Erin's Undercut Evolution

Two days ago, vintage inspired, kawaii-girl Erin Hall graduated from her "classic bangs and bun" style to a more daring and edgy choice, the Rear Undercut. This hairstyle was made famous in the underground by the electronic/dream artist Grimes. There is no doubt in my mind that her choice to cut her hair was 99.99% influenced by her favorite singer and .1% influenced by me trying to convince her to do it :-P

Erin followed up with us today by sending us pictures of what her undercut is looking like two days after the shave. You can keep up with Erin's musings of Grimes on her Instagram !

(pictures of Erin are below) 

"J-Pop" has trapped me in it's spell

Normally, when I push play on my iPod, the voices that begin to sing, wail their heavily layered ballads in English. Recently, I haven't been able to escape the melodic pulls of J-Pop artists. This genre is no new thing; a Japanese twist on the styles and culture of American pop music. It has launched many groups who's screaming fans mile into packed stadiums to dance to the lip synced, sometimes cartoonish, cries of their teen idols! My entrapment and obsession with this music, that is so foreign but yet close to home with me, annoys those around me sometimes. I'll agree that the song quality isn't often able to be described with the word "bearable", but I do have fun.

About a year or two ago, I became interested in Asian pop music. This came with the discovery of K-Pop, the South Korean answer to J-Pop. Although K-Pop artists gain more exposure in America, partially because of the worldwide success of Psy's big single "Gangnam Style" and also because of the more Americanization in K-Pop songs, they're able to have success. You may be wondering what it is that made me go from liking K-Pop to now only listening to J-Pop. To be totally honest, I've noticed a slight quality change in the overall sound of J-Pop; it's just so much better than K-pop. The Japanese language rolls off the tongue more easily and in more pleasing ways than Korean does. Thus, the pop  and dance songs which are meant to be sang in the first place, can at least gain an attempt by their consumers at singing along. This is immensely important in pop music, no matter what language.

Here are the artists I just can get enough of in the J-Pop world. I'll also include some supa kawaii songs you should check out by them:

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu 

1. Pon Pon Pon
2. Tsukema Tsukeru 
3. Ninjare bang bang
4. Candy Candy       
5. Fashion Monster

Perfume 

1. Fake it 
2. Night Flight
3. Polyrythm
4. Love the world            

Namie Amuro 

1. Body feels exit
2. Chase the chance
3. You're my sunshine 

Passed down pin collection is a treasured keepsake

We all have our keepsakes. Some of them we have gathered on our own over the years. Others have been passed down to us, and are loaded with the memories and experiences of their past owners. These are the best keepsakes in my opinion. It mirrors humanity; we are a collective race, handing down the keepsake (life) to each new generation and with it passing down experience and memory (DNA) with it.

Some of my most treasured keepsakes happen to be items having to do with fashion, what a coincidence haha. They're pins!!! Pins are the best accessories besides fake gold chains. Any youth who wants to be hip should own pins. The more corny, the better as I see it :-P

My pin collection was passed down to me from my father. He no doubt wore the ones that I wear today when he was in high school in the mid 80's. The have captions like "buffalo gals" and "insect surfers"on them. This is great because I take my style from the early 2000's, early 90's and the late 80's. Grunge is quite adaptable; it takes acceptions if you know how to do it right. In my experience, the right pin can go on top of a neon jacket and make your face look cool as hell. Does that even make sense??? You'd have to see it to know what I mean!

Here's my passed-down pin collection: 

((((My favorite pin of Prince))))

~Here's what another one of my Prince pins looks like on my favorite jacket~

With the right things to spice up what you wear, you can develop your own style. This can be accomplished by simply making your pins or jewelry so that no one else has anything like it. You can take a step in the right direction and wear things that might now be considered "jewelry" as jewelry and see how it turns out. Natural accessories i.e carved wood, bone, stones are great but you can also experiment with artificial materials like neon plastic or silicon jelly bracelets etc. What kind of accessories do you use? Tell us in the comments!

"Combat Boot Love" By: Brynn

Combat boots are a girls best friend! I love combat boots because they are so versatile! They've stayed fashionable for decades and will never go out of style. Classic black boots are a staple, but they also come in any color or design you can imagine. You can pair combat boots with any outfit, whether it's a summer dress, leggings, or a pair of jean cutoffs. Combat boots compliment any fashion style making them the perfect accessory for anyone.

-Brynn Edwards

black combat boots

velvet combat boots

Doc Marten best friends Part 2: Natalia!

Natalia Sinisterra, a colombian native as well as a 15 year old student at the Dekalb School of the Arts is a familiar and friendly kawaii bopper. She's close friends with Erin (who we interviewed in the first part of this article) as well as an aspiring writer! We caught her going out to shop at a local thrift/resale store before attending a dinner with her parents, celebrating her upcoming 16th birthday!

She's wearing an oversized flanel button up shirt that she says was her dad's and a cream colored tank-top tucked into her trademark black velvet pants. She has them rolled up to show off her super ultra soft grunge floral print doc martens, which makes her the perfect kawaii twin; as Erin is wearing Doc's too.

Her favorite bands are Hunx and his Punx, Kilo Kish, Tory Y Moi and of Montreal. An interesting fact about her is that she has the theme song from The Lizzie McGuire Movie stuck in her head : "HEY NOW HEY NOWW, THIS IS WHAT DREAMSSS ARE MADE OF!!!"

You may stalk/love Natalia to your heart's desire on her Instagram and Twitter

(Pictures of Natalia's outfit are below)

~Natalia and Erin~

handmade t-shirt dresses 

Natalia's new hair color (blue)

Velvet pants and brown oversized flanel

floral print Docs

Doc Marten best friends Part 1: Erin!

Two of the most up to date contenders in the underground Atlanta fashion game would have to be Erin Hall and Natalia Sinisterra. You can often find them around Tucker, Ga; haunting some dust ridden  thrift store littered with velveteen jackets and oversized "Hotlanta T-Shirts".We caught them going out today to do just that, most likely to find something to wear for Natalia's upcoming birthday!

Erin is a 16 year old Atlanta native, who's also a student. She doesn't really have any favorite brands because she only shops at various thrift/resale stores around the city.

Today she's wearing a floral print dress she says she was given. It also happens to be from Colombia. (Where Natalia is from). Her hairstyle is different from the last time we saw her as well. She now has an undercut on the back of her head, in the style of Grimes. Erin's shoes are brown Doc Marten boots. She also has two small silver ring earrings and winged eye makeup.

 She told us that her favorite singer is Grimes and her favorite bands are M83 and Crystal Castles. An interesting fact she told us about her is that she's a Waldorf School kid and she plans to stay CRAZY till she dies.

You can follow Erin's fashion choices and floral covered lifestyle on her Instagram!

Pictures of Erin are below. You can see Natalia in the second part of this post!

~Erin and Natalia~

Erin's new undercut 

Side view

Colombian floral dress

Brown Leather Doc's

Reviving extinct shoe brands: Swear Alternative

For those of us that enjoy delving into the past to select our styles, finding the exact clothing from that time may be a problem. There are multiple reasons for this:

1) The companies that produced the brands may have gone bankrupt

2) The is no longer a large enough demand for such clothing, thus the factories were forced to close.

3) The brand never really became popular with any demographic and was only active for a year or so.

This can be really sad for you if you got into the Spice Girls and wanted some Buffalos, but realize that they aren't even sold in the US and if you do want them, you'll have to order them offline for a hefty price tag (300$ and up) which is pretty ridiculous.

This is definitely the case with Swear Alternative, a brand that produced super kawaii awesome raver platforms in the 90's. My sense of style demands these shoes or imitations of them, but sadly they're basically impossible to come by. I couldn't tell you how many hours I've spent searching the internet for a smart retailer that might have stocked up on these shoes back in the day. Another problem that I'm confronted with, is the fact that these were British made shoes, produced there and sold there almost exclusively.

The rave community is strong today in the underground of Britain, with artists/musicians like Crim3s and Charli XCX stimulating its' revival. They keep it alive in the UK, but who's doing it here? Not just in the US as a whole, but specifically in Atlanta. Most times there are people who think just like you in these situations, but I'm really not seeing a "developed" underground rave community here. But you know what they say, " If you want something done, you've gotta do it yourself..." Sad but true.

Check out the pictures below of some Swear Alternative shoes and see if you like the musicians I mentioned earlier in this column.

Crim3s

Charli XCX

"SWEAR ALTERNATIVES"