Shopping can be hard work. How many times have you walked out of a store or clicked off a website saying, “I’ll come back later to see if it goes on sale”? And how many times have you actually remembered to go back and check? Wouldn’t life be so much easier if you had a personal shopper?

Well, now you can have your very own personal shopper with just a few clicks of the mouse. The new website, Shop It To Me, is your web-based personal shopper, helping you shop the best deals with barely any work on your part. Shopping where I can sit back and relax (and possibly even nap) and still find good bargains? Count me in! Read More »

The Setting: an American Apparel store in Brooklyn

The Characters: 2 girls, about 13 years old, and me

And, scene:

I am waiting to try on some cropped cotton pants, which will be perfect for the new gym I joined.

“Ugh, this is SO tight, I look SO fat!” says one 13 year old girl. She and her friend are occupying the only dressing rooms.

She emerges, in a backless leotard and a skin-tight mini skirt.

Her friend emerges as well, in gold lame hot pants.

“No, you look cute! I like it!”

“But like, you can see my back.”

“Yeah but it’s so cute! My ass looks huge in these,” she says, as they stand in the open dressing room, preening and posing in front of the harshly lit mirror. I am still waiting, but they don’t seem to notice, instead gazing like Narcissus at the river. How inappropriate, I think, that 13-year-old girls are trying on gold lame hot pants. Then I look around and see the life-sized photographs of underage models staring down at me. They look drugged out. They are overly sexualized. Suddenly I don’t want the pants anymore. I throw them down and leave. Read More »

The AP has picked up a news story reporting that authorities seized two display photos from an Abercrombie & Fitch store in Virginia, citing the management on “misdemeanor obscenity” charges.

Looking at the photo on the link as a twentysomething chick, I don’t see much that’s obscene about it, but it does piss me off for other reasons.

Abercrombie & Fitch has been pulling the same shit for years; their entire retail strategy consists of selling clothes through barely-clad models. Excuse me, but if I’m buying a piece of clothing, I don’t want somebody to be taking it off in the ad unless it’s a Victoria’s Secret bra.

Abercrombie, are you selling me a naked man? No? Then change your freaking advertisements. New York & Company was able to run a highly successful ad campaign last year featuring Patrick Dempsey, a known hot man, but there was one key difference: he was actually wearing clothes. Read More »

Gone are the days when you can curl up in your boyfriend’s well-worn sweatpants and favorite t-shirt. According to fashion experts, you’ll soon be curling up in his designer suit. That’s right, it seems that men are actually shopping for more than video games and Superbowl snacks–they’re actually buying clothes.

I knew I was in trouble when my ex-boyfriend, a hairy, beer-guzzling, sweats-wearing, man’s man, couldn’t shut up about the amazing sales at Macy’s last week. Sweaters and blazers and silk ties, oh my!

“It’s that post-’metrosexual’ generation. They read Men’s Vogue or Details, and it’s not considered ‘gay’ to be interested in fashion,” Michael Macko, vice president and men’s fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue told the International Herald Tribune. “Going shopping with a girlfriend is an activity like going to the movies.”

And they’re not taking cues from their fathers either—they’re looking to our favorite red-carpet men like Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake for style advice, opting for “shorter, more tightly fitted jackets; narrower lapels and skinnier pants without pleats.” Read More »

Tattoos are always an iffy subject.

They stay on you forever, something that seems awesome at 20 (skull and crossbones with flames! Sweet!) might not seem so cool at 40 (“mommy, why do you have a scary skull on your back?”), and getting them removed is a whole hell of a lot more painful than getting them done.

Plus, people tend to look at you differently if there’s permanent ink on your arm or back or stomach.

Tattoos will always be a heavily debated topic, but what if I told you the discussion was about to get a little more complicated?

Branding Tattoos, a new way for advertisers to get their product out there and for image conscious buyers to forever connect themselves with their favorite apparel or make-up line, are slowly becoming more popular in the states.

Consumers are turning away from hearts, flowers, and tribal armbands, and getting Nike and Dior etched into their skin forever. Read More »

American Apparel makes me f*cking nauseous.

Actually, let me restate that. American Apparel’s ads make me f*cking nauseous.

Their clothes are fine—if you enjoy looking like every other “non conformist” out there—but their ads are so annoying I feel the need to scream at everyone involved in making them.

It’s no news that AA enjoys exploiting the tired, probably drugged, dead-eyed look of the ubiqutious New York Hipster, but I just can’t understand how skinny, messy haired models photographed in bad lighting is supposed to make me want to buy clothes.

I guess if I was as desperate as them to be cool, saw a bunch of sluggish girls wearing one-piece bodysuits, and thought to myself, “Wearing an American Apparel bodysuit will make me so cool I’ll be bored!” I’d be likely to buy a brightly hued shirt or two.

But other than having no sense of self, I can’t understand why jaded models who look like they’re 12 would influence me to purchase anything—let alone a pair of silver lamé work-out shorts. Read More »

There is one fashion trend that I hate more than anything—more than denim skirts with Uggs, more than Crocs, even more than inappropriately tight, super low-rise jeans on women that shouldn’t be wearing them (basically, anyone besides supermodels.)

Message t-shirts.

If you’ve ever stepped foot in a mall, high school, or a club on “teen night,” you’ve probably witnessed this eye sore. What’s the big deal about words on a t-shirt? Message t-shirts are chosen deliberately and carefully, which is why I cannot forgive them.

Too-tight jeans? Maybe you’re just in denial about your muffin top.

Uggs? Perhaps you mistakenly think they look good.

Crocs? Blindness, I assume.

But message t-shirts actually anger me. What kind of girl is perusing the racks at Hot Topic and deciding that she wants to let everyone know that she is a Beer Slut? And what does that even mean? Has anyone ever received positive attention for wearing a shirt that proudly proclaims, “My Boyfriend’s Out of Town”? Read More »

Shopping for me is a pain at best, and traumatizing at worst. Unflattering lighting, three-way mirrors, and those damn stick-figure mannequins that seems to be modeled after the Olsens. It’s one thing to be jealous of impossibly thin celebrities—it’s quite another to envy the figure of a plastic, headless doll.

Well, it seems that I’m not the only one who feels this way, at least about the mannequins. The entire country of Spain agrees. The Health Ministry of Spain and major retailers like Zara and Mango have come to the agreement that the skeletal mannequins must be banned. Read More »

Apparently a group of Muslims in Malaysia are attempting to halt Gwen Stefani’s upcoming concert date. They have claimed that Gwen’s video clips promoting the event at Kuala Lumpur’s Putra Stadium on August 21 are too obscene and that the concert should be pulled all together.

There are actually 10,000 students that believe the show would clash with Asian values and more specifically Islamic. Believing that the company sponsoring the show, Maxis is responsible for exposing youth to a moral decay. Apparently Stefani is believed to contribute to the systemic erosion of morality in Malaysia when in the states we thought all she did was make great dance/rock music and design cute clothing lines.

Apparently a subject of great controversy “The Sweet Escape Tour” will not be escaping to Malaysia anytime soon. Stefani has cancelled the dates because of the stirring controversy being reported. But none the less Gwen has always been moral, never overly overtly sexual or disempowering. Read More »