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amphtaminedreams · 5 years ago

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A/W 2020 Fashion Month: Before Vogue Went Blank (Part 2)

Hi to anyone reading,

I was going to start this post by jumping straight into Dion Lee and part 2 in general but there's been a lot going on the past couple of days-although this blog is primarily fashion, it wouldn’t feel right to start talking about designers without acknowledging all the shit that’s been going down.

^Photo Credit to @spiltcoco on Twitter

Yesterday, police footage came out of US police murdering yet another black man in broad daylight-George Floyd. He joins Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Alton Sterling, plus hundreds more named and god knows how many more unnamed African American citizens in the ever-growing list of victims of police brutality.

The majority of these are just people going about their daily lives, a majority of them doing absolutely nothing wrong; even those we know to have committed crimes have been unarmed and non-violent offenders. That being said, their offences are beside the point when we’ve seen the white perpetrators of mass shootings be calmly cuffed and escorted into the backs of police cars as if they were the ones selling cigarettes without permits. American police, given the amount of them that are armed, regularly become judge, jury and executioner trained for 8 weeks by an institution that originated from slave patrols. I cannot imagine how terrifying it is just to walk around as a PoC in America. I cannot imagine the collective trauma that has been suffered because of recent events on top of the intergenerational trauma that most likely exists because of centuries of oppression. I cannot imagine what it’s like to live in a country that was built to suppress you and was by law allowed to do so until very recently, those original structures still in place. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be made to feel like this is your fault. I mean, Boris Johnson is a useless, cold-hearted twat and I won’t defend him or this country for a minute (we have much blood on our own hands, and racial profiling is just as much a thing here as it is in America-I read earlier that you’re 28 times more likely to be stopped and searched in London as a non-white person compared to a white person), but I still can’t imagine him publicly advocating for the mass murder of groups he knows to be primarily made up of black people via Twitter. This whole situation is so unimaginably fucked up; anyone who still sees America as one of the world’s most developed nations needs to take a long, hard look at what is going on and reconsider that opinion.

Whilst we can’t fix everything, we can all speak up and make our voices heard, and it is our duty to do so. It’s not good enough to just “not be racist”, you have to be ANTI-racism, even if that means constantly reflecting on your own privilege and challenging your assumptions. Neutrality is complicity. Signing a petition isn’t going to change the world, but it’s a start:

https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_by_id=7ba70000-a127-11ea-87fb-d1ff0bf6ea96

As I publish this, there’s less than 50,000 signatures needed to hit the target of 6,000,000 so if you happen to see it, get signing! There are lots of other petitions online but Change.org seems to be the only major one you can sign in the UK as the other are US based and require a zip code. I never thought I’d close a paragraph by quoting Macklemore but the line “no freedom 'til we're equal, damn right I support it” is at the forefront of my mind right now. Again, neutrality is complicity. We’re never going to achieve a fair society by sitting on our asses and hoping things will improve. Let’s all do the best we can.

Sorry if that intro wasn’t what you came here for, but I just think it’s so important to talk about. I know I’ve said in the past that fashion is supposed to be an escape from everyday life but there are some times when real life needs our attention and this is one of them. Feel free to unfollow if you disagree.

Anyway, onto the fashion. If this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! There’s a part 1! But I don’t wanna be pushy so start here if you wish!

If you read part 1, welcome back!

I ended that post by practically falling at the feet of Dilara Findikoglu, and I so wanted to start this post by regaining a sense of dignity and go straight into what-the-fuck-ing at Dior, but I know breaking chronological order would really piss off those “OmG I’m SoOo OCD, tHis BuzZfeEd aRtiCle WiTh DiFfereNt SiZed TiLes ToLd Me!” which is basically me minus claiming liking things to be organised means I have OCD-no, just dermatillomania and the denial that a compulsive skin picking disorder has anything to do with OCD because the neuroses club that is my brain doesn’t have any space left. SO, I have to continue where I left off and star the post with Dion Lee, whose collections I am a big fan of.

I could ramble a bit more but I did enough of that at the beginning of part 1 and am sure I’ll do more than enough in this post anyway, so here it is, Dion Lee:

Considering we ended with the maximalism of Dilara Findikoglu, sliding back over towards the other far end of the scale with a designer that tends to pitch their tent on the borders of the minimalism camp feels correct. Dion Lee, fortunately, seems the perfect collection to open with. There aren’t many other brands who do edge in such an understated and masterful way. If you want to be ready for combat and look like you’d fit right in at Vogue at the same time, look no further. This season’s collection is full of perfectly placed cut outs and immaculate tailoring and subtle street fighter-esque details as ever, and that’s why it pains me to say it:

Not that this is enough in the way of critique to restore my dignity by any means, it’s not a patch on last season.

I don’t think there was a single bad look in that show, and at times it felt like I was weeding through them here. When the looks were good, they were GOOD but a lot I found to be disappointing. Plus I have no idea why you’d put tie-dye in an A/W collection. I appreciate that it’s an Australian brand and that our winter is their summer, but they’re presenting to the rest of the world at fashion week and anyone in Paris, Milan, London and New York is going to be freezing their tits off and looking like a twat in an orange tie-dye sundress. There wasn’t much of a dip in quality for the menswear compared to last season, but honestly womenswear left a lot to be desired. That’s what happens when your expectations are high.

I used to think that if you assume the worst, it’s impossible to feel let down. And then I saw Dior’s A/W 2020 collection. Did a full 180 on that statement.

I suppose it’s a step up from haute couture, but then at least the styling in that was simple, and it just didn’t look like anybody had tried at all; here it’s clear Maria Grazia chucked everything she could at this collection, every headscarf, every gingham print, every shallow feminist undertone, and it was still a fucking mess. At first you think some of the individual pieces are cute but have just been ruined by the styling, and then you begin to look, and realise that even those individual pieces could’ve easily been bought in a New Look Boxing Day sale.

THIS IS CHRISTIAN DIOR, SUPPOSEDLY ONE OF THE MOST LUXURIOUS BRANDS OUT THERE. WHAT IS GOING ON!?

I don’t know, I included as many looks that I didn't mind as I could, but it’s like there always has to be a crappy, unnecessary detail in there. Everything is so literal. Of course the collection based around the divine feminine has the models dressed like basic ass Greek goddesses, so of course the collection based around the modern woman and equality has women walking the runway in ties and ill-fitting shoes too. Maria Grazia, here is a box:

Think outside of it.

Next is, thankfully, Elie Saab:

No, not exactly a trailblazer of a collection, but executed with poise and elegance as always. I mean, the styling is spot on. It looks like each part of the outfit was made for another, to contribute to a whole clearly envisioned look, similar to what we saw in the Alberta Ferretti show. Elie Saab is known for its haute couture shows where all the tiny details, the sequins and the silk and the embroidery come together to make something beautiful, and this is just that on a larger scale, with less “wow”s and more quiet admiration, more wishing you were the one wearing that outfit. If you’re gonna play safe, do it this well. The night dresses are stunning of course, but not even my favourite bit of the show. It’s the casual looks, the pussy bows and the ruffles and the neck scarfs and the private girls school monochrome colour palette with the occasional pop of red or purple, a toned down version of what we saw at haute couture, any of which deserve to be worn whilst eating macarons in front of the Eiffel Tower before trip to Musee D’Orsay. It’s Poppy Moore’s school uniform grown up and made fit for a fashion magazine editor:

Somehow managing to cram an Emma Roberts early 2010s fashion moment into every post is my talent, who knew. Wild Child was really a gem.

Erdem was a mixed bag:

With a lot of the outfits, I can’t tell if I actually like the garments that much or if I just like the look as a whole. I mean, without sounding too gluten-free Callie from the Valley, I like the VIBE, but there was a lot of outfits I almost included before I had to ask myself “LAUREN, do you ACTUALLY like this or do you just like the walking-into-your-sugar-daddy’s-will-reading-to-claim-his-fortune DRAMA of it all!?”

It happened a couple of times, where once I took off my black and white, theatrical violin accompanied entrance filtered sunglasses, I realised that the actual print was ugly. A collection so cohesively ornamental and kitschy is going to lean too far into that at times, and they were a few overly-fussy moments where it seemed less nudge nudge wink wink and more like Erdem Moralıoğlu fell into his grandma’s wardrobe, stole some fabric, and called it a day. I don’t want to sound like I’m not a fan of the collection because overall it’s gorgeous, I just thought it was a bit much at times.

Continuing with the theme of clever seasonal continuity that weaved its way throughout this year’s A/W offerings, Ermanno Scervino kept the core of his summer collection and made it just that little bit darker, added some weight to everything, and this is one of the rare occasions where I like the winter incarnation a lot more. I’m not huge about either but there’s a lot of things I’d love to wear here, the coats especially.

Up next is a reliable favourite of mine:

Etro.

Was it REALLY necessary for you to include ALL those coats I hear you ask?

Alaska Thunderfuck as Gia Gunn voice: Absolutelyyyy.

When it comes to bohemian fashion, Etro is unbeaten. Everything is always exquisitely coordinated and styled. Like I usually fucking hate aztec print but I love the way it’s done here. I’ve never known a brand to make belts seem like such an integral, tasteful part of the outfit in a field where they so often seem like a last minute addition for the sake of accessorising; it pains me to say it, but Elie Saab, I’m looking at you. It’s your only fault.

Yes for bringing back embroidered jeans! Yes for all those high necks! Yes for the tapestry print! Yes for the Afghan waistcoats! Etro will keep fedoras cool forever and I love them for that; I don’t know if she ever actually wore any of their stuff but I just know Stevie Nicks was in her prime would’ve ate this shit UP and she is my style icon for the ages. Plus, I might be way off base here but a lot of the collection seems to be inspired by traditional Romani style and it’s a beautiful direction to take things, a treasure trove of layers upon layers and rich textures and opulent prints.

I can’t wait til the phase of my phase of my life where I can swan around in maxi dresses and ponchos. I just hope those maxi dresses and ponchos are Etro.

Onto another brand which hasn’t had a bad show since I started my reviews: Fendi. This season, they took their late 60s/early 70s wild child aesthetic and gave a millionaire’s high maintenance wife spin on it, and what’s not to like about that?

I mean, Fendi is a brand which is always going to excel in its F/W presentations-the rich, bohemian prints (pro-tip: if you can’t already tell, me mentioning the word bohemian in a review pretty much guarantees I like the collection), the furs, and the warm colour palette all perfectly translate into clothes suited for walks through a city going through a post-summer burnout, where it rains red and orange leaves. You can tell Silvia Fendi is in her element when she’s got texture to play with, something that comes across in the gorgeous coats Fendi consistently puts out, and this season continues that trend. Plus, there’s a lot of adorable details here-shoes that show off the decorative socks underneath, the cube shaped bags and those furry ear muffs which I hope bring about a high street muff renaissance because they’re the equivalent of slipper socks for my ears and THEY’RE ACTUALLY REALLY PRACTICAL. The only thing I’m not in love with is the mirrored glasses, and I can’t help but think how replacing them with a pair of grandad style aviators would be the icing on the cake for the collection. Maybe I just need to see Miss Robyn Rihanna Fenty wearing them and then I’ll get on board. Usually works.

Ah, GCDS. I got so excited for it after last season but this time round, it was a bit of a disappointment. There were a few outfits that semi-matched up to how cutting-edge I saw their last collection, however a lot of the pieces looked pretty low quality. I get that streetwear is in the name, but it’s supposed to be a high fashion take on that, and a lot of the looks were quite pedestrian. Stand outs are the top 2 rows and the leather motocross style jumpsuit on the far right, third row down, but the quality of these pieces wasn’t consistent across the board and I feel like I ended up having to convince myself I liked some of the others just so I had enough photos to justify including the brand. It really sucks when I look back on how ahead of the game last season’s collection was-we’re talking outfits that wouldn’t be out of place on Instagram’s Tokyofashion page and as far as I’m concerned that’s the fashion holy grail. Some of these looks, especially the menswear, could be from a Boohoo TV ad and that makes me sad.

Meanwhile, Giambattista Valli put out a collection that looked like a virtual postcard of Parisian fashion; if a St-Germain-des-Prés streetwear themed Instagram doesn’t exist already, someone should capitalise on that, stat, because if my typical vision of French feminine fashion is correct it would be full of outfits like this. I feel like this is what a fashion novice EXPECTS Chanel to look like. Trust me-these days the reality is much more disappointing.

There’s many things I'm happy to see here besides the tulle and florals and prettiness I expect of the brand. Obviously the berets and the bows and the elbow length gloves are the kind of off-duty ballerina style touches I’ve become accustomed to but there are also some nice surprises here: the military style white jacket, the unexpected snake motif on clothing that’s otherwise overly delicate, and to my delight the return of the boater hat. IDGAF, this is the summer where I’m buying myself one off Ebay and making this happen for me whether they become a “thing” or not. I shouldn’t squander having this little of a double chin; the opportunity may never present itself again.

I haven’t watched Killing Eve in a longggg time since there’s only so much of two women attempting to kill each other and then miraculously avoiding death you can watch but I’d love to see Vilanelle prancing round a city in this kinda shit slitting some necks again. I hope that doesn’t make me sound like too much of a sadist; only in a purely fictional world is this something I want to see, I assure you.

Givenchy was really, really great this season too, imo. Definitely a step up from the last RTW anyway. Aside from the drama of the exaggerated floppy brim hats and the quirky tassle detail dresses a la Schiaparelli, a lot of these outfits kinda remind me of something a Miranda Priestly/Cruella De Vil type would wear, and you know me; I’m all for that kind of intimidating, about-to-either-slap-you-or-fire-your-ass bad bitch energy. The gathered leather gloves with the androgynous subtly checkered power suits feels CORRECT and if Giambattista Valli is the bottom in this relationship, Givenchy is the top. Am I allowed to reinforce sapphic relationship stereotypes as a bi girl? Probably not. I’m sorry. Won’t do it again. Just this once. And you know I’m right really xoxo

And OMFG Gucci. Another impeccable collection for me, honestly. Once again, it’s probably my favourite of the season. How it is that Alessandro Michelle gets it SO right for me despite his vision being so bold and different every time? He has this specific brand of strange, conceptual beauty which blends past and present trends in a way so supreme it should be considered art. It’s not a term to throw around loosely but the man is a genius, and tbh I’m still not over the human head props from the 2018 F/W winter show.

In my Haute Couture week review, I talked about the Viktor and Rolf collection (which I loved, don’t get me wrong!) and said that pretty meets grunge is my fave thing ever-this is that, but much even more substantial and intelligent. The Wes Anderson-esque pieces or that late 60s/early 70s hipster aesthetic that I loved in last season’s show hasn’t been done away with either-be it the level of detail or the colour scheme, it all somehow fits together. Never did I think I’d see dresses fit for porcelain dolls through the lens of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen seamlessly slotted in between outfits that could’ve been put together from the clothing rack of Dazed and Confused’s costume department. I want it all-opulent fur-trimmed coats, crucifix jewellery and pilgrim hats I’m sure both Edgar Allan Poe and modern goths would approve of, and the tiered skirts that wouldn’t be out of place in a Westworld saloon. The models were delightfully sad and almost creepy looking and I wouldn’t change that for the world. To say 10/10 doesn’t do it justice, so I’m gonna have to open a reviewer’s can of worms and say 100/100.

Gucci is a tough act to follow, and I’m sorry it has to fall onto the shoulders of Halpern. In the nicest possible way (as if there is any nice way of saying it), I don’t think I any expected anything but a downgrade, so if anything, my standards will be lower so...Michael Halpern, you can thank me I guess?

That was really mean, I’m sorry. It’s not a bad collection, and I definitely like it more than last season’s. It’s a slightly garish colour palette at times but an exciting one in spite of that, which when paired with the animal print dotted throughout makes this collection the perfect fit for a tropical beach party or at the very least, a semi-decent night at the Caribbean themed bar in your local town centre. The sequins and silk, a Halpern trademark, are as tastefully done as ever, and seeing them on the models, I can’t deny these are some power fits-the kind of clothes you are bound to look and feel confident in; if you wanted to play queen of the urban jungle for a night, this is what you need to be wearing.

Ah, Hermes.

Generally not one to stoke a fire inside me. In all fairness, the tailoring here is really, really nice and French biker chic, and the pieces are perfectly crafted-it’s not that I don’t like the outfits because I think that if I saw one of them individually in a natural, messier setting I’d probably be impressed. These are classy, elegant winter looks and what more could you want when you’re looking for outfit inspiration for this season? It’s just that it’s always a little too neat and uniform for me, and on the runway I like my fashion to be risky. This could almost be the sophisticated mother to a Tommy Hilfiger collection and whilst that’s something I would probably wear if I wanted to look put together, it’s not what you get excited to see at fashion week. Primary colours all together aren’t where it’s at for me either, the infamous colour scheme of the cheap plastic playhouses you’d find in the garden of every working/middle class British household back in the day. Yes, I had one. So did the after school club I was forced to attend whilst my mum was at work. Apparently the negative connotations are still too much for me (a boy I went to the after school club with did once fall off the back of one and crack his head open so maybe it’s justified).

Isabel Marant was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Isabel Marant; if the Etro bohemian woman is one who rolls out of bed and chucks on the first thing she sees, the Isabel Marant bohemian woman is the one who claims she’s done the same thing but who actually planned it all out the night before. She designs for the gluten-free, bikram yoga Kourtney Kardashian style “hippy” who claims to be a free-spirit but would definitely not do acid with you. I was gonna say it was a collection for the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world but then I remembered Gwyneth proudly released a candle she claimed smelled like her vagina and changed my mind-she’d definitely do acid with you.

It’s definitely a cohesive transition from the summer collection; both have that seemingly laid-back, clean-cut vibe, and cater to the rich, impeccably groomed scented candle loving woman everywhere. Obviously the pieces are a tad more suited to an alpine lodge in Switzerland than a beach in Malibu this time round, but that same mild colour palette, pretty, naturalistic patterns, and generally relaxed fit persists. It’s cute enough.

J.W Anderson is a bit of an enigma.

Despite the experimental silhouettes and the kooky details that you think would very “look at me!”, the collections still seem to have a chilled, easy-going feel to them. They toy about with the strange but remain entirely sophisticated whilst doing so-I think it’s because aside from the little quirks that make the garments J.W Anderson, they’re otherwise fairly reserved and simple; even the quirks themselves mostly tend to be exaggerated, more conceptual takes on more typical stylistic motifs anyway. Anderson has a knack for producing statement pieces that don’t look like they’re trying too hard to be statement pieces, a talent he expertly deploys at Loewe as well. Whilst Maison Margiela collections are like the fashion equivalent of that Jughead “I’m weird, I’m a weirdo” speech, J.W Anderson’s refusal to conform is quiet and modest. I like it. It’s not generally my personal style but I can admire the thought behind the work, and there are still some things I’d love to try. I have a few standouts-the shoes with the hoop detailing dancing from the ankle straps, the dress on the bottom right with what appears to be art nouveau typography on, the trench coat with the cape detailing and the gossamer dress to its right are all stunning, especially that dress. If I ever want to dress as the bubble Glinda the Good Witch descends in when she meets Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I know where to go, though I don’t suppose there’s going to be an occasion that calls for that any time soon. Can I just have the dress anyway?

Kim Shui is another new designer I found through blessed Twitter screencaps-thanks guys for doing my research for me. Much appreciated.

But anyways! Like Charlotte Knowles, it’s clear she’s still establishing her aesthetic as a designer, and thus far I love it. The whimsical, throwback prints on urban silhouettes that range from the androgynous suits of city dwelling cool girls to the amped-up sex appeal of nightclub dresses is gorgeous, especially twinned with dainty headscarfs and opera gloves-all in all I think this a very cool and wearable collection and I’m looking forward to the next collection she puts out.

Next up is Lacoste, and IDK why I always include their collections to be honest, considering they’re not really known for “high fashion”. I guess it’s because my dad has collected Lacoste shirts since I was little so I kinda have a soft spot for it and feel obligated to include it every time presentation season comes around. Yes, the outfits are unbearably preppy and the colours are garish but I feel like that’s kind of the appeal? So what if some of the tracksuits look like they could’ve been pulled out of a bad mafia movie? I see the argyle jumpers, with a bit of wear and tear, as a charity shop gem my sister would come across (she has the #Y2K Depop girl knack for finding old designer pieces in the shittiest charity shops without the audacity to try and sell them at a 70% markup) that I would then steal from her wardrobe to wear myself, contrasted with a ripped mini skirt, chains and and docs. I see the POTENTIAL of a look that is very fuck you to the rich middle age tory styling we see here. It’s punk, okay?

Lanvin was STUNNING this time around. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching Mad Men recently and it reminds me of the fashion on that-which I hope somebody won an award for at the time BTW, it is SO fucking good-but I just adore every look here. I can’t even remember if I reviewed Lanvin’s SS20 show, and so clearly if I did it wasn’t that memorable (no shade intended), however this collection is a different story. Every single one of these outfits is iconic movie moment worthy, a 60s Cher Horowitz plaid two piece equivalent that would get screencapped and replicated ad-nauseam, all the best looks of Betty Draper and Peggy Olsen and Joan Holloway and Megan Calvet brought together and refined for the modern day woman. I might even consider sacrificing my anti-royalist principles if it meant I could transport myself back in time and switch bodies with Grace Kelly so I could make this collection my princess-off-duty wardrobe and drive around Monaco in that Bella Hadid look, roof down, all the drama of the fur trim and the gloves and hair whipping about in the wind (but in this unrealistic vision I can actually see what I’m doing and I’m not choking on random strands and swearing at Mother Nature as if she is a real entity with a personal vendetta against me).

Loewe! More J.W Anderson! I’m gonna try not to repeat myself by arsekissing too much all over again and get the good points out of the way quickly! So rapid fire: elegant! Delicious colour palette! Interesting shapes! I think I’m seeing a Victorian/Edwardian influence there! Correct me if I’m wrong! I like it! The coats are strong! Remind me of the suffragettes! But lets pretend in this case these Loewe style coat wearing suffragettes are not raging classists!

AH. Apart from that, it was a bit too austere for me. I definitely preferred Anderson’s eponymous collection; there were a fair few recurring details in this show that I couldn’t get behind that I didn’t include, in particular this bib-like black panel that just kept popping up on everything. Sorry J.W Anderson. But a 50% success rate is still good! And at the end of the day, having 2 collections on Vogue Runway at once is more prestigious than the accumulative total of every accomplishment I’ll probably ever have achieved in my life by the time I’m on my deathbed so what do I know anyway? Sigh:( At least I’ll always have the honour of having the largest head by circumference of my class in year 4, right *sweats nervously*!?!?!

Louis Vuitton was definitely a downgrade on last season for me. There were for sure elements I liked-the Vera Wang-esuqe mixing of the tulle bustle skirts with the rougher, more masculine biker inspired vests and jackets was a cool choice, reminiscent of Gucci’s mixing of the lace dresses with harnesses. I enjoyed the baroque jackets and subtle nods to steampunk style too. Though we’ve already seen it a lot this season, the wet look coat with fur trim I can’t help falling in love with, and I’m immune to the potential ugliness of the muted blue monotone look purely on the basis I can picture Ripley from Alien in it. So like I said-it’s not as if I hated it. I guess when it comes down to it, the collection wasn’t bad so much as I just had higher hopes. I will say though, the staging was INCREDIBLE. As a history nerd, I never thought I’d see the day when a Henry the 8th lookalike actor was part of the backdrop of a Paris fashion week show-and I always thought there was no interesting career path for me in the subject!

And another big name I don’t tend to be so partial to, Maison Margiela. IDK, I did like last season but I wasn’t a fan of haute couture and it took me a while to warm to this. Call it deconstructed, experimental, whatever, but you know when you can’t decide what to wear and you’re in a rush so you kinda just throw all the shit you decided against into a pile? Well, my initial thought was that this season Margiela is kinda that, on the runway.

I will say, once I let go of my need to see a clear shape, a lot of the individual pieces were stunning (NOT the puffed up tabis though, I still can’t even get behind the regular ones). I guess I just wish they’d go for less is more with the styling because as it currently stands, it makes it hard to actually take the clothes in.

Ultimately, one thing you can always say about Margiela, like their clothes or not, is that it has a monopoly on being effortlessly bold.

Marc Jacobs I really liked again, though I will say it doesn’t stand out quite like the S/S collection did. That was absolutely STUNNING-I can’t remember specifically where I ranked it in my top ten but I know it was at least in the top 5. This, on the other hand, is...pretty. It’s very pretty, and very put together, so I’m not saying at all that I don’t rate it. I suppose it’s just a lot simpler than I expected it to be-I don’t have a problem with simplicity, at all, especially if it’s what a brand is known for but I feel like part of the appeal with Marc Jacobs is that it’s pretty kooky. I mean, not Thom Browne or Margiela kooky, but commercial kooky at least. I feel like the kookiness is lacking here? And that’s where this feeling is coming from? And also, the fact that Lanvin tackled the same era and did it a lot better? So there’s that, too. Plus, I adore Miley Cyrus but...why? Random celebrities waking the runway just doesn’t do it for me-it always comes across as a publicity grab, as if the designer isn’t confident enough in their collection’s ability to get people talking on its own, and I suppose in this case that says it all really.

Margaret Howell was...well, Margaret Howell. She’s known for her basics, and they’re always pretty non-offensive “regulation hottie” in the words of the icon that is Damian from Mean Girls. It’s been, what, four years? More? Since I last watched that film but I’m pretty sure watching it about twenty times between the ages of 9 and 15 tattooed it on my brain. I include her because even though they don’t get my pulse racing, I like these pieces; considering the fact that expecting straight white men to ever have style on the level of barbiedrugz (his instagram is my favourite thing ever) or Rickey Thompson is ludicrous, Margaret Howell’s menswear looks are probably are the best, realistic goal for any future partner. Because I like my men dressed like Paddington bear/a depressed Brown University English lit lecturer, okay? Or in other words, Will Graham from Hannibal.

Marine Serre had a few good moments-the looks that I liked were the ones that stayed within her lane of blending the weird with the visually appealing. There were a lot of cool things going on, and I like the utility vibe (the boot with the pouch detailing and the mask are perfect examples of this done well), but outside the fits I picked out a lot of it went over my head tbh.

Marques Almeida is a show I was looking forward to-it has such a youthful, experimental quality to its collections (it’s no surprise the designers said they were influenced by the HBO show Euphoria this year!), similar to Central Saint Martins, and you can tell the designers (Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida) are based in London too; we are talking about the birthplace of the punk fashion movement, and as a designer it’s probably almost a rite of passage that you incorporate elements of that into your work. Marques Almeida does that with a flair and consistency you can count on. Their clothes don’t have the wildest silhouettes or anything like that but the fun they have playing around with print and colour and the ease and confidence with which they settle on those combinations always comes through-the black and white coat with the yellow furs trim is one of my favourite pieces from the entirety of this season’s offerings.

I wasn’t so fond of Max Mara’s SS20 collection and I'm not gonna lie, this isn’t THAT much of a step up for me personally. It’s just one of those brands I feel obligated to include because it’s talked about quite a bit but I’m not totally sure if it’s for me. Too monotone, but I’ll give it another season! And I mean, there is a slight improvement here-this collection is a lot more laid back than the stiff, austere feel of the last, and there are some very well fitted and structured pieces. A lot of the looks kinda remind me of a 2020, fashion take on The Breakfast Club’s “Basket Case”, which is kinda cool, and just from looking at the clothes, the high price tag is palpable. Also, scruffy hair club unite! Though obviously it’s intentional here! That’ll be my excuse for the next time I turn up at work looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards-Max Mara made me do it.

Ending on those words of wisdom, I’m gonna bring this post to a close, because I can’t fit any more photos in! I’m desperately hoping that I can fit this all into 3 parts like I did with my last RTW review but even if I do have to make 4 posts, I still include my top 10 shows as I did before. I hope to get that post up within the next couple of weeks! After that, I’ve shot a Lana Del Rey inspired by each of her different albums and “era”s though given last week’s events I’m on the fence about whether to post it or not, especially given her silence over the last couple of days. I’m really proud of what I’ve put together and I’ll always love her art and music (I have 2 bloody tattoos, for fuck’s sake!), so I’m trying to think how I can reconcile that with those awfully worded posts and just the general lack of awareness of bigger issues that she’s displayed the last week. JFC, being a Lana stan has always been so chilled up until now. All the very valid and important takes aside, that “Lana pls delete that post and apologise, we can’t fight the barbz all your stans are depressed” tweet is the only good thing to come out of this shitshow. He got a point. Breathing feels like effort lately:( IDK, if you’re also a Lana stan and you have any opinions on the matter, feel free to DM me, because I’m feeling pretty conflicted rn.

Most importantly though, are the issues I opened this post by talking about, and I thought I’d finish by including the thread of petitions I saw on Twitter. Like I said, a lot of them aren’t available to sign in the UK but to anyone who read up until this point (thank you!) idk where you’re reading from so maybe some of them will apply to you:

https://twitter.com/yericvIt/status/1265801832930045953

Also, while we’re at it, because every tory voting twat seems to treat our country as if it’s some beacon of hope where racism is non-existent and love to tell PoC to stop moaning about their experiences, here’s a thread of black British men and women who have lost their lives to police violence:

https://twitter.com/illh0eminati/status/1266441604170223617

Thank you for reading until the end. I hope that you enjoyed the fashion part of the post but also that if you did read this far, you read the other bits too if you didn’t know what was going on already. It seems like everyone does but you forget that Twitter’s a bit of an echo chamber and that outside of it, there’s a lot of ignorance, whether intentional or not. I know Tumblr has a similar audience to Twitter so I imagine there’s loads on here about everything going on too, but ya know. I wanted to talk about it just incase.

Stay safe, keep fighting the good fight, and again, thank you for reading!<3

Lauren x

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newpopplusminusdesign · 2 years ago

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Health - Our Owner's Manual

To start our assessment of life, there could be no greater spot to begin than with wellbeing. With it everything is conceivable, without it barely anything is. In any case, accomplishing wellbeing appears to be progressively slippery and confounding. There are endless conclusions and scarcely any of them work, as confirmed by maybe the quickest developing industry in our country, current medication. (Try not to get diverted by the promulgation that we are more grounded than any time in recent memory and living longer today because of clinical consideration.)

As a rule there is no simple solution to horribly significant and complex subjects. Despite the fact that wellbeing is unquestionably a particularly subject, the solutions to its quandaries are surprisingly basic in the event that we apply the SOLVER standards and will step separated from the group.

Accomplishing and keeping up with our best potential wellbeing initially expects that we understand what we are and where we came from new modern pop plus minus design We really want to counsel our proprietor's manual. An auto has the most obvious opportunity with regards to long life and ideal execution in the event that the proprietor's manual is followed cautiously. We will have long life and perform best assuming that we follow our proprietor's manual. The issue is that individuals don't follow the manual since they don't have the foggiest idea where it is or how to understand it. Thus, how about we put priorities straight and view as the manual.

We don't need to go far in our pursuit. Our manual untruths no problem at all inside every one of us like a yolk in an egg. Our hereditary qualities is simply manual. Encoded on the qualities inside every cell in the body is what could be compared to 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. To peruse this manual requires a short reasoning excursion.

Most importantly, how about we comprehend where we are today in the viewpoint of time. Envision that we could define a boundary 550 miles in length that addressed the assessed history of life on Earth (3.5 billion years). The last inch of that line would be the time since the Industrial Revolution , around quite a while back. That is the point at which this innovation we currently end up settled inside truly got under maximum speed. Put another way, assuming we downsized to one year the time that life has been on Earth, our cutting edge modern period would be under two seconds.

In spite of the fact that we have grown up expecting glaring lights, polyester, and Fruit Loops are ordinary, our own are absolutely remarkable conditions according to a hereditary viewpoint. Obviously our hereditary proprietor's manual teaches about the 550 miles, not the last inch. Stationary living, diet pop, espresso, morning kick pills, early afternoon sedatives, evening tranquilizers, oleomargarine, s'mores, four nutrition classes (meaning a Big Mac with cheddar, lettuce and tomato), and Tums are not in its pages. How is it that we could accept there is no punishment to be paid for not following the manual and changing our current circumstance so much that today essentially no fat in any human body in North America doesn't contain DDT, polystyrene, or Dioxin ?

Think about the proprietor's manual for fish. Fish qualities are modified to acknowledge just unambiguous ecological information, like a day to day existence in water and a food of more modest fish. In the event that a fish is removed from water and took care of lasagna it will become dis-facilitated flop, pant, become ill, and bite the dust. Additionally, when we show contempt for our proprietor's manual and remove ourselves from the hereditary setting for which we were planned, we become dis-facilitated too. We capitulate to the grown-up beginning, constant degenerative sicknesses like coronary illness, malignant growth, joint inflammation, sensitivities, heftiness, immune system problems, dental crumbling, untimely maturing, fruitlessness, etc. This is our 'floundering' and 'heaving' from disavowing our proprietor's manual and living in a world for which we were not planned. Albeit such sicknesses may not become manifest until the later long stretches of life, they start as soon as the belly. This makes it challenging to connect them with their actual causes: way of life, food, and ecological changes-not insufficient infiltration of medical services.

This basic idea that we are intended for nature-is uncommonly illuminating and strong in spite of its straightforwardness. Scarcely any grip its full ramifications. All things being equal, we eat anything that preferences great and is in a beautiful bundle. We live anyway we pick, accepting present day medication can fix whatever turns out badly.

This is the basic truth we should comprehend in the event that we want wellbeing: If things are not utilized by how they are planned, they fall flat and break. Our folks helped us the legitimate method for utilizing our toys, and we as a whole know to the point of perusing guidance manuals. These equivalent straightforward standards of focusing on our proprietor's manual and living in the manner we were planned give the expert keys to wellbeing.

Our qualities are an interior code for effectively exploring the outside world. At the point when we are conceived, our qualities completely hope to be dropped onto the timberland floor and to stay inside that setting for a lifetime. We shouldn't befuddle our starting points since we were naturally introduced to this new manufactured world.

So what explicitly does this mean we ought to do? Since 550 miles on the timetable (short around one inch) would address living out in nature, we want to shift focus over to that model. It comprises of clean air and water, daylight hitting our skin, eating food as found in nature, exhausting significant energy in acquiring it, tracking down cover, and safeguarding against hunters. That is the information our qualities comprehend and flourish with.

Our hereditary proprietor's manual doesn't oblige so well this new 'better living through science,' manufactured climate we have made in the last one inch of time: cooled plastic residences, dirtied air, getting basically no daylight, practicing nearly nothing, drinking contaminated and synthetically treated civil water, and eating various fractionated, artificially braced, handled food sources that are scarcely conspicuous as having at any point come from nature. We are, essentially, similar to lost and forsaken soul . We address the cost with loss of wellbeing. We gain wellbeing in direct extent to the degree we edge our lives nearer to the regular world.

Some, contending with regards to Dr. Pepper, Cheetos, and twelve-position chairs, may express that at this point we have adjusted to this advanced climate. Yet, that can't be. For a certain something, adequate time has not passed for our hereditary cosmetics to change significantly.We are, as a result, in a hereditary time travel since one inch isn't anything contrasted with 550 miles.

Furthermore, transformation of the populace would expect that those with (phenomenal) changes making them fit to present day life produce more posterity than those capitulating to it. In any case, that doesn't occur. The ecological changes to which we are oppressing ourselves are more unpretentious than a fish put out ashore, so we normally endure fine and dandy through the childbearing years. Hence, no regular determination and variation to the grown-up infection causing current world happens.

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newmodernpopplus · 3 years ago

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The Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper - A Personal Review and Tips to Use

The Whirley Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper is our number one method for making popcorn. We cause popcorn in our home no less than a few times to each week. Our most youthful girl, who is 14, is the assigned popcorn producer and she's been stirring it up since she was around 10 years of age. Indeed, even our most youthful child, who is seven, is figuring out how to utilize the Whirley Pop new modern pop plus minus design. It truly is just simple.

All in all, for what reason do we like the Whirley Pop to such an extent? Isn't microwave popcorn quicker? In reality, a clump of Whirley popcorn requires around 3 minutes on our gas oven, in this way, microwave popcorn isn't quicker. Also, with the new wellbeing worries over the fixings in microwave popcorn, we feel improved adding our own oil and popcorn portions and realizing that is all we are eating. Furthermore, as flavor goes, there truly is no correlation. I think microwave popcorn is normally excessively pungent and excessively sleek. Pop out light and cushioned. Simply salt and spread to taste and you are all set.

Here are a few ways to utilize the Whirley Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper: Season your new Whirley Pop as per makers headings (truly simple and takes short of what one moment). Add all fixings prior to switching on the intensity. Switch on the intensity sufficiently high to begin the popcorn popping. Don't bother wrenching the handle as quick as possible. Simply keep the popcorn moving along the base. We utilize olive oil since we like the flavor and empowerment of it, however any oil will do. Certain individuals suggest coconut oil for genuine cinema flavor, however we have never attempted it. Utilize great quality popcorn. We use Orville Redenbacher, however we will attempt a portion of the connoisseur Amish corns that are available. Keep an eye, or an ear, on the popping. When the popping goes from a "popity-pop" to a more slow "pop" pace, then, at that point, the time has come to eliminate the popper from the intensity. Empty your popcorn into your #1 popcorn bowl then salt and margarine to taste. Pop in a film and cuddle up to your #1 individual to impart popcorn to and dive in! At the point when the time has come to tidy up, the producer says to simply wipe down within with a paper towel to keep the dish prepared. We, in any case, do wash our own following a day's utilization, or after each utilization when we make pot corn.

The Whirley Pop Popcorn Popper accompanies a recipe book of north of 50 unique popcorn recipes. Furthermore, a lot more are accessible at the maker's site. We frequently make "pot corn" in our own. It is truly basic and tastes perfect. Indeed, we purchased our Whirley Pop a while back to make pot corn. Yet, we before long found that even the kind of standard popcorn is greatly improved in the Whirley Pop than microwave popcorn.

The maker of the Whirley Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper has been doing business more than 25 years. Like I said, we have had our own for more than 10 years and it is as yet pressing onward. The producer offers a long term guarantee on every single moving part. From surveys on the web, they rush to answer guarantee claims.

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superfreakinlonely · 5 years ago

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You have probably heard the rumors or perhaps looked and the leaks. In fact, OnePlus has been slowly spilling the beans about their new flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 8 Pro. Now the company is taking a different approach this time by launching two new phone, the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro.

These phones are meant to replace the OnePlus 7T and the 7 Pro, respectively. I’m here to give you a complete breakdown of the differences between the 7 series and 8 series, some of the features they have added or removed, and finally discuss the pricing of these new phones. Trust me whenever I say that this is not the OnePlus that we used to know my friends.

Alright, so I’m going to start with the 8 Pro. OnePlus has addressed a few of the issues that I have had with the 7 Pro. The edges of the display are less aggressively curved, but not completely flat like the 7T. The body is slightly taller and slimmer compared to the 7 Pro. However, the camera bump is slightly bigger and noticeably protruded, and I’m not a big fan of that. The corners are less rounded, which I like, and the back looks absolutely beautiful. I have the Ultramarine Blue model, and while it is composed of Gorilla Glass just like the 7 Pro, they added a matte texture giving it a really soft, smooth, and anti-reflective look. Now you can pick up the 8 Pro in two other colour options, one of them is Glacial Green and the other is Onyx Black.

They have still kept the Alert Slider on the side, which is still one of my favorite features of OnePlus devices. Looking at the display you might notice something different about the selfie camera. If you recall, the 7 Pro had a motorized pop-up camera resulting in a notch-less design, but they took a step back this time and went with a hole-punch camera cutout on the top left-hand side of the display. I don’t mind it at all, since it is still the norm with modern Android smartphones. However, it’s really interesting how they bragged about the durability of that motorized camera last year and now it’s gone.

The OnePlus 8 on the other hand is a slightly smaller version of the 8 Pro. The design is basically the same with the exception of the display, as the curve doesn’t extend all the way to the edges, like the 8 Pro. I like that difference. The back is a welcome change over the 7T’s, so you can say goodbye to that huge circular camera bump and treat yourself to a subtle low profile look, just like the 8 Pro. Overall, the 8 looks very similar to the 7 Pro. Now I’m not a fan of this colour, it is called Interstellar Glow, and it is super reflective and a fingerprint magnet. Thankfully, you can pick it up in different colours, just like the 8 Pro.

Moving onto the display, I guess we all saw this coming, it’s a 120Hz Quad HD+ AMOLED screen spanning across 6.78-inches versus 6.67-inches 90Hz with that same resolution on the 7 Pro. Do I notice a huge difference between the two? Yes, but it isn’t that significant and it shouldn’t be your first reason to upgrade from the 7 Pro. I should also mention that it doesn’t stay at 120Hz constantly. In fact, when your phone is idle or when you are viewing anything static, the phone dynamically shifts down to 60Hz. OnePlus did that to preserve battery life. They are also taking a big step forward in providing a good quality display that doesn’t sacrifice on colour accuracy as these screens do come factory calibrated, which is nice.

Unfortunately, my review sample started showing a weird green cast on the top right-hand side at the lowest brightness setting and there were banding issues as well. Now I did end up confirming with some of my colleagues who were also testing this new phone, but they didn’t experience any of these issues. I guess I just ended up receiving a dud sample, but nonetheless this is a great screen for content consumption. Honestly, I can’t tell if there is a difference between the 8 Pro and the 7 Pro, minus that curve, because watching content on the 7 Pro is really not that great with that aggressive curve compared to the 8 Pro, which seems to be a little bit better.

The OnePlus 8 on the other hand features a 1080P+ display – just like the 7T – with the same refresh rate at 90Hz. This is really disappointing because it doesn’t look like they have upgraded anything here. I would have preferred 120Hz at 1080P, because that would have been a clear upgrade over the 7T, while now there’s really nothing new here. Yes, the display on the 8 is a little bit brighter compared to the 7T, but I think OnePlus got a little lazy here. Both of these phones come with dual stereo speakers and they sound great. I didn’t notice a huge difference between the 8 series and the 7 series. They still feature in-display fingerprint sensors. Oddly enough, the 8 Pro felt slower compared to the 7 Pro when it came to unlocking the device, plus the 8 Pro had trouble reading my fingerprint as well. I tried resetting and re-scanning my thumb print multiple times, but it just still feels slower compared to these 7 Pro, which is just really weird.

The specs on these phones are as expected Top of the Line. OnePlus hasn’t cut any corners here. They both come with Snapdragon 865 SOC, 8GB or 12GB of RAM. Keep in mind that the 8 Pro comes with LPDDR5 versus LPDDR4X on the standard 8. I’m not sure if there’s a scientific way to test the difference between the two in the real-world, but I’m going to have to look into that a little bit later. Both also come with 128GB and 256GB of storage, with the 8 Pro having slightly faster storage. The battery area gets a welcome upgrade over the 7 Pro and the 7T, with the 8 Pro increasing to 4510mAh and the 8 to 4300mAh.

As always, both of these phones feature the fastest charging protocol that OnePlus can deliver. In this case it’s Warp Charge 30T, which is basically the same as the 7 series. However, they finally managed to add wireless charging support – but only on the 8 Pro – and WOW is it fast. They are calling it Warp Charge 30 Wireless, which recharges the battery on the 8 Pro to 50% in 30 minutes. The wireless dock charger itself is a unique piece of engineering. This thing comes with a fan to help dissipate the heat, and it gets as loud as 30 decibels, which on paper might seem quiet but it’s not ideal when you have it beside your bed. There is a setting on the phone that can turn off the fan, but that will reduce charging speeds.

I spoke with OnePlus about the backbones of this technology and what they were able to accomplish is quite fascinating. Basically, they are pumping in more voltage and reducing the amps, which then results in a higher charging rate. Inside the phone there are isolated charge pumps that reduce the voltage down to a safer level that can be used to charge the battery. If you are interested in learning more, you can click here to read an article by The Verge explaining the whole process. It’s really good stuff. Now I should mention that you don’t have to get that dedicated wireless charger to experience wireless charging on the 8 Pro. This phone does in fact support regular Qi-enabled wireless chargers. Just keep in mind that it’s not going to charge as fast as the dedicated charger that OnePlus offers. Now this phone also features support for reverse wireless charging, which is something that is nice to have. And finally, the 8 Pro gets the official IP68 water resistance rating, so if that’s something that you were looking for it’s there.

Oxygen OS on the 8 and 8 Pro look basically the same as on the 7 series. You have probably heard me say this before, but this is by far my favorite Android operating system, even compared to Google’s stock offering. There are tons of customization options such as the new dynamic wallpapers that look really good. It’s clean and simple to use. They have added a new feature called MEMC technology (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation). Basically, using advanced algorithms, it converts 24FPS content to a higher frame rate that should result in a smooth playback experience. Think of it as one of those motion smoothing features that are available on TVs that convert 24FPS content to 60FPS, but you are now getting that on a smartphone. Honestly, I’m not a fan of this feature because if I shoot content in 24FPS I would rather watch it in that frame rate, otherwise you kill the cinematic experience. Now luckily you can turn it off through the settings, so thank you OnePlus for giving us that option.

Finally, let’s talk about those cameras. The 8 Pro features a quad camera setup with a 48MP ultra-wide angle lens, a 48MP standard wide angle lens, and an 8MP telephoto that has a 3X optical zoom and up to 30X digital zoom. Then there is a colour filter camera, which isn’t really a dedicated camera, but it can be used to create artistic lighting effects in real-time according to OnePlus. It looks very limited and quite frankly useless because these filters can be applied in post-processing through any number of third-party image editing applications. I don’t really see a purpose for this feature.

The standard 8 gets three cameras, but they have made it worse this time. You get a 16MP ultra-wide angle lens, a 48MP main sensor, and a 2MP macro camera. That’s right… 2MP. They dropped the telephoto lens that is found on the 7T, 7 Pro, and 8 Pro, and instead they are using a digital crop of the main wide angle camera to get that telephoto effect. Honestly, at this point, I don’t really know what to say… However, there’s only one way to discover how these cameras perform, so I decided to take all these phones for a little photoshoot to see how they stack up against each other.

Let’s start with that 2MP macro lens on the standard 8. It’s awful, I mean this shouldn’t be legal in 2019. The colour balance is off and there isn’t much detail. It’s a very questionable decision by OnePlus in my opinion. Now moving onto the main sensors, OnePlus has improved white balance and that results in true-to-life colours out-of-the-box. However, the implementation of this new sensor comes with major compromises. Dynamic range is significantly worse, especially compared to the 7 Pro and the 7T, and the colours looked washed out on the 8 series. If you look at the 7 Pro and the 7T there is a good balance of contrast and saturation. Generally, I would still pick the 7 Pro because the out-of-the-box pictures look way better than these new phones. If you look at the shots of the fire hydrant it’s just so weird to see the 8 Pro get destroyed by its predecessor. The selfie cameras are noticeably better on the 8 series, but I really wish that OnePlus improved the contrast factor, that is what’s missing here. I didn’t see a major improvement in low light, but who knows what software updates can do to these phones later on so definitely stick around for my long-term review when I revisit the camera on the 8 series.

How much do these new phones cost? Are you ready for this? The OnePlus 8 starts at $700 USD for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. For an extra $100, you get an extra 4GB of RAM and twice a storage. Now the OnePlus 8 Pro starts at $900 USD for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and if you only highest-end variant prepare to spend $1,000 USD on a OnePlus phone. That’s right, OnePlus did it, they finally managed to come out with a $1,000 smartphone. I’m still in shock from learning that. You see this is not the OnePlus we used to know. In fact, they cannot be considered as a so-called mid-range smartphone manufacturer these days, because they have officially entered the elite smartphone market to compete against Samsung and the rest of competition. I can’t quite blame OnePlus for pricing their phones at $700 and $900, because they designed this phone to compete with the Samsung S20 series which starts at $1,000 USD. OnePlus decided to follow that higher price trend and compete with against that price point. While the 8 Pro and the 8 are still less expensive compared to the Galaxy S20 series, it’s just the way the market is going and unfortunately it’s us the consumers paying that premium, which is unfortunate.

OnePlus will continue to sell the 7T and the 7 Pro at much lower price points compared to the 8 and the 8 Pro, and I think that’s a pretty good deal because those phones are still really, really good. I would still recommend them any time or day. That is where I stand right now, but I just don’t know. I can’t give you a full verdict on the 8 and 8 Pro, so stay tuned for my long-term view of these phones later on. I actually have some unfinished business because I have to review the Samsung S20 Ultra, which is in the works, so keep an eye out for that too.

The post OnePlus 8 Pro | OnePlus 8 – What ACTUALLY Changed? appeared first on Hardware Canucks.

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andrewdburton · 7 years ago

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Mr. Money Mustache, UBER Driver

Special Surprise: Did you know there is now an MMM Android App? It’s really good. Beautiful offline reading. Alerts you to new articles automatically, if you want. Thousands of users already. Free. Many more features (plus an Apple version) to come. It’s on the Google Play Store.

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About two years ago, I switched from taking my personal car to the airport, to hailing Ubers and Lyfts. The math of it was pretty simple: Uber was cheaper than paying for my driving and parking*. And that was before the considerable joy and time savings of not having to park in the airport lot and cram in among the huddled masses in the shuttle buses. Nowadays I sit in the back and get some work done like an Executive, leaving the driving to someone else.

Once I arrive at my destination city, these ride sharing services have replaced at least 90% of instances where a car rental would be useful. Between walking, renting a bike, public transit and calling a Lyft, a car rental is only useful for destinations deep in the boondocks such as a ski resort or a distant beach cabin. Which is another great improvement, since renting a car at an airport has never been a fun experience.

But during all these Luxury Executive rides, I’d often get to talking with the driver. We would talk about life, family, money and business. I always inquired about their experience with rideshare driving, and the response was inevitably something like this:

UBER DRIVER: “Oh, it’s pretty good. On a good day I’ll make a hundred bucks, sometimes even two hundred if I really work it and stay up late.”

MMM: “Is that your profit after subtracting the cost of driving?”

UBER DRIVER: “No, that doesn’t include gas. But I’ll only use, like, not even a full tank – maybe thirty bucks”

“Hmm”, I would think to myself.

“If this driver is burning through $30 of gas, (twelve gallons), they’re probably covering over 250 miles. Whether they realize it or not, it’s costing them $125 in direct car costs before even accounting to the damage to their health or the risk of injury. Thus, the net profit might be as low as $50 for a big day on the road, or five bucks an hour.”

There’s no way Uber could be such a successful company if the pay rate were really this low. Is there?

But on the other hand, some of my Uber drives to the airport have included a Dodge Ram pickup truck (V-8 engine, fancy wheels, bought brand new on credit), a BMW X5 and even a Hummer H3 (with over 250,000 miles on the odometer). Maybe people really are that uninformed about the cost of driving. As my friend Bill said when we talked about this:

“Imagine developing a company specifically to take advantage of people’s ignorance of how expensive it really is to drive their own car. What would this company look like? “

(the answer is of course that it would look like very much like Uber or any other ridesharing company)

To resolve this mystery (and as a way of getting some test miles on my new electric car), Mr. Money Mustache decided to go deep undercover in September 2016, and sign up as a driver for both Uber and Lyft services.

The Initiation

Using another driver’s referral code, I signed up on the Uber system and started to follow the instructions. I needed a background check, medical exam, car safety inspection and a few other daunting things. Luckily, Uber runs facilities called “Greenlight Centers” which put all this stuff in one place. The closest one to me was about 40 miles away in Denver, so I charged up my new Leaf and headed down.

When I arrived, I found an interesting scene that nicely personifies our new sharing economy. It was a mashup of an Apple Store and the DMV. Modern design and furniture, good music and glossy tablets everywhere, combined with an ocean of slightly desperate and bored looking people waiting to start their new driving careers. And Mr. Money Mustache, trying to blend in.

It was a funny feeling, spending those three precious hours of my Tuesday morning, waiting in queues and filling out forms. I was keen to learn about the driver experience and how things work in the New Economy. But I also felt a bit of the nervous “I’m applying for a new job” energy of the other applicants, and like a bit of a fraud for being here when I had absolutely no interest in truly having a job.

There was a trendy little cafe in the corner of the room, so I strolled over and picked up a Clif bar and a coffee. Due to my naive privilege as a former tech worker, I expected it all to be free – after all, don’t all offices offer free coffee and snacks, along with a keg of local beer and another tap for Kombucha? But a man popped out from around the corner and rung me up for $3.85. On top of that, it was a bland coffee in a small cup. This was an interesting reminder that working in a lower-training job is a different world than the one you and I probably both inhabit, here at the top of the economy.

When the process was finally done, my 25-year-old Uber concierge looked up from his iPad and issued me a genuinely warm congratulations and we shook hands.

“So that’s it?”, I asked

“Yeah! That’s it! You could go out and get in your car start making some money RIGHT NOW!”

“Hmmm…”

“Nah”, I thought to myself. “Eighty miles of driving plus three hours in an office building is more than enough wasted indoor time for me for the next little while.”

The spoiled retiree in me loves hard work, but only the right kind of hard work. The sedentary locked-indoors variety of work always falls to the bottom of the list. As you can tell by the low frequency of these blog posts.

My First Ride

Eventually, I was ready to give it a whirl. I cleaned up my car, stuck the Uber decal on the windshield, put on some nice clothes, mounted my phone on a sturdy dashboard clamp, and fired up the app. Within minutes, I had my first ring.

RIDE REQUESTED! John, 5 minutes away.

The ring was deafeningly loud, because (as I later learned after half an hour of looking unsuccessfully for a way to change it) the Uber app overrides your ring volume setting and sets it to !!MAXIMUM!! I was so startled that I could hardly slide the “accept” button, but I eventually got safely on the road.

I recognized the address as Longmont’s “Pumphouse” brew pub, right downtown. I headed down the hill and scoped the area, and eventually found John. As he hopped in the car I slid the “start trip” button and his destination was revealed as the local Marijuana shop, just 1.9 miles away away.

John and I exchanged pleasant conversation and he was impressed by the quick silence of the electric car. I dropped him off at Native Roots and then parked nearby, expecting another fare to pop up just as quickly.

Ride 1: 5 minutes waiting, 5 minutes driving, 1.2 miles unpaid, 1.9 miles paid. Net fare to me: $3.37

But the second fare wasn’t quite as quick. Fifteen minutes later, the Uber app rang again. It was John, now properly restocked and thrilled that I was still there in the weed shop parking lot. We headed back to the Pumphouse.

Ride 2: 15 minutes waiting, 5 minutes driving, 1.9 miles paid. Net fare to me: $3.37 … plus TIP $5.00!

Hey this wasn’t so bad: that five dollar tip really brought up the average. I was thirty minutes into my career and up about 12 bucks, minus five miles of car costs.

After another five minutes of idle time, the app rang again. This time it was a suburban address listed as 12 minutes (which turned out to be almost four miles) away. I decided to take the ride anyway, in the spirit of experimentation.

I got to the house, but nobody was there. After a minute, I used the Uber app to send the customer a text message. “Oh sorry!”, he said, “My phone GPS isn’t working well because we’re inside so it probably shows us in the wrong place! We’re just on the next street.”

I drove around a bit more and eventually found the young couple, and the app revealed a nice surprise: they were headed all the way to Boulder, which was over 12 miles from this part of Longmont. Surely now I would start earning the big bucks.

After 24 minutes of smooth, expert driving and pleasant conversation, I dropped them off at a restaurant. But I was surprised to see that the total wasn’t that impressive:

Ride 3: 10 minutes waiting, 4 miles unpaid, 12.4 miles paid. Net fare to me: $13.96. No Tip.

Driving in the Happening City

Now I was in Boulder, which has a much bigger scene than Longmont. Everybody is rich, every night is a big night, Colorado University is right downtown and it’s all action – there are no real suburbs. Due to high rider demand, the city operates in a perpetual “Surge Mode” which means Uber Fares are 20-30% more lucrative, and there is virtually no wait time for fares. And now, I was right downtown. So the app shrieked its notification tone immediately.

The customer was only a mile away, but due to the incredible slowness of trying to drive a 14-foot-long, 3300 pound Racing Wheelchair in a dense city it took me a lot of slow gliding in traffic and waiting at long traffic lights to get there. It was a couple of younger guys, heading back downtown.

We slogged through the dense traffic yet again at roughly one third of bicycling speed, and I earned my five dollar fare.

The app rang again, and I saw from the map it was yet another non-downtown person, probably looking for another ride downtown.

I decided not to play this game anymore, contributing to car traffic in a city that needs fewer cars. So I let this ride request go to another driver and set my destination to Longmont, hoping to find a customer heading that way so I could get paid for the ride home. There were none.

So I flew the Leaf back along the highway to home, and stopped at the grocery store to pick up some fresh food and a free battery charge for the car.

Total stats for the day:

4 Rides 1:51 hours 18.6 miles unpaid 17.2 miles paid $32 including tips ~$18 of car costs roughly $7 per hour net

Ongoing observations

After joining Uber as a driver, it was easy to add on a Lyft license: you can submit scans or photos of the same examination info to both companies. So over the next few months, I fired up both Uber and Lyft apps to do a bit more driving and collect some more observations. I had a lot of fun, but made very little money.

One time, I was summoned by a 13-year-old girl coming out of the middle school, effectively turning me into Mr. Schoolbus Dad. After finding her in the school lineup, she directed me to the elementary school, where we picked up her little brother. I dropped them both off safely at home in a rusty suburban area nearby.

Another ride was from a college student, deep in the Colorado U campus. It took me forever to navigate the throngs of after school foot and vehicle traffic and find this young lad in the crowd. During the ensuing 3MPH transit of Boulder, I couldn’t help but remark, “Wow! I apologize for how slow this trip is going. I’m usually on my bike when I cross Boulder, which is a lot faster.” Our final destination was a strip mall, and he directed me meticulously through the entire parking lot so he could be let off within 20 feet of the front door of the restaurant. End fare for about 35 minutes of work, even with surge pricing, was another six bucks. My resolve to avoid driving cars in Boulder was reinforced.

My favorite times to be a driver were Friday nights. It was fun to feel the energy of people going out on the town, and find out what was going on. I could see Uber driving to be a good escape for single people looking to meet new friends (or romances), because I almost always got along well with the customers, often exchanging business cards or email addresses with people when we found something in common. On longer rides with people over 30, the topic almost invariably led to life, business, and money, which led to Mustachianism, which led to me admitting my secret identity. Thus, some of my past Uber customers may even be reading this article today(?)

But in the end, it was hard to stay motivated to keep doing this experiment. There is just usually something better to do than driving around in a car, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice too much of my life to gather more data. And with the financial gain of rideshare driving being negligble, I am surprised that there are so many people who do it.

How to Make the Most of a Low-Profit Situation

Still, as with everything in life, I did my best to optimize Uber driving for both fun and money. From my experience as well as reading online forums, the best way you can do it is:

Use the referral and bonus system heavily. Actual driving doesn’t pay well, but I have seen bonuses pop up on my app offering between $100-$500 to refer other drivers. There are also “weekly guarantee” offers that come up occasionally, offering more pay in exchange for meeting a certain threshold.

Use the lowest cost and most fuel-efficient car you can find. Uber requires you to have a fairly new (under 10 years) car, so get something on the older side of that spectrum, but with low miles. A 2009 Prius, for example, uses less than half the fuel of most cars of similar size.

Focus your driving around on “Surge Pricing”. By watching the app throughout the days and months, you will learn when your area enters periods of higher demand. Special events like Halloween, late weekend nights or major league sports events are popular times.

Try to find trips involving highways. Since you get paid mostly by the mile, you earn almost ten times more more money at 60 MPH than you make in on a long trip through central city where you might average only 6 MPH.

Experiment with the “set destination” feature to filter for rides going your way. Taking fares with you on your commute to work or to an airport.

Make the most of your downtime: there will still be lots of waiting between fares. If you bring a book, podcast, laptop or make business-related calls that help you learn a trade that pays more than driving, you can get yourself into a more lucrative trade.

Suggestions for Uber and Lyft

During the course of this experiment, I happened to receive emails from relatively senior people at both Uber and Lyft for unrelated reasons. So I took the opportunity to make some suggestions to make things friendlier for drivers:

Report the total driving time and miles for each ride and each shift, clearly specifying paid and unpaid miles and hours.

Provide an drivers an estimate of the car costs incurred, and estimated hourly earnings after these costs

Allow drivers to specify the types of rides they are willing to accept. For example, “only ring me for riders within 1 mile”, or “I would like to be paid for for both pickup mileage and rider mileage.”

Provide drivers with the details of where the person is going, or at least how long of a ride it is. Right now, Uber has all this incredibly useful information at the time of booking, but deliberately withholds it from the driver.

I was surprised that none of these suggestions got anywhere. This was a disappointment to the Economic Libertarian in me, because it seems obvious that an open market between buyer and seller is the key to more efficiency.

In fact, early in my driving career I learned how much the unpaid driving was hurting my profitability so I stopped accepting distant fares. The app quickly sent me this note:

Yeah, right. How about you just stop ringing me with fares that are ridiculously far away, instead?

When these companies deliberately tilt the field, they are being sneaky, which causes them to lose public trust, which causes the public to vote in a bunch of sclerotic regulation to protect the drivers and the public. If you, as a company, just avoid being a dick to people in the first place and treat them with complete openness and good old-fashioned honesty, they are more likely to let you run free.

Since I started this experiment a year ago, Uber has fallen into a world of trouble and bad publicity. Their internal culture of sexual harassment was blown wide open, along with the misdeeds of the wild and temperamental former CEO. From specific programs to evade government regulation to annoying treatment of drivers, Uber triggered a widespread backlash which became the #deleteuber campaign. Saying “Uber” is now a bit like uttering the words “ConAgra” or “Philip Morris” or “Exxon”.

Meanwhile, from the very beginning I noticed a friendlier tone in the way Lyft operates – see this 2016 interview with Lyft more laid-back founder John Zimmer.

In the End..

In general, I really want companies like Uber and Lyft (and Tesla, AirBnb, Google, Amazon and many of the other tech companies that have been stirring things up so much lately) to succeed, because the benefits to all of us greatly outweigh the inconvenience of the disruption.

For example, some people worry about what will happen to driving jobs as self-driving vehicles gradually take over. But I’m excited about the ways this can make our lives safer, quieter, and less expensive as we give up on owning personal cars, ride bikes much more, and use automated cars as a service whenever the bike is impractical. Technology provides a lumpy ride, but it also provides change which is an essential ingredient in every human life to avoid getting into a rut. So, share on.

Further Reading: How Big Oil Will Die – an interesting walk through the changes today’s technologies have already set in place – leading us very quickly to a place where nobody in 2010 would have even guessed.

* this sentence surely made you ask, “but what about the BUS, Mustache?!?” – good question. Of course I’d always choose biking, then public transit as the first two options, but the airport is 45 miles away (well over 2 hours by bike) and the bus requires a transfer in Denver, which makes it even slower than biking. Also, both Uber and Lyft have referral programs which give you credit for referring friends – I still have a few credits in my Uber account.

If you want to try Uber or Lyft, sign by randomly choosing one of these codes from friends, and you’ll get $5-10 off of your first ride (and give a small surprise to some of the members of the MMM-HQ coworking space!)

Uber #1 Uber #2 Uber #3 Uber #4 Uber #5

Lyft #1 Lyft #2 Lyft #3

from Finance http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/22/mr-money-mustache-uber-driver/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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