STYLE NOTEBOOK
It’s that time of year. If you
are not involved in Greek life,
you have eyed your Instagram
blankly over the past few
weeks, wondering where it
is all of these well-dressed
college girls are going, and
why they bothered to go there
at all. Sure, you have heard the
term “date party,” but it has
become yet another empty,
college-kid
term
gathering
dust in the back of your brain.
Something about girls and
boys and a lot of pictures,
right?
More inclusive than the
mixer and less extravagant
than the formal, one might call
the date party the Goldilocks
“just right” territory of all
Greek functions. Our Greek
amiga, Arrie Timmer, said it
best: “Date party is an event
organized by a fraternity or
sorority where the members
invite their own dates and you
go to a club or somewhere cool
and have a fun time.”
And though that all sounds
fun and great, what sort
of ensemble would such a
characteristically
“college”
outing require?
I sought out to find an
answer.
After
extensive
research
(and
a
lot
of
Pinterest-
ing) I have safely formed a
hypothesis: the date party look
is
inexpensive,
Instagram-
friendly
and
unabashedly
sexy.
What, exactly, does a price-
friendly outfit search entail?
“I searched black dress on
Amazon Prime and filtered
the results from price: low to
high,” said first-year sorority
sister Jane Schmid. “And that
was the most important part
because I’m poor. So then I saw
a nice long-sleeved one, which
is good for fall or winter, with
hella cute cutouts and it was
like $12 so I was thrilled.”
Onto the next: there is
more to a great outfit than a
pretty price tag. Stylistically
speaking, a date party outfit
must possess high levels of
Gram-ability (a term I am
coining right now). In other
words, if it won’t look good
on social media, it will not be
worn. What makes the whole
look Gram-able is certainly
subjective, but there appear
to be a few key rules to
follow. As Anne noted during
our
conversation,
many
girls decide upon all-black
everything because “it’s the
norm,” meaning no one will be
confused if you choose to post
a full-body photo of yourself
that night. Timmer chimed in
with a note on accessories, and
said that they “are key if you’re
a cool girl.” She mentioned
that chokers are very in right
now, but that she loves a
“good body chain.” Regarding
shoes, no one seemed to pay
any mind. As Jackie said, “It’s
mostly about the dress because
they only see the dress in your
Instagram anyways.”
Finally,
the
date
party
look is incomplete without
an acknowledgement of sex
appeal. Each of the girls
with whom I spoke agreed
that they are “not a big fan
of loose dresses” and tend
to opt for tighter options “to
feel most confident and fun.”
Schmid’s fitted, cutout dress
and Timmer’s little green
number seemed to fit the build
appropriately.
After all that hubbub, I
couldn’t
help
but
wonder
whether the perfect date
party look was worth the
trouble it involved. However,
after asking our friendly DP
enthusiasts, the answer felt
clear: date party is worth it.
“You’ll
be
there
with
some of your best friends
and it’s just a blast to have a
carefree night where you feel
pretty and just dance with
your friends,” Schmid said.
Timmer agrees: “For me,
date party is a reason to look
hot and have fun with your
friends and a cool date,” she
said.
Every date party look may
be unique in its own right,
but each shares the common
goal of combining confidence
with youth-infused fun. Girls
like Timmer and Schmid
have
forged
an
overlap
between looking good and
feeling good, and they are
proud.
Although I am entirely
unaffiliated with Greek life,
I now smile every time a
date party candid crosses
my Instagram’s path. Yes,
it is the DP time of year, but
that no longer sounds so bad
to me.
Date party style tips from
an Instagram voyeur
TESS GARCIA
Daily Arts Writer
The outfit is everything in the DP experience, and trends
are leaning in favor of the modern, sexually liberated woman
The date party
look is incomplete
without sex
appeal.
E!
All I want for Christmas is this Dallas Cowboys inspired outfit.
Mariah Carey, heartbreaker
that she is, has a set of rules. One
of them, explicitly stated to the
camera in her new docu-series
“Mariah’s World,” ordains that
Mariah
Carey
will never be seen
in
fluorescent
lighting
without
sunglasses.
It
also appears that
she
doesn’t
sit
in chairs, like a
horrific
normie.
Her talking head
interviews
are
instead
filmed
wide,
her
body
carefully
positioned horizontally across
an extravagant sofa and her
unnaturally
perfect
head
propped up on a stiff elbow in
a transparent attempt to make
it look good. Lest we forget
that this is a woman whose
last album was titled Me. I Am
Mariah…The Elusive Chanteuse,
the new show is a constant
reminder that for Mariah, it’s
like that.
Let’s get this out of the way
first, though: I am fully on
board here. As I type this, a
“Daydream” poster looms over
my head like a subtle invitation
to
write
something
nice.
Mariah Carey is preternaturally
talented
and
supernaturally
attractive; when she sings,
the angels cry. Mariah Carey
is, without a doubt, the single
greatest recording artist in
music
history,
and
if
you
disagree we’re throwing hands
behind the dumpster at an
Applebee’s where $20 can get
you two delectable entrees and
an appetizer at participating
locations.
So, unless she firebombs a bus
full of orphans or is secretly a
J. Cole fan, Mariah will always
be my baby. But objectively,
“Mariah’s World” doesn’t offer
much to the average viewer.
It’s
a
transparently
managed “look” at her inner
life,
and
only
the
parts
she’s
comfortable
showing.
Whatever the requisite quota
for manufactured drama is for
an E! show, here it is ginned
up to uncomfortable levels,
landing in the awkward valley
between
actual
issues
and
overreactions to being unable
to set up an Apple TV. And I’m
here for it.
The music, unfortunately,
takes up only a small role in
“Mariah’s World;” outside of
“Fantasy” roughly 37 times in
the opening 10 minutes, the
show is less concerned with
Mariah the Artist than it is
with Mariah the
Vision Of Love.
Indeed, there isn’t
a single moment
on
camera
in
which she isn’t
impeccably dolled
up, adorned with
what
I
assume
is
ridiculously
expensive jewelry
and
garbed
in
an assortment of dresses that
scream, “I don’t know Jennifer
Lopez.”
The rare moment of honesty,
however, pierces through the
otherwise stuffy series like
a
meteorite.
Occasionally,
Mariah allows herself to be
unguarded and vulnerable: her
interactions with her children,
while obviously staged, are
clearly
loving
and
full
of
emotions, and she occasionally
flashes a witty self-awareness,
only to shake it off moments
later to complain about a piece
of choreography.
And it’s in these moments
that one might come to consider
the possibility that this all
may be one huge joke. You get
the sense that she’s much too
smart and self-conscious to be
producing something so inert.
The transition montages of the
singer posing in outrageously
exaggerated
fashion,
an
uncomfortable yet ludicrous
scene in which a prospective
assistant has to dump her
boyfriend, bizarre interludes
from a cartoonish alter-ego
named “Bianca Storm” — is
Mariah Carey, master of the
public image, pulling a fast one
on us?
Intriguingly
enough,
however, Mariah prods at the
heart of our devotion to her
right off the bat. “They want
me to be grand, then they
want me to accessible. Can you
guys make up your mind?” she
exclaims, waving her hands in
exasperation.
What, really, is the point of
our collective obsession with
Mariah Carey? Emphatically
brushing aside idiotic questions
of whether or not she’s still
relevant (please get, as they
say, up out my face), one can
read “Mariah’s World” as a
tongue-in-cheek interrogation
— perhaps unintentionally — of
the public desire for celebrity.
We applaud the faux-relatability
of stars like Anna Kendrick or
Jennifer Lawrence, but also the
lush extravagance of a Beyoncé
awards show set. There’s a fine
line the average celebrity must
traverse to remain likable, but
our subject here, of course, is
not the average celebrity.
Watching
Mariah
Carey
frolic around her fiancé’s yacht
in Italy isn’t accessible, but isn’t
that what we signed up to see?
Do we really want to watch her
wake up in the morning, groggy,
sans makeup and immaculate
hair, complaining about the
mundane absurdities of normal
life, like the rest of us?
Of course, “Mariah’s World”
is not interested — at all — in
some probing critique of the
American
culture
industry.
It’s a frivolous look into the
life one of the most towering
figures
in
the
medium,
a
person whose contemporary
status has become inseparable
from the concept of “diva.”
Mariah Carey as abstraction
is
a
complex,
distinctly
American
phenomenon,
and
an honest look into her day-to-
day life might have been truly
liberating, but this is not an
emancipation of MiMi.
I’m not sure I would have
wanted
that,
and,
most
importantly, I don’t think she
would have either. Hers is a
carefully
manicured
image,
somehow
freed
from
the
constraints of hackneyed ideas
like “relevancy.” Perhaps, one
sweet day, the cipher of Mariah
Carey will be unlocked. Until
then she will remain eminently
opaque and intimately present;
it seems, plainly, we belong
together.
NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT
Daily Arts Writer
‘Mariah’s World’ fails to capture
the spirit of an American treasure
Surreal and extravagant new series is possibly ironic, definitely amusing
C+
“Mariah’s World”
Series Premiere
Sundays at 9 p.m.
E!
She is, without a
doubt, the greatest
recording artist in
history.
NOBODY SHOULD BE
ALLOWED TO DISLIKE
THE ARTS SECTION — IF
THEY DO, THERE MUST BE
CONSEQUENCES — PERHAPS
LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP
OR A YEAR IN JAIL!
TV REVIEW
6A — Monday, December 12, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com