Clothes

Fame At Last… Sort Of

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I don’t often remember my dreams, which is probably a good thing as it prevents me from boring you with the details. Every so often, however, something wakes me up in the middle of a dream and I find out just how odd my mind can be.

So last night it appears I was in Harvey Nichols. Goodness knows why. I can’t afford to go in through the door, let alone shop there. But there I was, and the staff had discovered that I knew Cat Valente, as a result of which they were treating me like a celebrity and allowing me to try on some fabulous, feather-festooned bridal gowns.

Then I woke up, and as it was the middle of the night I needed to get back to sleep. My usual tactic in such cases is to play a podcast, because I can lie there in darkness letting the lilt of voices wash over me. Normally this works, no matter who is on the podcast. But as I had been dreaming about Cat I put on the latest episode of the SF Squeecast, which was recorded live at Worldcon before the Hugo ceremony (where of course they all won rockets).

You should all listen anyway, just to hear Cat enthuse about John Crowley, but I stayed awake for quite a while. Towards the end Paul Cornell started talking about the Hugos, which got me concentrating on what was being said. Which is how I discovered that they mentioned me. And how I heard Elizabeth Bear say, “Stop fucking me, Cheryl”.

On closer examination this morning, what she actually said was, “Stop fucking with me, Cheryl”. But she said it quite quickly, and I was in bed half asleep. It was a somewhat surreal moment.

Still, I have now been mentioned on the Squeecast, and while I wasn’t exactly squeed about I am claiming that I’m now famous. If you want to hear why Bear was saying that about me, you’ll have to listen for yourselves.

Girl’s Got Style

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Diana Prince has been shopping. The new togs are seriously cool. This is enough to make me want to turn up at a convention in a superhero costume (except, of course, I’d need to lose a lot of weight in some places, and add it in others).

Fashion Technology

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Jennifer Ouellette has yet another wonderful post up. This one starts from the basic idea of trying to persuade Lady Gaga to write a physics-inspired rock opera and goes from there on a lovely romp through the fashion and music industries. A lot of time gets spent on fashion designer Hussein Chalayan and his ideas about self-modifying clothing. There are also digressions into such fun bands as ArcAttack and OK Go.

I’m all in favor of interesting clothing. If it can modify itself in useful or entertaining ways, so much the better. But I can’t help thinking that fannish costumers have been doing this for a long time.

Jen, if you are reading this, these pictures come from the Best in Show entry at the 1995 Worldcon in Glasgow. I know some of the folks involved.

The Tanu group

Single Tanu lit up

(As I recall, Maggie Percival was the prime mover for the project.)

Yet More Linkage

~ Cheryl

Because I have spent most of today on Day Jobbery.

– Joe Gordon reports on a BBC story about a supposed real-life Glasgow vampire that caused massive moral panic and led to censoring of comics.

– Justine Larbalestier has a tribute to the brilliant and sadly missed Alexander McQueen. (Go on, click through, just look at those fabulous dresses!)

– Space Ship Two has successfully completed its maiden flight. (And Virgin Galactic reports that they have sold over 330 tickets for flights.)

– And finally, a horrific tale of a mother of five from Durban whose life has been destroyed because prison authorities mistook her for a transsexual.

Mucho Linkage

~ Cheryl

See, I take the morning off to get my hair done and all sorts of interesting stuff turns up. Here are some brief links.

– Neil has tweeted this, so you have probably all seen it, but some archaeologists working in Turkey have found a temple they believe to be 11,500 years old. That’s 6,000 years before Stonehenge was started. It is so old it predates the invention of pottery.

– Meanwhile archaeologists working on Crete have found a stone hand axe they believe to be 130,000 years old. That’s not so old for such an implement, except that Crete is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, which leaves us wondering how the heck early humanoids got there.

– Jennifer Ouellette talks about the science of superheroes, and along the way has some interesting things to say about scientific accuracy in Hollywood.

– One of the things that always delights me is how simple mathematical rules can give rise to amazing complexity. Here’s a lovely story about the shapes of the beaks of finches studied by Darwin. (It also explains why we don’t see any “in between” beak shapes.)

– Jeff vanderMeer writes about Margaret Atwood and her interest in science fiction.

– Ekaterina Sedia explains why the outrageous style choices of Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen are of interest to feminists.

No Miracles Here

~ Cheryl ~ 15 Comments

I suppose it is possible that a photograph taken by a top-flight professional can make you look stunningly gorgeous when you are not, but if so he’ll probably need plenty of time and the help of a good makeup artist. Kyle Cassidy’s fan photo shoot at Worldcon had neither. Kyle was getting through people very quickly because he had a lot of customers. So the end result is that I still look fat and craggy, because I am overweight and old. But at least I was wearing my speccy Camden market dress, which hopefully helps a bit.

Photo under the fold, and the full set (including some much more attractive people) on Flickr.
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The Red Dress

~ Cheryl ~ 12 Comments

And yes, I did choose the color deliberately for Canada.

Hugo winner photo

Just in case you didn’t know, the other person in the picture is John Scalzi, a past winner of the Best Fan Writer Hugo and fellow troublemaker.

Dress Shopping Report

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

I have bought a Dress. I must admit I wasn’t expecting to find one in Darkest Somerset, but maybe we are coming up in the world. It’s not the best quality ever, but it fits and it will be noticeable, and at £25 in the sale it was too good an opportunity to miss.

When I say “fits”, of course, I mean it fits in just about every place but one. Having small tits has its advantages, and its disadvantages. So the next thing on my Worldcon shopping list will probably be some sort of scaffolding. And accessories, of course. But hopefully the main problem is solved. I shall take it to Montreal with me next weekend to get a second opinion from Kevin.

Shopping Report

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Today I went to investigate the new Westfield Mall in Shepherd’s Bush. Bay Area folks will be used to such things, but it is a bit of a departure for London. It is, however, dead easy to get to by Tube, which is a very good thing. It is probably about the same size as Valley Fair, but with more open space inside it. Fortunately today it was pretty quiet.

I didn’t buy a Hugo dress. I did find a very nice dark blue one in Debenhams (just the color you suggested, Keri), but they had nothing between a 10 and a 20, and in any case it was £100 which seemed a bit painful after last year’s $22 bargain.

I almost bought a coat in Next. It looked great on the mannequin, but it was a bit padded and consequently made me look even more fat than I am, which is not good. But I did manage to find new stocks of Whittard’s mango tea at last. I’d been getting worried that they had stopped making it.

On the way back I stopped off at Oxford Circus to check out Hugo nominees in Borders. FAIL. Not one of the Best Novel nominees was available in the SF section. i did finally find one lost and lonely copy of The Graveyard Book in the YA section, but that was all. Tsk.

I did also check Liberty in case they had a Vivienne Westwood dress I wanted them to put aside in case I win the lottery, but no luck there either.

The other piece of news I got from the trip is that the Victoria Line will be closed all weekend. This has caused me to change my plans for tomorrow. Instead of going to find a pub for the Wales-Ireland I’m going to stay here and listen to the games on the radio instead. If we win I can watch the game on the iPlayer next week.

About Next Week

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

One of the reasons I decided to go for Twitter is that next week I will have an ideal excuse to test it – I am off to N’Awlins for a business conference. That means I’ll be detached from my laptop for a fair amount of time Wednesday thru Saturday, but I will have my phone. Therefore, if I feel the need to say something like, “You are at SMOFcon in Columbus where it is probably snowing, but I am in Cafe du Mode eating beignets” then I can do so.

Not that the actual conference I’m at will be any more entertaining than SMOFcon, but it is in N’Awlins and it does have a couple of evening functions. Having not been to one of these things before, I inquired of a colleague about the dress code. This is what he said:

my suggestion is to err on the side of being over-dressed and not the other way around

He’s clearly never seen my wardrobe. 🙂

But I might just take something utterly speccy. I shall explain why later.

Endorphin Rush

~ Cheryl

I found time to pop into Taunton today. It was farmers’ market day, so I was able to pick up some venison for dinner. And I found a new stall that I hadn’t seen before. These nice chocolate makers from Minehead. They make chili-flavored dark chocolate. Wow! Mega endorphin rush. It was seriously good stuff.

I also picked up some more emotibombs and a few nice clothes. I was stunned to find M&S selling jeans for 12 quid a pair ($24). And they fitted perfectly too. Just what I needed (my only pair of blue jeans here developed a hole last time they got washed).

Serious Temptation

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Every girl needs a custom couturier, right? And if you don’t get to Paris very often, and can’t speak much French, why not just go to New Orleans instead?

Much of the stock at Fleur de Paris is 1920’s in style which doesn’t suit me too well, but there were plenty of lovely dresses and hats there, if only I could have afforded anything. Not even if we hadn’t eaten anything all the time we’d been here. One day, though. And in the meantime we had a lovely chat with their talented milliner. Kimberly Benn, if you happen to Google yourself, many thanks for being so welcoming. I’ll be back (as we say in California).

Arrived

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

We are safely in New Orleans. Kevin has already blogged about the trip.

It didn’t take me long to warm to this place, and that wasn’t anything to do with the blast of hot, humid air that greeted us as we got off the plane. No, it was the airport. Most airports have totally predictable and very boring shops. Here, within a few yards of each other, I found “Creole Kitchen” and “House of Blues”. Food and music. This is my sort of place.

We don’t have much in the way of plans right now, so suggestions are welcome. Tomorrow we are having breakfast at Brennans and will be visiting the Arthur Roger Gallery because the Dale Chihuly exhibition closes on the 13th.

So far everything is going well. The only mild mistake I appear to have made in the packing is not to bring hangers. Yes, I know we are only here for 5 days, but if you can’t over-dress in New Orleans where can you do so?

Of course you can under-dress as well. The cover of the tourist guide magazine in our hotel room features an article about the burlesque revival, which I’ve seen various of my New Yorker friends getting excited about (mainly the lesbians).

Hmm, I wonder if it is dinner time yet?

The Best Dressed Award

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

As regular readers will know, for many years now I have been handing out a “best dressed” award at the Hugo ceremony. It is time once again for a winner to be announced. There was a fair amount of stiff competition this year. Naomi Fisher is always very elegant. Ellen Datlow, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Kaja Foglio all looked splendid, as did the ladies accompanying John Scalzi, Wil McCarthy and Ed Bryant. Lisa Konrad gets a special mention for having bought her lovely dress in Fairy Gothmother in Camden (and teaming it with boots). However, for sheer princessly gloriousness, not to mention coming with a matching tiara, there can be no doubt about the winner. Ladies and Gentlemen, the 2008 Emerald City Best Dressed Award goes to…

– drum roll –

Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal's dress

I spoke to Mary briefly about the dress on the night. If I recall correctly it is from the 1960s and was purchased in a vintage clothing store in Portland, Oregon. Those of you into dressmaking can learn much more about it in this post.

Shopping

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Central Denver is lovely. Despite the wide roads and grid layout, it is a proper town center with lots of good restaurants and shops, and excellent pubic transit (there’s a free bus going up and down the 16th Street mall). Tattered Cover, who sponsored the goodie bags for the con, turned out to have a beautiful bookstore – photos to follow. I did also try to photograph Coors Field, but my camera, being a loyal Giants fan, promptly ran out of batteries.

Anyway, there was a further reductions sale in Anne Taylor Loft, and the local store, Cira, whose window I had been salivating over all week, turned out to have things that fitted me. I am poorer, but very happy. Gotta rush now. The airport beckons.

The Philosophy of Shopping

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

This morning I took myself off into the big city Taunton. This was not, sadly, to sit and watch Somerset all day, though the boys are doing remarkably well against Kent, having just established a first innings lead of 219. I had shopping to do, and I needed to be back here in the afternoon to do some work. But I am able to report on a notable success for the Cheryl Shopping Method.
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