Archive - April 2016

Entertainment

McQueen Creative Director Sarah Burton is Being Sued Over The Royal Wedding Dress

by Erin Gillespie

Ah yes…the Royal wedding dress. Such a vision, all in fitted white lace with a corseted waist and a train that is……..ZZzzzzzzz. Oh! Oh, sorry. I fell asleep there for a moment. That dress has that effect on me, you see. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the dress, and I like it still. Like. But do I think it is the iconic couture masterpiece that everyone was making it out to be? No, I do not. A fitted bodice dress with sleeves and lace and a long train for a formal church wedding. It’s just not all that fashion-forward. But then, knowing what we know now…rather fitting as well. Be that as it may, a new and interesting development has emerged surrounding Creative Director of Alexander McQueen and erstwhile designer of the dress, Sarah Burton. Apparently Burton is being sued by a...

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Entertainment

The Bad Idea Files: Wedding Style With Kim & Kanye

by Erin Gillespie

You know how at every wedding, there’s that one guest…the one that needs all the attention, who dresses like she is going to bondage-themed nightclub, and spends the evening getting drunk and flirting with all of the 15 year-old boys and falling out of her dress and sitting on your great uncle Merle’s lap, much to the consternation of Merle’s wife Esther? You know that guest…she’s that guest. Well ladies and gentlemen, that guest has a name, and her name is Kim Kardashian-West. Over the weekend, Kimye attended a wedding in Miami wearing a Wonderbra, some Spanx, and a satin negligee 40 sizes too small stretched over the top of both. There are so many reasons why this is wrong. While yes, tradition dictates that unless instructed otherwise, you don’t wear white...

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Fashion

More Spring Trends That You May Not Have Known Existed

by Erin Gillespie

See this blouse? The one that looks like the white one I had in the seventh grade that I used to wear with my high-waisted, Body Lingo jeans and ribbon-covered barrettes? Well, this is not just any old ruffled, high-collared blouse. It’s not even a Victorian blouse (which if memory serves, is what we used to call them). No, this is a pie crust blouse. That’s what the kids are calling them now, pie crust. On account of the collar, see? Apparently, pie crust blouses kind of a thing again, which serves 2 purposes: 1) to make those of us in our mid forties feel incredibly old for having been there the first time, and 2) carbs. Fashion types would rather poke hot needles in their eyes than eat carbs, so this must be an attempt to allow themselves the odd forbidden pastry...

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Fashion

Fashioning a Reign: Celebrating 90 Years of Royal Style

by Erin Gillespie

  As you are probably already aware, HRH Queen Elizabeth recently celebrated her 90th birthday.  While you may not necessarily associate The Queen with cutting-edge fashion, it is not cutting-edge fashion that is really what this article is about. Sometimes fashion, like Her Majesty The Queen herself, can be a quiet, steady, and enduring force as much as it can be a boisterous instrument of change. At the palace of Holyroodhouse in Scotland, an exhibit has been opened that gives us a look at The Queen’s royal style for the past 90 years. Caroline De Guitaut is the curator of the exhibit, titled Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen’s Wardrobe.  De Guitaut perhaps summarised the collection best in her assessment of The Queen’s relationship with the...

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Mary Magdalene Film
Entertainment

The Bad Idea Files: Jesus and Mary Magdalene – The Movie

by Erin Gillespie

That would be the expression on my face too if I had just signed-on to play Jesus Christ in a biopic of Mary Magdalene. You see, historically, movies about Jesus Christ are almost always destined to be failures. That doesn’t stop the Hollywood Powers That Be from trying, but at the end of the day, if yo look at the track record of Jesus-themed films that have been made, it’s not been a particularly successful theme (what was that sound? Lightning!?). According to the entertainment gossip jungle drums of the internet, the film is set to star Rooney Mara as Mary Magdalene and Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus Christ. The film is set to be directed by Garth Davis, and is being touted as one of the “truest: cinematic portrayals of Mary Magdalene ever. Riiiight. It is set to be an...

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Entertainment

Here We Go Again: Prince William’s Save-Face Interview Blows Up in His Face, Earns Him a Marie Antoinette Comparison

by Erin Gillespie

Oh dear. Here we go again. Every time I find myself writing yet another “The Cambridges are having image problems”article, I kind of feel like I’m writing the same  “The Cambridges are having image problems” article, you know? I am seriously starting to question their PR machine’s capability to do the job they were hired to do . This latest “Prince William is a whiny, entitled, work-shy man-child” story comes on the back of the Prince’s BBC interview last week. Just back from India, a tour whose sole purpose seemed to be to get a Diana-channelling photo in front of the Taj Mahal, and a visit from President and First Lady Obama that was about to happen, it had become pretty clear to the British press that attempts were being made to...

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Fashion

The Signature Style of Prince

by Erin Gillespie

The sad passing of legendary musical artist Prince marks not only the loss of an iconic musical genius, but also of one of fashion’s most unique style icons. Never one to shy-away from controversy, Prince’s style was a perfect blend of Baroque excess, seventies sex appeal, and a more than generous helping of rock and roll. Despite his rather eclectic style influences, Price definitely developed a signature look over the years; we were never able to look at a skin-tight pair of lace flares, cuban heels, or a crushed purple velvet suit in the same way again. Hollywood life once wrote that Prince was such a unique force of fashion because what you saw on the stage was a reflection of who he really was – not just as an artist, but as a human being. While some artists adopt a...

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Entertainment

Legendary Musical Icon Prince Dead at 57

by Erin Gillespie

It pains me to have to write these words yet again in the year 2016, but sadly, yet another iconic musician has been called-back to the ether far too early in his life. Prince was found dead in his home this morning. The legendary musician had allegedly been suffering with a case of severe flu over the past week, having been rushed to hospital on the 14th of April. He was aboard his private plane when he fell ill on Friday morning, forcing it to make an unscheduled landing in Illinois. TMZ broke the story at the time. Seven-time Grammy award winning singer Prince’s plane diverted to Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, to make the emergency landing. He had had been suffering from flu for a number of weeks and was believed to be recovering, but took a turn for the...

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Fashion

It’s Springtime, Can We Ditch the Black Tights Already!?

by Erin Gillespie

I would just like to start this article out by saying that when you are looking to do a springtime fashion piece on tights vs. no tights and are searching for images to use, it is virtually impossible to conduct an Instagram search for “tights” or “bare legs” and not unearth just about every softcore porn image that every bored housewife with a digital camera has taken since 2010. Seriously, people are posting porny images of themselves at a rate that makes a high-speed Japanese commuter train look like it moves with the speed of a glacier. However, because I feel very strongly that the whole tights vs. bare legs thing is a fashion conundrum that most of us struggle with at seasonal transition times of year, I persevered through the fishnet stockings and lacy one...

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Entertainment

Charlie Sheen Once Again Finds Himself in Deep Doo-Doo

by Erin Gillespie

Things do not look good for Charlie Sheen. The fallen-from-grace actor, in addition to his recent very public disclosure that he has been living with HIV for the past several years, has now got another rather sizeable problem; he is under investigation by the LAPD. Apparently Sheen’s ex-fiancee Brett Rossi (Scottine) has taken out a restraining order against Sheen, claiming that the actor threatened to kill her. Mind you, all this is going on in addition to the lawsuit that Rossi has filed against Sheen for allegedly not disclosing his HIV status to her while they were in a relationship. In the state of California, it’s a felony offence to knowingly engage in unprotected sex without disclosing your HIV status to your partner. However, this has been traditionally quite hard to...

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