Jane Austen's Fight Club

Where the seventies went to die

Leaving aside the black lipstick and Ziggy Stardust makeup (oh, dear!), this dress from Los Angeles-based fashion collective Beauty Is Pain is made of old vinyl 45s, each one carefully cut into just the right shape to impale the poor model when the she finally succumbs to the toe-crushing pressure of her high-heeled platform boots and tries to sit down. Truly an outfit for only the most dedicated of fashion victims…

The rest of the photoset at LA Weekly is well worth viewing, too, ranging as it does from the “Oh, that’s nice!” to the “Oh, my god!”, and all points between.

Oh, no, my hayfever!

Seen on the glossy fashion blog ecouterre (too hip to have a capital letter, it seems), a “living dress” spawned by the unholy mating of a clothes designer and a landscape architect.

Made from recycled bicycle inner tubes and whatever blooms can be stolen from gardens and window boxes, the creators intend that the dozens of water-filled “vases” are populated with the flowers of the season, leaving me to ponder not only what one does when summer fades into autumn, but also the excitement that is sure to come from the inevitable attentions of bees, aphids and passing hummingbirds.

Now, if somebody would please pass me a Claritin?

Victoria’s Secret take note

Wikipedia continues to impress as the ultimate fount of all knowledge and wisdom, a reputation reinforced by an article on 19th century Vaudeville act The Barrison Sisters, billed as The Wickedest Girls In the World.

“In their most famous act, the sisters would dance, raising their skirts slightly above their knees, and ask the audience, "Would you like to see my pussy?" When they had coaxed the audience into an enthusiastic response, they would raise up their skirts, revealing that each sister was wearing underwear of their own manufacture that had a live kitten secured over the crotch.”

I’m not sure there is anything that I can add to that.

Thermoplastic Chainmail

3D printers (sometimes called replicators or fabricators) use various techniques to create complex shapes from molten or powdered plastics, and now their operators are turning their attentions to the ripe possibilities for couture.

In best Star Trek fashion replicated garments are created in exactly the right size and shape, without need for tailoring or wasted materials, and as with most emerging technologies we are assured that the possibilities are endless. Current techniques either use knotted “stitches” that are an affront to the gods of topology, or linked pieces resembling chainmail - assuming that medieval artisans had access to wire in disco-era dayglo colours, that is.

Making clothes in this way is not a new idea, even outside science fiction, with work by pioneering designhaus Freedom Of Creation dating back ten years or more, but as the fabricators themselves are spreading from the big R&D labs to the basements of physics geeks, there is a growing chance of encountering homebrew implementations of such couture at the cons and fairs. The reception that these pioneers receive, of course, will remain to be seen…

Say it with flowers

The Guardian's fashion editor does floral print.

Re-design

Well, how do Folks like the Bridesmaid's new dress? And can anyone explain why some of the YouTube screen stills don't show up, or disappear after a second or two (though they can be played)?

Be-ribbonning the Parasol

The making of a fantasy book cover, in less than two minutes. Looks like a book (and series) readers of this blog might enjoy.

Imprisoned in bubbles

1963 is often hailed as the year that US designers first provided serious competition for the Paris ateliers of Chanel, Lagerfeld and the other established names, and it has to be said that some of creations featured in this photoset from Harper’s magazine may have contributed to the decline of the old guard:

So maybe that is why fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky elected to seal his models into large Perspex bubbles and float them over the streets of Paris, perhaps hoping that some of them would be carried away by the wind and lost forever. Note also his attempt to incinerate a particularly garish little hoop-necked polkadot number with the aid of an itinerant fire-eater, an endeavour that sadly proved unsuccessful…

Lie down with snakes, stand up with… uh… snake mites

The final collection of the late Alexander McQueen features these wonderful scaled ankle boots, so serpentine that it is hard to tell where the couture ends, and the model and the snakes begin:

Also of note in the collection are shoes so baroque that any steampunk heroine would retire weak-kneed to her cogwheel-emblazoned chaise longue at the very sight of them, and what is surely the most surly group of models ever assembled in one place. Even in the photo I can actually feel  the waves of emotion radiating from them, ranging from derisive contempt all the way to contemptuous derision, and one can only assume that they were specially selected for their ability to frown and pout.

Holy handbags, Batman!

At Funky Downtown, this season’s must-have arm-candy.

The Batbag is truly a classic…

But then, so is the pound of minced beef, the armadillo, the bolt-on chicken feet, the donut (complete with handcuffs, for reasons best known to the designer), and the wedge of cheese… Oh, I just can’t choose!

Perhaps pride of place should go to what appear to be hollowed-out cane toads, though, each one with a look of considerable annoyance frozen forever on its wrinkled little face. It is hard to imagine couture that demands a preserved toad as an accessory, but evidently the taxidermist was prepared to answer a question that nobody else had dared to ask – what it must be to have such vision!

Albanian Eurovision entry long and romantic (the dresses, that is)

(Via.)

Where Gothic Lolitas go to snark

For everything there is a Livejournal community, and there are plenty of communities dedicated to one aspect or another of Gothic Lolita fashion. I just joined one today. wtf_burando is dedicated to:

...that one thing. That thing that makes you question how much glue the designers sniffed before setting out to create it. The thing that makes you ask the lolita gods what sin you have committed to bring this monstrosity into the world. Hats in the shape of cakes. Prison jumpsuits. Cat ear headdresses. This is the place to discuss it.

Wallpaper company Cole and Son has a new range out based on the iconic fabric designs used by Vivienne Westwood, and she has produced some frocks from the wallpaper! The squiggle print, above, from the early 80s, is one of my favourites, but there are many more in the gallery at the linked site.

Seasonal Swaying

24,000 LEDs

Really, 24,000 LEDs to make a dress.

Ballkleid

What we'll be wearing in the year 2000!

Aww...

In honour of St Valentine's Day, and via the ever-fascinating English Russia, we bring you Russian brides!



The same site has some nice Soviet fashion pics.

'Where fashion meets fanwriting,' indeed

There's recently been a ferocious, fannish debate (not the first, evidently) about Krull. For me, one of the highlights of the movie was Lysette Anthony. When I first saw it I was convinced I'd seen her before, and after a while I remembered: she was photographed by David Bailey for the cover of a copy of Brides that my wife got before our wedding.

Aptly enough, the costume Lysette Anthony wore in the movie became an actual Alfred Angelo dress: