Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

Karl Lagerfeld: the definition of ego

We on the IWDTFM team are often asked, “Why don’t you all become models?”. It’s a valid question, given how good looking we all are. But I have a secret: I don’t understand the fashion industry. What it is, what it does, and why the hell anyone would want to be a part of it.

I’m writing this because I read Kate’s article about the New Zealand fashion week, and – like Kate – I was impressed that a country that has yet to pave its streets even has a fashion week. Wales doesn’t, although this could be due to the fact that large numbers of the Welsh population have yet to be introduced to clothes.

Not that the fashion industry is particularly concerned with clothes. They don’t produce things that you can wear. They produce monstrosities of design, much like a five-year-old with access to a large supply of Play-Doh might.

What really confuses me about the fashion industry is that so many people seem to want to break into it. Models, fashion designers, stylists, hairdressers… never mind that the industry seems to be a mix of sweat shops and the Third Reich, it’s honestly an industry that people marry footballers to get into. On your average thirteen-year-old girl’s list of “Things I Want To Be When I Grow Up”, the desirability of jobs in the fashion industry is probably only second to whatever the hell it is Tara Parker-Tomkinson did to get famous.

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Pamela tries her best to make butt crack fashionable. Fail.

It was New Zealand Fashion Week last week. Wait, I hear you ask. NZ has a fashion week? We sure do. And it’s not all gumboots, swandris and black singlets. There’s like, actual non-farmery type gear on display.

But you’re right in thinking that the event is not a big deal. The fact it was scheduled for the same time as London Fashion Week proves that NZ Fashion Week isn’t even a blip on the global sartorial radar — there were no journalists, socialites, or buyers out there going, ohmygosh what am I to do? over the scheduling conflict in their calendars.

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Does your fat face need a work out? Then we have the product for you – the Facial Flex! You’re just 4 minutes and thirty bucks away from looking like… Marilyn Manson!

Marilyn Manson is an ardent user of the Facial Flex

“You can do it while you’re doing something else. You can watch television, walk the dog…,” says the host, Tommy. (Imagine if you saw your neighbour walk past with that in their mouth)

“Even if I don’t see anything yet, I know there’s something happening…,” says Susie, the caller-in. She sounds enthused.

“I know you’re looking at us doing it, and you’re going, does that really work?” says another host, Lisa. Very perceptive. It’s like she can actually see me through the TV.

Later, she adds: “Now if your New Year resolution includes working out, why aren’t you working out your face?”

Well, that’s a really good question, Lisa…

Rejuvenique Electric Facial Mask: another godawful infomercial from the vaults!

My face hasn't moved since 1983

So, I’m less than 30 years old, but the gap is closing, and I’ve noticed my face has started crinkling up in places and staying that way, even when I’m not grinning like a maniac.

I’ve started looking for ways to stop my face doing that.

Like many women, my first step is purchasing a range of creams, oils and unguents.

I’ve come to loathe the advertising for all that gunk — yet I still use it on my face! We live in a cynical, cynical world. Unfortunately I’m so tangled up in the great big lumbering lying beast of the beauty and anti-aging industry, that while I don’t believe the promises it makes to me, I still try to turn back time. I am a woman. We are not supposed to get older. Just look at Madonna “My face hasn’t moved since 1983″ Ciccone.

The entire subject of women and the beauty industry is too big for me to begin to address here. Naomi Klein had some good things to say about it in The Beauty Myth. You can read that later. In the meantime, I’m going to talk about how the beauty industry uses four key techniques to make squillions advertising to susceptible oh-shit-I’m-getting-older women:

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