Photo meme

My two-year LJ anniversary is coming up this weekend. You know I like to celebrate things by sharing (awww), and this time, I invite you to request pictures of stuff in my life.

Lifted from roga who got it from leiascully who got it from...:

Comment with something you want me to take a photo of, and I will.

Concrete or abstract, personal or fandom-related or general -- anything's game. (Though I may take some liberties to protect anonymity and whatnot.)

Tim Gunn's Guide To Style!

After much happy anticipation, Tim Gunn's Guide To Style (Bravo, Thurs. 10 p.m. EST) premiered last night. A fashion makeover TV show, it stars my future gay celebrity husband, Tim Gunn, former Chair of Fashion Design at Parsons/The New School in NYC and mentor of the designers of Project Runway. It was great! I knew I'd love it for the sheer volume of Tim Gunnity, regardless of show quality, but it really was enjoyable to watch. And not just because of all the opportunities to gleefully cry, "I love you, Tim Gunn!" and offer running commentary on behalf of the contestant such as "Tim Gunn is coming to my apartment!", "Tim Gunn is averting his eyes as his co-host goes through my underwear drawer!", "Tim Gunn just accidentally tugged down my dress as he explained where the hemline should fall!" and "Tim Gunn is dabbing away tears at our emotional conclusion!"

In the tradition of What Not To Wear, the premise of Tim Gunn's Guide To Style is that each week, Gunn and supermodel co-host Veronica Webb select a candidate (I believe they're self-nominated) in need of help with her clothing style (or lack thereof) and teach her how to choose clothes that suit her figure and personality, in addition to providing her with a few pairs of shoes, money for the initial Manhattan shopping trip, a haircut and makeup instructions. If future episodes resemble last night's, TGGTS goes a little further by first taking the guest for an undergarment fitting and later bringing her to one of Tim Gunn's many fashion designer friends so she can select a high-end dress for herself (Sifting through the racks with a contagious grin on her face, last night's contestant exclaimed, "I've never been in a store like this in my life!").

This is all part of a self-esteem-building process intended to help the contestant feel comfortable in her body so she can wear her new clothes—or any clothes—with confidence. For at least the first episode, that includes attending a session with a Ben Affleck-esque "life therapist" (no, not therapist, but I can't remember the term they used) in which the guest dons a belted garbage bag, does a runway walk and recites, "I cannot control how I am perceived. I can only control how I am presented" while looking at her reflection in two distorted mirrors and one regular full-length mirror. ... Yeah, that was the weird part of the hour. But it seemed to work for her.

The comparison to What Not To Wear may not be fair, but since it is unavoidable and TGGTS comes out ahead in every way, I'm going to continue in bullet-point format with ( 1,200 words of Things I Like Better About This Show Than What Not To Wear: )

The end was also lovely, when the contestant came out for a private little fashion show with her husband and family. The show chipped in and got her husband a platinum-and-diamond ring to give to her, since they married young and their money was tight. He gave a little speech when he handed it to her, talking about how wonderful it was to see her so confident and happy, and everyone in the room teared up. Because of the way everything had been handled on the show leading up to this, it felt fairly true rather than forced or sudden or overdone. (Then they flew her mother in who'd just had surgery, and everyone really lost it.)

I freely admit that I am one of the fashion senseless.* I never learned how to put together outfits beyond "shirt + pants + shoes = leave the house," I don't shop in expensive clothing stores, and it's only because of occasional viewings of WNTW that I'm now learning what kinds of things might look best on me and what might be considered too young a look. So I identify with a lot of the contestants, and that is probably part of the reason I take offense at some of the things that are said and done to them on these types of shows (by which I mean WNTW, because that's the only one I've ever seen before TGGTS). And last night, I felt that I would've nominated myself for TGGTS if I could've (I think they've filmed them all already and are just airing them now before the new season of Project Runway starts). Not only was the contestant treated better, but I'd love to have the opportunity to sit down and see things on a computer model and consider celebrities with my kind of figure and have personal expert shoppers explain things to me in a dressing room for a day. Point is, if I were on a fashion TV show, I'd want it to be this one.

*Keep this in mind, deelaundry, when I snap a photo of my favorite outfit for the meme. :)

And, yes. I taped the show because I didn't think I'd be able to stay awake through it, but happily did, and now I'm glad I recorded it because I think I might actually want to watch it again, which is more than I can say for any episode of WNTW. And I will be watching next week to see if the quality remains high. The end.