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Music

What I Learned About Style from Tinashé’s “2 On”

How to look cute while faded.

In early 2014, Tinashé Jorgensen Kachingwe made her name known to the world with her breakthrough single “2 On,” a track that rapidly gained radio airplay with its slick beat and exciting new singer. Seemingly overnight, Tinashé became the world’s hope for the next R&B superstar, resembling the styles of similar artists like Ciara or Cassie. She even had the “é” thing going for her, which did pretty damn well for Beyoncé.

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With a story comparable to many big names, Tinashé’s sucess wasn’t as “over-night” as most of us assumed. Starting at the age of 14, she was a member of the girl group The Stunners, founded by internationally renowned mega super star Vitamin C. For what it was, the group was successful, performing on programs like The “Today Show” as well as “The Wendy Williams Show.” The girls also had a pilot about them in the works through MTV and they were even the opening act for Justin Beiber’s My World Tour, which is a pretty huge fucking deal. After the band separated in 2011, Tinashé grew her solo following by dropping mixtapes that eventually earned the attention of RCA, who signed her last year. The release of her hit-packed, debut album Aquarius, solidified the fact that Tinashé is on her way to superstardom.

I took a look back at her first hit’s music video and realized that, for a girl who likes to be “2 On”—meaning high and drunk at the same time—Tinashé holds herself pretty damn well. She knows exactly how to dress and behave in order to either distract you from the fact that she is mind-numbingly cross-faded, or at least make you think it’s kind of cute. She employs a very practical type of fashion that facilitates raging and everything that comes with it. Let’s take a look at what the new of-the-moment star has to offer us in the drunken style arena.

THE WORLD LIED TO YOU ABOUT WHAT’S ACCEPTABLE TO WEAR
When getting ready to hit the club, ignore everything that your parents, teachers, friends, neighbors, local deli man and pop culture at large have ever told you up until this point. Thigh high boots are not slutty. They can be so girl-next-door! Take a look at Tinashé looking modest as a mouse with twenty pounds of dead animal wrapped around her legs. You might be asking yourself, “Can I really dance in those?” The answer is, who cares! You’ll never be able to move like Tinashé, so you might as well wear something that excuses your body’s physical limitations.

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MIRRORS ARE YOUR FRIENDS
If you’re like me, you probably go a bit hard on the $5 wine before going out. For this reason, it’s key to remember to check yourself in the mirror about thirty to forty times before actually leaving your house. Lipstick smears, drinks spill, and outfits occasionally lose their previous appeal. Take a peak at Tinashé above, seeming as if she were in the midst of drunk hiccupping when she decided to check herself out one last time. That’s REAL dedication. Then she notices that fingers and reflections look really weird, but that’s only because she’s ridiculously stoned. Weird mirror play like this is optional, and not at all related to fashion.

DRUNK PEOPLE CAN ONLY SEE YOUR OUTLINE
Beauty is not just about how good you look on the outside. It’s also about how good this “outside” looks when in blacked-out silhouette form. Tinashé is way too faded here to remember what she’s wearing, and it actually doesn’t really matter. Her outfit, whatever it is, allows her to work that lower back curve, microscopic waist, and carefree hair. Your outline in front of obnoxiously bright lights is basically all that inebriated club-goers are able to make out of you anyway, so just body roll with it.

THE DUCK FACE IS ALIVE AND WELL
In case you were under the wildly hopeful pretense that the pinched “duck face” has gone out of style, Tinashé swooped in like a drunk North American mallard to drop a heartbreaking case of realness on you. For some god-forsaken reason, it would seem that people are still contorting their lips and cheeks to look like beaked animals. Usually used as a distraction from how you actually look, Tinashé shows us that this technique is not only for the basic and unfortunate looking, and is in fact an accessible go-to face for anyone when under the influence. And hey, if it’s good enough for Tinashé, it’s good enough for me. Plus, a duck is probably not the worst thing you could aspire to look like. I much prefer it to the girl on the left trying out “the sloth.”

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COMMUNICATE WITH APPENDAGES
As everyone knows, fashion is a combination of both the clothing you wear and how you carry yourself. If you’re as drunk and high as Tinashé likes to get, then the way you carry yourself is by tripping repeatedly, falling over tables, and indulging in the occasional public sob fest. The trick is knowing how to alert everybody that you only look a fool because you’ve been consuming too much of the good shit. Like Tinashé, simply throw your hands in the air and use finger gestures to show exactly how many mind-altering substances you’ve consumed that night, reminding people that you’re actually super cool and pretty, but just really messed up.

WHEN YOU’RE DONE GOING HARD, GO HOME
And be comfy while doing so. If you’re carrying around a pair of flats in your purse to slip on after the heels start giving you blisters, then you are soooo 2000-and-late. Post-clubbing comfort today means having a full-on gym outfit tucked away, ready to be thrown on at a moment’s notice. For Tinashé, this means a pair of boys running shorts and a sports bra. She also wears some sort of seatbelt contraption down her front in order to make sure the clothes actually stay on, which is pretty damn brilliant. It’s sort of like a chastity belt for the smashed, but more fashionable.

Mathias Rosenzweig would fuck with one of those seatbelt contraptions. He's on Twitter.