long time, right? i’ve been supremely occupied. updates forthcoming.
but in the meantime, it’s nice to see the cosmetics industry is finally catching up with my thinking.
“…I was afraid she would think it was too babyish, but she LOVES this toy. Even my daughter’s friends enjoy playing with this fun toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick!” (link via bunny.)
in case anyone’s wondered: yes, things are a little different around here. if you’re plodding through the archives, i’m betting you’ll have an easier time of it.
if you’re linking to a specific post (in either section), the ¶ is your key. there’s lots more to it than that, but it’s really dull geeky behind-the-scenes stuff. i’d rather concentrate on that which is cute. y’know?
as you were!
“Logos are a little soft this year.” in a typical display of large-scale style vendors getting there too late, marketers are beginning to realize that overbranded products are just not going to sell.
why? easy. in our current economic situation, not many can afford to scream their affluence from the hilltops, as one would with this suv bearing a logo of cartoonish proportions. and now that many street-level fashion labels have discovered they can ignore styling and replace that notion with branding, the idea’s become saturated. everyone understands what’s going on. a company’s name clearly no longer means exclusivity or quality. therefore: stylemakers (that would be the lowah classes, dear) are giving up on the whole idea.
the benefit to this being, of course, seventy-percent-off sales. that and my seamripper make me very, very happy.
the purple pill. allegra. trental. lantus. ever wonder why, over the past few years, we have a pill for everything? i did. so i started digging and found some incredibly interesting writing about advertising in the health markets. it seems pharmaceutical companies began advertising prescription-strength products in 1981. alarmed, the FDA slapped a moratorium on the ads pending its own fact-finding research on the ad campaigns’ effects. that was lifted in 1985 over concerns regarding the companies’ first amendment rights, and you just know that one was a doozy of a lawsuit. now companies must openly and clearly announce side effects—which is why we now endure cheery announcers rattling off “drymouth, diarrhea, nausea, blurry vision and other mild side effects” as if these were perfectly normal things.
advertising these products is apparently incredibly successful. some claim up to 73% sale-rate upon exposure to the ad. why advertise to a doctor, who may know better, when one could advertise to an utterly clueless market? the possibility for emotion-based ad campaigns are practically limitless. according to current dollar figures…it’s working well. we feel better because we know we have a cure for everything. well, almost everything.
rosie has a hissy. earlier, if anyone was paying attention, publishers had the gall to assume they had leave to continue publishing the magazine under rosie’s name…but without rosie. editors showed mainstream publishing’s usual clutch-the-pearls stuffiness. they voiced displeasure over suggestions by o’donnell including: a photocollage of her pregnant partner and a comedy piece about middle-east politics.
the situation is a fair testament to the conservatism (and lack of humor) of mainstream publishing. guys, lighten up. not everyone can be as coldly calculating as martha (oh wait, she’s not selling anymore) or as shrewdly earnest as oprah (oh wait, she’s status quo). come to think of it, not everyone wants to be.
i’d like to remind everyone that season seven of buffy the vampire slayer begins tomorrow night.
for those of you rolling your eyes, shut up. buffy got cred (link to the weirdest PDF ever created, which i know has set at least one academic’s tuckus all a-twitter).
anyone seen vulgar? no? don’t bother. su and i picked it up the other night thinking we might be in for some clerks-style goodness…but no.
the director likes to claim that he was turned away from several film festivals due to queasiness over the subject material. unfortunately, he probably got rejected because the film’s plain boring. it contains that holy trinity of graduate-school filmmaking: undeveloped dialogue, wooden acting and adolescent editing.
on the upside, the other film we rented was excellent.
there’s a new voyeur section (mostly). revamped to reflect my current job hunt…many pieces here are new viewings of work i’ve never shown. enjoy!
oh, and…hire me. pretty please.
new, lovely and free from rick and dakota at thirstype: twiggies. has the same luxurious nature as notcaslon, which i love and have used quite extensively, without the creepy addams family overtones. and over dinner, chester shared with me a lovely hand-drawn scipt which reminded me of a more elegant drawing of barry deck’s canicopulis (which is named for eric gill’s penchant for fucking the family dog).
my love, bless his gentle soul, tolerates my fleeting pop-culture obsessions with such a sense of grace. when we pass a buffy tchotchke he quietly points it out and waits patiently as i freak out over the perversity. doesn’t even roll his eyes. that’s love.
sometimes he’ll share in the silliness. my current fascination is with lauren ezersky, who is fashion, and so american. she’s shamelessly thin, obnoxiously nasal and an unrepentant consumer. she’s a rich jersey housewife gone shopping. a fuckin’ camaro in line with twenty mercedes s-class sedans. and she doesn’t care.
today on her show we watched her traipse gaily from shop to shop holding a champagne flute in one hand and a bottle and microphone in the other. she walked into a boutique and flourished the entire goddamned store, spilling champagne behind her. “shoooooooooooooooooooes,” she sighed.
su and i knew that mama just had a moment. pass her a towelette, please. god love her for having her moments in public.
dear miss kittin,
we all know how fierce you are with your famous friends. and that was cute, way back when we first heard it. how funny to hear a little girl so petulant and so mean.
but now, miss kittin, the little skinny white sorority girls all know your song, and they like to dance in a circle with their handbags held closely under their arms and a glow-in-the-dark cocktail and ciggy in the other. they like to scream about how much fun it is to be with their famous friends. they think they cute. but it’s not cute to everyone else: we all know they really would act that way with their famous friends. we don’t like them.
miss kittin, your marketing team has misused their power. they have gone for the big silver dollar in the sky to expand upon your brand, and now you are another silly hollow pop star. you’re riding the same ridiculous electro-retro-cunty bandwagon everyone else is. you’re doing print work for levis, fa chrissakes.
miss kittin, please shut the fuck up. i’m sick to death of you and your act. there’s another little skinny white girl i like much more. i saw her in concert and she was singing, “fuck you, motherfucker, don’t fuck with me,” and her hair slipped to the side so we could all se it was a wig but she didn’t care at all.
miss kittin, i don’t think you have the balls to wear your hair crooked. now be quiet, sit back, and sip that drink the cute boy bought you.
