tous vos cliches

Head scarves have been around god knows how long and same with turbans. Timeless pieces. What we should not fail to think about are the different types. There are gypsy ones, pirate ones, religious ones, Queen Elizabeth II ones, cancer sufferer ones, babushka ones, Paris Hilton ones, fifties ones like Audrey Hepburn ones and Grace Kelly ones, and of course "ethnic" ones, the list goes on. I've been a wearer of the Grace Kelly in my past. Let's just say many people with good taste have worn headbands/scarves/turbans and many people with bad taste have as well. Today, there are people who think the fifties was the ultimately ideal decade and try to make their 21st Century life into a 1950s one.

In my search for images for this blog post, I've noticed that Elizabeth Taylor is the queen of the headscarves.

Enough of the Elizabeth Taylor pictures, Billie!

Take note as I talk about the alternative headband/scarf, the topic of this blog post. The original one worn by modern alternatives is the one you see hippies wearing at markets. I bought one of those long ones that you scrunch up, but I wear it as a tube top. Unlike the Paris Hilton Band, these alternative ones actually hold back your hair and protect the ears from the cold. This makes them ideal for outdoor ventures. I've seen this great picture on Facebook of friends on school camp wearing those Indie bands that scrunch up with flannel tops. Where one must tread carefully is when experimenting with the second Indiest style. This is the headband turban like Ashley Olsen wears. The ready-sewn-together  "silk" band that gives, as Americans would say, that "Oriental" vibe is quite inferior to the home-knitted variety or the nice silk scarf tied around the head.

An example of the essence of the alternative headband/scarf and its wearer? Well, take a look at Zaz singing Je Veux with her strong voice. Get the message.

Pax Ex, it's the Summer Holidays

What's up Homo? It's the Summer Holidays!! So much fun to have but also so much studying do get done. So, what will you be reading over the holidays? The last two books I read were Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. 

The previous (and first) time I read Playing Beatie Bow was in Year Six. I must have been the only person who liked the book. Every week we read a couple of chapters and over the weekend we had to write a couple of pages long reading response - oh! the tears shed getting it done! In retrospect, I think that when we were ten/eleven/twelve, we really didn't get the book, especially the main character Abigail, who was fourteen. She was super Indie, okay, she was into vintage things and was a "weirdie". Dude, you could so hate that book because no one says "weirdie", it's "weirdo". We were too young to understand Abigail throughout the whole book and also the journey she undertook. In retrospect, it's ironic because we now can see ourselves in Abigail and can see how teen-angsty she was, and also how like her, we thought we knew everything. Read it.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was so funny!!! I thought it would be really terrible because I first heard about it earlier this year in Singapore where they made a big hoo-ha about it and every review was negative. The author is this Chinese-American writing about being a Chinese mother to half Chinese children. It's Indie - the children were also Jewish. The story is crazy and her writing is honest. They must have hated the book in Singapore because she was hanging out the dirty laundry about Chinese parenting!!!! 

What I will be reading these holidays (I've actually already started You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marieke Hardy and it's funny) is Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Cynthia Voigt. Yes, the name is weird, but it's extracted from a poem. I guess this book is Indie because I've never met anyone who's read it. (Or maybe I'm just Indie?). The story is set in Stanton College in the sixties and is about the friendship between these three roommates. The three girls are very different in character and extremely vividly created. One really feels the changes in dynamics between the friends and all characters. I fall in love every time I read it, which has been every year, starting in 2007. If you liked Home Coming, you'll like Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers and if like me, you couldn't get into it, you'll like this book even more. Oh, and the book is so preppy.

This makes me reflect on friendship. I love my friends (yes, also the TV series) so much and now I've made new ones at my old/new school (weird feeling because I was only there for six weeks) (and I plan to make new ones at my new school next year. LOL.) At my old old school (I'm technically between schools right now, right?) we had a colour group, which was a class/group of girls having four subjects together. This spanned two years. Dude...so close...the sisterhood of Colour Group Four! We were always bragging about having the best colour group. This time last year (end of Year Nine) was emotional because so many of us were leaving the school.

Message of the story? Remember the ultimate girl-gang, better than all those mentioned on RookieMag last month. Last year, the colour group came together in song to this in the pool change rooms:

Now I will go and clean my room and stop being weird.

I'm starting a new section of the blog called "Dear Billie" (how creative am I?), which is where you can ask me a question and I might answer it publicly. I'm starting it off by asking myself a question and answering it, so that you get what it's all about if you haven't encountered this sort of column/post before. The beauty of it is that the readers don't have to know your true identity unless I sell it or anything.

Dear Billie,

I don't really know what to say so I'm just gonna say a lot.
I've always been ahead of the trends. Other people are copying me and that's the thing, they aren't giving me credit.
Like, I don't want to be rude or anything, but I was in to the Beatles before every other Tom, Dick or Harry. And they never tell their friends that they first heard about them from me. Also, I liked the Beatles before they got on to iTunes.
I have always been into vintage stuff and the sixties and I have always known who Adolf Hitler was and about Ralph Lauren.
Maybe people don't always know that I know things, like, is it because I have not been walking around in one of those t-shirts with the big polo symbol?

People don't appreciate what I appreciate. Seriously guys, you have a lot to thank Ralph Lauren for.
Sometimes I have a great idea and don't do it or I have a great idea and do it and get "dissed" by the public. And then five years later (seriously), everyone's doing it, even the popular people. 
Is it just me or...oh my god! I'm getting all chocking up over this. Oh my god! I just remembered how when I was little, kids copied the way I tied by shoelaces with bunny ears. And then they all denied it being first done by me.
Please tell me what's wrong. In the past twelve months alone, people have copied these things about me:

1. Wearing Doc Martens with a floral dress;
2. Taking photos with soft lighting. I was using Vaseline or thing cloth on the lens, but people are using this online programme...?;
3. Dip-dying. When I first did it, everyone thought it was called tie-dying;
4. Liking their mother's old clothes. Dude, and they all hated their mothers before!;
5. Reblogging on Tumblr. Seriously! I was the first to reblog!!!!!!!

And now people are calling things "Indie". But I feel they don't actually "get" Indie stuff. It's as though suddenly everything I liked has now got a label because it just so happens that my taste is "Indie". Only it wasn't called that back then, it was just me.

xoxo Your Only Fan, Australian teen, 2011

Dear You're only a fan so after I reply, don't reply.

Sometimes the world just isn't ready for things. Perhaps similar to your case, Mahayana Buddhists believe that during the Buddha's life, people were not ready for the deeper truths of the Mahayana Doctrine. Just remember, if you're ready but they aren't, it's okay. This is called wisdom. I think it's hard to be the right guy at the right time. But hey, look, it'll all come together. Jesus lead a difficult life but this was part of a bigger plan which we can now see. And we, the ones who nailed him to the cross, can now love and appreciate him.
I think there are several paths you can choose from for success.

1. Be assertive about your style. This will be positive if people already like you because you will become known and admired for your style and you will become famous. I don't think Plan One will really work if people don't already like you because they will not want to look like you and you will never be given credit. (I'm guessing people already like you if they follow your style);
2. You stop being Indie. I don't think people in Australia are into steampunk nor "popular music/culture", so that's always an option;
3. Do as my Year Eight Latin teacher told those who finished their work quickly and accurately, which is to sit back and feel/look smug.

Whatever. You go girl! Whatever you do, show the world your taste and creativity - don't confine it to your Moleskine Notebook! I think people on the Internet will get you, like they got Tavi Gevinson. Maybe you should get a blog like me.

Sincerely,

Billie

P.S. When I first described Indie style to mum, she was like what the hell, Doc Martens with a floral dress is a "classic look". ("What the hell" is the look I got off her face, not what she really thought/said).

P.S.S I think you should watch this episode of Lizzie McGuire where Gordo's retro style is ripped off by everyone at school 

I Heart My Hair

Chapter #6 of Stuff Indie People Like by Joanna the Friend. It has a bit of a personal backstory - our cool Year Nine Religion and Philosophy teacher telling us about how she notices girls in particular getting a new haircut when they go through a big change in their life. That was related to the lesson because we were watching a seventies movie about this guy who gets into a cult and consequently gets a new hairstyle.

The last time I changed my hairstyle was at the end of my time in Singapore for my return to Australia. I didn't manage to get a new haircut for starting at my new school. However, in the couple of weeks before school, my hair had grown out quite a lot and was looking like The Rachel. [What does that mean? That I wasn't into new beginnings/newness anymore; that instead I was going through a time of growth?]

Which reminds me about how I love watching the changing hairstyles on the TV show Friends. Starting at the beginning: Joey moves in and Chandlers gets rid of his beard (okay, that one doesn't really count because we don't know about that until a flashback occurring later). Rachel leaves Barry and her old life at the altar and goes to New York where she then undergoes radical change - so does her hairstyle after the first couple of episodes!!

A Satisfying Sunday

Dude, I've been dying since my parents put dynamic lifter and blood 'n' bone in the garden. Sore, choking throat...

Anyway, last Sunday, I went to the fete day for the radio station ArtSound. There was a whole room full of LPs, CDs and cassettes. And by the time I'd finished packing up a box of stuff to buy, the whole box cost me just two dollars. This pristine condition Francoise Hardy record was my BARGAIN BUY!

The others I bought because they had what I thought were funny covers at the time (but not in retrospect). I haven't listened to any of them.

How does she get her hair so perfect?

No comment

I'm getting really into the curved square

I actually like this one. It's got the right amount of pretension. 

the back - Is his name actually "Bob Dyland"?

Classic font for records! Definitely the colours of tranquility...

Maybe if I listened to this music I would understand the relevance of the image on the front

Hit Hits - seriously?

Why do they look like they're dying? Maybe it's a Virgin Suicides thing I don't get...

There was a lot of Hawaiian music

The back of Guava Jam

I actually like this one. I suddenly got this flash of a rookiemag photoshoot because of the rock and the girl's angle

Look at how the man is looking at those flowers in his hand!

the back

lowercase font - never ceases to be Indie

The new Indie way to do your eyebrows. At first I thought the one on her left was her eyelashes, though.

The Big News

Okay, so this is the end of my third week of the third part of the year. And I am amazed at how quickly things become normal (and normal doesn't mean things aren't still interesting). I had come to the conclusion that it was now or never for experiencing a) a school system that is not the private all-girls one and b) the Real High School Experience. So I announced my intentions and started at my local school on the Monday (rather than continue my homeschooling). Okay, so this local school is pretty mild and you could call it Indie because it is funded also by the French Government. I'm in the English stream i.e. the non-bilingual stream, unless you count singing La Marseillaise in assembly as speaking French. I was really tired on the first week of school, not just because I was in a new system but because I was actually in a system. I met lots of nice people on my first day, so let's call it a happy beginning. Okay, I don't want to harp on about myself or anything, but I just don't know whether or not I'm the type who goes with the flow or not. I think stress makes one tense. Whatever. So  what was bewildering at the start was not being in a different school system (see, I sometimes go with the flow), but that I couldn't identify the types/groups I had evolved with and understood like the ones at my private girls' school. On my first day, a girl asked me whether at my old school there had been "mean girls like in the movies". So I replied with stupid mixed messages saying "I don't know". I found that question funny because I certainly could not match either school to one in a movie.

I can't finish without telling you that I am not Esther Blueburger. On the weekend before I started at school, I had to tell it to my friends and that was pretty scary because I had no idea what their reactions would be (and it was all cool). Which reminds me of how in the first couple of weeks I kept thinking about how at my private girls' school, everyone banded together and hung in class even though their "groups" were pretty exclusive in the playground. And how at this public co-ed place, peoople kind of just stuck in their groups. Ha. So I guess the Indiest place in town is werever me and my homies are hanging this weekend. (I think I use brackets excessively.)

xoxo

Enter Title Here and that Legendary Book

I've had a really intense day spent baking things. My mum just asked me what the subject matter of this post is, as she walked past. Then she spoke on my behalf by saying that I am just going to crap on. And then she told me in an expressive voice (for the one millionth time) that I am so wordy.

Anyway, nearly a year ago in the swimming change room on the last week of school, my friend Joanna, whose name I now pronounce with the type of j that sounds like y, gave me a rad book. She had filled in fifteen entries "in the style" of Stuff White People Like, and the book was called Stuff Indie People Like.


They were written in a MOLSKINE notebook.

The funny thing is, at the time when I tried to make this blog, I couldn't register the name on blogspot. Why? She had. (But then she deleted the blog and after some time, I took it.) Anyway, I told Joanna I would write some nice things about her. So I shall tell you that she had a semi-brief stint as a blogger herself. makeandbelieve-elke.blogspot.com was successful, though because it's been sleeping for a while, I'll call it semi-successful. There's an example of someone who actually practices a picture and a line saying a thousand words!

Here is an extract from the book, which, being something both handwritten and scanned, is just what we (me and my blog) need. [the artist of the book and Billie retain copyright]

Look! It's Tavi Gevinson

Yesterday, when I was writing this post (typical, I never post things on the day I write them...), I was having one of those days filled with desperation and getting all choked up about nothing going the right way, which is everything. Like seriously - why did I never get my  letter from Hogwarts!?

But anyway, that is besides the point, which is actually some deep and meaningful advice from me. You see, one of the most preliminary ideas you must grasp about Indies is that they operate on quite a lot of jealousy. When they hate someone/something, their hate spreads far and wide. Let me relate a story to you. The other night I was at a dinner party and the man sitting opposite me was telling another about how he had to understand that when Australians say they hate someone, they don't really mean it; that if someone says they hate Manly (the team), they don't really. Instead, it's an affectionate feeling. This nonsensical story does not exemplify my point about jealousy. However, it reminds us of some anthropological background to Indies, many of whom are Australian.

The reason teen Indies despise Tavi Gevinson so much is because when they are jealous, they are full on negative and the most positive thing they can say will still be a backhanded insult. Like, dude, Indies are already super jealous when it comes to material items, so when it comes to a whole character...you don't even want to go there. Indie teens envy her celebrity status because hey! they could totally have been her at eleven (and if they couldn't have been, well, Tavi's then a total loser who needs to be normal!) You see, it's totally screwed, like, Gevinson is so Indie because she IS, but Indie teens don't reckon she can pull off her own style. In fact, Indie teens find her so disconcerting and enraging that they negate her indieness and reduce her to being considered the runt of the Indie-Pack/not Indie.

The thing is, Indie teens actually don't get her. Like, what's up with the Catholic pinboards when you're Jewish!? So pretty much, they get a kick out of crapping on about how bad she is. They can only call her and her joie de vivre  weird and pretentious and say that they "just don't like her". They envy the attention an awkward kid with weird hair should not be getting, especially from the Industry and 20-something year olds.

But don't think they don't know what's going on with Tavi Gevinson and her reflections and opinions and idols and electronically reproduced images from TV on her blog. Indie teens need to know, they need to feed their hatred. Still, every time they hear her name, they die a little bit inside from jealousy.

At Generation Next Forum 2010

2009

2010

2011

 Argh! I got heaps of images from the Internet and stuck them on this post. But they didn't actually stick. So then I tried to do it again and it took ages again and then I realised: why don't I tell the audience that if they type her name into a search engine, they can find images of her easily!?  But I don't think you need orders, especially from an idiot  who can't use a computer properly.

xoxo.

Peace is the Way

Walking with Alfred Hassler, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong Official Film Trailer from FairSoul-LIVE...ACT..BE on Vimeo.

From http://www.peaceisthewayfilms.com/ , you can find your way to the IndieGOGO campaign.

Where to start on the Indieness of Audrey Hepburn - Holly Golightly?

50 Years Of Breakfast In A Little Black Dress

by SLOANE CROSLEY

EnlargeChristie's Ronald Grant Archive/ AP

This photo released by Christie's auction house shows actress Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The black Givenchy dress worn by Hepburn sold at auction for $807,000.

text size A A A

October 5, 2011

Sloane Crosley is a writer. She lives in New York City.

Here is what you can't do anymore in New York: climb the Statue of Liberty's torch, gain access to Gramercy Park without a key, or sip a martini in The Oak Room at The Plaza Hotel.

Now here's what you can do — and just about every little girl in Manhattan knows it: You can always have Breakfast at Tiffany's.

It's a perfect combination that exists so long as the demand for jewelry stays as consistent as the demand for breakfast pastry. And today that pastry should have a birthday candle in it.

For today marks the 50th anniversary of Holly Golightly. Rather, it's been 50 years since Audrey Hepburn brought her to quixotic life in the award-winning film.

Novella Holly (the Holly of Truman Capote's novella) was introduced to the world in 1958. Therefore America's most beloved style icon has just a few more wrinkles on her. But who's counting? Especially when it's the movie that sticks. And I mean that literally. For every boy with a poster stuck to his dorm room wall bearing the image of John Belushi in Animal House, there is a girl down the hall with a Breakfast at Tiffany's movie poster tacked above her bed.

Now, at first glace, the human beings sleeping beneath these images have as much of a shot at dating each other now as John Belushi and Audrey Hepburn had when they were alive. Let thatvisual sit for a second. If a romance between them seems unlikely, the book is not to blame. It's those first images from the film.

Skye Parrott

Sloane Crosley's most recent book is How Did You Get This Number, a collection of humor essays.

You know that romantic sequence of events in which a taxicab pulls over on Fifth Avenue and releases a Holly Golightly into our imaginations? She's a vision, holding coffee in her gloved hand, engraved in our brains like letters on a ring from a Cracker Jack box. She is in the midst of the single most famous walk of shame in cinematic history.

Holly Golightly may have had a place at the fraternity house after all.

Yet when we think of Breakfast at Tiffany's, we choose not to recall the no-name slobs or minor league prostitution. Sure, those come to mind when we sit down and think about it. But today, you'll remember, is supposed to be a birthday party. A celebration.

And after 50 years of trickle-down iconography, we have come to know the guest of honor largely by her packaging. But remember — she is not so unlike the Statue of Liberty's torch or the gated Gramercy Park. Just because you can no longer get inside doesn't mean it's not there.

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/05/141080177/50-years-of-breakfast-in-a-little-black-dress?sc=fb&cc=fp

Help me make a decision

 "Glitter" leggings from Lindsay Lohan's 6126 collection online. 

This magical piece is a fusion of two of our favorite trends: sequins and leggings. Slip on your favorite city-girl shoes and be ready to glisten and glimmer all night long. 

Is this an Indie "yes" or "no"? I feel the type of shoes implied are not sneakers or those flat orthopaedic-looking unsupportive leather shoes, which leads me to doubt the Indieness of these leggings.

• ·         Front and back sequin panels

• 
  

  ·         Sold black sides

• 
  

  ·         Elastic waistband

• 
  

  ·         Modal/spandex

Are elastic waistbands some sort of new feature of leggings which I hadn't previously known about???!!!

Playing Beatie Bow

deconstructing and drawing inspiration

“when you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/fashion/iris-apfel-90-stylish-and-on-hsn-up-close.html?pagewanted=all

why can’t I show the top of the page like links on facebook.

Indie of the Week, because the week starts on Sunday

Which is the Indiest one? it's Evanna Lynch, the Irish girl who played Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter. I mean DUDE! sweet pants - puffy style but not ill-fitting. Hard to come by. And the belt! And it was well done, the tight top with puffy pants and not too naked because of the cardigan. It's not grungy at all! I am only frowning because the hair needs a bit of a trim and too be off her face. She's so cute and looks full of beans for a fifteen (?) year old. Man, the more I look at this picture the more it cracks me up.

Zebra Micro Mini

Are you an Indie whose signature look is animal prints? I think not. Animal prints are not florals, which is why they are not what first comes into your mind when you think about Indie patterns. And I reckon this is because they are seen as unnatural and fake. They do not conform to the Principle of Organics. Animal prints decidedly belong to a couple of looks and that has been an unquestioned point in society. But today I am daring to challenge. Because I have seen a photo on the Internet of the Indie Icon Françoise Hardy in  a zebra miniskirt.

source: http://www.listal.com/viewimage/2421771

xoxo

Indie Inspiration

I had to force myself to sit down and write this blog post. Sometimes things are such a drag and one is surrounded by the type of energy that blocks up the joke pipe and/or system of progression of ideas. But it's okay now because I've tied back my hair in a way I haven't done in a while and have been drinking Turkish apple tea from the special glasses which were a gift from a friend a couple of birthdays ago. But anyway, I was really inspired a few days ago reading a post on beautyfool.net about how to do fake dreadlocks with hair gel. (Note: Indies are always being inspired by this or that.) From there I went to find some images but was quite unsuccessful. 

So anyway, the dreadlocks style is rooted deep in ancient history and have been worn by many religious groups. Just look it up on Wikipedia. According to that one unreliable source (with questionable information on Australian breakfast under Australian cuisine), reasons for wearing dreadlocks are to express "deep religious or spiritual convictions", "a manifestation of ethnic pride", "a political statement" and as "a fashion preference." But that was hardly new knowledge. Dreadlocks are totally a mark of commitment to something. Like, they take ages to form, so it would be unwise to embark on the journey and decide half way through that you no longer wanted to be making whatever statement you supported before.

Dreadlocks are an iconic fashion statement among rebels. In the fifties, the Mau Mau rebels lived in the forests of Kenya growing dreadlocks and fighting against British rule. And of course the Rastafarian wearing of dreadlocks to, apparently, rebel against Eurocentric ideals about beauty and the way things should be cannot go unmentioned.

These days the dreadlocks look is associated with hippies, cults and new subcultures I didn't know existed until I saw them mentioned on Wikipedia and had no desire to look at their page. So pretty much, they are worn by people who are hard-core and are displaying their rebelness. And their inspiration was possibly the reggae vogue blah blah blah Bob Marley, a staple on the Facebook profile of Indies. The rebelling is probably against commercialisation of everything in society and the absurd triviality of society's routine (such as cleaning your head).

image: http://themusicsover.com/2010/05/11/bob-marley/

Online, the alternative can congregate together as a community on sites such as dreadheadhq.com. And purchase accessories, hair care items and synthetic extensions (I get this image of opening up a drawer in the dark and landing my hand upon fat coils) at dreadlocks.com.au. And the impatient dreadlocks lover could always get a salon dread perm using chemicals, which I reckon is what they did for the Argentinian brand Complot's verano 2009 collection. (Ha! And they've got all these pages about backstage, which is an Indie like, because it's a peak into the Industry.)

images from http://lomejordelamoda2008.blogspot.com/2008/10/complot-primavera-verano-2009.html