of greetings and goodbyes...

Just a quick farewell post... I will no longer be using/updating Held On By Wires.
It was a good, long run... lots of interesting times.  But it's time to move on to bigger, better things.  I'm not entirely certain that 'blogging' will ever be part of that future, again.

I will be leaving the content and entire page up, for anyone that still wants to look back at the old posts, but don't be surprised if it ends up being deleted one of these days.

:)
-G

This is my December...

^ ^ taken from a really old, rare/unreleased Linkin Park song that I used to love.

I don't turn my computer on very much, these days.  Since I have a Blackberry, I can pretty much check anything out on the internet that I want to, when I want to, so the computer kind of seems pointless sometimes.  Not to mention the fact that the freaking thing refuses to cooperate with me, half the time, but I digress.  My point is I finally decided to come play with this old hunk of junk for a good while today because I needed a break.  Fashion school eats up ALL of my time, this semester.  I purposely stayed away from all the sewing I am currently doing because it was stressing me out. It might not be a good idea, with the tight deadline I have, but I needed to breathe.

When I'm on my computer, I usually spend my time browsing videos on YouTube... my favorite past time.  I caught a little bit of footage from Tuesday's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, that I didn't get to see on t.v., looked up some videos of songs that I hadn't heard in a while, and took a second, better look at Katy Perry's latest offering. 

I do admire that girl - she seems very down to earth and her sense of style is adorably genius.  Her music, on the other hand?? Ehhh. Kind of hit or miss for me. The song (and video) of hers from this album that I like the most is the "Alien" one, but it kind of seems like the least popular for some reason..??  ANYways, I became really interested in seeing the new video for the song "The One that Got Away" because I heard it features Diego Luna, (of Dirty Dancing Havana Nights - which I've blogged about!).  It's a cute, if a bit predictable, video. You see scenes of Katy as an elderly woman, (which she actually makes a really pretty one, and oddly enough, it also seems like one of the more tame costumes she's done in the past few videos!).  The "old Katy" is seen reminiscing about her first love, (i.e. Diego), who just happens to be "the one that got away". And I say it was a predictable video because, come on... did you honestly not see the whole "dood drives his car off a cliff and dies" thing coming from a mile away??? Sheesh. 

But, yeah, I guess it's still a little sad.

My favorite scene is the one where they crash a dance/party: Katy shows up in a super pretty pink gown and Diego is wearing a Sid Vicious-style black leather jacket with pins all over it, and his hair all slicked back, rockabilly style.  Not going to lie: my heart totally skipped a beat at that ;)

The scene, unfortunately, is too short and quick that I wasn't able to get a good enough screenshot.

I think they make a cute couple.
HA.

Everyone hail to the Pumpkin Song!

Happy Day After Halloween!!! (...and Dia de los Muertos!)

 

I hope everyone had a spooky night.  I chose to stay home and get dressed up to hand out candy to the neighborhood kiddies.  Not the most exciting of ideas, I know, but I actually enjoy it :)

The past few years, I've avoided buying mass produced costumes and use items from my own closet to come up with something fun, instead.  But when it came down to the initial ideas I had this year, I have to admit I wasn't feeling any of them.  And after trying on some of the clothes I planned on using, I realized that they just weren't going to work... I got frustrated. But I had to think of something on the spot!  So I stared at the pile of clothes on my bed and noticed the rib cage shirt... and my bowler hat... and lo and behold, I was inspired by the dancing skeleton from the Corpse Bride movie:

I did a skull-face makeup using white face powder and black eyeshadow and lipstick.  Added skeleton hand gloves, a bowtie, a wig and bowler, my ribcage shirt, ruffled dress and striped tights, and voila!! Girly Dancing Skeleton!!

Well, okay, I didn't do much "dancing".  But maybe I should have, because that could have kept the mosquitoes from biting. I don't know if anyone actually understood my costume, however, because two kids asked me if I was a "zombie", (umm.. no?), and then a few others were too scared to approach me.  (Hahahaha).

But at the end of the night, I was happy.  I love Halloween :)

After the trick or treaters stopped coming, I went back inside and drifted off to sleep watching Queen of the Damned - (I've seen it a billion times).  Maybe next year I should dress as something "cuter" so that I don't give little kids nightmares.

But that wouldn't be much fun, would it?? ;)

nothing from nowhere. (I'm no one at all).

I've been sick all week, and have spent the past few days sitting around, feeling blue and generally useless... but also nostalgic.  It started with a conversation about names that I was having with a friend, early Tuesday morning.  We were thinking back to certain nicknames/pen names/wanna-be-rock-star-names that we used to go by when we were teens, and how utterly ridiculous they sound today. Suddenly, I thought back to a certain singer whose real name was a complete mystery to the world, up until a few years ago, when he revealed it to a magazine.  His nickname, however, Davey Havok, is still what he goes by, and I asked my friend if he thought that Davey regretted ever calling himself Davey Havok, in the first place.  We figured probably not, as it still sounds cool to this day. 

But anyways, we spent all day reminiscing about Mr. Havok - we both idolized him in high school.  I, especially, can remember all the little things I did out of devotion to him, (and the band he came from: AFI).  Now, just so you know, I discovered AFI when their album Sing the Sorrow was released.. however, they had been around for quite some time before that.  But STS has always been my favorite album, and his style from this era and the ones that came before are when, (I feel), he looked his best:  I dressed in black skinny jeans and creepers like him, I grew my hair out super long and dyed it black, like his... I was even over-the-moon-excited when I found a cheap plastic ring at a dollar store, that looked JUST LIKE one he wore in a performance on t.v., once!! I adored all of his tattoos... I would doodle jack'olanterns and bats in my school notebooks.. I tried to convince people to start referring to 'Halloween' as 'Havokween' and thought about what it would be like if he was President, (Purple House? Nephillim Flag? Jade Puget as Vice President?? YES!).. I wrote a short story based on him, where he was a vampire in the future... To me, he was just the coolest person ever.  He was my idol. My muse. My hero.

OH.... HOW I MISS THOSE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some old photos  :)

He was known for his love of The Nightmare Before Christmas... even got tattoo sleeves reflecting the movie.

I looooved the long hair. (I wanted to be his hairdresser so I could play with it!)

His stage presence was something that inspired me to write a (very bad) short story, haha. Futuristic vampire rockstar, anyone??

the pretty hair, once again... Such a shame that he keeps bleaching and chopping it shorter and shorter, these days.

I want to know: who was somebody that you used to idolize when you were younger?  How much did you use to fangirl/fanboy out??  Do tell :)

it's always Fashion Week, somewhere ;)

I've been trying to keep up with my favorite designers' Spring 2012 ready-to-wear runway shows and the most memorable shows so far have been Gareth Pugh's and Viktor and Rolf's.


Gareth Pugh:

The inspiration behind Gareth's Spring 2012 collection for men and women seemed to be birds of prey, this time around, (the women being the birds, I think). Some of the models had on really cool headpieces like this one, here.
It's Goth-Pterodactyl Fashion!!!

And some of the pieces, like this jacket to the right here, and the guy's shirt below, were these really cool cage-like creations.  They seem a bit stiff and uncomfortable, but they look amazing.


I can totally picture Tommy Joe Ratliff rocking the look  below, on the next 'Glambert' tour.

And this black and white striped coat is to die for.  In love.


Viktor and Rolf:

 Never ones to disappoint me with their conceptual minds, they really made me smile with this collection of what seemed to be life-sized doll clothes with blown-up handstitching.  I, myself, enjoy sewing up doll clothes by hand, (for my Living Dead Doll), and so the concept behind these looks really spoke to me.

So when I read the less-than-lovely review one of the writers for style.com wrote up for it, I was kind of perturbed.

"Dolls' clothes informed the girlish silhouettes, the stiff nature of the fabrics, the oversize lace prints, and the blown-up proportions of the stitching that held the clothes together. The naive quality of the lacing, as if it had been done by seamstress giants, worked on some of the pieces... Ultimately, though, it overpowered the show's prettier, simpler moments... The designers seemed to let their concept get in the way of what grown-up women might actually want to wear."

 Ummm... I'm sorry, but, what????  Are you kidding me?  Isn't the whole point of being a "designer" to, oh I don't know... DESIGN clothes??  If you wanna see "simple" clothes that "grown up women might actually want to wear", go to any other freaking fashion show!! How do you know what women actually WANT to wear? Not all women have the same tastes, you know. I, for one, enjoy UNIQUENESS.  (And I do secretly dream of being a life-sized doll, at times...)

Viktor and Rolf are one of the *few* design houses out there that actually use fashion as an art form.  And I hope they always will.

You can't be everything to everybody, everytime.  So whatever.

Yeah, I suppose I was in kind of a bad mood when I first read that, so it really made me grouchy, and I had to come vent about it on my blog!





 Everyone's a critic..

..but not everyone is an artist ;)

(

**all photos taken borrowed from STYLE.COM**