Fausta’s Blog

… says Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog about the gown:

Evening. Naeem Kahn – Indian born American based designer. Oh, how clever of Lady M! “The dress is entirely handmade, requiring three weeks of work by 40 people, completed in Naeem Kahn’s family workshop in India.” So that’s another 40 jobs created or saved right there.

As you know, I have severely criticized Michelle Obama’s poor (too rich?) fashion choices and her posture.

Last night, however, Michelle Obama finally wore a beautiful dress, that fit her perfectly, was exactly proportioned for her, and the color was exactly right for her. She did not over acessorize with jewelry, and her hair was perfectly coiffed. Best yet, she managed to carry herself with the right poise and posture as the photo shows.

The Anchoress says it’s Beautiful and Well Played Mrs. O.

Let’s hope Mrs. O gives up the silly cardigans and the ridiculous ammo belts.

In other Obama news, guess who’s interviewing the Obamas for Christmas. I’m sorely tempted to take up golf instead.

But then, there’s always tango.

Sunday is Mad Men night, and here are their clothes,
‘Mad Men’ dresses up masculinity

The characters’ well-dressed masculinity has less to do with vanity than a handsome uniform. Anything but simpering aesthetes or primping mirror gazers, Don Draper and his colleagues don’t care about fashion per se; they just happen to buy suits that fit.

Retailers have been quick to pick up on the trend, and those who weren’t already making thin-lapel jackets quickly started. Shortly into the craze, the posh brand Theory had rebranded its stall at Bloomingdale’s in the Westfield San Francisco Centre with “Mad Men” paraphernalia. Banana Republic jumped on board for Season 3, launching a line of “Mad Men”-inspired gear and a chance to appear on the show as an extra.

You can find the Banana Republic story here, and the style guide.

And young men are wearing hats, too. Nice fedoras, at that.

However, paying $65 for a pair of boxer shorts strikes me as folly:

“We really can’t make them for any less,” says owner and founder of Sausalito-based Birds Boxers’ Megan Papay of her $65-a-pop boxers (new.birdsboxers.com). “We’ve tried to figure it out, but we can’t.”

Not, it seems, if she and her husband, Michael Papay, aim to keep up their admirably high standards – 100 percent pima cotton grown, picked, spun, dyed, cut and hand-sewn all in Lima, Peru, in a vertically integrated shop. The mother-of-pearl buttons add a classy touch, and the design of the Custom Cut make me feel, if not exactly like Don Draper, at least like Calvin Coolidge.

That reminds me of a book I read about Eric Von Stroheim, who insisted that the extras playing soldiers in one of his movies wear authentic Austrian underwear with the Archduke’s monogram on them. Poor Eric lost a fortune doing that, which put an end to his directorial career.

Let’s hope the show’s not making their actors lolly around in $65 boxers, however tempting as it may be to see Jon Hamm wear them.

More on Mad Men fashion at their website’s fashion file.

The WSJ has “Mad Men” Season 3, Episode 8: TV Recap (which I missed last week) with a nice photo of Jon Hamm. Luckily for the fashion-oriented audience, Joan is now running “the fancy dress section at Bonwits.” There should be plenty of material (puns always intended) in that.

By MOTUS, Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog, and then The Daily Mirror calls Carla Bruni The New Jackie O.

Glad to hear Carla’s left her nude days behind.

First there was the TOTUS: Barack Obama’s Teleprompter’s Blog.

Now there’s also the MOTUS: Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog

More at Gateway Pundit and Pundit and Pundette.

Via – who else! – Larwyn.

It’s Sunday, so the Mad Men are back tonight at 10PM Eastern on AMC

Don and Betty’s Paradise Lost

Entering its third season on a fresh wave of Emmy nominations, AMC’s Mad Men is the most stylish—and perhaps best—show on television. Inside its meticulous reconstruction of the precipice that was New York advertising circa 1960, where the men and women of Sterling Cooper smoke, drink, love, and lie, the author learns about the struggle of Mad Men creator (and former Sopranos writer) Matthew Weiner, the casting of Jon Hamm and January Jones as Don and Betty Draper, and the obsession that fuels each episode. Photographs by Annie Leibovitz.

Vanity Fair video, and recap of episode 2 under the fold:
(more…)

I don’t understand tattoos.

Sure, I understand why those little kid decals are cute and all that. But I simply can’t understand why anyone would pay good money to have
a. permanent ink injected into a pattern on your body (considering how many times I’ve changed my mind about wall paint colors and curtains)
b. with a needle {{shudder}}
in order to look like a sailor who drank too much on furlough, or worse yet, like a gangsta. Or a psycho:

And when you keep the tattoo and get old, visualize the image on saggy skin. It ain’t pretty.

After the fad, comes the hangover:

DE’TAT’CHED ATTITUDE
JOB SEEKERS ERASING BODY ART TO COMPETE

When the Dow is low, the “tramp stamp” has to go.

Dermatologists across the city are reporting a boom in tattoo laser removals, as body-art fanatics fretting over their professional image rush to erase their inky mistakes.

“People can’t afford to handicap themselves be cause of a tattoo in a tight job market,” said Dr. Jef frey Rand, founder of the Tattoo Removal Cen ter in Midtown. “We’re seeing a huge surge right now in people getting rid of their tattoos.”

It ain’t cheap:

Now he gets costly laser treatments once a month to expunge the images from his legs.

Erasing a tattoo requires monthly laser blasts, which break up the pigment dye under the skin.

Each painful zap takes about two minutes and costs at least $200 — and a small tattoo the size of a human chin requires a year of treatments to burn off.

Yikes!

Son, if you’re reading this, if you ever consider going into medical school or the sciences by all means specialize in perfecting techonologies for tatoo removal. There’s money in thar hills.

Van Wallach wrote a very funny essay, Our Hairy Jewish Bodies, Ourselves, and he mentioned my post. You must go read Our Hairy Jewish Bodies, Ourselves.

And no, I am not fixated on chest hair in spite of two other posts on the subject. But, since it’s an opportunity for more Rule #5 blogging and y’all know I love Hugh Jackman, here he is at the beach… again:

UPDATE, Friday 24 April
Welcome, Obi’s Sister and American Power readers. Please visit often.

Update, Sunday 26 April
Welcome, Rule 5 Sunday readers. Please visit often.

Remember the Washingtonian cover of Obama in a swimsuit I was blogging about yesterday>

It was photoshopped.

Susan Moeller comments,

What’s the danger of an audience thinking that the president looks model-hot? It’s a simplification of who he is–it’s the photographic version of presenting Obama as the shining hope for the country. It’s ascribing to him more power–even if the power is sexual–than he actually has.

What’s the possible consequence? When individual players are made to seem larger or are given greater clout than they actually have, that prompts us to expect outcomes that cannot be delivered–and also encourages us to believe that we don’t have to help solve the nation’s problems, because we certainly do not measure up to the perfection we have been shown.

I expect dozens more of these in the long run. They would match the poster:

If you hadn’t guessed already, I am totally unhip and uncool and proud of it.

For instance, look at this story:
President Beefcake? D.C. magazine to feature shirtless Obama on cover

In the throes of an economic crisis and two wars, does the nation want more headlines about a “Pec-tacular” “Buff Bam”?

I certainly don’t but here it is:

Jack Tapper asks,

So is the beefcake cover just an effort to sell more magazines and gin up some interest in the masthead?

Graff demurred on that question but acknowledged it was a different type of cover than the magazine usually does. He said they were trying to “capture the energy and excitement” over the Obamas in Washington and “have a little fun.”

“It’s a unique time in Washington and this photo helps capture all of the reasons why,” Graff said. “It’s not a normal way to look at a president of the United States but this is not a normal president.”

The magazine cover says “Reason #2 [to love living in Washington, DC]: Our new neighbor is hot.”

“Hot” is in the eye of the beholder, and I for one find that Mr. Obama is a regular-looking guy. Thin, average-looking. Not hot.

But this insistence of the media to portray Michelle Obama as the greatest fashion icon of the last forty years, and Barack Obama as “hot” is starting to grate. Worse yet are the articles hinting that they are the first First Couple ever to have sex. (Yes, the thought of Harry and Bess doing the deed may not be enticing, but they did have a functioning marriage.)

This I find completely inappropriate. Quaint word, inappropriate. I told you I’m totally unhip and uncool and proud of it.

I can’t help but roll my eyes at the prospect of four years of this kind of media coverage.

The media’s stance that the Obamas must be, in addition to all their official functions, rock stars is firmly helped by the Obama PR machine that brought us the European roadshow last July.

Is that the reason why we should find “the energy and excitement” of the “golden age” Obama era? A pseudo-rock star status?

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to have the Obama era examined on its policies and substance?

How about some respect for the Office of the President instead?

As you probably have noticed, I have been rather worried that a traditional sign of masculinity is being yanked out of existence right under our very eyes.

Fret not!

Following up on the Rule #5 posting, I came across a post on (who else!) Hugh Jackman.

Hugh Jackman, at the beach, with the chest follicles clearly on display. The perfect way to start the week.

Regular blogging on American and Latin American politics will resume shortly.

UPDATE
The Anchoress sends more good news,
Goodbye skinny metrosexuals, the beefcake is back
Metrosexual twigmen who admire your shoes are all very well in good times, but when the going gets tough, what you actually want is a REAL man, says Tanya Gold.
I’m very picky and appreciate a REAL man who admires my shoes, but let’s not split hairs here. Gold is right on the money,

They have been replaced by Hugh Jackman, the massive Australian with the massive chest, and Clive Owen, the British Sin City star with the nasty growl.

Oh yes, Clive. Another old fav of mine, who also remains unwaxed,

She also mentions Daniel Craig, who looks good but manages to sound stupid on ocassion (after all, nobody’s perfect):

Gold explains the appeal of manly-looking men,

It is better to have a man who can mend things for you. And butcher sheep. And build houses and grow vegetables and make things out of bits of wood.

Won’t you feel safer? Won’t you feel better, knowing that there is a serious lump of muscle between you and the cold, cruel world outside?

Then there is sex. Shopping may be dead, but sex is one of the few commodities that is booming. All the supermarkets are reporting increased condom sales. Because sex is a cheap form of entertainment and it is also comforting.

I believe the boom and all the aspirational rubbish that went with it was essentially about denying who we were. Look, I have a handbag/ dress/car/tiara fit for a princess! Except I wasn’t a princess, I was a journalist. And now I am a journalist in a lot of debt.

And now we can’t afford to pretend to be other people, we can have better relationships. A real person with another real person? Who could believe it?

Hardship gives great love, if you let it.

Do you remember the Blitz? Everyone had great sex in the Blitz, even my Auntie Marie, who hated men.

And who do you have sex with? Big, brawny, hairy men, proper men, that’s who.

No, I won’t be posting photos of The Husband. But Gold is right.

PS
The Monday Carnival is delayed, not because of manly men but because of work.