Naughty Number Nine
Hello! I figured I’d do a little rundown on what components exactly make up the person writing this blog, in case you’re interested. To sweeten the deal, each list article has an incredible piece of clothing that somehow relates to or represents it, literally or abstractly. This is a FASHION BLOG, after all! Haha hi. My name’s Em. Thank you for being here. I hope your day is secretly magical in an unexpected way. Is it embarrassing that I just typed that? I’m numb to embarrassment from having a fashion blog. Well, here goes nothing!
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My favorite number is nine. There’s something weirdly sexy about its penultimacy (ooh, a new favorite neologism), or maybe I just watched this Schoolhouse Rock video too many times as a child. That’s why this list has nine items. It leaves you a little lacking, always wanting a little more, smirking at you in its refusal to be even, whole, easy to deal with. Ok yes maybe I did have a crush on the pool-playing, cigar-smoking cat when I was six years old.
Here’s a dress that embodies that same provocative incompleteness, which I guess also largely characterizes the way I feel I am and present to the world.
Bow Dress - €660,00 My favorite movie, which I’ve seen over 30 times, is Santa Sangre (1989) by Alejandro Jodorowsky, who is incidentally NOT one of my favorite people. I know the script by heart, my first machine tattoo at age 18 was the intertwined arms motif of Concha’s cult (yes, I know now what her name means), and my favorite name in the world is Alma because of the character of the same moniker in the movie. I was going to use it on my firstborn, but accidentally used it on a (very worthy) dog instead.
Here is an absolutely devastating piece by the lovely Saint Sintra (hi, Sintra!) that Fenix and Concha would absolutely have worn during one of their semi-incestuous performances, sashes blooming like streams of blood out of the shoulders (watch the first 30 minutes of the film and you’ll see why this is so appropriate). It’s the exact right mix of campy, abstract, scary, and sensual.
Silk Sash Blouse - $450 (Sale) I have been vegetarian for my entire life, yes I’ll probably eat something if it’s touched meat, no, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to see meat eaten in front of me (I actually am kind of scarily obsessed with the aesthetics of eating meat and how they relate to our conceptions of human mortality, blame an early introduction to the sculptures of Paul Thek), yes I like being vegetarian, no, I never crave meat, yes, I really like well-prepped fake meat, no I won’t try it before I die, no, you can’t hold me to that. People change. As of now, I’ve never eaten a meat/fish product knowingly and on purpose.
Here’s a human meat dress…
Trompe L'Oeil Jacquard Dress - €245.00 And a bonus, the cutest veggie-oriented twin set I’ve ever seen (the only… sadly…).
Twinset - $590 I grew up on a tiny, man-made island in California, and though I hate the county I was born in (Orange, hold your horrified gasps), I am enamored by the Pacific ocean. One of the worst parts of visiting CA is that if I spend a DAY without sufficiently surveying/splashing/huffing the ocean, I feel like a meaningless blob and start acting irrationally. My mom accidentally bestowed me with a totally unfair, judgmental, irrational disdain for when people go to the beach without dunking in the ocean at least once. I have an odd, incongruent strain of machismo in my heart.
Here’s a tank from one of my favorite Argentine indie brands, Low Low, which makes amazingly comfy pieces printed with gorgeous images of bodies of water and natural disasters.
Broken Hearted Tank - $8.000 ARS I’m non-binary and have written about it before for paid subscribers, hiiiiii all you special souls—here’s an excerpt about why I’m NOT A WOMAN and yet WEAR SKIRTS AND SUCH SOMETIMES (besides the joy of being able to quickly disarm a wedgie)—
As I began coming out to more and more people and living life as non-binary in whatever capacity I felt possible, I tried to adapt a less weirdly gender-orthodox approach to dressing against dysphoria. I had always laughed at the ridiculously neutered “androgynous aesthetic” that “gender-neutral” clothing companies tried to push in the early 2010s and made the wearers look perpetually in mourning, as if clad in sackcloth. The shapeless, earth-toned minimalism of proto-gender-neutral clothes was never my thing, so I tried to figure out different ways to feel like I was doing justice to the levels of both femininity and masculinity I wanted to embody.
Below, a DELIGHTFUL dress “tailored for dancing, working, and making love.” Sounds genderless to me! It also comes in funereal black, FYI. I want a femboy in this dress for President. Kidding, I’d never want to ruin a femboy’s life like that.
Some of my favorite things in the world include: pet rats, the minute before a first kiss, making playlists (especially veeeery pointed, highly intentional ones for crushes), my little sister, well-cooked vegetables, Disco Elysium (don’t ask questions, just play it), and jasmine (the super fragrant kind with soft, round-tipped petals, not the hard, waxy kind). I’m a Pisces, if you couldn’t tell. If you don’t care………. COOL!
Below: MISCHIEVOUS NAKED RAT TEE 1/1!!!!! By artist Francis Balken (I also adore this sweater).
Rat Tee - $55 The thing I’m proudest of in my life is learning Spanish (I’m pretty conversational but still muy dweeby at this point), the thing I’m least proud of is running away from a friend’s family in Venice when I got extremely creeped out by their Stepford-y rich person vibes on a vacation I’d been invited on. And from my little sister’s Bat Mitzvah trip to Harry Potter World, because I hate Harry Potter and I had a crush on a classmate who is now literally married (hi L, if you’re reading this) and at the time made me go Raw Till Four Vegan with her (we only ate bananas for like a month and I got an E.D. for a while out of the deal! I’m ok at the moment) so I was in an awful mood all of the time. Sorry again, Clara. But man, I really hate Harry Potter. I guess I’m also super proud that I am now a decent-ish big sibling to the coolest kid on any coast! Right?? Clara???
Below, a necklace that reminds me of Venice. Whoops. Everything by Floating World is perfect!
Trickster Friend Necklace - $195 I dance like I’m having a medical emergency, no matter how many or few drugs I’m on, if the music is good enough. My bar is gracefully low, thanks to a few months of dancing to horrendous Argentine rock at my favorite club. My only good club experience in NYC was on my friend Ellie (of Screenshot Reliquary)’s birthday, at Nowadays, off an accidentally high dose of acid, with Josey Rebelle creating the most magical soundscape I’ve ever heard, to this day. It was like bushwacking through a swamp of beats, in the best way.
Here are some shorts I’d LOVE to dance in (I’m newly neon-pilled, also thanks to Argentina).
Lucky Shorts - $145 The inside of my brain constantly sounds like a hellish loop of sound bytes from musicals I loved when I was 11 years old, The Key of Awesome videos from around the same time (I’m not glorifying them with a link, IYKYK), random phrases that haunt me (most recently, “COMELA CRUDO???” re: my dog. Long story), and anime noises. Oh yeah, like the most important thing about me is that I love anime. My favorites are Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho 1000, and Fullmetal Alchemist.
Here’s a gorgeous Tigra Tigra dress that feels like a visual depiction of this constant chaos (now, if I accidentally frown in your direction, you know I’m just listening to the worst mash-up ever of an In the Heights song with a Lady Gaga parody). I wouldn’t have liked this dress a year ago, but I do now. Very interesting.
Vampire in Goa Dress - $580
Well, that’s nine! I hope you had an okay time up there and that you come back for more (usually more fashion, less me). I really appreciate you being here, and I’m always open to questions/comments(/critique BUT ONLY IF YOU ALSO WENT TO ART SCHOOL AND CAN MAKE THE BIGGEST DIS IN THE WORLD SOUND COMPLIMENTARY ENOUGH THAT THE TEACHER WON’T KNOW WE SLEPT TOGETHER AND THEN I NEVER TEXTED YOU BACK AND YOU ARE TAKING YOUR GRUDGE OUT ON ME DURING CRIT) on Instagram or at hr@humanrepeller.com.
<3 HR