Filed under: Fashion, Misc. | Tags: Chair, collar, Colour, dinosaur, doodle, draw, elegant garage sale, Fashion, forever21, isabel marant, karen walker, Miu Miu, Necklace, Prada, rainbow thread, rhinestone, sea of shoes, sharpie, She Does The City, tatty devine, Tom Binns, Toronto, Vintage
Way back when (in 2009) I read a post over at Sea of Shoes that featured classically shaped furniture covered in canvas and drawn all over by kids. Alright, drawn all over by children, at a hospital, for charity; there was a cause. Well I found a chair for $50 over at the Elegant Garage Sale and had my own cause: to recreate that awesome Sea of Shoes chair.
It was a year before I actually started working on the project when I eagerly wrote a post about it here on this blog. I quickly ran into a problem. Not knowing any children and not really trusting any of them with my soon-to-be awesome chair I was begging my sister and friends to help me cover all the fabric in doodles. Adults can doodle for a while, but then our imagination runs out and someone threatens to scribble down a curse word and there goes that afternoon activity. Perhaps it’s needless to say that the chair sat with many a bald spot for months on end, but here I am saying (typing) it.
The chair, in all its incomplete glory, came in handy last year when I competed in BAM! – the She Does the City video contest. At the start of each video I wrote the corresponding title on the chair and it probably became the most memorable part because..who draws all over a chair? But after that, after I did not win the aforementioned contest, the chair became untouchable, almost sacred. Maybe I thought the chair was bad luck, maybe I’m just making excuses. The good news is that the chair is finally complete!
If you’re a jewelry connoisseur, comme moi, then you’ve seen the multitude of necklaces covered in rainbow thread, or the sudden over-accessibility of neon-coloured rhinestone collars — Tom Binns would be spinning in his grave, you know, if he were not alive. While I’m not necessarily jumping all over the trend (not shocking with my devotion to black) I like the idea of childhood whimsy behind it.
Rainbow thread brings me back to senior kindergarten when the coolest, most popular girl, Courtney, put rainbow thread in her running shoes and won all the boys’ fancy and clearly some of the girls’. Now my most favourite pieces reflect my childhood from my cat covered Miu Mius to my Cinderella-esque Pradas and most recently my navy and white Isabel Marants that look identical to my first pair of Spice Girls-era platform sneakers. Kitties, Disney, and Girl Power — my life as a little girl in a nutshell, now interpreted in high fashion.
Embrace your past and wear your inner-child on your neck. And maybe add a dinosaur, or two.
Rainbow thread necklaces: Forever21, rhinestone: vintage, sunglasses: Karen Walker, t-rex: Tatty Devine.
Filed under: Fashion | Tags: Arlena, Charlotte Olympia, Free People, French Connection, Rachel Leigh, Tom Binns
I have a housemate. His name is Ralph.
Ralph is a tiger.
Ralph loves shoes (and being straddled).
Ralph is a good sport.
So we gave Ralph a break.
Break over, pinned ya!
But deep down we love each other.
Free People dress, French Connection blazer, Tom Binns zipper necklace, Rachel Leigh drop necklace, Charlotte Olympia ‘Arlena’ shoes.
Filed under: Fashion | Tags: Britney Spears, Fashion, Jewelry, Perez Hilton, Tom Binns
Well I “LOL-ed” when I came up with that title, even if you didn’t. (I’m still “LOL-ing”…”LOLzing”…”LOL-ZING”?)
Picture this: I’m on an elliptical (stop laughing), I’m rocking out to Britney Spears (really, stop), and what do I see gracing the chest of the once bald and babysat popstar? One of Tom Binns most gorgeous creations that I have only ever indulged in during my spontaneous collage making. I know a lot of people like Brit, and I don’t really have anything against her, but since when is Britney Spears a fashion icon? Because if that’s what they’re trying to push, it ain’t working. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh. And I realize neon is kind of her thing, but this is the only form of neon I find acceptable, why must she ruin it for me?
yup.
To think Tila, an avid reader of Mr. Perez’s work, and a less avid listener of me, did not inform me of this Binns-phemy (LOL-ZING). I will say this though, it got me browsing online for the oh so pricey goodies, where I found my new (and yes, oh so pricey) favourite:
via Net-a-Porter
Filed under: Fashion | Tags: Alexander Wang, Chanel, Delettrez, Fairground, Fashion, Ineke Otte, Jeffrey Campbell, Mandy Coon, Tom Binns
Today I heard on TV that consuming is fine, it’s when it becomes over-consumption that we get stuck in endless circles of wanting which leaves us feeling unhappy. Well, no object has ever made me feel unhappy (except that one time a pair of them twisted my ankle, the devils) so I’m just going to continue with this post then skip in a field of daisies surrounded by my stuff. Singing. Moving on… I’ve been watching too much of the History Channel, I needed a break, I love Picnik, I did this:
Not my greatest creation, but my collage program is hard to use if you don’t get lucky and have pictures that magically work together. Nothing will ever beat Paint on Windows…the only part of my old Sony laptop (so humorously named “PinkTaco” cause she was pink and it’s a laptop – figure it out) that I miss. You can figure out that this is a wish list, I intend to wear the sandals with tights, ya know, should I acquire them. They’d just make me so tall! Scary tall! Awesome. The rest is pretty weather appropriate for the coming months so no explanation needed. Of course good ol’ Tom Binns makes another appearance now that the pieces of his I actually like are available online; thank you, Luisaviaroma and Net-a-Porter. Alright, back to neck straining chair drawing and the History Channel.
I do. I’ve written a bit more than a quarter of it…I have been brainstorming ways out. My best so far is handing in my essay from last term then playing the ditz, which could work on this guy if my top is low enough and my skirt high enough…I’ll mull it over.
The picture: (From The Sartorialist, check him out.)
Swoon.
Now I have tried to accomplish this look with various vintage and new sparklies and (having failed) decided it was not possible to pull off in real life! I was mistaken…obviously this woman is very skilled and has a great eye. That’s not to say I’m not very skilled or have a great eye, I’m just…awkward? Sure, why not. Okay, onto my solution! When I first tried to do the casual layered sparkle thing it was because I had just seen a gorgeous Tom Binns necklace and thought “I can do that”, I also thought “They definitely don’t have Tom Binns in Canada…” They do. At Holt Renfrew, of course. But it’s a very limited assortment. Before I get into that…Tom Binns:
Yeah, baby.
There is a “megastore” in NYC and I’m sure American department stores have much better selection and if you’re not into the over the top gemstone stuff you can find some of the more subdued pieces online, but unless you’re going somewhere chic in the states soon, it ain’t happening. (Long sentence.) I have emailed their International Sales department, because I’m that girl, so perhaps there will be hope! I feel like they won’t get back to me though. If I were a super chic, asymmetric, sparkly wearing, fashionable, cool person I would probably have better things to do than answer emails from a @queensu.ca address. In the meantime I’ll continue attempting to do it on my own, aka learning to be as cool as picture gal, and maybe I’ll post pictures of attempts…
P.S. Into Alice in Wonderland? The Tim Burton one? Tom Binns did a collection for it through Disney Couture which is available online…it’s not my thing, but it may be yours: Tom Binns’ “Down the Rabbit Hole”.
I wear black 