August 2010 Archives

Rumor has it that Madonna, the 80s-era cone-bra-wearing pop-star-provocateur, is desperate to tour with Lady Gaga -- our current iteration of that particular pop phenomenon. Sure, Madonna still has some worthy name recognition in the music industry, and many, many, many people still totally adore her. But would Gaga + Madge be a little bit... much? And would Madonna possibly be at risk of coming up short in comparison with Lady Gaga? I'm just remembering their SNL duet from last fall, where the two paired up, and the results were ...  well, kind of awkward.  Of course, it's likely that the two of them would require more stage equipment known to the history of live music performances. And the result might be spectacular.

Taylor Swift is out with her latest video, Mine, which pays homage to the country star's favorite kind of old-fashioned, fairytale-ending love story. As Toby Hemingway, Swift's love interest in the video, said, "it's [an] evolving family story," about a young couple struggling to make it work over time. Swift said the story was inspired by her "tendency to run from love," and "finding the exception to that." Mine debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs Chart and No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100. Check out the video here and let us know what you think!

Now that she's a bona fide international beauty queen, Ximena Navarrete -- aka the newly-crowned Miss Universe 2010 -- gets to do her round-the-world publicity tour, wherein she makes appearances everywhere from state fairs to late night talk shows, and touts her new position and the causes she plans to take up as a result. This week, her responsibilities included making a Top Ten List-delivering appearance on CBS's Late Night With David Letterman -- and we think she did a pretty stand-up job.  What do you think? Are you a Navarrete fan?

...Speaking of Miss Universe: Ximena Navarrete wasn't the only contestant to don Sherri Hill on the night of the competition; all of the contestants wore versions of her original bandage dress design in the semifinalist lineup -- and Miss Ireland, Miss Albania and Miss Ukraine all wore Sherri Hill in the evening gown portion of the night. 

Earlier this week, Mexico's Jimena Navarrete was crowned Miss Universe 2010. The lovely 22-year-old, who was raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, wowed audiences with her poise, grace, and, of course, her beautiful Sherri Hill gown! Congrats, Ximena!  Check out her Sherri Hill design, below:

This week, the New York Times published a profile on pop starlet Katy Perry, calling the 25-year-old singer of this summer's indisputably most-everywhere jam, "California Gurls,"  "a regular girl gone big" who has followed a specific pop playbook in order to achieve a certain amount of fame. The playbook, as it were, does not exactly follow the rules of Perry's evangelical upbringing -- and the story implies that the has combined with her background in a rather contradictory way.

Earlier this week, Jennifer Aniston went on The Daily Show to promote her new movie, The Switch, which...I secretly want to see? As soon as the actress arrived on the show, Jon Stewart brought up a distant memory from the duo's past: Back in the 90s at some point, the two went on what appears to have been a semi-disastrous date. (Which may or may not have been a date.) Aniston apparently showed up with her hundred-or-so closest friends, Stewart was sorely disappointed, and that was that. Do I smell a romantic comedy idea?

Check out a clip from the episode below:

Betty White, acclaimed comedienne of Golden Girls fame, won an Emmy last night at the Creative Arts Emmys (aka the the ceremony that honored the categories deemed too boring/not star-studded enough for primetime) for her performance last May as the host of Saturday Night Live. White, who is in really amazing shape for being 88, hosted the show's Mother's Day episode -- which served as something of a reunion for much-loved female cast-members who have appeared on the show over the past couple of decades, including Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, and more. Check out one of our favorite clips from the episode below. And congrats to Dame White!

Lady Gaga is no longer just the best-selling pop singer in America -- she's also the most-followed person on Twitter. The mega-star recently hit Twitter follower number 5,726,168 -- besting former Tweet-Leader, Britney Spears, who at last count had 5,697,943. The race is still tight, however -- and with a little momentum (and maybe a publicity campaign) -- Brit might have a chance to gain some ground. But hey, after (or, preferably, before) you're done deciding between Teams Britney and Gaga, don't forget to follow us at http://twitter.com/tizapromdresses ! 

This week, America's favorite MTV reality show about unruly New Jersey youths returned on MTV. Jersey Shore, a show about very tan crew of acquaintances with a shared taste for binge-drinking and bar-brawling, has not changed so much since last we saw it. This week focused on Sammi and her neer-do-well boyfriend (named Ronnie, obvs), and Snooki and JWoww's comically ridiculous attempts to "do right" for their oblivious friends. This involved going to an "internet cafe" (oh hi 1995!) and "planting a letter." 

Tina Fey hasn't always been the movie-star bombshell we know her as now. Recently, a video was unearthed that shows Fey in her earlier years, when she was doing the odd television commercial to scrape together some cash. Check out the hilarious "Hi" below:

Justin Bieber recently when on a little bit of a revenge-streak after a young fan, aka Kevin Kristopik, hacked into his friend's twitter account in order to get Bieber's number. Bieber, none too pleased with the scenario, then revenge-tweeted Kristopik's own phone number -- resulting in Kristopik receiving more than 10,000 text messages in approximately 2 hours (keep in mind that Bieber has like, 4.5 million twitter followers). 

A fifteen-year-old New Zealand girl was stripped of her Miss Teen Wanganui crown this week, after a pageant organizer discovered -- via Facebook -- that the teenager had gone brunette. 

Eat, Pray, Love, the summer's most-hyped movie, came out on Friday, and while there were the reliable sartorial standouts -- Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem -- a fair number of stars took this opportunity to break out their long, flowing, colorful frocks. Check out some of the best -- and worst! -- below. 

Earlier this week, America's most famous teenagers turned out on the red carpet for this year's Teen Choice Awards -- and, as is to be expected, plenty of sparkles came out for the party. But hey! The teenagers might just have been in finer form than their grownup counterparts at the Eat, Pray, Love premiere, which we'll talk about more later. But first, check out a few of our favorite looks.

Ever since becoming First Lady, Michelle Obama has made quite a name for herself in the fashion world. She's championed fashion labels both edgy and mainstream (think Jason Wu, who was relatively unknown when she started wearing his dresses, to J.Crew) -- and makes a point to be fashionable without being fashion-y. New York magazine put together every outfit that the FLOTUS has been seen in since President Obama took office. Here are a few of our favorite looks. 

Emma Watson, who played the famously 'bushy-haired' Hermione Granger in the beloved Harry Potter series, has finally finished filming the series -- and so, for the first time probably since she was like, 7?, has a little freedom to choose her own hairstyle. So what did she do? She cut it all off.  

This week, Miss USA Rima Fakih did a story with New York magazine wherein she detailed her day-to-day diet. It's interesting, because we often assume that beauty pageant participants adhere to a strict food regimen, but here we get to hear the logic behind Fakih's eating. 

Major shout-out to our own Sherri Hill for fighting for copyright laws in this week's PR Newswire article, which cites Hill -- who designs so many of our dresses here at Tiza -- as a "distinguished and successful designer of high quality prom dresses and evening gowns, [who] continues to get tough with knockoffs of her well-known designs." 

The glue sealing the leaking well that caused America's biggest-ever oil spill has barely dried, but apparently for certain fashion magazines, it's never too soon to exploit an environmental crisis for "edgy fashion" purposes. In this month's Vogue Italia, Steven Meisel shot an oil-spill-ispired fashion story, called "Oil & Water." In it, models are washed up on the beach covered in crude -- and, you know, leather. What do you think? An effective political statement, or a little bit tacky? 

This weekend, in what was one of the more-hyped up events in recent world history, Chelsea Clinton tied the knot to her longtime boyfriend, Mark Mezvinsky. The affair was supposed to be top secret, but it's unlikely that a former President's -- not to mention the current Secretary of State's -- daughter has much of a shot at quiet, ho hum nuptials. Chelsea wore a Vera Wang gown, while her mom wore Oscar de la Renta. It was, apparently, quite the beautiful ceremony. Congratulations to the happy couple! Now, is it time to start talking about the honeymoon yet, or what?