Pink

Six months ago, I resolved to add pink to my wardrobe.

My first step was to enter this contest, but didn't win. (Which isn't surprising - I seriously doubt they actually have samples sitting around in an 11.)

Then I tried on a number of different things as I encountered them, but kept finding problems - the fabric was unpleasant or the cut was wrong or something. I considered painting my toenails pink, but it's too classic for toes - I want something interesting, like shimmery turquoise.

But now I've completed my mission with the acquisition of a sweater in a deep raspberry. It's soft and beautiful and well-cut, and works fantastically with the fine pieces of engineering available at Secrets From Your Sister. Plus I got it for 50% off!

Now we'll see how this works. Will I end up buying more pink stuff in the future?

Things They Should Invent: celebrate functional fashion design

If you've ever had the pleasure of owning a particularly well-designed piece of clothing, you'll know that they work with your body to make your shape look better than it is. Well-placed design features smooth out any lumpiness, make your torso look sleek and your breasts look high, and use your hips to create a general impression of sexy curves rather than pear-shaped endomorphism. I had the extreme good fortune to find two such dresses in the past year (name-dropping to give credit where credit is due: dresses by Calvin Klein and Adrianna Papell respectively, both found at Winners) and was very impressed by the thought that went into the designs. It was like engineering or architecture! I came away with a profound appreciation of the talent that goes into good fashion design.

However, haute couture doesn't really work this way. The outfits on a fashion show runway are pure artistic expression by the designer, and the models are specifically chosen for having figures and features that aren't going to interfere with the clothes.

Fashion magazines do sometimes do articles on dressing to enhance or conceal certain aspects of your figure, but they place the responsibility on the wearer to find clothes that work for them. It's presented as a way to improve the wearer's shopping skills, without lauding the designers for designing helpful clothes.

This does make sense from a practical perspective (the person reading the magazine is the wearer, who presumably does want clothes that work for them), but I think it's unhelpful overall. People often worry that the use of extremely skinny fashion models leads to body insecurity and eating disorders among the general population. I'm wondering if it isn't the skinny models per se, but rather the fashion hierarchy that celebrates haute couture where models are chosen not to interfere with the clothes as the pinnacle of design achievement, while actual well-designed clothes that work well on real people are seen as more downmarket. This leaves people feeling insecure because their body won't serve all the clothes, whereas in reality the clothes should serve the wearer. Good interface design makes it obvious where to click, rather than requiring users to RTFM. Good architecture or engineering works with how users are going to naturally use the structure, rather than requiring a change in user behaviour. Good fashion design - the work that is celebrated as the pinnacle of fashion design - should be similarly user-centric.

I'd love to see a piece in Vogue where big-name designers make clothes for real people. Not magazine "real people" - flawlessly attractive people whose hips happen to be slightly bigger than their bust, or size 12s being dubbed "plus-size models". I'm talking about people who are as conventionally attractive as Susan Boyle. Get top designers to design clothes specifically for these real people to wear in real life, and present it as a celebration of real design skill.

Alternatively (or in addition), there could be a TV show akin to Project Runway where the designers are given real-life design problems. The subjects could be real people, or they could be more extreme real-life issues (like that one house makeover show where they renovate houses for families with special-needs octuplets or whatever). Up-and-coming new designers could have challenges like making a functional and attractive wardrobe for someone with a colostomy bag, or creating flattering workout wear for a 60-year-old triathlete who has to train outdoors in the Canadian winter, or designing clothes that a transgender person could wear throughout their entire transition. This show would have to be done well (i.e. not stooping to presenting the subjects as a freakshow), but I think it would be enormously valuable both for the body image of the general public and for the design profession to present functional user-centric problem-solving as the pinnacle of exemplary fashion design.

Things They Should Invent: sexy nighties with built-in support

Picture a long, sleek, sexy nightgown. A bit shiny, spaghetti straps, the kind of thing that could almost-kinda-sorta look like a simple formal dress. The kind of thing you might wear for seduction, but also might wear to bed at home just for yourself, to feel sexy and feminine. Nice, eh?

The problem is, if you're well-endowed, it just doesn't work as well. You're walking around with your arms folded under your breasts so you don't flop around, and they ooze unattractively out your armpit holes when you lie down. That just isn't sexy at all.

The solution? A bit of support. Nothing hardcore - no underwires or anything - but maybe a few elastics or something just to keep the girls from straying outside their designated territory, like you might have in a bathing suit. I've seen bras installed in babydoll-type nighties that clearly are not intended for sleep at all, why not also do it for things that a person might ostensibly sleep in?

Haute couture

The stuff you see on the runway in fashion shows looks completely irrelevant to me. It's way out there, it's intended as an artistic vision but isn't intended for people to actually wear in real life (or at least not in my little corner of real life).

I was recently looking at some old Life magazines on Google Books, and they showed pictures of runway fashion shows from the 50s. The clothes there didn't look irrelevant. They looked like perfectly cromulent 50s fashion. I wasn't around in the 50s, of course, but extrapolating from tv/movies/pictures, they looked like stuff people would actually wear in real life. They were "outfits", not "get-ups".

I wonder if people in the 50s would agree with that assessment? Did those outfits actually look like outfits to them, or did they, for reasons I can't imagine, look like crazy runway fashion get-ups to the typical 50s viewer?

And if they did look like real clothes for real life, when did runway fashion stop applying to real life?

Like red but not quite

I own very few pink clothes. In fact, apart from subtle pink eyeshadow (which really is the best neutral for green eyes) I have very few pink things in my life. And for every one of those things I can tell you exactly why I got it despite the fact that it's pink.

My best colours are red and purple, so you'd think I'd have some pink in there as well. But I don't. Why?

Because pink is for girls.

I totally internalized this attitude and haven't even thought about it critically until just now, but my whole life pink has been spoken of disparagingly. It's for girls, it's for babies. Parents throw up their hands in despair when their toddler/preschooler daughter wants to wear girly pink things. People complain of the Barbie aisle being an explosion of pink. If a woman is behaving ditzily and happens to be wearing pink, you can be sure that the pink will be mentioned when the story is retold. Whenever I've been shopping and a salesperson has suggested something pink, I've said without a second thought "No, I'm not really a pink person." Why not? Because I'm not pretty, because I'm not ditzy, because I'm not a dainty blonde.

You know what? Fuck that.

As we all know, dissing or opposing or disparaging or rejecting things because they're allegedly girly leads to a society of assholes. I'm not going to be someone who does that. I don't actively like pink the way I actively like makeup and heels and the other femme trappings I loudly embrace, but my reasons for claiming to dislike it are not valid, so I'm going to give it an equal chance.

I hereby resolve, from now on, I will not relegate pink to a colour of last resort. If I see a suitable clothing item in pink, I'll give it just as much consideration as I would if it were red or purple. I also resolve that to add at least one new pink item to my wardrobe within the next year. (Q: Why such a long timeframe? A: Because I can't reasonably plan on finding a suitable item in any one given colour in any one given season. I'm trying to be realistic.)

If you also find yourself in the position of having automatically and unreflectedly rejected pink because it's for girls, I encourage you to do the same.

Things They Should Invent: removable on demand hair dye

The problem with dyeing your hair is that you have to either keep re-dyeing, or grow it out and have trashy-looking roots. Yes, there are temporary dyes on the drugstore shelf, but they're unreliable - sometimes they wash out way too quickly, sometimes they don't wash out at all. I was once walking around with six-inch roots from what was supposed to be a 24-day hair dye, which you can get away with when you're a teenager but doesn't work so well when you're pushing 30. I'd rather like some interesting colour, but it's an expensive commitment to do and maintain to a standard that's suitable for my age and hair length.

So here's what I want: hair dye that is permanent if left to its own devices, but can be washed out with a specific shampoo designed for that express purpose. Regular shampoo won't budge it and if you do it once without maintenance you'll get roots like usual. But then, once the roots are too much, if you don't want to re-dye, you can buy this special shampoo and wash the colour right out so you're back to your natural colour.

Wanted: purely aesthetic heel cream

The rough skin on the backs of my heels is rougher than usual this year and it looks really gross. While it is cracked and dry and stuff, I'm not feeling any discomfort or unpleasantness. It just looks ugly. I'm looking for a product that will address the aesthetic aspect.

I already pumice it regularly and use Dr. Scholl's pumice scrub.

Fashion advice please

Normally I wear crappy cheap jewellery because I'm not good at jewellery so I don't want to spend too much on something that may or may not work. But now I need to get a few earrings in real gold or silver to keep my existing piercings calm and happy while I add new ones.

Yellow gold looks better with my skin tone and colouring, but it's old fashioned. People my age don't often wear it, it's more often worn by people my parents' age. White gold or silver is more age-appropriate, but doesn't work as well with my skin tone.

Which one should I go for?

Things They Should Invent: flying hairdryer droid

I don't use a hairdryer every day because on normal days my hair is dry by the time I need to leave. However, on days when I'm running really late, sometimes my hair is still wet when I need to leave. The problem is that I'm running really late, so I don't have time to stand there blowdrying. I need to put on my makeup and get dressed and sort out all the stuff that needs to be in my purse and brush my teeth and maybe chug a quick cup of coffee.

So I was thinking they should invent a handsfree blowdryer, but then I remembered they already have those. Problem is they're attached to chairs, like in old-fashioned beauty parlours. When I'm running late, I don't have time to sit around.

So what we really need is a flying/hovering star wars type droid. It follows you around and flies around your head blowdrying your hair. Your hands are free, you can walk around as needed because it will follow you, it's the perfect invention and everyone will buy one just as soon as we've perfected that pesky autonomous flying droid technology.

If I ever write science fiction, I am absolutely working this thing in.

Anyone know the nitty gritty details of sterilization?

With both Essure and tubal ligation, the Fallopian tubes are made impassable, so the ova can't get from the ovaries to the uterus.

But these procedures do nothing to prevent the ovaries from releasing ova. So where do the ova go?

Things They Should Invent: kiva for the abortion underground

Broadsheet talks about the lengths to which women in Ireland must go to seek abortions outside of the country.

One of the main problems is that it costs several thousand dollars, and not everyone and pull together several thousand dollars on such short notice. However, it occurs to me that a good number of the people who can't pull together several thousand dollars on short notice might be able to come up with that amount over the period of, say, a year.

What if there were some way to quickly loan money to these abortion patients? I can't think of any major lender who would do that. But what if it followed the Kiva model?

Kiva, for those of you who aren't already familiar with it, is a website that enables ordinary individuals to fund microloans to third-world entrepreneurs. It is extremely awesome and you should check it out even if you don't like my invention.

So to adapt this model for the abortion underground, anyone who wants to can contribute to a loan, and people who need abortions can take out loans that they pay back over a year. It would have to be more anonymous than Kiva, but otherwise it's essentially the same.

With Kiva, the money is credited back to the lender's account as the loan recipient repays it. For example, when the loan recipient pays back 10% of the loan, each of the lenders' accounts is credited with 10% of the amount that they lended. Most lenders immediately roll this amount over into another loan, but you can withdraw it if you want.

The system for the abortion underground would work the same, but with one exception: if you, your partner, your dependent, or your dependent's partner ever requires an abortion, you can withdraw the full cost from the funding pool immediately and with no hassle. Most people who can become pregnant (and, I assume, a good number of people whose partner or dependents can become pregnant) have at least given thought as to how they would go about getting an abortion should the need ever arise. Those who have the money do their research and go "Oh, so it costs $X? I have $X in my savings account, no problem!" then merrily go about their lives, perhaps keeping an eye on their financial arrangements to make sure they have $X liquid at all times. It would be practically no effort to put the $X that you have quietly earmarked as your abortion fund into the general funding pool, knowing that you can access it at any time if need be and in the meantime other people can benefit from it. The only sacrifice would be potential investment income, which in today's economy is negligible.

The problem with fake pashminas

I recently bought a few fake pashminas. They claim to be made of cashmere and silk, but clearly aren't because they only cost like $4 each. The fact that they're fake doesn't bother me - I bought them because the shape and colour was right, and I didn't want to spend too much money since decorative scarves are a new toy in my fashion arsenal and I wasn't sure how much use I'd get out of them.

The problem is that the washing instructions on the tag are washing instructions that would be appropriate for a cashmere-silk blend. Handwash or dryclean, both of which are inconvenient.

I know it isn't really cashmere and silk, I know it's really some sort of polyester, they haven't tricked me into thinking they're real and I'm not trying to trick anyone else into thinking they're real, I just want some nice colourful playthings. So why can't I have the real washing instructions?

And I'm back

I've been wearing high-heeled black ankle boots as my staple non-summer shoe since I was 15. A couple of weeks ago, my boots broke - the sole cracked and the heel was about to snap off. Unfortunately, spring shoes had just entered stores, and it was particularly difficult to find boots even though we had at least a month of boot weather left. So I was feeling frumpy in running shoes or mary janes while I tried to find a new pair.

Yesterday, I got a new pair. Today I wore them for the first time. It was like coming home again. They're awesome and comfy and chunky and make me tall. I feel kick-ass like Eve Dallas in them, even though Eve Dallas would never wear heels for everyday.

It's amazing how much better you feel when you're wearing your first choice of footwear.

Wearing your purse diagonally

Conventional wisdom is that when travelling you should wear your purse diagonally so it doesn't get snatched.

But why would the way I wear my purse to walk around the streets of Toronto (strap over right shoulder, body of purse clamped under right arm) be unsuitable for walking around the streets of London or Paris?

Louise Marie Longhairs

Quite a while back I googled upon the fact that one of the few hairdressers specializing in long hair is right here in Toronto. Last time I visited a hairdresser (as a child) I came away looking like a boy. Since then I've been growing my hair extremely long to assert my femininity and eschewing all hairdressers. But, pushing 30, I was starting to think I might want better than just plain length with the split ends trimmed off by myself or my mother.

However, I was hesitant. Surely the website copy is hyperbole. Surely she has posted only positive testimonials and culled out all the negative ones (who knows how many there are?) And what's up with wanting to sell me all these pricey products? But I kept fixating on the idea, so I decided to give it a try. Worst case I'm out a bit of money and I'll stop fixating. So, last December, I went. The first time I'd been to a hairdresser in over two decades.

First thing that struck me is it's safe. No cooler-than-thou, no drama, you can talk frankly and realistically. Even the physical environment is safe. There's only one chair so you get her full attention, and it's set up so that passers-by can't see into the windows. (The idea of getting my hair done in full view of passers-by has always weirded me out). As we chatted, she accepted that my hair is in fact oily and straight. I've had so many people tell me "It isn't really oily, you just need to wash it less!" or "It isn't really straight, you just need to scrunch it!" that it's a relief to be taken at my word. She does want you to use her products (which do do what they say they do), but apart from that there's no pressure. As her site implies, she does recommend dietary/lifestyle changes, but she doesn't pressure. She informs me of stuff and if I'm not immediately into it, it's up to me to come to her if I change my mind. It's the Ani Difranco take what you can use and leave the rest approach.

So now you're thinking "Okay, but what did she do for your hair?"

I noticed results instantly, and I was able to duplicate them at home. Before I used her system, my hair would go hopelessly oily about 16 hours after I washed it. If I wanted to go to work in the morning then go out at night, I'd have to wash after work so my hair would look civilized at 11 pm. With LML's products, I wake up in the morning and it still looks civilized. It now takes 32 hours to go hopeless, so strictly speaking for the first time in my life I could get away with skipping a day. My hair was immediately less flat at the scalp, and it's been constantly improving as I continue to work on it. Length has increased noticeably, and I have brand new growth that is already two or three inches long.

The cut itself led my co-worker to ask me "Um...this is going to sound really weird...but did your hair just get longer or something?" I can now wear it down much more readily, and it moves quite interestingly (which is something I'd never given any thought to before). I feel generally sexier now, and more confident in my hair's ability to fulfill its various functions. In my professional life, it looks like it's on purpose rather than a result of benign neglect, and in my personal life it's better able to serve as a tool for seduction.

What I really appreciate about these products (and never would have ever expected) is if you do it wrong they still help your hair. It doesn't wreck anything, the results were just suboptimal. For weeks I was conditioning wrong but still noticing improvements in my hair. When I started conditioning right, it just started improving faster and more.

All these results aren't effortless. You have to put thought into your morning hair routine, you have to do some things differently with these products to the point where you're even retraining muscle memory (I can't tell you how many times I've done it wrong out of lifelong habit). It is work. But it does get the results it says it does.

This is an unconventional approach and not for everyone, but it is exactly what it says it is and does do the job to an extent I'd never before thought possible. I'd recommend looking a Louise Marie's website and seeing if it sounds like something you'd like. She wrote it herself, that is what it is. If it sounds good, go for it. If it doesn't sound like what you want, it's not for you.

Friday schadenfreude

I hate the existence of hair extensions. They're worse than breast implants, because the untrained eye can't tell if hair is real or extensions. I'm doin' it for real, yo, with all the imperfections that that entails, and it's irritating that people can just buy the length that I'm working to achieve, theirs looks better, and no one can tell.

So I hope you'll excuse me if I'm petty and small enough to enjoy this:



I'm also petty and small enough to enjoy the fact that a millionaire whose job description is to look good on stage (and therefore can reasonably spend most of her time working on that) still needs extensions to reach shoulder-length.

Things They Should Invent: universal size chart wiki

One website - only one single, universal website - where everyone lists all the clothes that fit them and which size fits them. Then you can see what fits other people who are the same size and shape as you.

For example, my black flats are a size 11, and they're a generous fit. My awesome red shoes are a size 10.5, and they're a bit of a tight fit. The other awesome red shoes I tried on are an 11 and I couldn't even get my foot all the way in. So someone else somewhere in the world who has the same black flats and is considering buying awesome red shoes can look them up and determine what size they'd be.

I'm a large size 13 at Smart Set and a small size 13 at Reitman's. So someone who's a large size 13 at Reitman's can look that up and see that they're probably sized out of Smart Set.

Gap jeans gap in the back for me. Lee One True Fit gap in the back for me. Point Zero don't gap in the back for me. Maybe there's someone else who has tried these brands and has the same fit issues, but maybe they've also found another brand that doesn't gap in the back.

Once this thing reaches critical mass, it will save us all a bunch of annoying fruitless shopping, and maybe people could even make some friends they can trade clothing with.

Things They Should Invent: products that change your hair's reaction to humidity

Curly hair goes frizzy in humidity. Straight hair goes lank.

In the great tradition of everyone wanting the texture they don't have, I'd love for my hair to go frizzy in humidity, especially when I'm trying to curl it. And I'm sure there are some curly people who wouldn't mind a bit of lankness.

Invent something that does this, and I will buy it.

Things They Should Invent: make heel height proportionate to shoe size

I can strap a pair of four-inch heels on my size 11 feet without blinking an eye, but it's probably far more difficult to contort your feet into a four-inch heel if you only wear a size 6. According to the first chart I could google up, a size 6 foot is two whole inches shorter than mine, which is a different of about 20%. This means that a four-inch heel has the same difficutly level for me as a three-inch heel does for a size 6. Conversely, a four-inch heel on a size 6 would feel the same as a five-inch heel does on me, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that a five-inch heel is really pushing the absolute limits of what I can wear.

Why not give the dainty-footed a fighting chance and reduce heel height in proportion to shoe size?

Things They Should Invent: slipcovers for bra straps

Sometimes your bra straps are going to show. Even if it isn't on purpose, even in a sleeveless but modest outfit, sometimes they wander out. This means that you have to worry about what your bra straps look like, and take this into consideration when choosing a bra.

The problem is there are also other factors when choosing a bra - structural engineering issues, how well the material and texture of the cups works under your clothes, how well the bra achieves the intended effect once your clothes have come off. So sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you have a bra that works perfectly under your fierce little black dress, but the straps are fugly and beige. Having a black strap wander out from under a little black dress is within the range of acceptable human error, but a beige strap just completely ruins the effect.

What we need is something to cover the bra straps in a different colour of fabric, so your straps will match your outfit even if your bra doesn't.