6.22.2010
Madonna Does Dolce & Gabbana Campaign, Again!
Photo: Courtesy of DolceGabbana.com
Dominico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana took their collection back to the brand’s root, Sicilian hotness, for spring 2010 and continued the theme on fall-winter collection. Madonna scored the advertising campaign looking every bit Italian housewife-ish. The story is about she was being dumped by, probably, her boyfriend. However, it does make sense why the Italian designer duo wanted her. She has selling power, she is very famous, she’s got fans from high school teens to businessman and she has Italian descent from her father. Also at the time, Madonna and her toy boy are all over the press. These are enough when she’s not a real model who won’t deliver the same performance as Gisele or Isabeli and requires quite amount of retouching. However, the story wasn’t complete, now she’s back with new young man and must have moved to New York looking insecure innocent. The campaign is shot by Steven Klein. Although, I’m not sure how much she’s selling the products but now Dolce & Gabbana have a nameplate “Madonna” in front of their house which is perhaps glued with a contract of making MDG sunglasses and staring in the advertising. This could be her last campaign with the brand, as she did two-season advertising with Louis Vuitton. Of course, this might have been a wise move at the beginning but if the collection is little dull and fashion is tired of Madonna, plus the concept isn’t strong. The match just falls down from heaven into broken pieces. So, which house will hire Madonna next season?
Taylor Binque.
Why Bionic made Aguilera into Floptina
‘Bionic’ really slapped Aguilera’s face badly. Don’t give me the whole lame ‘In this age it’s hard to sell CD’ treatment. I mean, selling 111K with promotional performances on American Idol and Oprah was embarrassing compared to Ms. Britney who didn’t even promote ‘Blackout’ (she was on ‘Vagina showing’ mode then) and managed to sell 290K in the first week of release. Why it failed? Aguilera was too artistically desperate. Aguilera sells her voice frankly, and to create an amateur electronic-driven album with lame beats spreading like third stage cancer was stupid of her. Her ballads: ‘Lift me up’ and ‘You Lost Me’ (third official single) was the stand-out tracks of Bionic because it highlighted why she’s our generation powerhouse voice (which she’ll likely score nods for Pop Vocal Album and Performance at the 2011 Grammys), but sadly these tracks musically sounded like album fillers since ‘Life me up’ was produced by her career’s most pivotal and lifesaver collaborator, Linda Perry. Aguilera and Perry should have re-defined music with a new catchy iconic vocally gifted ballad since today’s mainstream music is defined with dance-beats from Gaga and bratty attitude from Ke$ha. We want ‘Beautiful’ or even the ancient‘I Turn to you’ ballad of hers. Learn from what Beyonce did with ‘I Am…Sasha Fierce’. Beyonce highlighted her strength, and not put herself in a position competing with an artist like Gaga, because it’s simply impossible right now. Aguilera also wantedBionic to lean on futuristic electronica sounds, but her producers was all over the place. How the hell could you use Christopher “Tricky” Stewart and Polow da Don to produce 70% of the album when their most success happened with simple R&B Pop tracks? It’s like asking Ryan Tedder to write a heavy metal ballad for Ozzy Osbourne. Aguilera is getting all of this wrong. RCA records now has to cross their fingers that Aguilera’s acting debut in ‘Burlesque’ is an success because if not then say hello to the failing Diva just like the ‘Mariah Carey Glitter-gate’ era.
“Christina could s**t in a bottle and her fans would still love it” said Australian songstress and Bionic producer Sia. And Aguilera indeed managed the shit part.
Lights and Gaga.
Kristoffer.
Sex in the City of Abu Dabhi
One of the scenes that stunned the Muslim world, especially Muslim women, is the shot when the gals dinned at the hotel terrace. Carrie who couldn’t help but stared at two Muslim women dressed in niqabs in disbelief. What’s more is that every time the woman eats her fries, she lifts up her veil causing Carrie to utter these words in sympathy: “Wow, a lift for every fry, that’s a serious commitment to fried food.” To the Muslim world, that one phrase signifying that all Muslim women are the oppressed class and they don’t have the voices of their own. But UAE experts have it that women in the UAE received considerable amount of education. Meaning, they can think for themselves all right. Also, the expansion of women roles is prevalent around the nation.
The climax comes in the scene when our sex guru, Samantha, bag dropped to the ground in the middle of the souk disclosing contents from her bag. Among other things there lies her life saving item: condoms. Afterwards, Samantha is surrounded by angry, hairy men yelling vehemently at her not only for possessing the condoms but also for wearing outfits disposing too much skin. Before those men could even realize it, Samantha started waving her rows of condoms defiantly at those men, screaming proudly that she uses them for sex. Now, that my friends is considered by the Muslim world as an insult. That scene signifies that men of the new Middle East can’t bear to accept the Western’s perception of sex, and so they argued that it is not the case.
Views: Dear readers, anti or not anti I can only leave that entirely to your judgment since I have never experienced the new Middle East myself. But as an individual who has spent her life in two strictly Muslim enclosed countries, women oppression is the downright appropriate vocabulary used to describe the roles of women in the Middle East. What women do is considered inferior than men. Their voices are not utterly unheard, it may be heard but later put aside and be neglected. Frankly speaking, the only misrepresentation I can point out is the men’s treatment to Samantha. In reality, just the way I have experienced it, when I wore something so much as a T-shirt which exposed that much of my skin I would be attacked by a-thousand glares from all the guys. Guess what, I even remember this one time when a man was performing his masturbation move in the pool while watching me swim.
What the gals portrayed during their stays were all natural acts of what a foreigner would have displayed. Of course, the gals may be at times ignorant of the culture but it is in this Oriental heaven where the gals gained their brand of enlightenments which they brought to perform at home.
Paris.
Taylor Binque, Flash
Taylor Binque has never been far of arts. He likes to draw, color, collage and design as it came down to the decision to become an interior designer one day. Though most of his inspirations were from fashion, past and present. From the posters on his bedroom wall to the collage of notebook covers. All are fashion. Then, Binque realizes what he truly love is what always inspires him. He begins reading more fashion magazines, sites, blogs and dig in to the root of the industry. For him fashion is not just the bag or the dress. It’s about the story the lines behind. After reading and reading, Binque wonders why don’t be the one who writes those articles. He’s now a journalism and mass communication student, training to become a fashion writer which he can express his passionate dream. He started to blog in 2009 wishing to write “his fashion and style sense.”
Now Binque joins his friends on the venture of Fused Limelight, wishing to try new angles of fashion and styles.
“..If I’m a designer, garage rock and Jackie O. will be on my mood board. I don’t know how to cooperate but surely there’s a way. Because everything can happen in fashion…”
Seesi, Celluloid
Like a good chef, film director comes up with thoughtful recipes, use fresh ingredients, carefully bakes it with low-heat and only hopes that audience will love his low-crab menu. But in this huge Hollywood restaurant there are millions of films ready to serve to your table.
Some comes and goes as quick as fast food and tasted as awful as McDonald’s Berger and some are as marvelous as world-class Kobe steak or as lighthearted as they were made by Jamie Oliver.
What food and film have in common is that their quality is judged only by the matter of opinions. As a new film critic enters into this dreadful cyber world with heartless bloggers and sophisticated Rolling Stone authors. I realize that film critique is beyond than giving four and a half stars to Woody Allen’sfilm- loved by philosophical geeks or update daily on Box office for mainstream fashionistas to say they’re the first to watch it. To criticize any motion pictures is never a piece of (Tiramisu) cake.
I am a kind of critic that has more sympathy for people than Perrez Hilton and more trustfully than National Enquirer. Film has brought me to ‘The Age of Enlightenment ‘and is my ultimate dream to be film director. The significant effect of film in pop culture is the central of my universe. And for who I am that impact my thinking process, I would describe myself as “the combination of one cup of feminism; two teaspoons of maverick, one big can of nerd that melted together in the urban pot and served with Mika’s positive attitude on the side- the only different between me and British signer Mika is that I am a heterosexual. I am a fabulous dish to dig in during watching your favorite film.”
Paris, Views
Paris Chantaharn is currently studying in pursuit of becoming a journalist. Her inspiration of working in the media can be dated back to when she was in sixth grade. However, at that time she merely paid interest in the area of disc jockey, and ignored the rest. Her sense of journalism developed stronger once her journey to different parts of the world began. In Karachi, she witnessed debris of buildings after the attack of a suicide bomber, but once peace has been put in place she danced along with Urdu music. In Lisbon, she learnt that even in the lowest GDP growth country of Europe but the prosperity of the people was higher than the place she came from. Despite having a beginner knowledge of the Portuguese language but Paris tried to hum along some of the Portuguese tunes. In Jeddah, she was pressured to be in a male dominated country not to mention that foreign media censorships were prevalent. But that did not hinder her from checking out the latest on MTV, though in Arabic.
In every country that she has lived, and in every place that she has visited; Paris has always paid attention to two sides of the coin. While the world awaits on the possible release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Paris also has to find views of the Hollywood stars upon the issue. In this section, Paris combines the latest on the headlines with the hottest in the entertainment industry like you have never seen before. It’s not either hard or featured in this section, but you will get them both in one complete package!