I HATE! Sheep

Have you ever walked into a shopping mall, perhaps in the suburbs (and I'm not discriminating against the suburbs here, but it's just that this trend seems to have garnered the most support in non-city locales), and instantly noticed that every teen girl you encounter looks exactly the same?

Ok - so, if you're confused about the title of this post, let me clarify that I'm not talking about actual sheep here. (Who could hate sheep? They look so soft and comfy!) The term 'sheep' is what my mother and (non-conformist) 16-year-old sister use to refer to the unfortunate uniform-esque look that so many teenage girls have adopted without thought. Specifically, when traveling in packs, this phenomenon makes it impossible to identify an individual girl in the mass of stick-straight hair and head-to-toe Abercrombie / American Eagle. Hence the term sheep - each and every one of them look the same.

I find the term sheep hilarious, and hence, have decided to write angerly about it, because in the fashion melting pot that is New York City, these so-called 'sheep' stick out like a sore thumb after being slammed in a car door over and over again. So in my case, I can spot a 'sheep' - complete with thermal half-button down Abercrombie top emblazoned with the unmistakable moose logo, faded and rhinestoned American Eagle jeans with strategically-placed pre-ripped knee, Uggs, and stick-straight flat-ironed hair - a mile away, as if they had been tragically stolen away from their native habitat and dropped helpless and alone into a foreign setting.

I mean, I understand wanting to fit in with your friends, but isn't becoming a carbon copy of every other girl in Middle America a tad overkill? Seriously girls - you look foolish. No one's going to appreciate your uncanny ability to look exactly like your friends after you hit the 17 year-old mark. If you're a typical teenage girl and acceptance is the most coveted thing since the Ugg boot, spare yourself the horror that will inevitably surface within you during the first couple of weeks of college when you realize that being an Abercrombie robo-clone doesn't fly anymore.

To be honest, when I see a flock of sheep walking toward me, I want to laugh. It's 100% pathetic that you have to loose every ounce of your individualism to retain your friends. I wonder what would happen if one sheep strayed from the pack and, gasp - god forbid, bought something at a store other than Abercrombie! Would she be cast out of the group? Would she be shunned by the opposite sex? Would her parents disown her? No! The only thing that might be derived from this situation is that one member of the group might finally step out of the collective shadow and be noticed as an individual.

Not quite ready (or brave enough) to shed the Middle America Mall Attire? Here's a suggestion: maybe keep the Abercrombie top, but pair it with a sassy skirt (Side Note: I can't believe I just wrote the word 'sassy', but it just seemed to flow through my fingertips and onto the screen) or wear the perfectly-manufactured jeans with a unique tee-shirt (read: one that not everyone else you know has in another color) and sneakers. Ignore the fact that I sound like the moderator for a kiddy fashion show at Sears - you see my point: it's easy to incorporate a few 'sheep' pieces into your wardrobe without completely succumbing to the teeny-bopper fashion set (and without being cast out of your group for straying from the dress code).

I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I showed up at school wearing the same outfit as someone else, I was embarrassed - not pleased. Maybe times have changed since I was in high school, maybe now it's cool to look exactly like the girl that sits behind you in English class. I realize this post was a bit of a diatribe, but seriously, Abercrombie uses child labor, the clothes are made from the cheapest materials possible, and frankly, nothing in the store is that cute. We're talking Abercrombie here, not couture!

Disclaimer: Before I get called out, I am freely admitting that I owned those chunky Steve Madden sandals that every other girl in high school at the time had. In fact, I had them in black and brown.

I HATE! Trashy, Teeny-Bopper Stores

A comment left by my dear friend Julie on the post regarding Perez Hilton being given his own line from Hot Topic made me come to the realization that I didn't direct any of my attention to the fact that Perez's line will be debuting at Hot Topic. Hot Topic. First of all, Hot Topic? Does that store even exist anymore? I could have sworn that Hot Topic disappeared in the 90s along with wallet chains and mesh tank tops (apparently no one's told Amy Winehouse). But I did some research and discovered that Hot Topic is indeed still alive and kicking. And I have this to say: go ahead and design a line for Hot Topic, Perez, inflate your ego a little bit more, go ahead - you're essentially sealing your own coffin. I wonder if he checked out the website before signing on the dotted line. The dude relentlessly ridicules Shauna Sand, Brooke Hogan, and Britney Spears for the trashy clothing choices they make, but the store he just endorsed basically sells apparel for the strippers-in-training set.

Example One

Courtesy of the Hot Topic Collection


What I'm essentially trying to say here is that Hot Topic falls into the category that stores like Joyce Leslie, Mandee, DEB, and Wet Seal fall into, although the Hot Topic brand seems to be a little more goth. These stores sell glorified stripper-wear under the guise that it's trendy and fashionable. Pleather, glitter, nylon, and mesh are not fashionable (never have been!) nor are they age-appropriate for the demographic that these stores market to.

The clothes that these stores sell are cheaply made and the shoddy construction is obvious. I cringe anytime I see a gaggle of teeny-bopper girls running around decked out in Wet Seal's finest. I tend to steer clear of stores that specialize in all things plastic, stretchy, and shiny. These materials generally do not exude class, but apparently, 15-year-old girls from Middle America haven't yet caught on. Wet Seal must have one hell of a PR guy - no matter how cheaply made and shoddily-constructed the store's garments are, the tweens keep on coming in - in droves.

I understand that Wet Seal or Mandee may be a cheaper alternative to overly-expensive trendy stores that cater to to the teeny-bopper set like Anthropologie, Armani Exchange, and Diesel. But there is a way to go inexpensive without looking like a $2 a-night-child prostitute. Ever heard of The Gap or H&M? The ratio of pleather to cotton at either of these two stores is far smaller than at Hot Topic / Wet Seat / Mandee / Joyce Leslie. And I'm pretty sure the prices are comparable - not that I've been into a Joyce Leslie since freshman year in college when I purchased a 100% polyester plaid kilt with an up-to-there hemline to wear as part of my naughty Catholic school girl Halloween costume. And for the record, I would just like to say that I only ventured into Joyce Leslie because it was around the corner from my dorm and I had less than two hours to throw together the costume.

Anyway, all I am saying here is that there really is no excuse to patronize any of the aforementioned stores - unless you are deliberately trying to go for the baby prostitute look. See below for more examples.

Example Two

Courtesy of the Mandee Collection

Example Three

Courtesy of the Wet Seal Collection

I HATE! 80s Slouchy Boots

Above is a particularly hideous example of the what I like to call to 80s Slouchy Boots. Surprise surprise! I hate 80s Slouchy Boots! This is not going to be a very lengthy post because, for this particular topic, I really have no good reason behind my hatred. I just think 80s Slouchy Boots are disgusting. The way the slouch falls and gathers around the wearer's ankle, the ambiguity generated from the kind of rounded / kind of pointed toe, the heinous kitten heel - I can't pinpoint just one reason why these particualr boots offend me so; I think it's the combination of the aforementioned characteristics that repulses me.

And you might say, 'Liz, come on - you're being dramatic. They're just shoes; how could you really hate them so much?' And, in response, I would say(probably in a pretty snippy way) that shoes make the man and that walking around New York City, I see hundreds of pairs of these atrocities EVERY SINGLE DAY. I could not escape them if I tried. It's as if every hipster girl walking around the city has decided to flaut their boots in my face to make me uncomfortable. And yes, these boots do make me uncomfortable.

I HATE! White People with Dreadlocks

So I can't believe I didn't think about this earlier - I really hate white people who wear their hair in dreads. And I'm going to get right to the point here and not dilly-dally around the root of the issue. Dreads on white people are really gross because the texture of white people's hair makes their hair look dirty more or less after one day of not washing it. That's the reality. The texture just does not accommodate this look. If you're white and you wear dreads, your hair will inevitably look dirty, greasy, and unkempt (I get that that's kind of the intention with dreadlocks, but white people hair looks particuarly bad when left unbrushed for 11 months.)

I, for one, could never wear dreads, even if I wanted to, because (let me give you an example) my hair will be dirty by the time I wake up in the morning even if I've washed it the night before. So just imagine what that would look like a million times over: pretty grim, isn't it? By the time my hair would even form the dreads (if it could even do that is debatable because my hair is so freaking thin), there would most definitely be animals or insects nesting there and/or an oil slick would have developed. It's really an unattractive concept.

And I am all for self-expression, etc., but I also can't help feeling that white people with dreads are trying to present an image of themselves as something that they're not. Disagree if you will, but most of the whities with dreads that I've met have all turned out to be HUGE posers. Maybe it's just those few who sully the good name for the rest of the white-dread-wearers; maybe not, but I am going to stand firm on my belief that white people should stay away from dreads at all cost. There's just something icky about it - both to look at and the general vibe that it gives off.

I HATE! Shit That is Fucking Ridiculous

So I just read the Perez Hilton, the self-absorbed gossip blogger turned 'celebrity' (in his own mind), has just been offered the opportunity to design a line of clothes for Hot Topic. GIVE ME A MOTHERFUCKING BREAK! Have you seen the things that this fellow wears out? He looks like a walking balloon animal. I hope to the heavens that no one buys this line. If anyone does they'll only be adding another dimension to Perez's already-overstuffed, pompous, and inflated ego. I will also mention that the dude has absolutely no design or fashion credentials. Apparently (according to an article from OK Magazine: http://www.okmagazine.com/news/view/6461), this line is "a natural next step" for Perez (who's real name is Mario Lavandeira, which, in my opinion, is a much better name than Perez Hilton - could he be any more desperate to be a celebrity/socialite?) because he has a "good eye for what's hot and what's not." Oh my goodness, I am going to vomit. He has got to be kidding! If the offer had been extended by a store any more reputable than Hot Topic, I would be forced to riot. I think I'm going to need to sit in front of the toilet for a little while. That is all.




Example Numero Uno

Example Numero Dos

I HATE! Dirty Clean Dishes

When I moved into my very first apartment last summer, I specifically remember one of my roommates (we'll call her Coco) telling me on the sly that the other roommate (we'll call her Muffy) didn't know how to do dishes.' And I assumed that that meant that Muffy just never did them - that she was one of those people who would simply leave her dishes in the sink until someone else would get annoyed that the sink was filled with dirty dishes and do them on her behalf. While this would certainly have been annoying, I later found out that Coco meant that the Muffy actually did not know how to properly wash a dish.

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that every single dish that I found in our cupboards (and that I did not wash myself) was dirty even though it was supposed to be clean. I don't know what to do! I wasn't going to re-wash all the dishes in the cabinent and I certainly did not feel like re-washing each dish before I went to use it.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I was under the impression that washing a dish was a pretty simple concept. All you need to do is wet the dish, soap it up via sponge, Brillo pad, scrubbing brush, or whatever your dish-washing weapon of choice may be, scrub off all of the caked-on food, and then rinse under the faucet. Apparently this concept must not be as easy to handle as I had originally thought as I continued to reach into the cabinent and pull out bowls with caked on macaroni, plates sprinkled with green crud, and cups covered in water and soap stains.

First of all, this is gross and second of all, if you're going to wash a dish half-assed, you might as well not wash it at all because when food's been stuck to and dried on a dish for days on end, there's not much hope in getting it off.

Needless to say, I stopped eating at the apartment.

I HATE! Celebrities Who Think They Can Design Clothes Just Because They're Celebrities

Just because you're a celebrity does not mean that you have the chops to design a good clothing line. I feel like every day we hear about a new celebrity who has been given carte blanche by some dumb company to create their own clothing, shoe, or jewelery line. This drives me absolutely crazy! Celebrity does not automatically equal good designer. A good designer has gone to design school and has learned about fit, patterns, wearability, practically, and materials.

What do you know about design Heidi Montag, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Lopez or Paris Hilton? Clearly nothing. Has anyone ever taken a peek at the so-called fashion line Just Sweet designed by J. Lo? Everything in the line looks like it was carved out of the same huge piece of shiny purple polyester. I had the unfortunate experience of accidentally brushing up against one of J. Lo's polyester tent dresses and instantaneously developed a rash from the sheer cheapness of the fabric. 

Paris Hilton's shoe line? Even though I understand that women with larger feet often have trouble finding shoes in their size (a good idea in theory, Paris), let's be real here: a stripper wouldn't even wear Paris' shoes. The line boasts enough Lucite to put the dressing room at Scores to shame. 

And we all heard the reviews of Heidi Montag's (who, by the way, I refuse to admit is a celebrity - waste of space is more like it) line Heidiwood, haven't we? An excerpt from New York Magazine:

"No self-respecting grown woman should allow herself to be seen in these garments. Only two of the twelve items have sleeves, and just one — a pair of jeans — extends past mid-thigh. In fact, only one other thing extends past the upper thigh: a dress that would have been mildly acceptable had it not been made from the kind of cotton you usually only see on Target’s discount panties."

Believe you me, that wasn't even the worst of it. There's a reason why your clothes are only sold at Anchor Blue, Heidi: they're shiteous. Truly heinous. I would compare the quality to Joyce Leslie, Mandee, or Wet Seal.  But what's worse, Heidiwood boasts overpriced versions of clothes found at Joyce Leslie, Mandee, and Wet Seal.  And as the writers of the above NY Mag article noted, no self-respecting woman would be caught dead in anything from the Heidiwood collection. The reviews might seem harsh, but if you had gone to design school before attempting to 'design' your own line, the clothes would probably have been launched to better reviews.

Maybe so many celebrities are given their own clothing lines because so many people try to emulate the way celebrities dress. But I'll let you in on a little secret: celebrities are dressed by stylists. Celebrities' styles are created by stylists. Celebrities don't dress themselves! The stylists should be the ones given the clothing lines. They know about fashion!  They're stylists!

And another question: do we actually think that the celebrities would where their own lines? Absolutely not! And you want to know why? Because celebrity lines are watered-down, cheaply-made versions of the clothes they wear. We're talking obvious emulations of last season's Dolce & Gabanna, Fendi, and Marc Jacobs designs that celebrity stylists picked out for stars to wear several award shows ago.  The celebrity is not concerned with creating well-designed, good quality clothes; a hastily-designed clothing line allows a celebrity to add the title of 'designer' to their resume. You better believe that that's the only reason celebrities do it.