Auntie Fashion

Norelle

The moment I’d been waiting for finally arrived today!  The Fiercee Awards were presented during a very special episode of The Tyra Banks Show.

Highlights of the show included America’s Next Top Model makeup artist Sutan as the fierce Miss Fiercee (take that, Rumer Willis), and the marble-mouthed teleprompter stylings of Jaslene.  Next year I want to see a big production number at the beginning and a touching tribute to those dead top models who have made our lives so much richer.

Here’s a list of the nominees and winners.

Biggest Makeover Meltdown presented by Saleisha C9 and CariDee C7.

WINNER: Jaeda C7.  Also nominated: Bianca C9 and Jade C6.

Craziest Phone Call presented by Jaslene C8 and Nicole C5.

WINNER: Natasha C8.  Also nominated: Shandi C2.

Worst Walks and Wipe Outs presented by April C2 and Heather C9.

WINNER: Norelle C3.  Also nominated: Rebecca C4 and Jael C8.

Most Dramatic Exit presented by Diana C8 and Camille C2.

WINNER: Kimberly C10.  Also nominated Ebony C9 and Jade C6.

Ugliest Cry presented by Keenyah C4 and Jenah C9.

WINNER: Joanie C6.  Also nominated: Shandi C2 and Jael C8.

Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Tyra Banks.

WINNER: Toccara C3.

Honorary Award: Most Dramatic Transformation presented by Tyra Banks.

WINNER: Shandi C2.

Whitney

Or is it stiff as a board?  Bored as a board works, too.  Whatever the case, Whitney is hands down the dullest contestant left in the competition.

On last night’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, the photo shoot was supposed to depict a 50s-era actress encountering the paparazzi.  I guess that Whitney would try to escape the shutterbugs by standing in place with her jaw relaxed and her lips slightly parted, like in every other shot she’s taken so far in the competition.

I have the feeling that she’s going to win now.  I really didn’t think that the sheer horror of last year’s winner would be eclipsed so soon, but what do I know?  I liked Dominique, after all.

Anyway, back to Whitney.  I do believe that she’s a horrible model.  Her CoverGirl commercial made CariDee’s performance from a few years back look like an episode of Masterpiece Theater.  Her walk suffers terribly because she tilts her pelvis too far forward in an attempt to pretend that she doesn’t have a bigger ass than the other girls.  She takes criticism like a big baby and then talks more smack than anyone else in her confessionals.  In reality show terms, she’s this season’s bitch.

Hopefully, Tyra will decide that she’s not the sort of role model that would do the franchise justice.  But there’s a fat chance of that happening!  I believe that the road to a token plus-size winner has already been paved by a few dozen very special episodes of The Tyra Banks Show.

Oh well.  I guess I should be happy when the modeling world becomes a little more inclusive.  I just hope that sometime in the future things change enough so that someone who looks like Marvita can win this (or any other) modeling competition.

CariDee

I happened to turn on the TV this afternoon just in time to see a commercial for The Fiercee Awards.  When I interviewed CariDee a couple of weeks ago, she told me that they were going to be a lot of fun.  However, I forgot to ask her when the show would air.  I was afraid that I might miss them due to my glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle.

Anyway, the show will air a week from today on Wednesday, May 14th.  I can’t wait!  I haven’t been this excited since T-Zone was shut down during a rabies scare that eventually proved to be a prank.  I wonder if they ever discovered the identity of the anonymous tipster who called the cops?  Heh heh heh . . .

Whitney & Dominique

I posted this photo from last week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model to prove a point: Dominique is pretty.

I’ll admit it: I’ve made the tranny jokes, too.  Still, trannies often make the best models.  The fierce background models in the Homeless photo shoot were transgendered.  The House of Ninja brought its fair share of gender non-specific models along to the posing challenge.  And then there’s Ms. Jay him/herself.  This show loves its trannies!

Now I don’t believe that Dominique is a man, nor do I believe that she ever has been a man.  She just has that je ne sais quois that trannies have.  When the camera is on her, she’s fabulosity personified.

I went through her portfolio this morning, just to have a look at her body of work, and I was surprised by how much I liked it.  In fact, except for Anya’s book, Dominique has the strongest photos of the remaining contestants.  What’s even more impressive is that she’s still trying hard to win ANTM while many of her competitors are falling apart.

I don’t believe that she’s pretty all of the time.  In many candid shots, I’m nearly blinded by her appearance.  But when it comes to the challenges, Dominique has earned her place in the top four on ANTM.  And just look how gorgeous she looks in the photo I posted.  Sure, it’s a little blurry, but she does have terrific bone structure, especially when her face is relaxed.

I’m not going to deny that she can look scary sometimes, but I’d rather see a hundred Dominiques in the house than one more Kimberley who doesn’t want to be there, or one more Lauren who can’t figure out what it takes to stay there.

I guess it goes to show you that beauty is a state of mind.  When the camera is on her, Dominique believes that she is beautiful.  Like Furonda before her, she’s starting to make a believer out of me, too.

Behati Prinsloo

Here’s a photo of the lovely Behati Prinsloo from the Karl Lagerfeld S/S RTW show.  The show took place on October 4, 2006.  Behati’s birthday is May 16, 1989.  That would make Behati seventeen-years-old in the photo.  That’s why I used MS Paint to erase her nipples.  The photo is inappropriate.

For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to ignore the onslaught of criticism directed at Vanity Fair and Miley Cyrus.  I don’t really understand why everyone is so worried about an arty shot of the teenager in a sheet.  I’ve seen worse, including the photo I posted above.

Behati Prinsloo is a gorgeous girl.  In interviews, she seems to be wise beyond her years.  She once told Fashion Television “I feel like modeling is not for very young girls cause it takes away your childhood.”  No kidding.

Where were this child’s parents when she was walking down the runway in a see-through top.  Where were her agents?  Where was Karl Lagerfeld?  Everyone who made a buck off of Behati’s nipples when she did this show should be ashamed of themselves.  I’m not going to blame her because she’s a kid — an especially wise kid, but a kid, nonetheless.

When I first saw this photo, I emailed style.com to let them know that it was irresponsible to leave the photo up if they knew the model was under eighteen.  They didn’t get back to me, so I emailed a few talk shows.  Nobody responded — not even Tyra or Bill O’Reilly.

I figured that this photo should spark a controversy.  It didn’t.  So why is a model so much different than an actress?  Why is Miley Cyrus in a sheet so much more offensive than a different teenager in a transparent top?  Janet Jackson’s nipple slip cost CBS a bundle, but Karl Lagerfeld and style.com get off free because Behati Prinsloo is a model?  I guess models get what they deserve.  They aren’t actresses, after all.

I’m sure this girl is going to have a great life because of modeling.  It’s likely that she’ll have opportunities that most of us couldn’t even dream of having.  Still, I wonder what she’s going to think in twenty or thirty years when she looks back at this photo and sees herself bare-breasted on a stage with the entire world’s gaze fixed upon her.  I can’t imagine that she’s going to be happy with the people who brought her there.  And she shouldn’t be.

When I’m watching TV shows like Project Runway, I always get upset when the judges criticize a look for being too much like a costume.  Over this past season, my favorite outfit was Chris’ coat trimmed with human hair that got him voted off of the show.  It was 100% costume, all right, but what a costume! 

It reminded me of the greatest costume/fashion designer of the past couple of decades: Thierry Mugler.  Mugler didn’t even try to avoid to the “costume designer” label.  His early 90s shows were pure spectacle, and everyone — especially the models — couldn’t have enjoyed them more.

Fashion, however, was about to enter the Calvin Klein era.  Between minimalism and so-called “good taste,” there wasn’t a place for someone as dramatic as Mugler in the business.  Mugler didn’t help himself adapt to the times, either.  As rising stars like Michael Kors took fashion into a decade that will be remembered for wearability, Mugler continued to do what he had always done.  It was his undoing.

I read that Mugler is designing costumes and dabbling in other projects nowadays.  His collections are also being shown in retrospectives, museum exhibits and online.  Style.com recently featured a fascinating slideshow of superhero looks that included a few of Mugler’s most wonderful works.  Or if you want to see what all the hype was about, just watch the video for George Michael’s Too Funky.  Linda Evangelista, Emma Sjöberg, Estelle Lefébure, Tyra Banks, the hauntingly gorgeous Nadia Auermann, all clad in the most fabulously-unwearable garments imaginable – what more could anyone ask for?  This is what the fantasy we call fashion is all about.

Lauren

Oh, Lauren!  You just had to get sent home, didn’t you?  At least you got to say “Crap, crap, crap, CoverGirl!” before you left.  Maybelline owes you a favor now.  I’ll make a couple of calls and see what I can do.

I actually didn’t think Lauren was going home until Tyra handed Whitney her photo on last night’s episode of America’s Next Top Model.  For some strange reason, I kept thinking back to CariDee’s CoverGirl commercial in Spanish.  Lauren may have been awkward, but CariDee was downright scary — much like Dominique was in her commercial.

Holy Zob!  Could Dominique be the surprise winner?

I actually do like Dominique.  I laughed out loud when Gai Mattiolo said that she didn’t look “fresh.”  The girl has a lot of spirit, though, and she seems to try a lot harder than most of the contestants on this show (she’s this season’s Furonda).  And we all know that you can’t spell Tyra without t-r-y and an A for effort!  That’s one of the lessons I learned at T-Zone when I infiltrated the camp for a tell-all exposé.  The camp counsellors would chain us to our bunks and make us repeat that slogan over and over and over again before our dinner of cold celery broth and the week-old Olive Garden breadsticks they would find at the bottom of Tyra’s tote bag.

Anyway, Dominique gets an A from me.  It’ll go well with her X and Y chromosomes.  She can start a collection.

ANTM Group Shot

Last night’s episode of America’s Next Top Model almost had it all!  Fatima was nearly disqualified because she didn’t have her travel documents in order.  Lauren almost cut her thumb off.  Anya won another challenge and pissed off the rest of the girls when she was paid $10,000 for a modeling job.  Whitney got told to cut the pageant performance.  Katarzyna was finally seen in a confessional.  And best of all, Stacy Ann was shown the door – finally!

However, the episode was missing one crucial element.  When Tyra announced that the remaining girls would be traveling to Rome, she simply got on a plane, and that was that.

What happened to this show?  I was expecting her to be dressed as a pizza chef — or maybe as a pizza — while delivering the news of the upcoming trip in a butchered Italian accent.  Or maybe she could have pretended to be Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita, or Sophia Loren, or Cicciolina, or Mussolini.  Perhaps she could have dressed as one of the Super Mario Bros. and been chased around the set by Donkey Kong.  Something would have been better than nothing.

Don’t tell me that this show is attempting to cultivate some good taste.  After nine-and-a-half train-wreck seasons, that’s something I wouldn’t be able to bear.

Tyra

Today is a rotten day.  Not only is it the birthday of the Evil AntiZob, but it’s also my first day in therapy.

I didn’t want to see a therapist, but my friend Greg (whom you read about a couple of days ago) urged me to go.  He thought that I needed to confront some of my issues regarding Marc Jacobs and the special brand of evil the designer promotes.  I agreed to go, but only because Greg promised me that he would bring over a bottle of Veuve Clicquot to drink during ATNM tonight.

My therapist turned out to be quite a dapper man.  He sort of reminds me of Michael Caine in that movie he did with Angie Dickinson (the name escapes me).  However, he seemed to very eager to focus on the manner in which the spirit of Zob deserted my body.

It’s all just a blur to me, so he suggested that I try hypnotherapy in order to remember something about that fateful day in 1992.  A few minutes later I was reclining on a chaise, falling into a trance as his gentle voice coaxed me backwards through time, traveling closer and closer to the moment when I saw immortality snatched away from me.

And then I hit a roadblock – a great big roadblock.  Tyra was standing there, urging me not go back.  The strangest thing was that she was wearing Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis.  I awoke from my trance, not sure what to make of the vision.  With my appointment almost over, my therapist recommended that I take some time to reflect upon what I had just seen.

I tried to get the vision out of my head, but I couldn’t do it.  Instead, I Googled Tyra’s bio.  What I discovered shocked me more than Mollie Sue’s elimination or Saleisha’s win: Tyra modelled for Marc Jacobs at Perry Ellis!

I’ve always associated Tyra with everything that is good in the universe.  Now I’m second-guessing her role in the Zobpocalypse.  Is she an evil minion of the AntiZob, or is she an avenging angel, infiltrating his camp?  Was she hiding something from me, or trying to protect me from the hideous truth.  It’s something I’m going to have to investigate.

In the meantime, I’m going to book another session with my therapist.  I don’t know why I’m so attracted to him.  He wasn’t all that handsome, but I’m a sucker for a guy who is dressed to kill. . .

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a forum for the Psoriasis Education Program called Loud and Clear with CariDee.  After the forum wrapped up, the winner of America’s Next Top Model Cycle 7 met with fans to shoot the breeze (easy, breezy and beautifully, of course).

I was amongst the autograph hounds lined up to meet CariDee — not as a fan (although she is my favorite winner), but as a crack reporter.  Auntie Fashion asks the tough questions that everyone else is afraid to ask.

When I questioned CariDee about the upcoming Fiercee Awards, she was taken off guard.  “How do you know about that?” she asked me.  I explained that I know everything worth knowing, and she accepted that like any rational person would do.  She also told me that the Fiercee Awards are going to air on an upcoming Tyra episode where several of the ANTM contestants are going to get what’s coming to them.  I can’t wait!

Then I asked CariDee the question that no reporter has been courageous enough to ask: Was she the one responsible for “Smellrose”, undoubtedly the best nickname in ATNM history?  “No, that would be Jaeda,” she replied.  However, I’m not completely sure that I believed her because she was doing that thing where her eyes dart upward, like she did in her Spanish CoverGirl commercial.

Anyhow, the highlight of the evening was when my friend asked CariDee to reenact the triumphant moment when she won ANTM and hugged Melrose.  CariDee committed to the scene like a trouper and the result is the priceless photo I posted above.  Give the girl an Oscar!