bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

Reader Mail: The Halloween

Today we summarize a batch of mail we have recently received, with this one, which most closely encapsulates the general vibe:

Dear Bunnyshop:

Halloween is just around the corner. I want to dress up, but I'm always freaked out by how everyone else at the parties is Slutty Nurse, Slutty Cowgirl, whatever. What can I do? I'm not even sure I want to go out at this point.

Love,
A.

Oh, Halloween. We mean, really. We remember being in elementary school and dressing up as a "Dutch girl" (which we were, in fact, sort of) with the clogs and the peaked hat. And then maybe we'd be a hobo or a witch or whatever. We don't remember what happened in between elementary school and college, but something definitely had, because suddenly everyone was dressing like [Fill In Occuption] Slut. Or Slutty [Fill In Occupation. Slutty nurse, slutty secretary, slutty schoolteacher, etc. Here is a list from Extreme Halloween:

Sexy Dorothy
Glitter Mermaid
Vixen Pirate Wench
Mile High Captain Uniform
Pretty Plumber Costume
Wizard Wanda
Teacher's Pet Sexy School Girl
French Maid
Bettie Page
Sexy Saucy Marie Playboy Costume

We. Are. Just. Not doing this. We are boycotting. We will say: We have lived almost exclusively in cities with traditions of taking Halloween very seriously, and every once in a while—we saw a couple of these last year and were very pro, and were all, "Hmm, wish we could think of something that clever." But we can't. Unless we thought about it very, very hard. We're sure for some people, clever Halloween costumes come very naturally. For us, they do not, and we need that section of brain to figure out, say, how to ... knife? carve up? dice? an onion. (Because obviously we haven't entirely wrapped our head around it yet.) We will be somewhere between Austin, TX, and Denver, CO, for Halloween this year, and we are planning on spending it in a Motel 6 room somewhere (glam! not! but actually, we love Motel 6! as long as there are no meth addicts there! like that one time! at least we think it was meth!) watching Comedy Central or reading Suze Orman books or, we don't know, falling asleep.

Our position, in short: Fourth of July. Love it. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Labor Day. Pro. The thing about holidays is, we don't need to participate in all of them. Hate to be the grinch here, but for us: Halloween: pass.

Anybody else have a position?

State of Emergency

So we lost our passport about a week ago, and actually had this lovely, bizarre, Thornton Wilder-esque experience at the American embassy, where everyone was super nice (really) and tripping over each other to help everyone (literally.) But then, last night, we flew home, and discovered we are on some "list," and thanks to that missing fucking passport, will, every time we fly, because we are idiots, get sent to that little room where they interrogate all the foreigners. We didn't like that room before, and we really don't like it now. Argh. Arhg. ARgh. If you know what we mean.

Anyway: This all got us thinking about the State of Emergency story by Steven Meisel in last September's Vogue Italia. This is how we felt, except without the partial nudity and all like human-, rather than model-sized. We love this story like few others.

Can We Just Say

So we were in the elevator of maybe the most spectacular hotel we have ever been in—that is the thing about being a freelance writer: free hotels, occasionally; health insurance, no—and we accidentally got on when the otherwise upwardly-moving elevator stopped at our floor. This, as it will, confused the clearly American elderly couple in the elevator—and we say again, "as it will", because we shouldn't have gotten on, and when we did—whatever. We've all been in an elevator before. Anyway, the older American man is like, "Guess this is where we're going, not sure where we were." And they get off.

And then—and then—the horrible other man in the elevator is like, "Americans," and he and his wife \ mistress \ girlfriend roll their eyes and laugh. No. Snicker. Snarf. And we just stood there, with that prickly feeling we get before we are about to explode in a ball of rage: not just because they were annoyingly bitching about some elderly couple who got turned around on an elevator, but because everyone else in the world now feels like they have the right to, and—oh oh oh, because of all of those reasons we wait, with our breath held, for November 2008.

So rather than, say, garrotte the horrible man, or puke up our breakfast on him, we turned to him and were like: "What," and we said this ending with a period rather than a question. "So are they all stupid, the Americans?" and we said this in the broadest, flattest American accent we have ever had. (We would have given anything, by the way, to have been able to say this in Swedish, even though the couple clearly wasn't.) And they laughed in that way, when someone has said something unpleasant to you that you didn't expect, and we glared at them—in that weird, serial killer-y way we know we can—until they got off the elevator. Because as much as we despise our current political leadership, we love our country, and most especially our elderly sightseeing co-citizens, who were just trying to get to their freaking hotel room without being mocked.

Now here is the thing: the stereotype of the dumb American tourist is really not so different from the stereotype of the German tourist in his knee socks and shorts, or the Japanese tourist with the five different cameras hanging from his neck. Tourists are tourists, the world around. But we have been overseas long enough, over the past four years, to know that things have changed for the worse, for the stereotype, if you will, of Americans, and honestly we blame our—we don't even have the word. We would pray for impeachment if not for the even-worse alternative. Because we believe in our country, and our elderly citizens in foreign elevators, snarfed at by asshole random European guys that we should've just puked all over. Okay, so that is not a measured response. But we await the day—all we will say is that we went down to the reception area, still glaring at anyone who dared to look at us, and we sat and said to ourselves: "What would Mike Bloomberg tell us to do in this situation?" And he would say, "Ignore the assholes, and get back to work." And so we shall.

This is why we have a category called "Rant." Back to our regular programming momentarily. We illustrate this with Acne Jeans, since that is where we are going to calm down. Hex Black Royal jeans, about $200

We Are Just Wondering

Every time we go into Abercrombie and Fitch (thankfully, a less and less frequent occurrence) we ask ourselves: What is that smell? Why is the smell of Abercrombie cologne so overpowering? It is worse, and more pervasive, than 1000 perfume counters at Macy's. Are they pumping it through the ventilation ducts? Does this mystify anyone else?

These, above, are basically hot pants in khaki. Gray shorts, $39.50

Vomit

That thumping sound? It's the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

From: the Store That Will Not Be Named, at least here. Begins with a K, however.

The Brand Olympics

We were innocently sitting in our video class yesterday when this horrible, awful person starting going on and on about how a certain video we had just watched was "lazy, just so lazy, and so American, blah blah blah, bile bile bile," and we were truly so infuriated by this, again, horrible person, that we felt dizzy from all the blood rushing to our head. If there is one thing, in our lives, we have had enough of, it is bizarrely smug art students who think they're being all smart when they're actually being whiny little brats. It's like, ugh, you fucking loser—we don't know. We have plenty of issues with various aspects of our national culture, but the day we start labeling those nasty things "American" is the day—we don't know. Obviously we are still so agitated we can barely think straight. It's this: The word "American," as an adjective, belongs to the user. If the user uses it to mean "hard-working, industrious, believing in a country in which all children have health insurance, etc etc"—then that's "American," and it enters the parlance and gains currency as exactly that, and the good people, who believe in our country as that, win. If the user means it to mean "lazy, lazy, blah blah blah," than it does exactly that. It's just like, motherfucker, you are helping the evil people win.

This is a very circuitous way of saying this: This weekend, we were talking about the idea of brands, and how their are certain American brands we would prefer not be, you know, what our country is offering to the world: McDonald's, Coke, and all that horrible Hollywood Jerry Bruckheimer bullshit. We would be much, much happier, if we were represented at some sort of global brand Olympics by Kiehl's. We just fucking love Kiehl's. They do good works (beyond sponsoring Everest summit climbs, as above), they make highly effective products, they're polite and hardworking and understated. So we are exceptionally curious: No matter where you're from, what brands would you want representing your country at the Brand Olympics? What brand best represents how you view your country? We are aware that the question itself is ridiculously American-y—we just do not think our cousins in Suriname are thinking what brands they use are most Surinamese—but we're well and truly interested. Please comment below, if you don't mind, or send us your picks and explanations via e-mail, and from that second group any we put on the site will be rewarded with a small treat. We are wondering what everyone thinks, American included. Thank you for indulging our lunacy.

Kiehl's lip gloss, $13.50

ETA: Just received in reader mail:

Kiehl's charges $13.50 for a lip gloss. Kielh's uses their profits to sponsor expensive "assaults" on a mountain so overhyped that there are now traffic jams on the trail. Sherpas make $8 a day toting same Americans' shit around the Himalayas so the American jocks don't have to carry their own weight. "American" = money to burn, lazy as hell, use servants whenever available. Not a particularly flattering representation. The best "brands" to represent this country aren't brands at all...they're the small businesses that keep local flavor, originality, and imagination alive in the big cities and small communities across the land. And they're quickly going extinct.

This is, obviously, the opposite, sort of, of what we were saying, but we may have been driven so wild with anger that we entirely missed our own point, better discussed here. Mm, we can admit when we're wrong. But we remain interested in this, so if anyone else has thoughts to add, please do so here. We love, more than anything, except possibly our $13.50 Kiehl's lip balm, independent designers, so maybe we will just make it that. If anyone has anyone else they would like to recommend, we say only: please continue to do so.

Bunnyshop Hearts, Hates, Etc

There are so many things in need of a redesign. The San Francisco public transit system, which, we are so delighted to say, features yet another bus driver who doesn't let her job get in the way of keeping up her many, many personal relationships by cell phone, while she is driving. Awesome! Or, housing for the poor. Needs a redesign. Toothpaste. Toothpaste, we were thinking, was fine as it was. And in any case we are always so mystified by the three million slightly different varieties of Colgate, all of which seem to feature the words "Whitening," "Freshening," and "Advanced" but in different order. Okay, so that could be cleaned up. But we cannot express our frustration when we returned home yesterday, so happy because we'd remembered to actually buy the toothpaste, to then discover it was "Paradise" flavored. Argh. All we ask from our toothpaste is something dentally successful, and maybe minty. That is all. We do not need a guava-flavored toothpaste. Tss.

We will hopefully counteract all that ranting by just briefly mentioning our new mini-obsession with markegård: field neck wraps. Random. Weird looking. Slightly alluring. It is so hard to find non-ass-y looking scarves. Stars and Infinite Darkness is a good source. Neck wrap, was $170, now $119

We Love Us Weekly But What The Fuck?

From Mediabistro:

Us Weekly editor Janice Min expressed the trouble she and other women in her magazine's demographic — 31-year-olds, on average — are having in keeping up with news that doesn't involve Jessica Simpson:

These are women who are probably not engaged with the prominent issues of the day, Iraq, terrorism — they are tuned out. News is not being presented to them in interesting ways ... Believe it or not, I am actually quite interested in Iraq and politics, and I find CNN or most evening news broadcasts unwatchable.

We are so confused. Really? We just don't get it. We are, we will say, 31. We are shrugging, and frowning: Seriously? We're tuned out? Seriously? Because really, we feel quite tuned in. Like, re: the war. We are totally baffled by the "interesting ways" part. What is the goal there? We are thinking that by "interesting" she means "incisive, clear, accurate, and unbiased." Yes! That must be it. Okay, so we understand that her main point is that TV news sucks, and believe us, we agree, and we'll get to that in second. But: We find ourselves very engaged with the prominent issues of the day, like when we get probed at the airport, or when we are in a foreign country and people start rolling their eyes as soon as they hear our accent.

Now, let's be clear, we were talking to this brilliant young artist the other day (read! about it! in Nylon! in about four months!), feeling very inadequate and unproductive, and he was talking about how TV news is such a black hole, and he was like, "You know, the Crocodile Hunter dies, and it's all you hear about on TV. And we're at war." And his point was that this is one person and there's this media uproar, and three dozen people were blown up trying to get to the gas station in Baghdad and nobody makes much fuss about it. And well, we disagree with the specifics of his point—Crocodile Hunter! love the Crocodile Hunter and the Wildlife Warriors! the man was an icon!—but: We live in a major metropolitan area, and our local TV station is dedicating a nice chunk of time tonight to—we shit you not, we swear to God: "Squirrels attack parkgoers." Squirrel attacks parkgoers. Thirty-one-year women are not tuning out the media. The media, at least this local TV news media in a major metropolitan area, is treating 31-year-old women like dipshits.

We are going to wake up in the middle of the night screaming "Not engaged in the prominent issues of the day? Really? Seriously? Are you for real?"