrored Celebs' from Jessica Alba to Christina Aguilera, to the biggest Monroe impersonator of them all; Madonna. However, none of them are quite as extreme as Miss Lohan. Obviously, Madonna's Material Girl video was based on the Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend sequence in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes;

But for some reason, that doesn't seem quite as offensive, as it's not as if she's actually singing the same song or even doing the same choreography (unlike Kylie Minogue - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=T10VecAun-Y - ick), it's her own version and is really more of a parody, considering the context of the rest of the video and the lyrics to Material Girl.

Maybe I'm just being biased because I like Madonna and don't particularly like Lindsay. And Madonna looks like she's having a good ol' time in her video while Lindsay just looks awkward and uncomfortable in the photos.

I don't really understand what is gained by posing as a legend such as Marilyn, sure it might be good fun to play dress up, but it's not as if you're proving anything about yourself except that you may or may not have some resemblance to the star you're emulating. When asked about the Lohan shoot, Bert Stern said that he suspected Lohan had 'hidden depths'...Well Mr Stern, that remains to be seen really doesn't it? As far as I can tell, a nude photoshoot doesn't actually aid a person in revealing their "hidden depths"...unless that's actually just a euphemism for "boobies" nowadays...

In conclusion, I would say Marilyn is sacred, don't dress up (or get undressed) as her. Ever.

Unless you're Madonna...

Bleurgh...

I know I haven't posted in a while - apologies, very busy, not been home much, this will change shortly.

My boyfriend bought me a little copy of the Disney Sleeping Beauty book the other day and it's inspired a Disney-related project, more on that soon.

For now, here's a screen shot I enjoyed from watching a bit of Snow White on youtube earlier. I know it's not really fashiony or anything, but come on, is this not the happiest chipmunk in a sock you ever did see?!