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DragCon LA! Your EXCLUSIVE Pin Sets are Here

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Did you snatch your Series 1 pins at DragCon NY last year? Are you constantly showing off your super-mega-rare RuPaul’s Best Friends race pin??

Well don’t worry LA, DragCon LA is releasing the largest set yet with the Series 2 pins!!!

The RuPaul’s DragCon pin collections are released as individual series, and each series is exclusive to a specific DragCon. At DragCon NYC 2017, we released the first series and it sold out in just 2 hours!

In order to give all fans a chance to collect their favorite pins, DragCon will be releasing new inventory of Series 2 pins on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But don’t be fooled, these will sell out each day, so get to DragCon early!

Series 2 consists of 6 DragCon LA exclusive pins, including 2 rare pins. The first rare pin will only be available on Friday and Saturday. The 2nd, super rare, pin will only be available on Sunday.

There are two ways to collect the DragCon pin collection. You can either buy a complete set of 5 pins, or you can by individual pins in a ‘mystery bag.’ In LA there will be two complete pin sets, one available on Friday and Saturday with the 1st rare pin. Then on Sunday, a second set with the super rare pin.

 

DragCon LA is right around the corner (May 11,12, & 13th)! World of Wonder is releasing a completely new and exclusive pin set, so sashay you’re way to DragCon LA! Once these cuties are gone, THEY. ARE. GONE!!!

Snatch your tickets to DragCon LA  today and snag your Series 2, OKURRR?!


#BornThisDay: Actor / Director, Sidney Poitier

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Photo by Damian Dovarganes, CBS via YouTube

February 20, 1927Sidney Poitier:

”For the first 10 years of my life in the Bahamas there were no mirrors or glass, so I never had the chance to see a reflection of myself. I saw myself in a mirror in a Florida store and my heart actually started racing. I was particularly happy with my teeth. I looked at myself for a very long time.”

In The Heat Of The Night (1967) stars Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, a black Philadelphia homicide detective stranded in the simmering summer in the sleepy town of Sparta, Mississippi, working with, or against, the bigoted white sheriff played by Rod Steiger, as they try to solve the murder of a white businessman. Along the way, a white cotton plantation owner named Endicott (Larry Gates) objects to being considered a suspect. He slaps Tibbs, and in a reactive flash that shocked audiences, Tibbs delivers a fiercer, harder slap back to Endicott, and it became the slap heard around the world.

In The Heat Of The Night (1967) is a well-made tense detective story with an innovative score by Quincy Jones, directed by Norman Jewison from a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant. The film’s poster tagline proclaimed: “They got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.”

It was shot in sultry color by the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who had just filmed the black and white Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). The film was a milestone in 1960s America. A movie with a non-white actor in a lead role, was so controversial that it couldn’t be filmed in the South, so the sets were recreated in various small towns in Illinois.

Shocking for the era, In The Heat Of The Night was nominated for seven Academy Awards and received five: Best Picture, Best Actor for Steiger, Best Screenplay, Best Sound, and Best Editing. It won over Bonnie And Clyde and director Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, and the other Poitier project, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, another controversial liberal-minded film, this one about inter-racial marriage which was still illegal in 17 States until that year. Poitier didn’t receive a nomination for either film. Steiger had stiff competition from Warren Beatty in Bonnie And Clyde, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Jewison failed to take home the Best Director Oscar, instead, Nichols won, presumably because he had failed to win the previous year for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The film’s other losing nomination was for Best Sound Effects for James A. Richard, despite the impact of that slap.

Screen-grabs via YouTube

My point is, as always with the Academy Awards, the right people win for the wrong picture in the wrong year. Poitier gave the most nuanced and inventive performance of 1967.

In The Heat Of The Night was something new in films set in the American South. It offered a tough, edgy vision of a town that seemed to hate outsiders more than itself, reflecting the uncertain mood of the country as the Civil Rights Movement took hold. It was a surprise box-office and critical hit. My parental units took me to see it at a drive-in theatre, so I missed the audience reaction, but I was still stunned seeing a top black actor physically strike back at a white guy.

More astonishing, Poitier had three films playing that year, To Sir, With Love had been released just two months earlier, with Poitier as a teacher winning respect in a tough London school.

Poitier reprised his Virgil Tibbs character in two other films: They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971). In The Heat Of The Night was adapted into a television series in 1988, with Carroll O’Connor as the sheriff and gay actor Howard Rollins as Tibbs.

Poitier will always be noted for being the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, winning for the nun flick Lilies Of The Field (1963). When Poitier went on stage to collect his Oscar, Ann Bancroft, presenting him the award, gave him a kiss. Conservatives were outraged.

Another black man wouldn’t win again until Denzel Washington in 2001. In 90 years, there have only been 20 nominations for black men as Best Actor. This year, there are two: Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq. (his sixth) and Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out.

2002 was a landmark Academy Award ceremony: It was the first time two African-Americans both took home two acting Oscars, and the only time an African-American woman has won Best Actress (Halle Berry). It was also the year that the Academy decided to give Poitier an honorary Oscar. Washington thanked the icon later in the evening, after Poitier paid homage to those who broke down barriers in the film industry: “… others who have had a hand in altering the odds, for me and for others.” An entire era of struggle in a single five-minute speech.

Yet, it was the current of open racism at the time and the controversial aspects of simply being a black man that Poitier put to the test in that one remarkable year, 1967.

For a while, Poitier was the only black male being cast in major roles. Poitier:

“It is hard to imagine now how different life was then. Many hospitals in the American South refused even to admit black patients in those days. And later in life I had run-ins with the Ku Klux Klan and all the segregation. But I refused to become bitter. It was a fact of life at that time and I knew in my heart that things would change for the better.”

Poitier’s life began with a remarkable bit of timing. He was born prematurely in Miami, giving him American citizenship. His parents were visiting from the Bahamas, a British colony, selling tomatoes.

He moved back to Florida when he was 15-years-old to work odd jobs. As a delivery boy he was ordered by a resident to the back door because no black person was allowed to knock on a front door. Instead, he left the parcel on the doorstep. That night the Ku Klux Klan came looking for him.

So, at 16-years-old, Poitier moved to NYC where he got a job as a dishwasher. He learned to read. He slept in pay toilets in bus stations. He joined the American Negro Theatre, receiving acting lessons in exchange for working as a janitor for the theater. He finally made his stage debut in an ANT production filling in for Harry Belafonte. In 1946, Poitier appeared in their Broadway production of Lysistrata to great acclaim. He toured in the ANT production of Anna Lucasta, an all-black adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie.

Poitier:

”I was in my 20s before reading a book. I knew nothing of acting and found it difficult to read aloud. But I concentrated on improving both my life and my acting.”

His first major film role was as a doctor treating a white bigot in No Way Out (1950), a film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Poitier soon became the go-to actor for controversial roles that dared to show a black man as powerful and articulate. In Blackboard Jungle (1955), he portrayed a troubled but promising student at an inner-city school.

He received his first Academy Award nomination, plus he won a BAFTA Award for The Defiant Ones (1958) in which he and Tony Curtis are shackled together as chain-gang escapees. His first leading role was in the musical Porgy And Bess, co-starring with Dorothy Dandridge the first African-American to be Oscar nominated for Best Actress. The film adaptation of the play A Raisin In The Sun (1961) made Poitier a top box-office star.

While he helped with breaking down barriers for black people in film, Poitier was criticized for not being more politically radical in the late 1960s.

Poitier teamed up with Belafonte for the Western Buck And The Preacher in 1972, which he also directed. In 1980, Poitier directed the hit comedy Stir Crazy with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, the first black-directed film to make over $100 million.

In the early 1980s, a con artist called David Hampton turned up on the Manhattan party scene claiming to be Poitier’s son. He defrauded people out of food, money and lodgings before being caught and imprisoned. His story became the source material for the 1990 Broadway play Six Degrees Of Separation, made into a film with Will Smith in 1993.

Of his late period acting roles, I have a real soft spot for Sneakers (1992) a crafty comedy caper where he stars with Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, and River Phoenix.

Via YouTube

In 2009, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, from his friend President Barack Obama. In 2011, the Film Society of Lincoln Center honored Poitier with their Chaplin Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1982, he was given the Golden Globe’s Cecil B. DeMille Lookalike Award, plus he has a 1992 AFI Life Achievement Award, a 1995 Kennedy Center Honor, and a 1999 SAG Life Achievement Award.

Poitier was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1974, which entitles him to use the title to Sir, with love.

February 20th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

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#QueerQuote: “I’d Rather Be Hated For Who I Am, Than Loved For Who I Am Not. ” – Kurt Cobain

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Photograph by Frank Micelotta, via YouTube

 

I was living in Seattle when Grunge happened in the early 1990s. Young people around the globe embraced the “Seattle Sound” of fat sludgy guitar riffs, fuzz and feedback. I became aware that the city was becoming a center of American culture. The look of angst and the raw sound jumped to the fashion world and a lifestyle of thrift shop flannel went international with the huge success of Nirvana’s album Nevermind. Amazing, this was more than a quarter century ago.

Kurt Cobain’s (1967-1994) music reflects his fractured childhood and his disconnection from the world. Cobain befriended a gay student at Aberdeen High School that suffered bullying from the straight students. His classmates concluded that Cobain must be gay also. Cobain claimed that he liked being identified as gay because he didn’t like people and when they thought he was a queer, people left him alone.

Cobain:

”I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.”

Cobain claimed that he was ”gay in spirit”.  He also stated that he used to to spray paint ”God Is Gay”on pickup trucks around his hometown Aberdeen, Washington. Cobain:

”I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off the homophobes. I used to pretend I was gay just to fuck with people. I’ve had the reputation of being a homosexual ever since I was 14. It was really cool, because I found a couple of gay friends in Aberdeen, which is almost impossible. How I could ever come across a gay person in Aberdeen is amazing! But I had some really good friends that way. I got beat up a lot, of course, because of my association with them.”

 

“People just thought I was weird at first, just some fucked-up kid. But once I got the gay tag, it gave me the freedom to be able to be a freak and let people know that they should just stay away from me. Instead of having to explain to someone that they should just stay the fuck away from me. I’m gay, so I can’t even be touched. It made for quite a few scary experiences in alleys walking home from school, though…”

Cobain would have turned 51-years-old today.

Blame It On Bianca Del Rio Tour Coming to the US & UK

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RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio‘s comedy tour is coming to the US & UK, hunties!!

The self proclaimed ‘clown in a dress’ New York queen will leave you laughing your ass off this spring. Be sure to check out all the tour dates here. 

If you are a European Drag Race fan, you can snatch your tickets for Bianca Del Rio’s tour this summer starting in June.

Can’t wait that long? We can’t either! Here’s the trailer for Hurricane Bianca to hold you over until the winter melts away.

Content via youtube.

Alexis Michelle Joins James St. James and Blake Jacobs for an All New RuPaul’s DragCon Podcast!

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RuPaul’s Drag Race season 8 superstar Alexis Michelle joins James St. James & Blake Jacobs to chat about Alexis growing up in NYC, her new album, and RuPaul’s DragCon of course!

 

#TransformationTuesday: QWERRRKOUT feat. Admira Thunderpussy

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Transformation Tuesday just got a whole lot QTer…New queers featured every week! Tag us, take a pic of us and follow us on Instagram at QWERRRKOUT, and you too could be the next QT! YOU BETTA QWERRRK! (Mx Qwerrrk pic by celebrity photog Santiago Felipe, illustration by Piepke)

Admira Thunderpussy

Age: 23

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

About:

 

“Tjena tjejen! (‘Hey gurl!’ in Swedish) No, it’s not your local Raven impersonator, it’s just me…Sweden’s tallest glass of fluid..Admira Thunderpussy!

 

My drag career actually started as a finishing project in my senior year in high school. I had started to become familiar with drag performers such as Jackie Beat and Varla Jean Merman and I figured…why not give drag show a try? I decided to spend all my money and all my time putting together a 75 minute show with dancers, background video visuals, costumes and anything else you could imagine that’s gay enough. Looking back, I’m still amazed at how I managed to both study and put the show together with barely any money or experience. Given that I was an 18-year-old twink, putting on a drag show in school, the show got a major response…and because of that, I started to get booked for drag gigs within a week after the premiere.

 

Today, five years later, I’ve recently received the award Drag of the Year at Sweden’s QX GayGala…which basically means that I’m one of the most working queens in Sweden. I never planned to make some sort of career out of a project in school, I’ve just gone with the flow and thankfully taken the opportunities that have come my way. I’m excited about my future as a drag queen. I want to have as much fun as possible, go through every door and look fabulous doing it!”

 

Instagram: admirathunderpssy

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#LGBTQ: Actor Russell Tovey Announces His Engagement to Hot Rugby Player

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On “Quantico”, ABC/Jonathan Wenk, via YouTube

Hot actor Russell Tovey has announced his engagement to his boyfriend, rugby player/fitness coach Steve Brockman.

Last year, Tovey appeared in Royal National Theatre revival of Tony Kushner’s masterpiece Angels In America, opposite Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane. In 2015, Tovey appeared on Broadway in an acclaimed revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, directed by openly gay Ivo Van Hove, where Tovey bared all onstage.

36-year-old Tovey is best known for a werewolf in the BBC’s supernatural thriller Being Human. He appeared in both the stage and film versions of The History Boys, and as Kevin in the HBO series Looking and its series finale television film Looking: The Movie, plus as Henry Knight on the BBC series Sherlock.

You might remember him in Pride (2014) the LGBTQ- themed historical film that opened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Queer Palm Award. Pride was nominated for the Golden Globe Award and for a BAFTA.

Currently, Tovey stars in the drama series Quantico on the ABC network. In addition, he also stars as Ray Terrill / The Ray in the Arrowverse shows, including The Flash.

Tovey announced his engagement on social media over the weekend,  revealing that Brockman was the one who proposed.

Tovey:

”Completely unexpected but very very happy and looking forward to having a proper party to celebrate when back in London.”

Tovey is currently in NYC filming the third season of Quantico.

He has stated that being gay was the best thing to happen to him and that playing gay characters has only been good his career. He came out at 14-years-old, and has been openly gay ever since.

On stage and screen,Tovey plays gay a lot:

”For so long, as a young actor, I had this anxiety about making sure I could get straight roles, and now I know that’s not necessary. The gay roles are the best for me.”

In 2017, Tovey made headlines for becoming the first actor to play a gay superhero in his own series, as The Ray, who has the ability to manipulate light who dwells on an alternate Earth where Nazis won WW II. The character has appeared in DC Comics television projects The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl and Legends Of Tomorrow, where he has kissing openly gay actor Wentworth Miller’s (Prison Break) character Captain Cold.

Tovey stated his superhero role is a dream come true:

”Growing up, I always wanted to be a superhero. That’s always been something I astral projected. So, when this came up, it was an easy yes, especially for what the character stood for. It magnified my excitement in portraying him. Most of my acting mates wanted to play a superhero. It’s definitely one of the boxes you want to tick. It feels wonderful to be ticking that box in a big way and with a big, pink triangle.”

Brockman (L) with Tovey, photo by Gilbert Garrasquillo/Film Magic, via YouTube

 

 


HEY QWEEN: Charlie Hides from RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 on the Main Show and LOOK at HUH

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This week on Hey Qween, Charlie Hides joins talk show host Jonny McGovern and the gorgeous Lady Red Couture for a rousing interview and a two-part edition of LOOK at HUH.

On this episode Charlie Hides from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9 spills all the T and discusses her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race, her celebrity impersonations that brought her internet fame, Cher, Lady Gaga & walking into the work room.

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

Watch Part 3:

Charlie Hides also joins Jonny McGovern for a two part episode of LOOK at HUH! On the episode, Charlie talks about  Trinity Taylor, Katya, AbFab, Cher, Shea Coulee, Eureka O’Hara, Kylie Minogue, Peppermint, Charlie’s  husband, Sasha Velour, Aja, Jodie Harsh & Valentina.

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

Ryan Serhant’s New Series Sell It Like Serhant Coming to Bravo

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Million Dollar Listing New York‘s Ryan Serhant has a brand new show coming to Bravo!!

Instead of real estate, Serhant will help sales people across the country learn his top notch skills so they can also Sell It Like Serhant.

“Helping someone become a better salesperson takes every trick in the book,” he says. “Which means at any given moment I have to be their boot camp instructor, their friend, their teacher, their customer.”

 

Check out the trailer on Bravo! 

Watch the premiere of Sell It Like Serhant on Bravo Wednesday, April 11th.

(Content via People)

#BornThisDay: Fashion Designer, Hubert de Givenchy

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1960, photograph by Robert Doisneau, Horizon Pictures via YouTube

February 21, 1927Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy

”I absolutely believe my talent is God-given. I ask God for a lot, but I also thank him. I’m a very demanding believer.”

When Audrey Hepburn left this world in 1993, taken by cancer at 63-yearsold, she was at her home that she loved in a village near Lausanne, Switzerland. In L.A., she had been given just a few months to live after being diagnosed with cancer. She wanted to be home in Switzerland but getting there would be a significant risk to her fragile health. That is when Hubert de Givenchy came up with a plan. The famed designer, along with Hepburn’s friend Bunny Mellon arranged for a private plane to carefully transport Hepburn to Switzerland.

Hepburn was able to spend a last Christmas in Switzerland, where, she told her longtime partner, Dutch actor, Robert Wolders that it was ”…the most beautiful Christmas I have ever had.”

It was rather perfect that Givenchy was able to give Hepburn this final gift. They had been very close friends for decades, with a relationship that Givenchy called: ”a kind of marriage”.

They met just before the filming of Sabrina (1954). It was a fashion love affair and friendship that lasted for four decades.

Givenchy:

”Little by little, our friendship grew and with it a confidence in each other. There was never any criticism of the other person, no upsets.”

Hepburn wanted to wear a real Paris designer dress in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina. She had a style that was very much her own, knowing exactly what complimented her figure, and Hepburn insisted that she have approval over her own wardrobe for the film. In it, she plays a chauffeur’s daughter, who falls in love with one of the sons of the wealthy man her father works for. Lovesick, she flees to Paris, only to come back two years later and causes a commotion when both the man’s sons, played by William Holden and Humphrey Bogart, fall for her. Hepburn’s Sabrina has transformed from a shy girl into a sophisticated woman during her time in Paris.

The wardrobe supervisor for the film, Edith Head, had prepared drawings for Hepburn’s look, and she was shocked when Hepburn wanted a designer dress, because this was a film that would have given Head the perfect opportunity to design for a leading lady looking like a Paris model.

One of the outfits Hepburn selected in Paris was an elegant double-breasted collarless wool suit, that Sabrina wears on her first day back home. Head had given instructions to Hepburn to buy a dark suit: ”the type you would wear crossing the Atlantic by plane and arriving in up-state New York by train”. She advised Hepburn not to choose ”dead black or dead white” because they did not show up well on film. Hepburn brought back an Oxford-gray wool suit with a cinch-waisted, double-breasted scoop-necked jacket and a slim, calf-length vented skirt. She added a turban of pleated pearl-grey chiffon, both created by Givenchy.

“Sabrina”, Paramount via YouTube

Wilder’s wife had sent Hepburn to Cristóbal Balenciaga in Paris, but he was too busy preparing his latest collection. He suggested his friend Givenchy, who had once worked for Balenciaga. Givenchy had exactly what she needed, and Hepburn ended up buying a wardrobe of three outfits, the suit and the two gowns she would wear in the film, spending $850. It was their first collaboration.

Head, much to her disappointment, had to design the rest of the not so glamorous Sabrina wardrobe. The Paramount costume department also had to manufacture duplicates of the Givenchy clothes that would be needed in case the original ones were somehow ruined during filming.

Paramount via YouTube

With Bogart, Paramount via YouTube

Head would make sketches of his dresses for Hepburn and sign them with her name. Only after Head passed away in 1981 did Givenchy, a true gentleman, confirm that the Sabrina black dress was his original design, and had been made under Head’s supervision at Paramount. Sabrina was one of the best films of 1956 and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including for Hepburn for Best Actress and Wilder for Best Director.  Its only Oscar win came for its costume design

Even when she won the Academy Award for Sabrina, Head failed to acknowledge Givenchy’s contribution in her speech.

Givenchy designed Hepburn’s costumes for several films. The black Givenchy dress worn by Hepburn in the first minutes of Blake Edwards’ film Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) is now considered to be one of the most iconic items of clothing in the history of the 20th century, perhaps the most famous “little black dress” of all time.

In Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Hepburn plays the lead role Holly Golightly opposite handsome George Peppard. Her necklace was made by Roger Scemama, who often paired with Givenchy. Hepburn took two copies of the dress to Paramount Pictures, but the dresses, which the studio felt showed too much of Hepburn’s legs, were altered by Head. The original hand-stitched dress is currently in Givenchy’s private archive, and one of the two versions Hepburn brought to Paramount is on display at The Museum of Film in Madrid and the other was auctioned at Christie’s in December 2006. The film’s poster was designed by Robert McGinnis, who claimed that the photographs on which he based the poster did not show any leg and that he had added the leg to give the poster more oomph. The Edith Head dresses used in the film were destroyed by Head after shooting.

“Breakfast At Tiffany’s” Paramount Pictures via YouTube

 

In November 2006, Natalie Portman appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, wearing one of the original Givenchy dresses created for Breakfast At Tiffany’s. The next month, this dress was auctioned at Christie’s and purchased by an anonymous buyer for $923,187, with the funds going for a new school for poor children in Calcutta.

Givenchy was born in Beauvais in northern France. He came from an aristocratic heritage. In 1944, he moved to Paris, where he studied art at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. At 17-years-old, he began an apprenticeship with designer Jacques Fath. After, Givenchy worked for several famous French couture houses in the 1940s, including Lucien Lelong, Robert Piquet and Elsa Schiaparelli.

Givenchy opened his own design house in 1952. His debut collection was a huge hit. It featured separates of long skirts and tailored blouses, including the ”Bettina blouse”, named after his favorite model Bettina Graziani. In his following collections, he also designed elegant evening gowns, hats and tailored suits. The Givenchy name became synonymous with Parisian chic.

In 1953, Givenchy met Spanish designer Balenciaga, and in 1957, the two designers teamed up to introduce a new silhouette called ”the sack”, a loose form without any waistline.

By the 1960s, Givenchy was setting trends by embracing the youth culture. He favored shorter hemlines and straighter silhouettes in his designs.

For Hepburn he designed at least some of her costumes for Funny Face (1957)  Charade (1963), Paris When It Sizzles (1964) and How To Steal A Million (1966). The Givenchy brand also released a fragrance inspired by Hepburn called L’Interdit.

“Funny Face” (1957) Paramount, via YouTube

 

Givenchy said that he adapted his designs to Hepburn’s desires. When she wanted a bare-shoulder evening dress modified to hide her collarbone, he invented for her what became a style so popular that he named it ”Décolleté Sabrina”. Hepburn wore the little black dress that accentuated her tiny waist with long black gloves, and black pumps. Givenchy:

”Audrey always added a twist, something piquant, amusing, to the clothes.”

Among the other famous women of style dressed by Givenchy were Jacqueline Kennedy, who wore a Givenchy gown during an official visit to Paris in 1961; Princess Grace of Monaco; Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor; Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sunny von Bülow, Maria Callas, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jeanne Moreau, plus socialite and Truman Capote confidante, Babe Paley.

After selling his business to the luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey in 1988, Givenchy designed for seven more years, retiring and presenting his final collection in 1995. He was succeeded by enfant terrible John Galliano.

Designers to later serve as head designer at Givenchy include Alexander McQueen and Riccardo Tisci.

In all my research, I find really very little about his private life. His friends speak of his warmth and generosity. There are his dogs, Philippe Venet, who lives with him and is Givenchy’s oldest friend, yet the greatest thing in his life seems to have been that platonic love affair with Hepburn. Love comes in different forms; in his case, it was in the form of a little black dress.

In the 2016 documentary Hubert de Givenchy, un destin Haute Couture (2015) by director Eric Pellerin, Givenchy notes how Christian Dior did not hold a grudge after Givenchy turned down a job offer in order to open his own house at 24-years-old in 1952, and he says that they remained great friends.

“Hubert de Givenchy: A Life In Haute Couture”, Horizon Films, via YouTube

 

Givenchy lives in retirement at his estate called Le Jonchet in the French countryside. His work has been shown in retrospective exhibitions at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and the Musée Galliera in Paris. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1996. In 2014, he published To Audrey With Love, featuring anecdotes and original sketches of their collaborations.

February 21st: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

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#QueerQuote: “Do Not Participate in Any Sport with Ambulances at the Bottom of the Hill.” – Erma Bombeck

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Photo via youTube

 

One of America’s favorite humorists, writers and columnists, journalist Erma Louise Fiste was born on February 21, 1927.

As Erma Bombeck, she found the humor in the everyday experiences and shared it with her readers. Her column, which first appeared in her local Ohio newspaper, eventually went national. Initially her work appeared in a few dozen papers, but that number grew to hundreds over the next few years. Entitled At Wit, her column found the funny bits in the headaches of everyday life.

In addition to her column, Bombeck wrote for women’s magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, Redbook and McCall’s. She also published several popular books, including bestsellers The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976), If Life Is A Bowl Of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits? (1978), and All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loehmann’s Dressing Room (1995). The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank was made into a 1978 television movie starring Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin.

She was a strong advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and served on the President’s National Advisory Committee for Women in the late 1970s.

Bombeck was taken by complications from cancer treatment in 1996.

Chuckles & Awes HUMP DAY! EDITION

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“After Tuesday, even the calendar goes WTF”

The legends are true. from funny

Dobby stocking up to feed the house elves

Face swap from funny

I’m super old of the face swap posts … But this gave me gay face.

Bambi and Thumper in real life!

Totes besties!

Weather girl wore green dress to work from funny

I imagine the editors before this like:
“Hey Stan, Karen’s got a green dress on today, watch this…”

Illegal to be this cute

I’m almost mad this is so adorable.

Happy hump day friends!

#Breaking: Florida Students Walk Out of Classes In #NeverAgain Protests (Teachers & Security Walk With Them)

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Students at Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Florida, are walking out of their classrooms to a nearby park to stand in solidarity with the #NeverAgain movement. But they’re not going alone. School officials and security are walking with them and are in support of the demonstration, the city of Weston tweeted, left.

There are also protests and speeches by Parkland survivors happening at the state capitol in Tallahassee.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sophomore Daniel Bishop, 16, said he’s meeting with lawmakers today in hopes of creating “a sense of empathy.”

I’m just trying to create a sense of empathy. Fortunately, they weren’t involved in a school shooting. But I was. I heard shots right outside my classroom. The gunman jiggled on my best friend’s door handle, and she could have died. And people I know died. My friends died.

And I’m just trying to put them in my place for five minutes. I was huddled in a corner for two and a half hours — no one should ever have to go through that ever again. How am I supposed to step into a place where 17 of my peers were slaughtered?

As he walks to the Capitol to address lawmakers, he shares what he plans to tell them.

#ParklandStudentsSpeak

(Photo, screen grab; via CNN)


James Corden Is OBSESSED with the Number of Tank Tops in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” Watch

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It’s a sad story that we all wish had never happened, he acknowledges right up front. But James Corden is SO excited about Ryan Murphy‘s latest, American Crime Story, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, including the show’s MASSIVE love of pink and tank tops. It IS Miami after all, but there really ARE an awful lot of tank tops.

Watch.

GAGWORTHY GIF OTD: Gus Kenworthy Deep Throats a Footlong

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Not a lot of context here, but who cares when you’ve got a GIF of gorgeous Gus Kenworthy kissing, lightly licking, then going down on a hotdog?

Yep. That’s it. I’m done for the day. WOWZA.

In other Gus-related news: The Olympian tweeted a pic of his bruised little heiney, saying “A peach hasn’t been this destroyed since Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name”

What did we do to deserve him and Adam Rippon?

The Trailer for the New “Lost In Space” Series Is Here (But Where’s Sniveling Dr Smith?)

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The classic ’60s sci-fi campfest gets a very earnest reboot beginning next month on Netflix. From the YouTube description: “The Robinson family, part of a highly trained mission to establish a new colony in space, is unexpectedly pulled off course forcing them to crash land on a lost planet.”

So far so good.

Upon viewing the trailer, though, a few things pop out: First off, the new Will Robinson seems awfully young to carry so much story. Second, Major Don West is being played by the guy who played Diego Alcazar on General Hospital, which is fine, he’s hot, but he’s certainly no Mark Goddard. Now THERE was a man! My first true love! Don’t screw with my memories, Netflix! Third: We don’t actually see the robot in this trailer, but we hear him. And he sounds like a real downer. Not the fun, best friend we all fantasized about growing up with. Again, this is integral to the show’s success.

The biggest change though? Hold on to your wigs, because this is a doozy. According to IMDB, the part of the dastardly stowaway Dr Smith – one of the most iconic queens in pop culture – is now being played by…. Parker Posey? HUH? Now, I love Parker, don’t get me wrong. And I’m all for the occasional gender swap. But Dr Smith is a sniveling little bitch of a man. He’s not, nor will he ever be, Parker Freakin’ Posey. You can’t screw with my childhood like that, Netflix!

Watch the trailer below.

Lost in Space premieres on Netflix April 13.

Now on WOW Presents Plus! Jasmine Masters’ Class

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In the premiere episode of Jasmine Masters’ Class, Jasmine discusses a VERY important topic; hygiene!

It’s like the master class you can buy from that annoying Facebook ad with comedy course with Steve Martin or cooking with Gordon Ramsey but with more T to spill.

Musty balls, armpits, breath

Jasmine goes into all things hygiene in this hilarious WOW Presents Plus series. Jasmine helps everyone with their jush by taking fan letters and helping them out with serious hygiene questions. Nothing is off the table because we want you to get your jush on.

Wash thine ass faithfully

Jasmine serves up all these nuggets of wisdom and more! Honestly, I watched it twice in a row because I couldn’t get enough of the T she’s serving on Jasmine Masters’ Class.  

Head on over to WOW Presents Plus to watch Jasmine Masters’ Class.

It’s lit.

 

Donald Trump Jr. & Right Wing Pigs Try to Smear Parkland Shooting Survivors Like David Hogg

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Photo, Gateway Pundit

Donald Trump Jr. liked two tweets that peddle a conspiracy theory about a 17-year-old survivor of the Parkland school shooting. The tweets attacked David Hogg one of the outspoken students who documented the nightmare of the school shooting.

Hogg had referred to Trump’s tweet blaming the FBI for the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as “disgusting” and told CNN that his father was a retired FBI agent.

The FBI are some of the hardest-working individuals I’ve ever seen in my life.

In another interview with NBC, Hogg also told Trump,

You’re the president. You’re supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us. How dare you? Children are dying, and their blood is on your hands because of that. Please take action. Stop going on vacation in Mar-a-Lago. Take action. Work with Congress. Your party controls both the House and Senate. Take action, get some bills passed, and for God’s sake, let’s save some lives.

Trump Jr. liked a tweet from conservative TV show host Graham Ledger that linked to a story by far-right, pro-Trump website, Gateway Pundit, that suggests that Hogg’s father had “coached” his son in propagating “anti-Trump rhetoric and anti-gun legislation.”

Hogg told BuzzFeed News his thoughts,

I just think it’s a testament to the sick immaturity and broken state of our government when these people feel the need to pedal conspiracy theories about people that were in a school shooting where 17 people died and it just makes me sick. It’s immature, rude, and inhuman for these people to destroy the people trying to prevent the death of the future of America because they won’t.

One of his classmates pointed out on Twitter that the idea of Hogg being a professional actor was laughable.

(via BuzzFeed News)

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