FILED UNDER: NAILED IT

From leopard spots to black french manicures, nails have clearly become the accessory of the season. And while you’ll usually find us getting ours done as inexpensively as possible, we’ll pay a pretty penny to be sent to Mars. This Japanese import in West Hollywood offers exquisitely appointed private rooms, legendary service and an out of this world experience. The 100-minute pedicure and designs are far from alienating.

Mars the Salon: 606 Westmount Dr. West Hollywood, CA

FILED UNDER: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

There are two things I remember distinctly about my mom - her Louis Vuitton tote and her Erno Laszlo skin care routine. Once I made enough money, I bought the tote; but now it’s time for the mother load.

I just previewed the full collection at Saks with Erno Laszlo’s dreamy CEO, Charles Denton. Each product was better the be next, their serum can seemingly work magic, their creams felt sublime, and using the Hollywood collection made me feel as close to a star as I will ever get.

Erno Laszlo will also be opening a 10,000 sq ft. space in NYC this October where you will be told what you should do for your skin…not asked. Sort of like 50 Shades of Grey — but giving you great skin without all that pain. Sounds like heaven to me.

So it seems Mom really did know best along.

www.saks.com

Over here at Trendera, we have been pondering the online niche dating scene for awhile now… Recently we speculated that online dating was actually shifting in a major way. It used to be that young people would go online to seek mates (or hookups as it may be) that were OUTSIDE their scene. But now people are searching for not something different, but for more of the same! Though not exactly a dating site, the new Insane Clown Posse, JuggaloBook--a Facebook for Juggalos—shows how increasingly consumers are not branching out online, but rather fortifying their Isolation Nations. 

Filed Under: The Real Housewives of Disney 

Alright, I’m about to admit that I spent Saturday night wondering if Lindsey Lohan is going to make the comeback she needs on SNL. The answer is still up in the air, but Kristen Wiig’s rendition of Cinderella still has me cracking up today! Oh, also “Be our Guest. Be our Guest. Caviar.” 

I’m sure that your Facebook feed is full with everyone from your elementary school teacher to your third cousin racketeering for you to help fund their creative endeavor, but I wanted to bring to your attention one that is totally worth spending 20 bucks to help make happen, The Land Line—an underground newspaper hailing from Chicago. Not only does this paper have some of the oddest and best minds in Chicago working to make it happen, it’s drawing people together from across the country to create a journal they describe as “raunchy, flamboyant, interdisciplinary, and intellectually rigorous, a kaleidoscope of research-based essays butting up against nonlinear comics.”  Oh, if that doesn’t attract your interest, their dedicated contributing editor Dan Edelstein has agreed to get a Land Line tattoo if they meet their Kickstarter goal. If they double it, he totally swears he’ll get the tattoo on his butt. Talk about dedication.

I have to say I kinda understand where Edelstein is coming from. A bunch of the folks behind The Land Line also happen to be people that I worked with to create The Skeleton News—one of the weirdest, in my opinion best underground newspapers to pop up sporadically around Chicago during 2006 to 2008. At the time I was in journalism graduate school learning about how e-mags were going to eat and spit out print for breakfast and I would get together with all of the Skeleton editors at an apartment Pilsen. We’d stay up all night physically cutting and pasting photocopies of articles that Liam Warfield printed in the library. We’d drink whiskey, get covered in glue residue, argue about writing (never really the comics for some reason!) and end the night with a bonfire. If you had told me to get a Skeleton tattoo at this time, I would have happily obliged. I tracked writer and editor, Robin Hustle and comic artist/ editor Grant Reynolds to ask them a few questions.

 Me: I always think about creating the Skeleton News as one of the best times in my life (which makes me sound a little like I’m retired), but I was wondering if you could tell me some of the memories that you have of creating The Skeleton. 

Robin Hustle: We were just talking about the time we stayed up all night laying out the Skeleton and then threw a pancake brunch benefit in Liam’s backyard—Fiona and I were in a band together at the time and played our second show that day with the train going past and drowning us out. I think Grant released his Lost Dirty Garfield comic at that brunch, too.

Grant Reynolds: I remember sitting on the steps watching everyone in the backyard having a great time, and I was nursing this cocktail, but it felt like an out of body experience. I was so happy and content, but at the same time completely racked with exhaustion.

Ruth: And there was that first benefit show at now-defunct Mister City, one of the best underground venues Chicago’s ever had—it was Halloween and Eleanor Balson dumpstered a hundred cases of beer that we sold to pay for our first issue. 

Me: Is The Land Line continuing the tradition of excellent benefits?

Robin: Mayor Daley, Wume, ONO, Bomb Banks, and DJ Jean Shorts played the first benefit at a space in Wicker Park and this amazing thing happened: all the wasted pricks gallivanting around the neighborhood dropped in, paid the cover, and left, so we made a lot of money without the party getting destroyed by assholes. The bands were fantastic and everyone would’ve danced all night if we’d let them. We also did a brunch with readings and film screenings that lasted for six hours straight and left people feeling really stoked about the paper..

How did you get involved with The Skeleton and what lead to the creation of The Land Line?

Grant Reynolds: I was at a Coughs show in 2006 talking to Anya and she told me about this new publication called The Skeleton News that this kid Liam was starting. He’d had a very vivid dream one night about starting a newspaper called The Skeleton, and when he woke he took this dream as some sort of sign. Having been so involved with The Skeleton, I think it’s difficult for Robin and me to fully separate it from The Land Line. In the back of both our minds we always seem to be comparing and contrasting the two projects. But, The Land Line is definitely it’s own thing and I’m very excited to see what that thing is going to become.

Robin: In September, Grant called me up to talk about starting up some kind of stepchild of the Skeleton. I think I told him I’d prefer to be minimally involved on the production end, though I’d love to write for it – what a joke.

What makes the Land Line different from other publications?

Robin: The Land Line rose from the ashes of the Skeleton but it’s turned out to be a fairly different paper… We’re taking everything we like to see in print and putting it in one place, and it makes for a rare combination of material. We’re trying to put out a journal that’s intellectually rigorous and sleazy at the same time. We’re publishing the work of established writers and people who make zines and people who usually make films or play in bands or whatever side-by-side. Our production process is collaborative, and completely dependent on eating and drinking together as much as possible. I’m generally a controlling bitch, but there’s nothing like a potluck meeting to soften me up to other people’s ideas.

Grant: It definitely operates on its own terms. It isn’t just another drop in the bucket of independent publishing. And there is that sense of community surrounding it, which is something that I think carried over from The Skeleton.

What is the thing that makes you the most excited about with the Land Line?

Grant: To be back in the mess! It can be such a brutal and overwhelming process, but one which is profoundly and endlessly rewarding. And the best part is that I have no idea where it’s going or what’s going to happen next. We get relive that amazing time in our lives, but now we’re older and more experienced, so it’s going to be a whole other beast.

Menswear doesn’t have a lot of options, so it’s all about the details. One of the details that dominated the last year has been cuffing ones pants, and even shorts over the summer. But now fashion influencers are moving on (or back) to the fray. A look that I’m really feeling right now for almost any outfit.

Filed Under: Utopia/Distopia

In a recent trend where music videos under five minutes aren’t enough, electro pop band YACHT is following suit and released their dual-song video today for “Utopia/Distopia.” The video is full of trends from the band’s goofball sincerity to the fashion and images. Great to see YACHT putting out video like above and unrelenting in their silly but stylish nature. DFA Records which put out their album is seemingly unstoppable right now.