First Concert

Read more about the challenge here. My first real concert was actually the concert to end all concerts of the mid 90s: Hanson and Backstreet Boys. I went with my mom and my sister. My first real concert that I really wanted to go to was Korn in 2000. I was in 8th grade and it was at the Allstate Arena. It was a stadium show. I've got a few blurry photos from that day, which I included in this post.

Mindless Self Indulgence opened. At the time they were a no-name band. And they were TERRIBLE. The audience was doing whatever they could to boo them off the sage (me included). To the band's credit, the went on playing and told us they didn't care if we thought they sucked. Here's a song from Frankenstein Girls, the album they were promoting at the time, released just a month earlier.

Moonstones

Ah, beautiful moonstones. This is a post about moonstones. 

I was blown away by these stones when I saw this piece at the Met Museum (the white stones are moonstones). The jewelry designer is Rene Lules Lalique, a master at art nouveau. art nouveau jewelry often used this stone.

10 facts about my wardrobe/current dissatisfaction

Read more about the Goth challenge here.

So, a few years ago, I moved to NYC from Chicago. I'm sure you've heard of the 3rd world living conditions here. When I first moved here, I lived in a 1-bedroom apartment with 2 other room mates. I only brought one suitcase. Even then, I had to store my shit in the roach-infested kitchen cupboards. So, needless to say, my once-fabulous wardrobe has been reduced to almost nothing. And then, I got bedbugs and had to throw out everything once again. NYC can be a terrible place.

1. Since the One Suitcase and the bedbugs, I've been slowly rebuilding. Amazingly, I don't even miss most of the stuff I've thrown out.

2. I still don't have a lot of room or a clothing-centered closet. My one closet is being used to store books and other things. I've got one shitty IKEA drawer set, which broke immediately and I can't afford to get a new one. Most of my clothes hang on a clothing rack (see pic) or are in boxes. There isn't even room in my apartment to have another one of these clothing racks.

3. Because of the space condition, I have to be REALLY careful about what I buy. I have to really think about fast fashion:

 I don't know how many times I went shopping and was like "what a nice shirt, but it's cut funny or see through. Well, I'll just wear something underneath! or over!" No way... I can't do that. i never, ever buy "layering" items. you're forced to increase your wardrobe like 3X!

4. Again, space condition: Everything is categorized by season. Every season, I store the stuff I won't wear and take out season-appropriate stuff. While most people do this in the summer and winter (or never), I do this every 3 months.

5. I've thrown out boxes of accessories. Really... they were my vice for my entire life until I moved here. Gloves, jewelry, garters, scarves, hats, hair clips, wigs/extensions, other hair stuff, cosmetics... clubbing accessory stuff like cigarette holders, cases, horns, bags, belts, harnesses. Today, I only actively buy rings (they are small) and earrings/body jewelry (also small).  I used to LOVE the cyberpunk look, but it was so wig/accessory heavy, that I sadly just can't do it ever again. No space for it.

6. Again, space issue: I have to buy clothes that will fit for both work and fun. No space for two separate wardrobes.

7. That being said, I DO end up buying some clubwear-only stuff. They take up valuable room, but lol, i live a LITTLE sometimes...

8. I don't sew anymore. sewing requires fabric...fabric requires storing.

9. Most of my current clothing is from Century 21, Beacon's Closet (both HIGHLY recommended if you ever come to NYC), and American Apparel.

10. I prefer to buy skirts and loose clothing, cause you might get a couple extra wears out of them before you need to wash them. On a similar note, the long skirt/cropped shirt look is insanely practical for me right now. Small things=easy to hand wash. Skirts=don't need to wash as often. Maybe not a big deal for people who live with a washing machine, but when you've got to climb a bunch of stairs and head down the block with a big bag of laundry... it kinda does.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Still in my cyberpunk nostalgia phase. I used to live and breathe it--sci fi with a dark twist, heavy on the cybernetic implants and hacking and virtual reality. Of course cyberpunk as a genre is dead now--current technology has pretty caught up to the cyberpunk world. Even the shady technological dealings of corporations-as-government are kind of going on right now (see: PRISM).

Neuromancer, by William Gibson, is probably the most famous cyberpunk novel. I personally loved Gibson's novels--his characters are always so awesome. And, lol, he always spent so much time describing their outfits....which were also awesome. Everyone's favorite, femme fatale Molly Millions had mirror shade cybernetic implants for enhanced vision and retractable claws.

Cyber/Mirror dress

Red and Black Week: Recap

Well, it's the final day. First, my trademark red-lip look which is red mac lipstick with Tony and Tina superfine glitter (I don't even know if they're around anymore...I bought the thing like, omg, ten years ago) it's amazingly sparkly... like a hologram or drag queen. 

But mostly, I wanted to recap this week, since I won't be blogging tomorrow. Sorry for the entries that haven't posted yet.

Red and Black: Big Bar

So, for today, I'm going to move away from fashion/beauty to offer a--surprise!--bar review. Stay with me. This is for Big Bar in NYC. What kind of bar is Big Bar? well, from yelp:

Don't be mistaken by the name, Big Bar is tiny.  Surprisingly, it was fairly empty when we stopped by Saturday night but it filled up shortly before we took off on a quest for our next destination. 

No frills. One beer on tap.

Big Bar is nothing you'd stop in your tracks for.  You would not think twice about this bar.  It is: Unnotable, Unimportant, Easily Overlooked

EXCEPT for one thing: the RED lights everywhere, coloring EVERYTHING in red and black (full size of the place, btw):

Red and Black Week: editorial

So, here's the editorial I shot (see you do get outfit posts from me!) and edited for Red&Black week, inspired by people filming their analog TVs and putting them up on youtube for pirating or whatever. I love the distortion that you get when you photograph an analog tv. I wanted to do it with my tv, but couldn't think of a way to get my digital camera photos on the tv. I finally burned a disk, hoping to get it to work on my ps2, but of course, at that moment my ps2 stopped working. 

So, analog tv lines come to you courtesy of Photoshop pattern layer. there's black lines and a separate lined hue pattern to create that color "buzzing" effect. Also increased the contrast. Not like the real thing, but whatever.

Red and Black Week: Red, Black, White

So, today's post is Red, Black, and White. Now, I'm not sure how to say this, but for some reason I could NOT think of a decent way to combine these three colors in a way that looks good on me. I don't know if it's my attitude or body type or what...but this color combination just looks wrong on me. But I'm a team player, so here are two looks of mine, red black and white:

gah photoshop of horrors... sorry guys. forgive me.

Red and Black Week: Nails

Continues! This post is dedicated to nails. As you may or may not know, I'm a huge nail person. So, here's my nails for this week. I used Konad m71 for the lace design and some craft store red crystal. The red is cherri berri by Nina (bought it at Sally's) and the black is Essie.  

sigh... why so blurry

Red and Black Week: intro

Welcome to red and black week. 

The colors of demons, blood+vampires, and tempresses.