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

Ebook publisher Hyperink.com asked: What is the best book you read in the last year? Here’s my answer …

Although I’ve read quite a few books in the past year, there is only one that comes to mind when I’m asked my favorite: Room: A Novel by Emma Donahue. Room is a novel about a child born to a woman who was kidnapped and has been trapped in a room since before the child was born. The thought-provoking, heart-wrenching tale is told from the child’s perspective.

Room is impressive because it takes on the task of telling a story from a highly unusual perspective. It is difficult to write a book in the voice of a five year old that will appeal to adults and yet Donahue does this seamlessly. She imagines what the world would seem like if you grew up only in a single room with no outside influence and were then thrust into the larger world. It’s a terrifying prospect that makes for an amazing story about both the internal and external worlds of a child in a rare situation.

Tags: best books, books, emma donahue, fiction, room

I’m just starting to wake up. For me that means, in part, going through my Twitter feed as I enjoy my first cup of coffee. I followed a link from one of my Tweeps to a video by a man who has done a self-portrait every day for twelve years. That’s a long time to keep committed to a daily project, which is inspiring in and of itself. More that that, though, the well-edited video shows how our daily activities make up our lives and how art can be used to transform our own lives. I wanted to share:

Jeff Harris: 4,748 Self-Portraits and Counting from We Know Music on Vimeo.

Via BoooooooM

Tags: documentary, inspiration, jeff harris, video

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

I’m having way too much fun manipulating photos. I have a pair I want to share. The first photo is the image as it was taken by the camera. The second photo is the same image and all that I did was hit “sharpen” about a million times and this is what it became.

Tags: creativity, fotoflexer, photo editing, photography

Over on Crochet Concupiscence I’m doing a 365 Project where I wear crochet every day and photograph my outfit in a fashion style post. Mostly I’m doing this to show off contemporary crochet but as an aside I want to use this project to get better at both taking and editing photos. I know very little about this but I’m having a lot of fun learning. Right now my favorite free online tool for editing photos is Fotoflexer.

Mostly I just use the editor to make the colors on a photo look a little bit better or to make the image a little bit sharper. But I’m discovering that you can do some really fun art things with this tool. For example, I played with the Pop Art feature, changing the fade on it, to turn a basic image into a fun art image. Look:

So fun!

Tags: fotoflexer, photo editing, photography

As I mentioned recently in my post about free things to do at the Bellagio, there’s a sculpture exhibit on display right now in Las Vegas that shows Richard MacDonald’s interpretation of Cirque du Soleil. I was awed by the work in this exhibit. The artist captures amazing detail in the musculature of the bodies and the expressions on the faces of his sculptures. Here are some of the photos that I took while I was there:

One of the signs at the exhibit said that MacDonald has a big studio where dancers and performers come and play and do their thing and MacDonald and other artists can study them for their art. Doesn’t that sound like a terrifically fun place to spend some time?

Tags: cirque du soleil, richard macdonald, sculpture art

I’ve finally started digging into my first book of the year … a terrific book called Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep and Enough Wool to Save the Planet. More on the book to come but I wanted to share a quote from it that’s attributed to an anonymous source:

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

Tags: quote, Relationships, weird

Last night my sister and I decided to walk up the street to Clay Theater. It’s a one-movie theater and the film playing was My Week with Marilyn. I ended up really enjoying the movie.

Michelle Williams as Marilyn

My sister with the movie poster

I have to confess that I’ve had a soft spot for Michelle Williams ever since her role in Dawson’s Creek. Her character was more complex, interesting and likable than Katie Holmes and I’ve kind of adored her ever since. She plays a lovely Marilyn Monroe. She gets her voice and flirtatiousness down pat and is a joy to watch on screen as an actress playing an actress.

Marilyn’s Tortured Side

The film does a terrific job of looking at Marilyn Monroe’s tortured side, focusing almost entirely on her insecurities and her neediness of the men in her life. To be honest, I guess I don’t know all that much about Marilyn Monroe. I have some general knowledge that somehow seeped in through basic pop culture awareness and I definitely knew about these insecurities but I haven’t seen her movies or read long biographies of her so my knowledge is a little limited. This portrayal of her made me more interested in reading up on her in the future.

The Love Story

Ultimately this film is a story of young love. It’s about a twenty three year old man who gets lured in by the combination of Marilyn’s stunning beauty and her apparent need to be saved by a man. Their affair (reportedly a true story) lasted only a few days and was a really juvenile, innocent affair. However, the man’s feelings were certainly strong and it gives great insight into that intensity and wonder and passion that accompanies young love, the kind of time in life when it’s totally okay to feel completely consumed by another person and want to change your entire world for them.

Conclusion: Definitely a film worth watching. Lovely acting. Lovely story. Honest, touching without being melodramatic.

Tags: films, marilyn monroe, movies, my life with marilyn