Re: Happy Blogday to Me!

Photo by Gordon Parks taken March 03, 1950. From the Life Photo Archive found on the Google search engine site.

I can hardly believe it, but my little blog is one year old this month. Ah, it seems like just yesterday when I first started making the clickety-clicks on the keyboard and now here we are, still going and still growing.
Time for a little housekeeping. As you may recollect, I ran an entry on Fashion in Politics in which I made mention of the Sarah Palin wardrobe scandal that garnered a lot of airtime during this past presidential election. According to Ken Vogel of Politico.com, the final auditing has been done and Republican National Committee has disclosed that it paid $173,000 for clothes for Palin and her family. No followup on what happened to the outfits afterward. The total was $23,000 less than initially thought, but that’s still a freakin’ great wad of cash. No word on whether any jobs were created by the RNC “stimulus spending”.

Here are some cool costume items that don’t fall into a overall category, but which I was very taken with, nevertheless:

Star Trek corset by EveningArwen, posted on Etsy.com. Follow this link to see other photos of this great costume piece.

This fabulous Red Rose coat was made by ejacqui and posted on Craftster.org. Follow this link to see other photos and read more about the construction. She actually made all those roses by hand.

Re: Halloween 2008 Wrap-Up

Halloween, the costumers’ bestest holiday of all, has come to an end and now it’s time to highlight some of the most original and innovative costumes that appeared during the 2008 season. I’ve mixed in some photos from the July 2008 ComicCon because I thought they would have made great Halloween costumes.

Cruella DeVille by saucy dragonfly (Flickr)

Saucy Dragonfly made this inspired Cruella DeVille costume by banding together a number of Dalmatian beany babies and then fastening them to her Dalmatian-print stole. Definitely the hostess with the mostess.

Lego Guys from the 2008 ComicCon held in San Diego, CA.

Click here to check out some more great costumes from 2008 ComicCon which was held in San Diego, CA. Although there are some very elaborate and detailed costumes, the best ones, in my opinion, consist of a simple concept well-executed. Much like these Lego Guys seen above.

Rock me, Sexy Jesus T-shirt wearers (Hamlet 2). 2008 ComicCon, San Diego, CA. Taken by San Diego Shooter on (Flickr)

Never underestimate the power of a bad wig and a snappy slogan T-shirt to make a great group costume.

Sarah Palin by mjkmjk (Flickr)

When the presidential election is held so close to Halloween, political costumes are certain to be popular. The one above, however, is definitely THE most disturbing Sarah Palin costume I have ever seen.

War hero McCain taken by jmtimages in Austin, TX (Flickr)

Nice combination of political mask and sailor suit, playing on McCain’s service as a Naval aviator.

Zombie Sarah Palin by alicia rae (Flickr)

Rumors of in-fighting between the McCain-Palin camps failed to convey the full horror of the experience. Extra points here for innovative use of plastic McCain mask. Can’t go wrong with zombies, I always say.

Shrek & Fiona, 2008 ComicCon, San Diego, CA

Nicely done re-creation of Shrek and Fiona from the animated movies of the same name. The key to doing a well-done movie costume is to choose a character whose body type most closely resembles your own. Extra points here for comfort. Both of these outfits look like they would by easy to wear during a long day at the convention.

Chainsaw Guy, 2008 ComicCon, San Diego, CA

Wear this costume and you will ALWAYS get to the front of the line.

Tie Fighter Guys, 2008 ComicCon, San Diego, CA

A couple of cardboard panels, hoodies, and blue jeans. Sheer genius!

Some costumes are so impressive that they deserve a web page all to themselves. Click here to see Ninkybink’s mini-skirted Marie Antoinette costume on Craftster.

I was particularly impressed by the shoes.

If you’re a fan of Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” urban fantasy series, you’ll want to take a look at Jim’s first Halloween costume contest winners here. A word of warning: you need to have read the books in order to totally appreciate the costumes.

Re: Let Them Eat Cake

The political blogs are all abuzz with the latest news that the Republican National Committee purchased $150,000 worth of clothes for Governor Sarah Palin and her family. According to Gov. Palin, she wore the high-end togs for only three days which works out to $50,000 per day by my reckoning. [Note: The campaign claims that one-third of the clothes were returned, but that still adds up to about $33,000 per day]. The blogosphere tends to be split between those who view “NeimanMarcusgate” as a trivial distraction from the real issues in the campaign and those who see it as further evidence that Republicans are hypocritical, elitist pigs.

Both sides miss the kernel of truth at the heart of the kerfluffle–that what politicians wear sends a message and that politicians–male and female–are acutely aware of this. In “Fashion is Political”, Robin Givhan, fashion editor for the Washington Post, is interviewed by the International Museum of Women and has a number of insightful things to say on the subject. Check out Givhan’s audio slideshow, “Campaigning in Style”,  where she analyzes the fashion choices of the Democratic and Republican primary candidates.

Male attire has remained essentially unchanged since the 19th century so male fashion choices are much more subtle and easier to miss. That sometimes makes it difficult to decide why a look seems to work for one male candidate and not another. For example, John Edwards may have started off as the son of a millworker, but he’s a millionaire lawyer now so it seemed very out of place for him to dress as a blue collar worker during the Democratic primary. Rudy Giuliani’s three-piece-suit, tie, overcoat, and gloves mark him as a political boss of the Tammany Hall variety–a guy who can schmooze easily at the neighborhood block party, but who also knows where all the bodies are buried and has probably helped bury a few himself. Like women, male candidates have to walk a tightrope between appearing accessible to electorate (“one of you”) and appearing professional and authoritative.

So what exactly do Sarah’s new clothes reveal about her? David Letterman has his own take. To me, the choice made by the Republican National Committee to shell out $150,000 for new clothes for their vice-presidential candidate says that the RNC is perfectly willing to fritter away the donors’ money. People who contributed money to the Republican cause gave it because they wanted to defeat pinko socialist Democrats, not to enrich the Red Chinese so that Gov. Palin could have another mandarin-collared jacket. One hundred and fifty thou could have bought dozens of “Zombies for McCain” buttons or several witches on broomsticks to sky-write “Surrender Obama” over Democratic campaign rallies–legitimate political expenditures . If the Republicans can’t be trusted to use their donors’ money properly, how can they be trusted with the taxpayers’ money?

The McCain strategy was clearly to present Gov. Palin as Everywoman, but it didn’t follow through on that political message by echoing it in her wardrobe choices. If Sarah is just an average hockey mom running for office, then shouldn’t she be seen wearing T-shirts, sweatshirts, and turtlenecks like she wore when she ran for governor?  If she’s a representative of small town America, then why are her clothes coming from snobby, elitist East Coast institutions like Saks Fifth Avenue? If she’s the populist outsider running against the politics-as-usual, Armani-wearing D.C. insiders, then why isn’t she wearing blue jeans instead of designer suits?  The lack of consistency undermines the political points the campaign is trying to make.

Bottom line: You can’t go around claiming that you’re just one of the peasants if you’re dressing like Marie Antoinette.

Re: Put It On Your Chest

Was there ever a piece of clothing designed to convey what’s on our minds like the slogan T-shirt? For this post–and because there’s no escape from election coverage–I sampled the zeitgeist of the nation via Zazzle.com, a design-your-own T-shirt shop. For the record, I picked out T-shirts that I thought were especially well-done and/or imaginative. I left out those I deemed to be racist, sexist, or insulting–and it was appalling to see how many of them there were. In my completely unscientific sample,  I detected what appeared to be a larger ratio of Democrat to Republican T-shirts which may reflect the hotly contested Democratic primary.

If you were going just by the T-shirts on display, you could be forgiven for thinking that the presidential race was between Barack Obama and Gov. Sarah Palin. John McCain seldom gets a shirt to himself and is generally only mentioned in a very standardized way along with his running mate.  I thought the moose–again, a reference to Gov. Palin–was a nice touch.

This is one of the few McCain-alone T-shirts I was able to come across. You would think that a guy with his record would inspire more shirts, but I think the lack of designs speaks to the general lack of enthusiasm for him among Republicans in general. McCain likes to style himself, with some justification, as a lone reformer, but the thing about being an army of one is that there is no need for T-shirts for your supporters ’cause you’re on your own.

So, is it really Palin vs. Obama for the presidency? Sure looks that way. What about that other guy …what’s his name …no, not McCain ….

Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, rarely gets mentioned except when paired with his more famous running mate.

If you see pink elephants, you’ve knocked back one too many at the Republican Convention.

There are still more Barack Obama t-shirts than anything. People like to have fun with his name.

Barack is often portrayed as a revolutionary–both positively and negatively. On the positive side, Barack is seen as Dr. Martin Luther King-like figure, an inspiring social reformer. On the negative side, he’s seen as propaganda-mongering socialist–and that’s one of the nicer things that’s said. It’s a reminder that change of any kind has both its supporters and its detractors.

I like the elegance and simplicity of this design. A strong graphic that ties into his name.

It’s easy to forget that there was another candidate in the race not so long ago. Hilary and Barack were running so closely that at times it seemed like a three-way race between her, him, and McCain.

Unfortunately, Hilary came with her own unique political baggage.

And now a tribute to the power of the digital mob. Just two short weeks ago no one knew who Bristol Palin was. Now her name is on a T-shirt. More than one in fact.

My thoughts exactly.