So, I'm nearly finished packing all of my things for my move to college. This includes my plush Ferb doll (which matches with my best friends Phineas-she's going to Boston), my brand new Target full sized bed sheets, and every single cardigan I own (too many). The process of moving is so foreign to me. I've only ever moved twice in my life, once when I was a toddler, and another time only about three years after that. I've lived in this same city for almost 15 years now, and it's a very strange feeling to try and become accustomed to the idea of living somewhere brand new.
I will be posting a couple of blog posts about moving. One about all the things I purchased for my apartment and another that will be a haul of all the clothes I've gotten recently.
There's a part of California that has nothing. Here are some photos I took this past spring break of that nothing:
I just wanted a place to put the photos, so I decided why not here. These were taken in Spring Valley, CA, where my dad did a 50k marathon. The nature was beautiful during the two mile trek I did to meet him at a water tent, but it was so hot that my mom and I drove a car back.
xx
Liz
(PS I am by no means a professional photographer/editor of any sort. But it's a hobby that I like to engage every once in a while, because why not and it's fun to do. Professional photographers that actually understand how aperture works intimidate me)
As cliché as it sounds, I'm inspired by everything around me. When I was younger, I couldn't care less about style. I sought comfort and jackets/pants that covered my hairy arms and legs. I wore Limited Too tracksuits and Gymboree hair clips. It wasn't until middle school that I started caring so much about my appearance, that I tried to change it. I began regularly shaving my arms in the seventh grade, an experience that I remember making me feel like I was a different person. I was still insecure as fuck, but at least I could wear t-shirts without thinking everyone was glancing at my gorilla arms. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately) I was required to wear a uniform to school until I entered ninth grade. So when high school began, I had no idea what the difference was between things I liked and things that looked good on me. Now that I've sort of grown into my own, I've begun to develop a sense of style that I feel is both contemporary and eclectic. Here are a few of the inspirations behind that:
Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, and Vivien Leigh
Sexy, timeless, and talented.
Sophia Loren was often typecast as a European bombshell in her films, a sex icon that was glorified for her naturally curvy physique and sultry doe eyes. When she was first beginning in the film industry, producers and managers would tell her that she needed to get plastic surgery, because her nose was "too long." She refused and soon after began doing American movies, where she was blown up to international stardom with her beautifully ethnic features and her slight Italian accent.
Brigitte Bardot is classified in her documentary as being a "symbol of uninhibited desire." Her voluminous blonde hair and lush lips created an unforgettable appearance, only to be eroticized by her sexually fueled French films that quickly became insanely popular in America. She helped create a much more sexual theme in the movie industry that had previously been banned, with roles like sex kitten Juliete Hardy in ...And God Created Woman and estranged wife Camille Javal in Contempt.
Vivien Leigh is most popular and well known for her role in Gone With the Wind as the saucy, incredibly charming Scarlet O' Hara. She is remembered for being an insanely beautiful woman, often times being referred to as the most beautiful woman in cinema.
Leigh's public affair with Laurence Olivier catapulted her sex appeal; their erotic letters to each other proved she was an undeniably alluring temptress. Olivier was obsessed with her. He wrote "I woke up absolutely raging with desire for you my love...Oh dear God how I did want you. Perhaps you were stroking your darling self...I am sitting naked with just my parts wrapped in your panties. My longing for you is so intense."
Other Golden Age bombshells of inspiration are Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland and Grace Kelly.
Style from this era almost nearly created contemporary. The big luscious hair and the bright mod colors created a canvas for future style. Often times when I find myself struggling to achieve any type of look, I go to the past for inspiration.
xx
Liz
(Next I will feature modern style that inspires me, beginning with Brooke Shields' Calvin Klein commercials and settling into the era of bold brows and Instagram iPhone shoots)
Angelina Jolie very publicly got a preventive double mastectomy to deter her 87% chance of breast cancer, all the while promoting annual testing and check ups for women so that they too could lower their chances of getting the disease. She has been visiting refugee camps and working as a committed ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the past 14 years. In fact, every time she visits the camps, she pays out of her own pocket and lives in the same condition as other field staff members. She works closely as an advocate for bettering the lives of child immigrants, even creating schools around the middle east in places such as Afghanistan and Kenya, where one young female student, named Naomi Chol, actually happened to possess the highest rank in her academic region. (The story of Chol is an incredible one detailed in this UNHCR article. "I want to be a neurosurgeon. I love science, and I know there aren't many female neurosurgeons in the region, but I believe in myself.")
While accomplishing these amazing feats, Jolie Pitt has had the time to get married, honeymoon in France, and film/write a feature film By the Sea.
The Academy Award winner set the film in the 70's with the main characters, Vanessa, a retired dancer, played by her, and Roland, a writer, played by her husband Brad Pitt, staying in an extravagantly beautiful French resort. Not much comes out of the trailer, either than the visible crumbling of the characters marriage and scenic clips of the Mediterranean coast in Malta.
The style of the movie is very much posh with a subtle undertone of bohemian. Jolie Pitts curled blonde tresses are shiny, but messily styled. Loose, day old looking waves frame her face, creating the appearance of a housewife in near derailment with shots of her gasping, crying, and screaming in the trailer.
It seems as if she plays another powerful character with a voice crippling itself to be heard, as in Clint Eastwood's Changeling and the film that sent her into stardom and acclamation: Girl, Interrupted. When you go through her filmography, you find that she plays her characters with passionate vulnerabilities and a strong willed determination. From super spy Evelyn Salt in Salt to drug addicted supermodel Gia Carangi in the biopic Gia. Her characters have stories to tell and aren't just some sort of twist on manic pixie love tales. They are real and raw and emotional and don't always have happy endings.
In middle school, a book that was in our reading curriculum was True Women, a large novel written by Janice Woods Windle. It told the true story of the author's heritage featuring women that lived in Texas during the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era. From what I can remember Windle visited our school for a chat on the book and the television movie that was developed for it. I think she had her husband or son there with her, but I really can't remember who the man was that was telling us this story about one of the leading actresses in the film: Angelina Jolie.
The man told us how she was so passionate about the character that she was playing, Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods, that she asked to visit the grave that the real Georgia was buried in, with the author of the book and this man. When they drove there, she kneeled on the ground of the gravesite and simply sat there, with her eyes closed, feeling through the grass and dirt. She didn't say anything for a while, before she finally asked to go back with them to the set.
I'm not entirely sure if this story is 100% true, but I do know that I believe it. There are certain things that just sort of stick with you over time no matter what, and the image of Angelina Jolie crouched in a cemetery, feeling through mounds of dirt to connect to her character, is one of them for me.
A lot happened in the month of July. From my boyfriend visiting for the 4th of July to my visiting Austin, Texas to my best friends 18th birthday party. And each major event, or even casual encounter, had it's moments that made this month as great as it was. July is the middle of summer, the Saturday before August's end of the weekend, and I tried to live this month as exciting as I could. Here are a couple of things that I enjoyed most these past 30 days.
Beauty Products
Wet n Wild "I'm getting sunburned" eyeshadow palette-I had an impulsive decision to buy a bunch of drugstore makeup one day at my local Albertson's, and this is one of the only products I didn't regret buying. The colors in this palette really brought out the light in my brown eyes and made the natural honey hues pop. Sometimes I would just swipe on the gold eyelid color and leave it like that or I would just swipe the pink browbone all over my eye for a natural 70's vibe. All of the colors look like this when applied together (please pretend I did tweeze my eyebrows; I know I need to get them done, they're starting to look crazy)
For longer lasting color, you can use an eyeshadow primer and a nude base color so that your eye veins are covered and you have a blank canvas to work on. I tend to like the way my natural lid color is, so I usually just quickly pat on some shadow and messily swipe eyeliner. I love the way people's natural dark eyes look, under eye bags, veins, and everything. (A couple of weeks ago I actually tweeted how much I loved Kim Kardashian's haunting look she has when she isn't wearing any makeup. Then a few days later, she premiered her Vogue Spain cover and spread that featured her with no makeup. I'm still insanely proud of my random clairvoyentness.)
Clinique Moisture Surge Intense Skin Fortifying Hydrator-I have actually been using this product since I got it from a promotional giveaway that Clinique was having when you spent more than a certain amount of money. The giveaway came with a tiny eyeshadow palette, lip balm, this cream, some BB cream, etc. Now that the heat has settled where I live, my skin tends to get a bit dry. I actually have oily skin naturally, so I tend to stray away from using moisturizer even though you're supposed to use it regardless. This one however doesn't make my skin more oily and it also doesn't need reapplication or cause my makeup to fade.
Wet n Wild natural blend lip shimmer-This tinted balm has been my lifesaver this past month. I have naturally very pale lips that are sometimes almost white. I always need a pop of color in my lips just to add a little color on my face and prevent me from looking sickly. I believe this is the color "Berry", however, the color I thought it was is not the color it comes out as. It is a bit lighter than the color I thought it would be and comes out more like a dark pink than the kirsch red I thought it would be.
Entertainment
The Mist by Stephen King-I actually borrowed this novella from my boyfriend and read it while I was on my way home from Austin. It was completely entrancing, though it started off a bit dull. I hate that I love open endings. I think it adds more to the novel when it has an end that is uncertain, even though I end up reading a bunch of other peoples opinion online on it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde-I haven't finished this book yet, so maybe it doesn't count for this month. But so far I have been thoroughly enjoying it. The first page of the book actually has a photo of Wilde before his trials. I had never known that the playwright had been imprisoned, so I ended up doing a Google search and came across articles about how he had a sexual relationship with another man that he went to prison for. It's an interesting fact to know when reading the book and hearing Basil speak so lovingly and obsessively over his friend Dorian Gray.
Monika Blunder-I love watching makeup tutorials with professional makeup artists creating the look. (Don't get me wrong I love any good makeup look, but there's something professional and clean about seeing the inspiration for the makeup actually sitting right there getting it put on their face.) I've been watching a lot of Blunder's makeup tutorials where she shows the exact products that she uses for celebrities and models in both magazines and premieres.
Don't Trust the B**** in Apt. 23-I always used to see the commercials for this show on my TV whenever I was watching something else. I thought it looked stupid and had a stupid name and stupid looking characters. After giving into the recommendations on Netflix, however, I realized that it was a lighthearted, adventurous show that brought light about important topics in a joking manner but still managed to never take itself too seriously. Not to mention, I am obsessed with Chloe (Krysten Ritter) in this show and her cool, "It Girl" persona.
Almost Famous-I thought this movie had a boring tagline on Netflix and even though there are dozens of high critical reviews on it, I didn't care to watch. That was until I saw a tweet about David Bowie being a pedophile, and I became interested in Lori Maddox and the "Baby Groupies" that several rock stars had apparently had sexual relationships with. One article from bitchtopia.com mentioned the theme of underage fans in the film Almost Famous. When I skimmed this particular page, I became even more interested in the concept of groupies and decided to watch the film. I was a bit disappointed that it didn't really go into more details about the ethical issues of Russell Hammond having sex with an underage girl, but I understand that that wasn't what the film was supposed to be about. It was an interesting inside look to the 70s and the pop culture involved in maintaing rock stars image.
Miscellaneous
Makeup Genius app-I was watching Good Morning America when one of the features on the show introduced this app, created by L'Oréal, where your camera scans your face so you can test different makeup products without actually having to buy them or put them on your face. The camera follows the features of your face and still keeps the makeup look on, even when you're widening your eyes, closing them, pursing your lips, or opening them wide.
I hope that I didn't forget anything that I've really been enjoying this month, but if I have, I'll be sure to edit it back in. Hopefully the month of August is even greater!
