Have you ever flipped through a magazine and felt like they were missing your perspective on something? One girl, Ashley Falcon, felt like she and other plus-size women weren’t getting enough advice and support from fashion magazines. Rather than just complain, Ashley got going - she joined Marie Claire magazine as an intern, and soon she was penning her very own column for the publication. How did she make the leap from unpaid intern to full-time writer? One day, Ashley was sharing a cab with a Marie Claire editor. She mentioned that she had to work much harder than her more slender coworkers to find cute, appropriate work attire. The editor thought Ashley made a great point, and before long she was winning a huge following with her honest yet funny takes on plus-size shopping. The column, “Big Girl in a Skinny World,” is a hit.
Her first column addressed the gruelling quest for the perfect pair of jeans. She included three of her favourites that work for up to a size 24. That’s probably the first time those digits have appeared on one of the magazine’s fashion spreads unless it mentioned the model’s age.
The article is surprisingly and admirably frank. Ashley doesn’t just claim to be an expert, she offers her testimonial as an unashamed size 18: “I go through at least a few pairs of jeans every year, routinely wearing holes in the area where my thighs rub together.”
Ashley wrote that “It’s not easy being chic, but it’s an epic struggle when you’re a big girl.”
Congrats, Ashley, and keep up the good work!
Oh, fashion interns. Not only does wanting to break into such a competitive industry usually mean you have to accept several unpaid or low-paid gigs in order to build up your resume, one fashion website is now pushing their free help even further. Fashionista.com, who (like many other fashion and beauty companies) relies on unpaid interns to help them cover the bases during Fashion Week, has asked their staff to go above and beyond the normal call of duty. Check out this section from a recent intern job ad they posted:
“We’ll need you at least two days a week until Fashion Week starts February 9th, during which we’ll need you more. How much more depends on your schedule, but you should be eager to skip class in favor of MILK. Our intern hours are officially 11 to 4, but again, once the week starts there’s no on/off.”
You heard that right, everybody: your unpaid job is WAY more important than your education! School is for losers! I’ll see you guys at fashion week.
Internships at fashion magazines are among the most competitive and sought-after internships in the world. However, one fashion intern might be in trouble after this story made rounds online:
Outrage at Grazia magazine after an intern sent out regularly to buy skinny lattes for the beauty desk announced at the end of her stint on the mag that she had in fact been buying them all full-fat ones. [Gawker via Media Monkey]
Or maybe she’s trying to subvert the paradigm and defeat the system from within? That would actually be awesome. If that’s true, she can be my intern anytime she wants.
Writing on the Huffington Post, Friend of STA Brooke Moreland deftly breaks down the main types of holiday party outfits, what they say about you, and what others will think of you for wearing them. Here are a couple of highlights:
- The LBD: You think it’s timeless, everyone else thinks it’s safe and predictable. They’re also all wearing LBDs themselves.
- The Party Dress: You’re the life of the party. However, that means you also run a higher risk of barfing on someone or accidentally hitting on a coworker’s spouse.
- The Business Suit: You just came from the office, which means you’re a workaholic. Your boss thinks that is a good quality, but your coworkers probably think you’re lame.
- The Cute Holiday Sweater: Um, do I even need to mention this one? You may think “festive,” everyone else thinks “loser.” Save it for Grandma’s Christmas dinner.
- The Elegant Dress: Perhaps you’re overdressed, or perhaps you’re just so good-looking that everyone else is jealous of you. Sometimes, risks are worth taking.
You can view the whole post here.
Taylor, the peroxide-haired “senior assistant” who seemed to hate her boss Rachel Zoe, has been fired. There was no reason offered by either Rachel or Taylor (who Ashley likes to refer to as “the awesomely bitchy one”). Along with Rachel and fellow assistant Brad, Taylor was one of the stars of The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo, which just finished airing its second season. Today, Taylor emailed all her contacts the following note:
After four amazing years at Rachel Zoe Corporation, I’m saddened and exhilarated at the same time to announce my departure. After much thought and consideration, I have decided to take the challenging leap to go off and style on my own.
After the jump, let’s revisit some of Taylor’s finest (and most disgruntled) moments.
Continue reading ‘rachel zoe fires assistant’
Have you ever uttered - or heard someone else utter - the phrase “I don’t have time to get sick”? Well, for people who don’t have the time or desire to be sick, a Japanese clothing company called Haruyama Trading has developed a suit that they claim can help ward off H1N1 (aka the swine flu).
It is coated with titanium dioxide, a chemical commonly used in toothpaste and cosmetics and that breaks down when reacting with light, supposedly killing the virus upon contact.
Shinto Hirata, vice director of merchandising at Haruyama, says the suit is proven to kill 40 percent of the latest flu virus in about three hours and will retain its protective capability even after being washed several times.
I guess this is the next thing you’ll have to expense for your boss. It costs $590, which is a lot of fancy lunches.
Fashion is a notoriously competitive field to break into - that’s why people are still willing to work for crazy bosses like Kelly Cutrone and Anna Wintour. However, it may be so competitive that even famous and/or rich people have to do grunt work. First, Tallulah Willis toiled away as an intern guest of the editors at Harper’s Bazaar instead of simply being handed a job or a column. Now, the New York Times reports that even famous Korean pop stars still have to start at the bottom:
Let us take the example of Sang A Im-Propp, who was a pop star in Korea before she decided, while on a business trip to New York, that she wanted to be in fashion. This was nearly a decade ago, and Ms. Im-Propp’s command of English was tenuous, but she enrolled at Parsons and in short order found herself an internship with Victoria Bartlett, a noted stylist and designer whom she admired and hoped would introduce her to the glamorous world of design. Instead, Ms. Im-Propp found it difficult to understand Ms. Bartlett’s heavy British accent, and at first she thought she had misunderstood just what Ms. Bartlett was asking her to do. Get cupcakes?
Not just any cupcakes, but the glossy butter-cream confections from the Cupcake Cafe, which is a four-block crosstown walk from Ms. Bartlett’s studio through the dodgy garment district, and it was freezing outside.
“It made me cry a lot,” Ms. Im-Propp said. “Vicky is an amazing artist, but she can be difficult.”
Could it be that fashion is actually becoming a great equalizer? I’d be a lot less demoralized about having to fetch coffee if the other lackey fetching coffee was a pop star. I’m just saying.
Talk about art imitating life - Ugly Betty star Mark Indelicato, who plays Betty’s fashion-conscious nephew Justin, may be jumping into the fashion world for real. Indelicato, age 15, took a tour of designer Carolina Herrera’s showroom last week. While there, he showed Herrera some sketches he had in mind for a denim line he wants to do. The designer was reportedly so impressed that she offered Indelicato an internship on the spot. Will he be a vanity intern who skips straight to designing, or will he actually get a chance to learn about the workings of the fashion industry?
Let’s just remind Carolina Herrera that, while it was very kind of her to offer this internship, she might want to hold out another year or two. Fifteen-year-olds, as we all learned from the Tallulah Willis at Harper’s Bazaar incident, are not able to be interns. So maybe Indelicato will just have to be a “guest of the designer” while he’s still a minor.
“Karl is like a dad. I’ve known him since I was 16 – I would do a lot for Karl. I was once on his plane flying to China. He wouldn’t stop talking. After a while, I said to him, ‘I have to sleep now Karl.’ When I woke up 10 hours later he was still talking to some poor assistant!”
- Diane Kruger, actress and former model, to Tatler magazine (via SassyBella)
The British Trade Union Conference has suggested that stiletto heels should be banned at workplaces in the United Kingdom. While I’m not more on Team Ballet Flat than Team Stiletto, I’m not usually interested in creating office dress codes. This one, though, is kind of interesting - the proposal isn’t about telling women how to dress and imposing gender norms on them, it’s about, oddly, making them comfortable.
From their proposal:
The motion, tabled by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, states: “Congress believes high heels may look glamorous on the Hollywood catwalks but are completely inappropriate for the day-today working environment.
“Feet bear the brunt of daily life, and for many workers prolonged standing, badly fitted footwear, and in particular high heels can be a hazard. Around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders.
“Many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code.
“More must be done to raise awareness of this problem so that women workers and their feet are protected.”
While I don’t think banning high heels outright is necessarily the way to go, I do like that they don’t put all the blame on women - I have several female friends who work in offices where high heels are mandatory, and this is a ridiculous, outdated idea put in place by male bosses who want women to conform to a certain visual standard. I think the Congress makes the excellent point that this silly request from some companies is actually really harmful to womens’ health in the meantime.