Monthly Archives: February 2017

Before nasty women in pantsuits but after rocker chicks with shoulder pads came dirrty girls with belly-button rings. (Just ask Christina Aguilera.) The zeitgeist of the late 1990s and early 2000s made navel piercings a ubiquitous symbol of sex appeal, but they seem to have disappeared from the navels of both pop stars and girls next door. Whatever happened to the trend that took young, free-spirited women by storm?

The zeitgeist of the late 1990s and early 2000s made navel piercings a ubiquitous symbol of sex appeal, but they seem to have disappeared from the navels of both pop stars and girls next door.

If you ask Sara Czernikowski, who manages a Rochester, New York, piercing shop called Dorje Adornments, nothing ever happened. Although Czernikowski says 1985 to 2005 undoubtedly served as the peak for navel piercings, the number has not dropped dramatically since. In fact, her shop pierces three to five navels each day, and sells another five navel bars to customers daily. While there are no national statistics readily available regarding the perceived rise and fall of navel piercings, Czernikowski says that anecdotal experience among other piercing professionals seem to confirm the longevity of navel piercings popularity.

According to Czernikowski, navel piercings first rose to fame thanks to the 1970s gay leather movement. I could go on [forever] about how we attribute all modern body modification to the gay leather scene in New York City from the early 1970s to now, Czernikowski says. She points to the Gauntlet, a body piercing studio originally run out of founder Jim Ward's West Hollywood home, as a huge influence on the culture. Eventually the Gauntlet opened shops in San Francisco, New York City, and Seattle, helping to set the standards and practices for body piercing nationwide.

Without the leather scene, Czernikowski says, there would have been no Gauntlet. Without the Gauntlet, there would have been no inspiration for Cryin [the 1993 Aerosmith video that popularized the trend with women] and therefore no surge in popularity for navel piercings.

In Aerosmiths infamous video, Alicia Silverstone is seen getting a navel piercing, although she admitted to having a stand-in for the actual piercing [because] she found it disgusting, according to Czernikowski. Once the video for Cryin dropped, Silverstone rose to fame, and so did navel piercings and, thus, the association of belly-button rings with young women was born. Even the phrase belly-button ring is rather infantile, but thats exactly how navel piercings came to be known.

How does piercing a cavern of your body that collects lint and bacteria strike people as sexual?

Missy Wilkerson spent the 1990s as a piercing apprentice who was so passionate about body modification that she had a plethora of piercings herself including one on her labia, which she pierced at home. Wilkerson agrees that the stigma associated with belly-button rings is both the reason it rose to mainstream fame and a frustrating display of misogyny. I think navel piercings are unfairly maligned because of their association with young women and adolescent girls, Wilkerson says. Its pretty gross and sexist.

How does piercing a cavern of your body that collects lint and bacteria strike people as sexual?

The late 90s and early 2000s were the eras when Britney, Janet, Christina, and Shakira were just a few of the pop divas who bared their midriffs and gyrated on stage while showing off fancy navel jewelry. For many, Britneys 2001 Im a Slave 4 U performance at the VMAs forever serves as the epitome of bold sexuality. She rocked a revealing green get-up, a dazzling navel chain, and yes, the infamous snake.

Its this association that made navel piercings so taboo and all the more desirable for teenage girls during the piercings heyday. Danielle Hayden, who is now 28, experienced resistance when she asked her parents for permission to pierce her navel in high school for this very reason. She explained that her dad thought it was a sexual thing and kept saying stuff about me wanting to look sexy.

However, Haydens parents were not the only ones to make assumptions about the very aesthetic she loved so much. There was a guy I was attracted to in college who assumed I was more sexual than I was because I had a navel piercing, Hayden explains. Despite her chaste nature at the time, her piercing was associated with a sexuality she had not yet fully developed.

The inability to allow navel piercings to just be exactly what they are a piercing is a microcosm of our larger inability to separate sexy from sex.

The inability to allow navel piercings to just be exactly what they are a piercing is a microcosm of our larger inability to separate sexy from sex. Sure, a navel piercing can be sexy, even if that wasnt the wearers intended purpose. But by sexualizing a piece of jewelry, we restrict a trends ability to be universally embraced.

This is perhaps most apparent when bringing gender into the picture. Even before the gay leather movement of the 1970s, Czernikowski explains, the very first wearers of navel piercings were men, and the adornment may date back to ancient Egyptian civilization. But because of the pop culture takeover of the late 90s and early 00s, which branded navel rings as youthful and feminine, a piercing that was previously non-gendered became incredibly gender-exclusive.

In Czernikowskis shop, men often get navel piercings, she says. Because of the shops large selection, the navel jewelry offered at Dorje Adornments is as diverse as the clientele. In the spirit of a navel-piercing-for-all movement, Czernikowski says, The men who work for us have navel piercings as examples to clients that there is no gender attached to body modification.

The average navel-piercing client at Dorje Adornments is a 30-year-old woman. Women ages 15 to 19 and women over 40 are tied for the second biggest female client groups, which might strike some as a surprise. No, navel piercings arent just for hormonal teenage girls, and no, they are not obsolete. There are those who think the navel piercing is not only outdated but also childish, but clearly that is not the case.

Although its mainstream popularity has been stymied by both the oversaturation of navel piercings and growing acceptance of body modification in general, it may be time for a comeback. Crop tops, chokers, and velvet are all recently resurrected trends, so perhaps navel piercings will have their moment in the sun again.

Who knows? Maybe well get to see a stud like Liam Hemsworth, Joe Jonas, or Chris Pratt rocking some navel jewelry right alongside babes like Beyonc (who wore a navel ring on the cover of Shape), Demi Lovato, and Vanessa Hudgens. In the meantime, patrons across the country will still flock to their nearest piercing shops, keeping the aesthetic of the late 1990s alive.

In the meantime, patrons across the country will still flock to their nearest piercing shops, keeping the aesthetic of the late 1990s alive.

Missy Wilkerson, the fiery spirit who once spent her days apprenticing in a piercing shop, rocks a single septum piercing these days. When she thinks back to her navel piercing which she had to remove a couple years ago because of rigorous karate training she has fond memories of the aesthetic she can no longer enjoy. I loved the way the navel piercing looked, she said. And I loved my jewelry a curved barbell with a winking red stone that resembled a garnet, my birthstone.

Navel piercings may not be plastered everywhere these days; they have taken a break from the limelight in favor of a more quiet popularity. But sheathed underneath button-downs and pantsuits and shift dresses and jumpsuits, the navel piercing lives on in men and women of all ages.

Perhaps navel piercings are a sign of liberation. Perhaps they are a sign of youthful rebellion. Or perhaps they are just a sign that yes, navel piercings look damn cool.

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Belly-Button Rings: Where Are They Now? - Racked

By Christina Bagnilincoln@wickedlocal.com

Nowhere is the phrase history repeats itself more accurate than in the world of fashion only look to the returning trends of bell-bottom jeans and crop-tops for proof.

Fashion historian Karen Antonowicz found herself fascinated by the cyclical world of clothing while working as a dietician, and hasnt looked back. She earned her master's degree in textiles, fashion merchandising, and design, with a concentration in historic costume and textiles from the University of Rhode Island, and has taught fashion history there ever since.

Antonowicz will be holding a seminar titled "Shoes Through the Decades" at the Lincoln Public Library Feb. 23.

Its about the way people lived, not only what they wore, she said. In the Victorian age, the wealthy liked having many things around them. Their houses and outfits were very cluttered. Now, its more about minimalism; theres a whole zeitgeist. Its the spirit of the times, because fashion follows the world.

Nowadays, Antonowicz said, one can see the trend of healthy living mixed with the more casual way people live their lives through the lens of popular shoes.

Its all about the sneaker. There are more flats, now. Uggs are still pretty big, she said, referring to the Australian shoe company. Some girls still like heels when they go out. Designers make these shoes desirable, getting that height and style.

While shoe styles today are all over the place, certain trends reflect the population they appear in.

We get a lot of students in our store, and they tend to like older styles, more vintage, like Oxford shoes, she said.

The store she is referring to is Nostalgia, a three-floor antiques shop Antonowicz runs with her husband in Providence, Rhode Island. Between teaching and running Nostalgia, Antonowicz spends what time she has left furthering her love of education by running focused seminars on periods of fashion history.

She explained that looking at footwear can tell a lot about a generation, from Queen Victoria right up to the sneaker of today. She referenced the British series Downton Abbey as an example of accurate early-century clothing.

They had narrow shoes then, at least the wealthy families did, Antonowicz said. Then, after the war the hemline (of dresses) came up, and the shoes and stockings became more elaborate because you could see them. Then, in the 1920s, the hemlines went really up, and the shoes had to look nice and work well for dancing. It was the Jazz Age, they had to do the Charleston in these shoes.

During World War II, the war effort meant shoes couldnt be made of rubber or leather, so they made do with cork or wood. This created wedge shoes, still popular today. Particularly interesting is the history of shoe height in the 1950s, when femininity was rising, so were heels. Then when the hippie movement and the feminist movement began, women preferred comfort over conventional beauty and heels plummeted to flats. Disco made shoes rise again, and so on.

Its a cycle, Antonowicz said. Fashion reflects the world.

Other seminars she teaches focus more on clothing, such as on the fashion of American First Ladies or the fashion of the cocktail culture in the 1950s and 1960slook to the AMC show "Mad Men," she suggested, for a taste of that style.

These shows are accurate to a point, she said. Sometimes the colors are a bit different, or the cut is a bit different, however theres usually a reason for that. Downton Abbey is usually right on. Their designers sometimes take a dress from the time that is beyond wear, and add it to a new piece, so it has a bit of integrity. Theyre so talented.

Antonowiczs passion for fashion is sure to enlighten anyone, not just those with a closet bursting at the seams.

People often dont realize what it is all about, but they always ask me to come back, she said. Its a mixture of entertainment and education.

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Lincoln Public Library hosts seminar on the history of shoes - Wicked Local Lincoln

There's a case building that television more than wealth or family or real estate, certainly more than politics - is what President Donald Trump loves most.

The evidence was there all along. A camera in the room is the only thing that seems to truly animate him, for it brings with it the promise of big (or easily inflatable) ratings. A television show is the only thing that ever offered Trump, briefly, a unanimous and undisputed success. Absent the camera, he is an even bigger fan of watching TV, much like his fellow Americans who harbor a hard addiction to watching cable-news shows morning, noon and night.

There have been reports (usually anonymously sourced) that some of Trump's staff members wish he didn't watch so much, but why would he stop? The long-offered promise of truly interactive TV has arrived for at least one American: him. Cable news hangs on his every word, while he returns the favor by mimicking some of its worst talking points, often within enough minutes to create an unsettling semblance of harmony.

Sad! As HBO's John Oliver showed in a clip Sunday night on the long-awaited return of his satirical politics show, "Last Week Tonight," Trump is so addicted to cable news that the cabin of Air Force One now echoes with the cheapo commercials that accompany his all-day diet of noise, including the Empire flooring jingle ("Eight-hundred, five-eight-eight ...") Our president, Oliver joked, is like the septuagenarian who has collapsed and died alone in a house with the TV blaring; it takes neighbors days to notice anything amiss.

Thus, Oliver concluded, the only way to get a factual argument across to the president is to make a set of catheter ads to air during cable news, featuring a folksy ol' cowboy who subliminally explains such necessary concepts as the nuclear triad. Oliver's ads began airing in the Washington, D.C., market on Monday morning on Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Maybe just maybe Trump noticed.

Meanwhile, a fomenting Trump resistance movement has seen that televised mockery might be effective in creating the sort of tiny cracks that eventually cause meaningful collapse. The mockery required for this job is not the kind of whip-smart, fact-based, ironic criticism inherited from Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" and still practiced with dedicated verve by TBS' Samantha Bee, NBC's Seth Meyers, CBS' Stephen Colbert and Oliver (who spent 24 minutes Sunday night on a segment devoted to the preservation of the concept of "facts.")

Rather it's the plain, old fashioned, over-the-top mockery that shows a White House hopelessly out of control, compromised, flaccid from the get-go and comically inept. This was best displayed by none other than Melissa McCarthy, a comedic film and TV star recruited by her pals at NBC's "Saturday Night Live" to lampoon White House press secretary Sean Spicer on the show's Feb. 4 episode and again a week later.

The sketches were so brutally effective - starting from their obvious top layer of derision for Spicer's bellicose, combative style, all the way down to the more ingeniously subliminal dig of having women portray the innumerable men who surround and advise the president - that they set off a wave of excitement on the left: Can it really be as easy as dishing up the most basic form of insult humor and then broadcasting it far and wide? Does electoral revenge reside in a barrage of unsophisticated, easy-to-write, tiny-hands jokes (or, in a supercut from Oliver's show, the insultingly spot-on "Donald Trump doesn't know how to shake hands"), rather than a clever, humorously but laboriously spun counterpoint of wonky facts?

Perhaps. In anticipation of "SNL's" Feb. 11 episode, hosted for the 17th time by actor Alec Baldwin, who has found some always-needed career rejuvenation as the show's go-to Trump impersonator since last fall's campaign, America's TV addicts and critics (who now include most of the political press corps) rubbed their hands together in anticipatory glee: Would the episode be just mildly devastating or completely annihilating?

That the episode was found a tad wanting is nothing new to lifetime "SNL" watchers. The show is nothing if not a decades-long study in demand-resistance, causing its viewers to always desire more than it actually delivers. Lorne Michaels, who now controls far more of the TV comedy realm than a mere 90 minutes on Saturday nights, wisely avoids taking requests from his audience, because we tend, as a voting bloc, to suggest the easiest and least original premises and jokes.

Yet, sensing the desires of the internet zeitgeist, "SNL" featured a short, melancholy film in which cast member Leslie Jones floated the idea that she, not Baldwin, should step into the role of Trump. Her fellow cast members interrogated her intent as Jones sat in a makeup chair acquiring an orange comb-over, wondering whether there's a workable shtick here: Could having a black woman play Trump be an effective weapon against the watcher-in-chief? The ultimate insult, as it were?

This assumes that Trump still watches "SNL." He may profess not to - but honestly, come on. It's hard to believe that he'd be able to resist looking at anything that's about him, or even, perhaps, taking credit for the show's impressive jump in ratings. "SNL" is now enjoying its highest-rated season in 22 years, according to Variety.

Lest anyone forget, many viewers of "SNL" still hold the show culpable in providing some of the crucial hot air that floated Trump to his many victories, by allowing him to host while he was a serious contender for the presidential race. The time for truly effective mockery came and went while "SNL" and the rest of the comedy world dilly-dallied with Trump.

All presidents have watched more than their share of TV. One thinks of LBJ's custom array of TV sets in the Oval Office to track all three networks in breaking-news situations, or the Reagans enjoying a night in front of the tube with their TV dinner tray tables. Even the Obamas made sure to get on the inside track with HBO, having "Game of Thrones" screeners delivered before they aired.

As we continue to ask ourselves what Trump watches, and how or if it shapes his decisions, it's probably worth noting that there's a lot he doesn't watch - or at least, we've never been told of anything remotely interesting in his DVR queue.

If insider accounts are to be believed, it's all news, all the time - and perhaps still looking in on NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice," the show that still credits him as an executive producer even though he goes out of his way to pooh-pooh its current iteration. (About this, he's not wrong. The only reason left to watch "Celebrity Apprentice" might be if you're in a Nielsen family and want to irritate the president.)

In other words, he's missing so much - some of the greatest television ever made, much of it rich in instructive, metaphorical storytelling about power and moral consequence.

Even though Trump appears to lack the necessary attention span, I still find myself wishing that he had joined me and the 10 or so other Americans who were transfixed by HBO's "The Young Pope," a befuddlingly beautiful 10-episode series that just concluded. It's about a new pope, Pius XIII (Jude Law), who is determined to drain the swamp that is Vatican City. He is steadfast in his conservative beliefs and unconcerned with alienating the church's liberal side. He loathes the press. He won't travel. He is consumed by a sort of divine narcissism and he can deliver a real scorcher of a sermon to his underlings.

Yet, not only did Pius win over the cardinals with his agenda, he also, finally, convinced the rest of us that his aim was true. In 10 hours, he went from a horrifying firebrand to a persuasive messenger, maybe even a pope for the ages.

In this way, TV always has something to tell us, even when we're the president. And the president might seem more human if he would very publicly pick up a few, well-made scripted shows and tell us what he thought about them. The first step is learning how to change the channel and break some bad viewing habits.

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President Donald Trump is a TV addict - MyDaytonDailyNews