victoria from 5 to 7 | fashion, film, lit, more

Personal Shopper is the latest collaborative effort from Kristen Stewart and director Olivier Assayas, following on from Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014, and it's confounding, infuriating, and exciting audiences both commercial and critical. Though I don't claim to understand this film any more than the next person - I still don't know if I actually liked it - I do think a significant thematic development is the relationship between the material and the immaterial throughout the film - that is, the stuff that Stewart's character, Maureen, a personal shopper and medium living in Paris, shops for versus the spiritual affirmation she seeks from her recently deceased medium twin brother. that Chanel dress though A significant portion of Maureen's daily life is spent at her job as a personal shopper for her boss, Kyra, whose penchant for designer fashion sends Maureen anywhere and everywhere, within and outside of the country, for the latest stylish wares. These se...

With the progression of the digital age, the definition of "celebrity" is stretching, warping and changing more than ever - who is a celebrity? Oscar winners, reality TV stars and social media influencers are now all lumped under the fame umbrella, so has it lost its meaning? Often we lament the loss of true Hollywood glitz and glamour, the timelessness of Marilyn Monroe or Bette Davis, but the real systems and structures of Golden Age Hollywood - namely, the star system - have never really left us. In fact, the star system has only really morphed, bleeding into everything we, as consumers of digital content, encounter daily. And I think the best way to make this clear is through the hit (it has a whole 4/10 on IMDB) 2003 movie S Club Seeing Double which is really all about the star system and the construction of "celebrity". It sounds ludicrous, but just follow for a moment.  This is from Singin' in the Rain  (1952) but you get the idea The Hollywood...