2013 Golden Globe Fashion: Best Dressed, Worst Dressed

Even celebrities who have stylists helping them figure out their looks can have a difficult time figuring out what shapes and colors work best with their body type and skin tones when picking out Golden Globe dresses.

Here is an in depth look at not only who got it to work and who didn't, but why it worked and why it didn't. After going through all the looks, I announce the Fan Pic Winner voted by my readers!

Light Pink

Light pink is a bit risky of a choice. Part of its allure is that it blends into someone's skin tone and makes the dress a part of the body, but if done incorrectly can make the wearer seem washed out. Light pink suggests girliness, innocence, and femininity; and usually it usually downplays sexuality.

Jessica Alba made it work because she chose a pinky salmon that was close to her famously beautiful skin tone, but just off enough as to not wash her out. The shape highlighted her lovely upper body curves and the bottom train floated behind her in a way that gave her height and classic Hollywood glamor.

Kaley Cuoco did not make it work, unfortunately. Honestly, what made the look fail was not so much the dress as it was her makeup. The dark makeup juxtaposed the lightness of the dress in a very unflattering way that made her look washed out and sickly rather than young and healthy. Also, the slightly off the shoulder straps did not work for her shoulders because they made them look weak and slumpy rather than strong and broad.

Megan Fox looked sexy as always. I think she chose the light pink to down play her "I want to fuck you" face, but it didn't work. She still wants to fuck me.... and everyone in the world who stare into her icy blues.

Simple White

Simple white dresses give an air of classy elegance by subtly paying homage to classic Greek and Roman statues. White suggests purity, simplicity, and godliness. Plus, white stands out remarkably well against a red carpet. You can see why it would be such a popular choice for the Golden Globes.

                  

Anne Hathaway used the dress remarkably well to show off her body. Thin from losing weight for her role as Fantine in Les Mis, she lacks the curves that she may have otherwise had. Still, when you look at her, the dress gives her shape by hugging her hips and showing them off. Her bust remains relatively simple so more focus goes to her face and hips. Also, her dark hair contrasts the bright white extremely well.

Amanda Seyfried wears a dress with subtle designs that actually mutes her body shape... but in a way that works! The high-necked dress bows out of the limelight to make her face and her beautiful cascading blonde hair the center of attention.

Lea Michele demonstrates the technique of showing off one part of the body while hiding the other. The sexy slit shows off her leg, but the high neck covers her bust. In this way she gives off a classy air while showing off "goddess legs". Especially with her olive skin, she looks like a Grecian goddess.

Complicated White

Because white is such a simple color, you can also do more complicated things with it. It's very versatile and can work with almost any body shape and skin tone. The ladies at the Golden Globes all knew what they were doing when going with this technique.

Jennifer Lopez wore a stunning gown that suggests that her body is only covered in glittering lace that hug her body like delicate frost on a window pane. I think she looks absolutely stunning. With an hourglass figure like hers, you might as well show it off! Although many conservative people are appalled by the dress, I see only elegance when I see her in it. Others find it boring because it is too reminiscent of her famous dress she wore to the Academy Awards last year. But hey, she knows what works on her.
 
Julianne Hough did the juxtaposition technique and it worked. Her top half has an edgy rock and roll look with a rocker up-do while wearing a tight top with gold metal beeds. The bottom half becomes softer with princess tool that flows from her hips in a manner reminiscent of a great white bird of some sort.

Isla Fisher wore a beaded white dress with such complicated bead work that it needed to be simple without much shape. She looked lovely in it, but had it been a plan white dress, it would have done nothing for her shape.

Red Dress

You can't go wrong with a red dress on the red carpet. Red is the color of love and fire, and both love and fire take on many forms and shapes. Red dresses work for several different looks... no matter if you want to go sporty, cute, or romantic.

                                

Jennifer Lawrence dons a dress that was simple, almost a little tomboyish in simplicity, bit it worked on her body perfectly. The thin black belt make it work by giving focus and brings the attention to her thin waist. Perhaps she could have done something a little bit more with her hair, makeup, or neck to give a little bit more to her top half which looks a bit bare.

Zooey Deschanel wears a cute red dress that pops against her pale skin. The simple strand of pearls suggests a a playful vintage 1950's look. There something about the way that the sweetheart top hangs on her breasts that gives her a doll look.... like the dress was just thrown on a lovely porcelain doll. Despite this, it doesn't look like the dress is hanging loose on her.

Claire Danes wears a romantic red dress with a niftly shape above her waste that makes her look even curvier than she actually is. It's elegant and edgy, it tightens and loosens in all the right places; and she looks great in it!

Black With Geometric Shapes

 
This look is aimed to look like modern art on a female body. It's a bit of a cool contrast having geometric shapes on such a curvy figure. It manipulates the female form into something a bit foreign. Black is simple, slimming, and offers contrast against pale skinned women.

Katherine McPhee is a babe in her black gown! The top half does wonders to highlight broad feminine shoulders, and the bottom slit reveals her slender legs.

Julianne Moore chose a perfect look. This dress gives her a 1930's silhouette with strong shoulders and a tiny waist. The white lines are strategically placed to move the eye around the dress and make her look slimmer. Gorgeous.

Kirsten Wiig and her dress did nothing. If anything, the shape of the cut outs made her boobs look saggy. If the cut out was shaped differently, it may have had a different effect.

Black and Gold Power Dresses

If you want to look sophisticated, feminine, and powerful, wear a black and gold power dress. The simplicity of the black coupled with intricate gold accents makes the wearer look regal and confident like a queen.

Helen Mirren is my absolute favorite in this gown. The gold lines make her bust look bigger and her waist smaller. Again, it's all about the lines and how you use them, and this dress accentuates her body through suggestion rather than show. Classy and interesting. Way to go, Helen!

Kate Hudson looks so sophisticated in this dress. The black hugs her figure to slim her, and the gold at the neck and belt have a sun burst look that looks like something royalty would wear. The closure of gold at the neck is reminiscent of cape clasps on someone of old royal prestige. Her whole body is covered, save for the low dipped neckline which is flattering against her flat-ish chest.

Nicole Kidman knows how to work it in this gown. The straight angled lines on her waist makes her slim waist appear even slimmer, and the way the fabric hugs her hips and bust makes her very straight figure seem curvaceous.

High Neck/ High waist Dresses

This look can make you or break you as demonstrated by the celebrities below. This look works best on very thin, long-necked women with squared shoulders. When it works, it can look extremely regal... when it doesn't...

Kristen Bell looks terrible in this baby blue gown. Although she has the body to pull off the dress, the dress just doesn't work. Because it doesn't hug her nick tightly, the dress makes her look like she has no neck. It hugs her shoulders so well that it makes them look too rounded rather than squared. She looks stiff and robotic, which is strange being that the bottom portion of the dress is so flowy. The grecian flowiness doesn't work with this type of dress. It's all about the lines, and this dress's lines didn't move the eye around her figure in a flattering matter. A reader pointed out that she is pregnant. This wasn't the dress for her.

Michelle Dockery looks stunning in this gown. The reason this one works is because it hugs her slender neck and the shoulders are exaggerated to give them more form. The sleaves and bottom of the top are angled downwards into a flattering feminine "V" shape. This moves the eye around the dress. Also, this dress hugs her form and shows off her natural curves which also add to moving the eye around her figure in a pleasing way. Gold and white is an unusual combination, but it works and gives a nod to both the Victorian era, and bizarrely enough, Siamese dancers. Mysterious and classic, this dress is one of my favorites.

Good Idea, Horribly Implemented

Lucy Liu ... where do I begin? The shape of the dress is really great on her; I love the nod to 18th century court dresses. However, the color and the pattern ruins the whole thing. The patterns are placed all over the place, but not in a random way: in a way that looks like it was sewn together by an amateur! Also, the light blue looks terrible against her skin and the flowers are simply ugly.

Taylor Swift looks great in her plum dress, except for one thing: it's terribly wrinkly! Take care of your clothes, Taylor!

Doesn't Fit Right!

  

Sally Field wants to show off her neck job? Fine, but this dress doesn't fit right on her at all in the bust. It was made for a woman with a plump, squeezable breasts. Flat chested people are hot too, but they should wear a dress that fits their bust other wise they'll just look ridiculous!

Alyssa Milano picked a bright sunset dress that could have looked lovely, but she needed to hem the bottom or wear higher heels. I wonder how many times she tripped throughout the night?

Lena Dunham had no idea what she was doing. The dress looks so heavy and stiff and it looks 5 sizes too big for her. The shape of the bust and the hips insinuate the dress was made for someone with large exaggeratted curves who is much taller than Lena. Lena is so elf-like she should have used that to her advantage and gone with something lighter with layers, see-through fabric, or delicate lace.

Trying Too Hard

 Helena Bonham Carter, you are an amazing actress with the most eerily beautiful eyes ever, but you don't have to be stuck in 1990's goth-land forever... even if you are married to Tim Burton. If Hot Topic has moved away from Goth, so should you. Instead of looking edgy and artistic, Helena looks unoriginal, outdated, and cheap.

Eva Longoria seems like she is trying way too hard to be a sex symbol. The low neck AND the high slit coupled with all that black lace make it seem like she is desperate for a good lay. You can be sexy without being slutty, and this isn't how to do it.

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But let's end on a high note shall we? The runners up for Fan Pic are: Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway!

And now for the announcement of the #1 Fan Pic! I have to say, I'm really happy about this one; it was one of my favorites as well. The drum roll please! *imagine dramatic drum roll"

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Michelle Dockery!

For more info and opinions on the 2013 Golden Globe fashions, click on this link. Or this one. Or This one.

I'd love to hear your opinions as well!

Why Katniss Everdeen Is A New Role Model

I apologize for being on the back end of the bell curve with all of this. Although the Hunger Games books were written a while ago, and the movie has been out for a while, I hadn’t read or seen the story until just recently—and I love it.

What is so refreshing is that the lead protagonist is Katniss Everdeen, a young strong female who provides emotional and financial support for her family. She never thinks about her looks as an asset for success. Instead, she relies on her intelligence and physical hunting prowess to survive in a world governed by a cruel, overbearing government. Although there is a strong love triangle in the story, Katniss’s looks and sexuality are never part of it. Her allure comes from her personality and spirit. When Katniss enters the games she has a makeup team and stylist who make her look beautiful to the society’s standards; Katniss doesn’t reject it, but she doesn’t really see it as important to her person.

What is even more refreshing is that our society is eating up the stories and loving it. Usually bestsellers have male protagonists, not female ones. The female protagonists who do grace best sellers are usually not portrayed in such a strong light. Way to go Suzanne Collins! Way to go Society!

For the movie, Jennifer Lawrence was cast and she provided a naturally beautiful look to the character. Yes, the actress is beautiful; but in a natural way that most done up Hollywood actresses lack. Lawrence seems like a lovely girl you used to live next to or something like that. 

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

Now, if you haven’t read Catching Fire or The Mockingjay, don’t read further.

Although the first book in the series is a masterpiece, I was not as pleased with how Collins treated the second and third books.

Stylistically, she used much more exposition than she did in The Hunger Games. She used a certain technique over and over where Katniss is in the heat of an intense action scene but gets knocked out somehow, then Katniss (and the reader) discover the action in a second hand account. It’s ok to use this technique in some cases, but Collins does it so much and even cheats the reader out of being in the heat of the moment in the final climax scene of capturing the President.

I also was frustrated with how Katniss's character started out so strong and brave even on and off the battlefield in the first book and got progressively weaker with the second and third books. Although it makes sense that she would suffer mental trauma through all she’s been through, it was painful to read. I looked up to Katniss because she was able to stay strong through all the hardships and come out on top, in a way, she doesn’t really come out on top at the end. Sure she ends up with someone she loves and has children, but everything she was before died. I identified with Katniss’s character so much that the fact that she weakened towards the end made me fear that there is no hope for me when I go through hardships. I know that’s not the case, but it is how I perceived it. I know others perceive it much differently. Here's someone else's take on Katniss.

Whether you are man or woman you should check out The Hunger Games! Better yet, teens should read the books to learn about strength and that beauty and sexuality is not a woman’s best attribute.

A New Year For The Female Form!

With this new year comes new insights into the essence of femininity. I've done a terrible job keeping up with this blog, but I aim to change that this year. There is so much I which to share and explore with my readers. Not only do I wish to discover the different frustrations that women have with their bodies and social standards of beauty, I wish to explore what it really means to be a woman. Inside and out.

The Paleolithic Diet and Lifestyle

One thing I have not touched on in this blog is the subject of food and diet. I'm sure I don't need to explain the phenomenon of how many women, if not MOST women, in western society are very conscious of their weight and waistlines- how even the most of beautiful women obsess over their eating habits. There is also an obesity epidemic spreading across the western world and no one seems to agree as to what's causing it or how to stop it.

The reason I hadn't touched on this until now is that healthy eating was something I did not fully understand. I was confused and frankly annoyed with all of these untangible words like "carbs","calories", "glucose". I had a BASIC knowledge of them, but I didn't really pay attention to what foods they pertained to. When I started to research them a bit, the information overwhelmed me and I quit. There is so much contradicting information out there about what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat. My search for the truth behind healthy eating habits was too frustrating, and I gave up. (And this says something because I love learning)

It wasn't until recently when I, perhaps at the back-end of the bell curve, learned of the paleolithic diet, that I finally found information rooted in fact and common sense, that is so simple, it's beautiful.

The paleolithic diet, aka "the caveman diet", follows the simple idea that up until very recently in human history, humans have been hunters and gatherers of the land and our bodies have not evolved away from those ancient eating habits. What many people fail to recognize is how incredibly young the human race really is ans how incredibly long evolution takes.

Just glance at these quick facts to get a perspective of how young humanity is and how long evolution takes...

• The Earth is approximately 4.55 billion years old.
• Dinosaurs lived 245 million years ago and existed for about 180 million years
• Whales originated from an amphibious jungle mammel resembling a crocodile called the ambulocetus. Primitive whales first took to the sea about 50 million years ago and became fully aquatic about 5–10 million years later
• The modern homo sapien is only 50 thousand years old
• Bread become a staple food in Europe 10 thousand years ago
• The dawn of Ancient Egyptian civilization was 5 thousand years ago.

It took whales 5-10 million years to adjust from semi-aquatic to fully aquatic. Bread has only been around for 10 thousand years. Keeping these facts in mind, it makes sense that our bodies are still equipped for the hunter/gatherer diet rather than that of breads, cheese, and processed foods in general. We just have not had enough time to evolve our bodies to handle the diet change.

The Paleo Diet suggests that the closer the food is to nature the better. Our bodies and system of nature are so complex that we do not have the means to substitute the natural nourishment that come from the Earth. And even though the system is complex, our needs are simple: eat meats, vegetables, nuts, and berries. Be the omnivores we are. Of all the theories I've heard about healthy eating, this is the simplest and it makes the most sense... it really does.

The biggest misconception I had prior to my research was on the subject of grains. I thought grains to be healthy. They were at the very base of the food pyramid that was ingrained in me as a kid! I'm not an expert, by any means, but here is my understanding of it. Breads contain grains, and it's the glucose in the bread that hold the grains together and give it that fluffiness when it rises. When bread breaks down it becomes sugar. My Dad teaches a Chemistry Nutrition high school class and he has his students chew a piece of bread in there mouth for several minutes, and after some time, the students will taste a sweetness in their mouth because they have broken down the bread so much that they are able to taste the sugars. As you know, today's society has been molded and shaped to incorporate processed foods as the norm. Just think about all of the different staple "healthy" dishes that grain is used in like pasta, sandwiches, pizza, and cereal.

Today's society has a skewed view of what health really is. Just because everyone says that cereal is healthy and because it has a big red heart and some sort of health certification on the front of the box doesn't mean that it's good for us. We need to stop trusting the boxes and labels and trusting the colors of foods without labels. My preschool taught me way back in the days in Hong Kong that your plate should look like a box of crayons. You should have a variety of different foods a day and the variety of color in natural foods is a quick indicator of all the different nutrients you are ingesting.

If you are looking to try the paleolithic diet, this is what I'll suggest:

Start out with the 80/20 rule. If you eat well 80 percent of the time, you can leave a little sanity room for cheating a bit. You aren't going to blow up like a balloon if you eat a piece of toast or a bit of cheddar cheese with your eggs and bacon. The 80/20 rule will allow the change to be natural and enjoyable rather than a painful sacrifice. You want to feel good about the way you eat.You don't want to feel like a martyr. Once you start eating the Paleo way for an extended period of time, you will get to the point where you don't even desire processed foods anymore... it just won't even seem appealing.

In addition to the way that we eat, we must also alter the way we work and conduct our every day lives. The Paleolithic lifestyle includes doing more natural physical activity on a daily basis...not just going to the gym, but walking to the grocery store, lifting boxes onto your garage shelf, doing yard work. In this modern era of cars and office jobs, physical activity is sometimes hard to come by. Our bodies were built to be workers hunting and gathering all day, and yet the modern "successful"  human spends most of their time at a desk. It is important to remember who we are and where we come from, and I'm sure that everyone knows that I'm talking about when I say how fulfilling it is to go to bed after a long day of physical work. Ever spent a day chopping down trees or staining a deck and you lay in bed at the end of the day so exhausted you can barely move and how wonderful that feels? It's the way humans are supposed to feel.

There are a lot of writings on the topic of the Paleolithic lifestyle if you wish to read up on the topic further.
I hope this post has given you something to think about. Good luck with your own search and journey towards personal health!

Lady Gaga on the Wings of Queen Elizabeth I and Catholicism

Lady Gaga cracked the science of how to become a worldwide Icon. Whether you like her music or not, you cannot deny that she has created an image for herself that is already cemented in celebrity and music history. One way in which she did this was that she elevated herself to be more than just a talented human woman; but something else more divine. In this blog I'm going to compare The Gaga's fame tactics to those of Queen Elizabeth I and Catholicism. Yes, I know it sounds strange, especially considering that the Queen was protestant and that Gaga constantly debases Catholicism but just stay with me here. I'm sick of everyone comparing Lady Gaga to Madonna, but the fact is that she was influenced by some much older sources of fame and power.

Although she enjoys sex and happiness, as of recently, she decides that she cannot find both within the arms of a man. In an interview with an editor from Vanity Fair, she tells her,

“I have never felt truly cherished by a lover. I have an inability to know what happiness feels like with a man,” the singer tells contributing editor Lisa Robinson. “I say this honestly, and this is my new thing as of the past year: when I fight with someone I’m in a relationship with, I think, what would my fans think if they knew this was happening? How would they feel about my work and about me as a female if they knew I was allowing this to go on? And then I get out.”

In the article, she explains how relationships make her doubtful and self-conscious and distracted from her true person, because she often dates artsy people who are competitive and jealous of her talents which leads to cutting her down and other confidence harming arguments. So what she does instead of marry herself to the idea of love and marriage is that she views herself and her fans as her spouse and she pledges everything she does to her relationship with her fans... her talents and devotions and happiness. She calls her fans as her "Little Monsters", like a pet name you could give your boyfriend, and makes clear in interviews and the lyrics of her songs that all of her energy goes into pleasing them.

By staying single and creating this image of herself being not merely a human with relationship issues slapped on the cover of every magazine, but as some sort of saintly artist, she becomes more of a mystery. She serves herself rather than a man.

The first woman that comes to mind when I think of her is not Madonna like most people, but Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin queen. She remained unmarried for her entire life, which of course was a much bigger deal then than it is today. At her coronation she donned in all white and let her red hair down and loose over her shoulders to suggest her virginity and purity. She pledged herself to be queen over the people to govern and serve them rather than a man. She became something more than just a woman or a queen, she became a king, in a sense.

There are several reasons that Elizabeth tactically chose to remain single, and her people loved her for it. If she had married than her would have to serve her husband and be dutiful to he and his influences before the people. She actually used her unmarried state to benefit the country by using the concept marriage to various people to forge alliances and frighten foes. Her devotion to England was clear and she was loved so much for it that even though some power hungry members of the court wished to remove her from power her outstanding popularity prevented. Lady Gaga's devotion to her fans is also just as clear.

Now I’m not saying that marriage and love is bad, and I’m not saying that you cannot be both married and successfully happy, but for some people and some situations, this is not possible. I think that Lady Gaga knows herself and realizes that relationships weaken her rather than strengthen her, just as Queen Elizabeth I knew that she was a stronger person when unmarried.

Yes, she probably did get a lot of icon and fame ideas from Madonna, from the extreme clothes to the racey Christian references. One can easily compare Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” to Gaga’s “Judas”. But quite honestly, so many people have made the Madonna/Gaga comparison that it’s not worth our time to go into it deeper and frankly not nearly as interesting!

Instead I’d like to delve into how Catholicism has influenced her. I can relate to her in the fact that we both had a Catholic upbringing and both chose to denounce it, and it is clear in a lot of her lyrics and music videos that she is Catholicism had an effect on who she is today even if it was negative. She often wears crosses and other Christian symbols in videos and public.

I think she might have gotten a lot of her ideas of how to become more than just a woman and a singer to her fans from her old religion. Staying single and devoting your life to the service of others is definitely a saintly idea. If a woman becomes a nun she becomes a Bride of Christ and marries the Church. The Church itself is also sometimes called The Bride of Christ. And I think that Lady Gaga may have been influenced by these ideas to transcend beyond normal human experiences and “Marry the Night”, marry her fans and her work, to become something more than human. She admits that her song "Marry the Night" is autobiographical, and delves into her pain and hurt and resolve when it comes to relationships and self.

It's clear that she tries to spread messages of love and acceptance in her songs such as "Born this Way". I'm guessing she had a negative response to the way Catholics view homosexuality amongst other things and that she uses her recognized influence to spread a different messages of love and acceptance than the ones she was brought up with. She took what she knew, and altered it.

The recipes for fame, fortune, everything are all there in history. Humans change so drastically over the years but at their core, we are very much constant, with the same themes repeating. I think Lady Gaga knew this, whether consciously or unconsciously, and performed her way in the footsteps of others to fame.