This is a test.
Audio: there are lots of voices. Do you hear them all? All the soft feminine voices whispering and giggling. They’re calling out to you like sirens in the sea, trying to pull sailors astray. Sometimes, I know, the temptation of all the flavours and colours when they are in front of you is hard to resist. It looks so tangible right there. But look up and let me be your Northern Star and keep sailing through and come home.
I hear the voices too. Laughing and joking and husky from work and cigarettes. Smooth and trying to charm. With honey to slip down my ear and words that try to make me giggle and smile at them with sparkles in my eyes. But unless I’m in a pearl jam, they’re mating calls fall on deaf ears. Only when I am in dire straits with you, does the sound resonate in my heart and remind me of everything that is bigger and greater.
Visual: aren’t they all so pretty? All their legs and breasts and smiles. Some are smallers, some are prettier. Some are blonder, chestier, some with slanted almond eyes that have pulled you in before. Try to remember me in my glasses; my identity. Remember my flat stomach for you to kiss and my ass for you to admire. And remember my small, non-descript breasts. They aren’t impressive, but they’re yours.
Because some here are taller and broader. With wider smiles and shoulders. Flashy clothes that were put to together by some girl before me. A nicer car, maybe. Brown eyes, blue eyes, dark hair, dark skin, tattoos that snake around their back. But the truth is, unless they have a delicate boned face, blonde hair, cut up hands, green eyes, my marks on their chest, and a Beavis and Butthead t-shirt, I become blind.
This is a test of our strength. While we are young, we crave so many things when we’re apart. It may be impossible to resist, but we’ve surmounted impossible before.
Mike check; one, two.
What’s there to say about the legendary John Hughes’s 1986 flick “Pretty in Pink” that hasn’t already been said? Love her or hate her, Molly Ringwald delivers as an outcast teenager when she frets and sulks through the film dressed to the nines in the epitome of rag-tag, alternative eighties style. While today we may raise an eyebrow at a few of the pieces (let’s be real about that sack of a paisley grey skirt and jacket combo she wears on her first date with Andrew McCarthy), the costuming of ‘Pretty in Pink’ is what has memorialized the movie.
Although the bizarrely intriguing many-layered alternative look of Andie and Duckie (Jon Cryer) has taken the spotlight of the movie, it’s what the villains of the film are wearing that inspire me and bring me back to the movie over and over again (despite my admitted great dislike for the pouting ginger, Molly Ringwald).
How can you tell who’s a ‘richie’ in Andie’s world? Simple: look for the students dressed as though they’d rather be yachting that studying. The cooler-than-thou stud of an antagonist, Steph (played by James Spader), is almost always in a linen jacket, be it beige or crisp white, with the sleeves rolled up to reveal a classic link wrist watch. Loose fitting shirts allow him to leave most of the buttons open without revealing too much chest (ala 70’s disco fashion mishaps), and he’d rather be wearing loafers - yachting, remember? - than sneakers.
And then there’s blonde bombshell Benny (played by Kate Vernon), who may be vapid and vicious, but is also undeniably a stone cold fox. Benny steals every scene she’s in with her gorgeousness draped in crisp, light coloured cottons and tailored cuts. Her first shot in the film shows her style as a complete contrast to our rag-a-muffin protagonist: while Andie is weighed down in pinks, blacks, floral patterns, a lace collar, two layers of stockings, a hat, and dorky round glasses (that don’t even claim the excuse of having thick frames), Benny looks timeless and stunning in a simple pale yellow shirt dress that any 2012 femme fatale would look en pointe wearing.
Near the end of his film career, Cary Grant starred in “Father Goose”, a charming 1960’s rom-com set in WWII in the South Pacific. The film was shot on location in Jamaica and the lush, warm atmosphere lend a great, comfortable authenticity to the film that could not have been fostered in any studio… and also allow the costuming of the stars, Grant and Leslie Caron, to be effortlessly and timelessly casual.
Grant plays against-type as a cranky, but ever charming, cynical boating bum and spends the entire movie dressed to casual perfection in worn out captain’s hats and fedoras, slouchy and cuffed trousers and jeans, loose fitting collared button down shirts, and filthy white tennis shoes. In fact, the film starts off with a stylistic bang when Grant appears in a vibrant, coral-coloured shirt (still a hot colour this 2012 spring season), naturally not at all fitted to his body and instead floating airily around his tall frame.
When Caron becomes marooned on an island along with Grant, she “shares” him out of his clothes, wearing his baggy clothes in an entirely different way; belting his shirts at the waist with a piece of rope and piling her dark hair on top of her head in a loose bun (practical but fashionably hipster before such a label existed). When she first comes in contact with Grant, however, Caron is wearing a burnt orange dress that could easily be worn today without looking at all dated although the garment premiered nearly fifty years ago.
You’re driving every silver truck.
You’re wearing every black windbreaker; every blonde head with his hands in his pockets.
You’re in every sip of ginger ale, then beer, then vodka. Lots of vodka. Lots of you.
You’re in every dream. In every shade, size, and emotion. Looming and loving.
You’re always calling when the phone rings. Every person reaching out to communicate, it’s you! It’s you!
You’re giggling every soft, feminine giggle.
You’re holding every Asian girl’s hand. Why?
You’re in every gun shot.
You’re the movements I take to make myself prettier.
You’re every touch in the shower.
You’re in every lyric and every guitar lick of every song I listen to, loud or soft.
And that’s a lot of music, my friend.
Please be banished from my heart.
