Thursday, January 13, 2011

Fever 50

photo by Lesley "Le Sizzle" Choa



So during the holidays and while it's still an on-going fascination, the 50s has not only proved that it's back (in style of course) but it's also giving me the biggest fever I've had in ages. Suddenly, all I think about now is the 50s, the 50s, the 50s, what they'd wear in the 50s, what they'd smoke in the 50s, what language they used in the 50s, and why the hell did I ever leave my 20s behind?

I tell myself it's a phase, cause I'm quite the pathetic type, you know? The kind that when it's all I ever think about I let it consume me until I'm tired of it and I tell myself, well, you've felt how it is to go Gatsby, now it's time for some Kerouac. It reads like a pretentious kid trying to write instead of just writing...But hey, I'm honest like that. I guess it's all the movies I've been watching lately, thanks to Film Class, the magazines, the books, fashion...And you have to ask yourself, even when you're not as open or easily swayed as I am, why is it that at certain times we resurrect certain pasts and fall in love with them? I'm staying as close to the things I believe I understand such as fashion and film....Like suddenly Howl (which by the way is the core of this fascination with the 50s...well, at least one of the biggest factors) and other era-inspired shows like the super sleek Mad Men... Fashion I see is turning 50s too... Or maybe not, but the idea is that our times have been incredibly open to looking back at the past, loving it maybe because we see in it the present...Don't you think? I've never lived in the jazzy, dizzying 20s or the smoking, paired-down 50s (and the Beat generation I've always heard in Western Literature class) to say that sure today, it's just like those times...but there has to be something about them that we find so addictive, so important that they're worth the reliving...

And while we leave those daunting questions slightly unanswered, I finally pinned down the all-important Ms. Lesley Choa for a photo of myself. hahaha...That sounded crappy...So, the inspiration behind this look, aside from my mood, was the colors I've constantly seen in Howl...It's mostly olive green, navy blue, brown like the ones from those handsome tortoise shell glasses, mustard yellow and they're all so very masculine, poetic even and for some reason, romantic. The shirt is from my grandfather's, the man whose style I will always admire and place as a touchstone...And yeah, it's a 50s inspired look and I'm pretty much in love with it now....Who knows what I'll be wearing tomorrow...

But you do have to admit, Allen Ginsberg, makes perfect, perfect sense here:

"The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction." ----Allen Ginsberg 

And that's one of the reasons why I'm mad about my course (meaning madly in love) and mad about the olden times...

-Gerard

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