SEAGULL SALON NYC Beauty & Culture Blog

Punk at the Met

I had a lot of feelings when I first learned there was going to be a punk exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the fashion side of me was super excited to see a punk fashion exhibit; the punk side questioned if displaying expensive clothes made for rich people in a museum was actually punk. 

When I think of the word "punk" or when I think of punk music, I think of no wave, which, through experimentation in sound and performance, deconstructed punk music. And I think of riot grrrl, which among other things, questioned male dominance in the punk scene. These facets of punk music have always been more interesting and exciting to me than, say, The Sex Pistols... 

But whatever my thoughts are about punk, the exhibit has some really great pieces. 

The Margiela pieces were my favorite, but I'm biased because that's my favorite design house. I love Margiela couture shows because they rework trash and discarded materials into art, and it's totally the most refreshing thing to see when fashion companies show their couture collections.

There's a nice little nugget of Comme des Garcons dresses that are fun to look at. I always wonder what they're going to do next at CDG. 

Of course this cool dress by Rodarte was there, which you could've seen if you'd visited Bergdorf Goodman a few years ago: 

Which reminds me of a nice Junya Watanabe sweater on view:

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Elizabeth Hurley dress by Versace. (How many dresses have their own Wikipedia entry?)

So, for fashion enthusiasts, this exhibit is pretty great. You'll have fun, but it felt short. I wanted to see more. I felt like we got a survey of punk fashion, and BAM! Hey, here's our gift shop. Wanna buy a skateboard that says PUNK? (This is an actual thing on sale in the gift shop, mind you.)

I think the show should have reworked the theme because, while the clothes are amazing, us punks are rolling our eyes. 

xo
craig hunter 

Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Style Icon

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the musician Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Maybe it's the spring weather that's putting me in a good mood. Or maybe it's the cool womens short haircuts I see here at Seagull all the time that remind me of Lizzy's hair. Whatever the case, I've been playing her album "Press Color" the past few days and fell in love with her, the music, and her style all over again. 

Though Lizzy started out in the no wave scene, I like to think of her as transcending the bunch. There's a softness to her music I don't usually associate with no wave. Her approach to guitar is intuitive and minimal---and often noisy and funky. It's an approach that's way more interesting to me than a guitar solo. And it's something that obviously influenced future musicians. (If Erase Errata were a baby, they'd have Lizzy's eyes.) But you can hear in Lizzy's voice a youthfulness and excitement that's a refreshing sound in no wave music.

It also doesn't hurt her that she had good style:

With Lydia Lunch: 

With Patti Smith:



She comes from another time and perhaps another realm, and I feel like I can't learn enough about her. There's not a ton of information online at least... (Lizzy passed away in the early 2000s.) But the mystery is probably part of the appeal of her music. And she's definitely one of my style icons. 

xo
craig hunter 

Space Age 90s

While it was official before, it's now officially official that the 90s are back in style thanks to Hedi Slimane making Kim Gordon, Courtney Love, and Marilyn Manson the faces of YSL. (Sorry, I just can't call it Saint Laurent yet.) The images are lovely and were effective in putting Marilyn Manson back in my brain. I listened to a lot of Hole and Sonic Youth in high school, but I also can't deny the influence Manson had on me, too. I'd consider his music a major part of my upbringing. So, this past couple weeks I've been revisiting his albums Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals, which are his best. 

The albums are great, and they've aged well. But while I was listening to Mechanical Animals I was reminded of a lot of different kind of imagery and style that was popular in the 90s that isn't the grunge look most people associate with the decade: I'm talking about the space age, futuristic feel of a lot of music in the late 90s, moving into the early 2000s. 

This is Manson in the late 90s.

It's supposed to tie in with the story behind the concept album that is Mechanical Animals, but it's actually a style that was popular with a lot of other bands at the time. 

There was that (kinda forgettable) band Orgy.

They covered that song "Blue Monday", remember? They always had a futuristic thing going on.

But TLC and Missy Elliott also went there. TLC's FanMail album has a space age-y thing going on, especially the "No Scrubs" video. Missy's "She's a Bitch" video and the album artwork for Miss E... So Addictive are also very much looking ahead into the future. 

A part of me wants to say the video for "Little Trouble Girl" by Sonic Youth fits in here, but that might be a bit of a stretch. "Little Trouble Girl" was released a couple years earlier than the time I'm referring to.

The late 90s were a pretty strange time. (Remember Y2K?) There is a lot of newness and uncertainty when you say goodbye to the last 1000 years and say hello to a new 1000 years. 

It makes me wonder when fashion designers will start picking up on this part of the 90s. Unless they've already started...

xo
craig hunter 

 

Fashion and Technology Exhibit at the FIT Museum

On my days off from Seagull I like to spend my time working on my own artwork and going to museums and galleries. Last week I went to the Met to check out the armor exhibit and also swung by the Warhol exhibit going on there. (It's kind of all over the place and wasn't really memorable. The Warhol exhibit, not the armor one. I really enjoyed the armor one.) But yesterday I went to the FIT Museum to check out their newest exhibit called "Fashion and Technology", documenting fashion's relationship with new technology. Straight up my alley. 

When you first walk in there's a video on loop of Hussein Chalayan's 2007 Transformer collection, in which models walked onto the runway, stood, and the clothes changed shape on their own. (You should watch this.)

 

The exhibit covers historical things, like the first garments made of fabrics that could be machine washed, garments that were made with a made with the first sewing machines, ones that incoporated the first zippers, etc. There was this one garment by Charles James that is made with a three foot long zipper that wraps around the body. 

In fact, I leaned forward too closely to inspect the garment and set off an alarm. Two security guards came up to me. (I think that happens to me every time I go to that museum...)

This seamless garment with 3D molding by Pierre Cardin was pretty cool to see up close, too. 

I liked to see what people were doing with fabric. Like this Jean Paul Gaultier nylon spandex jumpsuit, which apparently looks really tiny on the hanger until it's stretched onto a body.

They had a Halson piece made of ultrasuede, which Halston started to use after he saw what Issey Miyake was doing with it in the 70s. But Halston is Halston. And I'd rather talk about Miyake. I much prefer Miyake because I love how he plays with shapes and his innovative use of fabric. Like his famous pleating:

There was another garment by this Japanese designer I'd never heard of named Yoshiki Hishinuma, in which he uses polyester and polyurethane to create the garment. The effect makes me think of a dress floating weightless underwater: 

The exhibit is rather small. That's my main complaint. I wouldn't have minded seeing a larger version of this. There's a much larger exhibit going on downstairs at the FIT museum, but it's about Ivy League fashion so bring a book... 

"Fashion and Technology" is a nice survey of how fashion is always incorporating new innovations in technology. So, if you're in Chelsea near the Museum at FIT, check it out. It's free and interesting and will be on display until May 8, 2013.

xo
craig hunter 

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

You don't fool me for a minute. I know all about you. 

You came here tonight thinking you’d see some cute and wonderful rockstar. And you thought he’d take one look at you from up on that stage and he’d fall in love with you just like that. Then your savior could take you out of this dump of a town you live in. You could be different from all the other girls. Suckers!

Be yourselves.

These guys laugh at you. They've got such big plans for the world, but they don't include us. So what does that make you?

Just another girl lining up to die.

That's when Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains grabbed hold of me and got my full attention. It was so lucid.

It's what Corinne shouts at the audience after her band The Fabulous Stains is heckled off stage. It's their first show, and they've revealed themselves to be a sort of cross between The Shaggs and The Misfits (from "Jem and the Holograms"). This crowd came to hear the all-male headlining bands, one of which likes to write songs about that point in a relationship, you know, where it's necessary for the man to hit his "old lady" because words just don't cut it.

But the Stains (Corinne, her sister Tracy, and their cousin Jessica, a very young Laura Dern) are desperate to succeed. They're in their teens. Corinne and Tracy's parents are dead; Jessica's mother is uninterested and absent. There's no future in their hometown. They have to get out of there. 

And so they do. And they quickly make a name for themselves. Their style is different. They don't dress like the other girls around. 

When their manager instructs the Stains to dress in sexy, tight leather outfits, Corinne refuses and opts for an olive trench and a red beret instead. (My personal favorite look from the movie.)

Corinne is also (in)famous for her outbursts and speaking her mind. (At one point she tells a news reporter: "Every girl should be given an electric guitar on her sixteen birthday." Amen.) She's also good at plugging her band whenever she is interviewed by the press, further spreading the word of the Stains and creating an impressive fanbase. 

But what happens when you aren't sure if your fans are really listening or if they just want to look like you? What does an influential band to do when it gets boiled down to a marketable look? What do you do when the youth subculture is something to be capitalized from? Are you a sellout, or what? These are questions that are brought up in The Fabulous Stains.

It's a short movie, but there is enough material in it that had me deep in thought the next day. I was also really inspired by the film. There's something about it. It's not perfect, but that's okay. I felt empowered.

What is most important (besides their awesome songs) are the ideas and situations brought up. It's the kind of movie that says the things I've always felt but never saw in a movie.

It made me want to start a band. It made me want to be myself. 

It has that effect. 

xo
craig hunter 

Genesis

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge models a fresh shoulder length haircut with bangs by Shaun. 

Genesis will DJ a set with fellow Psychic TV / Thee Majesty member Morrison Edley tomorrow night at Salvor Projects.

 

xo,

Molly,

SEAGULL

Our Date with xoJane's Emily McCombs

Emily McCombs is the cream of the blogosphere, churning out unexpurgated first person posts that raise our eyebrows as we nod in wonder and assent. As the executive editor of xoJane (the real talk website headed by ex-Sassy's Jane Pratt), her brand of radical honesty and nonjudgmental commentary challenges the fundamental tropes of women's lifestyle journalism by presenting an admirable style of life—one that is adventurous and intensely self-reflexive. Emily has written unblinkingly about her tastes in pornography and fantasies of degradation, her addictions, her cosmetics, the damage years of bulimia have done to her teeth, loving little tiny babies, and the experience of receiving a friend request from her rapist on Facebook. 

So when we learned that our hero @msemilymccombs had booked a color appointment at Seagull with William we all screamed. And, to make things more insane for our small staff of excitable, demonstrative and twitter-addicted creative professionals, she decided to crowd source her new hair color decision. Our twitter exploded with suggestions and demands from her formidable following. Purple was trending, as was reverse ombré; votes were cast for crew cuts, checkerboards, and Louise Brooks. So what happened in the end? Emily has documented the entire experience with before and after pictures, screenshots, and videos. She even prodded me into admitting on camera that I'm in this business for the "hot bitches." Emily, you rascal! xoJohanna

Seagull Salon; On the Blogs.

Good news in the blogosphere this last few week. Shaun and Seagull Hair Salon both got a nice mention on The Beauty Counter Blog where Shaun talks layers, shapes and organic styling with Nicole Phelps, Executive Editor for Style.com. More specifically Nicole's current triumphs and mishaps with the Heat Wave Creator…

Hey girl, don't sweat it… All of us at Seagull are covered in burns in the name of creating four seasons worth of vintage waves and curls. 

XO, Shaun SureThing for Seagull Salon

RESIST PSYCHIC DEATH

so tessellated

 Seagull muse @iamcaroline’s epic new Bikini Kill tattoo, courtesy of TRON at Thicker Than Water. Loving the Escherean elements, perspective play and nod to the future corpse (a classic Caroline leitmotif!) RESIST PSYCHIC DEATH FOREVER. 

XOXO,

Mawlz

Style.com/Print Magazine in Seagull

This beautiful girl just got her hair done before she hits the stands at midnight tonight. 

(And just to clarify things, when we say "girl", we are referring to the magazine, not the model on the front of it.)

This is Style.com's first print magazine---called Style.com/Print---which is pretty cool. Thumbed through it, and I can honestly say that there is great content for fashion lovers (like myself). Go pick one up, dears!

xxx,
craig