AllyG: Before starting today’s post, I want to thank L-A for keeping the blog up-to-date. Obviously, there have been other things on my mind lately, and the blog has taken a bit of a back seat while I get ready for BabyG.

I don’t really have one topic in mind for today’s post, so I thought I’d do a recap of some of the stories that caught my eye over the weekend. Please don’t be alarmed if you find several spelling errors and/or sentences that make little to no sense. It’s 4am and I’m Desperately Seeking Shut Eye. Insomnia is awesome.

Here at FPQT, we snark on Miley Cyrus a lot. And today is no exception!

I’ll play nice and just criticize one aspect of her outfit (the boots are a whole other post. Like, a week’s worth of posts…I mean, I love Frye boots, why did Frye have to bedazzle their boots??!!). Can we talk about the fringe trend? Specifically about how I hate it? A lot? Here, Miley is shown with the JJ Winters Fringe Messenger Bag . The description of the bag highlights that it has “coin embellishments”.

I need to know. Why the fringe? It looks like you have rotten spaghetti hanging from your bag. I want to cut it off. No, it’s worse than spaghetti. It’s Lilo’s weave after a serious bender that includes late night intoxicated tweeting. If I’m wrong, call me out. Please explain the fringe and why you love it. I’ll still think you are crazy in the pants, but I’ll listen. Seriously, it’s 4am, what else do I have to do?

Awwwww yah, that’s right. I can look up crappy pop music videos on YouTube. ‘Member this song from Save the Last Dance? A movie classic?

I’ve also been hearing a lot about the new Gap denim line. Some are concerned that Gap is veering away from what makes their jeans such a staple and trying too hard to be all things to all people. I tend to think these people have a lot of time on their hands, and I commend them for giving me ideas of how to spend my time in the early hours of the day.

Anythehoo, Gap is putting a lot of bank behind this new denim campaign (as evidenced in my most recent Vogue where they spent some serious cash on print advertising. I was impressed). Reuters states:

Gap Inc, once the go-to U.S. retailer for jeans, is betting on a major revamp of its self-branded denim line to revive its cachet and sales.

The relaunch of men’s and women’s denim, which one analyst estimates could account for 20 to 30 percent of Gap brand sales, comes near the tail end of a two-year turnaround effort at the apparel giant.

Gap is hoping its new, more stylish array of better-fitted jeans — which began to appear in stores on Wednesday — will lure back shoppers lost to a host of rivals in recent years. Its message, “Born to Fit,” is carried by a digital and print marketing campaign.

As someone who works in communications and marketing, I think their strategy is pretty neat (I’m exhausted, so no, I can’t think of a better word than “neat”). They are relying a lot on social media as shown in their inclination to depend more on viral videos than TV ads.

They even have a YouTube (you know how I love YouTube!) group where you are invited to create your own “Born to” video. Checkcheckitout:

As for the jeans, I’m 10 months pregnant, so I can’t really test drive them. This video gives a good overview of the line. The names are  bland, “Boot cut”, “Skinny”, “Curvy”…you know, continuing the practice of shoving women in a box.

And lastly, in the shoot that made me barf category. Here we have Pamela Anderson for Vivienne Westwood. Why Viv? Why?

I don’t understand people’s interest in this woman (Pamela, not Vivienne…at least The Viv has talent).

The male in the campaign is her husband. Well played, Vivi. Well played. Seriously though, there are many rules in this life, and it’s hard to remember all of them. I do know that I can wake up each day and be sure that the one thing I shouldn’t do is dress like Pamela Anderson.

L-A?

L-A: I’m surprised we have to address whether or not you should dress like Pammie Anderson. I kind of took that as a given.  I want to encourage everyone to have their own unique sense of style and I suppose I should be happy to see a curvier model being used, but….

That? That is just too much. (p.s. that was a red carpet look!) No matter what your style is, it doesn’t hurt to try to be a little bit classy and cover up your boobs and crotch some more. These are universal truths. Except maybe if you are a nudist/naturalist at home.

Moving along.

I’m not even going to attempt to defend the fringe.  I’ve got nothing except, no thank you ma’am.  Outside of a Broadway Musical or the JJ Abrams tv series, I have yet to see a fringe I like. Therefore, I’m quite content to leave the fringe to Oklahoma! or Annie Get Your Gun

Fringe on your leather gloves you use for riding horses and shooting? Good. Fringe on you big ugly purse? Bad.

Now on to Gap Denim.  When I recently walked into the Gap I noticed they’ve brought back the “denim bar”, a concept they employed when I worked at a Gap years and years ago.  The plan was to display the jeans so you could see the fit and features and then you’d find the different sizes under the bar. Of course, this works only in theory as the average Gap customer attacks a display table like a rabid dog attacks small animals. They leave only carnage in their wake and a poor Gap employee has to dig through a mountain of denim or sweaters and find out where they belong and then fold them back up.

The new advertising campaign Ally talked about is interesting.  But I think their biggest problem is the name. Even the director can’t help but say “The Gap” with a bit of disdain in  his voice.  No one really wants to admit that they love “The Gap”. It’s like how no one wants to admit that they love vanilla ice cream. Everyone likes it a little bit, but it’s well, it’s vanilla. It’s plain. It’s okay.  It’s “The Gap”.  I think part of the problem is that Everybody was in Gap. Like these older ads:

woah. I saw Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Rashida Jones in there. Also, why all the dead eyes? Not selling me on the cords with dead eyes. Or this:

Catchy? Definitely. But one more video before I get to my point:

(I am all over the Annie Get Your Gun today! It’s your “ear worm” of the day)

So these were really catchy ads. I’m pretty sure I owned a pair of Gap khakis because of them. But here’s the thing: everybody owns Gap and it all kind of looks the same. They really do try to be all things to all people. You probably wear it, but you don’t proclaim it. You don’t say with pride, “I got this at the Gap! Isn’t it lovely?” You say, “Oh, this old thing? Yeah, I, um, I got it at the Gap.”

I do commend the Gap for it’s consistent use of popular celebs. That must cost a pretty penny. Because I don’t think any of these celebs are doing it because  they actually wear Gap outside of the ads. Which is why they never sell me on it.

I will also commend them for trying to make curvy jeans for curvier women. But that second video that Ally gave you just reminded me of how often I couldn’t get a pair of Gap jeans past my knees.  The “Always Skinny” is “low rise and sexy“.  That girl did not need jeans to make her legs look like they went on forever. She was born with legs like that. It’s why she can fit into the damn jeans. She’s the girl we make skinny jeans for. So let’s not pretend it’s the jeans doing the work. All three models looked like their legs when on forever. For many of us, if we could even get them over our thighs (and/or hips), we would look “Always Sausagelike” with unsexy muffin tops.  Just saying.