White Collar Crimes

Last time I was in London I discovered the most wonderful and quirky little shop called
" Franklin Alvarez " that specializes in vintage collars. The shop is run by the clothing designer, Bev Alvarez, and by the artist Jen Franklin, which together make or collect collars from flee markets around England. When I got home and checked out their web site I was amazed to find that they ran a blog devoted entirely to their collar obsession. The blog is dedicated to collars in all shapes and sizes, and present all sorts of other collar-related items and even prints of animals adorned with periodic collars. I have a little collection of vintage collars from all kind of different periods myself, so I am always happy to discover other people who share my passion.

Israeli designer, Aluma Klein , is a fellow collar lover that completes her women wear line with collars that she makes from hand sown vintage lace. Her collars were already worn by the likes of Madonna, Lady Gaga and many others.
The piece of resistance of my collection is a nineteen century collar that I found in an antique shop in Paris. Though it tears a little every time I touch it, every once in a while I am tempted to wear it under a dress or a blazer.

Franklin Alvarezs' collars and prints

Aluma Kleins' collars

My nineteen century collar

Fashion Bear

I don’t know what about you, but I still can’t say I'm completely a grown up. Although I am 27 years old, sometimes I still sleep with my cozy teddy bear. Yeah, I know, most of the people my age probably won’t admit to it, but recently I have the feeling that I’m not the only one hugging a bear at night. I guess someone in the fashion world picked up on that, because more and more high fashion brands are making designed teddy bears, and I have a feeling that it doesn't all go to the kids.
As usual, the first to start the designed teddy bears trend was Karl Lagerfeld, who created a teddy bear looking just like him. Prada designed various key chain teddy bears that are sold at their online store, and Missoni are selling their teddy bears, made of their trade mark print, in Colette.

Karl Lagerfeld teddy bear





Prada teddy bears






Missoni teddy bears






I know you want some more of this sweetness, so here is an editorial from W magazine that is all about teddy bears, enjoy!


W Magazine "Into the Woods", Aug 2007

Embroidered myths

I love it when artistes use crafts in their work, the confrontation they provoke between the traditional techniques and the modernity of their ideas.
Brie Ruais is an artiste who lives in New York and uses traditional crafts such as embroidery, bid work and knitting in her art. Brie draws her inspirations from her own personal biography as well as from urbane myths and legends.

The Lace Scarf

The winter is here, and it’s time for some cozy and yet pretty DIY projects.
The inspiration for this particular project came from similar crafts that I saw in a few Japanese blogs, which I love so much. The idea of a shawl that can be worn as a scarf, adorned with lace, is so beautiful and so simple to execute, that I just had to do it!

These are the inspiration photos from Japanese blogs.




1. This is what you will need: an Indian shawl, lace (French, I bought mine on Rozengard st.), scissors, a thread in the same color as the scarf, and one in the color of the lace- this one I forgot to photograph …



























2. Cut the ends of the shawl






















3. Pin the lace on the duration of the shawl, I made it 1/3-2/3 and not straight in the middle.






















4. Stitch the lace by hand or by sewing machine.






















5. Now pin the lace on the two ends of the shawl (where I cut the fringe at step 2).





















6. Stitch the lace to the shawl.




















Voila!

And here are two ideas of how I'm going to wear this scarf.

























Trench coat- TopShop
Jeans- Oasis
Shoes- Irregular Choice
























Leather Jacket-Mango
Blouse- Miss Selfridge
Pants- Miss Selfridge
Shoes- TopShop


During the making of this scarf, photographing and writing, I was listening to the end of the decade sum- ups in music of the Kaze radio program on line. Here you can find the alternative decade sum-ups in Hip-Hop, Indie, Punk-Funk Disco-Punk and practically endles amounts of great music. Just press on “Play Now”- it’s pure pleasure…

How to do a Ban.do

As you might have noticed by now reading our blog, Nina and I have a not-so-small obsession with hair-bands. Pretty much if it's shinny, pink or feathery, I want it worn on my head. Ban.do is my new favorite retailer for all of those things. The company makes breathtakingly beautiful hair bands, brooches and much more.
I love everything about these pictures from the color combinations to the model choice, absolute perfection.
Naturally, I would love to buy one of the company’s pieces but since I can’t really afford to spend 200 dollars on a hair band I decided to take the DIY way.
I used some lovely light blue feathers that I had laying around the house, and sewed them to a piece of felt. To give it that final touch I added a vintage brooch that was my latest flea market find and voila! It may not be exactly Ban.do but it is definitely not a ban don’t.
























1. Cut up a template in the shape that you want the feathers to be in.
2. Attach it to the felt and cut it according to the shape.
3. Attach the feathers one by one and sew to the felt.
4. Attach the felt to a bow by sewing or gluing them together.
5. Sew or attach a brooch or a vintage baton to the base of the bow.