.com.au/lifestyle/" title="Life & Style">Life & Style

Barracking for bollocks

What makes a story newsworthy? Most readers would probably offer an answer that combines various news values such as timeliness, topicality, impact, immediacy, etc... and they'd of course be entirely correct. But if they failed to mention personal interest in the subject matter, they'd be describing a story that may be newsworthy to others but not to them. Subjectivity is central to the definition of news because a report is only news if someone wants to read it. In the same way that gossip dies if it's not repeated, stories wilt in the face of reader indifference.

This issue is brought to mind by the preponderance of comments on news stories along the lines of, "Why is this news?" or "Isn't there any real news to report?". Okay, these remarks tend to appear on celebrity stories and they're usually posited by readers whose nom de web indicates that they're male. But, putting aside considerations of taste, one would think the answer is obvious. If someone is reading it, it's news. The bigger the audience, the bigger the story. But the whingers know this. They dress up their complaints as a protest against the irrelevance of celebrity trivia but, at heart, their issue is ethical, not practical. News is easily ignored. By choosing to engage with it, even if allegedly against their better instincts, they're perpetuating it. So why do detractors insist on reading the un-news? Because they are morally exercised by a journalistic ethos that affords time and space to reporting events that are ultimately of no consequence. It's a fair point - as far as it goes. However if we accept that pop culture isn't newsworthy, then why on earth is sport?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (48)

Ke$ha puts the Alco in Pop

Between hip-hop's Total War on gender equality, Rihanna's Rude Girl routine and Britney Spears' execrable Circus re-Vamp, there's much to malign in contemporary pop music's depiction of womanhood. The Video Hits woman is, for the most part, vacuous, vulgar and astonishingly narcissistic. Granted, this version of femininity is mostly confined to the urban-pop end of the spectrum where few grown-up consumers leverage their purchasing power but that's little cause for joy. While we may eschew it, the Top 40 rhythm and burlesque genre is the pre-teen crowd's firm favourite. That in itself, is enough to set any parent's teeth on edge but now, courtesy of Ke$ha, we've got a whole new musical worry to keep us up at night: Alco-Pop.

For those unfamiliar with Ke$ha, her global hit Tik Tok, is a hyper catchy sing-along ode to binge-drinking. As in: "I'm talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk (crazy drunk) / Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk" (work it out). Just in case we missed the lyrical point, the video for the song opens with Ke$ha awaking disheveled, but mostly clothed, in a bath tub, where, the empty bottle of booze on the floor suggests, she passed out the night before. She collects her strewn belongings, brushes her teeth with a "bottle of Jack (Daniels)" and heads out on the town again, only to end the night passed out in a different bath tub. But she's no Paris Hilton, her infinite party has a point. It's proof of her bad-ass, grrl-powered independent womanness. So independent, that she's apparently homeless. In Ke$ha's happy, trippy scenario Skid Row is a desirable address and brain-dead is a feminist state of mind. Popular culture has sunk to a new low.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (66)

Sandra Bullock: designers' darling

Who's the woman fashion designers would most like to see wearing their gowns on the red carpet? Nicole Kidman? Angelina Jolie? Charlize Theron? None of the above. They may be great for publicity but for designers more concerned about bottom lines than headlines, apparently there is no better exponent of their work than Sandra Bullock.




That's the surprise finding of a Wall Street Journal story about stylespot.com, a fashion portal that links red carpet looks to their online retailers or, when unavailable, to purveyors of similar apparel. Sandra Bullock may rarely grace the pages of fashion mags but she prompts more click-throughs on stylespot.com than her covergirl peers. According to stylespot's editorial director Lily Hollander, star power doesn't sell gowns nearly so much as a star's popular appeal. Sandra Bullock's every woman image may fly under Vogue's radar but it inspires actual sales.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (13)

Angelina Jolie: Sarah Palin's hair apparent

Do Angelina Jolie and Sarah Palin share the same hairdresser? Probably not, but at the very least, it seems that their stylists admire each other's work. Because there's no mistaking it, Angelina Jolie's new hairdo is very Palinesque. From the style, to the cut and colour, the politico's tress sense can be seen in every caramel highlight on the star's newly heightened crown.



The hair share arrangement may be coincidental but I doubt it. Angelina Jolie's new look comes courtesy of her role in The Tourist, a remake of a 2005 Belgian film, Anthony Zimmer. Currently filming in Venice, where the above picture was taken of her on-set, Angelina Jolie plays a mysterious femme fatale who lures co-star Johnny Depp, the tourist of the title, into a web of deceit, betrayal, etc... From what I've been able to glean, it's an old-fashioned film noir in which a gormless but decent man is exploited by an elusive seductress with a murky agenda. Cliched, but entertaining when done well. The intriguing aspect is the director's apparent decision to model his siren, at least visually, on Sarah Palin.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (18)

Men, mags and women

Baffled by the appeal of Ralph? Flummoxed by FHM's enduring popularity? Can't imagine why men would spend their hard-earned on glorified photo-montages of scantily clad wannabe-WAGS? Well, it's not the men's magazines - and whatever moral, intellectual or aesthetic failings you may attribute to them - that leave you cold. It's just the way your brain's built. According to a recent Duke University study, an appreciation of "girly mags"- as they used to be known - is not a matter of taste but of your personal neuroeconomic make-up.



Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the study sought to determine how the brain evaluates pleasure and quantifies its monetary worth. The brain scan research used MRI technology to measure activity in different regions of 26 heterosexual men's brains as they viewed images of attractive women interspersed with images of money. Gauging the men's mental activity in reaction to the differing stimuli allowed the researchers to accurately predict how much the subjects would be willing to spend to view a particular woman's image again. Scott Huetel, a lead researcher on the project, found that: "we could identify types of images that tend to modulate the right sorts of value signals - those that predict future purchases for a market segment."

Unsurprisingly, this doesn't appear to hold true for women. Newsobserver.com quotes researcher David Smith, who said that future studies were planned on female brains but "a different stimulus" is required for women because pictures of men are inadequate to the task.

• Read more…
• Posted at 2:14 PM
• Comments (23)

Lindsay Lohan's tweet sensation

In December last year, news outlets around the world reported Lindsay Lohan's amazing feat of saving 40 Indian children's lives in a single day.The reports were based on claims she made on Twitter in relation to her involvement in a BBC documentary on the trafficking of women and children in India. As reported by the entertainment news service Bang Showbiz, Lindsay was deeply impressed with the success of the project and her personal interventionist impact on the film subjects' lives.




Unfortunately, for Lindsay's credibility, she may not be the heroine she claimed to be. After pledging to change the world, "one child at a time", it seems that Lindsay Lohan had no personal involvement in the rescue of those children. According to the London Telegraph, both Lilo and her BBC film crew had yet to arrive in India when the children were freed from their grim servitude in New Delhi's piecework factories. An Indian social activist known as Bhuwan told the London Telegraph that the child labourers had been removed from their overseers hours before she touched down in New Delhi. Apparently, Lindsay didn't lay eyes on them until the day after the raid when she and the BBC visited a rehabilitation centre where the children were being treated before returning to their families. So is this, in the words of anti-trafficking campaigner Ruchira Gupta, a case of a publicity seeking starlet "trivialising child trafficking" for her own benefit, or is it possible that there's a grain of truth in Lindsay's hyperbolic claim to heroism?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (23)

Spoiling Christmas

Australian parents intend to spend an average of $584 on Christmas gifts for their children this year according to this week's "Toy Treasure Trove" report from BankWest.

With average weekly earnings at approximately $1200, we're intending to spend almost one per cent of our gross wages on toys for the kids this Christmas. Doesn't seem like that much when looked at in terms of affordability but it's still an awful lot. Just because we're able to spend that much on kiddie gifts at Christmas doesn't mean we necessarily should.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (68)

Pink: the colour of sexism?

Does sexism have a colour? A UK lobby group thinks so. Their Pinkstinks campaign calls for parents to boycott manufacturers of pink toys and children's clothing on the basis that "pinkification" is herding young girls into "pink alleys" that lead inexorably toward the pink collar career ghetto.

The movement's founders, sisters Emma and Abi Moore, argue that rosy hues have an inherently sexist quality that leads young girls to value prettiness over practical achievement and passivity over power, telling the Daily Mail that: "As a result, beauty is valued over brains" by girls. The group's website asserts that long-term exposure to pink leads to low self-esteem, poor body image and limited opportunities for girls and women. The campaign "aims to challenge the culture of pink" and to that end it has amassed over 3000 supporters and the endorsement of British Justice Minister Bridget Prentice.

To be frank, these people can't see the fairies for the floss. Their reasoning fails to account for the complexity of sexism and seems to have more to do with adult perceptions of the symbolic value of colour than children's innate preferences.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (64)

Twilight's double meaning

With the Twilight books hogging the top end of best seller lists all year and the second instalment of the film franchise, New Moon, breaking box office records around the world, it's fair to say the saga of Edward Cullen and Bella Swann's unlikely romance is this year's defining cultural phenomenon.

But why? On the face of it, Twilight appears to offer little in terms of artistic or social merit. Reviewers disparage Stephanie Meyer's overblown and cliche-ridden writing style; the self-appointed keepers of masculine identity testily dismiss Edward's chaste vampire as fey; and feminists decry Bella's self-absorbed passivity as retrograde. Everyone has a problem with Twilight - except for its fanatical following, whose devotion is often perplexing to the point of annoyance for those who fail to grasp Twilight's appeal.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (76)

Falling stars: Is celebrity culture over?

The death of celebrity culture has been predicted many times before but if recent reports are indicative of an overarching trend, it seems that our our pathological obsession with "the stars" may finally, truly, be on the wane.

The most heartening evidence of our declining interest in all things Hollywood is seen in the paparazzi's declining fortunes. Earlier this month, The Daily Beast reported that the market for unauthorised photos of the stars has plummeted with the result that now, "a typical celebrity shot sells for 31 per cent less than it did in 2007". In some cases, far less than that. Two years ago exclusive rights to a photo of a drunken dishevelled Lindsay Lohan sold for $US150,000, but these days Lilo shots typically fetch between $US500 and $US1000. Meanwhile, in the same period, celebrity obsessed American newsmagazine US Weekly's overall photo budget has fallen from $US8 million to less than $US5 million.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (43)

Diet styles of the rich and famous

Celebrities, especially female stars, seem to have an almost superhuman capacity for maintaining ultra slim physiques. Unsurprisingly, their nutritional regimens are the subject of intense public fascination. How do they do it? Is there in fact a celebrity diet secret that remains unknown to the general public?

It may be buried somewhere in the 21 million entries that a Google search for "celebrity diet secrets" returns, but I doubt it. Celebrities gain weight the same way as everybody else so it's safe to assume that they lose it the same way as well: by consuming fewer calories than they expend. If there is a secret to celebrity weight loss it's probably that they have a greater incentive to remain slim than the rest of us. Their livelihoods depend on it. If we all stood to lose our careers and social cachet in the space of 10 kilos, McDonalds would go out of business tomorrow. Nonetheless, certain diets are more popular in Hollywood than others. The low fat, high fibre diet may be a tried and true weight loss method but celebrities seem to favour a more esoteric approach - or maybe they're paid to endorse specific diets. Whatever the case, these are some of the super slim fast methods most favoured by the famous.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (16)

Beauty myths

How often have you been sucked in by skin care products that claim to "reduce the appearance of wrinkles" by some vast percentage over a matter of weeks only to find that they did nothing of the sort?

How much have you spent on ineffectual cellulite reduction treatments that were "clinically proven" to smooth dimpled thighs by "up to 47 per cent in just 9 minutes"; blemish erasing creams that failed to provide the promised "dramatic results"; or "facial firming" gels that had no visible effect whatsoever, let alone the instant face lift pledged by its marketing department? After kicking yourself and Googling "permanent gullibility reduction", have you ever wondered if the hyperbolic claims made by cosmetics companies are even legal? With our abundance of Trade Practices and Consumer Protection legislation one would think the answer to that question would be No. But, in fact, it's more like Yes and No.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (55)

Kids under the influence

Teen idol Miley Cyrus has been voted the year's worst celebrity influence - not by parents but by almost 45,000 visitors to AOL's teens and tweens website JSYK.com. As unlikely as it may seem, Miley Cyrus beat out Britney Spears and MTV awards mic-jacker Kanye West. She also bested Vanessa Hudgens and Shia LeBeouf - proof that parents weren't voting. The two-hour audio-visual bombardment that constitutes Transformers II makes him the obvious choice for those whose children coerced them to sit through it.

As it is, Shia LeBeouf was nominated for a drink-driving charge, Vanessa Hudgens for the appearance of some unfortunate photos on too many websites to ignore, and the inclusion of Britney Spears and Kanye West doesn't require further explication. JSYK.com explains Miley's overwhelming win as being due to her suggestive dance routine at the Teen Choice Awards. But was Miley's ice-cream wagon pole dance really that bad? Most parents would probably far prefer that their children inhabit Hannah Montana's moral universe than plumb the egomaniacal depths of Kanye West's public persona, but the kids clearly think otherwise. It would be fascinating to know why Miley Cyrus gets up so many teenage noses when the other candidates' public conduct is patently worse. In the meantime though, the survey result begs the question: what are the qualities that make for a good celebrity influence on children and teenagers?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (28)

Sexism sells

Ever noticed how everyday products are increasingly gendered? Where once there was just shampoo, there are now separate shampoos for men and women, separate conditioners, shower gels, soaps and deodorants - even sunscreen. The entire toiletries shelf at your local supermarket has been segregated along gender lines. But why? Considering that they're supposed to do the same job, what benefit is there to the consumer in gender-specific items?

Clear-sighted readers are probably thinking "absolutely none" and sensibly sticking to inexpensive generic items, while wondering why any sane woman would pay extra for the uncertain advantage of a pink handle on her safety razor. Yet many otherwise completely rational women do. They also pay more for smaller amounts of antiperspirant and vastly more for skin creams of dubious benefit. Clearly, genderisation of inherently neutral products is a winning marketing strategy. And if you suspect that the prevalence of these items is ever greater, you're right. If you think it's because the marketing industry is hopelessly sexist, you may be right in the main, but it's not misogyny, specifically, that's driving this phenomenon. It's demand.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (41)

Felled by heels

The most striking fashion feature of this decade would have to be the ongoing popularity of very high heels. Historically, mass-produced heels are at their highest and designers continue to push the envelope with shoemaker Christian Louboutin recently announcing the introduction of an eight-inch heel. But how much can our feet take?

Aside from the discomfort of wearing ultra high heels for any length of time, there are myriad health problems associated with long-term stiletto love. Many of these, such as bunions, joint pain and hammer toes, are familiar to most women but it appears that heels affect more than one's feet. Some health experts go so far as to attribute fertility problems, thinning hair and even mental health disorders to prolonged wearing of high heels.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (29)

Defining fashion

Would you wear these shoes? Probably not. Could you walk further than 10 metres in these shoes? Definitely not.

Alexander McQueen's mega-fetish clogs, part of his new spring collection, pose a style conundrum: if you can't wear it, is it still fashion?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (61)

Crimes of fashion

Last month Swedish media reported the case of a hapless local who was robbed of his trousers - while wearing them. His assailant had been refused entry into a local pub on account of his too casual attire. Instead of changing, the thief pantsed the first same-size bloke to come along. Meanwhile, in the US, Reuters reports that Todd Bank, a New York lawyer, showed up for work in the housing court wearing jeans and a baseball cap only to be dressed down by the judge for inappropriate attire. Bank sued, alleging a constitutional right to wear jeans and a baseball hat in a courtroom. He lost. Bank's position that "my wearing a baseball hat does not interfere with the court's ability to adjudicate disputes", was rejected by the presiding judge, who countered that a courtroom is a "staid environment" where a basic level of civility is to be expected and may reasonably be enforced.

Dress code violation is at the heart of both these true fashion crime stories but are environment-specific dress standards still relevant? Does it really matter what you wear either professionally or recreationally? Of course it does. Without dress codes any number of undesirable subcultures and activities would flourish. Sartorial standards are an efficient way to preclude sticky social situations and certain unintended consequences. Amongst the worst of these are ...

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (4)

Winning lingerie

Melbourne designer Katinka Poole has won a prestigious international lingerie design award. The Melbourne design student placed second in the Triumph Inspiration Award '09 on the opening night of Milan Fashion Week.

The contest, sponsored by lingerie giant Triumph International and judged by Hilary Swank and Italian Vogue chief Franca Sozzani amongst others, was determined by the most creative interpretation of its "Icons" theme. Katinka Poole's "Harbour Mirage" design evoked the Sydney Opera House to win the second prize of 10,000 Euros and invaluable exposure presenting to the world's most influential fashion buyers.

Onya Katinka! Especially as the competition was very strong. Being a conceptual design award, all the lingerie was a little bit fantastical but some of it was also very beautiful - and many of the design elements are bound to be reinterpreted in wearable form for the retail market. So what's in stock for lingerie's future?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (6)

Megan Fox transformed

The robots weren't the only changeable characters in Transformers. The film's leading lady, Megan Fox, is a notably mutable entity in her own right. Her appearance has changed considerably since she first dented the public consciousness in 2004 playing opposite Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Pictured at the New York premiere of her film debut, left, she's hardly recognisable as the polished vamp dominating this year's celebrity landscape. At Cosmopolitan magazine's 40th anniversary party a year later, centre, Megan Fox's look is closer to the 09 version but there's still room for doubt.

So how a did a conventionally pretty but otherwise unremarkable looking girl become Hollywood's 21st Century Fox?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (65)

Groomed for success

How much is too much to pay for a haircut? $30? $300? How about $30,000? That's what the Sultan of Brunei reportedly spent last month on what is thought to be the world's most expensive hairstyle.

A session with the Sultan's barber, Ken Modestou, at his London premises can normally be had for around $60 but the Sultan prefers a house call. Once the first-class fares, multi-star accommodation and lavish tip of several thousand dollars have been tallied up, maintenance of the Sultan's modest pompadour sets him back the price of a new car. Brunei's ruler is a multi-billionaire so his vanity fare is comparatively small change but his willingness to shell out the big bucks on keeping up appearances is reflective of a global trend. Internationally, the male beauty spend is on the rise. Australian men alone spent more than $44 million on cosmetic products last year - out of the total national market of close to $2 billion. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Japanese sales of male skin products have been rising 13 per cent annually for several years even as women's cosmetics sales have slumped. And in 2007, India's Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a report on the surge in male cosmetics sales warning that the male vanity craze poses a threat to average household finances.

The burgeoning male beauty budget is a fascinating phenomenon and it's been noted many times before but what is driving it?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (16)

Mission Implausible: De-faming Tom Cruise

Has any star ever been the subject of more rumour-mongering than Tom Cruise? According to a multitude of new and old allegations: he's gay; he's impotent; his sperm count is too low to father a child; his first marriage, to actress Mimi Rogers, disintegrated under the pressure of her sexual frustration; his second wife, Nicole Kidman, left him on the expiry of her 10-year marriage contract with him; Mrs Cruise III, Katie Holmes, is also under contract but with the added proviso of falling pregnant to him; their child, Suri Cruise, is not his and her actual biological father is either actor Chris Klein or deceased Scientology founder, L Ron Hubbard, via frozen sperm; while his adopted children were purchased from impoverished Scientology adherents.

Tom Cruise has died at least once - most recently last year, when he fell to his death in notorious celebrity danger zone New Zealand; he's demonstrated his genius for typecasting by giving Victoria Beckham the role of an alien princess in a film about Scientology; he's built a bunker in Colorado in which to shelter from the wrath of intergalactic warrior Xenu; and most enduringly, he's said to be hopelessly devoted to alleged fellow Scientologist Will Smith, from which the need for contract wives arises. Will Smith has publicly defended Tom Cruise and his faith but denies membership in the church of Scientology.

In fact, there is not a shred of evidence to support any of these stories and most have been either retracted when legally tested or disproved by the conflicting accounts of informed witnesses. Yet, they persist. Mud sticks, as they say, but in Tom Cruise's case, it seems that no amount of PR detergent can cleanse his public image. But why? What is about him that leads people to believe and propagate such unlikely tales?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (78)

Lord of the scandalised

Does a star's bad behaviour colour your view of their talent?

The question is prompted by recent revelations of a famous author's history of sexual violence. In the forthcoming biography William Golding: The Man Who Wrote The Lord of the Flies, Oxford literature professor emeritus John Carey relates the grubby tale of William Golding's attempted rape of a 15-year-old acquaintance during a holiday break from Oxford university.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (40)

Beauty queens

The glorious parade of national pride and feminine wiles that is the Miss Universe pageant has been dominating the frivilous end of news all week. Between the swimsuit parade, the ludicrous national costume event and the conferral of semi-royal status by means of a tiara and a title, it's a lavish spectacle, at once surreal and fascinating.

Whatever one may think of beauty pageants as a competitive genre, there's no doubt that they exert a fierce hold over our culture that no amount of social progress seems likely to diminish. If anything, pageant mania is intensifying. In a truly disturbing development, an American mother, Heather Hughes, has taken to entering her young boys Hayden and Maverick into beauty pageants. Her reasoning, "When I see little girls, I always think that I could turn my boys into little girls ... These are my girls that I never had, so I'll just turn them into girls." What is going through this woman's mind? I know you don't believe me so watch her interviewed on Toddlers and Tiaras.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (20)

Hollywood bowl cuts: men barbering badly

Men and hair. So long as they have it, there's generally not much to maintaining it. Short back and sides; product for the dandies; sideburns for the exhibitionists. Barbering is a dull but worthy occupation and that's the way most men like it.

But celebrities are a breed apart with a special weakness for misguided ego-projection. Too much of which takes place on their heads. The more famous, the less constrained they are by what looks good and the more likely to express their individuality with their hair. Some would-be leading men, like Russell Brand, can pull off a distressed dome but it requires a deep vein of self-deprecating humour that few egomaniacs possess. Most of the famously dread-headed just look silly. I've nominated nine of the worst head crimes to be seen amongst men whose stylists really ought to know better but there are certainly many more.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (60)

Nigella Lawson: beauty or the feast?

According to a recent survey conducted for Kellogg's Special K, the body shape women find most inspiring is Nigella Lawson's. Seems unlikely. Especially in light of another similar survey this month by Heat magazine that asked which celebrity has the most enviable body. The second survey produced more predictable results with Megan Fox topping the list.

Nigella Lawson is an attractive woman of many achievements but her too-full figure is more likely to inspire exercise than emulation. The starkly divergent outcomes of the two British surveys is probably due to the wording of the question. Considering the four women who immediately follow Nigella Lawson on the Kelloggs list - Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Julie Walters - it would seem that respondents to that survey confused physique with persona and nominated the female celebrity they most admire. Hardly surprising, it's an inane question. But the result is intriguing. Why are women so enamoured of Nigella Lawson?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (117)

Angelina Jolie walks out on Brad Pitt

Brangelina are once again hovering on the brink of implosion after their latest feud. This time they're allegedly fighting over their children's diet, with Brad plumping for vegetarianism and Angelina resisting.

Following a blazing row, she's left the family home and holed up in a Beverley Hills hotel, Raffles L'Hermitage - the same digs her mother lived in until her death two years ago. Apparently, Angelina is communing with her departed mother's spirit in an effort to regain her equanimity. At least that's the story making the rounds on various gossip sites. But is it true - even a little bit?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (39)

Blade runners: Hollywood's worst plastic surgery

Air brushed magazine photos and copious amounts of plastic surgery would have us believe that ageing can be overcome with enough money, exercise and sheer will power. But can it really? Madonna's done everything possible to stave off middle-age, and from the right angle she seems to have succeeded. But catch her from another side and she looks like any other wiry 50-year-old woman with a scalpel fetish.

The biggest difference between the physical decline of celebrities and the rest of us seems to be in the pace of ageing. Most people grow old gradually. Wrinkles deepen and eyelids droop a little lower each year. On planet Hollywood though, no one is older than 35 - until, suddenly, they're 70. Or, at least that's what they think. The celebrity propensity for self-inflicted facial distortion doesn't make the rich and famous look younger, it just makes them look different. As in different from human. Multiple facelifts and skin resurfacing treatments rarely produce a youthful effect. In most cases, extensive work makes human beings look like middle-aged replicants of their former selves. If androids grew old, they'd look like Madonna. So, who are the worst of the plastic passion victims?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (80)

The price of beauty

British celebrity WAG Cheryl Cole reportedly spends over $200,000 annually to maintain her good looks. That seems like a credulity-stretching amount but The Daily Mail costed her grooming regime from afar and reckons she spends even more! Whatever the case, it seems that once the personal trainers, stylists, hairdressers, designers and cosmetic dentists have been paid, Cheryl doesn't get a lot of change out of a mid-level executive's annual salary.

No doubt Cheryl Cole's approach to household budgeting is wildly tilted towards personal grooming but it's really just an extreme example of the typical female beauty regimen. We all spend a small fortune on personal maintenance these days and the pressure to "invest" in oneself is only growing stronger.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (46)

Retailing rage

Is there anyone in this world who truly loves to shop or is our alleged weakness for retail therapy just a very successful marketing myth? Judging from the vast number of complaints made to various consumer protection bodies, it would seem that shopping is actually a deeply unpopular activity that is at best tedious, at worst tortuous.

And it's not just Australians who bristle at the thought of exercising their purchasing power. Type "shopping sucks" into Google and reel from the magnitude of 56,800 entries decrying it as everything from boring to ludicrously time consuming to psychosis-inducing. But what people seem to really hate is the frustration it causes.

Over and over again, in blogs, articles and forums, the primary complaint is the lack of choice. People can't buy the things they want to buy and it really annoys them. Far from the popular notion that we are overwhelmed by choice, consumers are by and large profoundly underwhelmed by the range of goods available to them.

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (61)

Dress size and sensibility

What dress size are you? If you do most of your shopping in Australia, that can be a tough question to answer. A size 10 at one retailer is often of similar proportions to a size 14 garment from another shop. And sizes can vary considerably even within the same label.

It's a confusing state of affairs for the consumer and presumably, it doesn't do the industry any favours either. So how did wildly divergent sizing come to be the norm? And beyond the inconvenience, does it really matter? If so, what should be done about it?

• Read more…
• Posted at 12:00 AM
• Comments (103)