Welcome to click click, the sporadic review of what I find worth clicking on the internet.

NY-centric fashion photos from the collection of Fashion Carrousel, a treasure box of themed imagery. Via Lucie.

• Jessica Stanley - Her collections of wordy, worldly links are wonderfully observant and insightful. She’s also got a way with images.
• The Secret Sexy Life of Zippers - a bunch of stuff you didn’t have time to wonder about in the fraction of a second it took to zip your fly this morning.
• Dirty Girls and Bad Feminists –  explains why internet feminism can be so inaccessible for the rest of us. I find the obsession with cultural orthodoxy to be anti-creative. When I see how the gay rights movement embraced and influenced mainstream culture so successfully, it’s frustrating to see feminism waste so much rhetoric fighting useful, sympathetic artifacts. Via Rachel.
• Clinton addresses ‘au naturale’ moment – it’s such a pleasure to see Hillary Clinton finally relaxing into being strong and attractive on her own merits. She seemed so uncomfortable during the 2008 campaign – she’s not an innate power dresser, and I think the negative blowback regarding her appearance was because she looked disingenuous. Looking back at photos of her youth, her true style is natural and uncontrived, and now that she’s returning to her roots the public reaction is positive.
• On Scars - on why women get more criticisim on their appearances than their work – and also some cogent advice on dealing with these failures of rational discourse.

Karma for fellow free spirits -

• village verve – “our style selection will appeal to the multifaceted woman with a fashion-forward spirit and varied wardrobe.”
• NEW YORK YOST – “a site about fashion, art and everyday life.”

Ryerson Folio is a student-run magazine published by the university I attended in Toronto. The founder and Editor-in-Chief Trung Ho invited me to revise and update a post I wrote about adapting to life in London. Seeing a blog post make it to print is a special treat. Also, I’m glad to have the opportunity to share an honest take on freelance life with students who are in the same position I once was, considering their next steps after graduation. Read the full text at Ryerson Folio.

Fashion is not bashful in declaring its unholy adoration of of unwholesome decadence, no wonder these themes are a common indulgence in magazine spreads. While it may pay lipstick-service to it, fashion doesn’t concern itself too much with the stylish possibilities of virtue. Though it is true that fashion deems gluttony abhorrent, it is by no means the worst infraction a stylish citizen can make.

No, the sin that we deny, the one we speak of in furtive, hushed tones, like addicts in denial, is Envy. Every fashion friend that I’ve had the privilege of an honest conversation with has revealed their own battles with jealousy. These rare, candid confessions elicit a kind of catharsis, because envy is the one sin we can’t share on social media. We all have to deal with it alone.

What is it about the fashion/envy axis that causes so much heartache and fear? It is because envy is the mirror image of desire. Desire, in every connotation of the word, is what fashion strives for. Flip the coin, same value: what we envy is what we yearn for.

We’re gluttons for our feeds these days. Observe what internet missives out there irk you have in common. If you’re anything like me, it’s because those updates touch on a tender spot. Almost always, the essence is: I want what she’s got. Why her and not me? We’ve all felt it, alone. It makes us act in peculiar ways. It infiltrates what we say and do. A little, every once in a while, is totally normal. A lot is devastating.

As fashion careerists, we’re in the business of desire, so envy is a recurring professional hazard – both for the envious and the envied. Figuring out how to flip it is valuable for your mental health, and your success. Because our most heartfelt wishes are unique to all of us, everyone’s strategy to deal with desire’s dangerous counterpart should be different. But because it’s a common thing we all share, my own philosophy might be worth sharing too. Here’s what I try to do.

Give yourself a break. We all feel jealous sometimes.

Edit your social media feeds to remove envy-provoking content. There’s no point in punishing yourself, following is always optional. To be honest, there are certain individuals that I enjoy following a lot who occasionally produce green-light updates for me. Depending on how resilient I’m feeling, I’ll un-follow and re-follow them. Since I can’t hide it, I’m pretty sure they know what it’s about – I’ve have some followers who behave like that too.

Achieve your desires. As you begin to gain confidence and accomplishments, you’ll notice that envy begins to fade away. Conquer desire, conquer envy. So always go for what you want. If you don’t know what you want, examine your envy. Is there a theme, a common flashpoint? Take your focus away from the envy, point yourself towards the desire, and go for it.

If you are the object of envy: be humble, be empathetic, and above all carry on doing whatever you’re doing. If you are inciting envy, it is because you are also lighting desire on fire. You’ve struck a vein of fashion gold. Run with it.

Welcome to click click, the sporadic review of what I find worth clicking on the internet.

Photos via Rivet Head, a comprehensive information source for vintage workwear fetishism.

• American Mozart – a brilliant, considered profile of fashion’s favourite rapper, and his redemptive role in Hova’s hip hop hegemony. Kanye West’s story exists on the axis of almost everything that fascinates me about our culture.
• Everybody Street – great interviews with some of New York City’s best street photographers, where style is incidental to the documentation. A dying art as omnipresent observation has irreversibly changed the way people self-present. Related: surreptitious Edwardian street style.
• What It Costs Eight Women Writers To Make It In New York – tangential to recent thoughts about whether big cities still offer opportunities worth the significant overhead – and how in cities like London and NYC now, the ranks of those who “make it” are necessarily nepotistic.
• Kim Hastreiter’s CFDA Award Acceptance Speech – is a shoutout to all of fashion’s most interesting niche players – the ones who do great work but rarely get the accolades. Via Jill Danyelle.
• The New Aesthetic – a proposal for establishing the parameters of a new cultural genre. Via Nextness.

Karma alarm!

• It’s OK for intellectual feminists to like fashion – Lucie asks me some searching questions about the blogging process – and I gladly spill my guts.
• Style Bubble – being listed as a “fave” by the sharpest eye in fashion blogging is truly an honour. Thanks Susie!
• Mamma’s Chest – “Vintage Goods”
• VVires.com – “Good art is a prism that draws a specific mood, world view, etc. out of you and refracts them into a million colors, your interpretation is the message”

Have you ever wondered how I draw a fashion figure? You’re not the only one. This post was a reader request – thanks Eliza! My technique is not original – it is based on studying texts and the instruction I received in university. I like to recommend books by Bina Abling and Steven Stipelman for aspiring fashion illustrators – be aware, not all fashion illustration texts are of equal quality.

Now, I have done this so many times it is second nature, so I rarely create a draft this formal anymore, and my sketches are now much looser and more enigmatic. However, for clarity I’ve broken it down into 10 steps. If you can follow instructions, you too can draw a fashion figure. Grab three (or more) sheets of translucent layout paper or tracing paper, a pencil and whatever other art materials you’ve got on hand, and you’re ready to go.

1. Center Line. Start by drawing a straight line from the top of your sheet of paper to the bottom. You can use a ruler or go freehand if you like. Mark roughly where you want the top and bottom of your figure. Divide this segment into eight equal sections with small marks. I’ll refer to these marks in this post – for clarity, mark 1 is at the top.

2. Head and Attitude. Most fashion figures are 8-10 heads high. Mine tend to be around 8.5 heads high. Each section, therefore, stands for the height of a head. Draw an oval for the head in the top section. Then I like to take a few abstract, loose swipes to represent the movement of the figure. Because intentions count a lot in drawing, these lines help to give a fashion illustration mood and attitude – be confident, not hesitant. These lines can not be right or wrong. This is just the draft, and no one will see it, so don’t waste time erasing. If you don’t like a line, just draw another one – your eye will sort out which lines work best.

3. Spine, Shoulders and Hips. The next line represents the spine, and connects the head to the center mark on the vertical line. Are you familiar with contrapposto? This refers to the stance where the weight of the body is shifted to one leg which throws the shoulders and the hips into different angles. Almost all fashion figures are contrapposto. Draw a line halfway between the second segment, perpendicular to the angle of the neck for the shoulder. Draw another line at the center mark, perpendicular to the lower spine for the hips.

4. Torso. The body has two major solid sections with a soft spot in between, which you can see in action if you’ve ever watched a model walk in a runway video. The shoulders and the rib cage are one section, and the hip bones form the other. Draw simple trapezoidal shapes to represent each section, centered on the spine. Mark the navel on the spine around the fourth mark.  The line of the breasts is around the third mark. Make sure the breasts are parallel with the shoulders or they’ll look crazy. The other thing to remember is that each breast is equidistant from the spine.

5. Hands and Elbows. Decide what you want to do with the hands. I have one resting on the hip and one hanging down in a classic fashion pose. Starting with the hand first is the best trick I know for drawing a hand that looks like it is plausibly resting on a hip. Draw little shapes to stand in for the hands. Remember that the hands hang at about crotch level, at the center mark. Elbows hang at the fourth mark, aligned with the navel. For both arms, you can figure out where the elbow is by marking the radius of the elbow from the shoulder.

6. Arms, Legs and Feet. Since you know where the elbows fall, all you have to remember when you draw lines for the arms is that the forearm and the upper arm are the same length. For the legs, draw a line for each. Each leg has to be the same length so you’ll know where to put the feet. Remember to put a foot on either side of the center line – or if you’re brave, right on the center line like I did. If you put both feet on one side of the center line, she’ll look like she’s falling over. The knees are halfway between the ankles and the hips and just about parallel with the hips. At this point you should have a stick figure with even proportions – always double check. The major one is to make sure of is that the legs are as long or longer than the length of the torso and the head together. Forearms should equal upper arms, calf length is equal to thigh length, and so on.

7. Flesh and Face. Grab a second sheet of paper – you’re ready to flesh out your stick figure. This is easier with practice – you can draw oval shapes to represent the thighs and calves to help you out. Feel free to use photo or a mirror for reference when working out tricky bits like hands and feet. If something looks wrong, just keep drawing lines until one looks right. This is just the second draft – no one is going to see this one either, so don’t bother with erasing. Feel free to make changes and adjustments as you go – you can see I’ve changed one of the feet to a side view. To draft the face, draw a cross through the middle of your egg shape. The eyes are equidistant from the center, halfway between the top of the head and the bottom of the chin. The tip of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin, and the mouth is halfway between the nose and the chin.

8. Clothes and Hair. Now you’re ready to start dressing your figure and giving her hair. Use the center front line to help you with things like buttons and fly fronts. I’ve given her a very simple outfit that I would wear (though I don’t wear heels). If you’re putting a skirt on her, remember that the hem is parallel with the waist, or if the skirt sits on the hips, the hem will be parallel with the hips. Curve edges like cuffs, necklines and waistbands so they appear to be wrapping around the figure rather than resting on top of the figure.

9. Rendering. Grab one more sheet of paper, you’re finally ready to create the actual illustration! Out of the tangle of lines on your draft, just trace over the ones that you feel look right. In this case, I’ve just taken another sheet of layout paper and inked it in with various widths of Micron art pens – 0.1 for small details, 0.3 to define some of the edges, and an outline around the figure of 0.5. Less is more when it comes to inking, especially for details – a few quick, brief marks work better than lots of fussy, careful ones. If you’re using a thicker paper you’ll need a light box to help you trace your draft. You can use any materials you want to render the final – watercolours, pastels, markers – whatever you enjoy using. Because you’ve got a solid draft with good proportions, the final illustration should turn out fairly well no matter how you do it.

10. Colouring on Photoshop. (Top of the post!) If you inked it like I did, you can scan it into your computer at 300 dpi or higher. Open it in Photoshop and fiddle around with the levels or the contrast or whatever tools you prefer to create pure black lines on a white background. Clean the lines up up if you like – this is another chance to fix minor mistakes in inking. Then I add another layer on the multiply setting to colour it in. You can drop in textures if you have them, like I did for the denim. The dodge and burn tools are an easy way to create shading and highlights. There’s a million different ways to use Photoshop and you can always hit Ctrl+Z so just play around until you’re happy with the results.

–

There you go! You have illustrated a fashion figure. If you used this tutorial, I’d love to see what you came up with. Send me a note!

We’re four years into fashion blogging’s California Dream. In 2006, fashion blogging was obscure and virtually ignored. In 2008, the mainstream fashion media turned a handful of street style and personal style bloggers into stars. Brands jumped in on the hype and blog campaign budgets burgeoned. For a while now it’s seemed like even minor bloggers can score major partnerships and c/o has become common. Going pro began to seem like an easy route to fame and fortune and self-help sources set the standard. And standard was what we got.

Gold rush mentality is for imitators, not innovators. Thus, the current state of fashion blogging: a future archive of indistinguishable individuals wielding SLRs, and a rotation of affectations in lieu of the new. The division of attention is yielding diminishing returns for middle-of-the-packers – brands are bailing in favour of celebrities, the industry is losing enthusiasm for blog coverage, readers are disgruntled and comment culture has devolved.

Starting a fashion blog in 2006 was delusional because no one was doing it… launching a fashion blog in 2012 is even more delusional because everyone is doing it. If you’re in fashion, you should know which edge of the curve is worth entering. Which means that every fashion blogger with any sense is wondering what’s next for our medium.

Style blogging is not dead. Street style photography is as old as photography itself – it won’t die, and there will be successors to the current crop. The well-dressed girl with the mysterious power to sell us whatever is on her back is as old as time and as today’s it girls turn into women, tomorrow’s it girl personal style bloggers will replace them.

Extraordinary talents like Rumi Neely and Tommy Ton will always find an audience. In the past decade, what happened was that technology created a gap, briefly allowing more ordinary talents a taste of notoriety while the media establishment struggled with transition. Now, the tide is reversing; instead of blogger-turned-professional, we have entered the era of professional-turned-blogger. As established venues for their work disappear, experienced creatives are out of necessity, getting over their technophobia. They are in the perfect position to benefit from the rise of individualized media at the expense of a masthead. They bring their skills and reputations with them, significantly raising the top standard of work we see online.

The result is that the barriers to enter fashion, which were artificially low for the past five years are returning to their usual place – high. Amateurs aspirants who managed to slip in through the internet’s side door now have to rely on some combination of hard work, talent, connections, money, beauty, good timing and luck to stay inside fashion’s good graces. Just like everyone else.

Welcome to click click, the sporadic review of what I find worth clicking on the internet.

Photographs of tailors at Henry Poole, 1944, courtesy of For Reference Only. Hat tip to Grumpy’s tumblr.

• BRITTICISMS – a favourite tumblr feed, full of thoughtful personal vignettes and pop culture reflection. I’ve been listening and loving my way through her generous MIXICISMS music collection.
• Crustypunks – portraits, personalities and philosophy from the marginal inhabitants of New York City’s Tompkins Square Park.
• 142 Minutes with Cat Marnell – a rehab-bound beauty editor talks about the bond between product and addiction. Via this sensitive post on The Beheld.
• Babes At The Museum – a blog full of pretty, culturally-minded girls at museums. Lovely and slightly squicky, though I can’t decide whether the squick factor is due to stalker-ish overtones or my own latent desire to be a museum babe. Also, why no boys on exhibit? Via Who Is Bobb Parris.
• Chinese craze for English tattoos – I do adore all the lost-in-translation trends emerging out of the chaos of globalization.
• Is Facebook Making Us Lonely – this is one of those must-read articles for every internet citizen. Considering how much of the web is a tangle of human neuroses is becoming an important part of understanding how to use this million-edged tool. Related, and even more unsettling: Malwebolence.

Karma for clickers -

• Winkball – a little video of me talking about my scrubby Saturday outfit in Broadway Market. Watching myself on video is as excruciating as ever, maybe because this is way too accurately depicting the way I am.
• Safra On Style - “I’m on the computer 10 hours a day, and I read fashion magazines for 6. I also write for magazines, and, oh, yeah, I’m a fashion editor of some sort.”
• 22/8 – “love the way the flash of colour works against tailored wardrobe pieces in dark colours”
• my style canvas – “As long as I can remember I’ve loved to draw girls in great outfits–guys sometimes too.”

One day in the office, we were chatting about the issues we face as the young and self-employed. I was just back from my trip to Rome and I joked that there should be a patron saint of freelancers… and a single google search later, we had one. San Precario‘s history is appropriately, a short-term one:

Since February 2004 San Precario, patron saint of precarious, casualised, sessional, intermittent, temporary, flexible, project, freelance and fractional workers, has appeared in various Italian cities. The saint appears in public spaces on occasions of rallies, marches, interventions, demonstrations, film festivals, fashion parades, and, being a saint, processions.

San Precario is also transgender, and it has appeared also as a female saint. A “cult” has spread rapidly and has led to the development of a distinct and colorful iconography, hagiography and rituals.

My version of San Precario goes out to all the freelance fashion females out there. May you always be invoicing, may your barista get your name right, may your WIFI be forever free, may your follower count ever increase, may your stilettos support your weight.

Now, I am not a religious person. Because my work is by its very nature, uncertain, I do try to get philosophically comfortable with uncertainty rather than turn to mythology to explain the unknowable. Still, I have found the rhetorical idea of San Precario to be a useful one. Part of pursuing a creative career requires a type of irrational faith that your efforts will be worthwhile, when almost always, there is no actual evidence to indicate that is so. An invocation of San Precario, even in jest, reminds me that I am not alone in a capricious world.

–

Queen Nefertiti played a symbolic role in a religious revolution. Otherwise, very little is known of her life or death. Her bust, discovered in 1912, has become an indelible modern image of feminine majesty, just as her alleged torso evokes idealized fertility.

–

Eleanor of Aquitaine is remembered as an icon of courtly love, but her real life story (as I learned thanks to BBC’s She-Wolves) was much more interesting than fairy tales. As one of just a handful of fierce Medieval Queens who lived in an era where power had to be physically fought for, Eleanor’s role as a monarch was dependent on being the mother of an heir, and very precarious despite her considerable intelligence and ambition.

–

Queen Nzinga of the Ndongo, like Hatshupset, avoided the question of gender by crowning herself King. With a wily way of playing her opponents off of one another, she secured her kingdom in the turbulent era of early colonialism, playing an ambiguous, notorious role in history. The most famous Nzinga anecdote has her imperiously perching on a servant’s back when no chair was offered to her.

–

Empress Elisabeth of Austria is perhaps the most fashion-y queen of them all. Thanks to Lorna for properly introducing me to her! Brilliant, eccentric, and vain, “Sisi” remains forever beloved for her cult of beauty. Her hair took four hours a day to maintain, during which she would study, she had a very unusual diet and perhaps even an eating disorder, was dressed in exquisite House of Worth gowns, and when she aged she ceased allowing her image to be reproduced.

–

Are there any more amazing fashion queens out there? I love discovering more!