From Discarded to Divine 2011

I mentioned previously that I’m excited about Discarded to Divine. I’ve just seen a new press release about it and even more excited.

The press release introduced some of the new designers and what they made. More than 60% of the designers are local students debuting at Discarded to Divine. They include

• Rachel Heald from FIDM recycled upholstery fabric, jersey, and blouses into a silk appliqued dress and hooded vest.
• Jonathan Luk Man Cheung from SFSU made a man’s kilt and striped shirt from assorted oxford cloth and trim.
• Barbara Kelly of CCA turned five knit scarves into a chic, hooded “track suit.

I’m looking forward to seeing it all in person.

See photos of past designs and designers at http://discardedtodivine.org/.

Tags: bay area, discarded to divine, Fashion, upcycled

Dezeen (a design blog I adore) just had an article about Sruli Recht. It was the first time that I heard of this fashion designer who has just put out his third menswear collection. What I saw was amazing. And what I read repulsed me. And I have to confess that gets me talking no matter what I may decide that I feel about it.

Why did it amaze me?

Take a look at a few of the photos. The clothing is interesting, unique from anything else that other men are wearing. And the photography is stunning (credit to the brand’s main photographer: Marinó Thorlacius.)

Why did it repulse me?

Dezeen says that some of the features in this collection include:

• Dolphin skin leather
• Horse hair woven fabric
• “Silk extracted from a spider’s gland implanted in a goat”
• Boots “made of the calloused skin over the spines of horses”

What it boils down to

This is an interesting designer who is doing some really different things from the materials he uses to some of his edgier feminine-inspired men’s designs (see the website for the full lookbook). I don’t know yet if I like him but I appreciate his uniqueness.

Thoughts on this Australian born Icelandic designer?

Tags: Fashion, Sruli Recht, style

Today I left the house to walk over to the park to take photos for my project 365 Ways to Wear Crochet. I’ve learned since starting the project that photos really are a lot better when taken outdoors in good natural sunlight. So that was the plan. However, when I got to my photo spot, I discovered that my camera battery had to be charged. Plan foiled. On the way home I decided to use the unplanned extra time to stop into the thrift store in my neighborhood. Thought I’d share some of my finds:

I’ve been wanting red boots forever!

It doesn’t look like much in this pile but this is the funnest scarf. I barely ever buy scarves but this was a must.

This dress is slightly more blue than the photo shows.

As you can tell, my camera is now charged

Tags: clothing, Fashion, thrift store, thrifting

I just got the announcement in my inbox that it’s almost time for this year’s Discarded to Divine fashion event. I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the event for the first time last year and I definitely want to go again. It’s a great event where independent fashion designers take thrift store clothing, upcycle it into amazing fashions and then auction it off in both a live fashion show and a silent auction. The proceeds go to help San Franciscans in need.

Discarded to Divine History

This event started in 2005. Sally Rosen of the St. Vincent de Paul Society was going through the clothing that had been donated and was sad to see so many items that had to be thrown away because they were badly stained or otherwise unwearable. She started wondering what talented fashion designers could do to upcycle the designs and thus the idea was born. Local designers put their talents to work, made a big impression and the event has been a popular one ever since. If you like the recycled and innovation challenges on Project Runway then you’d like Discarded to Divine.

Some Photos From Last Year

The 2012 Event

The 7th Annual Discarded to Divine fashion auction takes place on Thursday, April 26. It is going to be located at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria, a new venue for the event. I’m especially excited because this year the designers were inspired by the exhibits at the de Young Museum including the Spring 2012 exhibit of fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier’s great work. I can’t wait to see what they make!

Tags: discarded to divine, recycled fashion, upcycled design

We've come a long way from mood rings!

I read an interesting article earlier this month about so-called Smart Clothing. This is clothing that would be able to determine what your mood is and then improve your mood by responding to you. It’s still in prototype form and is debuting in museums while it’s being worked on but the basic idea is this:

• Moods are programmed into your clothing based on responses to what’s happening in your body. For example, an increased heart rate may be one sign that you are getting anxious.
• The clothing is pre-programmed to respond to these moods. Responses may include a text message, image or video that displays on a sleeve or an audio recording of the voice of a loved one.
• Your clothing is set to read your mood throughout the day and to respond with the pre-programmed responses. For example, if your clothing believes that you are feeling anxious, it may provide an audio tone that you’ve recorded of a calming affirmation.

Smart clothing original article

Tags: depression cure, interactive clothing

3D printing is something that is starting to take off in certain industries. It provides a way for you to work on creative projects that may be far more interesting and easy-to-understand than working on your computer screen might be. It also lets you create cool prototypes that can entice other people to take an interest in what you’re doing. Essentially, this form of printing allows you to use different types of materials together to make three-dimensional objects that you can design yourself.

These printers have come down in cost enough to be accessible to small and mid-sized businesses today. Wouldn’t it be neat if they eventually come down in price far enough that individual people like you and me could have these types of printers in our homes. One product that we might want to design and print could be shoes.

Believe it or not; 3D printed shoes are already being made. Students at two different leading design schools in Sweden are working on ways to create shoes out of a 3D printing technology called selective laser sintering that fuses plastic powders to create the shoe. The plan that they’re working on is that the shoe could be worn once or twice and then the material could be returned to the machine to be broken down and re-used. The idea would be that you could have really amazing new shoes every time that you went out without having to actually keep them and store them.

What do you think?

In somewhat related news, I just have to say that I loved a recent post over at Weburbanist showing off over one dozen super-weird shoe designs.

Tags: 3d printing, Fashion, shoes

I read through a bunch of t-shirt and fashion blogs, partially just because they’re interesting and partially because I want to stay on top of this news for updating the blog over at Edgi Clothing (where I write about sexy tee shirts and other related topics). While doing that reading, I came across a post over at Fashion Tribes about a company called Fashionsentz that I felt compelled to learn more about.

Fashionsentz is a fairly new type of business that specializes in branding clothing and textiles with a scent. In addition to branding clothing lines with a signature scent, this company can add moisturizing and aromatherapy features to textiles (milk and honey, aloe vera, etc.). I can see this working in a number of places, particularly for the robes used at day spas! I can also see luxury designers making use of this, appealing to people’s sense of smell to keep them coming back for more clothing.

The scents are supposed to be durable over the lifetime of the clothing using a technology where small capsules are inserted into the fabric which break up over time and keep releasing the scents. You can even dry clean the clothes and still retain the scent. It seems like a cool new option for sensory-rich clothing.

It will be interesting to see if this type of technology takes off. We all love it when our clothes smell a certain way (fresh out of the laundry, fresh off of the backs of a much-loved boyfriend) and it would probably be great to actually be able to customize the scent on your clothing so that it always smells that way.

Tags: fashionscentz, fragrance branding, fragrant clothing

It’s been awhile since I contributed one of my blog posts to a blog carnival. I love blog carnivals but sometimes it’s hard to make the time to submit posts to them since there are so many other things to be done in terms of web writing work and writing promotion.

However, a post of mine is finally featured in a new blog carnival. My thoughts here on how to be a smart shopper were included recently in the Fabulous Festival which is all about fashion, beauty and shopping. My post was in the shopping category. Other posts in this category were about vintage shopping and buying socks for men. There were also several posts on dresses in this category including wedding dresses, prom dresses and celebrity dresses.

Posts that fell specifically into the fashion category were on a wide range of topics. These topics included military jackets, vintage lingerie, bustiers, pajamas, hats, mending your own clothes and making clothing donations. There were also book reviews and interviews. In the personal style and beauty categories are posts on jumpsuits, recycled fashion, acrylic nails, shoes, spring fashions, big hair, mineral makeup, skin care (including wrinkle prevention) and the man purse.

Happy reading!

Tags: arts, blog carnival, blogs, fabulous festival, Fashion, kathryn vercillo, style

I’ve just been reading up on vintage baby clothes and retro clothes for kids. What a great idea! Kids’ clothes are typically so boring. I love seeing creatively dressed children walking around in town. And I love the idea of taking fashions from the past and turning them into something cute for children today.

Of course, you can go totally wrong with this approach to baby style as well. You can end up making your child look way too cutesy by dressing him or her up in clothes that were meant for another place and time. If you don’t have a good sense of vintage personal style yourself then you may want to stay away from this option!

In my opinion it’s probably best to save this kind of stuff for special occasions and dress-up days. There’s a time for kids to be in jeans and a time for them to look super cute. The smart parent knows which time is which. Done correctly, though, I think you could get some adorable scrapbook memories out of these types of outfits.

What do you think? Are vintage and retro baby clothes a waste of money or are they worth it for your kid to look cute?

Tags: baby clothes, children, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, Parenting, retro clothing, style, vintage

I don’t get the chance to write about fashion very often but it happens every now and then. For example, I recently provided advice on How to Wear High Heels without Hurting your Feet. I’ve been wearing high heels for as long as I can remember but I also walk everywhere so I’ve had to learn how to do this the hard way. It’s paid off in a set of great tips.

The article was chosen as one of the Top 3 articles this month in the Fabulous! Festival. The two other posts that were chosen along with mine for this honor were on mineral makeup and around-the-world shopping from your computer. Although these were considered the Top 3 posts, all of the other posts were also good.

There were posts on beauty in the areas of skin care and alpha lipoic acid. There were posts on fashion topics like pinups, depression chic and Milan fashion week. There were general style posts on handbags and Apple products. And there were shopping tips for things like prom. All great stuff! Do have a read.

Tags: beauty, blog carnival, ehow, fabulous festival, Fashion, high heels, how to, kathryn vercillo, style, tips