apparel

quilts as memory-keepers

memory quilt

Our friend Linnae recently introduced us to Pat Ludwig, a “self-taught quilter” who blogs all of her projects so you can see the full process of making a quilt start-to-finish. Patwig’s quilts are made exclusively from old fabric scraps, including khaki and denim pants, childhood dresses, curtains, neckties, bedsheets, and even seat cushions.

Her two most recent quilts are particularly interesting. They started out as 35+ button-down men’s shirts, given to Ludwig by a woman whose husband had passed away years before. She wanted her grandchildren to have a piece of the grandfather they had never met and commissioned Patwig to turn his shirts into the Nine Patch and Log Cabin quilts.

We love everything about this, from repurposing old materials into fantastic and functional art projects, to the very idea of a memory quilt. Quilts and blankets are attached to so many comforting and visceral childhood memories; having one made of materials that remind you of family or friends strikes us as a powerful way to remain connected to someone’s presence (even in their absence).

read more…

vision break: a dress that makes music…

(Video link here.) We wish we could put that wondrous bell dress on right now and make music while we dance. What a way that would be to start the day!

 

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advanced style: doing your thing at any age

(Video link here) The fashion industry is not kind to those who it doesn’t consider its target audience. Having spent the last couple of years on the plus-size end of the spectrum I know a lot about walking into stores or flipping through magazines and feeling defeated. But I’ve also found a lot of joy in recognizing the subtle (and not so subtle) acts of resistance around me. Take for example the subjects of Ari Seth Cohen’s blog, Advanced Style: older women who prove, without a doubt, that style is not just a young person’s game. read more…

ikea hack: furnishings into clothes (and back again)

ikea hack basket hat

From 2the walls, our new favorite odd tumblr find: some Ikea hacks that sent our heads spinning. We never thought of turning furnishings into clothes.

(We really do want those hats).  read more…

the magic of guerilla poetry (become a poetry bomber)

This winter, after a few weeks of feeling pretty down, my spirits were lifted in the oddest place—a diner bathroom in Burlington, Vermont. The walls were decorated with quotes, and on the side of the stall I happened to enter was this from Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Just that simple reminder did me a ton of good. You can almost imagine Eleanor saying it with a bit of sternness in her voice; but only because she knows you are capable picking yourself up and dusting yourself off. I remember thinking how lovely it would be to find messages like those more often, which is why I was so pleased to come across Miami-based artist Augustina Woodgate, who sews little poems into the tags of thriftstore clothes, at work in the video, above. (Video link here.) read more…

body as artist’s canvas

drawing in a knee and leg

Robert Picault

We have long loved to draw and write notes on our hands, but only occasionally have imagined the possibilities for drawing on the rest of our bodies. Then we found these two unattributed pictures from Under the Sun and really GOT IT, first with a charming Picasso-esque image (It IS Picasso) and then the wildly-liberated pint-sized artist’s scribblings below read more…

to-do list tattoo

robstephaustralia via Flickr

As we’ve been struggling to modify hack Omnifocus,our overly complicated task management software and tailor it to our needs, we came across this fab to-do list tattoo. Just fill it out with a pen daily and wash it off at night. It reminded us of our more primitive – and less permanent – solution: of making notes right on our hands, which we’ve posted about quite a bit. Our favorite: writing power words or symbols in the palm of our hand to straighten out our heads with a glance. You can find out about nontoxic markers here to make your own UNpermanent to-do list tattoo. overdue underdone has a trove on Flickr of his notepad tattoo… read more…

stripping things to their essence (le corbusier)


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We stumbled on this image of the great architect Le Corbusier painting a fresco in the nude. in Le Corbusier: A Life. He was staying at legendary architect Eileen Gray‘s Villa E-1027 in St. Tropez, in 1927. You can almost feel the Mediterranean breezes.

To us, it is a reminder of “flow”, of following ideas spontaneously and just doing them, in whatever state you are in, in the moment, and enjoying its pleasures…

….jump out of bed and start working, dressed in a tee shirt or…nothing if the situation allows…

Photos of Villa E-1027 here.

via Under the Sun

hair as apparel, identity, art (man ray)

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…from MondoBlogo‘s great Man Ray riff: Dada-ist Man Ray shaved his cool “tonsure” in 1921. One hundred years later, shaving designs are the rage. read more…

egypt: improvising a revolution

Marco Longari / AFP / Getty Images

We clipped a few excerpts from the compelling Letter from Cairo: On the Square by Wendell Steavenson in a recent New Yorker, describing improvisations devised by protestors in Tahrir Square during the recent revolutionary actions:

“At Friday prayer, ranks of men laid out improvised prayer mats: kaffiyehs, newspapers, an Egyptian flag, slogan placards. They wiped their hands in the dust of the destroyed paving stones, to clean them, because the Koran says that if there is no water and you are in the desert you can use sand to clean your hands before you pray.”

…As the standoff continued, the protesters became entrenched and emboldened. People made a tent city out of concrete reinforcing rods and plastic sheeting; venders set up braziers for tea and hooked up yards of electrical cable to charge dozens of cell phones at a time; people rearranged the stockpiled stones to spell out anti-Mubarak slogans; new blankets were passed out…

…At one point, the Army tried to push a line of tanks farther into the square, near the Egyptian Museum. But the protesters staged a sit-in under the tanks…

…On the Internet, Shaath and other activists gathered ideas for countering riot police. He enumerated a few improvised tactics: ‘How to use vinegar and onions against tear gas. Things like, Don’t use water, use Coke to wipe your eyes.’

The sustained courage and ingenuity of the protesters knocked us out. Then we stumbled on an amazing slideshow at Time of makeshift headgear devised by demonstrators as protection…(some are strangely chic)… read more…

embroidered plastic bag (garbage into art/fashion)

Josh Blackwell

O-hh-hh-hhh! We just discovered that a plastic bag could be chic as hell…

read more…

hat as “crown, battle cap, halo or horns…”

This week’s TimeOut New York features “The Most Stylish New Yorkers”, a study in sartorial imagination and possibility. We were happy to see our old friend Fritz Karch, Director of Collecting at Martha Stewart Living, wonderfully dressed head to toe in plaids. And we loved Lori Goldstein, stylist and designer for Logo Instant Chic,’s wise view of what fashion really is:

“Clothes and accessories are the paint, and you are the canvas. Experiment and play.”

But what shifted out heads the most is Malcolm Harris, Creative Director of the One Dress Project talking about the $14.99 army hats he buys at Uncle Sam’s Army and Navy: ”

“My hat serves as crown, battle cap, halo or horns, and most important, protector of my psyche.”

O-h-h-hhh. That’s what a hat can be!

And then laid our eyes on Valerie of Idiosyncratic Fashionistas sporting her replica-of-the-Guggenheim Museum hat by Ignatius Hats! read more…

valentine’s gift: merit badges

When we were scouts long ago, there was nothing so satisfying as getting a merit badge. Now Disorderly Goods has designed a series that would make a lovely gift for child or adult. We’re thinking one or two would make an especially charming Valentine.  Buy one for $10, a few, or all with the Over-achiever 12-pack for $114.00. They’re available at Supermarket.

Here are some favorites:

The Sprout: for growing from adversity

The Dipper: for dreaming big

The Heart: for giving a shit

The Illusionist: for being good with your hands

Zen Stones: for living a life of balance

Happiness Serotonin: serotonin molecule, for finding happiness.

We think they’d also make good Reminder Badges, of things about ourselves that we need to remember, but sometimes forget.

via Better Living Through Design

mod fashions, carnaby street, london 1966

Art 247

We never knew studs in clothes could look quite so wonderful until we stumbled on this picture of London’s Carnaby Street in 1966, the center of mod at the time. (If you’re tempted, Studs and Spikes has all you’ll need to get going.)

Here are The Kinks singing their 1966 hit,  Dedicated Follower of Fashion.

Photo from Art 247.

painted fabric redux: clothes!

Even though we’d recently imagined painting cloth-covered chairs and sofas, tablecloths, pilllows and curtains, we didn’t think about CLOTHES!

This timely reminder came from Ebay, via An Ambitious Project Collapsing. Imagine the possibilities…

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