Modern Beauty Trends: In: Attack of the Kardashian Klones | Out: Keeping Dumbledore in the Closet

Kim Kardashian clones took over Instagram in the name of Yeezy Season 6. Their leader? Paris Hilton.
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“We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily.” — Takashi Murakami

Kim Klones

Individuality

There’s a lot of people on Instagram earning followers and micro-fortunes simply because they happen to sort of look like a Kardashian or Jenner (whether it be through coincidence, makeup skills, or more drastic measures). Surely, the Kardashians themselves have noticed this by now, and they don’t let anything go unnoticed without at least thinking about how they could use it to their advantage. Well, the surprise campaign for Yeezy Season 6, the fashion label designed by Kim’s husband, Kanye West, turned the idea of Kardashian impersonators on its head, and added a few meta-layers for good measure. Instead of a runway debut, the Yeezy Season 6 collection was first shown in paparazzi photos of Kardashian wearing the clothes around L.A. Well, on Tuesday night, a phalanx of influencers and Instagram stars (models, beauty bloggers, reality stars, celebrity ex-girlfriends, even an adult film star) started posting photos recreating Kim’s paparazzi shots. It was certainly more exciting than President Trump’s State of the Union address, and it quickly became clear it was an organized effort. Near midnight, Kardashian revealed the final piece of the puzzle—it was none other than Paris Hilton, dressed up as Kim Kardashian, who patterned her career after Hilton’s in the first place. It was all very meta, and something you’d expect out of the man who gave us that infamous “Famous” video. At least this time everyone involved wanted to be part of the narrative. See Hilton and the rest of the models who participated here.

Queer Subtext

Keeping Dumbledore in the Closet

Let Albus Dumbledore call his boyfriend by his name! We are now more than 10 years removed from the time J.K. Rowling quietly dropped the big news that beloved Harry Potter character Dumbledore had, actually, been a proud gay man the whole damn time. That fact was never mentioned in the books, but with a new prequel series of Potter movies that features none other than Jude Law as a young Dumbledore, you’d figure they’d explore that side of his life more, right? After all, the upcoming film is called Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and Rowling has previously stated that Dumbledore’s great tragedy is that he fell in love with a guy named Grindelwald. Though, director David Yates has now said that Dumbledore won’t be “explicitly” gay in the film, to much controversy, though he left the door open to explore it in future films. This is something of a disappointment in the year 2018, but we suppose more progressive parents may take it as an opportunity to start teaching their kids early about how to spot queer subtext in the arts. It will certainly save them a lot of hassle in college. It might also make high school English teachers’ jobs a lot easier when they have their classes read A Separate Peace.

Robin Wright’s New Castmates

Kevin Spacey

We live in a cruel world where Kevin Spacey has two Oscars and Diane Lane has none. At least we are getting some karmic retribution. As we all know by now, production of House of Cards was shut down after the world realized Spacey was a sex monster, but Netflix vowed to keep the long-running series going with Robin Wright as the lone headliner. But she won’t be doing it all on her own. Production has revved back up, and Netflix announced two new additions to the cast that may give us a small idea of how they’ll deal with the plot post-Spacey: Lane is joining the cast in her first regular television gig ever and fellow Oscar nominee Greg Kinnear will be on board as her brother. Though, nothing else is known at this time. As for how producers will deal with Spacey’s exit, it’s rumored that Frank Underwood may wind up killed off with even less ceremony than Zoe Barnes in season two.

Thomas Houseago

@ThomasHouseago

L.A.-based artist Thomas Houseago occasionally gives glimpses of his studio on Instagram, but he invited us in for a full tour. Notably, it’s the same studio were Brad Pitt has been retreating over the past year to work on his own sculpting skills.