FLL COTS OY VOW WN WN CVA GG CG CAO tr Air prin Eh deat a a Sa a 2 Page 12 The Lion’s Eye Entertainment September 28, 2011 New York Fashion Week: Fashion for the People By: Sara Neville--Lion’s Eye Staff Writer--sen136@psu.edu Most people don’t get high fashion. And by “get” I don’t necessarily mean “obtain” or “purchase,” although that may also be the case. Most people don’t get why hollow-eyed 16 year-old girls stomp down runways wearing overly dramatic and outrageously-styled garments, or why magazine editors are acerbic and opinionated. There is this image of high fashion that has penetrated the mainstream: it is an industry that is run by merci- lessly harsh editrixes and gay men. Runway shows are offensively extravagant presenta- tions put in motion by cheesy, fist-pumping, electro-Euro-beats. Everyone does drugs, everyone is elitist, and everyone is just about as smart as Zoolander (“What is this?! A school for ANTS?!”). Although generalizations are usually crafted with a tiny thread of truth, if you take a look at New York’s biannual fashion week, you will witness a vastly different scene. Sponsored by Mercedes Benz and hosted at New York’s Lincoln Center, New York Fashion Week (NYFW) takes place twice a year: February’s shows present collec- tions for the upcoming Fall/Winter season, and September’s shows are for the following year’s Spring/Summer season. Though most of the runway shows take place in Lincoln Center, some shows, collection presentations, parties, and other fashion week-related events take place all over the city. The Big Apple becomes the stomping grounds for fashion’s elite. And... as it turns out, a lot of small town fashion experts. The fashion industry was turned upside down by the upsurge in personal fash- ion and style bloggers in 2008 and 2009. With the popularity of fashion bloggers like Lulu & Your Mom (http://luluandyourmom.com), Fashion Toast (http://fashiontoast. com), Sea of Shoes (http://seaofshoes.com), and Style Rookie (http://stylerookie.com), fashion designers began to see the importance of reaching out to their small town clien- tele. The girls who ran these blogs - college grads Lulu and Rumi, 16 year-old Jane, and 12 year-old Tavi - began receiving invites to shows at NYFW, some with front row seat- ing arrangements! With the growth of social media and micro-blogging platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, more bloggers from all walks of life - high school students, college grads, moms and dads - have been given the opportunity to share in the excitement of NYFW. : This season, shows in New York ran from Wednesday, September 7, to Thurs- day, September 15, 2011. Classic American designers like Michael Kors, Tommy Hil- figer, Carolina Herrera, and Ralph Lauren presented their collections alongside fashion’s wunderkinds du jour, Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, Prabal Gurung, and the designers behind labels Proenza Schouler. The simplicity of Calvin Klein was countered by the Van Gogh-in- spired prints and compli- cated cuts of the garments at Rodarte. Quirky prints and haphaz- ard styling choices at Anna Sui and Karen Walker played nicely off of Narciso Rodriguez’s candy-col- ored hair and Oscar de la Renta’s bold color choices. Bloggers walked alongside magazine editors through presentations from newcomers Katie Ermilio, Chris Benz, and Project Run- way’s Gretchen Jones. Justin Timberlake, Ashley Olsen, and Nicki Minaj mingled with Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour at Oscar de la Renta (JT and Anna apparently talked about tennis!). NYFW has become an event for the people. High fashion is no longer for an elite group of snobs. It’s for teenagers like Jane, who love crazy-looking shoes. It’s for middle schoolers like Tavi, who are intrigued by avant garde fashion and like wearing obnoxious hats. It’s for college grads like Lulu and Rumi who raid vintage shops to emulate what they see on the runway. Fashion is for everyone, and the design- ers who show at NYFW are finally able to see that. Funky fresh at Alexander Wang; Stylish splendor at Oscar de la Renta (photo courtesy of elle.com) PLAYOFFS™ Playlist By: Paolo DiPaolo Lion’s Eye Staff Writer pod5013@psu.edu the mob. b. riot 7. Linkin Rrk— I the' ad 8. Linkin Prk— Nuvb between the two. Megon'sMovte RevTewd: By: Megan Draper--Lion's Eye Staff Writer--msd5198@psu.edu Photo courtesy of IMDb productions, and novels all have in common is that they need to tell a story. In order to be successful, it must be a good story. Drive does not have a good story; it doesn’t even have an amusing or entertaining story. It follows a pattern that goes from dull to violent and back again. Graphic violence appears to have been used in an attempt to engage the audience. It struck me as unnecessary and silly. The story itself was not just uninteresting, it was unrealistic. The plot is implausible (not to mention predictable) while it also never transcends plausibility; It is trapped in a bizarre limbo ud orive I am completely bewildered by the positive reviews Drive has been receiving. I’m glad I saw the movie with a film savvy friend who felt the same way I did. Otherwise, I would be worried that I had somehow missed something. There is no denying that the film is well-crafted. However, I felt that the film failed on just about every other level. Drive is an art house film and a crime thriller hybrid. The movie follows a stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) who works as a wheelman at night. 1 don’t recall him ever having a name; IMDb refers to him as “Driver,” so that’s what I'll call him as well. Driver begins to develop a friendship with his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos). This relationship, through a series of events that I will not detail here, gets Driver on the wrong side of The character Driver never has much to say, and neither does the movie. The film Drive was based on a book, though I have never read it (and I don’t plan to after seeing this movie). I think that Driver may have been a more inter- esting character on the page. Books often have the advantage of allowing the reader to be privy to the main character’s thoughts. With such little dialogue and no background, I never knew enough about Driver to care about anything that went on in his life. There is no tension if the audience does not care about the characters and the world they inhabit. The dialogue that does occur is simply boring and can only be defined as small talk. Drive could have made a good short film. By a short film, I mean the ten minute long ones that are screened at film festivals and similar vendors. I think that I would have enjoyed it if it had been a short film; my experience with such films is that they can work really well even when they are highly stylized and ambiguous. I do not have a problem with stylized feature films, so long as the film has a story worth telling. Drive did not have a story befitting feature length entertainment. I love when films have beauti- ful cinematography, but that cannot be the only creative aspect. One thing that movies, theatre Drive possesses style and symbolism; unfortunately, it’s a movie, not a painting. If you’re in the mood for such art, I would recommend visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is much more impressive and worthwhile. If you're interested in enjoying a movie, all I have to say is don’t waste your time or money on Drive. ee EI a I
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