Hot and Bothered

Zana modeling her own leather peplum, and a friend modeling one of her bondage style face masks

Yesterday night, I made a sweaty trek over to CATM Gallery with hundreds of other Zana Bayne enthusiasts to view her latest Fall/Winter 2012 collection of leather body-harnesses.  Taking a beautifully orchestrated step away from the traditional fashion presentation, Zana chose to collaborate with three other artists and photographers to fully convey the sensual nature of her work.  Char Alfonzo, Maxime Buchi, and Adrian Wilson used photography, video and installation to capture Zana's work on the human body, playing with the themes of power and submission that are integral to her bondage inspired pieces. The fetishistic and fantastic elements conveyed through the resulting work gave Zana's harnesses a life that could not be expressed in a simple presentation with models, and the gallery truly felt like a teasing peek into Zana's lush, leather-filled world.  The exhibition is only up for one more day, so try to make it if you're in New York.  Otherwise, keep an eye out for her new pieces to arrive--I personally can't wait to get my hands on the leather cone bra pictured in one of Adrian Wilson's photographs.

Zana's Leather skull installation

Leather bra photographed by Adrian Wilson

-Tiffany

Knitwits

All photos by Mark Fina, courtesy of Degen

After stumbling across Degen knitwear on various blogs and Tumblrs, I had the surprise pleasure of stumbling across the magical designer, Lindsay Degen, in real life, while visiting her studio mate.  Lindsay shares an inspiring space in the sprawling Brooklyn Navy Yards with my friend Becca McCharen, the designer behind Chromat.  It is not often that I come across exciting new knitwear designers, and it thrilled me to see Lindsay's work up close and personal, as it is truly one of a kind.  Using a mix of hand knitting and crochet, as well as machine knit pieces made on looms in her studio, Lindsay creates colorful, tongue in cheek, and downright absurd attire using the most traditional and age-old techniques and methods.  While your average knitwear designer's repertoire includes a range of sweaters, socks, scarves and mittens, Degen presents peculiar jersey shirts with boob holes, crochet nipple pasties, and underwear with wooly fake pubes stitched on the front.  Even the Degen version of mittens are a slightly off creation: half mittens and half gloves.

Anyway, the inspiration behind the Fall 2012 Degen collection, Ask Tell, is explained in the lookbook, which I've posted in full here--something I rarely do, but I truly love each and every piece.  What I'm most excited for is not even knit at all; Lindsay is collaborating with Converse on a line of platform sneakers, which you can get a peek at here.

-Tiffany

Just Swimmingly

Chromat designer Becca McCharen with some pieces from her new swim collection

I know summer isn't officially here yet, but after coming from the not very warm Stockholm "spring" (which involved several incidents of snow), New York feels perfectly sweltering. It hit eighty degrees this past weekend, and if it's any indication that I'm turning into a Swede, eighty degrees means it's beach weather to me.  I am already fantasizing about my first weekend escape to the Rockaways, and when I make my way out there for some surf, sun, and cheap tacos, I hope to be wearing Chromat.  I've always been a big fan and supporter of Becca, who has been constructing her outlandish architectural cages for several seasons now.  I have to say, as impressive as all her previous work has been, she has really outdone herself with her newly launched swim collection, featuring very sexy, very cagey, yet totally practical suits and separates.  They're like no other swim line I've seen vefore, and they're currently only available at International Playground, and off Becca's webshop.  Prices top out at $250, which is a steal for such beautifully constructed, locally made suits.  I personally can't wait to purchase the high-waisted bikini.

-Tiffany

Fierce Looks From Pop Souk

Daniel Palillo dress, Iceberg vest, choker necklace courtesy of Bond Hardware, Triskaidekaphobia tooth necklace, Henrik Vibskov bag.  Photo by @nicollettenyc.

This past Saturday, Christina and I took Triskaidekaphobia and Arms and Armory down to Greenhouse for the second edition of Pop Souk, the one and only market for downtown designers and nightlife personalities. It's always exciting to see all my favorite local talents gathered up in one place, and everyone came out wearing their most outlandish attire, dressed for a night out even though it was really an afternoon in.  I only got to take a quick glimpse at all the offerings, and didn't actually buy anything since I spent most of the time in the booth with the girls, but I did manage to sneak in a manicure with Naomi Yasuda, and capture some photos of my favorite looks.

Sophia, Christina, Riza, and I at the Triskaidekaphobia and Arms and Armory booth

Becca of Chromat wearing one of her fabulous new swimsuits (more images to come!)

One of the fellows from the Asher Levine booth

One of Pam Hogg's many stretchy jumpsuits

Naomi Yasuda was on hand giving out special manicures.  Riza and I opted for the evil eye design.

Another half-man, half-monster creation from Asher Levine

Dana, one half of the design duo behind Bond Hardware, wearing an incredible ombre feather coat that she made and a necklace from her collection

The beautiful ladies from the Kathleen Marie Couture booth

-Tiffany

Jewel School

Kristin Hanson's Fine Jewelry School Workshop

After graduating from college, I went back to school at F.I.T. to get an Associates Degree in Jewelry Design.  While I learned a lot from the program, there's always room for improvement, so I was really excited to have the opportunity to take a sampling of one of Kristin Hanson's courses at her Fine Jewelry School in TriBeCa.  Kristin herself is an accomplished fine jeweler, who specializes in colored diamonds, and who sells her eponymous collection in her own store at 60 Reade Street.  Behind the discreet boutique lies a massive three story studio, which houses her showroom, as well as the jewelry school.

Founded in 2006, the school offers courses ranging from the fundamentals for the complete novice, to advanced workshops for professionals, as well as an intensive two year program designed to help aspiring designers launch their first collection.  The studio is lovely and spacious, yet the setting feels slightly more intimate (and well kept) than the studios at F.I.T.

For the workshop I attended, we did a basic introduction to piercing and sawing, carving out a simple flat pendant from a sheet of brass.  While I've done my fair share of sawing, it's been a longtime (lets just say it's not the most fun part of jewelry making), so it was good to get back into shape.  I was amazed by how fast Kirstin and John taught the course, and with a bit of their help, almost all of the students managed to knock out a pendant during the course time.  I will definitely consider returning to brush up on some of my bench work skills, and I highly recommend the studio for all of the untrained jewelers out there who are looking to take their work to the next level.  Here are some photos from the course, including my final piece, which took about an hour and a half to make (I'm proud to say I didn't break a single saw blade in the process).

Starfish from Kirstin's latest collection, stones, and a wax ring model.

The first step involved designing a flat shape on paper and then gluing the paper to a flat piece of brass to serve as a guide for carving out the pendant.

I designed a simple geometric shape using stencils, and made two prongs that would later be bent over and used as bales to slip chain through.

After our shapes were designed, we used jewelers saws to cut out the shapes from the metal.  Here is Kirsten herself, helping a student complete their piece.

Once the shapes were carved out, we used a metal file to smooth and file down the sharp edges. 

John, the instructor from the class, helped create the bales, and attach the chain to the pendant, before we gave the piece a quick satin finish.

My piece after the course. I might go back and cut out holes and refine the shape.

Pieces from Kirstin Hanson's Men's collection

Pieces from Kirstin Hanson's Men's collection

-Tiffany

New York to Stockholm and Back Again: An Interview with Carin Rodebjer

Swedish designer Carin Rodebjer recently relocated to New York. After the Rodebjer show, which is always the highlight of Stockholm Fashion Week, I asked her a few questions on her move, and how it has influenced the design of her new Fall 2012 collection.  One of my favorite shows of the season, the collection was inspired by male style icons like Jean Cocteau, David Hockney, and Jean Michel Basquiat.

You moved to New York from Stockholm recently. How has that been for you, do you feel like a New Yorker now?
No not really! I just moved there one year ago. But I feel kind of connected to the city--It is such a nice city, and I feel that it is good to have both platforms, because you get so much inspiration and you see things from different perspectives.

Did New York have any influence on the design of your new collection?
Oh, of course it does. That's part of why I moved too, because I wanted to have the local and the global perspective.  That's why we chose to show here [at Matthias Dahlgren's restaurat] too, because Matthias works on both a local and global level. That's how I want the collection to be--more global.

You said that your collection was influenced by menswear this season, so what kind of menswear details did you incorporate?
The buttons, shirt collars, bags, and shoes are very masculine.  All those menswear details were things we added.  But we were also inspired by the mindset, all the men that we were inspired by this season were their own universe, so I wanted to have that mindset, with a very focused woman being the center of her own universe.

Would you ever consider doing menswear? 
Yeah, I am considering it! I would love to do it, but it will take a while because we can still dig deeper into what we are. I want to work a little bit now to focus on the design with the womanswear, and then we will move on to menswear.

I've also noticed that this season and last season you've incorporated more color and prints. Can you tell me more about the digital prints and the floral prints that you used this season?
Oh yeah, we wanted to have really rich prints so it kind of symbolized the rich lives that our icons were having, and the richness of their personalities. So it's kind of rich prints with a more structured outside. I like prints, even though that's not very Swedish.  I like prints when they are balanced, and when they're controlled and clean.

Do you have any plans of showing in New York.
I do a little in the back of my head. So we'll see, whenever we have a little more money, I would love to do it!

-Tiffany

Cheap Thrills

When David J. Krause and Nina Zilka founded their label, Alder, they decided take on a different approach, choosing to sell directly to the consumer via their online shop, rather than dealing with the boutiques and showrooms that act as middle parties.  The result is a small but vibrant collection of fun, well crafted clothes for a very reasonable price; most everything costs between $50-$200.  For spring, the designers created looks that fused two disparate influences: the colorful fabrics of Mexico City, and the classic tailored garments favorite by your average preppy society girl.  I love the resulting neon-infused basics, which add just the right amount of flair and eccentricity to outfits that you can wear everyday. 

-Tiffany