Analogue Chic

Posts Tagged ‘Fashion’

Interesting article on a job we didn’t even know existed: costumer for military training games.

As in New York, where the denizens of Bedford Avenue are clad in American Apparel, as if in uniforms, while Park Avenue wears Pucci, each Afghan or Iraqi social stratum has its own particular dress. Mr. Tabbert studies images on the Internet to determine, for example, the exact embroidery on the epaulet of an opposition leader’s military uniform, and provides some actors with wristwatches to signify the wealthier townspeople.

Read the full article here.

Via the News-Times, Danbury’s crack information team (who can’t even get the name of the store correct in the headline).

DANBURY — After more than four years as an empty shell, the former Filene’s store at Danbury Fair mall will have an occupant.

Forever 21, a national clothing retailer with a smaller store at the mall, has submitted plans with the city to take over more than 77,000 square feet of space.

The company is expected to spend more than $2.3 million to renovate the space, according to documents submitted to Danbury’s building department. The store now occupies about 5,000 square feet elsewhere in the mall.

Filtering past the middle school name-calling and bickering in the comments on the web site, I was appalled to find someone actually thanking Forever 21 for "bringing much needed jobs to the area", as well as some other truly misguided economic analysis.

I was compelled to write a letter to the editors, which I usually refrain from doing with newspapers of such low caliber.

I’m reproducing it here, in a slightly expanded form, and with links.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have no doubt that new acquaintances have this image in mind when I tell them I’m an independent fashion designer.  And I’m sure a few long time friends and acquaintances were a bit taken aback by the contrast between my hyper-intellectual social activist leanings and this apparently vapid new career path.  There’s much more to be said about the implications of fashion in society, and I won’t do it here, now.

I will, however, repost this rant about the stereotype of women in the fashion industry, from fellow IFB’er, 39th and Broadway.

We’ve written before about the ridiculous notion that fashion design is an easy career path.  There’s often this absurd image perpetuated in the media that working in fashion is a simple and mindless task.  How many movies have you seen, be it a drama or romantic comedy, where the fashionable creative lead finds her true calling to be a designer three quarters of the way through the movie?  After realizing her “passion for fashion”, a brief montage ensues of her touching fabrics, wrapping a tape measure around her neck, sketching in her spacious Soho loft, running into Bloomingdale’s with her samples, and then poof, she is magically a famous and successful designer.  There, of course, is no mention of college or any educational training, no clips of raising capital or finding investors, no trips to sample rooms and negotiating price-points, no hunting for sales reps or walking trade shows, and God forbid no tech-packing!  Be it television or movies, becoming a fashion designer is always portrayed as a fun and easy afterthought that can make an adorable girl immediately successful by a simple trip to the fabric store!

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Hey, just a note to let you all know, I recently set up shop at Cosa Verde, kind of an online showroom of environmentally- and socially-conscious designers and crafters.
And they picked 2 of my items to be featured today!
Check it out!

Some more ’stache-themed goodies I’ve seen recently:

This fabulous onesie, incidentally made by one of the ladies in my craft group.  Shop here.  Because babies need disguises too?

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And this awesome fabric– would be great for a lining.

What is it about the ’stache?!

I am always drawn to crisp, bold lines with sharp contrast:

 

Lines by AllieAnalogue
 

Outlined by AllieAnalogue

A recent visit to the Beardsley Zoo offered up these plants as textile inspiration:

reminiscent of corset boning

quilting? fabric sculpture? possibilities...

Another love I recently came across: one more Alexander McQeen Fall ‘08 favorite.

(Actually, just look at that whole show, lots of GORGEOUS b&w goodness.)

And look at the girl in the middle on the blog header, up there.

I didn’t mean for this post to be so ‘Goth’ on the fashion side– unfortunately, the fashion cycle always favors black for fall/winter, and recent trends use a lot of white-piping-on-black– actually, I could probably produce a whole blog dedicated to b&w trends (the black-floral-on-white a couple years ago, the more recent b&w ‘antique’ scrolling…)– ANYhoo…  

I don’t see too much piping  in other color combinations, sadly.  I think it was more popular in earlier eras, I’m thinking the ’40s– maybe it was phased out of ready-to-wear as production continued to be pushed into lower-quality, faster-turnout… quel dommage.

Found a new toy today: Polyvore.com.  Oh, the fabulosity!  It lets you create collages of clothes, decor, whatever, by pulling images from all over the web, and of course you can add your own.

This is going to be really helpful to me, since I tend to collect lots of links and pictures from the internet, magazines, etc., “just in case”… and they sit in my hard drive, or in files in my bedroom, never to see the light of day.

If you’re at all into textiles, fashion, graphics, or interior decorating, you should give it a look.  It could be great for playing with color, pattern, composition…

I’ll put my first collage in a new post soonish.

Being cooped in the house for the last 3 days (blizzard) has forced me to finally put this together: Directions for converting your sweatshirt into a cute little cape. It’s very long and wordy, as my writing usually is, but please post comments if things are utterly unclear, or if you have suggestions– although I will not be doing one-on-one sewing lessons through this blog. (If you’re a new sewer, please try to be resourceful about things like, what is a seam allowance? or how do I get sharp corners when I turn the seam right side out? There are lots of good sites for sewing basics on the web.)  Just forgive the wonky layout and first-tutorial flubs. If you do end up making your own, please register on Craftster and post yours as a reply to my original post. Well, have fun and be creative with it!  Get thee to a stitchery!

  And I LOVE my local Salvation Army Store– they have HUGE discounts on all clothes on Wednesdays, thereby enabling my fabric-stash-addiction and closet overcrowding problem, without hurting my wallet!  Mwah! The button-downs above are for conversion into tote bags/gift wrap for my homegirls, a la this project– whoops! just gave away 50% of my holiday gifts! Here are some more new members of my textile collection: Now, on the left there, that is a Man Shirt: it is big, wooly and warm, literally a working man’s shirt– that shirt does not mess around.  And there’s a cute, vintage, lamb’s wool and angora Lady Sweater with semi-batwing sleeves.  And a very cute, kid’s belt from LL Bean.  Lots of possibilities with these: not sure if I want to reconstruct the Man Shirt, it would make an awesome cape, or a felted bag, perhaps; I may wear the Lady Sweater as is, also possibly a felted something- beret?; belt is obviously too small, and it would be a pain to reclaim the hardware, it may become a handbag handle. And for dessert– too sweet!–   Again, a real toss-up between wearing it or felting it– what do you think?  Comments, suggestions? I’ve never actually felted anything (intentionally) before, I need to do more research on how to do it, and I’m not sure what I would make from the felt with any of these, but I would like to try it.  I’m just scared of committing a great garment to felting, and then wishing I hadn’t so I could do something else!  Oh, well, I’m sure it will come to me in the middle of one of the sleepless nights I seem to be having lots of …

Here are some of my other recent projects as posted on Craftster:

Nauti' Girl Top - reconstructed men's shirts

*well, for some reason, wordpress is not letting me put a link in the photo captions…*

Nauti’ Girl Top

Tote bag (no clever nickname- suggestions welcome)- men's shirt recon

Tote bag

If you dabble in crafts of ANY kind, at any skill level, I highly recommend registering with Craftster and getting up the courage to post in the forums.  There are great tutorials that people have patiently put together, you WILL be inspired by other folks’ work, and your projects that you’ve worked so hard on, alone in your dark garret craft room, will get the mad props and love that you deserve.  I <3 Craftster 8<.