FASHION Magazine

Listening to funky, big-club electro at lunchtime is sort of like wearing faux-snakeskin leggings to your day job, but guess what? I’m wearing faux-snakeskin leggings, and here I am, reviewing Ciao! (Last Gang Records) You haven’t heard? Hello: it’s only every rave song you’ll be sick of by summer, from Montreal megalomanic DJ Tiga (myspace.com/officialtiga). (Actual quote from press release: “Once you realize you have the power to rent a limo anytime you please, you know in your heart that you’re not like other men.” Awesome.)

Metric is back. We know this because we see the faintly bearded, forever charming ol’ boys of the band downing beer at an Ossington garage party one night, and recovering on the Drake patio the next aft.

Also—okay, fine, more importantly—they have a new album, Fantasies (Last Gang Records). Their fourth studio recording, it’s as close to the stadium sound as they’ll ever make: plastic, bombastic, all blown-out guitars and synth gloss.

If you’re going to judge an album by its cover, don’t make it this one: Plushgun’s Pins & Panzers (Tommy Boy) may be decorated in dubious taste, but underneath it’s pure (Euro)pop pleasure. (Sorry, the alliteration is sticking.) The ’90s are back—duh—but don’t guess nu-grunge; instead, remember singing “I’m a Barbie girl” into your pink plastic hairbrush and you’ll be very, very warm.

I Think We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat (Southern Fried Records, southernfriedrecords.com) is leaking like the Titanic, and no wonder. It’s the hotly anticipated new project from Norman Cook (if you say “Who?” we say “Fatboy Slim”) with guest stars David Byrne, Iggy Pop, Martha Wainwright, Jamie T, Emmy the Great and more, all under the name of The Brighton Port Authority (thebrightonportauthority.com).

It’s not one for the kids. You won’t hear it on the radio, live from the club. Kanye probably won’t sample it. The closest it comes to catchy is the “ah-ah” hook of “Ten to One.” But Jeremy Shaw’s eight-track wonder, Songs About Dancing and Drugs (K7 Records, songsaboutdancinganddrugs.com), threatens to wear a groove in your brain all the same. The dancing is more of a dazed shuffling and the drugs are on a drip, and slowly, somehow, you can’t get this deep, dark electro out of your head.

Looking into my fashion crystal ball, I predict the onesie, the ultimate playsuit, is on the verge of a colossal comeback. Witness the runways of BCBG, D&G and Lacoste. If your mind instantly reverts to the bubble-brained Chrissy Snow of Three’s Company, you’re on the right track.

At FASHION, we’re always on the lookout for a good design collab. So when, for their latest album, trippy indie tribe Animal Collective found both inspiration and title—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino Records/Outside Music)—in a Frank Gehry-designed building by that name, we felt compelled to love it. Luckily, the Baltimore-based band of odd fellows is (finally) making it easy.

It might come as a surprise to some that Charlottetown has a killer local music scene. The Danks, Smothered in Hugs, The Robots and Two Hours Traffic (whose music has been featured on The O.C., and who were recently nominated for a couple of Verge music awards) are just a few of the local bands that are beginning to make serious waves on a national scale.

The town is still abuzz from this week’s unofficial kick off to the holidays and the event I look forward to every year: the Stay Out of the Mall concert. A shopping or fashion event it is not, but it captures some of the best qualities of Guelph: indie rock, independent businesses and of course, local beer.

Recessionista (noun): Person who looks wicked awesome even during times of economic crisis.

I usually have trouble getting behind blend words. (I have one friend who always chirping about the latest bromance or tramedy she saw at the theatre, and I find it to be one hundred per cent cringe-worthy.) But recessionista is slang I can get behind, because it perfectly describes the money saving way I do Christmas. Read on for my favourite thrifts and crafty tips.

The holiday season is upon us and there is no time I love more than Christmas.  I love it all: the busyness, shopping, baking, shopping, decorating, shopping and music. It’s also the time of year when the most glitz and glamour emerges from our closets (and we search for some new head turners).

With a stir of rebels and rivals, a pinch of angst, romance and graduation anxiety, cinematic high-school drama never fails deliver. My coming-of-age retrospective is consumed with the fashion in juicy teen classics like Dazed and Confused, The Breakfast Club, Clueless and the cream of the crop, Grease.