Marc Jacobs Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

This collection mixes opulent Victorian styles covered in trims with men's swim trunks against a post-apocalyptic beach setting worthy of Planet of the Apes. Now, a lot of these outfits look good, if a bit heavy...

 ...but the ones involving the swim trunks are all sorts of wrong.

 They have an unbalanced top to bottom ratio with all the weight on the top. I admit to already having a pet peeve about this sort of thing. I find it irritating to see people wearing bulky sweaters with short skirts or shorts. If that is what makes you comfortable I'm all for it, but I have yet to meet someone wearing one of these ensembles who is not complaining about how cold she is. In addition to my issues with the lack of practicality here, I take issue from an aesthetic perspective. Clothing should have a certain balance, not necessarily a symmetrical balance, but a balance that is pleasing to the eye. It is this balance that I feel these Victorian shirt with swim trunks outfits lack. These ideas could have been melded better. Heck, I could do it better! This is the point that I have come to after reviewing this many shows. What is the point of designers exactly when these ideas can be fleshed out by an amateur at a fraction of the cost and more likely to be worn by a normal person? I will explore this more deeply in future posts, but keep this in mind, because I will be recreating some of these looks myself, either exactly or altered to make more sense, with my sewing machine and some thrift store savvy.  

Giorgio Armani Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

This collection has lots of flow. It is all-over flow, soft both in the types of fabric and the patterns chosen to decorate said fabrics. 

Some of the dresses seem to be merely breathtaking swirls of fabric such as this example. 

My only complaint is the shoes. OH MY GOD THE SHOES! 

They are a bootie flip-flop hybrid and they should have never been allowed to exist. Flip flops are for when it is so hot that you want to wear as little as possible to let air circulate around your feet. Boots are for when it is cool enoguh that you want to keep everything up to your ankes well covered and warm and also to make up for the coolness of some skirts if it's too cold to just wear sandles or heels. There is no way these two weather conditions can exist simultaneously. Therefore there is no practical reason for these shoes to exist. Also they look ridiculous. These shoes have been a trend all summer and they have bothered me since the first time I saw someone walk by wearing them. They are as pointless and stupid looking as the high-heeled sneakers that were so popular a few years ago. Let's hope they disappear as quickly and thoroughly as they came.

Donna Karan Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

From what I have seen of both Donna Karan labels over the course of my experience with fashion,  I would say that this designer has two modes shown each excusively in its own label. DKNY is the super urban flashy label and Donna Karan is the super art commune comfy label. From pictures I have seen of Donna Karan herself, I think she prefers the latter. It certainly has its charms. The collection is flowing and diaphanous, evoking images of hippie chicks, pre-raphaelite artists, and princesses of the Australian Outback in relatively equal measure. I don't know how well I could wear it, but I definitely like it.

Marc By Marc Jacobs Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

I think I'm going to call this collection,  "Upscaled High School," because that is what most of these pieces look like. The dresses look like cheerleader uniforms. 

The suits look like satinized prep school uniforms.

 The tank tops look like they were made from men's pajama tops. 

On second thought, mabe I shouldn't call it, "Upscaled High School," maybe I should call it,  "Vamped Prep School, " as in, "Only Anne Rice's vampires would dress like this." But my biggest, "Why?!?" for this collection was the way the models' hair was held to their necks with scarves or fabric headbands (see above). Why would anyone do this? It just looks ridiculous.

DKNY Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

DKNY has always exemplified New York, or at least the way I see New York:  loud, proud, and graphic. Lots of graphics, actually, which is why I draw such parallels between the city and the label. The clothes tend to remind me of Times Square. In this collection, DKNY showed a big variety. I felt ambivalent to pleased about most of the outfits, some I really liked, and some things I really hated. My favorite piece was a pair of patched jeans that resembled a vintage suitcase. 

The piece that gave me the biggest feeling of "Why is this here?" was the racer back swimsuits worn backwards under a variety of sheer and not sheer layers.

Max Mara Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

As much as I rage against fashion's tendency toward the impractical, you can go too far the other way. A runway show is about spectacle, and this is just about the least spectacular, most boring collection I have ever seen. The first third of the show was all off-white before they showed any color. It's as though they were sending out the muslins, that's the outfits made of muslin that a designer starts out with and experiments on before cutting into the good material,  and then realized, "Oh yeah, this is a runway show. Guess we ought to send out the real clothes now." You could find most of these clothes at the Ann Taylor Loft store in the mall, and I wouldn't buy them there either. To me, this collection seems pointless except to people who care more about the label or price tag than they do about the clothes themselves.

Betsy Johnson Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

I remember the Betsy Johnson brand from when I was working at Macy's. They had a 50's Barbie doll feel about them, so I was never really a fan and I have mixed feelings about their spring collection. It's super girly-floral-punk pairing fluffy organza, floral and leopard prints, fingerless gloves, and everywhere pink pink PINK! I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable wearing any of it, but I can't help feeling good about this collection, possibly because of the enthusiasm of the models. I have never before seen runway models having so much fun. How can you not enjoy a collection when it's presented like this?

Alberta Ferretti Spring 2014 Ready To Wear

According to Ferretti, this collection is about color and youthfulness, inspired by a mix of Southern Italian and South American influences. The WWD article I read accuses Ferretti of overdoing it, showing a total lack of restraint in the use of color and pattern, such as this example of a white crop top with floral embellishments paired with a floor-length skirt sporting thick, punch-you-in-the-face-bright stripes. I have to say, I do not see the problem here. Only one or two dresses in the entire collection are all over stripes. The majority of the collection tastefully breaks up the stripes with plain white so it never seems too overpowering. A zoot suit in that fabric is overdoing it it - a selection of fun skirts and a couple short flirty dresses, not so much.

I Think I Have Something To Say About Fashion Week

I don't normally have much to say about runway fashion. I even tend to avoid actually looking at it. I have a live and let live philosophy about the whole thing:  they can make whatever overpriced monstrosities they want as long as I don't have to wear them. However, I have been casually looking at Womens Wear Daily's coverage of the Spring ready-to-wear shows for 2014, and I find, belatedly and in the middle of Milan's Fashion Week, that I DO have something to say about what's going on in these collections. In fact, I have several somethings I want to say. I'm going to go through these one collection at a time and give my thoughts on each one. I'm not going to go over every collection this time around because I'm starting late and I don't want to still be doing this at Christmas, so I'm limiting myself to the shows I had strong reactions to. I may even come back at these designers with a few improvements/variations of my own. So stay tuned:  Refashioned Runway starts tomorrow.

Ready, Set, Tablet!

I got my very first tablet today. It's interesting to experience this new technology (new to me, that is), especially the touch screen. It's pretty sensitive,  but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Right now it's also fun to watch the tablet try to guess my words, but what this means for the blog is more posts closer to the events they are describing.

So get ready for a whole new world of blogging. Let's have some fun!

Family Friday: An Exercise in Exercise

Kids didn't use to have to exercise. They stayed fit enough running around being kids. They didn't have to diet. They could burn off anything just being themselves. I will admit that I did exercise as a child. I thought my mom's Jane Fonda tapes were so much fun, I would do them with her. Trouble is, kids don't run around outside much anymore. They don't jump or climb as much. They sit in front of the TV, in front of the computer, in front of gaming consoles. But I don't blame them. I don't even blame the media. I blame us. We tell our children, "Go outside and play," but when is the last time we went outside to play? With this in mind, I would like you to examine the following exchange:


Shawn:  Aimee, is there a way I can get in shape without moving?

Me:  No, movement is required for exercise.

Shawn:  Oh. Well, is there a way I can exercise without using my legs or running?

Me:  You could try sit-ups.

Shawn:  OK! How do I do sit-ups?

Me:  Lay down on your back. (Shawn lays down on his back.) Now sit up. (Shawn puts his hands on the ground beside him and pushes himself back to a seated position.)

Me:  (realizing my mistake) No! You have to sit up without using your hands. Put your hands behind your head or cross them across your chest.

Shawn:  (puts his hands behind his head and does a proper sit-up, actually more of a crunch as his head and shoulders barely rise off the floor) Oohhh! (flops back to the floor.)

Me:  (realizing this is probably as good as it is going to get for now) OK, now do it again.

Shawn:  (repeating crunch and flop) Oohhh!

Me:  Again.

Shawn:  (repeating crunch and flop) Oohhh! This is torture!!

I didn't have a useful response and Shawn did not try anymore sit-ups.

From This To That #1: Powering Through Powerade Bottles

This series is all about showing what my raw material sources get reduced down to after I harvest the parts I need for my crafts. The above photo shows two trash bags' worth of Powerade bottles. The photo just below shows what's left after I cut off the bottoms for paper mache molds, which incidentally fills less than one of those same trash bags. Not a bad start.

Recycle, But What About Reduce and Reuse?

We all used to hear a lot about recycling. We still do. 56% post-consumer material. Made from recycled sneakers. The list goes on. When we were taught the three environmentalist R's:  Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, the first two got glossed over somewhat, and recycling took center stage. The concepts of reduce and reuse deserve more attention, so here are my definitions for this popular threesome:

Reduce:  This concept is twofold. First we reduce our waste output by doing things that don't create waste in the first place, like using a reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled water, using a reusable shopping bag instead of the plastic or paper ones you get at the store, or buying buying items in bulk where possible so there is less packaging to throw away. Secondly, we can reduce our waste by saving some of what we would throw away for later reuse or recycling.

Reuse:  This is all about using what you might normally throw away all over again, either for it's original intended purpose or for a different purpose altogether. If you use a plastic freezer bag to store bagels over and over again, you're reusing. If you use an old jelly jar as a vase for cut flowers, congratulations! You're reusing too.

Recycle:  This one is frequently more about what your local recycling center can do for you than what you can do for yourself, but don't let that absolve you of your environmental responsibility. Recycling plants need to expend energy to turn those tin cans into tinfoil, melt glass down to be reformed, and all the other things they do. It can be satisfying to expend some of your own energy to make old things new again. Using old newspapers (and even the hated "junk mail") as paper mache is a great example of recycling and no one will ever know what's in it.

So there you have it. I hope this goes to show how important all three of these environmental concepts are, and I hope you give them all the equal respect they deserve.

The Things We Don't Want To Keep But We Don't Want To Throw Them Away #1

I grabbed the Magic Grow Pellets from my pile and threw them all into warm water to expand them all at once. Boy, that was fun! Now to find something to do with my new fun shapes. I'm thinking some sort of jewelry.

The Things We Don't Want To Keep But We Don't Want To Throw Them Away

You know you have them. We all have them. Those bits and bobs that show up in kid's meals, giveaways, vending machines, or just little things we bought because it seemed like a good idea at the time. They hang around the house. They pile up in corners and on shelves. They collect dust. But no matter how useless and in the way they become, we cannot bring ourselves to throw them away. We think we will find a use for them someday or that we are obligated to keep them since we spent money on them, but these things are just dragging us down and keeping us from a clean and organized living space. My goal here is to find something useful or artistic to do with these objects. To that end, I am collecting all of them in one place until inspiration strikes me.

Family Friday: The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

This is our wall of Guitar Hero/Rock Band controllers. As it turns out, this is much safer (and better looking) than sitting them on the floor leaning against the wall. My favorite thing about these music-themed games is that, since you can pick your difficulty level individually, we can all play together as a family regardless of how many hours we have logged on. Derrick plays a lot, while I only pick up a guitar controller when we play as a family or when company comes over. Also, this is one of the few games we can get Shawn to play that is creative rather than destructive. And that ROCKS!

We're Putting the Blog Back Together

After a long absence, I am bringing this blog back to the foreground of my attention. I was discouraged by the lack of activity (comments, mostly) but since then I have refined my crafting focus and I'm ready to get back on the horse. So get ready for more crafting content I firmly believe that if you build it they will come. They have to. We're on a mission from God.

New Tags

Here are my new tags that I made for putting in my tote bags and purses. I used a custom stamp for the back and printable iron-on transfer paper for the front. This is a lot nicer looking and easier to read than the hand-stamped tags I was making. However, I am still using used light colored denim pants for the base material that these tags are printed on. I wonder what else I could stick them on...