" Nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf"

At the Libertine's New York Fashion Week show, the nails of the models ruffled more feathers than the clothes.  

This 'trend' has certainly got people talking and it did get me thinking about the relationships between skin and fur and the implications of 'fashioning fur'. 

The title quote is from Angela Carter's 'Wolf Alice' tale from her Bloody Chamber collection, and I feel this unusual trend somewhat visualises the essence of Carter's re-writing of Little Red Riding Hood.  The fur has caused such a sensation online and amongst beauty bloggers, a large majority of which have a singular response: EWW.  I find this fascinating because fur has become such a glamorous adornment (don't get me wrong it is not without controversy regarding how it is procured) - but, in the fashion world at least, it is beautiful.  

Why then the horror over its presence on this particular catwalk?  

It is the placement of the fur that incites such disgust; upon the skin fur easily takes on the property of our own skin as boundary.  When we step into the wolf we are strong, we are fierce, yet we can also be beautiful- even superior as fur is often an indicator of class, wealth, or status - even outside of Western Culture.  Nail's are essentially claws, albeit our 'claws' have been evolutionarily watered down as we have no need for them.  Now nails can be a site of beauty and there are numerous ways to decorate them, but this practise is almost exclusively a feminine act.  If you walked into Boots you would find polishes, false nails, files, buffers, tints, tips, stickers, decals, gems, overcoats and undercoats and all are marketed at women.  

(I am not in any way saying guys do not/should not wear nail polish, just that they are often not the target audience!) #rockitjohnny

In placing the fur on the nails a site of beauty has been aligned with the beast.  The nails have no vulnerability, unlike the skin, they have one purpose and even in masquerade they still evoke their one function: violence, survival, predator. 

The She-Wolf has left her closet and regained her claws. 

Peggy Dreadful

Who else would you like to see join the Peggy Dreadful line-up?

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PeggyDreadful

Update on "stuff and things"

(had to reference Rick Grimes after last night's The Walking Dead mid-season premiere)

So things I still need to do: 

• Write about Buffy - my re-watch is currently at 'Graduation Day' which might be a good time to discuss some "stuff and things" once I've got these last two episodes out of the way.  

• Haven't got much further with Vampire Knight which is annoying but February has hit me like January (aka I was super productive in January and now I feel like a squirrel trapped in a nut-less tree trunk in the middle of an Alaskan winter).  I WILL FINISH THIS SEASON BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY. 

• Finally, I need to process what on earth happened in The Walking Dead - it got good again (at last) albeit some gaping continuity errors but I was prepared to let that all slide for the security of knowing that the group was good, the people were rallying and baby Judith was safe (lets go even go there about how she ended up safe....again, letting it slide) BUT I can't push away this niggling feeling it's all about to go very, very wrong and I'm not yet ready to address the horrors that lie ahead of us. 

On the plus side I painted some new Peggy Dreadful's:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/peggydreadful 

I hope to collect my thoughts more and power through now I have *almost* finished my PhD proposal *EEEEEEEEEK*

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The zombie is maintaining strength into 2016 with the awaited return of The Walking Dead in Spring also. 

 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies appears to be following the trend of the grotesquely rotting corpse; as opposed to a pale and wide eyed animated body as in their earliest risings, or simply a bleeding viral victim as in 28 Days Later (2002.  

I'm particularly intrigued by how skin will be treated in the film and to what extend the bodies 'rot' - or as in Warm Bodies (who took a step back from the 'rotting' likely because it's probably a step to far to fall for a guy with a weeping eye socket) the 'zombification' is more stylised when romance is also at play. 

So, really hoping that early reviews are correct and that the film is as good as I am hoping it will be - or at least interesting enough that I will have lots to say about it!