In an ode to bankrupt ideals, South Korean fashion label Lewitt commissioned a short film (now yanked from every site I checked) that featured model Abbey Lee Kershaw fleeing from an unidentified danger and throwing herself off a roof. She is then shown falling over and over, in slow motion, wearing a different outfit with each fall. It’s done in a dreamy, romanticized way that is supposed to evoke a sense of “Ohh I want that”.

The problems with this are many fold. First, it is another attempt by the fashion industry to glamorize violence against women… again. Somehow this poor waif-like creature who commits suicide to escape whatever peril she is in, is supposed to be envied because she’s wearing must-have outfits. Hmm yes I want to wear what a dead woman is wearing – tres chic! We’ve seen this over and over in the past. The most egregious was the “murder as fashion” segment of an America’s Top Model episode.

Second, in doing a bit of research before hitting the keyboard, I discovered South Korea has the 8th highest suicide rate in the world, the second highest (just a hair under Mainland China) in female suicides. You would think, or hope, a company from a country rocked by numerous high profile suicides – including one of the country’s top models, Daul Kim – would show just a bit more common sense. Compassion is never going to happen, common sense is all we can hope for.

Daul Kim’s sad death at the age of 20 seems to have no effect on the people who treat women like nothing more than cattle ready for the slaughter. The fashion industry is not solely responsible for Kim’s death in Nov 2009; she was haunted by many demons that were aggravated by her career. Nor are they solely responsible for the high rate of suicide within South Korea. HOWEVER, they do bear responsibility for exploiting women and creating monumentally unrealistic visions of beauty that push girls and women to extremes to meet this phantom of beauty. The unending stream of warped images from the advertising and fashion industry must have an effect. We can’t simply say don’t watch them or worse don’t pay attention to them because this is hopelessly naive.

Blog after blog exposes the over photo-shopped models who have had limbs moved into positions that are anatomically impossible, breasts air brushed away (or in one case moved so low they were sitting just above the poor woman’s navel), thinned so badly the women look like sick bobble heads, belly buttons removed (just what is the industry’s obsession with belly buttons?), elongating arms and legs to the point the women resemble something out of a sci-fi movie, fingers elongated to such an extreme I wonder if the people doing the work even know what a female body looks like. If they want clothes hangers, stop the hypocrisy and put the damned clothes on hangers. Stop redesigning the human body to suit these warped views, and start showing women that come in all shapes, all sizes.

The industry bears a great responsibility for exploiting the notion that violence and fear is glamorous. That somehow brutalizing the vulnerable and weak is acceptable, even envied. I’ve used the term bankrupt ideals before, but it is the only phrase that can fully explain an industry that celebrates self-abuse and violence. No other industry would get away with promoting this type of agenda. Why do they get away with it? Because the world idolizes everything the industry does. They are the neo-gods of the modern world. Legions of magazines drool over every design, and quote even the most inane blatherings from designers who live in a world where they can abuse the female image and be rewarded for their efforts. They seemed to have forgotten Hubert de Givenchy’s statement on fashion, “The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.”

We’ve endured “heroin chic”, size zero or go home, designers who show open contempt for the female body in their battle against “plus size” models, murder as a fashion statement and now this. When is enough, enough?

There is nothing wrong with wanting tall, willowy models to showcase your work. There is something wrong with photo-shopping the models until they look like they are about to die from malnutrition or redo their bodies to suit a perverse image of what they think the female body should be. There is something wrong with using violence and emotional desperation to sell a warped image of beauty. There is something wrong with an industry that hectors it’s employees (and yes models are employees) to such an extent that anorexia and bulimia are the bywords for employment.

A remedial course in anatomy should be mandatory before anyone is allowed to work in either the fashion industry or advertising (kissing cousins in maintaining high standards of stupidity). This won’t happen until the world stops treating everything the fashion industry does with such reverence. They are employers who exploit their workers and their audience.

Suicide in South Korea
Frockwriter’s blog on the subject
Photoshop Disasters blog they spotlight the entire advertising industry’s misuse of over-touching photos.

I’ve been pondering what the new faith will be called. I’m thinking of Church of the Holy Vespa. Rather a nice ring to it, eh? With each donation you will get a photo of a Vespa, with a baddly scribbled drawing of a cat riding it. If you are the first 100 faithful, then I’ll bestow upon you the title of “Vespa Supplicant”, which allows you the privilege of purchasing your own robes, in tasteful red or green, and wander the land begging for more alms for the Holy Vespa. My scooter will be our holy grail of sorts.

What do you think? … hmmm wonder if i can tax exempt status for this.

Party Rats

What? You haven’t heard of Party Rats! You’re kidding, right? They’re the best thing to happen to partying since the mirror ball. People of all ages are putting these colorful, plastic, rodent lights on their fingers and waving their hands in the air like they just don’t care. Each 1-3/4″ long rat sends out a different colored beam of light, allowing you to create your own personal light show! Also great for the latest computer craze, night blogging! Five rats in each package. Batteries included.

Best thing since the mirror ball? Well ALL RIGHT! I can’t imagine a party without my tacky, outdated mirror ball.  Just think how cool I’m going to look with little multicoloured plastic rat lights on my fingers. My friends are going to be soooo envious.  And just think, I can type on my blog at night now that I have rats on my fingers!

Might I suggest, if you are having trouble typing at night you try this inovative idea: turn on a light.

Beautiful People touts itself as a dating service for the the good looking. Look up the words shallow, vain and idiotic and you will see this website as the entry. Here is a snippet from their website:

• Do looks matter to you, when it comes to selecting a partner?
• Do you want to guarantee your dates will always be beautiful?
• No more filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites
• Meet beautiful people locally and from around the world – now

Oh and in case you think you are “Too ugly to sign up” the owners will let you ‘browse” the beautiful people, I guess to rub our collective noses in what we are missing. What noblesse oblige! I couldn’t help but break out in spasms of laughter over the incredibly juvenile attitude of the site. Nice to know some people think high school cliques are the height of social evolution! Now I have no problem with the notion that looks influence our choices, but to base an entire relationship on being “beautiful” is begging for disaster.

But the last laugh came today. Evidently far too many of the beautiful folks gained a bit of weight over the holidays and were purged from the the site. Approximately 5,000 former perfect people were turfed because they had the nerve to “let themselves go” over the holidays. Now… I can’t help wondering how the owners of the site knew this already. Christmas decorations have barely been put away yet, the gods of Beautiful People were able to peer in their crystal ball and see how much weight each person has gained. Did the offenders boast about their Christmas fat? Are they being spied upon? Or is this just another bit of silly headline grabbing on the part of the desperately shallow?

I think all the “ugly” people in the world should flood the site with applications. Keep the silly gits busy filtering out we imperfect sorts. Maybe we can sign up with the same pictures and see if they even notice. Now that would be fun.

The Back-Up, a racking system for any legal size shotgun, keeps the firearm fixed securely to the side of the owner’s bed facilitating easy access for protection against home invasion….The truth is, with The Back-Up shotgun racking system, homeowners are able to access their firearms in just a few seconds – even while in bed. Fitting easily between the mattress and box springs, The Back-Up cannot be felt while sleeping and can remain concealed by bedding.

Just what I want for Christmas, a rack for my shotgun so it’s always handy… just perfect for shooting my foot off in the middle of the night. Or worse, the cat or dog… I wonder how many spouses are maimed because some trigger happy goofball mistook the wife/husband going to the bathroom for a burglar. I don’t know about you, but if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m not qualified to find my way to the bathroom let alone wield a loaded weapon. I can just smell disaster with this Christmas present.

One of the big selling points for The Back-Up is the fact you can use your shotgun because it is sooo much better at hitting something than an itty bitty handgun. After all with a handgun you have to make a pretense of aiming – a shotgun can spread carnage over such a larger area.

Hmmm it’s corrosion resistant… just how much rain do you get in the average bedroom?

Now… tell me … does that look like a big toe floating in a bottle? It does to me… Try as I might, I can’t figure out what the design is supposed to be, I just can’t get past the toe-in-bottle image. I suppose it’s supposed to be a reflection of some sort, but nope, still see an amputated toe in a fancy bottle, no matter how I turn the image around. Anyone have an idea as to what this is supposed to represent?