susie bubble style

susie bubble, photograph by nick hartley

If you have not had a chance to meet or know about Susie Bubble, you are not much of a fashionista nor are you that knowledgeable about what's happening on the fashion blog front. Without a doubt: You are missing out.

...susie posing on her balcony in london...

You can thank me now for hooking you up with this post about this ever so stylish and savvy fashion blogger Susie Bubble (a friend in primary school started calling her that, because she saw her living in her own kind of world - a bubble!). You could be a changed person after you learn about her blog Style Bubble because I know for a fact that you will be tempted to check it out weekly until you realize that she is posting in such a tempo that if you don't wanna miss too much, you should actually check in daily.



There is so much to say about Susie, here is what she says about her interests:

Interests are overrated BUT since I have to occupy my oodles and oodles of time with some kind of activity I guess I have to say shopping for all the things that make me happy: 5 pound vintage dresses, macaroons from Laduree, Amelia's magazine, Penguin Classics anniversary books, feathers and lace, shoes with a good sturdy heel and shimmery make up. I like eating anything with red beans, garlic butter and nuts (not necessarily all at once). I like seeing films that have killer lines, killer gigs, art shows with killer paintings or artists with killer instincts and all things killer. Oh, and I like looking at the sea, because the sea likes looking back at me!!



Fun - I know - but I personally think she is absolutely at her best with her own style of which she is constantly taking pictures (she claims the photographer is her BF (boyfriend??) but I have yet to see a picture of him anywhere on her blog... so....) however she does it; that picture taking; she has yet to run out of options of style combinations...

Yeap, she has a humongous closet - must have!!? At one point after London Fashion Week ((that is where the Hong Kong born - mostly mistaken for being Japanese or Korean by her fellow Hong Kong'ers - lives and works (for Dazed Digital) when she is not blogging or rather the other way around...)), being a self declared neat freak, she evaluated her outfits for each day of Fashion Week and came up with this graph:



I was impressed. It categorizes the percentages of types of sources of her clothing worn during a run of about 2-3 weeks. I think this is about the perfect balance of the mix of sources which everyone of us should have: it supports a very unique kind of look because you bring together so many different pieces. Needles to say, you should have a very good eye for things when you shop like this, and you will still have to put them together in some way.

Anyway, Susie managed and has been managing her looks just fine, see for yourself:



...now it's about time you headed over there and check out all of her endless incredible styles and her observations of trends and any fashionable happening in London and elsewhere!

Salve Susie!
All photos courtesy of Style Bubble.

lil' kim wearing my shirt

Woha! I just saw this picture online: Queen Bee in my chiffon bow shirt! Hot!! She looks like Michael Jackson??!! Lil' Kim truly rocks though...

...me in my black bow shirt, photo Carl Posey...


...my pima bow shirt...
...read my post about my favorite piece of clothing ...


...me in my white pima cotton bow shirt...

...what a bow shirt day! :)

to be posted bin

I am currently bound to my bed with a sinus infection. Don't worry about me though, it comes around every 2- 3 years or so and after gallons of hot tea and that Mucinex medicine or my favorite Sudafed Non-Drying, which brings the whole headache into a flush of slime running down from your hurting head... well, I am sure you don't want to hear the whole picture, it'll make YOU sick.

So, I am already a few days into this cold and I start to be able to think again and this is a good time to go through my "to be posted' bin of stories I have not been able to put out yet.

So let's see...

...here are a few more recent Etsy treasuries which include some of my Fashion Rocks items:

...the rock 'n' roll treasury featuring my elvis presley cotton rockabilly gypsy dress...




...the mod treasury featuring the nico the velvet underground portrait print sheath dress...



...eyeball treasury with my the residents mr. eyeball with top hat printed skirt...




...the renaissance treasury featuring the elvis presley face printed petticoat skirt...

Look at some more treasuries featuring Fashion Rocks items.

Hopefully you enjoyed this little post and forgive me for laying back down a bit, in order to cure my cold, in the hopes that I will be back a 100% tomorrow or shortly after.... hatchiiyya!

top what..??! shop??!

Just when we thought we did not have any more money to spend....

...illustration jo ratcliffe...

...here comes Topshop - an English 80's inspired retailer - to one of the most famous shopping miles in the world: good old Broadway! Watch out H&M and AA.

making sound suits

In a time when we are hardly making anything ourselves anymore and when handy creative people are increasingly harder to come by, a time when we urgently should go back to do exactly that, recycle, reuse and be inventive, combine our knowledge and passions and find our own way to express ourselves. Here is someone who is getting attention doing that.

Chicago sculptor Nick Cave is preparing for the brand new exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.


Over the last decade Mr. Cave has become known for making colorful, extravagant sculptures with this kind of double life: they can stand alone in galleries as visually compelling art objects, or they can be worn by dancers as vehicles for sound and movement. He calls them Sound Suits. Some are durable; others more fragile. But all, based on the human body, look as if they could easily spring into motion. The potential for dance is implicit in all of them.




“When you’re raised by a single mother with six brothers and lots of hand-me-downs, you have to figure out how to make those clothes your own,” he said. “That’s how I started off, using things around the house.” (He apparently took after his oldest brother Jack, a Chicago designer. As he installed his show, Mr. Cave wore a Gaultier shirt paired with one of his brother’s designs: a pair of long shorts made of conservative gray fabric with a flashy sport stripe running down the sides.)

He learned to sew at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he was a 1982 graduate. He described his first garment as “very flamboyant pants and shirt with a harlequin sensibility.” He said textiles immediately interested him for their expressive potential.

But then so did dance. During college he began studying dance through an Alvin Ailey program, training in Kansas City during the year and New York one summer. “I was always interested in movement,” he said, “but I knew I didn’t want to devote myself exclusively to dance. I wanted to bridge dance and art.”



The extravagant ornamentation, colors and textures also connect the Sound Suits to tribal cultures. For instance in fashioning a piece out of doilies, he said, “I might be thinking about Kuba cloths, Haitian voodoo flags or Tibetan textiles.”

New York curator Dan Cameron, in an essay for the show’s catalog, cites connections to the “social sculpture” of the artist Joseph Beuys, the legacy of the drag queen Leigh Bowery in the London underground performance scene and the ornate costumes of African-American Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans.

Whatever you see in it - or don't - to me the suits also look like high fashion, something that Alexander McQueen designs or Jean Paul Gautlier or John Galliano would come up with for that matter.

I love bess

Sorry, how can I talk about Doc's and not tell you about BESS!??!

Next time you are over on Lafayette Avenue go to Bess. The morbid shop, located in the same spot where Keith Haring's Pop Shop used to be (it's still the same shop, without the Haring wall paintings!!). BTW, I was very pleased to see this specific shop set up there after the departure of Pop. At least it was not a Starbucks or a Duane Reade!! Wewh!

...the bess store front, it's the inside that counts...


...carl posey cover shot of the the alkaholiks taken for rap pages inside keith haring's pop shop in 1995, a classic!

They, of course have whatever your punk heart desires. At a high price, it's understood, but if you are not savvy in studding up your own boots, you get a perfectly original version here...

(Note to Damien Hirst: this might actually be the spot where to purchase an original The Clash t-shirt or other true punk fare - if you must -, it's real here. Why opt to spend $200.000 on the net, where it's fake? I am still not over that stupidity.) Read my post about how Damien Hirst got punked...



I adore this shop, needless to say. I even walk by at night and am intrigued to take some pics of the windows...




..they got a whole bunch of curiosities... these studded moccasins are going to be the hit of this Summer, I am sure.



...especially since some very famous clientele has started wearing that stuff...

Here is model and style icon Erin Wasson:

...erin in one of bess's motorcycle jackets...

...and I saw lou dillon with one of these jackets the other day...

So, yeah Bess rocks, no matter what all the haters say (..too expensive and all, get outta here!) Be happy that someone is knowledgeable about this stuff and actually sells it to you! (They will actually tell you they are sold out if you keep bugging them about the price) And hey, you should know me, I got a challenge for y'all: why don't you stud your own jacket and boots... you can buy the studs here... good luck!

the good old doc's

...cassandra (the fire red haired jersey punk girl) wearing her own combat boots, photo carl posey...

I don't know how you feel about this but I am just not the kind of girl anymore who can wear high heels for prolonged periods of time (we are not the glam girls we pretend to be, we actually got though jobs). Don't tell me these high heels were made for walking! Sure, I could and I do, if a look requires a longer/slimmer silhouette (that's what it's about, on photo shoots and the runway they are still a must), but only then. For every day, there are plenty of other great looking, less testing options.

I can assure you, the days when I put the heels on my feet and pack the comfy sneakers in the my purse are counted. And so are the times when I bring band aids in case I get a blister. I just don't feel that it's necessary to go through that organization every time. And the lord knows I got enough stuff to carry 'round!

Besides, have you not heard that we are heading back to high boots (over the knee) and flats and Creepers and Doc Martens boots? Well, get with it girl and if you are one of the lucky ones who got a perfectly worn in pair in the closet: PULL 'EM OUT!!?!

...cassandra again with her own perfectly worn in originals, wearing the ramones punk tribute dress, photography by carl posey...

Now, you may want to polish those dusty suckers up a bit with some DIY styling:

Be inspired! Or - if you are not the crafty type - how about this rubber version from Ilse Jacobsen? They come in navy, red or black. They rock!


...so don't tell me you didn't have any options, 'cause you have!

gothic patches

Obviously there is a lot of Gothic inspiration going on as of late, not only am I including prints of goth artists in music, but I have recently been doing some embroidery too.

Here are a couple examples to been seen patched on Fashion Rocks clothing soon...

did i say goth?

Well, yes. I said it was all around me, did I not? Here we go with some Nordic goth from Scandinavia which is happening right now:

Ingmar Bergman may be dead, but his spirit lives on in Sweden. After a couple of decades of the Swedes trying to be upbeat, morose has become chic again. In particular, a group of young women are promoting a sexy new gothic vibe that seems inspired by horror movies and long dark winter nights.

...hanna liden’s images exude a raw and primal sense of threat and fear...

Hanna Liden (above)
The Sweedish-born New York-based art photographer (and Whitney Biennial alumna) Hanna Liden works with ominous imagery of strange figures in stark and barren landscapes that exude a raw and primal sense of threat and fear. She is also preparing to direct her first horror movie.



Helena Horstedt
The fledging designer Helena Horstedt creates extremely elaborate, all-black clothes for women that look as if they’re costumes for a sexed-up remake of “The Seventh Seal.” Her collections have names like Broken Shadow and the Black Whole and are made-to-measure in her Stockholm studio.


Hanna Hedman
The jewelry artist Hanna Hedman’s debut collection of floor-length oxidized metal necklaces and synthetic twig brooches is called Enough Tears to Cry for Two and is based on feelings of loss and grief and artifacts of mourning, including condolence letters and decaying flowers.

Karin Dreijer
Formerly the Knife, the electronic musician Karin Dreijer just released an album as Fever Ray. It’s a dark and moody record in which a voice transmitter makes her voice sound male and ghoulish. The video for the single “If I Had a Heart” shows children floating on a dark river and wandering through an abandoned castle.

paris fashion week

...paris fashion week attendee...

broadcast yourself

"Broadcast Yourself", an new exhibition at Pratt Manhattan Gallery (April 1st - May 2nd), will address the issues of power and control extended by traditional media outlets in contrast with the do-it-yourself attitude pervasive in the tech-savvy younger generation. Symposium panelists will also speak to the impact that radio and television can have in shaping the events of our time; how artists can directly engage, challenge, or subvert the structure and authority of broadcast media; and how our culture is shaped by the actions of individuals and artists.

...sweet independence..

This is a first of it's kind show and goes for anyone. In my profession and most others, Internet-savvy kids or young adults can completely surpass any traditional methods of marketing themselves and their art or their commercial business. Do you grasp what that means?! You finally get to do and say exactly what you want and you can show and say it directly to consumers worldwide via laptop, cell phone, TV, etc.

I am waaaayyy pumped about this development because it will and has already changed the whole geography of what will be consumed and how. The younger generation is on the steering wheel and it becomes more squeaky clear every day.

Why is Barack Obama president now? Because he is a part of that new generation and he had the knowledge and the desire to change the world and he was able to be elected with the help of some of the tech geniuses of our time. It doesn't get any better than that. It shows what is possible now - let that recession end and pay back that debt (Obama still has to get it right. Why not start a whole new banking system, instead of fixing this toroughly broken one?) and this new reality will be prominent - but it is already going on no matter what. It's 2009 do you know what Analytics is??

We finally can decide our own future and become (I guess more or less) independent of the mob. So watcha wait'n for??