Stylebook App is a Great Closet Tool: If You Can Keep Up

The iPhone app Stylebook, made by left brain / right brain, LLC, is a helpful styling and organization took for any fashion lover. One of the only down sides of the app is that is it very time consuming when you first start using it, and requires a bit of upkeep after the fact.

Pros:

Organization
Because you can input all of the clothing items you own, you can also easily see what items you have too much of or too few. If there are 50 shirts and only 10 of each other item, that indicates that you should stop buying shirts.



Smart Spending
The app also has a feature where the user can input the price of each item and see the total closet value. Being conscious of the true amount of money spent on clothes paired with the true volume of items in the app causes people to purchase items more hesitantly and only when they really need it.

Easy References
When going out shopping, it is often possible to accidentally buy multiples of clothing because do not remember everything in the closet. This app acts as a traveling closet, available for reference when making purchases and for planning future ones when some items are lacking in the closet.



Cons

Time Consuming
The enormous amount of time it takes to begin using the app is its biggest downfall. To start forming outfits together, you have to take pictures of every item of clothing you own on top of a different colored background. This takes even longer though because every clothing item is a different color, so you have to keep changing backgrounds. Or, the app doesn't crop the background well enough, so manual erasing is required. Not to mention, every time new clothing is bought, you have to take a photo of it.



The pros clearly outweigh the con in term of quantity, but time investment versus the reward is the biggest struggle when trying to form a new habit like documenting your outfits everyday. But if you can stick with it, it is worth it. And it also makes me feel like Cher from "Clueless."

Lady Gaga Opens Met Gala 2019 Red Carpet with Multiple Looks

In true Lady Gaga fashion, the singer and actress put on a performance to open the Met Gala 2019 red carpet. Going along with the theme of "Camp: Notes on Fashion" her ensemble included numerous props like a cell-phone shaped purse and people in black running around her, spraying hair spray and holding up mirrors.

Accompanied by the designer Brandon Maxwell, she begun with an enormous, hot pink gown with a equally large bow in her hair. She took it off to reveal a black dress and umbrella, then she eventually stripped down to simple high-waited underwear and a black bra before dramatically walking the rest of the carpet and disappearing inside the Met itself.

The first look of the night was actually at the Pre-Met party where she showed off in a hypnotic black and white dress by Marc Jacobs.

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Met Gala countdown 🍾 #fashion #metgala #camp #ladygaga

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Overall, Lady Gaga's whole life embodies the theme of "Camp" and this red carpet is no different. She shows the audience not only fashion, but also art and talent with her whimsical poses and clear effort put into the whole thing.

How Louis XIV Helped Create the "Camp" Met Gala 2019 Theme

Tomorrow, the annual Met Gala will be held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and attended by the most popular figures in pop culture today. But, the theme "Camp: Notes on Fashion" still has regular people like us wondering: what does "Camp" even mean?

No, sadly celebrities will not be rolling onto the red carpet in designer sleeping bags with their gold-platted s'mores ready, as "Camp" indicated much more than sleeping outside and looking at the stars. The exhibit is based on Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on 'Camp'", published in 1964, which defines the term extensively.

"Indeed the essence of Camp," Sontag says, "is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration."

The fashion hard to define but that is what draws many to it and all of the parody and nuance it suggests. Youtuber HauteLeMode's video "Met Gala Theme Explained" claims that this indescribable quality is part of the novelty, as demands to be taken seriously but cannot possible be so because of the over exaggerated qualities it possess. It seeks to mock everything it emulates, drawing new conclusions about what "art" is, or in this case, fashion.

The first example of "Camp" ever created was actually not just related to fashion or art, but to a whole city. Louis XIV turned the whole city of Versailles into a show of "camp" in the late 17th century. He would wear extravagant outfits and put on fantastical shows for all the nobility of France that were forced to watch.

He would even make them dress him in the morning and wait, without speaking, for him to finish the 28 course meals before they could start. This embodies the essence of "camp" because it is ridiculous that he made the most important and wealthy figures in all of France basically be his butlers, while still treating it all like it was the most important thing they could be doing.

The Met Museum itself describes it as "a love of the unnatural," as it plays with our whole perspective of what should or should not be taken seriously. Perhaps the whole goal is to say that nothing is to be taken seriously, including fashion.

Fashion Has Not Lost Meaning, It has Gained Meaning

 

Fashion Has Not Lost Its Meaning, It has Gained Meaning

“Style and fashion have collapsed into each other. But being stylish and being fashionable used to mean two different things. One did not require having money to buy designer clothes; the other did. One required a certain sensibility; the other one did not. That’s why you could be called a “fashion victim,” but no one would call you a style victim.

“The signs that we are in a postmodernist era of fashion — where fashion has become unmoored and lost its original meaning — are everywhere: the rise of streetwear, a tsunami of product collaborations, normcore, dad sneakers, the ugly-made-pretty aesthetic, the erasure of concern for the quality of both materials and construction. 

“Some things remain the same, of course. Brands with huge marketing budgets and a compliant fashion media (now flanked by so-called influencers) still dictate taste. The democratisation of fashion is a myth: the masses still buy what they are told. But they are no longer necessarily marching to the beat of the same drum, the same trends.” 

This so-called collapsing of fashion into style is arguable. The famed fashion designer Coco Chanel once said, “Fashion comes and goes but style lasts forever,” therefore establishing the clear difference between the two. Fashion is trending items, designers, aesthetics, or even just the clothes you own right now. Style is how the wearer puts the clothes together.

The evolution of style is clearly seen with the many different aesthetics teens are now wearing to reflect their interests or their personality. Today you can go to a high school (as this is where the weirdest, newest styles are seen) and see a plethora of styles, where as before, most teens wore the same things unless outright trying to make a statement, like the goths’ heavy use of blacks.

 With the sustainable fashion movement gaining traction and more successful independent brands popping up everyday, people are discovering it’s easier than ever to find clothing that fits what they feel, not what the masses are telling them. Yes, people are still influenced by Instagram “influencers”, celebrities, and fashion media but it is easier to tune out the noise and tune into your favorite normcore or street style blogger.

 This trending move towards your style expressing every part of yourself paired with the sustainable fashion movement has also led to the boom in vintage clothing popularity. It serves the needs of someone who loves the nostalgia associated with it and who has a limited budget. Ultimately, style has become more important than fashion itself. Anyone with an Instagram account can flex their new Gucci bag and gain followers, but only people with style will last the years.