Category: Uncategorized

Man, People Love to Hate Brooklyn Girls

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

HBO With The Cinema Society Host The New York Premiere Of HBO's "Girls"

I’m not talking about a general girls-of-brooklyn hate, I mean a specific book: “Brooklyn Girls,” which is apparently “Sex and the City,” but in a different burrough and younger. And broke. Just as boy-crazy.

Anyway, people are hate-loving this thing. I don’t think I care enough to read it, probably because I’m too old, however, I do love Lena Dunham, and she doesn’t like it either. So maybe it’s not an age thing as much as it is a trend-exceeding-its-flash-point thing.

I had a thought for a moment after reading these many opinions on Brooklyn girls: What about L.A. girls? It would be pretty much the same thing, just a more showered form of hipster who is employed—but still in PR. Some things for girls in their twenties are just universal.

Fashion Strategy: Seeing (And Buying) Red

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

christian-louboutin-pigalle-120-black-calf-patent-leather-pointed-toe-pumps-c

I have a small problem that most people would scoff at, but you, my loyal readers, will totally understand. I am lacking … Louboutins. I am craving a pair of red-soled beauties and would love your advice on imploring my budget-conscience husband to let me buy them. This will probably never happen. At least, not at full price.

But here’s my next problem: I could go to Rue La La or Gilt and, with some luck and good timing, finagle some Louboutins. But it’s just not as satisfying as buying them from the man himself, or as a second option, Neiman‘s or Nordstrom‘s.

What to do, fashion gods!

Is it worth the hundreds of dollars that might be better left in our savings account? Or is the magic that I’m imagining comes built into the cushy soles real?

SimplyStylist.com’s Sarah Pollack Boyd

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

Fashion PR is not just a tough business, but it can also be a mean one. But Sarah Pollack Boyd has taken a different approach as she kills them with kindness — and it’s certainly working. After nine years spent building a successful fashion-focused career in public relations, Sarah launched the stylist-centric SimplyStylist.com in January 2012.

In just a few short months, SimplyStylist.com has become a hub for stylists and lovers of fashion. And the recent Simply Stylist Seminar event at the W Hollywood drew many participants who flocked to learn valuable career advice from industry experts, including Brenna Egan, Refinery29.com Los Angeles Editor and former Vogue staffer; Jamie Krell, E! and Style Network Style Expert; Alexis and Kym McClay, Naven Designers; Jeanne Yang, Celebrity Stylist, who also collaborates with Katie Holmes on their clothing line, Holmes & Yang; and Shea Marie, CheyenneMeetsChanel.com Fashion Blogger.

Sarah was nice enough to take time out from her hectic schedule to answer The Gucci Hoochie’s questions about her career, her fashion and her advice for PR newbies. Read on!

How did you make your way to Los Angeles?

I’m a small town girl from York, Pennsylvania. I ended up in Los Angeles because, for fashion, it’s really Los Angeles or New York. My sister had moved to L.A. when I just started college, and I would visit her at least once a year and always told myself that I would live here. So, as soon as I graduated, I packed up and moved out!

You were inspired to work in the industry after shadowing department store buyers. What was it about their work that inspired you to work in fashion?

It was at Bon Ton back in Pennsylvania. I had no idea what I wanted to major in for college, let alone my life path! My high school offered a field trip to shadow store buyers, and I couldn’t believe that shopping could actually be a job. I immediately started looking into fashion schools, and the next year I was beginning to pave my path into the world of fashion.

What is it like working in fashion PR?

Fashion PR sounds really glamorous, but it’s a lot of emails and pitches. With current technology, editors and producers want everything pitched through email so it makes being in fashion PR much more email intensive. It is fun though when you get to be on-site for a fitting or a celebrity showroom visit.

What was the most difficult aspect of working in fashion PR?

Being denied. You have to hear the word “no” or even worse, get no response multiple times a day. There are countless pitches going out daily and very few make it to print. It’s a long and tedious process, but it all pays off when you see the placement!

What is your favorite part of your job?

Ummm all the free clothes?!

What advice would you give to new faces in the fashion PR business?

I would say to definitely have THICK skin! And intern, intern, intern — get as much experience as you possibly can. Also, be kind. It goes a long way, and you never know where you can help someone or someone can help you down the road. PR people are known for not being the nicest, but I chose the route of being super sweet and it has proved to be successful so far.

When you launched SimplyStylist.com, what were you most nervous about? What were you most excited about?

I was definitely most nervous about my customers — do I have enough? Will people be as interested in the topic as I am? Will people come to my events? I was most excited to build my own business from the ground up and to be able to bring a service to women that I know everyone can find value in. People buy the fashion magazines, so why not hear about the trends in person from the experts?

You note that people buy magazines, so why not hear about the trends in person — was this your motivation behind starting simply stylist? What sparked the idea for the website?

From my years in PR I noticed that some of the best celebrity placements (a celebrity wearing my clients’ clothing) came through their wardrobe stylist. And the wardrobe stylists never got any credit for it! The fashion editors and the celebrities get showered with gifts and taken to fancy dinners. Years ago, stylists were lugging around clothing, working 150-hour work weeks and got no credit for some of these amazing trends THEY started by putting it on their client. I started SimplyStylist.com to give back to these stylists and show the world who the trendsetters really are.

What is your typical day like running SimplyStylist.com?

I’m wearing ALL types of hats so I try to think big picture and delegate the smaller tasks. Otherwise I find myself running in circles trying to be everything to everyone. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses — and what I enjoy doing. My love is relationship building and connecting, so I try to book at least one meeting a day with either a stylist, a clothing brand, a fellow PR executive, etc. Each day I put together my to-do list of what I want to accomplish, which sometimes includes going to setup a business license for the company or going to a runway show. This is why I love my job … every day is different and exciting. I also have two AMAZING interns who help with everything from finding content for the site, local errands, research for events and more.

What would you say is the key to your success with SimplyStylist.com?

Staying true to what I would want out of an event. Making sure there are fantastic panelists, amazing networking opportunities and that the content of the seminar is useful to the attendees.

Finally, for the most important question: Who is your favorite designer?

Marchesa can really do no wrong for red carpet. For everyday I love mixing high and low — brands I live in include Michael Kors, H&M, Aryn K. and Agave Denim.

Movie-Based-On-A-Book Review: The Great Gatsby

Published on by Wild Piece1 Comment

GG Movie

Despite an almost to-the-word adherence to the book by the Baz Luhrmann-directed movie incarnation of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby, I can’t say that the movie does the book  justice. But you know who it does justice? Baz Luhrmann. And barely even then.

The tragedy of The Great Gatsby the movie, besides the story (obviously), is that without the spectacle that is Baz, it could have been great. It had all the makings of a great movie: a willing cast that slipped subtly into their roles, fabulous costumes and music that was, somehow, both appropriate and inappropriate. It’s hard to comment on the script in that if it were bad, no one in Hollywood would have touched it. Who wants to screw up Fitzgerald?

If you’ve read the book, you know how big a role symbolism plays in it: the green light, the ash heaps, the ever-vigilant eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg and the changing seasons that mirror Gatsby’s moods. While many people don’t like how over-wrought the symbolism is in Fitzgerald’s writing, Luhrmann takes it to a new level of in your face-ness—to the point that, after the first couple of scenes, you’re going, “OK, I get it! Are you done yet?”

And if wading through the muck of obvious symbolism wasn’t annoying enough, let’s talk about 3-D. I should tell you that I didn’t see the movie in 3-D, but if you’re going, you should. There are many parts of the movie that would have been better, specifically the party scenes. And, at the very least, the writing that jumps from Nick’s page and runs across the screen IN CASE WE MISSED IT at least feels like it would serve a purpose. Otherwise, it’s too much.

It sounds like I don’t like Baz Luhrmann movies, but that’s not true. He has a unique style—quick, jerky, exaggerated—that serves him well for movies like Moulin Rouge. While, at the beginning, it seems like the movie was about to amp up and go full speed, Luhrmann style, it seems like he stopped short of his signature type of all-out crazy and instead just said, “whatevs.” I mean, like I said earlier, he still makes it typical Baz spectacle, just not in the right way.

Enough with the complaining. What’s great about The Great Gatsby? Well, Leo is great. Particularly at the end, when he’s waiting for Daisy to call. His hope is so heartbreaking and it almost makes you think he’s right—she will call! She must! Even though you’ve read the book and know exactly what’s about to happen, you think maybe you read it wrong and everything will turn out fine.

Carey Mulligan is good, but not hypnotizing like I’d imagine a real-life Daisy would be. Her looks make her perfect to play any 20s-era character, but her voice isn’t full of money. Not that it matters here, because Gatsby’s biggest line in the entire book ISN”T EVEN IN THE MOVIE. Issues. I have issues with this.

Overall, I’m inclined to tell people—see it, don’t see it, it won’t change your life, but it won’t waste your $23 (at least here in L.A. Side note: remember when movie tickets were $6? Ah, the 90s).

Bitch Rating: 2.5 out of 4 bitches — worth watching.

Title: The Great Gatsby

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Length: 142 minutes

The Worst: Movie Posters as Book Covers

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

Seriously …

GG Movie

Is there anything worse …

the road

Then going to the book store, excited to read a new book  …

let the right one in

Only to find …

fight club

THIS

American-Psycho

NOOOOOOO. Wrong.

atonement

extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-cover-195x300

memoirsofageishavintagecanadasmall

shutter island

high fidelity

lovely bones

Gender Neutral Book Covers, Please

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

special-topics-in-calamity-physics

The call-to-action started with a simple tweet yesterday from author Maureen Johnson: “I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says: ‘Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it – signed, A Guy.'”

The Huffington Post continued the discussion with a slideshow of re-imagined covers of famous books written by men but designed as if they were written by women. It was brilliant.

I’ll admit that I had never noticed this, um, I’m going to call it a “point” instead of a “problem,” as I’m still not sure it’s something to complain over—anyway, I’d never really noticed this point until it was brought up. But even in discussion, I’m just not convinced this is an actual thing. It seems like it would be more common and concerning in the Young Adult book market, where growing teens are extremely concerned with gender stereotypes and may actually judge a book by its cover.

But in a market for grown-ups? Eh. As an example, I’d like to present one of my all-time favorite book. Not by a woman, but just ever, and it happens to be written by a women: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. Definitely not a girly cover.

However, this small discussion seemed to open up to a much wider issue detailed in an article from The Guardian, “Coverflip: Author Maureen Johnson Turns Tables on Gendered Book Covers,” written by Allison Flood:

Bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult agreed. It’s “totally true”, she told Johnson. “I was critiqued for having ‘obligatory romance’ in all my books. When in fact, just last year, my book had none,” she tweeted. “Why is it ‘domestic fiction’ if a woman writes about family/relationships, but if a man does that, it’s Pulitzer-worthy? … The follow-up: what would happen if a woman submitted a book under male pseudonym to a publisher? Would it be treated differently?”

Amanda Hocking, the million-selling self-published novelist who landed a mega-bucks book deal for her paranormal romances, said the “gender cover-up” exposed by Johnson had made her “angry”. “I’m sick to death of this. I am so sick of the constant, blatant sexism. And any time anyone points anything out as being sexist, they’re accused of ‘whining’ or ‘nagging’ or ‘not taking a joke’,” wrote Hocking on her blog. “From the Steubenville rape trial to the obituary of Yvonne Brill, to the fact that more women read books than men, more women write books then men, but only a small fraction of books that win literary awards are written by women. Women are the publishing industry’s bread and butter, we are the backbone of the damn entertainment industry, but we are constantly demoted to ‘fluffy’ to ‘light’ to ‘meaningless.'”

Comments are there below for your views. Discuss!

Side note: I am, like many other readers, anxiously waiting for Marisha’s sophomore effort, Night Film, due out August 20 (two days after my birthday—it’s like she knows!)

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Published on by Wild Piece1 Comment

9781594744761_custom-1b380501ae74b319d70c5758422a59bb340741ff-s6-c10

There’s only one word I wouldn’t use to describe Ranson Riggs‘ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: peculiar. And what a shame, because this is a really cool idea for a book.
Don’t get me wrong, the characters are plenty peculiar in the sense that they’re different. But “magical” or “unusual” may be better words for what these children are.

Also, the description tends to be a bit misleading. It comes off as though the protagonist, Jacob, travels oversees to a remote island to find out more about his grandfather’s past and meets “peculiar” children who turn out to be dangerous. Most of this is on point; he does travel to a remote island following the strange (“peculiar” might be a good fit here), tragic and untimely death of his grandfather. Jacob swears up and down that he saw what killed his grandpa Abe—monsters. Unfortunately, the only other person who was there didn’t see a thing and aids everyone else in the belief that Jacob has lost his non-peculiar marbles.

So, after some sleuthing to decipher the meaning behind Abe’s last words (which can also be classified as peculiar), he finds out the name of the island that Abe had told many fantastical stories about while Jacob was growing up. So he heads out with his father to find Abe’s old home, the home for peculiar children.

The characters are fairly well thought out, but none of them seemed especially unique. They were mainly cartoonish incarnations of other sci-fi characters we’ve all likely come across. Especially the villain, which had a mustache-twirling air about him.

The best part of the book was the extremely strange and often creepy vintage photographs that served as illustrations of the characters and some of the plot points.

Lucky for all of us, this book has been greenlit as a movie directed by Tim Burton. I’m really looking forward to doing a movie-based-on-a-book review for this one.

Bitch Rating: 1.5 out of 4 bitches — A little boring, but still a satisfying read.

Title: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Author: Ranson Riggs

Publisher: Quirk Books

Length: 352 pages (hardcover)

The Dinner

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

12234107-large

Here’s the best advice I can give you when you start reading The Dinner by Herman Koch: Open the cover and then immediately turn to page 100. Because you will be bored for awhile if you start at the beginning.

Here, I’ll help you skip ahead. The first 100 pages are as follows: couple A and couple B meet in a restaurant. Flashbacks ensue, describing how the couples met, how they’re related (brothers!) and how many children they have (couple A: one; couple B: two. One is adopted. This comes into play.)

We learn there’s a secret the husband A has been keeping from wifey A. Or at least thinks he’s keeping.

Boom! The first 100 pages. Done. You’re welcome.

That said, the next 200 pages are pretty fucking good. There are surprises and twists, emotional outbursts and tears when they’re least expected. Koch touches upon a variety of topics: class warfare, racism, politics. And he does so with subtlety and a bit of humor. Well played, Herms.

Look, I don’t want to spoil the rest for you, and going into much more detail would do that, as it’s really a fairly short book. But one that I recommend.

Bitch Rating: 2.5 out of 4 bitches — very engaging with a satisfying conclusion. Cheers!

Title: The Dinner

Author: Herman Koch

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Length: 304 pages (hardcover)

Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders (this book, for instance)

Published on by Wild PieceLeave a comment

16146228

Uuuuuhhhhhh…

No.

Just stop, Brandi. Put down the wine. And the computer, because you don’t need to be writing anymore.

I thought Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders by Brandi Glanville would be a good one for hate reads, and it almost was — it just wasn’t enough of a guilty pleasure to be enjoyable. It was more like a guilty hangover. It gives you a bad headache and won’t end.

I’d advise against this. You’ll get some funny bits about LeAnn Rimes, and that’s about it.

Bitch Rating: .5 out of 4 bitches — sad face emoticon for all the texting bitches out there

Title: Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders

Author: Brandi Glanville (Should I put her name in quotes? I think Leslie Bruce is billed as the co-author.) 

Publisher: Gallery Books

Length: 256 pages (hardcover)