- Real Men Wear Heels – Fashion Shoot - 25 February, 2014
- A Straight Man Worth Knowing – Philip H. Mancuso - 19 July, 2013
- A Fashion Forward Letter - 12 July, 2013
Dear Queens,
While I would love to give you another article filled with glamorous couture and half naked models, I feel it’s time for a reality check.
Working in fashion and going to university, I’m privy to very delicate information. I think it’s time I’d helped you all out.
Welcome to the first world. Where you all come from your local communities and small towns and everybody knows your name. You drive a nice car and wear mass produced designer labels and a few high-end items and you get an allowance. The lesser girls and “gurls” look up to you, the cool kids love you, and you’re a frequent at your local country club. You work out once a week and still think you’re hot shit, you drink cosmopolitans like SJP and get obsessed over Gossip Girl. In this world, you ARE somebody, you’re special, you’re beautiful and you’re so very, very talented. Congratulations you made it.
Now welcome to the industry. Your pick which one, be it music, fashion, film etc. Here everyone comes from money, nobody drives in the major cities so your car is basically irrelevant, and truthfully there will always be someone dressed better or more expensively than you so don’t even bother. In this world, YOU are the lesser girl, the cool kids have assistance and even they won’t spit in your direction and you couldn’t afford a Cosmopolitan nor French fries in the country clubs on this side of town. Everyone here, hated Gossip Girl, due to the fact that they film on their street and ruin their lunch dates. Nobody thinks you’re special because everyone is doing the same thing, and your talents are only acknowledged when you bring them up yourself.
Why am I saying this? Because you needed to know. In a world that is constantly evolving, and in a society that offers more free press and social media than any sci-fi movie could have ever anticipated there is no such thing as individuality. We’re all carbon copies of something we saw on vogue.com hoping to fit into the next cool crowd. This isn’t a game of dress up and it isn’t some flop after grad school. This is real. This shallow world that many of you dare to enter is one filled with billions of dollars, millions of jobs, and quite frankly it’s a little crowded.
Let me help you. Let me teach you the ways of my father -an overbearing, conservative attorney with a strict hand and way too much discipline. “Do what you’re told and learn the rules of the game.”
When people ask me my advice to my younger self? Mind your manners and your waist line. You never know who knows who, or what tomorrow holds. If you want to live in this world, you have to become the ring leader. The players with power move around all of the little mediocre pieces. You need to be hotter, smarter, and let your talents speak for themselves, because you my dear are interchangeable.
So, invest in a stylist and a personal trainer. Learn the pecking order and double kiss your way to the top, and stop telling your feelings to anyone except twitter because honestly, no one else cares.
Suck it up, suck it in, and make it work.
-Ellison
For a quick fashion fix, here are 3 things I’m obsessed with this week.
– Crop tops for men
– Gay Country sensation Steve Grand – and his country manly style
– The Dope Chef –“DXPECHEF” collection
