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Steve Lacy, Syd & Lakeith Stanfield for DOCUMENT Journal N°13 — October 2018.

Photographer: Ryan McGinley

Stylist: Virgil Abloh

Wardrobe: Louis Vuitton

Casting Director: Liz Goldson

documentjournal.com

Part 2  |  Cover

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Fall/Winter 2018-19 Balmain

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2019 LOOKS

For the third year in a row (2017) (2018), I’m ~trend forecasting~ some looks that i love & want to see more of in 2019! 

A WASH OF GLIMMER

This trend makes me so happy. The visual satisfaction of applying the first swipe of glitter and watching it create a wet lid effect when you turn in the light? Unmatched. I think all skin tones can pull off the look of crushed diamonds all over the lid, and the trend can certainly be taken from everyday to extreme, and can be made even more wearable by using a glimmer close to your skin tone. Many brands have recently come out with pots of what is essentially a glitter topcoat & I predict that it’ll finally trickle down to the drugstore in 2019. It’s gonna be the sparkliest year ever folks!!!

WET,  HEALTHY, ‘GLASS SKIN’

One good thing that came out of 2018 was the ‘glass skin’ trend, taken from k-beauty, that everyone did for like a month and then reverted back to being matte. Why did we do that? In 2019, we aren’t going to define ‘glass skin’ as perfect or clear, we’re gonna take it to mean HEALTHY and GLOWY! Us acne prone folks can do it too!!! You could take it from just using a more wet-look or cream highlighter or do the full routine of 17 serums and then the most luminous foundation you can find. Whatever floats your boat. 

BLOTTED BERRY LIPS

Last year, I advocated for orangey/coral lips–which i still LOVE–but this year I feel that blotted, warm berry lips are going to be ~in~. Not only does this color look STUNNING on ppl with medium/dark complexions, it can carry itself as a statement lip or alongside an intricate eye look. I prefer a warm berry (leaning red) rather than a cool berry (leaning purple) as I think it suits more ppl, but feel free to experiment to see which you prefer on yourself!

BONUS: BOLD EYES, BARE SKIN

There is something infinitely pleasing to me about the combination of clearly bare skin (or a really well done base that reads that way) and bold, sometimes editorial eyes. @weepeace on instagram does this super well- you know someone’s work is super good when you are tempted to learn russian to find out what products they’re using. 

~And to finish off, these are just looks that im fond of and think can be applied to anyone and everyone- but to each their own! if a certain look i don’t prefer makes you happy, go for it!~

lmk what you think & what looks you’re looking for this coming year!

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Unpopular opinion: I never cared for Moesha.

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Rico Nasty - Smack A Bitch

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Your favorite IG foodie is a racist sweetheart

Tonight I listened to Racist Sandwich, hosted by Soleil Ho and Zahir Janmohamed. The podcast is centered around looking at the politics and race of food! It’s actually cool ish. I found it when I was looking up information about black veganism and decolonization of food.

I was pulled in to this specific episode after they’d mentioned racism in food photography on the podcast’s home page. Ho and Janmohamed interviewed Celeste Noche, a documentary photographer in Oregon & Cali.  

Major points (definitely not in order):

Minimalism as a value of design wreaks of privilege: most people aren’t minimalist because they are forced to

White food loses the cultural markers in photos

Cultural diminishment (and erasure)

Our favorite topic: representation and accessibility missing from aspirational magazines/social media site

“White” food is aesthetically pleasing

Western ideals of what a plate should look like dominate and will continue to be aesthetically pleasing i.e. utensils, plating

Culture isn’t mainstream

Photos are white and female! Rarely are we seeing hands of color, men

Certain processes are romanticized, others are not

In conclusion, social media sucks and your favorite foodie is racist and classist. 

No no, it was actually a pretty good listen. Noche articulated the things that I’ve already made note of in photography, but applied it to food photography. I’m going to touch upon some of the most important ideals from the show below

Cultural diminishment (and erasure)

A prevailing concept throughout a lot of media studies is that white culture avoids nomenclature. White is the default. Anything non-white, we must proclaim. Noche discussed how any dish with soy sauce suddenly requires chopsticks as a prop in the photo. But if it were a photo of a pasta dish, there are no maps of Italy or red and white tablecloths in the flat lay. Hmmm...I wonder why lol. 

Whiteness is the standard. And while even the promotion of culture is supposed to be more inclusive, deducing a culture to one particularly well-known aspect is diminishment and erasure of the complexities of their cuisine, and overall, their culture. 

The food isn’t allowed to speak for itself

Photos are white and female!

This one caught me...~slightly~. Once Noche said it, I was like “oh shit, she’s right.”

In how-to videos, we always see these dainty, white, feminine hands. They’re never of color, nor are they ever masculine. I would argue that maybe in the heftier meals, like grilling how-tos the hands are masculine, but at that point, I feel like we also always see the grillmaster (read: a man), which is a story for another post.  

This concept perpetuates the whole “women are better off in the kitchen” notion.

Certain processes are romanticized, others are not

Noche talked about the process of her mother making a Filipino dish called kare-kare. Visually, "...by all white terms, it’s not very beautiful. It’s brown, and there’s cow stomach in it.” Kare kare is served over rice...and that’s about it. So the plating wouldn’t be very appealing. But for her to change that plating to make it aesthetically pleasing would be to tell a false narrative of the meal.

In that event, Noche would want to photograph the process of her mother making the meal. Allow viewers to understand what goes into it. 

The process behind some foodie accounts, hell even on television, are often romanticized for aesthetics. You might see someone making their own pasta or some other shit like that...it’s all very laborious. Yet, some people don’t do it because it’s fun, it’s because they have to. So there’s definitely a certain, maybe not classism, but privilege that comes with that. You can examine the concept of minimalism in the same way. 

I also liked how she talked about viewers don’t wanna see you using canned foods or frozen vegetables. It all has to be fresh. And I relate to this sentiment! I was watching a damn video today about a beginner’s guide to veganism. And nothing the girl bought was fucking canned like sis. I am on limited (read: none, read: broke college student) income. The one time I purchased all these fresh vegetables, it wasn’t cheap....and it was all the essentials! So for me, I like seeing “what I eat in a day” videos where people use frozen/canned food items because it makes me feel a ~little less broke~ and a little more ~included~.

But yeah, that’s what I’ve got to say about that. Listen to the podcast, if you find other good episodes or any kind of podcast you think I’d enjoy, send that heaux!

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Running again

Went running today. It was cold as a *insert whale sound from Spongebob*. Actually it was warm for this time of year, but much colder while running than I anticipated.

I was alright the first three cycles I did. By the end of the last one, my chest was burning like hell. 

I drank some cold ass water. Yeah wrong idea. That made it hurt more.

So after googling “running during the winter hurts”, I have come to the conclusion that tomorrow I will be wearing a scarf (unfortunately or fortunately). 

Besides that, I actually missed running though. 

For a long time, I was uncomfortable with going to the gym, but I hated working out at home. When I was doing track, I enjoyed the workouts our coaches gave us. And when I got to college, I vowed to at least try going to the gym. Once I saw how nice Maryland’s gyms are, I stopped being a bitch about it LMAO. 

For a long time, I also was very very uncomfortable with running. I’d see Skinny Minnie and Ripped RIck hit the treadmill and tear that shit up. And I would feel discouraged. Like you never see thiccc girls run! Or thiccc anybody for that fucking matter.

But I’ve always had a feeling I could probably be decent at running considering how strong my legs are and the endurance I gained from dancing. 

So one day this past summer, I just went running around my block. Nike shoulda sponsored me because I just did that shit. And I felt good. I really started to get into it. 

I even continued into the school year, running on the treadmill and testing out different inclines. But I stopped working out by about mid-October. And I’ve just been busy or unmotivated this semester.

But no more of that. We’re gettin’up (by Q-Tip) this semester. 

Final review of today’s run:

“That shit hurted.”

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Ungrateful and fed up

Yeah I’m ready to move out y’all lol.

Living in a split household since I was like 2 or 3, you grow up fast. Everything from that point in my life has been thought out ahead of time. 

If I knew I was going to my mom’s in two days, I knew I needed to pack up my stuff. After those two days, I needed to know exactly when I’d be picked up by my dad because that determined what I would be wearing. Do I need a real outfit or can I just wear sweatsuits? Are we going to church the next day? Do I need to bring a particular Sunday dress. 

My parents didn’t work no graveyard shifts, but they worked a lot (My dad still does).

My mom and dad are so different from one another. My mom is real anal when it comes to being clean and tidy. When I was 7, I was doing my own laundry. When my nana died, I was making my own lunch. She made sure my handwriting wasn’t a hot mess. She taught me to think clearly through my math problems or any problem for that matter.

When I was younger, I spent most of my time with her. My dad is more reserved in his mannerisms. Up until I was about 13, I really didn’t have any relationship in particular with him I feel like. Yeah I went to his house, yeah we did fun stuff together, he helped me with my homework, all that. But thinking about, I always remember seeing him work. Not that I was completely in the background...but I was in the background. He had a computer repair business and I remember sitting on the ground of some big ass office in Hartford, watching him take one machine apart and going into another room and running whatever experiment he did.

My dad taught me a lot of pragmatic life skill I need. Save your money. Work hard now, so you have wiggle room later. You don’t need to live with everything the world has to offer, get what you need to get the job done. 

Anyways, the two of them have worked hard for me. I can acknowledge that and appreciate that. (Even though you still have to address the flip side where that’s what parents are supposed to do. However, not everyone is not blessed enough to get that, so I’m appreciative still.)

But I’m ready to go.

I don’t want to come back to Connecticut if I don’t have to. I don’t want to live in either of their houses! I’ve grown out of this back-and-forth business. I’m tired of feeling like I have to choose between the two. I feel like a guest in both houses.** 

I know how I want to live and this ain’t it chief lmaoo. I like all my shit a certain way (even though I’ve always been like that, courtesy of my momma). 

I’m also tired of being treated a certain way. Smart enough and independent enough to flourish...but also too dumb to know anything about how life really works. I’ve always walked this weird ass line of being left to my own devices, yet still being held back by my parents. Like even prior to high school, it’s just always been this way.

Maybe because I was forced to be independent a lot of the time, but also still depend on my parents. 

The freedom that they gave and didn’t give simultaneously is just too much. They’re the same way now. 

At this point, I know how I get when I’m irritated. And I’m already starting to feel myself kinda shut down. And at this point, I’m just praying I don’t pop-off BEFORE I get out the house lmao. It won’t be pretty

A lot of young people probably feel the same way. And this is the best way I can articulate some of what I’m feeling.

**Sure I GAVE my room to my brother, but that’s because it made the most sense. He needed a bigger room...he’s in the house more than I am. Logical decision.