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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Another Discontinued Marriage

Image courtesy of www.bollywoodshaadis.com

He was a former college athlete (FC) who helped propel his alma mater into becoming a respectable institution in sports. From this rank, he rose to the professional league, and eventually continued his hard work and dedication for his team. However, some time ago, an irresponsible message in social media almost cost him his career.

Meanwhile, she rose from being just a pretty face in a game show to a competent supporting actress (SA) in several teleseryes and movies. Over the years, her roles have typecast her as a villainess, which seemed to be effective as she is gaining more attention for her acting skills. Recently, she figured in a low profile petty crime as the victim. The alleged petty crime took place in a high-end location and involved an athlete.

When FC and SA became an item a few years ago, no one expressed doubt that the two would make a good couple. Both were accomplished in their fields and were old enough to take the plunge. Everyone was happy for the couple. Yet, after a few years, their union had not produced an offspring. Still, they were together and tried their best to have a child.

FC and SA continued their careers, and SA became more visible than before. At this point, no one suspected that something could be wrong. Rumors started to spread that a separation was forthcoming, and the main reason was that FC had fallen out of love. Still, some speculated that perhaps, it was the absence of a child, that could have added to the pressure, and SA was alleged to be having a difficult time conceiving. When they got married, FC was very excited to have a child, who could be the heir to his athletic prowess. Sadly, his marriage was not successful in this aspect.

While no third party was involved, FC was said to have already moved out of their home. If separation were the only choice they had, then it would be best for both FC and SA to move on instead of staying together and pretend to be a happy couple. However, as celebrities, FC and SA should at least confirm or deny this issue to end speculations.

After a while in marriage, it doesn't work anymore. There is something missing, there is something wrong. There are few marriages that stay alive forever. We like something, and after a while, we hate what we used to love. - Monica Bellucci

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The Living Barbie Doll

Image courtesy of www.gq.com

Source: www.gq.com

Not so long ago, images of a young girl washed over the Internet. She was impossibly blonde and impossibly shaped, and surely it was all a masterly work of Photoshop. Right? Michael Idov travels to meet with Eastern Bloc Barbie herself and discovers that her world is far more bizarre and twisted than anything in the photos

Per Barbie's instructions, I enter Kamasutra, a brightly lit Ukrainian version of an Indian restaurant. Imagine a blind date, with all the attendant "Does she look like her picture?" jitters, multiplied by the queasy fear that shedoes look like her picture. If you saw the pictures I saw, you would understand. You would know that meeting Valeria Lukyanova is the closest you will come to an alien encounter.

Her improbable looks—the Margaret Keane peepers, the head quizzically cocked like a sunflower too heavy for its stem, the plasticky skin and wasp waist—reached the West when her self-shot home videos began drawing gawkers to YouTube. The Western media were quick to dub her the "Human Barbie," but Valeria was hardly the first Homo sapiens to willingly make herself look like a doll—she wasn't even the first to earn the moniker: Some tabloid-damaged Brit laid claim to it a few years back. Still, where others had dabbled, she went for broke. However odd her own view of perfection, she appeared to have achieved it.

Valeria wasn't in on the Barbie branding. She preferred to call herself Amatue, a name she claimed had appeared to her in a dream. Most of the Amatue videos were intended to be some sort of transcendental self-help lectures. I'm not sure. Like everyone, I was staring too hard at her image on-screen to actually listen. Was she real—in the sense of existing in the three-dimensional world—or a Photoshop experiment run amok?

Well, Valeria exists, all right. She is seated in the back of the restaurant in her classic pose, preternaturally upright, head cocked. By her side sits sidekick Olga "Dominika" Oleynik, one of Lukyanova's several doll-like apostles. I walk through the restaurant, which is vaguely porny, like everything else in Odessa, and Barbie gets closer and realer with every step. Her brand-new hair extensions, the color of Chardonnay, hang straight down, reaching her nonexistent hips. Her mouth is frozen in a vacant half-smile; the teeth are small and almost translucent. She's holding a handbag shaped like a lantern. A one-eyed smiling-skull pin perches on her sky blue top, pushed to the side by the veritable shelf of silicone around which her whole body seems arranged. In the flesh—the little of it that she hasn't whittled away with what she says is exercise and diet—Valeria looks almost exactly like Barbie. There might be some Loretta Lux-style postproduction to her photos, sure, but it's not crucial. This is live. This is happening.

"Hello," she says in Russian, remaining perfectly still. Her mouth, like in a cheap cartoon, is the only part of her that moves. The eyes, the staring eyes, are the scariest. Part of what I'm seeing is an optical effect brought about by makeup (there is essentially an eye drawn around each eye), but even after I make the mental correction for it, Valeria's eyes remain chillingly large. The Internet rumor mill claims she has had her eyelids trimmed to achieve this look, which seems unlikely and sounds nightmarish. Evolution has taught us to think of big eyes as beautiful—it's a so-called neotenous feature, implying youth—but tweak that delicate scale just a little and you've got a wraith, or an insect. A living Barbie is automatically an Uncanny Valley Girl. Her beauty, though I hesitate to use the term, is pitched at the exact precipice where the male gaze curdles in on itself. Her features are the features we men playfully ascribe to ideal women; it's how we draw them in manga and comics and video games. Except we don't expect them to comply with this oppressive fantasy so fully. As a result, she almost throws our idea of a supervixen back in our face.

For a while, I just look, which would normally be rude. Here, though, the act of looking feels like an experiment conducted on me. Am I supposed to be attracted, to be repulsed, or to ponder the sexism of that dichotomy?

Compared with Valeria, Olga is just a human in a lot of makeup, no more or less augmented than any Miami Beach body, wearing some sort of purple Power Ranger outfit (self-designed, she later explains). I instantly understand why Valeria insists on having her around. She seems to be there for scale, to subtly underscore Valeria's ethereality.

We order food, in a manner of speaking. Kamasutra being an Indian restaurant, there are the usual three chutneys on the table—mint, tamarind, and chile. Valeria gets a carrot juice, then proceeds to upend all three chutneys into it, swirl the result with her straw, and drink. This gag-inducing mix, she explains, is her dinner; she is on an all-liquid diet these days. I don't quite know where to go from there, so I ask about her nails, which feature a complicated pointillist design of pink, lavender, and turquoise. "This is a fractal pattern from the twenty-first dimension," she explains matter-of-factly. "It took the longest time for the nail artist to get it right. It came to me in a dream."

"Just like your name, Amatue," I add.

"Yes."

When seated across the table from a living Barbie and stuck for topics, by all means go for collegiate bullshit. "But Amatue seems to be all about the Eastern philosophy of reincarnation," I say. "And the beauty that you embody is very Western. American, even."

Valeria grows pensive, which in her case means rolling her eyes slightly upward without changing anything else about her face. "I wouldn't say so. Everyone wants a slim figure. Everyone gets breasts done. Everyone fixes up their face if it's not ideal, you know? Everyone strives for the golden mean. It's global now."

"But that's a relatively new thing," I reply. "The ideal of beauty used to be different."

"That's because of the race-mixing."

If I had a glass of multi-chutney carrot-juice mix before me, I'd do a bright orange spit take.

"For example, a Russian marries an Armenian," Valeria elaborates helpfully. "They have a kid, a cute girl, but she has her dad's nose. She goes and files it down a little, and it's all good. Ethnicities are mixing now, so there's degeneration, and it didn't used to be like that. Remember how many beautiful women there were in the 1950s and 1960s, without any surgery? And now, thanks to degeneration, we have this. I love the Nordic image myself. I have white skin; I am a Nordic type—perhaps a little Eastern Baltic, but closer to Nordic."

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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Looks Can be Deceiving

Image courtesy of www.rutandlink.blogspot.com

The past years have seen the influx of foreign models into the local fashion and media industry. Some models have even successfully made a career in the entertainment industry, and even acted in some movies. Still, some have made the Philippines their home, and have even married into Filipino families. Despite the number of these foreign and half-Filipino models, the market seems big enough to accommodate more.

Now, most of the male models are hot and gorgeous, and are sometimes objects of desires of the public. However, in this day and age, looks, abs, and stance often hide the truth behind the personalities of these models.

When luscious male model (MM) got his break, he became the favorite in ads and shows. Even publicity materials regarding his Filipino and foreign lineage appeared in several publications. However, behind the alluring body of MM is the side that will surprise or shock his fans.

During a fashion event, a foreign model (FM) filed a complaint against MM. FM claimed that MM followed him in the comfort room, and did something he could not let pass. While in the confines of the lavatory, MM allegedly tried to kiss FM. Perhaps, FM was shocked at what MM did, and he could not believe that a dude who is as good looking as he was could actually do that to him.

Apparently, this incident was not the first for MM. Rumors have it that he might actually be looking for his target amidst his co-models. Of course, the complaint did not sit well with the organizers and the management as they will never allow their backstage to be made into a cruising area.

If MM will no longer be visible in modeling events, this incident could have triggered his non-appearance. However, his fans should not worry, as MM is still visible in other forms of media.

Any time you take a chance you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk because they can put you away just as fast for a ten dollar heist as they can for a million dollar job. - Stanley Kubrick

Please abide by the GUIDELINES in writing comments if you want them to be posted. Initials and comments that are too explicit will not be accepted.

Follow @FashionPulis on Twitter for the latest update. Please continue to send your juicy stories to michaelsylim@gmail.com. Thank you very much for loving Fashion PULIS!

Disclaimer: The comments of the readers do not reflect the views and opinions of Fashion PULIS.

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