Oh, Copenhagen

Oh, Copenhagen. How I do not really miss thee but then again I do.

Recently I found Copenhagen Street Style - a Danish blog trying to capture all the hip young things gracing the streets of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is peculiar in the sense that you tend to see muted colours everywhere - black, beige, brown and the occasional daring navy - so I actually do applaud CSS's decision to feature people who dare break away from the safe colours.

It is just a shame that the featured fashion victims dare-devils haven't got a clue what they are doing. I get the idea of deconstructing fashion - actually, I also get how deconstructing fashion is circa 1998. I also get the idea of anti-fashion in the sense of reclaiming fashion and style from the hegemony of big bad cooperations and leading fashion editors. But anti-fashion is as much about knowing the semiotics of fashion as it is about rejecting tokenism. And, judging by the majority of the photos on CSS, these so-called fashionistas really do not have a clue. They are concerned about looking 'cool' (which in its own right is embracing the idea of fashion as the idea of 'cool' changes rapidly) and 'edgy'. Sadly they just end up looking like prats who are groping in the dark, to quote a well-known poet (or, in the case of the people pictured, like sad fans of the Reynolds Girls).

For your amusement (or horror, depending upon your sensibilities), I also would like to draw your attention to:

• when layering goes evil
• patterned mistakes
• the fashion version of burnt porridge
• the Danish ned
• the girl with no neck
• why skinny jeans should actually fit you
• someone likes a Flock of Seagulls (and should lose the bag and find a yellow belt that's not an homage to Karate Kid)
• pregnancy clothes r us if we lived in 1982 and in rural Denmark and only ate oatmeal
• and a random German guy in shorts
• yo! MTV raps but unfortunately on a skinny Dane
• words absolutely fail me except to say, 'poor girl'

I almost miss muted colours now.

Re-Arranging Letters

Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous application as it infringes upon Scrabble's copyright. Scrabulous is one of the two reasons why I have not grown entirely tired of Facebook yet (the other being Staries where I'm trying to get above 19000 points because I'm a sad individual). I might reconsider my Facebook profile if Scrabulous is pulled - although there is something to be said about reconnecting with people you haven't seen in fifteen years (what that 'something' is I will leave for you, dear reader, to decide).

On a much brighter note, this book just arrived in the post and seeing as I finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell last night, that is damn good timing. Thoughts on Strange & Norrell will be posted once I have finished processing it in my head.

Finally, the book widget question. Now Reading appears to be quite useful as a tracking tool rather than as a library tool. By that I mean that it enables me to track what I am reading (thus making the Books 2008 page rather obsolete) but it cannot keep track of my book collection. I'll keep it for now but any book widget suggestions are still warmly welcomed.

Edit: more on Facebook, Scrabulous and infringing copyrights