Outfit of the Day

Outfit of the Day!

I went into town with my friends today- I WILL be making a post about it since I did get some street style done, saw some cool graffiti in Brick Lane and did more photography. 

"Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers." -Alexander Lee McQueen [R.I.P]

Scarf: Alexander McQueen
T-shirt: Ralph Lauren Beaded polo shirt
Chino's: Jack Wills
Military Jacket: Juicy Couture
Ring: Alexander McQueen
Earrings: Jeeyun Ha Designs [I LOVE these earrings so much, I just can't stop wearing them- I think I need them in another colour].
Watch: Toy Watch 
Bag: Mulberry Alexa
Sunglasses: RayBan Wayfarers
Shoes: French Sole

Peace and love,

Ashley the Fashionista

xoxo

Star Style For Less - January Jones in Turquoise Skirt And Leather Jacket

January Jones' character Betty is one of the most fashionable women on TV today! While she dons the vintage glam on Mad Men, January's style is usually very trendy and modern in real life. She puts her best foot forward in this pretty turquoise skirt and a chic leather jacket. I love the color block effect in this outfit and really really love her bag! Needless to say, I was on a hunt for similar pieces to recreate her look!

And here is how I assembled her feminine yet edgy look for less!

Get January Jones' Style For Less Here -

How do you like January's look and my recreation?

For daily dose of style delights, connect with me on -

 

Obamacare and the Underlying Premises of the Constitution

The past week the Supreme Court heard argument essentially on two questions:  (1) is the individual mandate of Obamacare constitutional, i.e., can the federal government require a private citizen to enter into a contract with a private company to buy a particular service simply because the federal government thinks that it's a good thing for society as a whole?   And, (2), if it isn't constitutional, can the rest of Obamacare be salvaged under the rubric of severability?   Readers of this blog know that I think the answers are "no," and "no."

But there are two other reasons that were never before the Court why the Regular Guy thinks Obamacare is unconstitutional.  

Everyone admits that they haven't read the bill.   Democratic Congressmen who voted on Obamacare have admitted repeatedly that they didn't read it.   It's too complex, it's too long, no one has the time, even if you did read it cover-to-cover you wouldn't understand it, etc.   In my view, if a bill is so complex that the legislators who enact it can't understand it, then it was not the product of a rational legislative process as envisioned by the Founders.   Either we have a representative government, or we have a rubber-stamp for nameless bureaucrats, lobbyists and staffers.   If the latter, that's not what the Constitution requires, period.

No one knows what it will cost.   The touted cost of Obamacare was something on the order of $900 billion.   The most recent estimate from the CBO says it's something closer to $1.8 trillion over ten years.   Medicare estimates were famously off by tenfold or more.   In short, no one knows what Obamacare will cost.   That being the case, what exactly was enacted.   Every Act of Congress to appropriate our tax dollars for spending tacitly prioritizes -- we will spend X on this program rather than X on some other public good.    But here, no one knows what we're spending, so no one who voted on it knew what the tradeoffs were.   Again, the Constitution created Congress to be a deliberative body to make rational decisions about spending our public monies.   If the Obamacare majority literally did not know what they were voting on, then they can't have been acting deliberatively, and instead were acting irrationally.   In my view, that makes Obamacare null and void ab initio.  

Girl of the Day - Norah Jones

She turns 33 today.   Here's the song that caught my attention awhile back... not sure what she's been doing since:

Death Knell for Santorum Campaign

No one thought Rick Santorum would be the last man standing against Mitt Romney.   He's done a helluva job, and should be commended.   But it sure looks like the party is coalescing around Romney's candidacy.   Within the past few days, former President George H.W. Bush and Florida Senator Marco Rubio both endorsed Romney.   Today, perhaps the most important endorsement of all comes from Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan:

Rep. Paul Ryan endorsed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Fox and Friends this morning. Ryan said the primary process has been productive and constructive up to this point, but that it is time to unite around Romney.

"I am convinced if we drag this out to the summer, it's going to make it that much harder to beat Obama in the fall,"  Ryan said.

Santorum is still close in Wisconsin, and there's a chance he could pull it out.   But I think Ryan's endorsement will actually give Romney a big boost here, and lead to a double-digit win.   Santorum needed to win Michigan, Ohio or Wisconsin to stay viable.   He won't do it, and after Wisconsin there will be lots of calls for him to get out.   If he were to hang on through the end of April, he could then mount a charge of sorts in May, when the calendar is more favorable with primaries in the South and the most conservative Midwest states (Indiana and Nebraska).   But the math will make those too little too late and donors will probably say "why bother?"

Ryan, by the way, is now the de facto leader of the party, an enormously likeable and respected figure.   Would he accept the Vice Presidential nomination?   More to the point:   why would he?   Doesn't he have more power where he is?

"Pregnant and I Know It" MUSIC VIDEO (Parody of "Sexy and I Know It")

The Contraception Fiasco and the Supreme Court

Benjamin Zycher, writing at NRO, makes an interesting point connecting the recent fiasco over HHS regulations (promulgated under the authority created by the Obamacare legislation) requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraception, abortifacients and sterilization services in their health insurance plans, and the Supreme Court's skepticism this week about the constitutionality of Obamacare generally:

One trivial thought that I have not seen elsewhere: I wonder if the Left/Obama/Kathleen Sebelius didn’t shoot themselves in the backside when they decided to apply a chainsaw to the religious liberty of the Catholic hospitals, etc. That episode, I think, brought out in sharp relief the unprecedented degree of coercion inexorably inherent in Obamacare, the eagerness with which the Left employs it, and the thoughtlessness with which the Left is willing to destroy the institutions of civil society as they pursue their political goals. They really believe that people of religious faith are simpletons standing in the way of ever-greater individual dependence upon Leviathan. And so I have a sense — but no direct evidence — that Kennedy and perhaps Roberts may have recoiled in horror from the prospect of Obamacare more deeply than otherwise might have been the case, as they were confronted with the prospective wholesale descent into economic fascism that is the very essence of Obamacare.

I think he's onto something here.   Think about it:

Scalia.... Catholic.
Alito.... Catholic.
Kennedy.... Catholic.
Thomas.... Catholic.
Roberts... Catholic.   

In other words, the Obama Administration, in their infinite wisdom, went out of their way to publicly affront the faith of the entire conservative majority of the Supreme Court a month before the Obamacare case was to be heard.     

How To Wear Colored Jeans? That's How!

Well, that's one way of wearing colored jeans! Honestly when it comes to Spring 2012's hottest trend, (which has been 'hot' for quite some time now! I still have an issue of Elle magazine that boasted about colored denim being 'in' during 2010) there is no rule! Some of my favorite looks with colored jeans are color block, hint of neon, pastel on pastel and of course the coral jeans Kate Middleton wore with a blazer at her Olympic Park visit!  Anyhoo, I am wearing my mint green skinny jeans with one of my favorite pieces in  my wardrobe - an old blazer (from 2006!) Somethings really never go out of style!

Jeans - Forever 21

Blazer - Burberry
Belt - Steve Madden (Marshall's)

Shoes - Target

Bangle - Forever 21 (buy here)

If you like this look, you can get it here -

How are you wearing your colored denim? 

For your daily dose of  style delights, connect with me on-

 

January Jones in Skaist Taylor!

Spotted: Skaist Taylor!

Mad Men star January Jones in the military jacket with the fur trim from the new Skaist Taylor collection (Skaist Tyalor is the new brand brought to you by the wonderful women that created Juicy Couture).


 

Peace and love,

Ashley the Fashionista

xoxo

Trayvon and the President

Ace over at the AoSHQ makes the following great poin about the Trayvon Martin caset:

We still don't know enough here to be confident of knowing anything.

What we do know is that Community Organizers have ratcheted up a Get Zimmerman campaign without knowing anything, and the media, of course, gleefully assisted.

The proper authorities should be permitted to come to a reasoned, evidenced decision, get this, without the threat of riots should they not decide as the Mob may prefer.

Obama ran partly on the idea that he was some kind of racial healer.
If he doesn't defuse this situation, and this city riots -- so much for that, eh?

Where's Obama's supposedly vaunted temperament and reason now? When reason and restraint are called for, he pitches emotion -- the last thing an already hyper-emotional case needs.

When the President of the United States intervenes in a local criminal matter in which very few facts are known, and says that the victim "looks like the son I never had," he's essentially taking sides.   That is incredibly inappropriate for a government official, and incredibly stupid for someone who supposedly taught Constitutional law.   If I were George Zimmerman's attorney, I'd be arguing that his civil rights to due process and equal protection under the law have already been violated when the President broadcasts what amounts to a pre-determination of his guilt.   



P.S.   This may seem unrelated, but doesn't this situation remind you of the President's gaffe with Medvedev? In both cases, he seems confused about what the proper role of a President is, and, ultimately, confused about the question of whom he serves. With Medvedev he seems to have forgotten that he's the President of the United States, not the Chairman of some U.N. initiative to reduce nuclear arsenals. With his comments about Trayvon Martin, he seems to have forgotten that he's the President for all Americans, not a community organizer, much less a race hustler a la Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. 

Girl of the Day - Elle MacPherson

Probably number four in the list of greatest SI swimsuit models ever, behind only Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley and Kathy Ireland.    She turns 48 today.   Tempus fugit, as the Regular Son would say after Latin class at the local Jesuit high school.   Needless to say, they don't have girls there, and, if they did, they wouldn't look like this.  

Last Thoughts on Obamacare

The argument over severability yesterday included this wonderful statement by Justice Kennedy about whether it would be radical to overturn the entirety of the Obamacare legislation:

JUSTICE KENNEDY: When you say judicial restraint, you are echoing the earlier premise that it increases the judicial power if the judiciary strikes down other provisions of the Act. I suggest to you it might be quite the opposite. We would be exercising the judicial power if one Act was — one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended. By reason of this Court, we would have a new regime that Congress did not provide for, did not consider. That, it seems to me, can be argued at least to be a more extreme exercise of judicial power than to strike -­ than striking the whole. . . . I just don’t accept the premise.

In fact, it would be extraordinarily radical for the Court not to strike down the entirety of Obamacare, if the individual mandate is found to be unconstitutional.   As I explained yesterday, insurance companies cannot survive if they are obliged to cover everyone who wants a policy regardless of pre-existing conditions, but healthy people aren't obliged to purchase policies.   There will literally be no money available to pay for the health care of sick people who show up demanding coverage.   So, if the Court were to let Obamacare stand but invalidate the individual mandate, what the Court would be doing, in effect, would be tantamount to enacting a single-payer, nationalized, socialist health care system, because the only thing that would remain after insurance companies left the business would be the government Leviathan.   No one ran on that, no one voted for that, no one honestly announced their intention that a single-payer socialist system would be the result.   In short, if that resulted, you would have had a monstrous change in American society and the relationship between an individual and the federal government enacted by a single monarch -- Anthony Kennedy.   

In other words, there are two paths of judicial restraint.   One would be to let the individual mandate stand on the theory that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause to do practically anything.  The other would be to invalidate it all, on the theory that the mandate is unconstitutional, and the rest of Obamacare is incoherent without it.   The path of judicial activism (truly judicial tyranny) is to strike down the mandate but leave the rest of the unsustainable carcass of Obamacare in place.

I think that's what Justice Kennedy is sensitive to.   I hope he does the right thing. 

UNITED COLOURS OF BENETTON

Here's a secret. Although I never shop there, I am actually a really big fan of Benetton.

When I was around 7 or 8 my most favourite jumper in the WHOLE WORLD was a bright yellow Benetton jumper with a pale blue seahorse and pink bubbles on the front. I swear, I used to wear that thing everywhere. In fact, every childhood birthday from the age of 6 was marked with a brand-new, garish Benetton jumper and I absolutely could NOT get enough of them.

While I was growing up and not particularly interested in fashion, only the singing Gap adverts and controversial Benetton ads under the direction of Oliviero Toscani really stuck out in my mind. Since his resignation in 2005 it's been a long time since I've seen any ad campaign that's had as much impact as 'Unhate.'

But yeah, Benetton rocks. Aaaanyway...

While the SS12 lookbook doesn't set out to shock or provoke, it is still remarkably pleasing to the eye, focusing on muliti-coloured basics and sticking to the the rulebook they pretty much created back in the 90s.

Loving that last Asian model SO much!

It's weird, I can only assume that Benetton must have a huge following in its native Italy or elsewhere in Europe because in the UK it's presence is virtually nil. The shop in Silverburn is always totally deserted which is a real shame because these are quality, fashion-forward essentials. The whole candy-coloured denim, bold prints and nude & neon trends are ones Benetton could easily get on board with, and yet I only rarely see the brand advertised in magazines.

Come on Benetton, time for an overhaul. Get your finger out!

Lady Gaga Fashion Special!

Happy 26th Birthday to Lady Gaga! In honour of Lady Gaga's birthday I've decided to name my 10 best Lady Gaga looks and my 10 most memorable Lady Gaga looks.

The "Grand Courtier" of fashion Mr Karl Lagerfeld on Lady Gaga: "Gaga gives the world her music and her talent, but the thing I like the mos is that she fights against boredom and banality. She also puts forth an ever changing, inspiring, and strong image - an image beyond fashion. She is an extreme concentrate of "zeitgeist," freeing us from the heavy boredom of publicly displayed political correctness by being herself more than politically correct. Something in today's world would be missed if there would be no Lady Gaga because Gaga is a Lady."

My Favourite Ten Lady Gaga Looks

Look Number 10

 









Look Number 9

Gaga in a yellow snakeskin Versace dress.


Look Number 8



Gaga pictured here in an orange jumpsuit, whilst carrying a vintage parasol. The parasol and the earrings are my favourite part of this look.


Look Number 7 



Lady Gaga in Chanel at the opening of her pop-up boutique at Barney's New York.


Look Number 6



Her Philip Treacy hat! I love her hat- it's very "Lady Gaga" and I love the colourblocking in the look.


Look Number 5



Lady Gaga in Paco Rabane S/S 12 accepting her award at the MTV European Music Awards.

Look Number 4



I love the retro Madonna look she's channelling her and I ESPECIALLY love the way she's carrying her jumbo Chanel 2.55 [one of the bags feautured in my "Bag Hall of Fame"].

Look Number 3



Lady Gaga at a press conference in India, New Delhi wearing Naeem Khan Resort 2012.
Look Number 2

 

At the 52nd Grammy Awards wearing Giorgio Armani.

My Best Lady Gaga Look





Gaga again wearing Giorgio Armani at the 52nd Grammy Awards on the red carpet. I personally think that this is her best look to date- it embodied the interesting and fun look that is Lady Gaga but it also looked like a piece of art from a Haute Couture runway. I also like the star that she carried, it made her poses much more interesting and it symbolised that Lady Gaga was the star of the night.


Now it's time for my "Most Memorable Lady Gaga looks"


[These looks may not be the most "fashion forward" looks but they are definitely memorable] 


Look Number 10



Lady Gaga as a mermaid in Visionaire magazine in the "Larger than Life" issue. The dip dye in her hair is insane and her body looks amazing.


Look Number 9



Dressed here in a Salvatore Ferragamo Houndstooth dress. It's pretty obvious why this outfit is memorable- I mean who else would be bold enough to step out in Houndstooth head to toe?!

Look Number 8



Here's Gaga in a black lace Tom Ford dress.


Look Number 7



Brilliant. Divine. This dress made her look absolutely equisite- the look as a whole was perfect from the blue tips to the matching nails. She waved the British Designer flag well for Alexander McQueen.

Look Number6



The Philip Treacy lobster hat! After Princess Beactrice's Philip Treacy fascinator at the royal wedding, I think this is the second most memorable hat in this decade.


Look Number 5



Lady Gaga wearing Kermit! This dress really brought back childhood memories ;')

Look Number 4



The bubble dress!


Look Number 3





The egg has arrived.

Look Number 2



The meat dress. I think that dress made almost everyone lok at meat in a new and very interesting way.


And now I will reveal....


My Most Memorable Lady Gaga Look



I hope no-one's surprised that this at the number one spot... I mean come on it's Jo Calderone! She took the meaning of being a true artist to a whole new level. Her accent! Her mannerisms! The clothes! It was all just amazing.

 
Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed this post and in the future I plan on making more fashion related posts in homage to my favourite stars!

Follow me on Twitter for more daily updates @ashleyag1

Peace and love,

Ashley the Fashionista

xoxo