| “ | No article of clothing has been more taken for granted than the humble sock, and yet, throughout history, language and customs it seems to have been an important part of everyday life. After all, warm dry feet have a lot to do with the overall quality of life as we know it. Do any of the following sound familiar? Knock the socks off of. Put a sock in it. Socking away money. Measured in your stocking feet.
-- A Brief History of Socks… http://www.crofters.org/personal%20essays/history%20socks.htm |
Blue Jeans: a fashion tidbit
Blue jeans, originally a sign of the working class and of the farmer, were adopted by the hippies of the 1960s in attempt to associate themselve with the underprivileged. Mainstream culture assimilated this visual symbol of hippie counter culture by way of designer jeans.
One Carson Kressley tip for stylish living is If you can’t see it, you won’t use it (InStyle November 2005). Carson says,
“Make sure clothes and shoes are visibly stored. This may mean editing, or installing a closet system – I love my California Closets closet! – so you can see what you have. When your closet is organized and your checkbook is balanced, you can rule the world!”.
A big part of displaying your clothes is having them clean. How many times do you “have nothing to wear” simply because you haven’t done laundry in a week or two? Or how many times have you gotten home from a shopping trip to try on your new clothes with your old ones and half of your closet is at the cleaners or in the dirty clothes hamper? Ugh! I don’t like doing laundry, but I really don’t like it when dirty laundry gets in my way.
So here are some tips for washing clothes faster and more efficiently, as well as some ways to remind yourself to pick up the laundry from the cleaners.
Wash Clothes Faster and more Efficiently
Have a Plan
Are you going to wash clothes once a week clothes washing or wash a load everyday? Pick your plan of attack and stick with it. The less clothing you have to wash the better off you are washing clothes once a week because you will have larger loads, meaning you will be able to wash more for your time. Gather all of your materials (Coat hangers, Sweater Drying Rack, Dirty Clothes: strip bed(s), gather dirty towels, empty hampers).
Typically clothes take longer to dry than to wash. Therefore, use a timer to avoid the risk of leaving clothes in the washer and forgetting about them (if you are doing just two loads at a time). Wash load, switch load to dry, set timer for 30 minutes, when timer goes off, wash another load, set timer for 15 minutes, when timer goes off – fold the clothes, switch load to dry.
Plan something to do while the clothes wash: tidy the laundry room or adjacent rooms. Listen to music or podcasts while folding clothes.
Help others that live with you avoid ruining your clothing- Post a list (like this one) of clothing that is Dry Clean Only or must be line dried. Act like the list is a reminder for yourself so as not to come across as the anal control-freak.
- Designate a convenient spot for the dry cleaning: a shopping bag or box works well. If dry cleaning never makes it to the dirty clothes hamper, then it is less likely to end up in the washing machine.
- Don’t forget that accidents happen.
Professionally Fold Your Clothes
Watch this hilarious, yet helpful video on how to professionally fold clothes. If you need more instruction on the Japanese folding, try this video; it’s actually in Japanese! And if you are totally anal like myself, you can learn how to make that cool cardboard folding ‘machine’ by watching this video
How to Remind Yourself to pick up the Dry Cleaning- Leave a voice mail for yourself on home or work phone as you are dropping off dry cleaning
- When you get the voice mail either make a cell phone reminder or make a note to enter cell phone reminder
- You can setup a reminder on your cell phone or you can use a reminder system, like the one provided by BackPack. Here’s how to make a cell phone reminder:
- go to backpackit.com & login
- go to the Reminders tab
- enter “Pick up Dry Cleaning” in the field provided
- Enter a time—estimate when you will be going past your cleaners.
- Go to settings. Check Have reminders and calendar notifications via... cell phone.
- Enter your number and service provider.
- You will receive a text message with the text you entered at the time you specified.
I’m sure many of you have some great laundry tips. Please share! Happy Washing.
“If you’ve ever been to American Apparel and been disappointed that they didn’t have the extra small mini skirt, this song is for you…”
— They Shoot Hipsters, Don’t They? Attractive Eighties Women
| “ | Larry King asks about Iraq. Naturally. There is a scurry in the dim back corridors of his studio. (His producers are proud of him.) Television is the box in which we hope to capture our religious needs. Here is shame! Here is redemption! Don’t you understand, Mr. King? I am Iraq. This flesh, this pearlescent lipstick, the bundling of my bosom under secret snaps and fabrics. Every war is fought for virgins, for delusions of the innocent made corruptible. I am the daughter of the president of the United States of America, the sweet nexus of all imperial pornography. If you dream of defiling me, sir (as you do), war must be made on the barbarians.
-- Steve Almond |
The Muse Project
What is a muse? What does a muse do? Our very fascination with fashion muses is bizarre at best, narcissistic at worst. My general aim in researching muses is to better understand some common denominators of inspiration, rather than showing how one actually becomes a muse.
Do artists and designers simply copy a muse’s sense of style? Or does the pair collaborate? Are some muses muses of the masses? Or is the designer’’s muse the figure ultimately capable of changing what styles make it to the runway and retail outlets?
The Muses
- Audrey Hepburn
- Jackie Kennedy
- Vivien Leigh
- Edie Sedgwick
- Amanda Harlech
- Diana Princess of Wales
- Lisa Eisner
- Victoire de Castellane
- Charla Carter
- Amanda Brooks
- Charlotte Gainsbourg
- Carine Roitfeld
- Isabella Blow
- Sophia Coppola
I am sure there are more muses out there.
Email me their name (or links to muse-related posts or sites), and I will add here.
♠
“Abstract: Previous studies have shown that Dickinson used dress metaphorically in her poetry, but this study reads fashion as a cultural artifact and economic index of nineteenth-century women’s lives. Examined here most particularly are Dickinson’s letters to Susan Gilbert Dickinson and other female correspondents, which use dress to present the self and concomitantly to develop a rich frame of reference to the female body.”
Wardrop, Daneen 1952- The Body’s Body: Dickinson’s Fashions and Amplitude The Emily Dickinson Journal – Volume 14, Number 2, Fall 2005, pp. 34-47
| “ | “And so at the end dead Kevin Spacey starts talking about how every moment ever is pure rapture. And how we all couldn’t understand how great it is. You could hear screenwriters masturbating. Now every time I see a plastic bag on the street I think, is that the most beautiful thing in the world? And it is not. No plastic bag has ever been the most beautiful thing in the world. Do you know how much of an asshole you’d need to be to even think that in the first place?” “So what is? Most beautiful?”
-- ftrain.com |
I used to look at Marylin photos all of the time. All of the sites that I bookmarked of Marylin photos have vanished. Thank god for the way back machine.
