Laser cuts

One of the reasons I love working with leather is that it does not fray. This speeds up the sewing loads and enables you to make all sort of patterns using a carpet knife. The fashion industry of course uses laser. These dresses are by Iona Crawford. She works with organic fabrics and lasercut leather. It´s funny that I found her work on the same day that Style Bubble posted about this laser-cut dress by Ravensbourne College of Design & Communication graduate Kasia Bishop. Maybe this is an another DIY micro-trend in action. I love they way they both applied the detail in the back of the dress. Cuts like this can be made with any non-fraying material like PVC or waxed table cloth in case leather isn´t your thing.





More cut works by Kasia Bishop.




Slashes leather does not only work as detailing but also as the main material. These masterpieces are by Iris Van Herpen Summer 2008 and Fall 2009 collection. Her works are quite astonishing. Found via Tobacco And Leather, my new favorite fashion blog.

Millstones over a cup of tea

When you´re done uhhing at the antlers and amazing settings I recommend focusing at the gorgeous millstone lace collars and detachable satin puff sleeves. They´re both going on my DIY list. Photos by Keith Bryce. Found via Haute Macabre.

Khoi Scuba bag

Got an extra leather skirt, zipper and some chain to DIY? Here´s an idea what to make of them: Khoi Le´s Scuba bag. Found via Bleach Black.

Chain fringes

Leather covered tear shaped shoulder pads and chain makes heavy fashion. Love love love this. Some of you might view this as "Xena-inspired", but I say this would look prety darn good with a tee, bleached out jeans and some combat boots.





Via Tobacco and Leather.

Zipper pull DIY

This is the most clever thing I´ve seen made from zipper pulls, metal tear drops handsewn onto a knit. Looking very beautiful. Via Tobacco and Leather.

Leather scale miniskirt

Slightly differently done than my DIY leather scale dress, but still a rocking design. Ugly 80´s (soft) leather jackets make exellent material for projects like this! This leather scale-project in particular is done with cutting and glueing, no sewing rewuired! Any project that you can think of for 80´s leather jackets is an improvement since they are a bit of an problem donation for many secondhand stores - too many donations, not enough demand.. Photo via Kingdom Of Style.

Shredded shawls

Urban Revisions has added some new items, shredded shawls into her shop. Available at Etsy.

Steampunk (?) Roper Boots

I love a rugged pair of combat boots. After all I am a teenager of the 90´s. I´ve never heard of roper boots until I saw a pair at Nasty Gal Vintage. After a quick investigation I found out that roper boots are a part of cowboys wardrobe. In Finland we´re a little short on cowboys so to me these looked like steampunk. I´d love to find a similar pair secondhand from Finland, but since there´s not many of these going around in our thrift stores I think the only option is to find a pair online. Darn...




Photos from Flickr and Nasty Gal Vintage.

New fleamarket opening in Helsinki

I just heard today that a new fleamarket is opening to Helsinki called Oranssi Tori on June 9th! Another place to shop secondhand. Fantastic.

Will all the cool kids trade in the animal masks for bunny ears?

I told you the Louis Vuitton Fall 2009 bunnyears would kill in editorials! Well it does not really take a styling genious to figure that one out.. I must make my version out of these. Not for regular night outs but for special accations. Pictures via The Ongoing Project (Vogue Russia June 09, photographed by Alastair Mclellan).

DIY Slash sleeve top

Even though the price tag on this ASOS Slash Sleeve top is only 18 pounds I´d still DIY it rather than buy it. Making this yourself propably takes you less time than ordering it online and you get to wear it imediately! No shipping costs added.





Found via Park&Cube.

I-D inspiration

I love Rodarte´s way to combine random mohair knit bits with chainmail. If you like the chain headgear, check out Litter SF.




Via Rack And Ruin. Photos from I-D magazine 300th issue.

Labels

My garment labels that I ordered two weeks ago came on Friday. The idea is that whenever I re-style clothes or make something from recycled materials, I´ll re-label the garments original tags with mine. You know "Made in India. Remade in Finland" :)

Elle Project Blue silent charity auction

Barneys New York joined forces with Elle last month to create Project Blue, a shop-for-charity initiative to benefit the clean-water advocacy group Oceana. Eight designers, including Rodarte, Stella McCartney, Versace and Alexander Wang, were given a pile of old donated denim to play with. The denims were collected by Barneys NY. From this mass of acid-washed, mom-jean rejects, they were asked to create totally new garments, auctioned off on eBay on May 10th. The auction is closed now but you can view the Project Blue designs in the May Blue issue of Elle Magazine.

Bottega Veneta dress.


Versace dress.


Alexander Wang and Derek Lam designs.


Rodarte (check out the how-to by Janel at Two Seconds Notice).


Project Blue´s PR handled the whole event in such silence that only a handfull of fashion enthusiasts, blogs and websites ever heard about this auction event before it had all ready closed. As a result the Project Blue designer pieces were sold at staggering low prices. Here's a breakdown of how the auction fared:

Bottega Veneta dress - $306
Ann Demeulemeester jacket, tank top and jeans - $140
Stella McCartney jacket and jumpsuit - $306
Derek Lam top and skirt - $306
Rogan dress - $251
Versace dress - $321.01
Alexander Wang jacket & shorts - $305
Rodarte dress - $1,875

When I looked up the auction history, I could see that the designs were viewd only about 3000 times! It should have been 30 000... Lucky for the eight people that got their one-of-a-kind designer pieces at steal prices, but too bad for Oceana who collected a total of 3800 dollars for their cause. I wonder if these dresses will pop up later this summer for resale at higher prices on Ebay..? Hopefully Elle will not be discouraged about the end result and keep pushing for green fashion projects like this in the future.

Via Hint Magazine blog and BryanBoy.

Pepper And Pistol Fall 2009

Pepper And Pistol Fall 2009 collection. I find their volang dress and top very inspirational. Chic but a simple design. I have to try it. Via Aphex Nation.

Paper showflake dress

I saw this image at Aphex Nation. The shot is from Vogue Australia (May 09 issue, shot by photographer Troyt Coburn). I love the sheer fabric and paper snowflakelike cutwork details used in this dress. They are made by first zig zaging the pattern onto the hem and then cutting out the pattern centres (Finnish, leikekirjonta). Of course if the material used does not fray, the stitching is not needed and the hem can just be cut!