Summer of Pixar Look 19: Coco- Mama Imelda

The second I saw Hector walk on the screen, I turned to my boyfriend next to me and said "that's his grandpa" and he was like "no the other guy is his grandpa" and I was like "you absolute fool, do you know nothing about screen writing?" and anyway I was right and now I'm single.

Coco is, without a doubt, one of the greatest Pixar movies of all time, and coincidentally Pixar's only musical to date. But is that a coincidence? Or do people just like musicals and maybe, just MAYBE Pixar is FINALLY catching on to what audiences want. This film is so important in so many ways. It's the first full length Pixar film to star a person of color. Which is actually ridiculous if you consider how many Pixar films came before it, but we can't complain when people learn from their mistakes. This film really opened my eyes to Mexican culture in a way I never experienced before. At risk of sounding entirely racist, I never liked things that revolved around Dia de los Muertos. I didn't like the look of the skeletons- it felt overall too spooky for me. But I was just another ignorant white person who waited for a cartoon movie to change my mind. Leaving the theater, I was completely in tears and reveling in the deep rooted history that the Mexican culture had to offer. How beautiful it is that family is so important regardless of whether they're living or dead. This film is phenomenally moving, and although it's a lot more fun when I have things to complain about, I really have nothing negative to say.

The character I most identified with in this film was, without a doubt, Mama Imelda. If anyone can hold a grudge for hundreds of years beyond the grave, it's me. So I knew that she would be the only choice for this Coco inspired Disneybound. For this look, I didn't want to simply wear a dress similar to the one that she wore in the film, I also wanted to show how much i related to the character by truly exemplifying how dead inside I am, so I started this outfit with a skeleton top. I added a purple ruffled skirt over this to represent Mama Imelda's dress. Instead of Mama Imelda's apron, I added a brown faux leather belt to exemplify the fact that I actually have zero organs in my body. For shoes I went with a simple black bootie, and I accessorized with black and purple chokers. This entire outfit can be found on my Amazon Storefront. To give a nod to the Mexican culture, I added a purple floral headband as I oftentimes see similar headbands used in traditional celebrations like Dia de los Muertos. Overall, this was close to the top of my list of Disneybounds that I've done over the course of my Summer of Pixar challenge, and one that I felt the most inspired to do. In fact, this was one of the first bounds I did and I've just been waiting to share it with everyone!

Summer of Pixar Look 18: Cars 3- Jackson Storm

Life IS a highway and I absolutely want to ride it literally all night long. I finally understand what Rascal Flatts meant in those infamous lyrics. I never once thought that the highway of my life would twist and wind down to a road where I would find myself doing 3 Cars themed Disneybouds ever, let alone over the course of a few months. But here we are. Life can be so interesting like that.

If I haven't been clear previously, the Cars franchise is probably one of my least favorite things that the Walt Disney Company or any of its subsidiaries has ever had any part in. I just have never and will never be interested in talking cars and they beat it to death over the course of 3 films and a spin-off film (lest we forget Planes). But despite all of this, my Cars themed Disneybounds have turned out to be some of my favorites over the course of this project. I felt so good about myself in Lightning, and I got to live my farm girl fantasy as Mater, and now with Cars 3 Jackson Storm did not disappoint. I am not exaggerating when I say that upon trying on this outfit, I walked around my house for 3 hours saying "I'm- JACKSON STORM" and flipping my ponytail. Was I more than likely delirious after having completed 3/4 of this project and finally being in the home stretch? Probably. Did that make it any less fun for me? Nope.

Cars 3 as a film was probably my favorite out of any of the Cars movies, though that isn't saying much. I still didn't like it, it's still not up there on my list of Pixar movies, but I didn't cringe as much as I expected. I thought the themes were fairly solid. I liked that Lightning knew when it was his time to retire (something Pixar needs to learn when it comes to retiring franchises), and I loved how the real and true villain in the film was youth and technology because honestly that's the true villain in my every day life.

After much debate with myself and everyone else I know over which character to bound for this film, I settled, as I've said, on Jackson Storm- because sometimes it's good to be bad. I had such a fun time creating a completely modern look for Jackson Storm which I felt was integral to his character since his whole story line revolves around the fact that he's a new kind of racer who uses new technology to train in a way that we've never seen before. Pulling from Jackson's blue and black color scheme, I thought that a really good way to exemplify how slick and modern he is would be leather, so I went with some faux leather pants and a faux leather jacket- which looked really cool and I loved, but also caused me to nearly pass out from the heat. You can find the jacket on my Amazon Storefront. I added the touch of blue with a casual blue crop top from Forever 21. I think that the key to this look was to make it simple and streamline, which is such the opposite of what I usually go for in my vintage kitsch, and part of the reason I loved it so much. To accessorize the look I added two mis-matched earrings, an idea that I pulled from one of my favorite YouTubers, Kandee Johnson. I love this idea because it's subtle but it's extremely modern, and it's also great for someone like me who can never find a matching pair of earrings.  For shoes, I added a suede bootie for texture. Though this outfit is absolutely stellar, I think that we can all agree the true star of the bound is my incredible Ariana Grande inspired ponytail. I have to say I was living my absolute best life with all this glorious hair on my head- I felt like a true star, and all thanks to my amazing friend Lisa Fabio at Little Penny Lane on Etsy. She is absolutely incredible with hair and is the only person I will trust with any of my wig needs.

Summer of Pixar Look 17: Finding Dory- Dory

Finding Dory is what happens when you take a complete cast of supporting characters and just throw them all together in a movie with no strong lead. I don't think it's a bad movie, I found it to be really entertaining, but I just don't exactly understand the concept. Dory was the comic relief side-kick character in Finding Nemo, an otherwise really dark and fairy traumatizing film about a man who loses his wife, his unborn children, and then eventually his only son, and she served that purpose really well. Dory had some of the most hilarious lines and also helped to drive the plot forward in many cases. She did her job as a side kick. But the problem with side kicks is that typically they have a fairly niche personality. They serve one purpose, to support our main protagonist who, typically, has a well-rounded, multi-faceted personality. Dory doesn't really have that, and they didn't really even attempt to give her more of a personality in this sequel that was completely about her. Yes, she has a little more of a back story in that she actually came from somewhere, but is that really a well thought out back story? "I have a mom and a dad!" Like- yes, literally everyone has a biological birth father and mother. Is that a well thought out story line? I guess? Am I overthinking a children's movie? What do you think I've been doing for the past several months on this blog?

Anyway, Dory, as well as every other character in this film, is a side kick. Dory has memory loss, that's her shtick- she can't remember anything and for whatever reason that's very funny and not very, very sad like it would be if a real human person couldn't remember anything. I understand that she's a fish and therefore this is funny because "haha, actual fish have very short memories" and that worked for me in the first film, but in a movie that's main thesis is coping with your disability, it just doesn't fly? This movie relies very heavily on Dory's flashbacks, which to me is strange considering she isn't supposed to have the ability to retain any memories. If this were to be a real film that was actually about working through your disability, I feel like it would stand to be mentioned that if you have actual memory loss, it doesn't work like that. It's not like in very difficult situations where you REALLY need to remember something, you just DO. Bailey, the whale who can't echo-locate, also "overcomes" his disability by, when he REALLY needs to echo-locate, just not being disabled anymore? Hank has PTSD and then when his friends REALLY need him, he's just very brave? Destiny is the only one with a creative work around when she enlists another whale to be her seeing eye whale so she doesn't keep swimming into walls.

I don't know why I'm so bitter about this, but I really do wish that they actually made a movie about coping with disabilities rather than just having the characters just not be disabled when they really needed to not be.

So, anyway, for Finding Dory, I Disneybounded as Dory. For this look I started with an off the shoulder, royal blue roper that I found, you guessed it, on Amazon. And wouldn't I be darned if I didn't throw it on my Amazon Storefront so you could create the look for yourself? I added a black belt from Pinup Girl Clothing to represent Dory's blue stripes. For Dory's yellow fins I added a big yellow sunhat, also from Amazon, as well as these adorable yellow shoes from B.A.I.T. Footwear. 

Summer of Pixar Look 16: The Good Dinosaur- Arlo

For this next blog post, we're all going to play a group participation game. For every time I say the word "dinosaur", everyone takes a shot, the last person to not be hospitalized wins.

This Good Dinosaur Disneybound is the perfect example of when someone gives up but tries to make it fashion. Coincidentally, the movie The Good Dinosaur is also the perfect example of when a movie studio gives up but tries to make it look like quality content. Disney has yet to make a high caliber dinosaur movie to date, which is weird because The Land Before Time nailed it on the first try. You win this round, Universal. Actually, between The Land Before Time, We're Back! A Dinosaur Story, and Jurassic Park, Universal has really cornered the market on dinosaur films while Disney seems to not even be trying. Between Dinosaur and The Good Dinosaur, I'd honestly rather take a razor scooter to the ankle than subject myself to a Disney-made dinosaur film.

Surprizingly, I had a very difficult time deciding on a character to bound for this movie. Obviously it was between Arlo and Spot, but I had pretty solid outfits picked for both so maybe there will be more Good Dinosaur bounds in my future- wouldn't that be incredible. This time, however, I went with Arlo.

Because Arlo is a big ugly green dinosaur, I hated every moment of this. But I did it for the Vine and for my fans that are constantly showing me their love and support on my Patreon. This one's for you, Allison Zeller. For this look, more than anything I pulled inspiration from Isabella's costume at the end of the Lizzie McGuire movie because I had to find something to pull inspiration from that didn't make me want to step on a Lego. Sing to me, Arlo. For the base of this outfit I went with an easy breezy bright lime green dress- which would not be flattering on anyone and is not flattering on me. To distract from this dress, I used a green faux snake skin jacket to represent the texture of a real life dinosaur. To accessorize the look, I used green sunglasses, a green headband and these beautiful sparkly green leaf earrings from Summer Blue Jewelry. On my feet I went with a tan colored crystal bootie for a little extra sparkle.

I did feel the need to mention the one and only time that Disney seemed to get anything right regarding dinosaurs, which is, of course, the Sunglass Shack from the original plans for Disney's California Adventure. In a Sleeping Beauty like situation, I could not decide whether I prefered the dinosaur pink or green, so here are pictures of both. RIP Sunglass Shack and RIP the original "thememing" for California Adventure.

Summer of Pixar Look 15: Inside Out- Rainbow Unicorn

I loved you in Fairy Dream Adventure Pt. 7!

Inside Out begins the era of Pixar movies that I actually started to like again. It was a wonderful film that Pixar managed to have not one, but TWO female leads in (way to go Pixar, you done it). I laughed, I cried, but most of all I didn't cringe at all in the entire movie so really it was a home run in my book.

Unlike most of the other bounds I've done for my Summer of Pixar, I was really torn with which character to pick. There were so many solid options- I could have done any of the emotions, or Bing Bong, but after a long while of thinking I decided that I really wanted to go with Rainbow Unicorn. For this look, I decided to truly pull out all the stops. No holds barred. Just go for it. I decided that since Rainbow Unicorn is represented as a "movie star" in the film, I was going to pull out a red carpet worthy look. I also decided that because of Rainbow Unicorn's beautiful Farrah hair, I needed to have some 70's disco queen flair.

I took a real rick with this one and ordered my base piece, a sequined gown, from the Wish App. While it did serve it's purpose for these photos, I would never be able to wear this dress anywhere else. If I had ordered this for my high school prom, for example, I would not be happy. But it was $10 and I'm never going to wear it again so c'est la vie. With this dress, I wore a pair of sparkly rhinestone stilettos, and huge disco earrings.

  Rather than a rainbow wig, I chose to opt for a rainbow headscarf to represent Rainbow Unicorn's luscious mane, though I did cheat and wear a wig anyway just to give the look a little bit of high glamour. I also threw on a pair of lilac sunglasses to match my lilac fur so everyone knew just how little I wanted to speak to them .

 My absolute favorite accessory for this look was my adorable balloon unicorn pin from Prick Pins. It's glittery, it's enchanting, it's absolute perfection and it's the perfect addition to any Rainbow Unicorn bound.

I wanted to give a huge thank you to my friend Kirk who not only assisted on the shoots for Cars 2, Brave, and Inside Out, but also assisted in styling many of my bounds for the Summer of Pixar. Don't forget to give him @kirk_a_cola on Instagram.

Summer of Pixar Look 14: Monsters University- Squishy

Monsters who? Monsters U! Monsters monsters boogalo! U u monsters u u monsters! Zada, beta, lamda, U! Oh ah Monsters U!

Monsters University is the film that inspired me to quit school and achieve my dreams. Well not really, but I think this movie has a really important message behind it: there isn't one right path for everyone. Mike always knew that his plan was to attend Monsters U and work for Monsters Incorporated as the greatest scarer of all time. Despite the fact that his plan didn't go the way that he expected, Mike Wizowski still achieved his dreams (kind of) after literally being kicked out of school. So the real and true moral of the story is that school doesn't matter at all, it's all about real world experience, and no matter how hard you try, you're probably always going to fail.

For Monsters University I just could not bring myself to Disneybound as either Mike or Sulley. I honestly don't know why, but when I even considered bounding as either Mike or Sulley I would actually get a physical headache. So I went with this movie's unsung hero: Squishy.

For this look, I tried to imagine what my life could have been like if I was one of those awful, preppy sorority girls, and in order to gather inspiration, I studied the only sorority girl that ever mattered: Elle Woods. More than anything, my outfit was inspired by Elle's "what, like it's hard?" look.

The base of this look was, of course, pink because Squishy is a big pink monster just like me and I love him for that. I used a vintage pink collared wrap top, a vintage suede skirt, and my Pink TUK Western Starlet heels to show off my love for the hue. I especially loved the texture that the suede gave to the overall look.
 

 To show my Oozma Kappa pride, I picked this kelly green cardigan, and layered it with this adorable yellow bow belt to add a more defined waist to the look. To top it all off, rather than going with the typical OK baseball cap, I opted for a green headband to tie the colligent look all together. You can show off your Oozma Kappa pride too by checking out these items at my Amazon Storefront. 

Summer of Pixar Look 13: Brave- Merida

While in the planning process for the Summer of Pixar, it occured to me that every Pixar film focuses around a male lead, until Brave. Unfortunately, Brave was not good. To quote a real artist that actually knows what he's talking about (who also happens to be a future imagineer), Brave "goes to show you that if you change directors in the middle of the movie, and one of them is trying to make a female friendly movie, and the other one is just trying to make some weird mythical bear movie, that you can't have a good movie with a female lead". I'm gonna take his word for it as the amount of effort I want to put into researching this movie ends with the one time I watched it in the bath tub while getting ready for a Merida party. Coincidentally, that's about the same amount of effort that Disney/Pixar put into marketing this film. 

Poor Merida falls into this weird category where like, I GUESS she's a Disney princess? But she's Pixar? And also she doesn't have a song? Which is one of the key elements to being a Disney princess. I understand that the actual "rules" to be a Disney princess are that you either have to: 1. Be born into royalty, 2. Marry into royalty, or 3. Perform an act of bravery (you're welcome, Mulan), but I feel like the fourth unspoken rule is that you need a really kick ass musical number. Regardless, Merida is considered part of the official princess line-up, despite oftentimes being overlooked.

Anyway, I love bears but I hate Brave. 

This outfit was a real BEAR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA to think of because I found this film and its characters so uninspiring. I also knew that my options were really limited with this film because of the lack of memorable characters that are not bears. And honestly the lack of memorable characters that are bears. The movie all around isn't that memorable. I decided that I needed a bound that would be just as forgettable and uncomfortable to sit through, so I wore wool in the dead of summer in Southern California. 

The base of this outfit, what came to me known as "lazy Jasmine" after I took off all the accessories, is a simple teal pencil skirt and crop top. Over that, I layered a plaid wool scarf, which I belted at the waist with a super cute wide wrap belt. To really drive home the fact that I am the real Merida, I threw on an archery pin because, you know, she does that. I also added a bear purse to remind everyone that Merida somehow turned her entire family into bears? I'm still not exactly sure what happened there. I highly considered wearing a wig for this look, but then I couldn't bring myself to be one of those people, so I just threw on an orange beret that I had from the year I told my sister I liked berets so she gave me "the 12 berets of Christmas". Luckily for you, everything I just mentioned is made so easily available for purchase on my Amazon Storefront here. My favorite part of this look was the adorable Haku boots from BAIT Footwear. I honestly could not say enough amazing things about BAIT. I have never purchased an uncomfortable pair of shoes from them. Yes, they're expensive, but believe me when I tell you the quality is absolutely worth it, Finally, for this look I busted out my real actual glasses that I actually am supposed to wear every day but definitely don't because WOW they're green and they go with the look and maybe I wanted to actually see that day. 

Summer of Pixar Look 12: Cars 2- Mater

Family, once again it is honesty time. I know I previously mentioned in my Lightning McQueen post that I planned to watch all 3 Cars movies as a part of this challenge, but as I am writing this I still have not seen Cars 2 and honestly never plan to. I did make a sincere attempt to find it for free online (like I’m going to actually PAY to see Cars 2?), and I asked several friends if they owned it so I could borrow it. Not a single person I know owns Cars 2, and not only that, everyone I asked about it basically lost their mind saying that it was “one of the worst movies of all time” and “inherently racist” which, needless to say, made me want to watch it that much more. But alas, I couldn’t find it for free, and therefore I really made no attempt to see Cars 2 at all. Didn’t even Wikipedia the plot. I just don’t care. But the people I did talk to also mentioned that this film was mainly Mater’s story, so for this Disneybound I chose Sir Tow Mater (I guess he gets knighted at some point?).

For this look I wanted to give a complete southern farm girl fantasy. Very “let me milk your cow”. Very “if Dorothy Gale was not 14 years old”. Very “my peach cobbler won a blue ribbon at the state fair”. Mater’s color scheme is basically just rust, but in research for this project I found that he also has some blue hues to him, and knowing that I was going for that full hick fantasy, I knew I would have to include denim in some fashion. So I used a denim button down top for the base of this look. Over this, I added a rust colored corduroy overall dress, which I would definitely not recommend for summertime in Southern California, but here we are. You can find the links to both of these items at my Amazon Storefront here. To accessorize the look, I added, you guessed it, A BELT. Over the course of the Summer of Pixar I have noticed that I will throw a belt on almost anything and call it a look. I particularly love this belt for Mater because it gives that industrial feel, and almost felt like a tool belt when I wore it loosely around my hips. The coup de ta of this look, was my cowboy boots, which of course, I flew to Texas to purchase at Cavendars because honestly what I care most about, above anything else, is the true authenticity of this look.  

Summer of Pixar Look 11: Toy Story 3- Losto Huggin' Bear

Welcome to Sunnyside…

Toy Story 3 has to be one of the most solid sequels of all time, and especially in the Pixar universe. Not that there’s much competition in the Pixar universe- CARS 2. It’s a truly heartwarming story that could honestly be a stand- alone film, although to be 100% honest I’m not entirely sure why we had to cut almost half of our cast in one fail swoop of “they were sold at a garage sale”. Like- I would almost rather them not address Bo Peep’s absence than have them be like “yep, she and everyone else you knew and loved for the past two movies are gone. We literally sold them. We honestly could not justify having THREE female doll characters in one film, but don’t worry, we threw in a new dinosaur for you”. Like at least Barbie is shown as a strong, feminine woman because honestly I was getting so tired of our only female strength coming from Jessie- the most annoying character of all time.

For Toy Story 3 I had to bound as Lotso Huggin’ Bear. I decided for this look to really hail back to a glorification of my pre—school days, as the film primarily takes place at Sunny Side Daycare with pre-school aged children. Of course when I say a “glorification” I really mean “a complete dramatization of what I imagine it would have been like for me if I was a normal child in pre-school”- my mother always had my sister and I dressed in custom dresses with matching bows and white patent leather shoes which we never scuffed. If this doesn’t explain to you why I am the way I am, I don’t know what will. I knew that for this outfit, overalls were the most necessary component, so I found some adorable raspberry colored ones on Depop. Fun fact about these overalls: they are actually child sized and I physically could not bend over to tie my shoes while I was wearing them. I layered the overalls over a tan top to mimic Lotso’s tan belly. For shoes, I went with a classic pink Converse All-Star sneaker, but of course, because I am me, they are completely covered in Swarovski crystals.

For me, the absolute key component to this look was the pink puff balls for my hair. Luckily, there’s a super fun story to how I made them! The day that I was shooting Lotso, I was meeting a friend at the park. I had my entire outfit ready, minus the puff balls, but I knew that they sold them at Daiso Japan as I had seen them there before. So the morning I was shooting I went to Daiso as soon as they opened and of course, they no longer carried them. After having a mini panic attack in the store, and realizing that there was no time to find them anywhere else, I knew I had to improvise. I found a similar base to what I was looking for- two plastic buttons on a hair tie, and by the grace of God, I found a “make your own bunny out of pipe cleaners” kit that came with enormous pink pipe cleaners. I bought those and in the time it took me too get from Euclid to Disneyland Drive on the 5 South, I had made the perfect pink puff balls, which just goes to show you that with a little creativity, you can achieve exactly what you want with minimal effort.