chanel exhibit in central park

Yeyyh! On Nov. 4th I have a reservation (thanks to my hubs, who was experienced and savy enough to book wayyy in advance. By now all tickets - which were free - are "sold" out) to see this "Star Trek”-style spacecraft, which temporarily lands in Central Park (from Oct. 20 to Nov. 9.) and houses art from artists recruited for the project including Sophie Calle of France, Sylvie Fleury of Switzerland (who is a idil vice fashion fan since the very beginnings), Subodh Gupta of India and the Russian collective Blue Noses.

Each was asked to create a work that was at least in part inspired by Chanel’s classic 2.55 quilted-style chain handbag, so named because it was first issued in February 1955.

I will be reporting my own view after I have seen the exhibition, but as this is exiting, I can't wait until then and have to show you a couple of images I found in the NYC tabloids...


An aspect I'd rather don't think of too much is, is that Chanel will pay the city a “use fee” of $400,000 (not that we do not need it, but it is only a sad fact that the sluggish economy puts the city up for sale further). It's advertising for the French brand, needless to say.


In an interview, which was done on opening night a couple of days ago, Karl Lagerfeld did not seam very happy about the exhibition and kept mentioning that "it is too tight here... too many people, too much art and not enough space"... well, we'll see!

The convergence of art, architecture and fashion is common place these days. A Louis Vuitton bag designed by the artist Richard Prince is constantly spotted on the streets of New York, Basel and London. The Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s creations for Louis Vuitton were sold in a special shop that formed part of a Murakami retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The architect Rem Koolhaas has helped define the look of Prada shops, and Frank Gehry recently designed a line of jewelry for Tiffany & Company.

“Art is art. Fashion is fashion,” Mr. Lagerfeld said. “However, Andy Warhol proved that they can exist together.”

love this stuff

A hand made leather silk screened bag and a cut out collar necklace which I could not believe...! I just adore the internet as it allows me to find these kind of things made by someone creative somewhere in Ireland?? Got to love it! Next week I'll tell you where to get this stuff. Not now. Otherwise it may sell out before I get my hands on it ;-)

fall winter 09/10

Can you believe it? We are already 10 years into the new millennium.. at least in the fashion designers mind... yeah, I know most of us are still unsure which jacket or coat will be purchased in a couple of weeks and you wonder if you should indeed go for the bright orange version or stick with the more subtle gray or - god forbid - black again!!

Well, that I will leave entirely up to you, but if you have to get a tip: go with the orange.

So, as this blog is about the life and work of a fashion designer, I am going to explain why and how we are already 10 years into the millennium.

First, we need to plan ahead because we need time to come up with, sample, sell, show, produce and deliver a collection in time, and that process takes exactly 1 year.

Right now we are figuring out what the mood will be... it's like the stock market, really, you bet on a look, a feel, a silhouette, a color.. if you choose the wrong one, you can loose big money.

So you got to be careful, a bit, not too much, because you don't want to seam watered down and you still need to make a mark and be ahead and stand apart of your competition, so this is not always easy, especially if you do this over and over again, every season.

Now, I have mentioned before that these may be the times of the end of trends and indeed it's hard to pin down anything, as really everything goes and you must go with your guts!

Trend agencies are also consulted, listen to the laguage and what they are talking about:

Relying on knowledge and adopting stimulating trajectories. Sparking unusual reactions and bouncing back with creative mechanisms, to project oneself into a radiant future. Exploiting interdependent chain sequences, playing with identifying visual markers and wittily distorting them. Moving forward in time and imagining sensitive and concrete answers to create new linkings and new silhouettes.

Although vage, it sounds nice. I like to let myself put into the mood. And there is more philosophy:

Connecting sense to reason, approach to intuition, and joining in a pertinent forward thinking attitude. Openly considering the most daring initiatives, and relying on a thoughtful examination to make considered choices, and lasting commitments. Ambitiously anticipating, to project oneself into a positive outlook and invent a better world.

Gotta love that! I think anyone could use this as a inspiration for any day ahead...and here a bit more specific:

Studying a pure and generous design. Connecting roundness and angularness, precision and suppleness in patterns, fabrics and clothing. Developing volumes through fabrics with the easy-to-handle solidity, of massive and softened cottons, the flexible thickness, of stretch double faces and dense milanos, the consistent suppleness of silks and mouldable broadcloths. Moving away from rigidity and rounding out the angles, softening the geometry, structuring in arabesques and favouring the curvilinear with moving fabrics, with a woolly lightness and controlled vivacity.

...and even more:

PRINTS neo-camouflage: enlarged or fragmented pixellisations. folklore, two-tones, mini-florals: inked as if overdyed or bleached out. forest-like vegetation: mysterious or nearly surrealistic.


So with all this in mind, you're going to the drawing board and put it down in your own way! That is the initial process, the first touch and thought of a new collection.

blythe rocks!

....check out the goth, emo, punk rock blythe!

... she rocks!

hope is smart

...hope is smart!

girls night out

I love to get out there and have my picture taken! This was another one of those girls nights out in the town... As a designer it is important to be out and alive, take part in the scene, chat, discuss, even if it is not always about fashion. If you don't do it, you get disconnected and you loose the edge and that is bad for your business.

...some people go too far...

halloween

I always felt uneasy on Halloween days and nights, not because of the countless monsters running around the streets (on the other hand, it's hard to forget what it felt like being bombarded with raw eggs one year as I stepped out of my studio space, then in the "dangerous" East Village) but because I felt like everyone was jumping on my train and looked flashy all of a sudden! And my opinion is, to not need "a" day to wear what ever you want, as this should be the case every day.

But I still suggest you are "dressing up" in your favorite horror costume and get out!

... here's my favorite event flyer!

multilingual

As I am multilingual, Native Swiss (from the German part) living and working in the USA for a decade and a half, English being my now second language (you be the judge, read my blog), speaking fluent Italian and just about well French, some words in Spanish and Turkish, I am thinking of adding another language to this blog... German, ja, das tönt wirklich nicht schlecht, neh, that way I won't have such a hard time anymore when I return to good old Switzerland speaking Swiss German. I am searching for words sometimes and das geht ja nun wirklich nicht, denn ich bin ja Schweizerin und natürlich stolz darauf! Also ja, jetzt ist es raus und ich werde mich bemühen diese Übersetzungen zu machen, wenigstens teilweise, huh? Bis bald auch auf Deutsch, gell?

Falls ich das dann manchmal vergesse oder eben einfach keine Zeit dazu habe dann übersetze den Text doch einfach selbst hier:

dictionary

recycled t-shirts

That's right! A while ago I have registered the domain RecycledTshirt.com and I am pretty sure that that was a very, very good move as I will soon add another online business to my repertoire... and the name says it: T-shirt Recycling!

The idea is to finally, officially offer my customers to take the chance and hand over their old collection of fabulous T-Shirts and let my design team work them into some pretty amazing "new" pieces. There will be a bunch of styles to choose from, so get ready for some really exiting One-Of-A-Kind fashion!

I started taking this process (recycling) to a complete new level, when in the early 1990's (the age of the Tank Girl and girly fashion) I was searching for tight fitting t-shirts - without success (really, there weren't any fitting t-shirts for woman at all and if you were a trend setter in those same shoes, you know what I am talking about) - and whilst shopping in the children's departments, I decided to just make the XXL t-shirt which I adored, but which looked ridiculously hideous on me, into a fitted garment. Over the years I have become very professional at this craft of patchworking!

I am also taking full credit for inventing the t-skirt, a skirt made from a t-shirt.

This is a recent dress I made for one of my private clients (who saw my surf t-shirt dress, which I published here a while ago) who is currently putting together her collection of old Grateful Dead shirts for an up coming new recycling project.

t-shirt recycling service available soon on T-ShirtRecycling.com

obama as seen in nyc

Getting closer to the finish line... here some more impressions from around town:

made in africa

Designers listen up!

Xoomba is an organization who is working to integrate organic and fair trade solutions in Africa.
It makes sense. Africa can jump ahead of developed nations, weighted down by missing renewable energy infrastructures, already in place there!

I'd love to put a tag on my clothing that says: Made in Africa with organic sustainable materials!

Xoomba's goals are to keep production from raw materials to finished products in West Africa to maximize profits for the local communities and follow fair trade standards in every step of the production. An overwhelming amount of raw materials flies out of Africa without benefiting local economies (eg. 97% of Mali's cotton leaves the country in it's raw state).

It's simply been too long that subcontractors for large companies such as Gap and Nike have supported sweatshops and exploited children.

The garment industry has become too globalized with materials traveling every which way in the process of becoming a garment.

So, I know this is short notice, but you should check out tonight's line up at Galapagos in Brooklyn! Map!

XOOMBA Launch Benefit, tonight at 8PM, $15. Buy tickets!

This is an initiative to work in some of the world's poorest countries to reverse the negatives of the conventional garment industry.

Who if not us the designers and producers should listen and take action?

Tonight, performers will include Nils Nusens and his Viking Funk band, with special guests Perplex, and the incredible vocalist M (Madwoman). Famoro Dioubate, from Guinea, will also perform on balofon as a special guest for the evening.

African food, bissap (Hibiscus tea from Senegal), and Customized cookies from SUGARBUILT will also be sold for this cause.

fashion rocks inspires

Y'all know about my collection "Fashion Rocks" which features our all-time favorite icons in music and pop culture. When I walk around the city, I am constantly stopped by random people who point out that they know this brand... it's exiting - to tell you the truth - exhilarating, when people recognize my stuff (when I see them wearing it, it's a bit weird, 'cause they hardly ever wear it the way I would). So yes, while I have been aware that I'm inspiring to other people, I am inspired back when I see my influence all around town...


..this girl was rockin' Sid Viscious on a bag and wore punk type style clothing, btw saw this on pier 66 in this really cool hippie-ish restaurant/bar called "Frying Pan" on the West Side highway (looks more like a place in Berkeley, California ((most politically liberal city in the US)), if you know what I mean), snack on some burger or beef chili and enjoy the sunset after your stroll through the gallery dirstict...

... not only on the streets my "Fashion Rocks" collection has found followers but also online... check this out, the other day I found this:

...blythe in an elvis dress inspired by idil vice!!

Lovely! I say.

harold hunter

The kid from my old block and the movie "Kids". Professional skateboarder Harold Hunter, for those who did not have the sweet luck to know him. A early morning in 2006 I bumped into him - and his skateboard - at the 46th Street Salvation Army thrift shop, after not seeing him for about 6 years or so. He was like: "Heyyy, how you doin'?" I'm fine, I said, it's been a while hasn't it? "Yeah, that's right! You still livin' on Ave B?" Nooo, moved out down to Franklin Street years ago... and so we carried on a short conversation about our time back in the days and then moved on with our day... A few days later he was found dead in his apartment, just around the corner where I met him last. Cocaine overdose.

Well let me tell you, this kid was unique and special and should not have died a death like this, I was flabbergasted!!

...harold checking out the royal sneakers he was advertising for, an assignment shot by my hubbs carl posey...

...harold and his beloved skateboard in action...

He was a cool kid indeed, known for his role in that movie "Kids" - which made him famous - and for his endorsement for Zoo York, a local skateboard company who backed him early on. He was always wearing Zoo York. I remember that I told him to stop wearing these things and start sporting some idilvice. I was seriously thinking about making him some outfits but - I regret - never actually did. We met on the street in the East Village in 1994, where we both lived and although we had different friends and lives we always gave each other props and respect! I guess he was flirting with me a little bit...as he did with a lot of girls!

So, he was known for inventing a very unique skating style and came up with moves know as: Feeble Grind, Nollie Heel, 360 Ollie, Switch Crooked Grind and a few more. He detested haters and always reminded them that while they were so passionately hating, they would not get anywhere in the meantime... "Don't Hate, Participate!" was his slogan.

So sad to see him gone and NYC has become much less cool for sure - We dearly miss him!

...this is my tribute shirt for harold, available for Spring 2009... although sadly he won't be wearing it now - you can!

must see snl spoof

Look, I know this is primarily a blog about fashion, but nowadays politics are so important that there is no way to get around them even in my profession.

In case you missed last Saturday's SNL, here it is: Don't you miss this hilarious spoof of the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin! Watch it now... FYI, this is Saturday Night Live - not the real thing - yeah, I know, it comes darn close! A rare opportunity here to catch up as it has already been taken off You Tube!

Seen the debate last night? You know who needs to be the next president of the United States then...

...another sweet debate! and I love the pictures! they match my blog! photos courtesy of carl posey.

switzerland in nyc

Now, I've been blessed. Truly. To be embraced, as a young woman doing my own thing, by so many. There seams not to be much I can do wrong. Even back in the day, when I suggested that sneakers should be worn with evening gowns or after I said: "the heck with a serious fashion show" and started break dancing on the runway, they still celebrate me, as one magazine put it: "The Most Important Invention After Color TV!" Got to love it!

The Swiss press in particular is always there to put the word out about their Swiss fashion export (me!) and this past Sunday, Switzerland's "People" magazine "Schweizer Illustrierte" or "Switzerland Illustrated", was in NY to find out what I am doing and wearing in 2008...

Here are just a couple of behind the scenes pics, courtesy of Carl Posey.

...photographer herve lecnuff, writer/journalist nina siegrist and idil vice chillin' in front of the NYC skyline after work!

...we've got to do this again, idil...


...o.k. I've got the shot!


...cool pic, herve!

...nina puttin' it down in words...

So get ready for some very exiting picture story in "Schweizer Illustrierte" with - I can't give away too much!! - but here a few clues: An Alphorn in the Meatpacking District, an original Zurich Dirndl in front of Pastis, high heels, colorful clothes and a new version of the traditional "Kitchen-Shoots" with my Hubs!!