Thursday, May 27, 2004
Bling it on! Today I went bling-shopping for the Incredible Melk photo shoot I have next week. The Incredible Melk is coming along really well: as Chris said on Monday, "it's a galaxy of wrong, but a world of right!" But anyway. First stop was Supré (of course!), where I bought a stretchy black minidress with a very low cowl neckline, and a lewdly tight-fitting pair of silver satin hotpants styled like 70s jogging shorts. Here are the sizes they came in: XXXS, XXS, XS, S, M. I found this really disturbing: only 12-year-olds could fit into such ridiculous sizes, but why would 12-year-olds be wearing silver hotpants?
Next stop was Smith Street, where I purchased some extremely tragic fake plastic bling - a necklace, earrings, a tiara and a hilarious pimp daddy ring. From this Asian gift shop I also bought some trashy earrings - some with dangly fake diamonds and emeralds, a pair of gold hoops with diamantes in the front, and a pair with a mass of little black stones that come almost to the shoulders. I think I'll wear them to Andrejs' birthday drinks on Saturday, with my new little black dress.
Then I thought I'd go to TSL across the road to see how much they wanted for Bonds hoodies. And while in there, I was seized by a frenzy similar to the one that gripped me in the Converse outlet down the road, and I staggered out into Smith Street with a throw rug and matching cushion made of fake black mink! I couldn't wait to see Gemma's reaction, as lately she has been calling everything "mink-blowing" after the quote on the front of the Life of David Gale DVD.
This is a sickness! Anyway, as I was talking to Gemma and gleefully showing her my purchases, we were talking about the impending CSAA conference in Perth, which has some theme about the "everyday". I joked that I should do some paper about "everyday bling" - the normalisation of crappy fake signifiers of ostentatious wealth among Australian kiddies. The more I thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. It will be quite interesting to look at how the original racial politics of bling have become muted or perhaps transmuted in Australia. It will tie in nicely with the other aspects of Australian hip hop and R&B club cultures I'm interested in - performing race, gender and sexuality through the dancing body, the question of phenomenology, issues of globalisation... and the ultimate uselessness of 'authenticity' as a critical tool in the Australian context. Watch out, Tony Mitchell!
Next stop was Smith Street, where I purchased some extremely tragic fake plastic bling - a necklace, earrings, a tiara and a hilarious pimp daddy ring. From this Asian gift shop I also bought some trashy earrings - some with dangly fake diamonds and emeralds, a pair of gold hoops with diamantes in the front, and a pair with a mass of little black stones that come almost to the shoulders. I think I'll wear them to Andrejs' birthday drinks on Saturday, with my new little black dress.
Then I thought I'd go to TSL across the road to see how much they wanted for Bonds hoodies. And while in there, I was seized by a frenzy similar to the one that gripped me in the Converse outlet down the road, and I staggered out into Smith Street with a throw rug and matching cushion made of fake black mink! I couldn't wait to see Gemma's reaction, as lately she has been calling everything "mink-blowing" after the quote on the front of the Life of David Gale DVD.
This is a sickness! Anyway, as I was talking to Gemma and gleefully showing her my purchases, we were talking about the impending CSAA conference in Perth, which has some theme about the "everyday". I joked that I should do some paper about "everyday bling" - the normalisation of crappy fake signifiers of ostentatious wealth among Australian kiddies. The more I thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. It will be quite interesting to look at how the original racial politics of bling have become muted or perhaps transmuted in Australia. It will tie in nicely with the other aspects of Australian hip hop and R&B club cultures I'm interested in - performing race, gender and sexuality through the dancing body, the question of phenomenology, issues of globalisation... and the ultimate uselessness of 'authenticity' as a critical tool in the Australian context. Watch out, Tony Mitchell!
