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