Stylish with Substance

*Update* This piece was long and I was so upset ("my feewings wuh huwt") that I just wanted it posted, so I later made revisions to improve its readability, just improve the article's quality. (We should all simmer on huge entries!) Enjoy!

This outrageous (literally) GAP ad is the buzzing news, destined for infamy:

"Put some pants on!"
Small Text: "Because we can't all look good in shorts."

Photo: Huffington Post & Stephanie Marcus

Ex-squeeze my love handles, er I mean, sexy hips?

How insulting!!! As someone of the cellulited-gender - yes, entire gender (heck even a man I know *hushnottelling* has some on his rear end), and past the stickly teen years, I'm horrified. I fear further for  the eyes of the larger-sized than I.

Ugh. I call for a boycott/protest of GAP. Quick, someone start a Facebook campaign for that one! Check! Done! Look below to "like" the page! (Related in the buzzosphere, Target boycott, read all about it, if you haven't yet.)

Seriously (although I'm dead serious about the boycott, too!) though, cellulite is normal. What's abnormal is airbrushing and photoshopping. What's wrong is hiding normal, yes even healthy, bodies from public eye.

And what I learned recently, a while before this ad, is that "public eye" does not just mean magazines and TV. It means beautiful, healthy, slightly less healthy, etc., women of small, medium, large sizes - great legs or not - are afraid to bare those legs. But we have a right to bare legs! Because we feel our legs are "less worthy" than those in fashion ads (please!), we might opt only for bermuda shorts. Even when those shorten us (our legs), and therefore, widen (our entire frames). Short-shorts lengthen like a great pair of heels. So yes, they even thin us out, if a pear-shape is our problem.

Asking the question, "should some people not wear shorts?" (the Frisky) due to this ad is understandable coming from a shocked viewpoint. But asking that question is also akin to asking,

"Should female human beings not wear shorts?"

It's ridiculous. Sure, not all women have cellulite - but they should merely wait a few years. Even thin, toned middle-aged women get cellulite ... as low down the leg as the back of  the knee. Still, we can't ban shorts for women over 35, can we? What about those with beautiful curves and cellulite at 19? When will it end?

The slippery slope argument can be made, and made well I believe, in the shorts debate.

I've already written my plea to women of today in a draft for a future post about staying cool & stylish in the summer heat, but I will steal from it.

Don't be afraid to bare your cellulite. If you don't feel hot enough to stay cool in the epitome of summer fashion -shorts, you might just be wrong. Curves and cellulite are absolutely normal, and we need more images of these things, of real women, in the world. ... I won't be ashamed of something that's absolutely average.

Maybe I hate other parts, but I can live with even the least thin parts of my legs, and the rest of the world should too.

What about you? Please make some sort of pledge. Comment, Twitter, Facebook, Blog.

And please like the "cause" on this Facebook page that I did just create.

The code is below. But it's hard to read.

Lara Stone is busty (left, for Prada) but in the 2nd photo
more stick than full figured with jutting hip bones.

I'm about to depart a bit from my usual "Ella" demure professionalism today in this rant. (Warning: it bad language will show up further down the page.) Still somehow when I'm sick with upset, surprisingly, eloquence conquers more through lyrical prose. So you'll now receive oddly & seemingly-schemed poetic flow with the partial drawback of - well, a hissy fit? At least you can not see the temper tantrum I feel inside me wanting to break out. But it is not masterminded; it is a gift (in my opinion, as I like my style). Perhaps I am blessed in my strangeness, but I digress too much.

I'm weary, bleary, hungry and rife with personal strife currently. It'll be OK soon, don't worry - life happens. OK I'm still a lady, yes, I didn't cuss. But later on, I know the bitch me will surface - and Ella even refers to that as a chienne or female dog instead of the B word! (Oh my.) But it is a part of me. I won't deny it as a woman it is in me. Hear me roar. And that's not anti-feminist. (Men can be worse - or just plain bitches themselves. Maybe that's un-PC. Maybe it's human.)

On to the "story"... So model and it-girl hype ... I never follow it. You might know that. I don't care if you care not for it. But of course I do try to keep up with a lot of fashion article reading whenever I can. I'm not mad when bloggers follow business-as-usual whereas it's my nemesis - so the source of this news does not matter. Oh it does as a link source, of course, I happily oblige - I mean just that I mean no offense. Who does not chatter - amongst the trendy writers - of trends, news, current... That's fine, as "fine" is defined.

But back on topic, this happens to mean, yes-I've heard buzz of Lara Stone and her status in the modeling world. Whatever.

But her very popularity (or is it sheer f...abbing presence on top catwalks?) is marked as exceptional to the modeling biz. Why? Because she's a size 4. Yes, 4, or 6 on bloated days. But models are "supposed to be" a 0 or 2. So she's heralded as "curvier" or worse "fuller figured".

View our Gallery from W Magazine's August issue declaring Stone Fashion's IT Girl. Our Ttitle: Beauty or the Beast?

The real thing, true visual difference, between Lara and her runway colleagues (not all models, mostly just runway) is that her breasts are 2 1/2 sizes more grown than her nearly A peers. Her bust is reportedly a C cup.

Quel shock! Alert the press! She's got it gets juicy from here...

If you're like I am, you hate dieting and doing crunches. And you also have a sweet tooth. That's a bad mixture - but I've found the tasty drink solution to shed inches off my waist - other body parts will not so much be helped.

• Brew some green tea.
• Take a glass - or a large bottle that once held juice or water. (Making large batches in the bottle is recommended.)
  
• If you're doing this glass-by-glass, sprinkle one packet of Crystal Light.
• Or by the bottle: dump one small cup (not the measurement, but the type of containment - out of a canister of little cups vs. the box of packets) of CL intended for such  larger bottles.
• It's important in regards to fighting a colorful mess to put in the powder first.
• If you're using a plastic bottle, pour water first - then green tea (which might otherwise melt the plastic), I use more water than green tea, but there's no science to measuring this.
• Stir (glass) or shake (bottle). (Sorry, that's a duh, isn't it?)
• Ice or let chill in fridge. (This is a cold drink.)
  
• Drink throughout the day.
• Drink very little - if any at all - soda (or coffee, or whatever your pound-packing poison is). Treat diet soda like regular soda and IMHO even treat carbonated water* like diet soda (and therefore soda). And DON'T have more than 2 cans worth in a day, at maximum. *The flavored bubbly water only has helped me in that it fights the soda urges and tastes better than diet, but it does not help me lose weight. It does help get over a *Coke* addiction, though! A Google search contradicted this belief against bubbly water, but I swear that is my experience!
  

Now exercise however you like or can stand. Diet only as much as you can stand, too. I even pretty much eat what I want, except now I'm worrying about foods that bloat my belly back up a few inches.

Since I've stopped pairing this method with those seltzery waters (and also drank very little soda) I've lost 4 inches off my waist, in 1 week. And actually the last two days, it was 1 inch each. (I think the 1" days were days I didn't have chips; one of my weakness foods, that also are salty.)

When I used to quit soda for a time here and there, and only drank juice, I'd lose a few pounds. When I did this and drank a lot of those flavored sparkling waters, I was wondering why I lost nothing. I now go to my tasty green tea (because I HATE tea!) all the time and it's working.

However - not on the thighs. Ha ha. I'm definitely heading in a "pear shape" direction. ;-)

*Updated instructions**Important* (Above)

It took me a while to think of how I should communicate this properly, if I could or should at all.

This post is about last weekend's MTV Movie Awards' thank-you speech by Miley Cyrus - or rather, her appearance. (There is actually more to be said regarding her nutty speech, itself, but might need go un-worded to us who are adults.)

I'll form it in the classic blog-letter style, because Miley's the one who needs help, and that's how we "do".

Dear Ms. Cyrus,

Take a note from your alter-ego character and realize you need some real life and childhood. I'm not even really all that upset by your dress, yes it is mature, but not in a tarty way.

And your make-up, it's too much. Teenagers love dark eyes or heavy liner, even though heavy make-up is for adults, if anyone (and actually it should be for no one). So yes, I know it's a teen thing, but all teens, honey, want to grow up too fast. And mob mentality is usually wrong.

But I'm mostly writing about your obviously tired eyes. You need more rest.

Perhaps being two people is seriously too much. I don't know if you actually produce more product or perform longer concerts. I'm just not your demographic so I do not follow you But something is making you look older. By many years.

Please take care of yourself, girl. And enjoy that dear puppy, too.

With concern, your elder,
Ella

P.S. If you are seriously interested in fashion or want to be taken seriously, avoid Wal-Mart like the plague. Or like you might avoid your parents.

(P.S. to readers, the Jonas Brothers put out a line of ... sweater vests??? ... There are no communicable words.)

(P.P.S. to readers. I knew Max Azria was not so hot, that story's proof.)

Photo credit: E!