I'm Mrs Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Thanks for the Paris recs, you guys: I'm super-psyched for my shopping extravaganza. So much so that I bought new tan leather boots today in preparation. Why give Paris all the credit card love, right?

Now, onto Miss J's latest brainwave of brilliance. We, the contributing writers of this site, and actual professional fashion peeps to boot, are going to share with you our 2008 Hot Lists. Unlike the hot lists/what's cool now/must-haves that you'll see in glossy magazines, which are more or less paid for by PRs and corporations, these lists are 100% genuine. If we love it, covet it, and stare madly at it whilst security edges towards us, concerned by that evil glint in our eye, it goes on the blog. If a PR offers us bribes, but we're not so taken with their wares, we turn down the bribes. (Unless it's like, a YSL Downtown bag. We're not insane.)


Clockwise from top left: Motherfucker gold chain, $12.99 from Girl Props
Vogue Covers, £24 from Amazon
Adele's 19 album, around £8 from Amazon
Undercover x P.A.M. Black Mass Lamp, price on request from selected dealers
Ms Angie Dickinson, priceless
Thrrrob rouge powder, $28 from Benefit.com
Juno Hamburger Phone, $15.99 from Sourcing Map

Hamburger Phone, as inspired by Juno

I'm sensing a general Michael Cera and Ellen Page backlash in my 'hood right now, and let me tell you, I'm against it. I won't have a word said against Juno, my girl EP (nor her tomboyish Oscars appearance), or my desperate need to have a hamburger phone just like our heroine's.

Petrol-blue trench from Peekaboo Vintage

Tragically I had to leave this on the hanger, and have no photograph, since it's not available online, and security dudes are kind of twitchy about peeps taking photographs of stock in case customers are secretly super-fly catwalk designers ripping off ideas. But if you were to imagine Angie Dickinson in turquoise trenchcoat form, well, that's what this fabulous coat would be like. My entire look is basically Angie inspired right now. I can't explain it, but I try and channel Ms Dickinson daily.

Vogue Covers: On Fashion's Front Page

Love it or hate it, you can't deny it – like Summer Roberts, Vogue is undeniable. This collection has covers from the heady days of models on the cover, illustrations from back in the day when Conde Nast was too cheap to fork out for a camera, and the current lousy era of Siennamilleritis, a nasty condition that affects fashion magazines like moths destroy clothing.

Undercover x P.A.M. Black Mass Lamp

You know how some days, you're reading Elle Deco and thinking, "Wow, this is lame, and kinda beige"? Whatever happened to the days of pimping out your pad serial-killer style? With this awesome lamp there's no need to go on a multi-state spree to collect enough skin for a lampshade – the designers behind Undercover and P.A.M. have done the work for you. [No humans were harmed in the making of this boss light.]

19 by Adele

Plus-size heroine, supercool teen (and damn all these kids on my lawn making successes of themselves whilst they're still, like, 12, or whatever), and soulful singer – Kanye West called her single, Chasing Pavements, "dope!!!!!!!". (Exclamation marks Mr West's. See what happens when you're a college dropout? Your punctuation goes all flooey.) Also, I covet her umbrella in this picture. Rhianna's not the only one with awesome taste in rainwear.

Thrrrob Face Powder by Benefit

Benefit's powders are all practically perfect in every way, but this new pink blush is doubly so. When you are very pale owing to the drains in this house, a la the heroine of Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters [sic], and you must excuse yourself to put some rouge on your cheeks, use this pleasing pink powder.

Motherfucker necklace

Five very wise philosophers, aka the Spice Girls, once said, "Silence is golden... but shouting is fun." This necklace is both golden AND shouty, and is therefore awesome. I'd love to be tasteful and considered each day, but a girl can only fit so many little black cocktail dresses into her wardrobe before she gets bored and has to pull on her stomping boots, fix on this necklace, and go out spoilin' for a fight.

So that's my brain right now. In 2008, I want to be Angie Dickinson, wearing pink blush, crude jewellery, sitting in my serial-killer lair listening to Adele whilst calling up cute boys on my burg' phone and flicking through Vogue covers. Possibly accessorised with nail polish in Schiaparelli pink, but y'know, I'm not fussy on the details.

You know you love me, xoxo Gossip Girl Harriet Olivia

Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)

Mika is releasing Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) as a single, and the London papers are currently full of pictures of the video shoot in Croydon last week. Now, it's no Fat Bottomed Girls (they make the rockin' world go round, apparently), but it's interesting.

Photo courtesy of Big Pictures Blog -- many thanks to joelle for the link!

What do you guys think? Positive portrayal of plus women? or vaguely patronising, fat-fetishising anthem?

I'm a little leery of this, partly because within the first four lines we're talking food, pizza specifically - because hey, only big girls eat, and big girls eat pizza! Plus it sets up that whole plus vs. skinny thing with the 'only big girls are real women', as if there's a checklist somewhere for what makes a real woman. Let's play real woman bingo - do you have all the items on the list?!

(Although I do like the 'big balloon' imagery, but that's just cuz I like balloons. Shiny, colourful pretty balloons.)

One other thing - there are a hundred bajillion songs about girls and women and girlfriends and love etc etc etc. Unless they specify height, weight, race, age, hair and eye colour, and shoe size, I like to think they could all apply to me. Why not, right? Take "You're Beautiful" - dreadful song, but there's nothing in there that says it can't be about a plus-size woman, or a buck-toothed buzz-eyed club-footed lass. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So maybe there needn't be a special song for pluses, because all the songs are for us, them, you, we - and by separating out songs, Big Girl, Fat Bottomed Girls, Baby Got Back, it suggests I was wrong about all those other songs, and they were actually just about slim women.

Or maybe I read too much into it. At any rate, it's less disgusting than Baby Got Back. Actually, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Cosmo doesn't think I'm fat. And keep your anaconda away from me! (I actually do love that song. But it's gross.)

Here's the Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) lyrics. Tell us what you think. Aside from anything else, the video looks to be cool - the stills I've seen are colourful and fun and filled with gorgeous, beautiful, voluptuous women. Final thought (in a non-creepy Jerry Springer way...): whatever the politics of the song, the positives and the negs, that one idea should always be said, and never be ignored: big girl you are beautiful.

Big girl you are beautiful

Walks in to the room
Feels like a big balloon
I said, 'Hey girls you are beautiful'
Diet coke and a pizza please
Diet coke I'm on my knees
Screaming 'Big girl you are beautiful'

You take your skinny girls
Feel like I'm gonna die
Cos a real woman
Needs a real man is why

You take your girl
And multiply her by four
Now a whole lotta woman
Needs a whole lot more

Get yourself to the Butterfly Lounge
Find yourself a big lady
Big boy come on around
And they'll be calling you baby

No need to fantasise
Since I was in my braces
A watering hole
With the girls around
And curves in all the right places

Big girls you are beautiful (x 4)