Style Watch: Usher and Chris Brown

Half-way through June now, in my fashion, I can feel the spirit of summer really revving us all up for pending warm weather activity. With July 4^th  peaking around the corner, and a plethora of festivals and outdoor events to keep in mind, it is finally getting that time to be a bit more outrageous as we all become a bit more scantily clad with the increasingly sizzling weather. Two well known artists that are always able to satisfy us by sending us a chill and making the hair on our backs rise to the occasion whenever they perform are, Usher, and Chris Brown. Below you can see their new music videos they recently released. I just had to highlight Usher’s “Scream” video, which was released in April as the second single to his seventh album, “Looking 4 Myself” which was released last Tuesday. This song is now a mainstream success having peaked number 13 on the Billboard charts and still building momentum as the album climbs in popularity.  I enjoy that in this video his movements had strong traces of who he was when we first fell in love with him in 1997 in the time of his “My Way” album. His smooth dance moves reek of the suave charisma of the 90’s that he helped to pioneer when he was a rising artist. This video is mature and high impact, which seems to be the direction he is going in based off his first amazingly crafted first single, “Climax”. This new album is surly one to support by far!

Moving on to the next generation, we have Chris Brown’s video, “Don’t Wake Me Up”, which was released in May, and is his forth single off his fifth studio album, “Fortune”. I feel his look in the video is laudable, and is a look many boys can gravitate to this summer considering it goes along with the Aladdin-look I described in my recent Destination: Inspiration post for Istanbul; turbans, draped scarves, etc. His look is very masculine, relevantly cultural, and representative of the eclectic style of the artist. In my fashion, this high velocity video exudes passion and anguish, while still making our toes tap while we listen to it. It’s like his heart exploded, and based on the concept of the song, speaking of a lost loved one who exist only in a dream, we can really relate to the sentiment he is trying to relay to his audience.

Destination: Inspiration *Istanbul*

As I mentioned in my first “Destination: Inspiration” post for Rio de Janiero in Brasil, in my fashion, your environment should inspire you just as much as your own desire to forward yourself in life. The best way to learn about life is to experience it, and another interesting country I want to experience is Istanbul in Turkey. According to AskMen.com, if you cannot make it to Istanbul yourself, you will definitely be able experience it Novemebr 9, 2012 in movie theaters when the new James Bond movie, “Skyfall” , is released in the US, and October 26 in the UK. What attracts me most about this city is the architecture, history, and culture of this city. Considering it is practically on the opposite side of the globe, Istanbul would be a great way to escape the modernity of today.

In my fashion, I would travel in Istanbul with the spirit of Aladdin. Lately, my other half, Dwight (@Ken_Dutchess), and I have been playing around with turbans and head attire that is different from your regular fitted baseball cap or fedora. We’ve been finding all sorts of ways to adorn our heads using long, colorful, scarves and strips of fabric that mesh and/or clash with the rest of our outfit in order to create a tension that brings new light to an old outfit. It makes me think of the costume in ancient Mesopotamia and Assyria (the name of the land currently known as Turkey), and how people wore fillets, and chignons, and tarbush hats with tunics, and how they used long rectangular fabrics to drape around themselves as wrapped dresses, skirts and loincloths. Think of being as free as Aladdin on a magic carpet ride flying past the minarets of the Blue Mosque and the landscapes of the different fortresses of ancient times. Imagine strolling down the spice markets wearing languid fabric that follows you and your body in your own variation of a wrapped tunic and turban. Allow yourself to be open to the regional tastes and flavors of their foods. AskMen.com says they have an interesting fried ice cream that I am very interested in seeing and trying (“fried” and “ice cream” not being words I would typically pair to think possible of creating). In my fashion, this is the time to feel the Arabian spirit and channel that through our clothes for the summer!