Vogue, September 2006 - Dry Cleaning

Believe it or not an interesting article about dry cleaning. I really want to the stain removal kit from Madame Paulette!

Vogue, September 2006

A store in Tribeca where you can look down through the glass floor and see the seamstresses/design team working.
Nili Lotan
188 Duane St

I will go and report back....

Vogue, September 2007

First read this article about the technical textiles (Fabrite factory!), and through it discovered Ohne Titel....Angel Chang, who I've done some development work with, is also mentioned. Favorite quote:

"Already fashion is highly technical. Actions and reactions take place between you and your clothes all the time"—let the jeans you've worn in all the right places be an example of this.

Another Bill Gibb bit

Can't believe that outfit is 1972! So contemporary...and of course the cutie pic of Mr. Gibb is worth posting as well.

Another Vogue March 2007

To be honest, I can't remember why I clipped this one. I like the little train on the left-most model....

Monocle 18 Fashion Week spread

Such a different feel to how a mainstream fashion magazine's feature might look...it's a bit 70's catalog-looking, don't you think?

Arrive, socks

I love to travel by train & if this article is any indication, you will probably see more from Arrive here.

Selvedge, Ma Ke

I have a whole bunch of photos from my trip to China in October to post too. For now see more about Ma Ke.

Selvedge, Bill Gibb article

Ah, here's the real Bill Gibb article. And here's some links:

Fashion Encyclopedia
Telegraph (good one!)
New York Times

Selvedge, Bill Gibb

I am way too late on this one...(and maybe there is a typo?)

J. Peterman catalogue, 2009

I love that J. Peterman uses illustrations rather than photographs for their catalogue! It was hard to choose which ones to scan....

New York Times - same issue in 2009

Numbers 2, 5 & 6 are the interesting ones here:

Hannah Marshall
Lauren Kovin
Bland/Teddy Willoughby

JCrew catalogue

nice necklines.....

hairwork

I just started reading this interesting book called Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America that I got from Christmas from my mom. It's a bit of an academic book, but my interest was sparked when I got married and my aunt lent me a beautiful piece of hairwork to wear that was my great grandmother's (a Norwegian immigrant). I could believe it was made of her hair! Of course I can't seem to find a picture of it as I wore it that day, but here are some other beautiful hairwork images:

This is what a lot of the plates in the book look like, but not what the piece I wore is like at all.

This one is a bit closer to it, although there were no metal parts. I also found this website that explains that a lot of this woven "Table work" technique began in Scandinavia. It describes the "Table work" technique as similar to bobbin lace making. There are also a lot of images around of hollow pieces (like the last image below) that are worked around a mold to keep them hollow.

Design for Mankind Magazine

A few weeks ago, Design for Mankind announced the launch of the first issue of Mankind Magazine! I love the website Design for Mankind, but I have to admit I haven't bought the magazine yet (even though I've got it bookmarked and on my "to do" list....I did look at the sneak peek, hoping that would get me going. I need a rainy day stuck at home? Or things to just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n at work!! I'm so curious to read this.....the cover is lovely, no?

Shoes Tell Stories

Short note on an upcoming exhibition that sounds worth seeing. The Perfect Fit – Shoes Tell Stories will be on display at The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA from June 6, 2009 – January 3, 2010. I'm so there....

Dress

Saw this post on Make about a thousand weeks ago, but only recently clicked on it at home—all video content blocked at work :( and it led me to Electric Foxy (which is awesome) and described by writer/founder/whatever Jennifer as:

Clothing is a core part of our expression and offers ways for us to communicate who we are and the context in which we live. Technology enables a richer connection with people and our environment and offers a new platform for communication and expression. By merging the intimacy of clothing with the empowerment of technology, electricfoxy garments strive to enhance our lives and offer a much richer language for self-expression.

As you may have gathered from my work since leaving CSM, I'm less interested in the technology aspect as I am the human connections and communication involved in clothing and fashion, but nevertheless I still find sites like this fascinating.

Back to the original spark for this post, I finally ended up on Exercices de Style's website to see their Walking City kinetic dresses. The video over on Make Zine does them no justice. See some still images below and then click to see the videos here. I love the way Ying Gao talks about air and clothing. That's something I really relate to.

Ever since Justin & I went to Montreal in December, I've been dreaming about that city, but now I'm even more intrigued.....

handbags

Outsapop is a rather recent addition to my bloglines, and she posted this about a project called Counterfeit Crochet where everyone crochets replicas of designer handbags. Across the board, I love the crocheted versions more, not because they are designed better or even are aesthetically more pleasing, but they are just so much more visceral, I can't resist them:

And of course, I couldn't resist the Coach example:

A Top Handle Pouch of all things! Ha!

This project also reminded me of the old Mary Ping project Slow and Steady Wins the Race, a favorite of mine in graduate school. In the eighth installment she remakes several designer hand bags all in white canvas....not quite as visceral as the crocheted bags, but something lovely about stripping them down to their essence and removing all the graphic identifiers. The Dior:

Anyway, the Counterfeit Crochet project led me to Stephanie Syjuco's own website and to all her interesting projects there. I really should write a whole post about her work....take a look around her site. I think Personal Protest is my personal favorite.

sweet prints

I love the textiles from Sirena con Jersey (Mermaid in a Sweater!):

I'm not so into that kind of acrylic jewelry also on their website, but the knit designs especially remind me of learning how to use the knitting machine and how awesome it felt!!

embroidery show I want to see

The New York Times had an article about an embroidery show Bard College & The Met is presenting that sounds good. Here's a few pics of some of the pieces on display (to be honest, the Times article has better photos than these from the Bard website):

My favorite quote from the article:

But the basic concept of embroidery is like rudimentary geometry. It centers on the merging of two very different dimensions: a flat grid of fabric, and thread, which is an extended line of many colors. This is achieved by the hands, eyes and brain of one person, who attends by one stitch or another to every centimeter of a work’s surface. The simplicity and concentration are always felt, no matter how complicated the actual motifs become.

The exhibition runs through April 12 at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture 18 West 86th Street in Manhattan.

There's also a seminar....maybe I should go?

A really good quote

A wonderful artist I know (who is working on a great project about beauty, btw) posted about this on her weblog, and I'm just going to copy 'n paste the whole quote for you here too because I think it is SO great:

I'm going to tell a story. It's about biscuits. Please bear with me. A Buddhist priest told me this story, about how he used to be the chief baker in his monastery. He tried to make the best biscuits he could make - fluffy, buttery, warm, delicious biscuits. But no matter what he did, the biscuits were never good enough. Too dry, or too moist, never quite right. He was getting very dissatisfied and upset with himself. Then, he realized that he was trying to capture the essence of the biscuits that he had as a child and that the biscuits he remembered were an idealized, unreal version. The reason his biscuits never tasted good enough is because they never could be, but only so long as he tried to capture the essence of an unreal, imagined perfect biscuit. When he realized this, he decided to make the 'biscuit of today' not the biscuit of the past. It was imperfect, unlike anything he remembered as a young child, but the most delicious biscuit he had ever had, because it simply WAS. It was not idealized or perfected, it was just itself. And it was perfect in its imperfections, because there was nothing else it could be. Ladies, I think it is high time we all start being the biscuit of today. Love yourself as you are, perfectly 'imperfect.' And do not put a knife (or botulism) anywhere near your cooter.

I just really love imperfect things....and this is the kind of thinking that got me into the Virgin Knitters/Beginners Luck project. Everything is so much more special with lumps and bumps, don't you think?

Lucy and Bart

More wearable art....Lucy and Bart:

Germination Day 1

Germination Day 8

Gotta say, these are my favorites, but maybe I just have a soft spot for clothes that change over time.....

Janice Jakielski

Really loving Janice Jakielski's work! She lives in Boulder, CO and just started teaching at Metropolitan State College of Denver (where I took a few classes while I lived there, aw!). She received her MFA in Ceramics, but made these beautiful wearables that are about exploring our sense of touch, hearing, and sight:

See her site for closeups and to see them in use. Sweet!

Another sweet knitting site

A friend sent me to this weblog: Simply Olive. Take a look at some of the pretty pics on her site:


yoko izawa necklace & ring


Sandra Backlund dresses


Okay, not all knit. Fendi Spring '09 dress

2 projects

Catching up on my RSS feeds this morning I saw two interesting projects posted about on PSFK the trend and forecasting website:


Urban Rabbit Hole
I think this one sounds cooler than it really is, but maybe I'm just not a t-shirt person? What they do is make t-shirts with a print of lower Manhattan and mark them with red dots to mark places that have significance for you so that each one is completely individual to the wearer. They are only doing limited runs, and you have to jump through hoops to get an invite. I admit PSFK describes it a lot better than me, but it sounds like more hype than anything else in practice. Although I do think it's a lovely idea, don't get me wrong. You cna participate (and tell me how it goes) by entering the code newyorkoct#11 on this website.


Take A Seat
This one is definitely cooler than it sounds. Well, it even sounds pretty awesome. It's a project aimed at putting more seating on subway platforms by just putting chairs on the platforms. Jason Eppink is the artist (dude?) behind the project and he is encouraging collaborators to join him. You can see the Flickr set here (cheesy logo/graphic, lovely pics). Also see his blog website Self Referential Title. I like the personal sites :)

I admit I also have a wicked awesome knitter/artist website to post about, but I keep putting it off because I want to write something that does it/her justice because I'm just a bit in love with her work....I will tell you all about it soon though, I swear.

old links I never posted

Very common post idea, no? And I mean that in the older sense of the word. Maybe it will lead to nice surprises for me:

Hacking fashion from We Make Money Not Art:
....The outcome of the VakkoVamps is not so much a set of garments or objects as much as a series of methods for exchange and dialogue between two fields that are usually separated.
• I forgot about this one for sure. What a lovely idea! I love these kinds of projects where the outcome isn't about aesthetics but about process. No pictures from me because they don't give you any idea of what it's really about. Go on, read it!
• Ah, here is the official site about the project and others by the same instigator: Self Passage

From Coudal a link to the story of the Timepiece House. My favorite quote:
...The design concepts - derived from the forces of nature and humanity - are linked by the thread of Time: Light and shadow History Weathering Memory....
• Again, I'm leaving off the pictures because they just don't do enough justice to the concept of the project. This is a house designed to make you aware of time in your life and through your day to day activities. Really sweet project.

A piece on FI about a guy from my MA program a year behind me, Mark Liu. He also studied with this guy also featured on Fashion Incubator. No good quotes from this one, but I had to post another good MA project coming out of my program, right?

################################

Pictures next time, I promise :)

Spats Tabulations (for the curious)

1. Are you:
22% A. Male
78%B. Female

2. What are spats?
90% A. Covering for the top of the shoe and the lower part of the leg (correct)
10% B. Two tone leather shoes
0% C. Leggings (correct in Japan!)
0% D. Leather suspenders

3. When do you think people wore spats? (all answers are correct!)
50% A. Pre WWI
29% B. 1930s-40s
6% C. 1700s
15% D. They still do!

4. Who wears spats? (all answers are correct!)
44% A. Military personnel (6% said only military)
32% B. Women
88% C. Men (16% said only men)
65% D. Fashionable people (6% said only fashionable people)
29% E. Workers like welders, loggers, etc.
26% F. My ancestors/relatives
41% G. Movie stars
(12.5% chose all answers)

5. Have you ever worn spats?
12.5% A. Yes
87.5% B. No
(0 men ever wore spats)

6. If not, would you in future?
41% (15% men, 50% women) A. Yes
50% (85% men, 40% women) B. No
(9% wrote in 'maybe' (0% men, 10% women))

7. Do you think spats are in style now?
12.5% (20% women, 0% men) A. Yes
87.5% (80% women, 100% men) B. No

8. Please list any designers or shops where you have seen spats:
–http://wwwshoeblog.com/blog/spats
–There's a tiny mens haberdashery in the East Villiage--9th St. I think I saw them there. Maybe vintage though...
–Does Mr. Peanut cout?How about Scrooge McDuck? Mickey Mouse wore spats sometimes.
–I have no idea what spats are
–SJP used to wear a pair of Calvin Klein ones
–Camper had a pair of heels with a removable spat (only covered the foot, not the ankle), Oh and I also really wanted to get this pair of boots from Sacco a few years ago that had snap off spats so you either had flats or boots. Turned out the flats were a bad shape though.
–none
–Chanel & Prada
–Never, except for the History Channel
–Tuxedo shops
–Have never seen them in the last 55 years. I think my mother had some in the old halloween box when I was a kid.

9. If not, do you think spats will come back in style?
56% A. Yes
34% B. No
(11% wrote in 'maybe')

10. What do you think is the future of spats?
-I don't think about the future of spats
-I think of them as a top hat or cane
-Actually, I think current fashion is spat-inspired. You know the long skinny jean pulled way over the top of the show, even over stillettos. I guess the tops of shoes are stilll considered unsightly.
-The damdest things always manage to come back once--I doubt spats will be any exception.
-I think they will be very popular unless stirrup pants beat them out.
-need a famous movie star or singer to bring it back in style but it will be short lived.
-Not my style...who knows!
-If anything, a short lived comeback in fashion. Mostly, I think nothing of them as I had to google it just to know what they were.
-I have always wanted a pair honestly. I would love a pair of monochromatic, non-contrasty ones to fit over a nice stylish ankle boot to give the option of wearing knee high boots.
-They might come back as part of the whole new dapper thing, esp. among chic black men.
-I think spats will come back in style as a runway thing (gimmick?), but that there won't be popular or widespread adaptation of them. In fact, I know I have seen them portrayed this way in magazines, but I forget when/where, Kind of like how I got an email the other day about the return of the bowler hat. Okay, maybe for the few, but not for the many.
-No future
-Bring them on!
-You never know, fashion seems to look back a lot, perhaps they will find a new life for a time.
-The cabaret, burlesque thing is big now so maybe
-I'm not sure. i think it would be great to have a standard shoe and utilize spats as an accessory.
-Thigh high tights, leg warmers, thigh high boots, I saw a pair on Zappos that were knee high but had decorative leather overlay that went from mid-calf down over the heel and toe. Boots with built in leather spats!
-only a very limited market (for the flamboyant among us)
-paired with wedges or high heels in bright plaids or dyed leather with unusual textures and unexpected features (eg leather frog clasps) and worn as an alternative to boots
-As long as there are marching bands...there's a future for spats (hahahahaha) Seriously, I think they have the potential to be a "cool" accessory for people/consumers who like to deviate a but frm the "typical" fashion trends. They seem like fun to me!
-Alternative styles stemmiing from spats (i.e. spats incorporated into sandals)
-A bright one!
-They could replace legwarmers
-I don't see a future for them
-I suspect they will continue to be reserved for period costumes, marching bands, and maybe military
-I can see some variation in women's footwear coming back around in the next couple of years--maybe with a high heel.

---
Thanks everyone for your answers! I will be presenting my survey results in a small class for work....I found it very interesting to see all the different viewpoints on the future of spats especially.

more prada love

Just a short one for today....I hope to post my Round Up over the weekend, and then more new, less internetty, things for a while. I'm burned out!

Miuccia Prada wrote a (very) short piece in Wired in June of 2003 about the space around the body. Prada did a raincoat that changed from transparent to opaque when it gets wet:



Somehow this tech-y piece feels nice. Sweet.

hair hair

This article inspired me to look at hair.











Two great sites for more:

• Hairstyle History
• Gotham Patterns: Hair

WGSN

An interesting tidbit via PSFK. It talks about how WGSN is a crutch for designers that ultimately makes them less creative. I had a free subscription as a student and was encouraged to use it, but I found it quite clunky and uninteresting (although in light of this article I'd be interested to take a look at it again). Anyway, read the comments. They are the most interesting part!

Prada

Some pics of the Prada spring show took my breath away a few weeks ago, and I've been meaning to post some of my Prada favorites ever since. These are across several seasons, and a few scans from my old mags.


S/S 2008


S/S 2008 Beautiful shoes in this collection


2008 Resort


S/S 2006 I love the slouchy grey stockings


S/S 2006 The bathing suit I want to wear!


A/W 2001 Beautiful coats from this collection

You can track one of Miuccia's favoritte elements throughout her collections, the thick black line:


A/W 2005 Headband


S/S 2006 Straps


A/W 2007 Ankles


S/S 2008 Neck

The first collection I remember really falling in love with was from the 90s (I think), and was sort of 70s polyester uniform looking. Remember? I can't find images of any of it anywhere! I did find a clipping in one of my sketchbooks from not too long ago of some things I love:

Jack Spade's fashion show

Kottke explains:

Jack Spade held an impromptu fashion show in Bryant Park outside the giant tent where Fashion Week was happening, enlisting passersby to carry Jack Spade bags up and back on the sidewalk.

See it here. Brilliant!

Antoni and Alison

I used to ride by Anoni & Alison's shop on the bus on my way to university each day. They are doing some beautiful scarves right now:

love at first site

Oh! Joy just posted some pics of Mina Perhonen's FW07/08 collections and I'm totally smitten (with everything!):