Another kind of post

I want a mermaid

speaking about going crazy

I have been thinking about

mermaids lately.
but I can't place them

properly in my 

mind.

one problem that bothers

me

is where are their sexual

organs located?

do they use toilet paper?

and can they stand

on their flipper

while frying bacon and

eggs?

I think 

I'd like a mermaid

to love.

sometimes in the supermarket

I see crabs and baby

octopi

and I think, well,

I could feed her that.

but how would I pack her
around at the racetrack?

I get my things and then
push my cart to the
check-out stand.
"how are you today?" she asks.
"o.k.," I say.
she has a
market uniform
flat shoes
earrings
a little cap
pantyhose.

she rings up my
purchases. I know
where her sexual organs
are located as
I look out the
plate glass window
and wait.


By Bukowski
From: 
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire. 



Pictures:
1) Unknown on tumblr
2) Christopher Shannon SS '14
3) CR Fashionbook, Doves FW '13

B0dY H41R

By Neslihan 

Can we please talk about the girls with the frizzy hair and the little tummies. The ones with red spots on their face and the little pimples on their chin. Can we please stop acting like they don't excist. Hey media, hey advertisement, yes, you're the guilty ones. Hello girls, who impose themselves impossible beauty ideals, while in fact embracing your own pure natual self would've been a whole lot easier and healthier even. I know, I know, it's a quite corny, yet necessary subject and saying things is of course easier than doing them because we're talking about decades of imprinting and dogmata. It is not easy, I know. It is not easy to reject the ideal media are actually presenting you because it somehow is easier to accept that that is right and to hate on yourself in the meantime. If you could just be realistic and finally understand that those picture perfect girls and boys are total fiction. Photoshop aint a recent invention but that's something I shouldn't tell you 'cause you've heard it all before. So let me actually start talking about the ACTUAL subject of this post. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT BODY HAIR. Well, I think that was clear...
I'm a girl with black thick hair and I am proud of my heritage. It is my proud, my priority. And yes, this is vain and superficial but we all are. And that was an 'argumentum ad populum'. Suck on that, philosophy! My eyebrows are full and thick and really obvious and those are the times when I actually embrace my DNA. But then come the days on which the little hairs on my upper lip get visible, I call them my 'whiskers' and will from now on refer to them as my whiskers in this blogpost. And those are the days I totallay loathe my DNA. On those days I just wished I had da blond DNA, you know, for the easiness of it, hell yes. But no, I wouldn't wanna miss the fabulous portion Indian hair, so we'll have to deal with the body hair.
Removing it is an option and it often is the only option and if it's not then it still is. I mean just think of the pictures on which Julia Roberts flawlessly sports her armpits and gets shamed for it. It instantly became a gimmick. Or think of Gwyneth Paltrow talking about her body hair, it caused a fucking shock in 2013. We act like we're liberal and really open-minded but we can't even tolerate a dash of fluff on some body parts, even if they are not ours. We just refuse to see it in public because it's 'provoactive' and a bald puss isn't? I just don't understand why this creates such a huge debate. I was always told to do whatever I liked with my body. It was mine and I was the boss and I don't even know why I'm using the past tense. I AM THE FUCKING BOSS. I'll grow my leg hair if I want to and it is none of your icky picky business. And if you ask me why I have a 'black carpet' on my legs, I'll ask you just the same, Mister. "Well -haha- 'cause I am a man, you see."
- And I am a mammal if you'll let me.

Because Kristen McMenamy is always flawless.

A Letter to the Royal Academy

By Neslihan

Dear Academy,
Before you end your 50th birthday, I'd like to tell you a thing or two. You've been celebrating your glorious birthday which was filled with appreciation, inspiration and aspiration. Something like: "We've been doing well but we'd like to do better in the future." You've had Ackermann and Van Noten as your pupils and now they've all reached that point in which they could teach YOU a couple things. You're seen as this unaccessible ice queen who has shot herself in this fireproof iron tower and this reputation is most likely accurate. You're an institution, a royal household even (hence Royal Academy). You produce the fashion elite in this country and even beyond since we're 8th in the 'Top 50 Fashion Schools in the World' ranking. Do you even know what that means? It means, you, dear Academy, have gained the monopoly over fashion designing. Not bad for a country as big as Louis XIV 's backyard. (This one is total exaggeration but I'm tryina make a sketch for you *wink*) And during your birthday you've had uncountable eulogies, including an amazing retrospective looking back on your iconic history. And it is worth a retrospective, I must say. But here is the actual reason of my blogging. I've had a quite emotional conversation with this girl, who studied fashion design at KASK (your little brother in Ghent) but after a time she had had a couple of bad experiences in her private life and she had to quit studying because she was suffering from a total inspiration block. She had to put everything in order before she could start designing again. She put her aspiration on hold and decided to study Art History. This is completely theoretical and this doesn't entirely feed her aesthetics. She's constantly drowning in inspiration again but she can't live it up. Because it's too expensive, too cold and too exhausting to start all over again. And we all know how exclusive those academies are. She also told me about the amount of foreign designers in such academies and I think that's a pity. Because whe should be focussing on our own talents, who are truly waiting to be discovered. The Royal Academy and every other Fashion Academy should be a platform for young starting designers who want to add something to the fashion world. What they're suffering now is constant unappreciation and rejection. We should open our arms and educate them because they've got so much to show us. Artists who are studying to actually become one (this sounds so weird) have always encountered difficulties in terms of funding and scholarships. Let me explain. Take a history student for example, she's applying for a scholarship and she could easily get one. But when it comes to designers they have to have their own funds. Everything they invest comes from their own savings. I don't know whether we have funds here in Belgium for studying artists, there is so much ambiguity surrounding the topic. And I'd like to know more about it as I'll keep my eyes on you, dear Academy.
Happy birthday once more.

For the retrospective: http://www.momu.be/tentoonstellingen/nu_in_het_momu/
For more info: http://hbda.be/new/nl/activiteiten/antwerp-icons

PS I know how cliché this Antwerp Six picture is but it's so great.
PPS I'm sorry for the unstructured rambling.