5 Things: Galentine's Day

Ladies, we celebrate! In the words of Leslie Knope, “ladies celebrate ladies” on Galentine’s Day (also known as February 13^th). For further reading, click here.

There are your Galentine’s Day staples like eating frittatas and exchanging gifts likes mosaic portraits of your friends made from the crushed bottles of their favorite diet soda. But there are other ways to celebrate your lady friends being super people:

1.     A picnic (for southern hemisphere dwellers in February) with personalized paper accordion garlands made in shape of your gals’ faces

2.     Lingering celebrations at a hot dog stand exchanging amazing gifts like Lip Ringlosss Rings

3.     A classy wine bar evening at which you give your gals classy wine openers like this gem from Sky Mall

4.     Teatime with little sandwiches and macaroons giving everyone copies of Emily Post’s Etiquette, sparking conversation about Downton Abbey’s covetable dinnerware, clothes, and luggage (oh, the luggage!)

5.     A brunch event in which all members of the Galentine’s Day celebration perform slam poetry about each lady present, resulting in overall jealousy and awe at neighboring tables

5+ Holiday Cards

It’s that time of year again! Time to string lights, hang bells, and boughs. For those with friends who celebrate different holiday traditions, here are a few holiday cards to send to all your pals.

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From Minted

Also from Minted

From Pike Street Press

From Hen Pen Designs

From Donda Lee

From the Paper Source

5 Reasons Why Lady Gaga’s “Body Revolution 2013” Matters

Today Lady Gaga launched a response to the fuss over her recent weight gain. She recently acknowledged she gained around 25 lbs. but has made some conflicting comments about her attitude about her body in the past few months, sending mixed signals about body image acceptance for those who follow the mantra “Born This Way.” In April, she Tweeted: “Just killed back to back spin classes. Eating a salad dreaming of a cheeseburger #PopSingersDontEat #IWasBornThisWay” while this month she responded to the commentary about her weight gain with, “I really don’t feel bad about it, not even for a second.”

But today Lady Gaga set the record straight by announcing a “Body Revolution 2013” on LittleMonsters.com. She revealed her personal battle with anorexia and bulimia since 15 in a caption to a series of unretouched photographs of herself in underwear. She wrote:

“But today I join the BODY REVOLUTION.
To Inspire Bravery.
and BREED some m$therf*cking COMPASSION”

Lady Gaga also Tweeted naked photo of herself today, honoring her body in spite of the recent press about her weight gain, and announced call to action on Facebook.

Here are 5 reasons why Lady Gaga’s “Body Revolution 2013” matters:

1.     Lady Gaga is actively confronting the prevalence of fat-shaming prejudices in our culture as represented by the media. Her photographs on Twitter and LittleMonsters.com provoke rethinking of “fat,” “fat shaming,” and ultimately body image in general. Lady Gaga is using her celebrity to not only reveal a prejudice but to create a call to action.

2.     “Body Revolution 2013” reiterates the affirmation, “Born This Way,” in the context of body image and self-love. As Dodai Stewart observes in Jezebel’s breakdown of Gaga’s “embodying bravery”, “By posting these homemade, raw, here-I-am-with-all-my-flaws (not that we see any) images, she shows that her struggle is the same struggle millions of other men and women have everyday: Learning to love yourself just the way you are, finding and believing you are beautiful when the media is hellbent on making you think you're fat and ugly (and that fat is the same as ugly).”

3.     It made Terry Richardson, who isn’t always the poster child of positive portrayals of women, speak up. Richardson defended Gaga and, whether he meant to or not, defended the acceptance of bodies by posting “Lady Gaga Unretouched #1” on his online diary.

4.     The portraits from LittleMonsters.com acknowledge the body beyond its aesthetics by celebrating physical ability. In one photo, Lady Gaga is in the yoga pose, Anyvittasana, or Standing Backbend, honoring her body in physical practice.

5.     Today’s announcement creates awareness about eating disorders because Gaga gives voice to the realities of anorexia and bulimia. Lady Gaga gives a face to this often typified reality with her self-portraits in her underwear, and the juxtaposition between the distorted, unflattering photos of her in Amsterdam and her personal photos suggest that society’s warped perceptions of beauty have in part been caused and perpetrated by the media that recently fat-shamed the singer.

5 Monogrammed Stationary Sets

 Sign off your note from the start with monogrammed stationary. Vive le snail mail!

 

 From naomilynn at her Etsy shop

From Rifle Paper Co.

 

 From MeandWee at her Etsy shop

From JoyInspiration at her Etsy shop

From Minted

5 Reasons Why American Apparel’s New Ad Campaign Might Redeem a History of Problematic Advertising

 

During the week of July 4^th, American Apparel debuted a new advertising campaign with “advanced” model, Jacky O’Shaughnessy. O’Shaughnessy was discovered in February of this year, launching her modeling career at age 60. The campaign deviates from its history of controversial ads that use nudity to advertise clothing and hints, if only briefly, at an advertising strategy that does not rely on the hypersexualization of homogenous female bodies. 

Here are five reasons why the campaign may redeem American Apparel’s sub par track record:

1. The campaign has fewer problematic images of women and is void of excessive side boob, visible nipples through diaphanous shirts, public hair, and ample cheeckage.

2. The ad creates positive controversy, generating awareness of various body types and ages instead of igniting frustration over hypersexualized images of similar-looking models.

3. O’Shaughnessy disrupts the classic high-fashion narrative of underage, underweight models, making room for inclusive ideals of beauty and for new standards in the industry.

4. O’Shaughnessy, whose look is much like today's Lauren Hutton, is unique because unlike Hutton, she is famous in her 60s without any past fame as a standard looking, youthful model. Her professional success is based on her current appearance, not a past aesthetic, suggesting today's beauty standards might be expanding.

5. The ads deviate from American Apparel's past advertising campaigns that seem to overcompensate for the already appealing sweatshop free, American-made trademark. These ads (sort of) do not rely on jazzing up the ethical parts of the American Apparel brand with compromising images of young women in ads like this one for pants with a topless model.

Inspiration Board: 5 Creative Women Bloggers

For creative women, the world of blogging is an outlet, business, look book, and inspiration board. Some are mothers balancing parenthood and work from home, some are moonlighting online curators, while others are converts from the corporate to the creative. Here is a wonderfully long list of women bloggers. Meanwhile, here are Snaps! favorites:

1. WhoWhatWear Blog: A 2011 BlogLovin’ Award Winner, the blog includes features on Models Off Duty, editorials, interviews with figures from the fashion industry, and highlights from international magazines. The blog is curated by Who What Wear founders, Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power, and Le Fashion’s Jean Camp.

2. Oh Joy!: Oh Joy! Founder, Joy Deangdeelert Cho, is a graphic designer by trade whose work can be found at Anthropologie, Wedding Paper Divas, and other shops and presses. Her blog includes beautiful posts about graphic design, fashion, divine food, and crafts.

3. Design Sponge: Grace Bonney’s iconic blog features inspiring before & after shoots, DIY projects, and whimsical posts like this one on hand-carved stamps.

4. Shutterbean: This food blog’s recipes, reflections on restaurants and gastro pubs, and photography are stunning, and the design work by women designers Darling and Leah Creates is fantastic.

5. From Me To You: Photographer Jamie Beck, who created the concept of cinemagraphs with fellow photographer Kevin Burg, profiles street style, sneaks peaks at red carpets, and follows fashion week’s runways with stunning snapshots.

5 Wedding Stationary Ideas

A new campaign within The Letter Project. For further inspiration for wedding stationary, check out Style Me Pretty blog and Brooklyn Bride blog.

1. For the Hipster:

[at Mr. Boddington’s Studio]

2. A Country Wedding: 

[at Wednesday Custom Design]

3. A Summer Candy Jar:

[at Fig 2 Design Studios]

4. The Doodler:

[at Crane & Co]

5. Straight Talker:

[at Parklife Press]

Hey Girl: 5 Reasons Why Feminist Ryan Gosling is the Best Thing to Happen to Feminism In A Long Time*

1. It demystifies the angry feminist stereotype by representing a more authentic image of feminism: one that is pop culture-savvy and can have fun with gender justice topics.

2. It reminds us that feminism is still relevant amidst the current War on Women. 

3. It addresses current feminist topics like the balance between women’s careers and home lives.

4. It challenges the somehow-not-dead-yet narrative of blaming women who are victims of rape for ‘asking for it.’

5. It answers the long unfulfilled question: is it possible to make Derrida funny?  















*In case you missed it. 

5 Charms

Joseph Campbell, one of the most respected scholars on mythology who popularized the hero’s journey (which inspired George Lucas’s Star Wars), once said:

“The images of myth are reflections of the spiritual potentialities in every one of us. Through contemplating these, we evoke their powers in our own lives.” [1]

For Campbell, myth is a manifestation of symbols and charms that “helps you put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive.” The tradition of wearing charms has been practiced around the world to ward off evil spirits, self-identify with a religious tradition, and represent symbols from mythology. Understanding symbols and charms within mythology and religious folklore is, for Campbell and many others, a means to “seeking an experience of being alive.”

 Three’s a charm, but here are five:

1. Nazar (Evil Eye): Common in the Middle East and Balkans, the charm wards off the curse of the evil eye.
2. Horseshoe-In Medieval Europe, the upturned horseshoe used the power of the horned moon to protect against witchcraft.
3. Four Leaf Clover: In the United Kingdom, the four leaves represent faith, hope, love, and luck.
4. Wishbone-Originating from the Etruscans, the tradition holds that the wisher who pulls the larger half of the bone will have their wish fulfilled.
5. Hamsa: In Islam, it represents the hand of Fatima, in Christianity the hand of Mary, and in Judaism the hand of Miriam. It is most commonly recognized as a sign of protection.

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[1] Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth. (New York: Broadway Books, 1988), 207.

5 Magical Realism Books in Honor of the 30th Anniversary of Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende’s landmark House of the Spirits, which follows four generations of the Trueba family throughout political conflict in Chile, was published 30 years ago. The novel is notably characterized by its magical realism—the blending of the magical and paranormal with reality—and was awarded Chile’s Paranorma Literario award.

Here are 5 magical realist texts that sit alongside House of the Spirits within the literary genre:

1. Cellophane by Marie Arana

Published in 2006, Cellophane echoes many of the themes and character development in House of the Spirits. Fans of Allende would adore Arana.

2. Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

Though this is Hurston’s memoir, her detailed accounts of her childhood stories and imaginations—from the elaborate saga of Miss Corn-Cob and Mr. Sweet Smell to the alligator man—as well as her real-life visions evoke magical realist imagery.

3. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor

With influences from classical mythology and African American folklore, this novel takes place on the island of Willow Springs off the coast of Georgia and records the magical story of Mama Day, her family, and her encounter with dark magic.

4. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Esquivel mingles the domestic sphere with the supernatural in her famous novel about Tita and her mystical cooking that challenges conventions of tradition.

5. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One of the most defining and most often cited magical realism texts, the novel follows the Buendîa family and the crossing between dream, invented, and real worlds.

5 Favorite Things About Honest-To-Goodness Snail Mail

1.  The charm of receiving clippings you could send through email—funny police blotters from my mother and E.E. Cummings poems from my longtime pen pal—as well as things you cannot—New England fall leaves from my grandmother.
2. The joy of seeing the sender’s handwriting and scratched out mistakes
3. The Medieval legacy of written love letters
4. The making of a stationary wish list which includes this stuff from William Arthur, these goods from the Paper Source, and this ultimate wish list item from Vera Wang.
5. Its ability to remind us that patience is a virtue.

5 Cheers for Ashley Judd's 'The Daily Beast' Article*

 

*In case you missed it.

1. For drawing attention to a social system that pervades cultural, professional, social, physical, and intellectual spheres!
2. For demystifying the prescriptive beauty myth!
3. For distinguishing between social critiques based on action/merit and social critiques based on gender!
4. For challenging gendered norms of beauty, sexuality, and health!
5. For transforming self-recognition and self-worth from the physical to “personal integrity and [one’s] relationship with [their] Creator!”

5 Problems with Dr Pepper 10 Commercials

1. What does “10 manly calories” mean?

            2. The macho culture the ad prescribes is not a good model for 
            masculinity.

3. Dr Pepper 10’s Imagined Drinkers: Mr. T doing one-armed pushups, the Browny man cutting  down a tree in flannel, and Crocodile Dundee wrestling the love child of the Loch Ness Monster  and Bigfoot. The reality: these macho prototypes don’t exist. Thankfully.

4. Women can drive ATVs in the jungle, too.

5. Despite the attempt to find a niche with the man crowd like Dove Men+Care and MACH3 Razors for Men, Dr Pepper 10 has perpetrated problematic gender stereotypes for men and women in their ad campaign. Oops.