Color Me A Globetrotter, Again

Speaking of, I will not be posting again for a while, due to a trip to Merida and Cancun, Mexico, starting on Monday. When I come back:

• Fall’s jumpsuits
• the evolution of dress sillhouettes
• ad campaigns
• More Korea!
• more, more more….

Hasta Luego,

colorcast

xoxox

Color Me Brazillian and Brilliant

After wondering and wondering for weeks, today’s Net-a-Porter email update was the last straw:

Who is the model on the far right?? I have seen her everywhere and her looks just kill me. She is so beautiful, in a graceful, classic, almost exotic kind of way. I remember her most from Marc Jacobs S/S 07 show,

and after tracking down said show on Style.com I discovered the identity of this mystery model! Ladies, meet Bruna Tenorio.

Young, beautiful, and successful, Bruna hails from Brazil, home to Giselle and designer Alexandre Herchcovitch.

I first came across Alexandre this spring when, in Korea, I found a shirt emblazoned with “HERCHCOVITCH” and thought for about a week that “HERCHCOVITCH” was the name of an obscure Slavic or Russian city. (We’re all still Fashionistas in training, as far as I am concerned…)

A quick Google search told me I was way off, and thus i am introduced to the brilliant designs of Alexandre Herchcovitch. Since the Fall of 2002 Alexandre has designed pieces with master cuts, rich colors, and sometimes quirky combinations to produce clothing that is something like what one would have if she were to blend the design elements of Dior couture, Marc Jacobs and streetstyle.

His style has undergone quite the evolution from spring 2002:

to this Fall 2008, which included Bruna on the runway:

but the basic elements remain, being his eye for cut, quirk, and color. Brilliant!

Color Me Quizzed, Obscure Trivia Edition!

H&M. You’re familiar with the store, but do you know what “H&M” actually stands for?

Color Me A Coffee Drinker With New Purpose

Who wouldn’t want to indulge in a latte with this mug?

Wishing Fish’s Two Carat cup, which I discovered via BussBuss, can now be found on Fred Flare, too! Soon Fashionistas-in-training will be seen doing their fashion reading (blogs? books? magazines?) with one hand while the other sports a swanky mug. It gives a whole new meaning to “Statement jewelry”!

Color Me A Starstruck Fashionista

I adore the Kaiser. He is genius, he is fascinating, he is confusing, he is the grandpoobah of the Industry. He is my favorite celebrity and what thrills me most are the sometimes crazy, always fabulous projects he embarks upon. His most recent project (after creating special edition fly-fishing poles in memory of Coco, an avid fly-fisher, and being made into a dj in the newest version of Grand Theft Auto, mind you) is brilliant as well.

It’s yellow, It’s ugly, It doesn’t go with anything, but it could save your life.

Thanks to Women’s Wear Daily and StyleFrizz, I have been enlightened to Fashionista’s recent quoteand subsequent picture that were unintelligible to me as a Spanish-speaker. Now he can add “Safety Advocate” to his resume, next to designer, dj and photographer.

Karl, if you don’t watch out, there will be bright yellow safety vests on the models showing up to your shows come Fashion Week!

Color Me Responsive

Scarfgirl, your answer is up!

Color Me Off In A Mall Somewhere….

If American malls were anything like the South Korean malls I visited this spring, I would never leave! I seem to recall other ladies of the fashion blogsphere having the same beef with most malls in America/UK: they seem so… teeny-bopper-y. I do shop at the mall on occasion, maybe three or four times in a year, but the malls I visit don’t feel like they have character. They seem so… indifferent. The Delmar Loop, for example, has such a warm, understanding, thinking, creative feel; if it were a person I think she would be colorful yet put together, a thinking gal who loves records and soy things and is extremely vibrant. Goodwill seems to have the aura of waiting: waiting to strike gold or waiting to make up your mind to move on to another store. If it was a person she would be sitting indian-style on the shoe rack with a smirk on her face because she knows there is a Burberry London shirtdress hanging among the nighties, you just haven’t found it yet. If your favorite vintage dress shop were to be personified, I highly suspect it would result in a bunch of old ladies tittering about whatever it is old ladies titter about, drinking tea and looking excellent in lumpy floral two-piece skirt suits and pillbox hats then peeking out from between the dresses whispering “PSSST! OVER HERE!” so you are the only girl who walks out with that original Coco dress.  Where malls are concerned, it has been my experience that if a mall were a person, she would be an overweight midlife crises yawning behind a desk and answering any and all of your questions with “Don’t ask me, that’s what they made Google for” , or she would be a pretentious and fake midlife crises with a bad dye job and acrylics, boasting about her unique wardrobe that in reality was poorly made, too expensive for the quality and is the same as every woman in the dressing stalls around her.

Shock!

In Korea, each mall was different. The clothes were inventive, innovative, CUTE. I never saw the same thing twice. The shop designs were incredible, full of color, pattern, art and mood lighting that makes you want to by everything in sight. They’re cozy. Imagine!

Not only that, but around the town one can find predominantly designer malls that are just as pleasant as the “normal” malls. No risk of being chased around by salesgirls on commission, shunned because of your apparent lack of designer duds or being stared down by cocky rich women whilst pushing your baby brother in a stroller and being assumed a single teen mother, tsktsk to you. (I feel you, Mallory! St.  Louisians, you know the mall of which I speak!) Exhibit A: the mall at Samsung Plaza, Bundang.

Look up, and you see gigantic ads for Empirio Armani, Coach and Christian Lacroix, as well as some promising looking labels you have never heard of, your sister tugs your sleeve with glee and you prance around admiring everything in sight.

“Eva, SALVADOR FERRAGAMO! Go, GO!”

There is also something to be said for any person, place or thing that can make Juicy Couture appeal to me. Design is golden, mall execs. Maybe you should try a little harder with Sears, HMMM?? If Sears had pink Knights, fainting couches, and deer heads sporting pretty necklaces, maybe teenage girls like me wouldn’t feel so cheap (as in, seedy-cheap) when perusing your racks.

Thus, we progress to a new area in which Korean malls surpass their American counterparts: who ever saw such creative mannequins?

If a mannequins job is to model clothes in a way that people will want them and see themselves living daily life in them, headless Hollister mannequins fail and these guys and girls prevail:

Why don’t we put mustaches on our MANnequins?? Or get more creative with poses?

Or, we could just get more creative in displaying the clothes, period. How about these?

I was blown away by Conflicted Tendency. Their website is every bit as creative and charming as the store, see for yourself! (**Afternote: The site… ironically… is currently down. I’ll post the link as soon as possible!) Other sections of the Samsung mall used space beautifully in giving the clothes the attention they deserve:

(Ah, yes, the Mondrian Dianne von Furstenburg dress that caused such a stir after the passing of YSL. Fashionista flipped but I am quite charmed, myself.)

And, of course, what is an Asian super-mall without a dose of Anna Sui?

Anna’s section of Samsung is right in the middle of the main passing space, delicately and welcomingly set up around merchandise tables with purple velvet benches that invite you to come squeal with delight like the tourist you are at how dahling everything is. An interesting aside is that while in American malls it is hard to find unique pieces such as one would find while thrifting or in an independent boutique, Samsung boasted its fair share of Tantrum-esque finds, each unique and few in kind.

 

 Finds like this were not exclusive to the swanky malls, though! Exhibit B: Pyong Hwa Fashion Plaza, Seoul.

It is highly possible that what makes the difference between American and Korean “fashion plazas” is that frankly, the clothes are more original and more eye-pleasing. Everyone dresses with taste in Korea.

Tunics, shirtdresses, oversize T’s, and classic cuts coexist marvelously, as do bright colors and patterns and every cream hue imaginable.

Furthermore, creativity in mall design and products does not stop here, no no! Exhibit C: the “Moving Mall” of Bundang…

 (Being a 40-foot bus renovated into a swanky botique with prices high enough to make your nose bleed)

… and the ever-girlie makeup superstore directly behind it.

This is how business is made, people! (Note the doorhandle)

 

 Shopping? I love it. Here in America? Wonderful thrift in vintage. But if I’m in a mall?

I’ll be off in a mall somewhere… in South Korea.

Color Me Crafty!

I have a small confession to make: I have a jewelry problem. Earrings can be found in every crack, cranny, corner and container in my purple bedroom, and necklaces hang from hooks, sit in bowls and lie hidden and temporarily forgotten in scads of purses. I have boxes of bracelets. So, is it any wonder that when I spied Dries Van Noten’s fall necklaces I had a conniption?

They are every jewelry addict’s fantasy! It’s a dream! I can hardly even now contain my excitement!!!

Why? What do you mean why? Because it’s a necklace made out of (what seems to be, at least) bracelets, THAT’S WHY! Of all the statement necklaces to have come off the catwalks within the last year, Van Noten’s have been my favorite, and as an aside are the ones I see making the transition to non-model wardrobes easiest. And, how clever is it? The whole concept is so… simple… and the product is an extremely clever piece of art (or fashion, however you think).  The concept is essentially the same concept that I build most of my outfits around: simplicity+resourcefullness+a dash of ugly = something worth wearing. Of course, you see where this is going, I had to try it myself.

The problem? I have plenty of bracelets, but as far as bangle bracelets in particular are concerned… well. I’m kindof lacking. But, I suppose if I wanted a Dries-esque necklace, I could always opt for one bracelet and see what kind of reception it gets!

 

While I was in a DIY-designer-necklace mode, I finally got around to the 2006 Thakoon necklace that Susie Bubble blogged about ages ago and made herself that I have wanted to try. 

However, as I decided not to go with black silk and finally put a delishious looking scrap I’ve had since 8th grade to use, my final result is slightly kitsch but great outfit fodder nonetheless!

After the “Thakoon” necklace was finished, I got to thinking about the Dries Van Noten piece again. Both of these necklaces are extremely simple, but the innovation lies in that when creative designs are at want, who would stop to think about making something so basic? And considering the fact that the Dries Van Noten necklace consists soley of bangles on a ribbon (or chain, as the case may be), I began to brainstorm what else could be put onto a necklace.

This is where the jewelry problem comes in handy.

What do I have tons of lying around, dying to be put to good use? Earrings, sir! Think about it. French hook earrings are essentially charms waiting to be looped into something magnificent. Make it that necklace you have lying around and you have an innumerable number of combinations, therefore an innumerable amount of necklaces, at your fingertips.

Another problem I have is a penchant for wearing things in ways they were not intended to be, ie skirts as dresses and tops, scarves as vests and shirts, freaky ponchos as not-so-freaky layering tools, elementary school kerchiefs as scarves, so on and so forth. All that to say, I was more than willing to put earrings around my neck, and my,my was I excited about the result!

 

So. Dries puts bracelets around his, I hung earrings on mine and Thakoon favors silk scraps and stones. If you were to drape anything on a necklace, what would it be?

 

*** Stay tuned for part two, in which Colorcast makes necklaces with painted chess pieces and felt diamonds!