Everything That Is ‘Fashion’

WELCOME TO MY FUCKING MONTENEGRO STYLE

I don’t care about celebrity progeny. I don’t care if Celeb A + Celeb B = Celeb-Baby C. I have about ten other things I’d rather be occupied by, like why Bath and Body Works makes all their fragrances so damn vanilla-y or will Andrew Garfield make a decent Spiderman or I should set my novel to one year later so my protagonist and her major crush can make out to My Bloody Valentine? So many things occupy my mind! So I was a little puzzled when someone (i.e., my most punk rock dude sweetheart-friend ever, who I never expected would know about this stuff) asked me about Shiloh’s “Montenegro style.” At first I looked at him, spoonful of vegan lentil stew poised in front of my dumbly open mouth, like “Who the fuck is this bitch Shiloh?” (I was in a bad mood, maybe because we paid a lot of money for that vegan lentil stew and it sucked mega-ass.) And then a few seconds later I remembered Shiloh was the spawn of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and then I felt bad for thinking profanity within the mental proximity of an innocent child. And then I had the real proper thought germane to this writing, which was “Wait, what the fuck is Montenegro style?” This bothered me more than not knowing who Shiloh was immediately, because I HATE not knowing things, especially dumb things like Montenegro style.

Which apparently is Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s fashion concept as a toddler. I Googled “Montenegro style” and then “Shiloh” and apparently “people” give Angelina Jolie a hard time for letting Shiloh dress like a preppy tomboy, which Ms. Jolie christened “Montenegro style” in a Vanity Fair interview. This confused a lot of people, particularly a lot of fashion people, who bent over backwards trying to figure out what the fuck “Montenegro style” was. (“Quick! Send the Sartorialist to Montenegro to take a bunch of pictures of old dudes wearing suits!”) But then I got upset, because I read stuff that ranked on Shiloh’s way of dressing and called it all kinds of not-kind, really truly judge-y things, which were not really cool at all. Lay off the kid, assholes, and let her dress the way she wants! And then I lost interest in “Montenegro style” and just Googled “Montenegro,” and now I really want to go, because it seems like a very lovely country and I’d like to say that I’ve seen the Adriatic Sea.

All of which is to say that “Montenegro style” really means very little, but lately I like to say “Montenegro style” like it does. It kind of fucks with people, because (1) people rarely know where or what Montenegro is and (2) NO ONE really knows what Montenegro style is about. Which means (3) it can mean anything you want it to be! It’s what you say when you don’t want to define a style or don’t really have a style but want to imply a presence of style. You know, like when you want to wear something just because and people gonna hate ’cause they be haters and you just want to make them feel DUMB for hating? So you can say, “Don’t like my radiant orange ascot? It’s Montenegro style, bitches!” “Think I dress boring, fascist fashion bulletin board twits? You just don’t get my Montenegro style!” Or, “That weird dress Leighton Meester wore to some big fashion-y event? Total Montenegro style — but haters gonna hate, so what can you do?” (P.S. I love when Leighton Meester dresses genuine bananas for big fashion events.) This fall 2010, my style is Montenegro style because I haven’t really bought anything new all season except for some underwear, a poncho, and another pair of my favorite jeans. (Uniqlo straight skinny, $20 — that’s some major Montenegro style right there.) Weird, but these days I just like the clothes that I have and don’t really feel the need to add more shit to my life. And I do favor a kind of indie tomboy thing, I guess, which makes me sartorially-spiritually akin to a Brangelina toddler. So goes my style fate. Anyway: here is a small selection of my favorite clothes for fall, which were my favorites last year and will probably be my favorites next year. MONTENEGRO STYLE, BITCHES! (Kat)

(top to bottom): I freaking love this hoodie, it is the softest and happiest-making thing I have ever owned, Rebel Yell were dolls to send this to me ages upon ages ago; ’tis a pity you can’t see the muted floral pattern on this eyelet Marc by Marc Jacobs top, ’cause it’s lovely. But you can see I’m “working” the sleeve, which has some dope intricate detailing; blurry, but you can still see the poncho I bought at H&M after about nine months of non-shopping at H&M. Also: favorite Uniqlo jeans and my combat boots. You can’t tell but I’m sweating bullets b/c it’s like 84 degrees outside. FALL, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

SALLY’S MOM

I’m lying; “Sally’s Mom” isn’t my personal fashion concept for Fall 2010. Probably this fall I’ll mostly wear my blacker-than-black skinny jeans + tank top or t-shirt + plaid flannel + cowboy boots + faux silver jewelry + big hair + black eyeliner, aka Slutty Neil Young Meets Generic Bruce Springsteen Girlfriend, or something. All of that has nothing to do with Sally’s mom, a cool statuesque woman who’s both dead and imaginary and who fancies beautiful dresses much like the ones you’ll find below.

I’m talking about the book, by the way.

(from Dandelion Daydreamer)

(from Mama Stone Vintage)

(from Pampered Peacock Vintage)

(from Dirty Birdy Vintage)

P.S. I just bought the Dirty Birdy dress, and justified it by telling myself “If I buy the Dirty Birdy dress, I can add a P.S. saying ‘I just bought the Dirty Birdy dress’ and then put my byline after that, which will look a lot better than putting the ‘(Liz)’ after the ‘(from Dirty Birdy Vintage).’ It was a smart move. (Liz)

LAURA JANE= “AVANT-YUPPIE”

(Vintage faux fur hat; asymmetrical black dress from Creatures of Comfort; drugstore eyeliner; Starbucks coffee)

I spent most of my recent trip to Montreal complaining to myself and others about its startling lack of Starbucks, and I was serious. I was unsettled by how this giant chunk of my life (the “going to Starbucks” part) was suddenly gone, like as if I had showed up in Montreal and learned that people didn’t use toilet paper there, or it was illegal to have dogs. “Am I a yuppie?” I wondered, “It seems like I must be. There is no way on Earth that anybody who cares this much about Starbucks could not be a yuppie.”

“That’s weird,” I thought, “I really didn’t think I was a yuppie.”

But then, walking home drunk the next night and yelling down the Starbucksless streets about how yuppie shit makes me feel really “safe,” I realized that I’m actually an “avant-yuppie,” which essentially means that you are avant-garde, but with distinctly yuppie undertones and preferences. Most people I know are avant-yuppies; actually, I think it’s a really great alternative to the word “hipster,” the ubiquity of which all the hipsters I know, myself included, seem to be collectively growing more and more exasperated by.

Spending time in Montreal taught me an important lesson in loving Toronto and embracing the comfort I derive from its “balls to the wall” yuppieness. Montreal’s lack of yuppieness scared me. It also made me feel like I was a bigger yuppie than I actually am. I have a Blackberry, and never shut up about Starbucks for my entire trip. That is some seriously yuppie behavior on my end, and Montreal really called a lot of attention to it, which was confusing for me, and misrepresentative. In Toronto, I’m totally punk rock. In Toronto, everybody has Blackberries and goes to Starbucks. In fact, I have the shittiest phone of anybody I know, in Toronto. Most of my friends have iPhones, or better Blackberries than mine. I have the worst available Blackberry on the market. What I’m getting at is that I’d rather be the least-yuppie person in a hardcore yuppie situation than the hugest yuppie in a non-yuppie situation.

I noticed the other day that even my hero John Lennon was totally avant-yuppie. He was all “Damn the man” and revolutionized pop music and shit, but then at the same time he lived in a really chichi apartment, and ate tons of brown rice. Eating tons of brown rice is about as avant-yuppie as it gets. Same with drinking liquor out of an Evian bottle.

My asymmetrical black dress from Creatures of Comfort is hugely emblematic of my avant-yuppieness. It’s avant-garde because it’s avant-garde (A note from my Avant-Garde Primer: If it’s asymmetrical, it’s avant-garde), but it was also really expensive, and I bought if off the Internet with my Mommy’s credit card. I told her I’d pay her back for half of it, but then I never did, which was so freaking yuppie of me. But then, I write all this crazy writing all the time. Writing crazy writing all the time? Totally avant-.

All in all: how sick is my hat? I think it makes me look a rock star. Every time I wear it, I make this joke that goes, “I’m not a rock star, but I totally look like one.” That’s my other big Fall Fashion Concept this year. (Laura Jane)