Get the look: Aretha Franklin's inauguration hat

Ask and you shall receive. Earlier this week, Aretha Franklin serenaded crowds of supporters at Barack Obama's inauguration. But it was her bejeweled hat that stole the show. Many wondered where they could get such a head-turner to warm their own noggins.

Tiffany Hsu at our sister blog To Live and Buy in L.A. has the answer: Orders are pouring into Luke Song's Detroit-based Mr. Song Millinery, a store the Queen of Soul has patronized for 20 of its 25 years. Though the heather-gray wool hat ain't cheap -- it costs upward of $500 -- Hsu writes "fans are welcome to drop $179 on a similar satin-ribbon version."

-- Whitney Friedlander

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Photo: Pat Benic/ European Pressphoto Agency

Who can afford a nip and tuck? Plastic surgery gets hit hard

Is Los Angeles looking a little long in the tooth?
According to a recent poll by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 59% of women claimed that the economy was putting a major wrinkle in their cosmetic upkeep. (Eight months ago, 50% said the same.)  Compared to the first half of 2007, business is down 62% for the first half of 2008 in all cosmetic procedures. 

I was recently talking to a dermatologist who said that she counted the ads in LA Weekly to determine how the botox and filler business was faring in Los Angeles. (Typically, there are dozens of come-ons for half-price lip injections and breast-augmentation coupons galore.) "I counted four ads for botox, which is not a good sign," she said.

It would be interesting to see more women in L.A. with gray hair and foreheads that crinkle occasionally, right? I think Joanne Woodward and the late Paul Newman managed to age gracefully. What's so awful about getting old?

-- Monica Corcoran

photo: Getty Images

If CAA plays matchmaker for Jennifer Aniston, do they get 10% of her wedding gifts?

Jennifer Aniston -- the woman who launched a million haircuts -- needs a new man, according to Rush & Molloy. Her high-profile romance with singer-sheepdog John Mayer ended with Mayer publicly announcing that he did the dumping. Nice.
I guess that being on the wrong end of a break-up is not good press for a leading lady. The NY Daily News gossip hounds report:

"Meanwhile, whether she knew it or not, Aniston's agents at CAA were calling around L.A. asking available men if they'd be interested in taking the beauty out. One was our flabbergasted friend -- a tall, dark and handsome writer -- who said, "Of course!" Word is Jen has asked them to cool the matchmaking, for now."

The alleged backdoor setups by her agents are some sort of spin control to make Aniston seem desirable. The whole idea of fighting over who dumped whom is so high school. Then again, Aniston endured the most ballyhooed romantic rejection of all when she and Brad Pitt split and then he took up with Angelina Jolie. Pitt and Aniston announced their separation in January 2005. But did the break-up hinder her image as a leading lady? ("Derailed" and "Rumor Has It" were hardly hits, but "The Break-Up" -- hint, hint -- was a box office success.)

The whole issue begs the question: Does being dumped make you less desirable?

Photo: Getty Images

At 50, is Madonna middle-aged? Are you?

Middle age. For me, the term does not evoke images of lithe women with blond highlights and perfect Pilates-sculpted asses that refuse to fall to half-mast. I typically associate middle age with naps and osteoporosis.

But Madonna turned the big 5-0 recently and Michelle Pfeiffer, right, Sharon Stone, left at right, and Holly Hunter, below, could all help her blow out a candle or two. (Their bones look mighty strong. ) Yes, we've all heard that 50 is the new 40 or even 30. In Pfeiffer's case, I might say that 50 is the new 28, but who's counting? But then, what the hell is middle-aged these days?

At what age, do you hit the middle? The Oxford English Dictionary defines "middle age" as "the period between youth and old age, about 45 to 60." In his psychosocial stages, the famed developmental psychologist Erik Erikson nailed the middle as 35 to 55 or 65 and felt that middle-aged people had to focus on creative stimulation and productivity to thwart stagnation. He also deemed self-absorption during these years as a quick path to a crisis. Narcissism in Hollywood? Never! But Erikson probably never saw a woman look this damn hot at 50, so, of course, he figured that vanity had to go.

Personally, I can't imagine living another 60 years -- that sounds exhausting. So I would like to think that at 40, I have passed middle age and I am now in the "nearing the end age." And if Hollywood actresses don't start aging, perhaps they're in the "just try and make me age age."

How do you define middle-aged?

Photos: Getty Images

The Beyonce ad and skin bleaching

The controversy over the recent L'Oreal Paris ad for Feria hair color featuring an allegedly whitewashed Beyonce (right) should spur talk about the perils of skin bleaching. (For the record, L'Oreal has firmly denied that they lightened the skin of the fair complected singer/spokesmodel.)

To clarify: I am not implying in this post that Beyonce bleaches her skin at all. But I think this whole debate prompts a discussion of skin lightening, which is so prevalent in Asia and Africa and how harmful it is for women -- on so many levels.

In Jamaica, some dark-skinned women are so anxious to lighten their complexions that they will concoct homemade mixtures of household bleach and chemicals used to straighten hair. A  BBC report quoted dermatologist Neil Persadsingh as saying: "If you go to the ghettos, you will see people with their faces white from the application of these bleaching preparations. You see this every day in Jamaica." The situation has gotten so bad that the Jamaican government launched a campaign called "Don't Kill the Skin" last year, aimed at young girls. Even skin lighteners that are sold in Jamaica are not safe and can cause thinned skin, acne and scarring.

Over here, the skin lightening market is a major industry and the main ingredient of most creams and serums -- hydroquinone -- is some scary stuff. The FDA proposed a ban on it in 2006 because it was deemed a cancer causing chemical after being tested on rodents. Right now, you can buy over-the-counter products with 2% hydroquinone and prescription treatments that contain 4% of the chemical.
Clearly, the beauty ideal in this country and elsewhere begs for correction. I found a soap online marketed to women called "Fair & White" -- at what price, physically and psychologically?

UPDATE: The Young, Black & Fabulous has published a picture of the Beyonce ad, as it ran in Essence (left), alongside the Elle ad.  The Elle ad looks a lot blander than the Essence ad. The pigmentation is just off. The whole Elle ad looks like it got left out in the sun and faded.

Do you think L'Oreal Paris has some explaining to do?

Photos: Getty Images; L'Oreal Paris; TheBYF.com

Invisible clothing coming soon

Today, CNN reports that researchers are now able to cloak objects by fiddling with light and reflection and the invisible suit may soon become a reality. What do you call it: The Peeping Tom Ford suit?

No doubt, an invention that could abet thieves and perverts -- among other miscreants -- would be a liability to society. Expect the military to be the only benefactor at this point. (The findings come from UC Berkeley and will be published later this week.)

This on the heels of a recent report that smart clothes are making scientific strides. Among the new crafty fabrics are a pair of underwear that can detect cancer cells and a smart bra that detects temperature changes in breast tissue and alerts to a possible tumor.  Some doctors are skeptical at this point. There are also fabrics that contain vitamins and deodorants on the horizon.

And you thought Spanx were a miracle?

photo: Universal Pictures

Casual Friday or casual fired day?

The Los Angeles Daily News has banned jeans and tennis shoes in the workplace. Tennis shoes? Do they mean sneakers? Hmm. Maybe newspapers really are out of touch.   

But the paper isn't alone. CNN reports that 64% of employers surveyed have banned flip-flops, 28% have outlawed jeans, and 49% have forbidden miniskirts. More than one-third (35%) of companies have gone as far as to send employees home for unsuitable work garb. Is getting sent home early a bad thing?

Lastly, 41% of bosses said that they would be more apt to promote someone professionally dressed over the colleague in the denim miniskirt, flip-flops and "Baby Mama Seeks Drama" T-shirt.  Anyone else remember Julia Robert's response when questioned about her inappropriate work attire in "Erin Brockovich"? She said: "Ed, I think I look nice."

Does someone in your office dress like she's going to give her dog a bath? Do you think the clothes make the manager?

photo: Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich by Bob Marshak for Universal Studios.

Anna Patterson: How did she do that?

Ever drink a few glasses of Merlot and mutter to yourself, "I could have created that Google search engine!" Keep boozing. Meet Anna Patterson. She engineered the Google search engine while working for the empire and has invented a new engine called Cuil. (It's Irish for knowledge and pronounced like "cool.") A quick peek at Patterson's look -- while at Stanford, left, courtesy of the college database -- shows that she wasn't doing beer bongs and flat ironing her hair on Friday nights.

According to her bio, she was a research associate to Formal Reasoning Group in the Computer Science Department at Stanford and her interests included: programming languages, concurrency and verifications and analysis of distributed systems. Her side interest? Visualizing structures using 3-D imaging techniques.  (Cuil!)

Photo: www.formal.stanford.edu

Photo bombers: Coming soon to a picture of you

"Photo bombing" has yet to achieve mainstream attention with a Wikipedia page. Then again, do you really need someone to explain to you what it means? In essence, the goal is to stealthily terrorize a picture by any means possible. Nudity is extremely popular, as are obscene gestures. But that's obvious. The best photo bombers, in my opinion, are more skillful, agile and, above all, brave.

Masterful photo terrorists find the most insidious way to disrupt the composition of a shot and mock the subjects at the same time. (The guy who's photo bombing this shot of the three blond amigos with big egos achieves both. The Caucasian thug below takes a different approach and mocks himself.)

Funniepicturez.blogspot.com has a great gallery of photo bomb pictures -- scroll down to the photo bombing feature. Googling the term brings up the very same shots, so it's a movement in its infancy -- like Dadaism during WWI. (None of the photo bombed pictures on the site I mentioned are X-rated shots, but a few images might offend -- so visit at your own risk.)

Critics will say that photo bombing hardly constitutes "art intervention," which is the intentional meddling into a preexisting piece of artwork or even an art venue, like a gallery or museum. (The performance artist who took a hammer to Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal -- titled "Fountain" -- in Paris in 2006 and called it his own "art" is a good example of an art interventionist. Same goes for an artist who manages to sneak his work into a museum.)

But I think photo bombing is a genius poke at our society's rampant exhibitionism, fueled by the Internet. Flickr has enabled people to turn the Web into boring photo albums. Or one giant mirror. Hot girls post pictures of themselves and ask commenters to rate their assets. Pictures from weddings, family reunions and proms are uploaded without any artistic censorship. No shot is left behind, alas.

Vive les photo bombers!

Photos: Funniepicturez.blogspot.com

The boss wants to see you and weigh you

On CNN this morn, an article about how a company in Lincoln, Nebraska has three full-timers devoted to "wellness." The 565 employees have mandatory quarterly check-ups to measure body fat, weight and flexibility. The program has been around for 16 years and those who achieve optimum results get a company-paid trip---to climb a mountain.

(These Buddhist monks, above, pay 10 to 15 cents to weigh themselves on a bathroom scale in Phom Penh.)

Studies show that people who weigh themselves daily gain less weight. I might weigh myself at work if there was a more private scale--maybe with a discreet LCD read out instead of that sliding reader--that wasn't crammed next to a vending machine that burps out Pop Tarts and Snickers. (Into my eager hands, of course.)

But I wouldn't want the Los Angeles Times to make weigh-ins obligatory. It's fascist and fatist. Not to mention the fact that with all the recent and brutal cut backs here, I think we've done enough corporate downsizing.

photo: Doug Niven/AFP/Getty