beauty : john galliano spring 2011 rtw

John Galliano always does something interesting, and this time it's a mix of strange and beautiful - metallic hair. The models had their hair sprayed in gold or silver, and the effect is just so interesting to me - it looks harsh and not soft, almost like the hair was sculpted on - but the color is just magnificent.

(I threw in the neon afro just for fun)

Their hair almost looks crunchy - like it is actually made of little gold fibers rather than sprayed hair. Reminds me of those costume hair sprays you can get with the glitter in it. In fact, that fourth image actually has little LEDs woven into the silver hair. Brings a whole new appeal to "going gray". I love it. The girls look like gilded statues come to life. Totally unwearable for the real world, imagine putting your shirt on after you get ready in the morning and ending up with a giant streak of gold paint around the neck. But, the effect is nice.

trend : pale pink & coral

A new color combination popping up for spring 2010 is the unexpected mix of a pale European pink with an orange-tinted coral or red. Red with pink has always before been a sort of fashion "no-no" the way many think you can't wear black with navy or black with brown ... but like most of these "rules", they are meant to be broken because it is interesting.

Elie Saab Spring, Marc by Marc Jacobs; both Spring 2011


Matthew Williamson, Jenni Kayne; both Resort 2011


Derek Lam, Resort 2011; Tory Burch, Spring 2011

Why does it work? The same reason wearing black head to toe works - it's flattering. And by keeping your pink a pale nude and your red a poppy orange, the contrast is high enough to allow viewers to distinguish you from a Valentine's day card.

beauty : lavender-gray nails

One of my favorite blogs to read is Temptalia's makeup blog. There is a photograph for everything, which is why I like it. You can't write about a lip color and then not show us. And one trend she has been highlighting particularly well in the beauty department is the new take on nude nails - a fusion of gray and purple. Gray nails have been on our radar for a while now - it's been going on for the past few seasons, from dove gray shades to dark charcoals. But now there is a new spin to it.

By itself, it really is a beautiful color. It's not as pink as mauve, and not simply a warm gray, but like a slightly violet-tinted nude warm beige gray. Now that I've made it really complicated I'll just show some pictures.

Estee Lauder "Surreal Violet", photos from Temptalia - my favorite take on this trend. Perfect marriage of an overly Eastery color (lilac) and a warm neutral (gray). The effect still works for the nude nail trend, yet tons more feminine.


Essie "Merino Cool", photos from Temptalia.


Pop-up: my absolute favorite polish for this Spring, NARS "Pokerface". However, this is too bright for me. I usually stick to nothing more than a pale pale pink nude nail (red every so often). A more gray version may be how I ease into this one. Photos from Temptalia.

Before this trend hit beauty, it of course came from the runway. "Greige" (gray-beige) has been a prominent color feature of the past year. When it met violet, everyone fell in love.

Elie Saab Spring 2010 couture show


Chanel Spring 2010 RTW debuted a mushroom-violet polish.

So why is this color so nice for nails? It is actually extremely wearable. It also mixes well with any skin tone - the iciness of the lavender is showcased against cooler toned pale skin, olive skin tones are complemented perfectly by the warmth, and darker skin tones allow both colors to pop fantastically. It is also a wonderful fall or winter shade that transitions well into spring.

Some other good polish suggestions for this trend (besides the ones above) are Essie "Demure Vixen", China Glaze "Channelesque", MAC "Cool Reserve", and Sephora by OPI "Metro Chic". I just ordered "Demure Vixen" - the trend sucked me in and hey, I just finished a tough quarter.

a few designs

For the past few days I've been sick with tonsillitis (and it's a whole lot of fun) so I've been taking it very easy. Now that I'm done with school, I can actually do nothing now! Which is exactly what I needed this week. But now that I'm feeling better, and can do more than just lay around, I wanted to sketch out some ideas I've had in my head for a while.

Since I will be co-oping next quarter, I will have the luxury of no homework (so free evenings and weekends) - which means I can start sewing for myself again. I brought some fabrics from home, mostly ones I've had for a while and still can't figure out what to make with them. The other day (while at home, eating soup, and reading Real Simple - the best way to get better) I saw an image of a herringbone jacket that reminded me of a fabric I have and instantly I found a use for it. It's a beautiful lightweight coral wool herringbone, and I'm going to conquer my fear of jackets with it.

Shawl collar jacket with assymmetrical hem, wrap front, tie closure, and bell sleeves. The idea is like a "sophisticated bathrobe". We will pretend any of these photos does color justice; for reference, the fabric looks most like the first.

The second is for a fabric I fell in love with at the store a few weeks ago - I love rose gold in jewelry, and this is basically rose gold fabric ... win. In experimental design, one of my friends had a concept using cardboard boxes constructed with fabric, with a wooden frame inside. At one point she tried on the skirt, but without the frame, and the corners of the "box" collapsed and draped so nicely I wanted to make my own version. So this is going to be a holiday skirt inspired by that very idea.

Cowled "corner" skirt with black waistband and six box panels. In this set, the last photo is most accurate in color. There will be an invisible zipper in the back of this skirt for closure.

I'm pretty excited to get started on these. I will probably do the skirt first, since jackets intimidate me a little - I will definitely be doing a muslin version on that one. I'll keep the updates coming!

experimental photo

Just a picture one of my friends took at the critique, me standing between my two creepy figures. I can't get over how tired I look in this photo. I promise I wasn't about to drop dead here - I just get very, very serious when describing my concepts to the judges (they're a little intimidating) - but I kind of get a kick out of how it really looks.

Also, please disregard the knitted cast-on tail sticking out of the right piece, and how I didn't tie my new piece tight enough and it left a hole (it's gone now). But can you see what I mean about the shoes on the girls now? It definitely disrupts the look.

beauty : the topknot

One trend that has become seemingly obvious for both the runway and the street (because it is so easy) is the infamous topknot - simply a rounded bun, placed right on top of the head, at a location where it's just a little too high to be mistaken for a messy college student bun and instead one realizes it was done very much on purpose.

Very voluminous topknots at Jenni Kayne Sprint 09 RTW


At ADAM Spring 11 RTW. Why are topknots so great? They are the perfect non-style that meets "adorable" with "sophisticated".


More topknot buns at Rebecca Taylor Spring 11 RTW

Now this is an easy one to take into your own hands. It's effortless, can be messy or sleek, and once it starts falling apart, looks even better.

The higher, the better!

experimental design final critique

My classmates were talking about everyone's concepts, and I guess mine came up and someone asked what it was, and one of my friends said "It's like when you cut your face off and you become a blob."

Well, not quite, but I love it anyway.

A refresher of the concept is how without faces, souls, personalities, or spirits, we as human beings are nothing more than anatomical masses. For the final show if this gets in (which I believe it has, since my experimental design professor told me to make the remaining 3 from my sketches for it), I will be fixing the foot pieces to fit over the heels (I made an error in pattern drafting that didn't allow for that to be possible in the critique, and of course the guest designer pointed it out). But overall I am very happy with the results. More (professional) pictures soon!

dyed roving process

They say it takes a village, and it did. Dyeing this stuff was exhausting, and I never want to smell coffee again. But, it did the trick better than I would have imagined and I couldn't be happier with the results!

On the left: before, white, and after, toffee. At right, a sketch in my notebook with my two fabric swatches.

The process, in a nutshell:

With about 7 pounds of wool, I had to divide this up into multiple batches (probably about 6 by the time I stopped dyeing ... couldn't do it anymore!) Simply, wool is a protein fiber and therefor needs heat and acid for color to take (usually a mordant as well, so it is colorfast, but since this is an "experimental" garment it will never be washed so I skipped this step - but a mordant for wool would be vinegar). I used coffee to dye the wool so I could get a warm, toffee-like color. I brewed about 30 cups of coffee for each batch, and then brought it to a boil and then turned down the heat a bit and submerged the wool, topping it off with a little more water if needed to cover all of it. With wool, you need to be careful about heat and agitation - wool will felt when agitated in hot water, so you "poke" it with a spoon instead to disperse color evenly.

And then I ran out of coffee. I didn't want to use any "nice" coffee (so my dad's sacred cabinet of foreign coffee beans and Starbucks grounds were safe), but at 30 cups per let's say 1/2 pound, that was going to take a lot ... for 7 pounds. Then my dad gets this great idea: to call the local cafe, and ask what they do with their leftover coffee at the end of the day. He called them up and sure enough, they toss it, so we asked if we could have it. I'm pretty sure that's the only time I'll ever enter a restaurant with a beer-brewing sized stock pot. But, they had several gallons worth of coffee to give me and I successfully dyed the rest of my wool.

The fun part however comes after all the wool dyeing. Well, besides the wet wool and coffee smell I had my head in for a few hours. After dyeing wool, you need to rinse it (once cooled, so it doesn't felt) to allow for excess dye to run off. I had to sit in the tub with all my wool (which looked a lot like intestines, it was kind of gross) and squish it around in the water for a good 45 minutes til coffee stopped pouring out of it. The last time I dyed wool, it took around 3 days for it to air-dry, but I didn't have 3 days, so instead I hand-squeezed every last length of it before laying all of it out on a towel-covered drying rack. In the morning it was mostly just damp, so I took a blow dryer to it and wound it all into 7 nice balls of toffee fluff.

At left, "Duck Season" spray paint. Right, a sprayed swatch to match the dyed fibers.

But from here I wasn't really done. I still had to knit the thing. This was like a wrestling match - it took so much effort for each stitch and once the knit piece started getting big (and heavy) it was hard to maneuver around. I also had to tap into my undyed supply of wool to complete it ... which meant I needed to do something about the color change. Spray paint was just about the only thing I could think of, but I wasn't sure how it would work. However, the store had a color that was almost exactly that of my dyed wool, so I bought it and tested it out. It couldn't have matched better. I used it to "melt" the white wool color into the toffee color and make it look like one (which it thankfully does now) and also to add a little color discrepancy for a more organic look. I am very happy with the final result.

Well that's enough for now, our experimental critique begins tomorrow at 8:00 AM and the moment of truth will arrive when I finally get to see it all together! Got shoes for the models today, so everything is ready to go. I will take lots of pictures.