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The fashion industry doesn’t try to control its creativity the way that the music and film industries do. “The fashion world recognizes that creativity cannot be bridled and controlled and that obsessive quests to do so will only diminish its vitality. Other content industries would do well to heed this wisdom.”
De-Touch lets you step through how photos of models are retouched for publication. Announcement here. Made with Processing, source code is available.
It’s fashion week in NYC next week and the last couple of years, Slate asked fashion expert Josh Patner to provide answers to some frequently asked questions about fashion shows (more here).
Scott Nelson produces a “tribute brand” called MIKE that’s an homage to Michael Jordan, Nike branding, and shoes. After looking at his products (photos and interviews here and here), I’m amazed Nike hasn’t sued him back to the Stone Age. Nelson’s site is mike23.com.
Online tshirt commerce is so easy now; individuals can even offer a new tshirt design every single day. My favorite shirt of the day is this scarlet/Scarlett fiddle-dee-dee one from yesterday.
Knickers, the lingerie weblog, has compiled a lingerie shopping guide for Valentine’s Day with breakdowns by size and style (from virgin to vixen). Possibly NSFW.
For those of you who are Napoleon Dynamited out, how about a “Pedro Lacks Political Experience” tshirt?
A series of art projects based on Flickr. The Flickr tag cloud tshirt is clever; the printing on the shirts is reversed so that you can read them in the mirror…”the [Flickr user’s] narrative is actually addressing himself while claiming to address others”. (via ia)
They’re building a Prada store just outside the town of Valentine, TX (population: 187) with no door. It’s art!
Teenaged necktie maven Baruch Shemtov. He made his first tie for school and has since turned it into a business, selling his wares in Fifth Avenue shops and online for $100 apiece.
Dressed to the Nines is an interactive look at the design of baseball uniforms. “Whether we are looking at someone in a uniform or we are trying it on ourselves, it is the feeling of the fabric, the design on the cap and jersey, the colors, cut, and history of the outfit, that all lend meaning to our relationship with the game.”
Interview with the fellows from skinnyCorp. Half of my current wardrobe is from Threadless and I haven’t had occasion to wear my nifty Naked & Angry tie yet.
Fans of Six Feet Under will want to get their hands (and arms) on a Narm! tshirt. Narm. Narm!
Fantasy Fashion League is fashion’s answer to fantasy football and rotisserie baseball. Pick your favorite designers and earn points when their fashions show up in magazines. (via E&N) Related: NY Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent helped invent rotisserie baseball?
Counterfeiters print Excel function on jeans by accident. “The counterfeiters are using Excel or Access to store all the logos for their counterfeit jeans and then print them out onto leather. This is what happens when there is a bug in their software.”
Post-it Notes are used as pixels to make huge images in this Bergdorf-Goodman window display.
The Chanel exhibition at the Met showcases the fashion designs of Coco Chanel as well as the more recent fashions of Karl Lagerfeld’s design. The exhibition attempts to draw parallels between the older Chanel fashions and Lagerfeld’s newer work (words like “interpretation” and “reinvention” sprinkled the exhibition walls), but I had a hard time seeing Coco’s influence in much of his work. Seems more like Lagerfeld is out on his own, which is in keeping with his thoughts in this 2001 interview with Paper magazine. Initially he says he hates “nothing more than people who only look in one direction, which means only in their direction” but then that he finds it hard to collaborate with others (except with himself). Then:
When I do my own things, I’m not really too interested in other people telling me what to do.
Lagerfeld is a fascinating figure and may have captured the cultural zeitgeist of the 80s and 90s in Chanel’s fashions, but I don’t know if I buy any of this reinvention business. If you’d like the check out the exhibit for yourself, you’d better hurry…it’s only on for a few more days.
Limited edition tshirts are all hip and such right now.
Leather master Tom Cruise. “Owning one leather jacket: cool. Owning eleven (and counting) different leather jackets: not so cool.”
In the running for the best headline ever award: “When Nanopants Attack”.
Interview with Nigo, founder of the Japanese clothing label, A Bathing Ape.
Clive fills us in on Greg Gillespie’s belt buckle knife. Don’t miss the video…it’s pretty damn funny.
Update: Here’s Gillespie’s web site and the video in question:
Staff at The Spotted Pig restaurant in NYC wear shoes custom-designed for the restaurant. Can Air Batali’s be far behind?
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