This is because Viola is obsessed with her eyebrows.
Everyday, Viola wakes up two hours before work. She showers. She dries her hair. She eats a Nutri-grain bar. She brushes her teeth. She gargles. She applies her mahogany lipstick. She walks naked toward the mirror to check for patches of cellulite. Still dimple-free. Depending on her mood, she may make her bed. She dresses. And she sits.
She lights a cigarette, turns on Bette Midler's Greatest Hits and flips the switch to employ the 150 watt bulbs above her mirror. She takes in the moment with a deep inhale and a puff outward. She often inches her face so close to the mirror that her nose bumps into it and she has to angle slightly sideways. With the hand that isn't clutching the Pall Mall, she picks up her 200 dollar pair of Shu Uemura tweezers, and she removes them from their plastic case. (They originally came in a metal one, but Viola worried that the metal would dull the tip). And everyday, she spends an hour and thirteen minutes looking for non-existent eyebrows to pluck.
She knew it was getting bad when her eyebrows started resembling Whoopi Goldberg's, but she couldn't stop. She would pull a single one out, then tap the mirror with the blade of the tweezer, leaving a remnant brow behind, clinging to the mirror by its root. Instead of satisfaction at having removed a stray, she felt she needed to remove another. And another. And another. Until, of course, the point came when there were none to remove.
So now Viola has had to invest in a very expensive eyebrow pencil. While very expensive, Viola has not quite mastered the art of the color-in, so usually one of her eyebrows looks slightly more arched than the other. Her appearance is rather off-kilter.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
vodka and dr. zchivago
Viola is Russian. Her lips are dark, her nails and clothing exclusively black. She has warm blonde hair and a small frame. Her teeth are not perfect. The incisors overlap the laterals and they retain a warm yellow color, due mostly to the coffee and cigarettes she ingests daily. But Viola does not see her teeth as a flaw. In fact, she barely notices them.
the resurgence of the scrunchy
In what feels to be an inner battle between good and evil, man vs. himself, fight vs. flight, I have lately been entertaining the idea of wearing a scrunchy.
Yes, a scrunchy. You remember them. A wisp of colored cotton encircling a bit of elastic, wrapped snugly and carefully contorted around a ponytail. And the simple word itself probably brings back glorious visions of teased bangs and hairsprayed curls. Perhaps you remember wearing a red and green plaid one on Christmas, or taking your yearbook picture in one, or learning to ride a bike with one around your wrist. Perhaps you remember wearing one when you had your first crush or true love, or during a multiplication lesson, or that one time when you fell and skinned your knee and cried in front of the whole playground (hey, so I’m not an athlete).
Well, as the old saying goes, time stops for no man, and the eighties turned to the early nineties, and the early nineties turned into the mid-nineties, and alas, the scrunchy’s sartorial day in the sun was nearing an end. No longer were the fashionistas sporting them, but more so mothers living in Minnesota, doing their housework and eating dinners at TGI Fridays. So mass production is stopped, they are tossed like used tissue to the bottoms of drawers and trash cans, the very word can ignite a shudder. The world of fashion is a cruel, cruel, fickle one.
And yet, here we are, ten, twenty years later. Clearly fashion is ever evolving and recycling, and the 80’s and 90’s are here with a vengence. Hipsters around the city are wearing bright, tight denim with high tops and Henry Holland inspired t-shirts. High-waisted everything showed up on the runways of YSL, Phillip Lim, etcetera (though I’m certainly not implying this came about in the 80’s, just that “high-waisted” often conjures up images of stonewashed mom jeans from that time). Leggings as an entity are far from over for the masses. Flannels of the early 90’s have already been re-rocked by the Olsen twins.
Yes I just referenced the Olsen twins. I love those little Marlboro Red-smoking ladies.
So this is my question. How long, I ask you, until the scrunchy returns with a vengeance?
Perhaps it will be an extra, extra large scrunchy, editorial if you will. Or maybe it will follow the ongoing metallic or patent leather trend? Lucite? What are the limits? Will Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga make a matching one for future blazers? Will Dolce and Gabbana show an insanely tight corset-scrunchy stretching down the ponytail? Will Donna Karan design an “I Heart New York” one?
Most importantly, do I give into my inner battle and rock the scrunchy that very well may be put back on the map in the near future? Or do I fight the urge, fearing pre-fad ridicule?
Yes, a scrunchy. You remember them. A wisp of colored cotton encircling a bit of elastic, wrapped snugly and carefully contorted around a ponytail. And the simple word itself probably brings back glorious visions of teased bangs and hairsprayed curls. Perhaps you remember wearing a red and green plaid one on Christmas, or taking your yearbook picture in one, or learning to ride a bike with one around your wrist. Perhaps you remember wearing one when you had your first crush or true love, or during a multiplication lesson, or that one time when you fell and skinned your knee and cried in front of the whole playground (hey, so I’m not an athlete).
Well, as the old saying goes, time stops for no man, and the eighties turned to the early nineties, and the early nineties turned into the mid-nineties, and alas, the scrunchy’s sartorial day in the sun was nearing an end. No longer were the fashionistas sporting them, but more so mothers living in Minnesota, doing their housework and eating dinners at TGI Fridays. So mass production is stopped, they are tossed like used tissue to the bottoms of drawers and trash cans, the very word can ignite a shudder. The world of fashion is a cruel, cruel, fickle one.
And yet, here we are, ten, twenty years later. Clearly fashion is ever evolving and recycling, and the 80’s and 90’s are here with a vengence. Hipsters around the city are wearing bright, tight denim with high tops and Henry Holland inspired t-shirts. High-waisted everything showed up on the runways of YSL, Phillip Lim, etcetera (though I’m certainly not implying this came about in the 80’s, just that “high-waisted” often conjures up images of stonewashed mom jeans from that time). Leggings as an entity are far from over for the masses. Flannels of the early 90’s have already been re-rocked by the Olsen twins.
Yes I just referenced the Olsen twins. I love those little Marlboro Red-smoking ladies.
So this is my question. How long, I ask you, until the scrunchy returns with a vengeance?
Perhaps it will be an extra, extra large scrunchy, editorial if you will. Or maybe it will follow the ongoing metallic or patent leather trend? Lucite? What are the limits? Will Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga make a matching one for future blazers? Will Dolce and Gabbana show an insanely tight corset-scrunchy stretching down the ponytail? Will Donna Karan design an “I Heart New York” one?
Most importantly, do I give into my inner battle and rock the scrunchy that very well may be put back on the map in the near future? Or do I fight the urge, fearing pre-fad ridicule?
All I know at this point is I will never re-wear my Hair-Deenie. You don't even want to know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
