SATC 2… my eyes, my eyes!

There’s many great reviews of the misguided Sex and the City sequel out there (incl. here), so I’ll keep mine brief…

Carrie:

• Is but a shell of the neurotic and slightly kooky gal she once was. She’s now obsessed with redecorating her fancy yet soulless apartment, even chastising her husband (who must’ve paid for the whole place) when he puts his feet up on the couch. But worst of all,
• She’s kind of a bitch.

Charlotte:

• Makes cupcakes in vintage Valentino.
• Struggles with said cupcakes and her two young children until – phew! – the hired help arrives, all bra-less and badly accented.

Miranda:

• Generally looks pretty smokin’ (despite the bowl-cut above).
• Although… Cynthia Nixon seems to have forgotten how to act. Unless of course, Miranda’s forced whoops of glee in Abu Dhabi suggest more to her character than we ever get to see.

Samantha:

• Has lost all sense of class.
• Endures a much-publicised hot flush in a crowded souk that ends with yelling and the throwing of condoms. Even more insulting, though, is witnessing her sat at her desk, knickers around her calves as she applies some kind of menopausal potion to her pussy. (Eww!)

The rest:

• Liza does Beyonce.
• Penelope Cruz does a sexy impression of a banker.
• Mr Big has been going hard on the Fake’n’Bake, and…
• Carrie gets a big fat black diamond. You can buy it here for $10,000.

Oh yes, and there’s cringe-inducing ‘I Am Woman’ karaoke singalong to boot.

Speaking of boots, I still can’t believe I missed the Japan vs England friendly for this*.

80s photo from OOooOOh I want all of those.

*Ok it wasn’t that bad – SATC2 fans bring great snacks. Cheers, ladies.

Hatoyama’s shirt: how did it ever come to this?

Japanprobe today reported Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s hideous plaid shirt of many colours is now on sale for US$500. Presenting…

It appears Shanghai-based shirtsmyway.com has latched on to the disastrous piece of work, labelling PM Hatoyama a ‘fashion hero’ for ‘daring to be different’.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Props to him for daring to wear something so hideous at a televised event. But in offering a limited edition run of these ‘hatoyama shirts’, the bespoke shirt company is effectively inflicting another 50 of these shirts onto the world.

And that can’t be good.

Read more about PM Hatoyama’s crazy career here.

Uniqlo hits nyc + china with 88 dancing girls

Japanese clothing retailer, UNIQLO (famed for its cut-price basics and collaborations with upcoming designers) is opening two new superstores in an apparent bid to take over the casual-wear markets of China and the USA.

In preparation for the first Chinese store opening on May 15, UNIQLO has unveiled From Shanghai to the World, a slick new website featuring eighty-eight girls dancing* in eight-eight colours. (I think. I got a little mesmerised by all the flashing colours, kooky beats and general awesomeness that is eight-eight graceful Chinese girls dancing in otherwise-boring polo shirts… So I guess their concept worked). Clicking on a girl opens a short video/audition process which lists her name, age and height. It also allows the girl to ramble on about why she chose that particular colour, such as 23-year-old, 1.73-metre-tall Liu Xiaoqing who says:

I like blue. I like the ocean. So I decided on this blue outfit today,

Before staring a short classical ballet number.

Gripping stuff, and if my understanding of the website is correct, UNIQLO is also planning to release a film version of 88 Colours to coincide with the new store opening.

According to Fast Retailing, the 39,000-square-foot store will be spread over three levels, with ‘flying mannequins moving from top to bottom, giving customers a fresh and unexpected surprise’.

If that’s not interesting enough, there will also be an exclusive series of eight collector’s t-shirts created by Shanghai designers, as part of the store’s UT line.

And just when I was getting exciting about Shanghai, CNN went and announced UNIQLO’s opening their largest store in the world on New York’s 5th Avenue. That’s right, in 2011 the Land of the Supersize is going to be hit with 90,000 square feet of polo shirts, cheap denim, t-shirt vending machines, cashmere and Jil Sander collaborations.

In the meantime, there’s always Shanghai.

<UNIQLO logos from Keisuke Omi, vending machine from Sekimura, flags from Sakura Chihaya>

*Apparently dancing girls in polo shirts are a common theme at UNIQLO. Once you’ve had your fill in Shanghai, there’s plenty more at the Japanese site. If the company didn’t do so much wonderful work with the UNHCR, I might be a little concerned.

Summer is a verb, says new preppy bible

Summer - verb (used with object)
To spend or pass the summer. They summered in Southampton.

So says Alice Richardson, author of Summer is a Verb blog. She’s looking forward to True Prep, the long-awaited sequel (due out in September) to The Official Preppy Handbook, which she describes as ‘like a Bible to us’ in a recent New York Times article.

The NYT says Muffy & Biff (which I assume are akin to Tarquin and Beatrice in the UK?) can rejoice in a revised version of the Preppy Handbook. The original was released in 1980  (‘when it was fun to hate the rich’) and quickly became a cult favourite both with preppy kids – and those who wanted to be them.

This new version ‘dispenses a dollop of  upper-class frugality’ for the modern ‘prepster’ and even includes advice on rehab and new technology, as well as specific sections on the gay and black preppy scenes. (How inclusive of them!).

As for the new guide’s target audience, Ms Richardson (who at 44 is something of an OGP) is listed alongside ex-sorority girl Helen ‘Hopsy’ Goblirsch (from Kappa Prep, with its delightful ‘WASP Wednesday’ series). They’re just two of the many preppy bloggers who chronicle their lives in pink and green. (Apparently preppy folk like these two colours. As did my cousin when she 11. I thought it was a hideous colour combination and wondered why she would ever make an email address declaring her love for the two. Perhaps she was just a ‘prepster’ in the making?)

True Prep is in now in production thanks to Chip Kidd, ‘one of the industry’s best-known book designers’*. Kidd is working with one of the original writers, Lisa Birnbach, whilst the guy who came up with the entire concept, Jonathon Roberts, has refused to be involved. He explains:

The only reason you do something again is if maybe you’re going to do it better — like Godfather II.

But Preppy Handbook? I mean, come on. The subversive idea behind it was if you can reveal all of the secret systems and totems by which a portion of society keeps its elite status, you kind of pull the rug out from under them.

Respect. Roberts deserves a medal for this splendid display of integrity in the face of a book deal.

For similar satire of the upper classes in the UK, please refer to 1982’s Official Sloane Rangers Handbook. Author Peter York was asked in 2007 to update his guide to the traditional values of the privileged, although no such book has been released.

Yet. 

In the meantime, please see Orlando’s exploits in the jungles of Burma, below.  Not a preppy bible, as such, but rather an acute jab at the privileged youngsters who (literally) travel far and wide on their gap year. Then chunder everywhere.

*Which industry is that, NYT? The preppy-guidebook-loving book designer industry?

**OGP c.f. OGT

Read more about the photo guide to preppy style.

Good one. ethical clothing for london.

UK label-with-a-conscience goodone is featuring items from their recycled clothing collection at the EJF pop-up shop on Carnaby St.

Apparently, Britons toss out more than one million tonnes of clothing every year, half of which could actually be recycled. goodone works with London authorities to create a sustainable solution for this textile waste – creating new clothes from the old, all with the help of local charities.

The label also works with design students, brands and retailers such as Puma (see the recycled fabric lace case* for the Mid Vulc, below) and Liberty of London to minimise the environmental impact of their clothing production. And…they released this charming response to Anya Hindmarch’s I’m not a plastic bag.  All good things, really.

This much goodwill does come at a price.  But with everything made to order (including their £62.50 leggings), it means you can select exactly what colour and pattern you’d like when customising your piece. (It’s not quite clear how this will work in a pop-up shop, though?)

Considering this country’s sheer volume of wasted clothing and love of stores like Primark – whose suppliers had workers pulling 12-hour days, seven days a week, for half the minimum wage – labels like this deserve a little respect for trying to make a difference.

57 Carnaby St, London, United Kingdom

Read more on EJF’s pop-up shop or Fashioning an Ethical Industry.

*who cases their laces?

Environmental justice foundation’s ethical pop-up shop hits carnaby st

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has opened a three-level pop-up shop on Carnaby St featuring a host of ethical fashion brands and organic cupcakes (of course).

Over the next six weeks, EJF hopes to raise awareness and funds for their work – supporting victims of environmental abuse (such as the 26 million displaced by climate change), as well as finding ways of preventing such abuse.

EJF campaigns to save the world’s fish stocks (including Japan’s favourite bluefin/everyone’s favourite tinned tuna), protect coastal habitats and illegal trafficking of rhinos, tigers and bears.

They also aim to prevent pirate fishermen flying ‘flags of convenience’, instead of the ol’ skulls & crossbones. These pirates avoid penalties for illegal activities and basically flout conservation laws by purchasing flags from countries which don’t meet international laws. (It’s strange as when I lived in Panama, I was rather impressed to see so many ships flying Panamanian flags as they passed through the Canal. At the time I thought it was to avoid shipping taxes…)

The Carnaby Street store (open 10–6 daily) features collections from Pants to Poverty, Hermione’s People Tree, Veja, Katharine Hamnett, Monkey Genes, goodone & more, until Monday May 3.

57 Carnaby St, London, United Kingdom

& If you can’t make it, watch chef Ken Hom’s original recipe for screwy shrimp*. 

*That’s prawns, for you folks down under.

Slippery sevigny has a change of heart

Style icon/sulky sourpuss Chloë Sevigny has executed a perfectly-formed media backflip by blaming the reporter for candid comments she made during a recent interview.

Speaking to Chicago’s AV Club last week before the release of new film Barry Munday, Sevigny seemed enthusiastic and open as the the interview followed the usual ‘coolest girl in the world’-indie it girl-Boys Don’t Cry Oscar nomination arc. 

When talk moved to the latest season of HBO’s Big Love and the reporter mentioned the show had taken some flak for being over-the-top, she quite frankly admitted:

It was awful this season, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not allowed to say that! [Gasps.] It was very telenovela. I feel like it kind of got away from itself. The whole political campaign seemed to me very farfetched. I mean, I love the show, I love my character, I love the writing, but I felt like they were really pushing it this last season.

Such honesty is rare in Hollywood, and made me re-think my whole perception of her as an actor slash muse slash queen of the Brown Bunny bj. Maybe she’s worth all that indie cred, after all?

But two days later, she spoke with Entertainment Weekly and blamed the whole thing on the AV Club:

I feel like what I said was taken out of context, and the [reporter] I was speaking to was provoking me. I was in Austin and really exhausted and doing a press junket and I think I just… I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. You know, after a day of junkets sometimes things slip out that you don’t mean, and I obviously didn’t mean what I said in any way, shape, or form.

Check the context.

Or the AV Club’s response to her about-face.

& if you need further proof that she’s kinda beautiful (above Terry Richardson photo notwithstanding) and wears lovely clothes but ultimately lacks any real backbone, look what she did with Beck:

Japanese photographer unwittingly creates summer festival style bible

Can you stay up to see the dawn in the colours of Bennetton?

Little did Japanese photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida know his 1965 collection of Ivy League style would one day be coveted by Vampire Weekend fans the world over. His book, Take Ivy,  is now being re-released at a significant saving – original copies can garner almost a grand on eBay. Read more at powerHouse books, or enjoy the lovely photo montage from Esquire UK while considering just how far we’ve come in 45 years.