Fool for Fashion

During these tragic economic times, the most expensive, designer label stores have become a look-don’t-touch, showcase type of situation. Nowadays, it’s difficult to walk into Coach, or even Gap, to find a keychain for a decent amount of money. Eric Wilson addresses the need for a re-evaluation of our passion for haute couture fashion in his article, Irresistible and Affordable.

Wilson talks to Isaac Mizrahi who is promoting the new Liz Claiborne line. While consumers are reevaluating “their relationship with designer clothes” Mizrahi recognizes that buyers have to find appealing fashion in stores with lower price points. “I don’t think I’ve been in Macy’s in like a hundred years — it’s always so vanilla,” said Jill Sussman, who owns an art gallery in Manhattan and described herself as a fashion devotee. Speaking about consumers, Wilson explains, “If they are not just staying home, shopping their closets, they may be part of a consumer pattern of trading down, from a Saks Fifth Avenue to a Macy’s, for example, and liking what they see — or at least not being horrified.”

Although Wilson does discuss significantly cheaper clothing, I felt that his only audience was those who originally were able to afford expensive designer labels on a regular basis. The items touched on and suggested were not that cheap:
“No surprise, Mr. Mizrahi, whose collections for Target turned him into a maharishi of value-minded fashion for most of America, makes a tank for a lot less. A blush-pink style in stretch jersey, trimmed with lace, is $35 in the spring Liz Claiborne collection. And it’s cute, too.” How is a cute tank at $35 any kind of bargain? Wilson’s article also mentions, “A little black dress for $139 has pleats tucked around the waist.”

Wilson clarifies Mizrahi’s position as ultimately designing for wants, not needs, offering still pricey floral printed cardigans and a gingham strapless dress in his new line. I agree with Wilson, these “could hardly be described as the bare necessities”. Callie French, a Macy’s makeup artist, claims she’s really not looking but is finding it hard to resist Mizrahi’s new Claiborne line, describing it as “something that’s fun, something to lighten up, something that you might look at and smile”.

His article is thoughtful and I believe that he is correct in noticing a significant difference in the world of fashion reacting to consumers due to the economic crisis, but for me, this article was discouraging. Speaking as a person who cares about fashion trends but not in the 30-50 year old age bracket, I feel fooled by the title of the article; I found the clothing described neither affordable nor irresistible.

Not to do 473654 blog posts on the iPhone…

But it's tempting.

What would be your dream iPhone application? Well if you can figure out how to invent it, you’re set for life. My family has often joked about inventing something because apparently, it’s not a bad idea. Our most popular idea is Brocks. Building blocks, similar to legos, which have the appearance of rocks. Because why should every miniature structure be rectangular, pointy, and only composed of the primary colors? Genius, right?

In Jenna Wortham’s article, The iPhone Gold Rush, she discusses how Ethan Nicholas turned his life around by developing the iPhone application, iShoot. When he and his wife were having trouble paying their mortgage along with pileups on medical bills, Nicholas decided to look for a new job. Having heard about a guy who made a quarter million dollars by writing the program, Trism, for the iPhone, he decided to use his own knowledge of programming along with internet tips to figure out the iPhone software himself. Nicholas was inspired by his childhood spent playing “shoot-em-up” computer games and decided to make his program artillery based. It took six weeks, but iShoot had tremendous success and earned Mr. Nicholas $800,000 in five months. With now more than 25,000 programs, or applications, in the iPhone App Store, the number of people, the number of people “stampeding to classes and conferences about writing iPhone programs is not decreasing. Nicholas said, “People are realizing that by developing in their garage with a couple dollars, they could be the next Facebook”.

Although I am choosing to write about this article, it wasn’t one that shocked or angered me. It wasn’t out of the ordinary; just the natural progression of technology. It seems unfair- the get-rich-quick situations, however, in a capitalist society, the only way to describe Nicholas’ development is smart. “I’m going to milk the gold rush as long as I can,” Mr. Nicholas said. “It’d be foolish not to.” America invests the most money in its addictions such as texting. Wortham’s article only made me wish I had the same technological knowledge. According to James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communications Studies at Rutgers University, “Even if you’re not a programming guru, you can still cobble something together and potentially have great success”. On second thought, I’d better get on it.

I wish i had an iPhone to hate.

Even the most loyal Apple fans have to chuckle at Virginia Heffernan’s article,
I Hate My iPhone. Entertaining and relatable, Heffernan’s commentary shows that the grass isn’t always greener once you have an iphone. The entirety of the piece is a highly descriptive anecdote telling of Heffernan’s first hours with the almighty technology.

Heffernan portrays herself as an overwhelmed mother with a newborn child, only Heffernan is lucky the phone is not a child, and was easily able to return it. “She was like a nurse for newborns, urging me — a new mother — to step up and change a diaper or something. And I felt just like a sullen new mom, not ready for her role…She didn’t trust me, but she let me take the iPhone home anyway.” Heffernan emphasizes the hassle of the iPhone by declaring it as demanding as a newborn.

“My right index finger — the only digit precise enough to hit the close-set virtual iPhone keys — seemed an anemic, cerebral thing, designed for making paltry points in debating club. I repeatedly stabbed to the right of my target letter. It was like being 4 again — or being 90. I couldn’t see, it seemed; I couldn’t point; I couldn’t connect,” said Heffernan. Usually, one only expresses their immediate excitement regarding their iPhone, however, Heffernan takes you inside her mind, revealing the legitimate anxiety one may also feel when handling the latest and greatest for the first time.

Most people, within the first 24 hours of purchase, think it’s the coolest thing ever. After a week, they still probably think it’s the coolest thing ever, however noticed some of its aggravating quirks. Sure it’s sleek and beautiful, but from testing out a couple of my friends’ iPhones, I can say that it may possibly be one of the most inefficient phones. For example, Apple’s predicted convenience that when you turn on the phone, you are back to where you last were, is all together inconvenient. Most people don’t want to be where they last were; they want to make a phone call! And then that single phone call is quite a procedure. Slide, click, click, click, and click. Then make a phone call.

So, for the millions that currently own an iphone, ask yourself, are you happy? Or was it the hype that got you?

It's sweeping the nation.

Today anyone from ages starting as young as twelve to infinity and beyond can have an active account Myspace, Facebook, Myface, Spaceface, or maybe all of those at once. But that's not quite enough. Most recently, in fact this March, the micro-blogging site Twitter has become most popular. Twitter is a social networking system that enables those with an account to send and receive other users' updates. These updates are known as tweets (texts up to 140 characters in length). Updates are delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. You may be asking yourself, how many different methods do we need to tell as many people as we can at once what's on our mind?

In John Metcalfe's article, The Celebrity Twitter Ecosystem, the title speaks for itself. According to his article, there are at least a hundred well-known actors, singers, business magnates, politicians and writers using the Twitter service. Interviews with either them or their publicists tell us that most of the updates are authentically written by the celebrities themselves and are available for anybody to see who would like to.
"It seems that — just like the rest of us — celebrities enjoy hearing about other celebrities, and Twitter lets them participate in a giant cross-disciplinary mash-up of a conversation," said Metcalfe. Ultimately, I suppose one could find it pretty thrilling to receive messages from their favorite starlets straight to their phones, people you only dream of talking to in person.

“‘I love it when they don’t talk with their publicists before posting things,’ said Mario Lavandeira…‘like Solange Knowles talking about how she was taking a lot of Nyquil and then ended up passing out at the airport.’…Erykah Badu and Q-Tip were among 23,000 people who received Ms. Knowles’s increasingly distressed alerts on Feb. 17, which culminated a day later with the tweet: ‘Woaah ...How’d I end up in the hospital?’” Although these uncensored updates to fans may not give celebrities the best image, at least they are true to their fans and eliminate some of the warped views on certain celebs due to the media and their publicists.

This new phenomenon of communication does seem to successfully tie everyone worldwide in a quick and easy way, but on the contrary, do people really need another distraction? With all of the existing social networks today, don’t we already know too much about one another? Don’t we make that a little too easy? Generally speaking, who exactly is this for? I guess I will have to make a Twitter account to figure out all of the excitement.

a breath of fresh air

Hi. Would you be interested in a Motorized grill brush? (No scrubbing!) Well, it’s currently $19.99 at Brookstones. Or how about your own Pet Owners Robotic Vacuum? 350 bucks. Or pocket sized germ eliminating light? Oh, and the Fish Agility Training Set. Yes, this complete set of underwater activities allows you to train your pet fish to perform a series of agility maneuvers, including swimming through hoops, pushing a soccer ball, navigating a slalom course, and more. Because your fish will do these things if you buy them the right materials. Because training your fish is vital these days. Because they want to be talented.
…

Wow. Honestly?
I was flipping through the pages that my mother had turned town in the recent (hundreds of) catalogs that arrived conveniently right before Christmas. I was appalled to say the least.

Reading "Software that opens worlds to the disabled" By James Flanigan was the most refreshing experience I’ve had recently. It’s really nice to know that some people have their priorities straight. The article describes a nonprofit corporation entitled “Project: Possibility” that enabled the development of various programs aimed at helping disabled people “expand their capabilities”. This development takes place at the University of Southern California and is lead by groups of volunteers.
“ONE computer program would allow vision-impaired shoppers to point their cellphones at supermarket shelves and hear descriptions of products and prices. Another would allow a physically disabled person to guide a computer mouse using brain waves and eye movements,” said Flanigan.

I’m sure Apple Inc. is developing their latest music player or phone at this moment and I only wish that technology aimed at helping to improve a person’s needs was as quick in the development as the technology that only exists for our pleasure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/smallbusiness/18edge.html?8dpc=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1229569390-qhX/k1fHu5Zp8SbhUW8Oyg

the agony and the ecstasy

“With modernity crumbling, our thoughts turn to antiquity.”

Maureen Dowd suggests in her editorial, “Are We Rome? Tu Betchas!” that the new is not working out, so we’re making our way back to the old. The really old. I was so drawn to this article because it comments on and captures, in my opinion, so well what exactly is happening today. Dowd comments on “sand-castle economy” which currently “washes away under the tide of bad gambles and debts”, reminding me of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida.

“One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand

Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand”

And this just tied the whole Roman thing together completely with the literal, however more than accurate, vision of a crumbling structure. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen connections with the lyrics of this song. Roger Cohen directly references it in his op-ed, “The King is Dead”. So this article struck a cord when I realized the constant emphasis on how our economy is not stable, being reduced to salt and rock.

Half of Dowd’s Op-ed is in Latin, alluding to the past, but also contributing to an air of higher intellect in her article. It’s sophisticated and interesting. But this Latin ramble has a greater significance. Dowd, whether intentionally or not, has made a prediction. She is obviously discussing current events –“Baracum Obamam”- but in an ancient language, suggesting a similarity between then and now. This is where I personally become frustrated. When we ask our parents why we learn history, they reply “So history doesn’t repeat itself”. Well then. It’s been said that America is on the brink of a new Renaissance. “Who we are and what we care about is shifting-and a new set of imperatives, products, behaviors, and ambitions is emerging,” says Patricia Martin in her book, Renaissance Generation. Now, the Renaissance was not ultimately a bad thing, but we are also being told that we are in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin