Summer’s Covergirl Cara enjoys an Aussie summer outdoor.
Issue
- A Word from the Editor - Dawson Ko.
- 90 Days of Summer - Stephanie Lau.
- Looking HOT when hot - Dawson Ko.
- Fashionable Days Gallery.
- Summer Collections 2009/2010 - What's Hot and What's Not - Nicole Barron.
- A Reformed Fashion Victim - Emma Fraser.
- I Wear, Therefore I Am - Tina Nguyen.
- ipod & i - Dawson Ko.
- Fashionable Nights Gallery.
- Fashion for a Cause - Katie Preston Toepfer
- Emergency Shoe Update: From a "Girly-Girl's" Point of View - Maree Jordanoski.
- End Credits.
I Wear, Therefore I Am
Tina Nguyen takes a hard look at herself, her friends and those around her, to understand why we dress the way that we do!
I was with some friends when we walked past a certain fast food joint. We all made the natural eye scan of the place when we started to snigger at the same time. At one of the table there was a group of young fembots dressed up as girls. Or was it the other way around? They all had the same fake tan, the same fake blond hair, side part and GHD straight. They were all wearing cut off light treated denim shorts with a variant of a loose flowy singlet top and on their feet, were some sort of gladiator sandals. It wouldn't have surprised us if the Barbie dolls broke out into a song and dance. We would have ensured that we inserted gold coins (somewhere) to keep the monkey girls dancing.
This got me thinking, do we dress like our friends or do we gravitate towards people who dress like us?
A high school boyfriend of mine recently made contact on Facebook. He was from an innocent time in my life when dating wasn't dating. Dating was "going around" with. And "going around" with meant sitting in the playground, eating our little sandwiches together, while our knees were touching. He reminds me of a time when my school uniform, complete with white socks and a tie was significant pieces of clothing. Something we wore 5 days a week, 6 hours or more a day. It is no wonder, some tried so hard to personalise, customise the little white short sleeve shirt and the little pleated checked skirt. We all wanted a little piece of us to be expressed in what was something very standard and very mass. I must admit I only tampered with the length of my skirt. Short enough not to dwarf me but to accentuate the smallest part of my thigh while long enough to ensure my modesty remained in tact.
Tyron also reminded me of my faux "Homie/Skater" days. I was neither but I hung out with Skaters who were wannabe Homies so I dressed like one. Tyron, all my friends and I all owned more than one pair of Kepper Jeans. They were the baggiest jeans and very similar to another brand called Cross Colours, made famous by "Kris Kross" - two little rapping African American brothers. I had a pair of green ones, burgundy one and plain denim, which I wore back with an equally loose tshirt and topped off with a loose sporty parker. Don't forget to wear it with some Fila sneakers. It's a bloody wonder any guy can find a girl attractive in such encompassing clothes. So yes, at certain times in our lives, we do dress like our crew. Particularly when we were young and yet to develop our own sense of self and consequently our own style.
Now, I can say with 100% conviction I am not a clone of any of friends nor they of me. However, this is not to say that my friends do not inspire me and influence the choices in fashion which I make. Carmen, a beautiful Italian friend who has dramatic eyes, throws together quirky pieces which are never real trend pieces but still manages to look fashionable. It is her own style and I love it. It is very European chic without any hint of gold jewellery and black roots tackarama. Wenny, a finger on the pulse of fashion friend who is conveniently a fashion buyer, is able to translates both high street and high end but only taking the best bits, into her outfits. Ita, the little pocket rocket chef, who would be the first to say she doesn't care about fashion as much as I do. She will pick the most random items, whether it be from a dodge-wa store in Chinatown or uber cool shop such as Incu. So when we're lucky, results are pretty rockin'. Just a snapshot of the girls I associate myself with. Otherwise, we may be here a while. What I am trying to say, all of my friends are different with a different sense of style, and it somehow works for each and every one of them.
To answer the second part of my question, it is not so much we are attracted to those who dress like us now, but more those who provide inspiration which we can take and make our own. To provide some excitement, newness and an element of symbolic connection to our outfits. So how do I dress? I dress a little like Carmen, Wenny, Ita and all my friends, perhaps not all together and definitely not all in one outfit or even one day. I dress a little like the gorgeous models on tearing down the runway, wearing the latest trends. I dress a little like the fashion bloggers, posting about their latest fashion finds. I dress a little to accommodate Sydney's gorgeous weather and relaxed vibe. I dress a little to indicate my profession. I dress a little to add theatre to my life. I dress a little to highlight my good bits and hide my ugly bits. I dress a little to play the game. I dress a little for all the above. But really don't we all?
Tina Nguyen
The 3rd Generation Apple ipod touch.
ipod & i
The third generation of iPods bring a nice 2009 surprise to the vision impaired consumer. Every new third generation iPod touch now possesses magnification and screen reading software which makes the portable music scene a reality for the blind.
Music was previously the only form of entertainment which was ideal for a low vision person, as it required no sight to enjoy. Then MP3 players came on the scene and complicated this simple balance, making the blind user isolated from this ever-expanding trend of holding your entire collection of music in the palm of your hand.
But excluded no more! Thanks to Apple and their conviction to include all, Apple's very own adaptive technology works seamlessly with the iPod allowing for perfect handling and accessibility. Simply by turning on (only once) speech from the internal settings or magnification (dependent on your visual acuity), it is possible to download your CDs onto iTunes. Give it a few days to become completely confident in your iPod handling, and a vision impaired user is on his/her way to playing his/her music wherever he/she is.
With the largest capacity on offer being the ipod touch 64Gb, taking your whole entire music collection with you is a very much a reality now. However the iPod touch does not only play music, it also plays videos on its wide screen, and you can access your e-mails, iTunes store, YouTube, stockmarket, maps and weather on the move, as long as you have a wireless Internet feed.
And for you vision impaired users, if you don't want to have your pods (headphones) in all the time and still want to do other things while listening to your music, the iPod touch even has an in-built speaker to allow you to listen to your music out loud.
If you're wondering how the touch screen works with the screen reader, wonder no more! With a touch screen which covers the entire circumference of the player, simply touching the screen with your finger will produce different audio feedback, either telling you (by making a certain sound) that you're touching a blank space, or it will announce to you the button that you have touched. To actually press that button, you simply double tap the button and the icon or function is activated. While if you're lazy like me, simply shaking the player will also change tracks. In the 32Gb and 64Gb versions, the headphones include a small microphone so that you can record audio and use as voice commands to operate the player - pretty cool hey?
In my personal opinion I'm very happy with my ipod, just the fact that a MP3 producer has finally considered the blind consumer and created a product which is completely accessible to us, so that we are now included in the whole iPod/portable music scene, means a lot. Now discussions about pod-casting, iTunes, Apple store and perhaps.........even iPhones, will actually have real meaning for us.
Dawson relaxes after work with his pods in.
So after a few weeks with my ipod touch 64Gb, I've managed to sync 8Gb of music onto it, which ensures that if I place it on shuffle I'd expect to be surprised and entertained by a different song for hours (and even days!) on end without repeating a single track, with plenty more space for more and more music! I'm still amazed at the sound quality of each song when you have your pods in, and previously unheard background effects are now crystal clear in your ears. And I'm always stroking my iPod touch, as seedy as that sounds, as I can't get enough of how sleek it all feels, it's so slender, so perfectly refined, I just can't keep my hands off you, iPod touch 64Gb! So there, this is my personal account of my iPod & i. I hope she (iPod touch 64Gb) feels the same way about me!
Dawson Ko