Demure Optimism

Over the summer, Heron posted a really interesting thing on his blog called subtle is the new STAND OUT!, and it's been on the periphery of my mind ever since. In it, he talks about "subtle bling" and abandoning the "flashy exclusive sneakers" in favor of more subdued, casual shoes and clothes.


Today I read this Lagerfeld quote in a NYTimes piece about fashion in today's economy:

“This whole crisis is like a big spring housecleaning — both moral and physical,” Karl Lagerfeld, the designer for Chanel, said in an interview. “There is no creative evolution if you don’t have dramatic moments like this. Bling is over. Red carpety covered with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty.’ ”

This is an interesting juxtaposition to see alongside the "bright" trends and predictions for 2009. A month or two ago, I read about Pantone selecting Mimosa for their color of 2009. The economy was also the inspiration for that – "In a time of economic uncertainty and political change, optimism is paramount and no other color expresses hope and reassurance more than yellow."


Fast forward to this week, when my friend Jess predicted lots of neon for 2009 fashion, Flavorpill predicted "bright bold colors" for home design and Michael pointed towards some recently-seen brightflash on his blog. And let's not forget the (very loud) Louis Vuitton x Stephen Sprouse collaboration, which is hard to avoid if you work on the same block as the SoHo store.


Which is it, then? Upon first reading these two "opposing" points of view, one might think in a "subdued vs. bright" direction, wondering which one would end up prevailing. But since I've been thinking about extremes working together recently (my February column is about this), I am thinking that they'll do just that: work together. I don't think fashion only has to be a counter to the shit economy in the form of technicolor, kaleidescopic strobe lights, but I also don't think it only has to remain dour, defeatist and beige.


Two examples (both related to links I've already tossed around in this entry) could be seen in things like GAP's new popup Pantone Mimosa store (they have solid mimosa-colored tees) and the sort-of-recent I ♥ NY shirts in different solid colors.

So, maybe the Louis Vuitton x Stephen Sprouse thing will be an anomaly in terms of bright and chaotic for the coming year. Bright spins on classic styles seem to make more sense, each element balanced and keeping the other in check.

F, I didn't even realize until just now that I was describing American Apparel. Well, aybe aside from clever merchandising, that's unconsciously been another reason why they're one of the only retailers profiting in this climate.

Unofficial Olympic Shirt

Some exciting news from my friend Ed in Hong Kong (this Ed). The first product coming out of his side project, SCHOOL is out - the Unofficial Olympic Shirt. As he puts it:

A t-shirt that really embraces the value of the Olympics - UNITY. We haven't paid multi-million dollar sponsorship deal so you won't see rings nor mascots on any of our shirts. Instead we've woven all participating nations into one piece of fabric. 888 of these limited edition shirts were lovingly made with the finest cotton to commemorate the event opening on 08.08.08.

The design is really great: it strings all of the nations into a double helix-style design (a further symbol of us all coming together).



The shirt comes in marshmallow white, cotton candy blue and cotton candy pink.


You can get it for $45, free worldwide shipping, no tax. Pretty amazing, I love the colors, meaning and can't wait for mine. Great stuff, Ed!

幸せ

I have been a little scarce as of late; my final week in New York before the holidays was a crazy one... lots of stuff happened not limited to work (which was stressful in itself). I hope everybody had a lovely holiday. When I'm visiting my family, I tend to lay low and get into everything analogue; I play my upright piano from childhood, type on my father's old typewriter and listen to vinyl on my mother's record player. I'm taking a slight break now to share this though:


Last month, a man stopped me on the street asking if he could take my photo for "a magazine." Little did I know at the time that it was for Elle Girl Tokyo! Each month they feature a different city, and December's is New York. exciting. It pretty much looks to me like a twee version of The Sartorialist.


They update with one girl a day. I wonder if this is only on the web site, or if they put it in the paper version? Babelfish turned up with quite the hilarious translation, which I'm hoping to have corrected by some of my Japanese friends.

Inserting favorite music in ipod, her who is in the midst of shopping. Under P coat of grey original T shirt of local radio bureau. Collecting the bottoms with the black denim and the sneaker, the pop street style completes! You observe, to also small article errand such as hand made muffler and tear drop sunglasses.

I think I'm more excited about this than I should be. _

San Francisco and the UK - genre (music & fashion) blending?

One bulletin post on MySpace this morning sent me into an explosion of emailing and yelling at friends for their opinions (I am counting on your input, Heron). This is something I don't know a lot about and really want to hear other people's views on. When Arthur asked, I said "San Francisco, the UK, hip hop bleeding into other music genres' fashion, sort of."

So here goes. The bulletin was from Calvin Harris (one of my favorites from the UK of the neon electro variety), promoting this fantastic song (fantasticker video. so good that I made up a word.) by Mitchell Brothers:


Isn't that contagious? Anyway, an electronic artist promoting the hell out of a mostly hip hop song (he produced it). This is not dissimilar to the merging of hip hop and rock that I quoted in the Hadouken! entry, except this time it's less garage and more sparkle.

It made me think of when I visited San Francisco six months ago. My friend Jay was commenting on the culture there and how hip hop seems to have seeped into every other genre. Indie and skater kids wearing Dunks, shopping at Upper Playground, etc. I wonder if there is a parallel of sorts between this merging in San Francisco and what I was seeing come from the UK. I really want to understand this whole thing better. Maybe I'm imagining all of it. I e-mailed my friend Jess, who is from the West Coast and generally very up on things.


She responded with this.

i'd imagine that the hip hop influence on the fashion of other subcultures of the SF-microcosm (and LA, too!) is artsiness begetting (or beshoeing/behoodieing) more artsiness. i think in the indie rock circles, dressing with undertones of hip hop flare is done with a tad bit of irony in most cases. with companies like UP, i think the design aspect and creativity speak to these subcultures that value the aesthetic.

and maybe colors. hipsters/skaters/indie rock scenesters like getting away with wearing garish colors and loud prints.

...i think you might have something, comparing SF and the UK. another interesting comparison might be LA and SF and their interpretations of the same three-way clash between hip-hop, hipster, and indie rock fashion scene. down in LA, i've seen rappers dressed like old school weezer, and hipsters wearing dunks and XXXL hoodies. go figure.

Now, L.A. I really know nothing about. I browsed around The Cobra Snake a bit (he's a West Coast nightlife photographer) and found tons of stuff like this, which seems to confirm it all:



So what do you think? I would love to hear from people from San Francisco, L.A., the UK or anywhere else who could shed some more light on things. All of this reminds me of this entry Noah wrote in September about music lines blurring.

[photos from The Cobra Snake & Uffie]

EDIT | Sanithna exploded into a link frenzy. I linked him to the entry. Here is what he said:

You know, it's really weird about the blending of these cultures. The most lucid explanation of it came from David Gensler. He calls it mash culture. http://www.psfk.com/2006/02/interview_with_.html ; http://www.davidgensler.com/?page_id=2 . The most obvious/mainstream blending of it all for me was Kanye West. This guy who abandons visual art to produce beats, then begins to incorporate high fashion into his image; and recruits people like [Takashi] Murakami to do his design work. See also http://www.thehundreds.com ; http://www.mrkimsays.com/ ; http://www.murketing.com/journal/ ; http://www.catchdubs.com/blog/ ; and just some other things on the periphery of it all: http://www.stapledesign.com/jeffstaple/ ; and if you don't already know these links, here they are for posterity... http://www.hypebeast.com/index.php ; http://www.highsnobiety.com/ ; http://www.slamxhype.com/ ; http://www.honeyee.com/ ; http://riottt.com/ ; and still in the periphery http://www.fecalface.com/SF/ ; http://www.vinylpulse.com/ .

I e-mailed my friend Nate, and he said this:

When I came of age musically I listened to nothing but hip hop because it was so huge in the late 80s and early 90's. I wore Air Jordans every day until I had to wear adult sizes and they started costing way too much. Nike sneakers are just something I'm getting back to... and those hoodies and stuff have huge cross over appeal with people, like Pharell putting them out. I was real punk rock for a long time, but even punk mixed with hip hop a lot in the 80s. Look at the photography of Glen E Friedman; he was shooting punk bands and hip hop bands at the same time. Look at the movie Breakin... Ice T is rapping in it and he is wearing track suits with punk rock spiked belts and stuff... but this Friedman picture says it all; Public Enemy rocking Minor Threat.

Bing Bang

Time for me to rave about Bing Bang, a jewelry company my friend Kevin heads up (he's the Director of Business Operations).


A few weeks ago I placed an order with him for a custom two-finger ring, and he gave me a call last night to let me know it was ready. It's perfect and I couldn't be happier.


I was having a little trouble describing the style of the jewelry; at first I wanted to say it mixed a vintage feel with an urban flair, but didn't think that did it enough justice. The web site says that it "mingles contemporary devices with the charm of curious objects and antiquities." Much better, I'd say. My favorite part is that the company's founder, Anna, studied blacksmithing, welding and fabrication at the Academy of Art in San Francisco - gives a good idea about the techniques they use and the subsequent quality of the pieces.

Bing Bang's clients range from Cameron Diaz to Giselle and Claudia Schiffer, and they have been covered in magazines like Vogue, W and i-D. They were also nominated for the 2007 Swarovski Accessories Award by the CFDA - here is a photo of Kevin with Diddy from the awards show two nights ago (they ended up wearing the same vintage Gucci jacket):


Here's one of my favorite pieces from one of Bing Bang's recent collaborations with Marc Jacobs (click for bigger):


You can find Bing Bang at Barneys. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

[writing this post made me feel like Heron.]

Marc Bouwer Fall 2007

Marc Bouwer Fall 2007
Originally uploaded by tokyohanna.

I went to the Marc Bouwer Fall 2007 show tonight (Fashion Week has started!). My friend Diana works for the shoe supplier (Michael Antonio), and wasn't in town to take photographs (to be included in newsletter /email). She asked me to take her place.

I was beyond flattered, especially since I have my humble (but loved) 3.2mp Minolta Dimage Xg. Because of this, some of the photographs that could have been stupendous came out blurry, but I don't even care. It was a wonderful experience, and I loved Marc's collection. I hadn't heard of him prior to this, but he has worked under Halston and the entire Fall 2007 line reminded me of a cross between Badgley Mischka and Oscar de la Renta. gorgeous. View the few of the better photos at my Flickr set.