Miss Vannette's Cosmopolitan Confessions

Last Thursday night I celebrated, my good friend, Comfort's birthday with her and a host of other friends at Shadowroom Night Club in DC.  You may recognize Bianca Chardei from America's Next Top Model (Cycle 13). I wore a taupe and tangerine colored bandage dress with Morange lips to match.

Check out the photos from that night:

hun·ger
noun

1. a compelling need or desire for food.

2. the painful sensation or state of weakness caused by the need of food

3. a strong or compelling desire or craving

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there were 925 million hungry people in the world in 2010. I beg to differ. If we go by the literal definition of the word, than there are many more millions of people in the world who are hungry. One particularly large group of people who would fall under that category is the women of America - the hungry sadists.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been out to eat with other women and heard them rationalize why they should or should not eat something that they really want to eat, I would be blogging from my own private Falcon while drinking Methuselah mimosas out of diamond encrusted champagne flute designed by John Calleija himself.

It usually goes something like this…

The confession: I knooooow I shouldn’t order that brownie sundae…

The justification: … but I’ve been so good all week…

The RFC (request for cohorts): Are you going to order one? I’ll get one if you do…

The mouthgasm: OMG this is sooooo good! I’m so glad I ordered it!

The post indulgence flagellation: OMG I’m such a pig. Why did I do that?

The blame game: Why did you let me eat that?

We live in a society in which so many women constantly count calories, work out incessantly, attend group weight loss support meetings, and starve all day so that they can indulge in a fatty meal for dinner. I am not an exception to this. I dropped $100 on the entire Quick Slim package (including the lemonade flavored cleanse that tasted like chalk water) last year when Kim Kardashian lost 20 lbs and became their spokesperson.

I like to see myself in good shape just as much as the next hungry woman, but I think it’s time that we all stop starving ourselves and EAT something GOOD for crying out loud. Remember, 325 million people starved involuntarily in 2010. We have access to food… and lots of it… so let’s take advantage. Consider yourself fortunate! Eat when you’re hungry. Order the French fries (instead of substituting them with broccoli), Spritz that raspberry vinaigrette all over your salad. Go for dessert… and a dessert wine, too!

It’s okay to indulge with moderation. I’m not encouraging you to go on a fatty foods binge, but I am urging you to enjoy your food and stop sadistically inflicting hunger upon yourself.

Last Wednesday I celebrated, my friend, Kirt's birthday at the Donovan House Rooftop and then I joined, my girlfriend, Comfort for her birthday party at Josphine in DC.  There was an abundance of drinks, gorgeous people, and even cupcakes!  You all know how much I loooove bandage dresses because they flatter my figure like nothing else can.  I wore a black and white bandage dress and black Steve Madden pumps.  I wore my hair in a ponytail because I felt that the criss cross design of thedress would have been masked, had I worn it down.  I wore NYX eyeshadows in black, silver and white, with a nude li color by Cover Girl.  I wore Revlon lashes and used a white pencil on my waterline.

Check out some photos from Kirt's birthday party on the rooftop of the Donovan Hotel:

Kirt Floyd and me

And here are some photos from Josephine:

George Hamilton (English Gents) and me

We’ve all been there before. Your lover does something that pisses you off, you get angry, you passive aggressively decide to deal with it later, and then you lay awake all night thinking about what a prick he is while he is soundly asleep. What happens in the morning? You wake up pissed off and sleepy because you were up all night giving him evil looks and poking him. He then wonders why you’re in such a bitchy mood and you don’t understand why he’s so clueless.

Ahhh, the joys of cohabitation.

Many people would rather not discuss issues right away, as tension can be high in the moments immediately following hurt feelings, so they do what is called “sleeping on it” with hopes that their thoughts will be sorted out by the morning. Sometimes this works, but many times what happens when we go to bed angry, is we let tension and anger simmer for hours.

Studies actually prove that sleep preserves emotionally charged events. Sitting on our hurt feelings can only worsen the way we feel because we develop feelings of self righteousness and resentment towards the other person, and the way we feel will be stored in our permanent memory. We have a whole night to think about what happened from our perspective and to build stories around the actual facts, which is not good for us emotionally or for our partners (or anyone else who has to deal with us the next day).

If you MUST wait until the next morning to deal with the issue at hand, I’d like to offer some tips to calm you down and keep you from doing anything crazy to your beau while he’s asleep.

1. Think about the facts – not the story that you created around the facts. The facts are what actually happened. Your story is what you felt, thought, blah blah blah.

2. Check your ego - Figure out if you’re feelings are actually hurt, or if your ego just won’t let you back down from your stance.

3. To combat feeling like you’ve been victimized, think about three things that you love about your partner or that your partner does for you for which you can’t thank him enough. This exercise should remind you of how much you appreciate him and why you’re with him in the first place.

4. To combat feelings of self righteousness, I suggest thinking of three things that you do that make you really difficult to deal with. Do you leave your hair in the sink? Do you sing horribly in the shower? Do you wake up super early and expect him to wake up as well even though he doesn’t have to be at work until later in the day? Pick three things that you wouldn’t even be able to stand about yourself. This exercise lessens my feelings of victimization and puts you both on an even playing field, because it reminds you that you are not a perfect princess (as much as you would like to think that you are).

After all of that, if you still feel angry, then I would suggest sleeping on the couch – or making him!

I have been to countless castings and seen other models auditioning who were not in the best physical shape, had horrible hair, had cellulite running from their necks down to their ankles, severe acne and a host of other physical problems. While in the fashion and beauty world, these flaws would be absolutely unacceptable, the urban modeling sect welcomes these people – flaws and all. You’d be truly astonished if you saw what some of the models you've seen in the urban magazines look like in person. At first (and second) glance, I often find myself wondering where in the world these people live, if there is any running water or electricity there, if they eat stone soup for dinner and how many children they have carried!

Who is to blame for the fact that terrible looking people are calling themselves models? I would like to place a significant portion of the responsibility for this paradigm shift on a little company called Adobe Systems Incorporated. You may have heard of them. This is the software company behind the Photoshop software products.

More and more people and publications are conducting photo shoots, taking photos, and sending them off to be heavily edited by “high-end” photo retouchers who often change the skin complexions and textures, tamper with eye colors, distort body types, etc. of the original subjects. Photo retouching is a very necessary piece of the image creating process; however people are becoming too reliant on it.

I am one person who takes pride in the fact that I will show up to a photo shoot looking the same as I do in my modeling portfolio. I work out regularly to maintain a shape that is consistent with the shape reflected by the images in my portfolio. Yet and still, you’d be amazed at how many times I have been flippantly advised not to stress out over a surprise pimple or water weight gain because “they can just fix it on Photoshop.” While this is true, I would prefer not to depend on the magic of Photoshop to produce a good picture. And neither should anyone who considers his/herself to be a professional model.

As a model, it is your job to maintain your look to the best of your ability. No one is perfect and we all require a bit of photo retouching, but if you rely solely on Photoshop to produce a quality image, then you’re not a real model.

The photo above is a RAW image from the photo shoot that I did for www.missvannette.com. As you can see, there are no bullet holes, bulges, or craziness present.

We live in a society which places so much pressure on people to get things done and to reach certain socially imposed goals or at the very least look like you are doing one of the former. This pressure can induce a weight on people that is so heavy it can render them paralyzed. There are many people who cannot get out of the bed in the morning because the thoughts of everything that must be done today and all of the what-ifs that surround those things place them in a state of paralysis.

I have personally had days in which I have woken up and immediately felt overwhelmed by thoughts of what must be done, what I won’t have time to do, what will happen if I don’t do something and the consequences of not doing well enough. These thoughts have caused me to draw my black curtain (literally), so as to block all traces of light from entering my room and drown out the sounds of the day by placing my pillow firmly over my head.

I have learned that the truth is that no matter what I do, the day will come and go. Whether or not I get everything that is expected or demanded of me done, life will still go on. The consequences that may ensue will have to be dealt with, whether good or bad.

I am a huge believer in lists. I make checklists on a daily basis. These checklists include some very important tasks (such as paying bills) and some more minute tasks. The important thing to remember is that we can’t let our to-do lists completely control our lives. As we all have learned from experience, life does not go according to our schedules, calendars, or to-do lists. Take everything with a grain of salt and keep it moving.

I’m not encouraging you to stop living up to your expectations and obligations. I am, however, stating that we place a ridiculous amount of pressure on ourselves to be wonder-women and that if we just take a moment to think and breathe, we will be more competent of prioritizing that which is most important, necessary and urgent and coming to terms with the little things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things – instead of becoming consumed in what can’t be done or what we don’t have time to do.

There are only 24 hours in the day.  If you spend most of those hours worrying, you'll drive yourself crazy. Do that which is most important and worry about the rest later.

Maybe Scarlette (Gone with the WInd) was on to something when she said her notorious line:

"After all... tomorrow is another day"

I've been frequenting the Dub Splash pool party in DC for a couple of weeks now and I have had so much fun, that I figured I would share the experience with you!

This week I wore a zebra print bikini that I bought at Wet Seal last summer and my new favorite earrings from Arden B. which are blinged out with white feathers.

Check out this video that I made:

Check out the behind the scenes footage of my photo shoot for CRED Magazine:

Old Spice has a new spokesperson and it's the last person I would have expected to see making a comeback. Fabio has gone from being an Italian fashion model to gracing the covers of countless sappy romance novels in the 80s and 90s.  We've seen him make cameos in a few movies and TV shows as well.  Don't get me wrong, I think Fabio is a very attractive guy, but I just think there's something creepy about him.  He's got great hair, a great body and a great smile... but I don't feel comfortable seeing this particular elderly man half naked.  He's old enough to be my dad... literally. (Can you say "electra complex"?)

Okay. Okay. Those of you who know me know that it's really not completely about his age.  I guess I just think Fabio is a creeper. 

Tell me this doesn't make you feel uncomfortable:

I want the Isaiah Mustafa back!