Orthopedic Couture - Leather Culture and High Fashion

Okay, Mondays usually are devoted to the review of the latest episode of HBO's True Blood, yet I have not got the chance to see the episode, whereas I have to postpone the review till tomorrow. (Sadly). Yet I can give you an adequate topic of interest.

Picture form the labels website. Accessed 20.07.14.

As I have not reported on the latest trends in fashion etc. for a while its remed quite appropriate to give you all my thoughts on the designs of Marina Hoermanseder that were presented at this years Mercedes Benz fashion Week in Berlin. The label of Ms. Hoermanseder might not be a big name, however her designs shoe true talent incorporating absurdism and a certain historicism without loosing their wearability and futuristic appeal. A rare combination in the fashion industry and hard to keep up, as the juxtaposition between style extremes never was and never will be easy. 

The collection clearly has found its influences in the idea of restraint and support of the body as well as the ideas of wearability versus artistic influences in fashion. Especially the detail of such a soft and intricate use of a material such a hard material as leather stuns the spectator while the grant for wearability is (nearly) always given. Yet the choice of color could have been different, yet the overall use of pastel tones and skin related colors gives credit to the connection between organic seeming shapes and restraining corsets. The whole connection was a huge reminder of orthopedic medicine as much as it was couture. The intricate split between cold medic, frightening alien, flawlessly beautiful and delicately feminine has been perfectly managed. 

I as drawn into a fantasy land by the collection as the clothes reminded one of leather culture and SM culture, as well as the symbolic eating behind the material used. Leather, a durable and rough material, is of preconceived notion rather male. However the working of the material and its use in the collection connects ideas of masculinity and femininity in fashion and deconstructs these notions.

Below the video of the collection. Visit the labels homepage at www.marina-hoermanseder.com. 

True Blood "Death Is Not The End" Review

Damn! I sure had a “fangover” form last sundays episode of “True Blood”. And it is not solely reasoned in the good parts of the episodes. But lets just focus and get this “Death Is Not The End” episode its deserved review. 

The episode starts off with a scene of Sookie calling her death lovers father, and he seems to be quite shocked that his Alcide is dead. Yet, he ensures Sookie that he loved her to bits and pieces. And Sookie stays strong. No crying, nothing. She seems emotionally dead. After what she has been going trough, no surprise. Biggest Moment of the episode however is Jason calling Hoyt in Alaska to tell him that his mom got killed by a vampire. Such sweet memories, however good to know that the makers of True Blood made the effort to put this thing into the script. 

After the opening sequence we see Eric and am on a private jet and when Eric decides they have to go to Shrieveport we get tons of great and nicely 80’s style flashbacks of how Eric and Pam got to have “Fangtasia”. I love me some flashbacks like that!

And then Sokkie gets all boring. She talks to Colby and her brother, and Jason goes and tells Kevins wife he is dead. Wasted minutes! Meanwhile Sookie helps Holly remember where she was caught, and Jason has to force Sam to stop to get t Fangtasia without vampires. Oh and Jessica has an eating disorder.. which gets solved by Sookie the very moment it comes up. Well, interesting concept, however soved to soon. The guilt trip has not really worked out. And Sookie tells Jessica, while feeding her, that she is dead already and yet again needs them all to save her friends.

Then we finally get to the real thing again: flashbacks of Eric and Pam! Wellbetter said how Ginger applied at their video store and was totally in love with Eric from the first sight. We also get to see that “Fangtasia” was only Gingers idea, and Pam glamoured the shit out of her to take the ide as hers. Loving it! Cause living for it!

Then there is the big reunion between Pam, Eric and Sookie with Pam still hating Sookie, and Willa being called by Eric and she is pissed. Very pissed! Yet in the end they all go and rescue the peeps from Fangtasia and kill all the Hep-V’s. However Arlene nearly dies, Pam uses a fire extinguisher to save the bar, and the mob idiots get killed in the attack as well. Lots of blood, gore and guts. Loving it. And yet we see that Eric has become slow and a bit weak. 

The episode in summary was a lot like: OH my god that is great and Mah! A solid 7,5 out of 10 with a big concern for the end of the season as more episodes remain and there seems to be no main plot in sight. Ye the show could return to its core with focusing on the relationship between people. However Gingers explanation of vampire movies as a possibility to examine the other in human society give a nice hint at the academic possibilities of the series. 

“Fire In The Hole” – True Blood gets bloodily like “Game of Thrones”

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Fiere Raven Ice Queen - Transformations by Dita Whip

Hey there! After yesterdays break I got yet another Transformations for you in cooperation with Dita Whip. Yet this one is dry special to me as I was able to secure Gil (Remember her from her Versace and Pop Art Transformation) as the photographer. And her camera is a good one.

A fierce beauty to discover the wild.

The volunteer this time was Anna, a friend of Gil's who was visiting us in Chester. So let me hand over to Dita to give you all the details on the look. 

An icy queen can always seduce one with a smile.

Okay ladies, gentlemen and everything in between. This look, as the title already gives away, aims at a really cold, strong and darkly fierce attitude with lots of sassy power. This is not "sissying" a walk, this is dominating the runway! The make up in general started out with foundation and lots and lots of clown white. After I mixed these two in and given Anna's face cold look I added some bronzer to give depth to her face, however just a little bit. Then the actual make-up part took place.

Sleeping Beauty.

I started out shaping the triangle part around the eyes and filling in the lid black. After this way done I took to newspaper and cut some triangular pieces out. I then glued them into the before shaped triangles on Anna's forehead. After that I filled in the triangles with black and let it dry. Afterwards I added blue glitter to the eye make up and completed the eyes with under eye lines. Annas lips were filled with a mixture of lip tar and blue glitter and finally adding some of the glitter to highlight Anna's check bones. The hair was simply combed back and was whitened by using white powder and white hair color.

Her eyes are so vividly alive. They shine with fierceness.

Afterwards I slapped lots and lots of silver necklaces onto Anna's neck and we took to the garden to take these amazing pictures. I had lots of fun working with Anna on the make up and Gil had lots of fun to work with Anna in front of the camera. And the results speak for themselves.

Staring daggers. Terrifc. 

The flow of glitter was perfectly caught by Gil and her camera. Fierce beauty.

Looks Like Dita - "Transformations"

Hey Gender Blenders out there! Todays issue of "Transformations" has one motto: me, Dita Whip! I took my lovely volunteer Katie and turned her into a version of me! 

As I already said, I went all me on Katie's face, and in accordance to this she had to go trough full layers of foundation, clown white, powder, bronzer, more powder and anything I need to make my mug as pretty as photoshop would.  And that started off with flattening Katie's hair, which she did herself as she is pretty fast with her iron. After they I slapped on everything I had foundation wise painted on extreme eye make up with glitter and gold and then we tried wigs, a hat and different necklaces. It was so much fun, and the pictures that came out in the end show two things: (1) the resemblance with me is uncanny and (2) Katie is a beautiful and gorgeous girl with such a fantastic smile! 

"I Found You" - Review of True Blood's Season 7 Episode 2

Damn! Last nights episode of True Blood certainly has boiled the tempers of some viewers. And not only in a good way. Anyways, here is Icon Art Marilyn’s review of “I Found You”. If you haven't read last episodes review, do so here.

For starters, I don’t get people being angry at True Blood and its storyline. For me the show actually did not jump the cliff, just rather has fallen into its phase of maturing and finally in its saturation phase. All this talking about the show has lost its edge and really gone to big of a scale and too damn easy to look through is really just mourning for more Bill and “Soookie!”. And frankly spoken, I do rather prefer a stir the pot, kill characters off, apocalyptic study in what vamps on a rant would be then having character focused drama infused with a side note of vampirism. Sure the show has some flaws but believe me, it still is better then that “The Wire”. (Yes, I don’t like heat many people call HBO’s best show ever!) 

But: back to the review. The episode was pretty intense as it opens with Jason having a sex dream about him and Eric. And boy that got pretty physical! You pretty much could hear the gay gasp around the world and the fapping is next to come. And by the way: shout out to these two straight gentlemen who played this scene so well. And not backed out like a bitch. I’m looking at you, former actor of Jessica’s boyfriend! Anyway, Jason wakes up after that church meeting, and then he Sookie, Alcide (Who, thank god, has more sentences then “I’m the pack master!”), Andy, Jason and Sam seek out that dead girl from last episode, check her ID and head to her town. And boy that town has been eated dra by these vamps. 

Sideburn: That damn diary. I mean nice play on showing that Sookies love story is not the reason this all happened, but too cheesy! However, it shows the hopelessness of the situation these people are and were in. 

Meanwhile in Fangtasia: One of the hep-V vamps turns out to be the former teacher of Arlene’s and Holly’s kids, the convince her to help them, however she dies of Hep-V the moment the rescue begins. (Bummer!) On another note the Bon temps folks slowly go mad and steal the weapons from the police station cause Sams former mayoral election competitor agitates them. Adelaine gets locked up, Jessica feels it and exposes herself to Andy to save her. (I think we are setting up a healing process here.)

Bummer here: That goddamn victim racism allegation on Andy by a black woman to agitate Kenya. Damn gurrl that is weak and a low shot. Your self esteem went right out of the window, didn’t it?

Yet on another note Tara can be seen by Letti Mae when she is high on V, and Tara is caught in a Jesus meets Adam and Eve thing story. Lemme see how that plays out!

Biggest bummer and best thing ever (kinda): Pam finds Eric in France (THANK GOD FOR PAM!), however he is infected with Hep-V. WHAT the hell? Hep-V and Eric? NO! Yet, totally understandable cause this Eric comes back and saves the day thing, no that would not have worked once more. Yet I am extremely pissed that Pam has not even shad one tear on Tara meeting the true death. Damn. Yet I am hooked as ever before. Come on next week! I wanna see my True Blood!

What If Charlie Chaplin was female and loved glitter? - Transformations

Hello there art fans, photography enthusiasts and make up fanatics! It is time for another round of "Transformations" in cooperation with the fabulous Dita Whip. Our lovely volunteer this time: Lisa.

Now it is time to hand over to Dita: The look I and Lisa were going for with this transformation in the first place was to make it an extravaganza of glitter. Really over the top and already Capitol like from the Hunger Games. Ridiculously fabulous you may say. However, when taking the pictures we reversed more and more towards poses that rather resembled old Hollywood glamour meets humor. And as we finally added a hat and pearls the decision was kind of made in the progress that this futuristic over the top look we were going for was not what came out.

In the process I as well had my hard time to put the glitter on. It was one of the first times I worked with the material, however yet it is an integral part of my make up. But a big thanks to Lisa for enduring the procedure. Yet I am extremely happy with the outcome of the pictures. They might not be perfect, and the make up might not be as flawless as wished for, however it really shows what a beauty Lisa is, with and without make up.

The picture have been taken in February, and since then I was really able to work on my craft, however the pictures remain amazing. Finally I asked Lisa to frame the experience in her own words. This is how she felt about the process: 

The first minute, I saw my friend Lisa’s pictures as the one and only Sexcretary, I simply couldn’t believe my own eyes! This transformation (and of course all the other transformation Dita Whip created) was totally awesome and I instantly knew: I just had to become a part of it!

So I literally begged Lisa to ask Dita, if she could also work her magic on me. And as you can see my begging was totally worth it! During my first night in Great Britain, she transformed me into a gorgeous glitter-amazon and made me feel like a real mermaid princess…. Even considering it being a hard way to go before I finally became this awesome new me - I never thought that I needed strong duct tape to keep away my own hair (argh…it really hurts when you take it off at the end!) as well as tones of hairspray to glue glitter on my face (memo to myself: never ever get hairspray in my eyes again) - as I’ve mentioned before: it was totally worth it! ;)

Getting to the moment of the photoshoot, I thought for the first moment that a stranger is looking at me. But after a while this strange new person surprisingly became a new and exciting part of me and we started to perform like crazy!

Finally, when Dita told me that my photoshoot has to come to an end, I really felt sad that I have to lose all my make-up and return to my old me?! But I still think that this gorgeous glitter mermaid princess and I will at some point in the future meet again... at least I hope so! And for now I’ve got all those incredible memories…