Friday 23 July 2010

Jugs for chugs

Because apparently it's crazy underpinnings week here at The Chic Storm, this is sure to make those die-hard French lingerie-wearing mademoiselles blanch. BaronBob.com, a New Jersey-based company (quelle suprise), is selling the aptly named Wine Rack, a sports bra that can be filled with booze and comes with an extra long straw fuh drinkin'. It apparently holds 25 ounces of liquid and ups your cleavage by about two cup sizes. (Get it, cup sizes? Cuz you drink stuff outta cups? See? Uh, yeah.)

 Wine Rack bra, $29.95, BaronBob.com

The makers of this beaut think it is especially appealing to recessionistas who don't want to spend too much money on drinks at the bar but who are not willing to forgo an opportunity to get sloppy drunk, make out with a few of the classier cast members of Jersey Shore and puke on their shoes at the end of the night. And really, can you blame them?

I've certainly been guilty of stashing beers in my purse when attending an outdoor concert, because seriously, since when can indie rock lovers afford to spend $8 on a beer? (I'm talking to you, Molson Amphitheatre.) And what alfresco Shakespearean experience is complete without a mickey of vodka? But filling my bra with booze and drinking from a straw that juts out of my right boob? I dunno man. I get kind of squeamish when I see women breast feeding in public, so wouldn't this make me a hypocrite? Despite the fact that my breast would in fact be feeding me and no one else? Which somehow makes it more gross.

The way I see it, if I'm gonna be a jackass — and you can pretty much rest assured that 25 ounces of booze is gonna turn me into a jackass — I'd rather model myself after Homer Simpson and not Snooki.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Oh Mah Gawd, Becky

I admit, I don't necessarily like big butts so much as I accept my own for what it is. "You have a Mediterranean figure," my mother would say to me throughout my teen years, as I would try to squeeze my Mediterranean ass into the tight jeans that all my WASP-y girlfriends were wearing. It should be said that fashion forward-ism had nothing to do with the the deconstructed '90s aesthetic that I rocked at the time. But now it's time for their comeuppance. For although their high paying corporate jobs, two-car garages and sensible heels laugh in the face of my crippling debt and professional irrelevance, I have something that those WASPs will never have: a spring/summer 2010 butt.


That's right reader(s), my ass is in style. Literally. How do I know? Because Madonna's daughter said so. "I am totally obsessivo about 80’s shorts… You know the kind that makes your butt look kinda big." When rich, skinny 13-year-olds say they want a big butt, I know my ass has made it. And when Kim Kardashian — Who? Yeah, I don't know either — has a television show and is on the cover of tabloids every other week saying stuff like "I love my curves" and "My boyfriend loves that I'm curvy" and "Curves are so curvy curve", it means that big butts are back. And then of course, there's these:

Bump-a-Booty padded panties from Pure Style Girlfriends, $30

Those are padded panties for girls who want a little more donk in their badonka. Because, finally, fashion likes big butts and it cannot lie.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Masculine ideal, thy name is Ken

In kindergarten I had a crush on a boy named Marcel. He had chestnut brown hair and blue eyes, a slight French accent, showed real talent in the Lego department and we shared a birthday. It was, in my five-year-old estimation, a match made in heaven. I suspect he is responsible for inspiring a decade-long obsession with sandy-maned men in my 20s: Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You, countless New York bartenders-slash-actors-slash-models, and a particularly smooth Brit with a swimmer's build and a trust fund. Each one of them sandy-haired Adonises. Well, they had sandy hair anyway.

But looking back on all that, I realize perhaps the young Marcel isn't the one responsible for forming my follicular preferences in the opposite sex. That it is in fact another, far more influential man who drew me in with his kind eyes, million dollar smile and neat, responsible, sun-kissed haircut. That man is Ken Carson. And while I recognize that he has been inextricably linked to his girlfriend Barbie for the last half century, and that yes, he is a plastic doll, like Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson, Ken's legacy, influence and dead sexiness transcend mere time.

In typical Hollywood fashion — a world where men apparently "get better with age" while women over 30 are haunted by images of bread, Botox and big boobs — Ken, at the ripe age of 49, has landed his first major movie role in the summer blockbuster Toy Story 3. In it, he's every bit the dashing, handsome gentleman of my dreams, despite a "Tennis anyone?" outfit that suggests a propensity for wicker furniture and show tunes.


Thankfully Esquire UK has stepped in and outfitted Ken in a slew of designer duds including Prada and Burberry in an effort, I imagine, to dispel any rumours that could possibly contradict his hot-straight-guy party line. I may resent his skinny bitch of a girlfriend, with her long shapely legs and gravity-defying rack, but I refuse to believe she's a beard. These photos prove me right, and will serve as the perfect reference for my ideal mate.

I am a: WOMAN
Seeking a: MAN
Hair colour: SANDY BROWN
Eye colour: BLUE
Build: ATHLETIC
Characteristics: PROFESSIONAL, FUN-LOVING, PERPETUALLY HAPPY, SOMEWHAT STIFF, ANATOMY OPTIONAL.

Ken dressed in head-to-perfect plastic toe Paul Smith (image courtesy of Esquire)

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Don't forget to tip the lady in latex

Every once in a blue blogosphere moon, an item pops up that manages to fuse several of my previously vented vitriolic observations. This is both good and bad: good because the initial rage has already passed through my bloodstream and revisiting the offending issue allows me to take a step back and get a calmer perspective on it — kind of like going back to chat with your therapist after having thrown her crystal paperweight at the wall and screamed "I'm not 'angry'. I just think you're a bitch!" (I swear I never did that, and yeah, I used airquotes when I said it. Oh, wait....); and bad because I may have exhausted all witticisms on the topic. But I'll try anyway.

There's a new hot spot in LA called Trousdale that's super hard to get in to unless you're an A-list celeb like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Aniston or Leonardo DiCaprio. The decor is real swanky-like and the menu is all comfort food-y and continental with stuff like churros and fresh-baked cookies. Yawn, right? Yes, until you spot one of the waitresses, that is, dressed in head-to-toe latex. Now before you picture a human condom or the aforementioned Gaga, see below:


Apparently the uniforms were designed by co-owner Darren Dzienciol and stylist Jessica Paster (who has worked with Aniston, Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts). Each uniform is custom-made for the waitress, must be polished every day and takes 45 minutes to get on. Which leads me to believe that much like the 20-minute wedding dress, these puppies must be pretty hard to pee in. Actually, scratch that. They're probably super easy to pee in, but I hope they don't.

Now, forgive my ignorance, but I'm not exactly well versed in latex dressing — not the kind that goes on girls, anyway, wink wink — but how could it possibly take 45 minutes to put on one of these outfits? There really isn't much to put on. It's basically a long tank top and thigh-highs, and Lindsay Lohan can tell you that's the fastest thing to throw on in the morning. Unless they have a collective Ross Geller moment every night of layering lotion on top of baby powder in the hopes of creating a slick surface upon which to slide those thigh-highs (which as the Friends episode taught us is a bad idea with hilarious results), I'm baffled by the 45-minute time frame. God forbid one of them is running late for her shift. What happens if she only has 30 minutes to get into uniform? Does she end up waiting tables in one thigh-high or no dress? In a pinch, would management let her get away with an extra long American Apparel tank and trouser socks? Maybe she could just work coat check that night. I mean, cut the girl some slack. Forty-five minutes is a long ass time to get into an outfit that once on still looks like you're half naked. File under WTF.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I hope these uniforms come with matching diapers. (I also can't believe this would be my third post about diapers in less than a month. Apparently pee is the new black.) If not, I'm sure something suitable can be found at S&M&Things. Or maybe take one of those bridal ones and dye it black. Or talk to Huggies.

Now, my overinflated sense of entitlement and inability to take other people's crap without it resulting in some serious new-asshole-tearing (see previous mention of therapist) has always prevented me from working in the service industry, so I don't exactly have first-hand experience with waiting tables. But from where I've sat, it looks like a pretty taxing endeavour. There's a lot of running around, heavy lifting, bending, stretching and figurative dancing for tips. It looks like the type of job that would really make them break a sweat. And sweating in latex can't be pleasant for those waitresses or anyone sitting downwind from them. I'm just thinking about their hygiene...and my olfactory receptors. And leather shorts. *shudder*  

Finally, those uniforms remind me of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere first picks her up off the street. And much as we come to learn she's a hooker with a heart of gold, would you trust that she washed up before frying your churro? Yeah, me neither.

Friday 2 July 2010

Deal breakers

Liz Lemon beat me to it. Again. She would so totally be my cooler, smarter, funnier, better bespectacled, more successful and motivated older sister if I had an older sister...and if she were real. To clarify that I'm not in fact at that stage in my freelance career where minimal contact with the outside world has resulted in mistaking TV people for my friends, I also have real life friends who are like that. If I didn't love them I'd totally hate them for being cooler, smarter, funnier, more successful and motivated than me. I comfort myself with the knowledge that I at least have better glasses.

I was at a movie premiere the other night — for a movie that shall remain nameless lest my dedicated reader(s) start to question my otherwise curmudgeonly charm in light of a secret devotion to a teen-based book series-cum-film saga about vampires, werewolves and the girl who loves them (I fear I've said too much) — when a few of my adult-aged companions and I started talking about the non-negotiable attributes in a potential mate. Also known colloquially as deal breakers. Oddly, "yearns to drink my blood" and "turns into a ferocious beast when he's really really mad" didn't make the cut.

But I'll tell you what did:

He wears skinny jeans, which upon closer inspection reveal that they're actually girl jeans and you have the same pair


Laugh if you will, but it happened to one of the ladies present. She noticed that a guy she was dating had the same jeans as her and when he popped out of the room she peeked at the tag only to find that he wore a smaller size than her. #Dealbreaker

He's a vegetarian...


Remember that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry was dating Elaine's cousin and she was a total carnivore and grew leery of Jerry when he tried to order a salad for dinner? The best line in the episode was: "Salad ain't got nuttin' on your mutton!" I totally sympathized with her. I'm not saying I wanna be on a date with a guy who enters the "finish a 15-pound steak and it's free" contest, but if I'm ordering the fillet mignon and he's pushing some freakin' romaine lettuce and tofu around his plate, it's a definite #Dealbreaker.

...Who does yoga...


I'm just gonna say it: I hate yoga. I've tried yoga, I've tried to love yoga, I've tried to tell myself how important yoga is for runners. But if I hear a yoga instructor tell me to "find my breath" one more time, I swear I'm gonna make it so she can't find hers. And a dude who does yoga is only doing it for one of two reasons: to pick up chicks or to align his chakras and awaken his third eye in the hopes of reaching a meaningful spiritual plain thus accessing inner peace and emotional harmony. And trust me, he'll try to indoctrinate you, too. Namaste this. #Dealbreaker

...And has flaxseed oil in his refrigerator...

My friend's ex-boyfriend was a douche and he had flaxseed oil in his fridge, so by association any guy who has flaxseed oil in his fridge is a douche in my mind. It's not fair or rational, I admit, but hey, that's life. #Dealbreaker.

...And wears this

Walter Van Beirendonck s/s 2011 — and yes, that's a multi-tiered skirt he's wearing

No explanation necessary. #DEALBREAKER