Feel Like a Big Delicious

where'd you get them jeans?

Apple Bottoms by Nelly.


Nelly designs jeans?

Yup, the rapper-singer who only a few years ago urged you to "take off all your clothes" is now making some for you to wear.

Apple Bottoms, said to "celebrate and liberate the natural curves of a woman's body," appear to be more that just another musician's forray into the world of fashion design. These jeans not only promise to be bootylicious, but radical. Though this message is more palpable in the feel of the website and its ad copy than it is in the look of the jeans, we'll take what we can get. After all, we don''t really get the sense that normal sized women make frequent appearances in the imaginations of most fashion designers.

Jeans, once the clothes of the working man, have become genuine luxury items. With the influx of brands like Seven, Citizens for Humanity, and Paper, Denim + Cloth, more people are dropping between $100 and $200 for that "perfect" pair. Most of these jeans do promise something vaguely progressive : they claim to be "hand finished" or (my favorite) "hand whiskered," and most of them are also sweatshop-labor free. But many of these brands have gained popularity due to their reputed ability to minimize a woman's flaws. And then there's Nelly, telling us to "liberate and celebrate" what so many of us are usually trying to hide.

The Apple Bottoms models make it clear that it is *all about* the hips and booty. We like that instead of back pockets, many of the styles are festooned with pink rhinestone apples (yum!).

But what we are really curious about is how Nelly came to embark on this venture. Was he sick of listening to friends and girlfriends and sisters complain about shopping for that perfect pair? Did he notice women looking uncomfortable in ill-fitting denim as they were shaking their tail feathers? Was he jealous of J. Lo (whose jeans, I can personally attest, are *not* designed for particularly curvy women -- how ironic) ? Or has he always had a yen to design clothing for women. Really, we wonder.

As of now, Apple Bottoms are not available in Texas unless you order from the website. Perhaps we'll be the first person in Austin to wear them. We really like those rhinestones! They'd look sweet with pink sandals. And we also really like the name "Apple Bottoms." It's cute!

It's Akedemik

Some of you may remember hip-hop clothiers Akedemiks' saucy ad campaign from this past holiday season. For those of you who don't, here's a little refresher:


study hard!

Read books, get sex: That's what racy advertisements on hundreds of city buses are suggesting to teens - and red-faced transit bosses are outraged.

The salacious ads by hip-hop clothing line Akademiks declare: "Read Books, Get Brain."

But kids say "get brain" does not mean smarts. It's slang for oral sex. And the company behind the ads told the Daily News the slogan choice was no mistake.

"We knew this," fessed up Anthony Harrison, Akademiks' ad designer. "It's coded language, city slang. Teens know what it means but the general public doesn't."

The above comes from a November article in the NY Daily News. We really liked this ad campaign, especially since it used slang within a slogan (Note to P.H.: that's an example of ingenuity). It also illustrates the magnetic dynamism of slang that we were talking about in our catchphrase post from yesterday. Plus, it had lots of books; we like those (and think their use here is much more interesting than their one-trick appearance in the ads for Pamela Anderson's Stacked. Like, omigod -- someone with blonde hair and boobs reads books -- what a concept!!!)

Anyway, we just came across Akedemics' new ad campaign, and we love this one too! The new ads feature a multiple choice "quiz" -- an "Akademiks Aptitude Test" -- to test your "jeanius." The idea is to match a word to what you see -- pictures of really cool looking peopple in really cool looking clothes.

Well, that's what we see at least. But what are the chances everyone sees the same thing?

Akademiks' new ads, like their old ones, play with multiple-meanings, and are effective this time because they explore the slippery semiotics of appearance. What makes them particularly potent is their exposure of the prejudices potentially/certainly embedded within these codes.

One ad features a picture of a tall and lean black man wearing a hoodie and a defiant stare. One hand is in his pockets and the other holds a duffle bag. The copy asks: Terrorist? Patriot? Activist? Scapegoat? Civilian?


an Akedemiks' ad from the May issue of Essence

At the bottom of the page, in tiny upside down letters, it says : "A: Labels are for clothes, not for people." The ad essentially works by asking the viewer to recognize other people's labels (and prejudices), and then asks them to confront their own. It also works because it offers up some unexpected labels. And there is no denying that these labels also force one to reconsider the way race affects society's perception of how and when these labels are assigned.

But it has also been awhile since we saw the word "FEMINISTS" -- in big bold letters -- inside a women's magazine. So we were really happy when we came across the above panel in the latest issue of Essence. Despite realizing that the whole point of the ad is that labels are not for people, we still really like that that this "label" is there. In fact, all the panels have words that we both love and hate -- and that's really interesting. In fact, we really did learn something from taking this "quiz": we became more aware of how these labels work, both for good and for bad.

And oh yeah, we like the clothes too!!!

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

Isn't that a great title for a book? It's the title of Aimee Bender's first. She's here in town to do a reading and workshop at the house.

And check out the cover of her newest:












This is a fiction writer with a poet's sensibility. Here are some snippets from interviews.

from powell's:

Bender: Saying "the man" or "the woman," sometimes I like those words better than the words of names, even though it's true that once you name someone they're more specific and the reader can identify with them more. Maybe it's just an attraction to a kind of fairy-tale storytelling — it feels like names would be slightly too specific for the story; sometimes it would be a loss to attach a name to the characters. Like the big man and the little man [in "End of the Line"] — the big man can't have a name. I would lose part of my feeling about who he is. He's just "the big man"; he can't be Bob.

It feels like a texture to me. The texture would go a little wrong if the character was named, if the story wants to be more mythic. As soon as someone is named, the story enters the world of reality a little more. As soon as a capital letter comes into play, it looks different and it feels different.

and from Beatrice:

You can write a sentence, and the sentence will have tunnels inside of it, and you don't know how deep each tunnel will go, but a certain noun might be a tunnel that could last the length of a novel. The only way you know is that you're vaguely curious about it. It's an intuition about where you need to go, and it is a bit like groping through caves in the dark.

Sexy!!!

To learn more about the reading click here

To visit Aimee Bender's website (it's really cool) click here

Kim Kelly is my Friend

She's my favorite tough girl. Mercurial, volatile, brassy, and funny as hell. She bulldozes through the halls of McKinley High, spitting nails and scowling. She is my current make-up inspiration. Pale lips and smudged-cover-girl eyes. And I totally want her blue jacket.

For those of you not familiar with Kim Kelly, she's one of the "freaks" from the short-lived but totally brilliant FREAKS AND GEEKS . Thanks to MZN and E, we now own the series on DVD, and well, we've been watching it like crazy.

KIM KELLY is a character we all know, but rarely see depicted in TV shows these days. There are male bullies and "mean girls," but Kim Kelly is neither. She's a bad-ass girl with attitude from a lumpen class back-ground. She smokes pot and has sex, and she's quick to threaten those who annoy her with physical violence (i.e,"Are you calling me irrational? Because I'll tear your head off, Daniel. I'll tear it off and I'll throw it over that fence.") The thing is, Kim Kelly is also totally lovable.

Her TV precedents are gals like Rizzo and Leather Tuscadero (played by Suzi Quatro, aka suzie q. Also, there is a good teen beat band from the 90's called Tuscadero. They sing about Nancy Drew...but I digress). And though Rayanne Graff from My So-Called Life has a few things in common with Kim, it's tough (no pun intended) to find anyone else like her these days. Though tough girls still seem to be rockin' pretty hard (Sleater Kinney, The Donnas) and hip hopping (Eve, esp. in her early days), there are not many of them on TV.

I'm not sure why this is so. Unlike the "mean girl," the "tough girl" isn't necessarily dripping with femininity (though there is "bad gal" make-up). And though Buffy is TOTALLY "tough," Kim Kelly's toughness is of a different sort. And though Paris Gellar's tongue is just a sharp, she's way more square. It seems as though the tough girls without a calling or a type-a personality have gone underground.

So this is one of my current projects. I'm looking for tough girls on TV. I think I might start by checking out this new ROLLERGIRLS show from A&E. And I'd like to take a look at this book and this book.

And speaking of books, I'd like to end this post with a bit from one of Kim Kelly's book reviews. This is from her review of Deenie by Judy Blume.

Girls get tested for scoliosis all the time in gym class and it sucks. How'd you like to take your top off, stand around in your bra, and bend over in front of a doctor? So don't complain about that "turn your head and cough" crap. Anyway, Deenie has to wear a scoliosis brace. That's got to be pretty rough. But she's so conceited you want to slap her. It's like, "Boo hoo, now I can't wear my cute new school outfits!" And her mom's a real piece of work. All she cares about is forcing Deenie to be a model, so she can mooch off her daughter's paychecks. If I were Deenie, I'd make her mom wear the brace for a day or two. Then maybe she'd leave her alone. The one cool thing about Deenie is that she tells people the truth about her brace, instead of making up some lie. Eventually, everyone gets used to the idea. And this cute guy still wants to make out with her.

Read more about Kim Kelly and her book reviews here. And give me a shout if you know any tough girls.