Friday, August 20, 2004
Haircuts and the Nineties. I went to a 1990s-themed birthday party last night, except that nobody dressed up except for me. The worst thing about 1990s themes is that nobody can tell you're going to a fancy-dress party; they just think you're a dork or a bogan or both.
Yesterday I had my hair cut by the famous Stanley, who does a great job with Saige's and Dan's hair and is also a hairdresser to the stars (because he cuts Sophie Cunningham's hair). The salon was like some Zen den: really minimalist and white with clear bead curtains on the wall, and in the headwashing nook, the wallpaper was black lino with raised circles on it, like they used to have at the Box Hill swimming pool.
Having been to many hairdressers in my time, I was impressed with Stanley's unorthodox technique: he picked some seemingly random bit of hair in the back, spent ages on it, and then matched every other bit of hair to it. I was panicking that he was going to make my hair really short in the back and long in front (and was saying to myself "You wanted directional, remember, you wanted directional!") But in the end it was heaps longer in the back.
It is ridiculously layered, and seeing that my hair is wavy, it will look crazy when I attempt to blowdry it myself. But I got them to straighten it, with the result that I looked like a Little Collins St booty ho! Gemma was freaked out because she said I looked like a completely different person!
But I'm dressed like an international student. I'm really pleased with my aesthetic today, given that yesterday was a bit of a disaster fuelled by a black Supré singlet-minidress with black leggings, a white off-the-shoulder angora jumper and shitloads of white and pink pearls. Today I am wearing loose black pants tucked into a pair of black opaque knee-socks whose toes I cut off to transform them into legwarmers. The legwarmers extend halfway down my feet into a pair of pink Dunlop Volley slip-ons. The effect is vaguely Shaolin monk. ("Shaolin shadow-boxing... and the Wu-Tang style... Do you think your Wu-tang sword candefeatme?) I am also wearing a pale pink blouse with puffed short sleeves, and a hot pink singlet, and mismatching earrings, one a mid-pink heart shape, and one a pale pink circle with a hole in the middle.
Having been sidetracked by my own excellent clothing today, last night was another story. After consulting with various peers about what to wear, I decided on a pastiche of early-90s Deee-lite (itself a pastiche of the 1970s!) and the pseudo-goth look. I had black leggings (that come up to the waist), black platform high-heel sandals, a pink semi-sheer floral-pattern top with low décolletage and slashed long sleeves, with a black bra (remember how in the 90s it was really cool to wear sheer tops with dark underwear?), and one of those black fabric headbands that you wear at the hairline.
Now I like to pay attention to detail when I do costumes, hence I also had black-painted toenails and this horrid purplish-black lipstick (damn Uma Thurman; she started this 90s craze for goth-styled makeup. It's so fucking unflattering!) And, in my favourite touch, I doused myself in Dewberry perfume from The Body Shop, which I used to love when I was about sixteen. With the toenails, I couldn't find my black toenail polish anywhere, so I went back to what I used to do as a teenager: I painted my toenails black with a texta! It washed off in the shower, leaving my toenails looking yellowish with black around the edges, like I was one of Michael Jackson's Thriller zombies.
And then I got to the party and nobody else was dressed up as hideously as me! Roland was wearing a t-shirt that said "Calvin Klein 1995" and white Seinfeld-esque sneakers, but really, he still looked normal. There was a chick wearing high pants with her top tucked in, but I thought it would be dangerous to compliment her on her costume in case she always wore pants like that!! There was also some guy wearing boat shoes, but again, I don't think it was ironic!
I went up to the bar and said "Hey, I'm at a 90s theme party."
"Really?" she said dubiously, "they're all dressed normally."
"I know!" I said, rolling my eyes.
"Anyway, I'm looking for a really 90s drink. You don't have any Lemon Ruskis, do you?"
She thought a minute. "What about Midori and pineapple?" (As an aside, it drives me nuts that people pronounce this liqueur "Miduri" - it's an O - you say Mi-DOR-i!)
So I had that ($7! hardly 1990s prices!) and then I had another drink of champagne with raspberry cordial in it. And then I left. The stupid platform shoes were killing my feet (two bad shoe experiences in one week: not good!) by the time I got to my tram stop, so I had to decide: would it hurt more to walk in the shoes, or to walk in bare feet on asphalt footpaths?
I went the barefoot option, making little noises of "Ow! ow!" with every step. It was so embarrassing: this guy who lives in a house on the corner of Abbotsford St, and who I'd peered at through his living-room window twice earlier that night, stuck his head out the window and said "Are you OK?"
"Yes, except my feet really hurt," I said lamely.
"Whatever," he said and stuck his head back in.
Yesterday I had my hair cut by the famous Stanley, who does a great job with Saige's and Dan's hair and is also a hairdresser to the stars (because he cuts Sophie Cunningham's hair). The salon was like some Zen den: really minimalist and white with clear bead curtains on the wall, and in the headwashing nook, the wallpaper was black lino with raised circles on it, like they used to have at the Box Hill swimming pool.
Having been to many hairdressers in my time, I was impressed with Stanley's unorthodox technique: he picked some seemingly random bit of hair in the back, spent ages on it, and then matched every other bit of hair to it. I was panicking that he was going to make my hair really short in the back and long in front (and was saying to myself "You wanted directional, remember, you wanted directional!") But in the end it was heaps longer in the back.
It is ridiculously layered, and seeing that my hair is wavy, it will look crazy when I attempt to blowdry it myself. But I got them to straighten it, with the result that I looked like a Little Collins St booty ho! Gemma was freaked out because she said I looked like a completely different person!
But I'm dressed like an international student. I'm really pleased with my aesthetic today, given that yesterday was a bit of a disaster fuelled by a black Supré singlet-minidress with black leggings, a white off-the-shoulder angora jumper and shitloads of white and pink pearls. Today I am wearing loose black pants tucked into a pair of black opaque knee-socks whose toes I cut off to transform them into legwarmers. The legwarmers extend halfway down my feet into a pair of pink Dunlop Volley slip-ons. The effect is vaguely Shaolin monk. ("Shaolin shadow-boxing... and the Wu-Tang style... Do you think your Wu-tang sword candefeatme?) I am also wearing a pale pink blouse with puffed short sleeves, and a hot pink singlet, and mismatching earrings, one a mid-pink heart shape, and one a pale pink circle with a hole in the middle.
Having been sidetracked by my own excellent clothing today, last night was another story. After consulting with various peers about what to wear, I decided on a pastiche of early-90s Deee-lite (itself a pastiche of the 1970s!) and the pseudo-goth look. I had black leggings (that come up to the waist), black platform high-heel sandals, a pink semi-sheer floral-pattern top with low décolletage and slashed long sleeves, with a black bra (remember how in the 90s it was really cool to wear sheer tops with dark underwear?), and one of those black fabric headbands that you wear at the hairline.
Now I like to pay attention to detail when I do costumes, hence I also had black-painted toenails and this horrid purplish-black lipstick (damn Uma Thurman; she started this 90s craze for goth-styled makeup. It's so fucking unflattering!) And, in my favourite touch, I doused myself in Dewberry perfume from The Body Shop, which I used to love when I was about sixteen. With the toenails, I couldn't find my black toenail polish anywhere, so I went back to what I used to do as a teenager: I painted my toenails black with a texta! It washed off in the shower, leaving my toenails looking yellowish with black around the edges, like I was one of Michael Jackson's Thriller zombies.
And then I got to the party and nobody else was dressed up as hideously as me! Roland was wearing a t-shirt that said "Calvin Klein 1995" and white Seinfeld-esque sneakers, but really, he still looked normal. There was a chick wearing high pants with her top tucked in, but I thought it would be dangerous to compliment her on her costume in case she always wore pants like that!! There was also some guy wearing boat shoes, but again, I don't think it was ironic!
I went up to the bar and said "Hey, I'm at a 90s theme party."
"Really?" she said dubiously, "they're all dressed normally."
"I know!" I said, rolling my eyes.
"Anyway, I'm looking for a really 90s drink. You don't have any Lemon Ruskis, do you?"
She thought a minute. "What about Midori and pineapple?" (As an aside, it drives me nuts that people pronounce this liqueur "Miduri" - it's an O - you say Mi-DOR-i!)
So I had that ($7! hardly 1990s prices!) and then I had another drink of champagne with raspberry cordial in it. And then I left. The stupid platform shoes were killing my feet (two bad shoe experiences in one week: not good!) by the time I got to my tram stop, so I had to decide: would it hurt more to walk in the shoes, or to walk in bare feet on asphalt footpaths?
I went the barefoot option, making little noises of "Ow! ow!" with every step. It was so embarrassing: this guy who lives in a house on the corner of Abbotsford St, and who I'd peered at through his living-room window twice earlier that night, stuck his head out the window and said "Are you OK?"
"Yes, except my feet really hurt," I said lamely.
"Whatever," he said and stuck his head back in.
