KLEM TV

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Be sure to check out the cameo by Sixty Grit and Carol_Herman at the 1m 22s mark.

KLEM FM

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Listen at least to the inspired intro.

Speaking of wearing it well...

But, let it be known that Lena Dunham has called a truce on dissing Trump's looks. link

If she keeps her word (she was supposed to move to Canada), I shall cut her ample slack.

It's A Givhan That She's Racist

WaPo's Robin Givhan moves from: It's OK to refuse to dress the First Family to: Ralph Lauren is possibly the nation's most bipartisan American designer, in less than two weeks.  I think that signals progression in a closed mind.

Telegram 2016

Wow. RT @meg_mcgrath From @KTLA. They handed her a sweater LIVE ON AIR because they were "getting a lot of emails" pic.twitter.com/V4jUyX86z4

— PKGM (@PKGM) May 15, 2016

"Why Did People Wear Powdered Wigs?"

Mental Floss: For nearly two centuries, powdered wigs—called perukes—were all the rage. The chic hairpiece would have never become popular, however, if it hadn't been for a venereal disease, a pair of self-conscious kings, and poor hair hygiene.

The peruke’s story begins like many others—with syphilis. By 1580, the STD had become the worst epidemic to strike Europe since the Black Death.
According to William Clowes, an “infinite multitude” of syphilis patients clogged London’s hospitals, and more filtered in each day. Without antibiotics, victims faced the full brunt of the disease: open sores, nasty rashes, blindness, dementia, and patchy hair loss. Baldness swept the land.

At the time, hair loss was a one-way ticket to public embarrassment. Long hair was a trendy status symbol, and a bald dome could stain any reputation. When Samuel Pepys’s brother acquired syphilis, the diarist wrote, “If [my brother] lives, he will not be able to show his head—which will be a very great shame to me.” Hair was that big of a deal.

And so, the syphilis outbreak sparked a surge in wigmaking. Victims hid their baldness, as well as the bloody sores that scoured their faces, with wigs made of horse, goat, or human hair. Perukes were also coated with powder—scented with lavender or orange—to hide any funky aromas. Although common, wigs were not exactly stylish. They were just a shameful necessity. That changed in 1655, when the King of France started losing his hair.

Louis XIV was only 17 when his mop started thinning. Worried that baldness would hurt his reputation, Louis hired 48 wigmakers to save his image. Five years later, the King of England—Louis’s cousin, Charles II—did the same thing when his hair started to gray (both men likely had syphilis). Courtiers and other aristocrats immediately copied the two kings. They sported wigs, and the style trickled down to the upper-middle class. Europe’s newest fad was born.

The cost of wigs increased, and perukes became a scheme for flaunting wealth. An everyday wig cost about 25 shillings—a week’s pay for a common Londoner. The bill for large, elaborate perukes ballooned to as high as 800 shillings. The word “bigwig” was coined to describe snobs who could afford big, poufy perukes.

When Louis and Charles died, wigs stayed around. (read the whole thing)

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The Sartorialist

Fashion turning point

"In the Spring of 1908, three women walked onto the Longchamp racecourse in Paris and jaws dropped. The elite society event was known for debuting the latest couture creations to the public, but no one had seen fashion quite like this before. Dressed in blue, white and havane brown creations, according to newspapers, spectators called the three women a “monstrosity”, accused them of being semi-naked and showing revolting décolletage. It was these three dresses however, which would forever change fashion that day and launch the twentieth century silhouette. As for the designer? Well, no one really bothered to remember her name…

But perhaps you might like to know who it was. I’ve come across and admired these photographs around the net before, not knowing there was a story or a particular name behind the fashion. But Margaine-Lacroix was her name, a young Parisian designer who had taken over her mother’s long established old couture house and was starting to gain popularity in turn-of-the-century Paris for her lightly corseted dresses featuring minimum boning and more elastic material.

Long before Lycra or Spanx came along, she soon began making dresses made from stretchy elastic silk jersey, outlining the hips and thighs and slimming the figure. To debut her creations to society, she hired three beautiful models and chose the Parisian racetracks of 1908 as her catwalk..."

EDIT: go to link and scroll down to see a fun picture of their fellow horse race-attenders' reactions.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2016/02/02/the-belle-epoque-body-con-dress-that-was-too-sexy-for-paris/

The long and the shoe of it

"A surprising focus on Senator Marco Rubio’s shiny, stack-heeled ankle boots, first noted in a desultory Twitter post on Monday by a New York Times reporter, has grown over the last few days into one of the weirder firestorms of the presidential campaign, with rival candidates and the news media all adding tinder to the flames.

...On “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough called the footwear “shagalicious.” Vanity Fair played a “guess the brand and cost” game. New York Magazine’s The Cut compared Mr. Rubio to Harry Styles, the One Direction heartthrob. The Daily Mail twinned him with former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, a noted clotheshorse.

In the end, Mr. Rubio’s campaign told Politico that the boots actually came from Florsheim. Judging by the shoemaker’s website, they look a lot like the Duke style (cost $135)."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/politics/marco-rubios-shiny-boots-stir-up-the-presidential-race.html?_r=0

Antonio Banderas wants to bring back the cape

"There is one garment that I love that was lost in menswear a long time ago, and I would like to experiment with it: the cape," he said. "For me, it's actually easier than a coat, you walk into a place and you just BOOM! throw it off."

Link to video

"What is something you believe is about to blow up in popularity?"

Top voted Reddit answers...

           Limes. Last year, it was coconuts. This year, avocados. 2016: limes.

Teslas. Those things are going to become absolutely insane soon.

This app called "Bro." It lets you text the word "bro" to all your other bros so you can keep in touch with each other.

Hopefully A Series of Unfortunate Events when the show comes out

Bernie Sanders.

The Antidote To Loneliness

Ancient Egyptians used stibnite to make blueish black mascara, giving their eyes allure (and the origin of the 72 black-eyed virgins?). You can still see the Latin origin of antimony's name stibium in its modern chemical symbol:

The alchemist's symbol for antimony is:

which sort of resembles an upside down (heels over head?) version of the female symbol.

According to the Wiki, antimony is no longer used in mascara. Instead, carbon black (the same stuff that makes tires black) is used. link

[added]:

Needles of stibnite in calcite

KLEM FM

She was always the better looking of the two, in my opinion.
[added]  As if that's controversial.

What Would Galateo Say?

Il Galateo was good advice written by Giovanni Della Casa (1503–56). Ostensibly written for young noblemen of his time, the book has had wider appeal in post-Renaissance times. The following excerpt is entitled "Dress."

When you go into public, let your dress be genteel, and suitable to your age and station of life. He that does otherwise, shows a contempt of the world, and too great an opinion of his own importance. On this account, the citizens of Padua were always greatly offended, and thought themselves insulted, if a noble Venetian appeared in their streets not in his full dress gown, but in a short coat; as if he fancied himself taking a walk at his ease, in some country village.  

Let your clothes not only be made of good broad cloth but lay it down as a constant rule, in adorning your person, to conform to the custom of the country you live in and also to the fashion of the present times: tho' the dress, which we now use, may perhaps be less convenient and less suited to the human body, than that of the ancients either really was, or as learned men fancy it was.  

In like manner, if the whole town wear their hair cut short, I would not have you ostentatiously display your fine locks at full length; or, if the rest, of your countrymen wear beards, I would not have you alone appear without one: for this would be to make yourself singular, and contrary to other people.  

Whereas, in our common intercourse with mankind, we ought by no means (without some necessity, which shall hereafter be explained) to run counter to the common customs of the world: for this, beyond any other offence we can be guilty of, will render us odious to mankind. There is no reason in the world then, why, in things of this kind, you should oppose the opinion of the public to which you ought always, in a moderate way, to conform; lest you should be left to enjoy your own fashion alone.

Read the whole thing

KLEM FM

Overheard:

Meade said..."I think you're being alarmist about beer and only posted that to dig at Haz." 

Why, chickelit? Because he brags about taking male hormone supplements?
And what is with all these descendants of German immigrants? You are, what — third? fourth? fifth generation? When the hell are you going to give up the hyphen and become just plain "American"? All I ever hear is das Vaterland! das Vaterland! 

Come on, volks. Gott im Himmel!
It's over, meiner Jungs. 

November 2, 2014 at 9:34 PM

Meade, va' fa' un culo!

Watch the videos for the old fotos of The Beatles from die Lederjahre (the leather years).

KLEM FM

I think that's a Smokey Robinson song in the background. Our local expert, darcy, could confirm this.

A while back I started wondering when and why it was that rock and roll music lost it's danceability.  See here for example. That was from 1956 when partner dancing was still going strong. Tonight's video purports to be from 1964, ten 8 years after.  I'm closing in on a more exact date.

KLEM FM

The song is from 1958, but I suspect the fashions date the footage as 1960's era. Maybe deborah can help here.

A question for you serious music people: What exactly was it that changed in rock and roll which led to the decline in dancing?  It's not the time signature, but it must be rhythmic in nature. Listen to the drumming: it has more swing than swagger. The latter led to the stand-in-place, look-at-me solipsism which characterized rock music post 1950's.

Does this work?

The Sartorialist

KLEM FM

À propos to feeling a little light & breezy and making random associations:

KLEM FM

Lyrics and comments after the break

KLEM FM

Here's a groovy fashion flashback:

"Time of the Season" was orphaned by The Zombies -- they broke up a year before the song became a hit in 1969.

Like The Rolling Stones, The Zombies had been around since 1962 -- here's how they looked and sounded in 1964 -- fifty years ago.

Notice how that song has an actual ending and not a fade out -- that's the hallmark of a live performing stage act and not a studio band.  Listen to many of the early Beatles songs and you'll also hear clean abrupt endings.  How else are you going to close a song live? I think radio DJ's learned to love fade outs because they could start talking over the song.