Spring 2013 x Marais USA

I just stumbled across the Spring 2013 Lookbook for Marais USA, a women’s shoe brand with offices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I’m so in love with these photos! I think this campaign is so fun, inventive and youthful.

Their blog is also pretty cool and their Brooklyn offices look neat too.

Check out the video for their Spring 2013 Lookbook here. Get into it!

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Going in Closer with the Sartorialist

Closer is the second book by Scott Schuman of the Sartorialist, the blog that inspired a million clones and turned street style blogging into the industry it is today. I bought his first book, The Sartorialist, when I moved to New York and totally feel in love. So I was trilled to learn Schuman was releasing a sequel. What I enjoy most about Closer is the diversity of images and the way Schuman plays with contrast in the spreads. One spread might show two people dressed head-to-toe in white, but each outfit is still individually unique. Another spread might show two people wearing similar colors, patterns, or type of dress, but each person wears it their own way. These patterns are so thoughtfully arranged and paced which adds to the experience of reading it. There’s also nice contrast between ages in Closer. It’s touching to see pictures of children beside adults and realize that at any age, one can be playful with style.

I’ve posted a sampling of my favorites but I highly recommend that you pick up the book for yourself! All Schuman’s books should be experienced in person as they each give an intimate look into how we dress and express ourselves through clothes. So get into it!

This is a great project – looooove the images.

Notice the patterns?

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Kenzo Spring 2013

While looking through the March fashion magazines, Kenzo’s Spring 2013 ads caught my eye with their bold colors, prints and layout. Compared to other advertising in the March issues, these really stand out. Also I can’t get enough of the bold patterns! Now I can’t truly see myself wearing something like this, but I’m very into the pattern mixing that’s trending right now. I love how playful and graphic these combiations are. From a textile/pattern design standpoint, fashion is a great place to be inspired. And Kenzo’s Spring 2013 collection is a great place to look for new ideas.

Kenzo Spring/Summer 2013 Ads – great right?

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Diana Vreeland

Yesterday I blogged about Grace Coddington, Creative Director at Vogue and her uninspiring memoir Grace. After ranting about my disappointment with her memoir, I wanted to show you how it’s done. Everyone knows about Anna Wintour, but before Anna there was Diana! Diana Vreeland is best known for holding the top position at American Vogue and her earlier years at Harper’s Bazaar. As she famously said, “I wasn’t a fashion editor, I was THE ONE AND ONLY fashion editor.” After the magazines, Vreeland staged another career comeback by transforming the Met’s Costume Institute from a sleepy storage facility into a vibrant and wildly popular wing of the museum. Under Vreeland’s leadership the Met housed 15 blockbuster shows, much like the hugely popular shows at the Costume Institute today.

In the fall I saw her documentary The Eye Has to Travel and I was hooked on her larger than life personality. She really was a treasure, though I would have been terrified to work for her. I didn’t know much about her before seeing the movie, but now I can’t get enough. I’m currently reading the book The Eye Has to Travel by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, but I’d DIE to find more of her famous office memos the documentary talks about. Visionaire writes,

One day a mysterious package arrived at the Visionaire offices. It was a large box containing more than four-hundred original memos from Diana Vreeland to her staff at Vogue. The package had been sent to us by a contributor who preferred to remain anonymous but who had been on the receiving end of some of this legendary inter-office correspondence. In some ways, the experience was like stumbling upon fashion’s Holy Grail. We had heard stories about these memos but were stunned to find out that they actually existed. Dating from 1966 to 1972, the memos, which were dictated to Vreeland’s secretary from the sanctuary of her bathroom each morning, covered topics ranging from the wacky (the use of freckles or the utter importance of dog collars, for example) to the divine (the genius of Halston). But more importantly, the Vreeland memos provide a rare glimpse inside the mind of one of the most influential women in fashion history. (Visionaire 37)

“I am extremely disappointed to see that we have used practically no pearls at all in the past few issues. In fact, many necklines could have been helped by pearls worn inside the dress that show inside the cutaway sides and back of most ordinary dresses on top…

I speak of this very often — and as soon as I stop speaking the pearls disappear.

Nothing gives the luxury of pearls. Please keep this in mind.”

-Diana Vreeland in a December 9, 1966 memo

“It looked marvelous.“

How amazing would it be to read a larger collection of these memos?? Just like Vreeland said herself, I’d DIE to get my hands on a copy of Visionaire 37 that published 150 of Vreeland’s office memos. I’m sure one day they’ll surface in a larger collection. So until that is published, check out the a-mazing documentary and the book! You won’t regret it!

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Thoughts on Grace

This Christmas I was beyond excited to learn that Grace Coddington’s memoir, Grace was finally hitting the shelves. I quickly ordered the book and over the next few weeks began digesting the bright orange volume. After falling in love with Grace from The September Issue, I couldn’t wait to read a more in-depth account of her life. Of course Grace would have all these profound thoughts on living a creative life and being an artist of sorts, right? Well sadly, I’m left a bit underwhelmed. Her memoir is overwhelmingly surface and gives little insight into her feelings of loss and triumph in her career. She had several highs and lows, but quickly glosses over each subject, one after another. One example that particularly stuck out in my mind,

“.. driving home one afternoon on a visit to London from Paris, I ran into an especially nasty bunch milling about outside my door …  No matter how gently I tried inching my car through the mob, they grew more and more incensed until all of a sudden my little Mini, with me inside, was lifted off the ground and thrown heavily on it’s side. Although I wasn’t injured, I was seven months pregnant .. and the next day I suffered a miscarriage. This turned out to be the only time in my life that I was able to conceive. The incident was one of the most traumatic of my life.”

HEARTBREAKING right? Then literally the next paragraph she switches subjects and talks about how her and Albert (Grace’s boyfriend at the time) had purchased a new apartment in London, despite her frequent travels to Paris, and begins talking about one of their cats. How can his be one of the most traumatic events in your life, and you not talk about it? Isn’t that the point of a memoir – to talk about how you get through these events? I can’t imagine dealing an event like that, but it baffles me how Grace can touch on something so deep without any depth. There’s also a few stories about artists and designers she knew through the years, and Grace talks about how talented they were, and then they died of AIDS. Then onto next subject. I just don’t get it.

I wanted more. I’m sure she got paid a lot to write her memoir, but I was hoping for more Grace! It’s interesting that someone so highly regarded for being a talented storyteller in their professional life would chose to tell the story of their own life in this way. So many of my friends bought the book and just about every person working in fashion, and I wonder if they felt the same? For anyone else interested in the book – I’d suggest to settling with the September Issue, watching the HBO Documentary In Vogue: The Editor’s Eye (which was great!), and enjoying her work in the glossy pages of Vogue.

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DVF Pattern Inspiration

Last week I began following Diane von Furstenburg (@DVF) on Instagram and they’ve been posting some really interesting photos. I love fashion brands that use Instragram, Tumblr, Facebook etc. to give fans a unique behind the scenes look at the brand. DVF does this quite well, and even shares a “Print of the Week” from their pattern/textile library. As a textile/pattern design lover I get so excited when they post them.

How great are these patterns? The first one is hands down my favorite! If I was a girl I’d dress ALL in graphic patterns.

I love seeing how they mix patterns and textiles at DVF. It’s a tricky business and they do it so well!

Couldn’t have a DVF post without posting one of Diane herself!

So get into the graphic print greatness that is DVF and be sure to check out their Spring 2013 show at NY Fashion Week. Also be sure sure to follow Diane von Furstenburg on Twitter and Instagram (@DVF) for a behind the scenes look at the brand. And remember, love is life! -Diane

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Fashion Illustration

 

Today while browsing Behance portfolios, I found a cool campaign from P&G’s Dreft + fashion illustrator Anna Halarewicz. I love the tagline paired with fashion illustration and use of watercolor. What a simple-yet-effective idea right? While looking for other examples of her work, it’s clear to see watercolor is Anna’s medium of choice and she pairs it masterfully with her illustrative style. There’s just something about fashion illustration that always catches my eye!

I found a few more examples of Anna Halarewicz’s illustration which I’ll share below.

And finally, the artist herself!

I haven’t been able to find an official website for her, but if you look on pinterest or tumblr, lot’s of her stuff pops up.

Enjoy!

 

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Introducing Weft and Warp

Today I’m sharing a project I’ve been following for months by Brooklyn-based designer Charlotte Graves of Weft & Warp. I had the great pleasure of working with Charlotte during my time at Starwood Hotels & Resorts (she trained me on my first day!) and we’ve kept a close friendship all these months later. Quickly Charlotte and I realized we shared a love of textiles design and screen printing, and this love of textiles and craft lead her to create Weft & Warp, a line of hand crafted silk scarves. Charlotte recently launched W&W’s online shop featuring her first collection for Weft & Warp and I couldn’t be more proud of her and the amazing work she’s done. While the scarves are beautiful in design and craft, I’m just as in love with the identity system she created for the brand.

Weft & Warp
Handcrafted silk scarves inspired by a love of the land.

We are culturally curious. We find creative kinship in those who use craft to preserve the heritage of their people. In the same way, every scarf we make is the product of a unique memory. Every collection a chapter in our own history. Land. Craft. Heritage. These are the tools of our trade. This is the fabric of Weft & Warp.

Look books (above and below), – how great do these look? I love the playful application of the W&W logo.

Packaging (above). Each scarf comes in one of these custom envelopes. Now onto the scarves!

The current collection, available at www.shop.weftandwarp.com

My favorite, the Isabel (above and below).

The Jessica.

I’m absolutely IN LOVE with how the website changes each time you refresh the page with new patterns.

Charlotte, the designer behind Weft & Warp above.

To learn more about W&W, check out their website, shop the collection and see what they’re up to on tumblr!

And finally, see their first look book below. <3

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Fashion Week Mood Boards

Friday I stumbled across this great post on T Magazine’s blog showing the mood boards that inspired three designers (J. Mendel, Joseph Altuzarra, and Bibhu Mohapatra) to create their Spring/Summer 2013 collections at this seasons NYFW. Mood boards are one of my favorite ways to start when beginning new design projects, especially identity projects for new brands. They’re e a good way to look at color, type, symbols and imagery to evoke a certain feeling or communicate an idea. It’s commonplace in fashion to start collections this way and it can be a helpful exercise for graphic design too.

The first image (above) is Bibhu Mohapatra‘s mood board, “With his iPhone, he shot the shimmering coral-tipped, green-bodied moth against the old barn wall where it was perched. For his spring collection, his tenth, Mohapatra was focused on metamorphosis––”each look is a change in life,” he says––and on the idea of new energy coming and old energy peeling off. Also pictured here are geometric shapes, from a detailed piece of artwork by the Japanese stencil-artist Kako Ueda, a simple but personal picture of railroad tracks weaving in and out that was shot in Mohapatra’s native India and tons of black-and-white imagery of butterflies, dragonflies and spiders.”

“Sometimes it just stems from a feeling — it doesn’t have to have a rhyme or a reason,” says Gilles Mendel of his sources of inspiration each season. “For spring 2013, I was inspired by these amazing photographs of Japanese wisteria gardens, which ended up informing color, prints and textures.” The flower-informed color palette seen here and at the J. Mendel show, on Sept. 12, drew from deep irises and violets, tiger lilies, pale roses and a “jolt of cornflower blue,” Mendel says.

Each season, Joseph Altuzarra, the recent CFDA Award winner for women’s wear, builds his mood boards from thousands of pictures. For his Spring 2013 collection, which included pencil-striped linen skirts and work-wear classics like railroad engineers’ jackets (but with slits in the sides for a caping effect), one inspiration bled throughout: Carine Roitfeld. “It began with Carine,” says Altuzarra of the fashion editor who is often spotted in banker shirts and pencil skirts, with her jacket almost always thrown over her shoulders. “She embodies this attitude toward clothes that is very Altuzarra.”

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The Illustration of Michael Sanderson

I came across the work of Illustrator Michael Sanderson last week on Pinterest and immediately fell in love with his unique style of fashion illustration. Sanderson is a Portland-based creative illustrator and designer. He writes,

A concentration on fashion & retail and a firm understanding of current photography standards sets the tone of Michael Sanderson’s primary aesthetic–An amalgamation of a photographer’s eye and an artist’s hand. Research also plays a pivotal role in the work, keeping up with cultural & contemporary design trends while considering the lasting potential of creative choices, lend in the creation of edgy yet timeless concepts.

Another blog writes that when Sanderson was accepted to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Colorado native dropped out of high school to pursue a fashion design degree. Later, after landing his first major client, Sanderson left the Art Institute to start his own independent design career. It’s interesting to see the path artists/designers take to become established. There really is no set path to take, you just need talent and passion. Design school isn’t necessarily the golden ticket it’s promised to be, there are other routes to success!

Enjoy a collection of Sanderson’s work, check out his website (here), and follow him on tumblr (here). I’m truly in love with the Portland/outdoorsy aesthetic of his tumblr so lots of great collected inspiration there.

Gentlemen prefer Kiehl’s – Michael Sanderson for Keihl’s.

Really love this series.

Sanderson has a whole series of illustrated products that I’m so in love with.
I think they’re self-initiated projects, maybe products he loves?

Flannel Shirt.

Starbucks.

TAZO Tea.

Chap Stick.

I like that Sanderson does so much men’s fashion illustration.
The characters in his illustrations all look so hip, woodsy and cool. Great style.

As I’m writing this from the Outer Banks of NC this week, I hope everyone gets a chance to go outside and explore look for inspiration.

A quick screen shot of Sanderson’s tumblr. Get into it (here).

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