Check it out. Looking good.
www.fionagardenphotography.com

This Saturday local pop-surrealist artist Camilla D’Errico will be having a release party for a limited edition series of clothing, handbags and art prints at El Kartel. Starts at 9. Goes till late. Pop on by for a drink and some great and affordable Christmas gifts. Preview pics of some of the adorable wares for sale after the jump.

Tabitha Savoie is the local Fashionista who’s working hard to make sure you have something fresh to wear. Responsible for Togs and Two of Hearts, Tabitha took the time out of her crazy fashion schedule to have a chat about her Labels and top picks this Autumn and Winter Season. Make sure you check out their Sears Catalog inspired shoot it’s great!


Wow, two lines now. You must be busy? Is it hard to keep up with the strict deadlines of the fashion industry?
Yes. Two lines means twice the amount of work since each line is its own entity. It does help having a partner though. Somebody to share the work load with and help each other out. It’s always hard to keep up with industry deadlines. Also competition is fierce, everybody is fighting for their spot so you have to keep up with all the other companies.

What is you favourite thing about being a fashion designer?
I like the creativity of it. Having an outlet to create my artistic ideas. I also like building an image and telling a story through a collection. The actual design part is great as well. Finding and choosing which fabrics and notions you want to use for your collection and putting them together as a functional, sellable product. It’s quite the challenge. Lately fabric sourcing trips to Hong Kong have been an added bonus as well.

How was your experience showing at BC Fashion Week in The Generation Next Competition?
It was great! I thought it was very professionally put together and the turn out of people was great as well. The day of the show I had just rolled in from a repping trip in Seattle/Portland, so it was quite the whirlwind affair. One minute driving all day and the next minute being thrust in front of about 300 people answering questions about Two of Hearts. I didn’t even have time to change. Even though we did not win, I’m glad we were featured as finalists. It was overall a great experience.

The Autumn/Winter look book for Two of Hearts has an awesome Seventies theme. What was your inspiration for that?
We decided that we would use the Sears catalog as inspiration for the line. Since a few Seventies styles seemed to be coming back as a trend we just couldn’t resist than to go all out, photoshoot and all. I think it was a great way to stir up some extra attention for the launch of our new eco line.

What are the hottest pieces for this season?

TOGS CAMI Top: This top is just too cute. That is why I love it so. It’s casual and comfortable and goes great with your favorite pair of jeans.
Available at: DREAM, SHOP COCOON, PORTOBELLO WEST MARKET. (Price $69.00)

TOGS VERUCA Top: This is a great funky basic. Goes with just about anything and it comes in Mustard. It’s sure to become your favorite sweater of the season.
Available exclusively at: SPANK (Price $79.00)

TWO of HEARTS MAYA Top: This top has a very flattering shape and a really classic print.
Available at: TUTTA MIA, LIFE OF RILEY, PORTOBELLO WEST MARKET (Price $98.00)

TWO of HEARTS NANCY Top: This one is my favorite cause it’s a bit geek chic. Comes with a built in shirt collar. Cute!
Available at: LIFE OF RILEY, PORTOBELLO WEST MARKET (Price: $79.00)

TWO of HEARTS JOANNA Top (see first image): This top is great for lounging and great for the cold weather. Made out of a thick cotton terry it’ll be sure to keep you warm all winter. Comes with beautiful butterfly screenprint.
Available at:TUTTA MIA, LIFE OF RILEY, SPANK, PORTOBELLO MARKET WEST (Price: $90.00)

Now that the fabulous BC Fashion Week has come and gone, the dust has settled and it is time for a quick review of the hot looks and trends coming to a store near you this Spring 2009.

JACQUELINE CONOIR
Jacqueline Conoir was the season opener and sure set the bar with this show. The colour story started in a white fury with high waist pencil skirts to the knee some with flirty flounces The suit jackets and trenches were well tailored with a larger lapel, fitted waist and Seventies style front patch pocket.

Then black to contrast the white, Middle Eastern design details were introduced but still belted at the waist.

When the gray started, this little chic jacket came out looking so fresh with its wide lapel and 3/4 length sleeve. Let’s not forget to mention the trousers fitted at the waist with a large flair.

After the sportswear portion of the show the dresses were unveiled. They were beautiful, figure flattering and yet so easy to wear. The long empire waist silk dress is still a hot trend as well as the hand painted flowers and psychedelic prints. My personal favorite was the universe muumuu with the Aztec print piece underneath.

www.jcstudio.ca

JASON MATLO

Jason Matlo’s Glamazon show was presented at the new Vancouver hot spot, Pop Opera. This high-energy show had hints of Blade Runner mixed with gold, Asian inspired fabrics and design details.

Belted at the waist, with a little peplum, was the trend for this show. A classy mix of the early-Eighties and Forties, we see the wide leg trouser in full force.

Glamazon was a blast and the audience really loved it. There were mini breaks in the show where we would be entertained by this fabulous drag queen singing Madonna and whirling around the club like a fashionista tornado.

www.jasonmatlo.com

DUECE BY JASON DUSSALT
Apparently Jason didn’t make it to his own show because he was held up with Kid Rock in LA. Need I say more?

Fitted T-shirts with a dirty, gritty dye effect and burn out mixed with distressed denim gave a “Bad Boy” feel.

The masks were great and the ironic statement in large print on a T-shirt is a very hot trend.

This Saturday, September 27, between noon and five is Blim’s Fall Market. This is a sweet free event with the following artists showing their stuff: A Farmers Daughter, Andrea Tucker, Baby Elephant, basement sweet, Carny Love, Catching Stars, Clutch, District Thirty, Electric Housewives, Froma Sax, It’s Your Life, Pon, Re-up, Rita Leung, Robin Frizzle, Sea Star Creations, Track and Field and Wee Works.

Blim is located at 197 east 17th avenue.

bedford coat $240

Jude Feller launched the local brand Lily and Jae in Spring 2007. Since then she has taken North America by storm and now is stepping into the international market and headed for global domination, for sure. I got a chance to pop over to The Lily and Jae Headquarters for a fun little interview about her fall/winter 08/09 line.

What are your favorite trends for this season and why?
The Seventies silhouette. It is so figure flattering, like little top and bellbottom pants and the Nineties oversized concealing tops with a tighter pant. The contrast big with small it is really complementary to the concept of my brand.

What favorite store in Van and why?
The Block because everything is carefully selected. They have a good bag and shoe collection and carry sophisticated labels as well as emerging fun labels. It’s a versatile boutique.

kennedy dress $110

Tell us a tale about Lily and Jae’s travels?
We just returned for New York where we exhibited at Designers and Agents, an independent, international trade show of cutting edge fashion and lifestyle. Before that, Project in Las Vegas. Our booth set up was awesome, we made some fantastic new contacts and had a lot of fun.

What is your favorite part of going to these trade shows?
It helps to gauge the label’s growth and success. I look around and am like, “whoa I can’t believe I have made it this far/” It’s pretty overwhelming but you look around and see that there are so many brands out there. I am just another granule of sugar in the sugar jar.

What is the difference between your brand and all those other Brands?
Lily and Jae is an independent brand made in Canada. My brand stands out at these trade shows because it’s young and colourful and a full collection. Most of the other brands at theses shows are just jersey booths, just dresses, or t-shirts. Many companies don’t do full collections anymore.

rosedale raincoat $240

What are favorite pieces from this Fall collection and why?
The Rosedale Raincoat because its the perfect coat for all those trendy rain boots. The Grand Dress for it’s vintage silhouette that is flattering to the figure… and it’s versatile.

grand dress $220

What trends do you hate?
Hypercolour and leggings.

Before I leave you today would you bless us with a style tip?
Don’t wear it if it’s too tight!!

For your viewing and shopping pleasure check out www.lilyandjae.com

Lily and Jae is available at:
The Block
Eugene Choo
Fine Finds
Rain
Riot (formerly Raya)

View Larger Map

This Friday evening is ION Magazine’s third annual We Love FashION party. The party will run between 9 and 2 and will take place at Moe’s Furniture Warehouse which is located on 1729 Glen Drive (across for Home Depot). The music will be supplied by DJ Trevor Risk, the refreshments will be supplied by Bacardi, Okanagan Spring and Belvedere, the beautiful people will be supplied by you and your friends.

Tickets are available at the ION Magazine office located on the Third Floor of 300 Water Street. Or at Clubzone.

Tony got into art and fashion in an unlikely way, his English sucked. Unable to get into the University of British Columbia, he enrolled in the communication design program at Emily Carr. When he wasn’t studying, he was sneaking into the darkrooms and screenprint labs to hone his talents. After graduating he did a brief stint as a commercial designer in Hong Kong then returned to Vancouver. Fashion wasn’t the goal from the onset and he began making limited edition art prints, or “fucking exclusive” art prints as they’re called on the Wrongwroks website.

“I found out that paper was expensive so I printed on a whole bunch of Fed Ex boxes and anything I could flatten out. It started out as an art thing but then I got into fashion because people don’t buy the boxes. So I printed the same graphics on t-shirts.”

Wrongwroks streetwear is playful urban art brandalism, offering clever and cheeky apes of popular fashion lines like Supreme and Marc Jacobs or poppy cartoon characters like SpongeBob and Doraemon.

“When people first see my stuff they think it’s kind of fake and I’m ripping off someone. Like the Supreme logo or Doraemon. Japanese are really strict about counterfeits and it doesn’t exist in that culture. Later, when they pick up what it is though, boom, everyone wants it.” Demand overseas is so high that some shirts have been printing everyday in factories since last year. Wrongwroks is carried in stores all over Asia and is especially popular in the notoriously fickle Harajuku fashion district in Tokyo.

Much like the quintessential “big in Japan” artist/fashion designer, Kaws, Tony provides art and T-shirt junkies with a steady supply of familiar and delicious eye candy that one can’t help but buy. A jovial and likable Tony openly admits this much. Like Kaws, he’s trying “to do something in a style where people go, ‘Oh, I want it.’ But people don’t know why they want it. That’s the trick.”

While Tony is busy appropriating imagery for his designs, the companies he’s taking them from are paying close attention. Not just for legal reasons, though there have been a few, but for new ideas.
“They’ll use the same graphic and collaborate with a real company and make a whole bunch of clothes. With Doraemon they did the same thing as me except with no Adidas sneakers. I do that clothing, they do that clothing. I do a keychain, they make a keychain. The only difference is no Wrongwroks logo and no kicks. People think my stuff is everywhere, but no, that’s not mine.”

Tony doesn’t have any immediate plans to conquer North America with his line. All of Asia and parts of Europe are fine for now. “North America is cool but it’s not the biggest. It doesn’t matter where I sell. The more people who wear my stuff, the more happy I am.”

www.wrongwroks.com
All images courtesy of Wrongwroks.

New issue of Ion Magazine just went online. You should be able to grab a hard copy from the following locations by week’s end. This fashion heavy issue features articles on french music sensation Sebastien Tellier, country rock favs Eldorado as well as local artist designed shirt lines Rad Attack and Wrongwroks. You can download the full issue from this link.

What are you doing on August 16? Celebrating Stockwell Day or Rumer Willis’ birthday? Eating Halloumi, a delicious cheese that’s made from goat and sheep milk, to commemorate Cyprus gaining independence from the UK? That all sounds just fine but a way better idea would be to dress up like a zombie and lurch around the streets of Vancouver then attend a wicked awesome party at The Fall afterwards.

The Fall opened almost a year ago on 644 Seymour and it’s a pretty a slick tattoo and piercing parlour slash clothing store slash art gallery slash place to get artistically slashed (the correct term is ’scarification’ if you were wondering). On Saturday August 16, the knives and needles will play second fiddle to a daylong Zombie extravaganza. Between 9am and 4pm, makeup artists will be on hand to sufficiently zombify you for the Vancouver Zombie Walk. After you’re done freaking out tourists and old people, you can come back to The Fall for The Flesheaters’ Ball, an a all night zombie celebration with zombie themed art installations, live painting, a zombie fashion show and a whole lot of liquor. People without costume will be attacked and probably have something sharp shoved through their nose or eyebrow. If you cant make it out, the art show runs from August 14-17. Oh, and in case anyone asks you what your favourite zombie movie of all time is, the correct answers are George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead or Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2.

www.thefalltattooing.com

Check out the latest collaboration between your favourite local shoe store, Livestock, and your favourite local artist, Ben Tour.

Pics of some Livestock shirts that have been Toured after the jump.

Livestock has two locations:
239 abbott st (gastown)
604.685.1433
and
1709 west 4th ave (kitsilano)
604.568.1444

Livestock
Ben Tour

One of the niftier lines they’re launching is the Converse Music Collaboration, a series of shoes inspired by dead musicians like Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia and Ozzy Osbourne.

My favourite from the collection were these. It’s like getting four shoes from the price of two. Converse is going to make a fortune from selling laces this fall.

For making it in, Converse hooked me up with a glass of wine and a pair of these stylish Canvas Jack Purcells. If you didn’t know, Jack Purcell was a badminton champion from the Thirties. Badminton was really popular back then because they actually played with a live bird. I really liked them but ended up giving them to my girlfriend. Check her out in them.

People who are unintentionally ironic are a different story though. I do care about this one guy who wears a handmade hemp net over his clothes. If you saw this guy on the street and you might mistake him for a homeless person but he’s not—I’m pretty sure he isn’t even a hippy. He’s just likes wearing a net and has been doing so for years. He carries himself well and for that I salute him. He might have the best style in the country.

You might be spot a bunch of frat boys and catch yourself saying “Why haven’t the fashion police sniper squad taken these losers out with headshots already?” The reason is frat boys have great style if you look at it as an ironic statement. With their “Canada Kicks Ass” shirts, sandals and tribal arm band tattoos. Take these people out of the Tragically Hip concert and put them in a different setting and they’re the coolest dressed people in the room. If they only knew how wonderfully ironic their outfits were.

Irony can be your friend too if you’re mindful not to look like a try-hard. How about dressing as a Medieval bar wench chic? Roman eunuch? A bride on her wedding day? Goth, hippie, Shriner, or carnie? If you don’t fit into any of those groups, merely getting a tattoo on your face would work nicely as well. There are a thousand great new looks out there if you just put your mind to it. Just be careful not to take it too far or you’re asking for trouble. Allow me to cite Prince Harry and that time he dressed up like a Nazi for a laugh. A bit closer to home, I know a guy who picked a fight with another guy in a wheelchair because he thought it was some lame attempt at irony (the guy needed the wheelchair but that’s beside the point).

The next time fashion police come a knock knocking, answer the door wearing pants for a shirt, a shirt for pants and accessorize with shoes on your hands. Ironic fashion is the way to go, you just need to be clever. Some say sarcasm is the lowest form of humour. I say people who say that are boring to hang out with. That’s the only style lesson I can impart on you. That and Uggs are hella comfortable and you only make fun of them ‘cause you’re jealous. Jealous!

Despite this increased collective knowledge, anyone who throws paint on your clothes also spends time every morning deciding what they’re going to wear. We all have an image of ourselves that we want to project. Some want to look like a model. Some want to simply blend in. Some want to look like they don’t give a fuck what they look like. Ironically, the latter probably takes the most time out of the three to pull off. It’s inescapable unless you want to be like Albert Einstein and wear the same thing everyday.

But Einstein too cared about fashion. He said, “If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies… It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.” You should listen to this guy because he came up with the theory that made all three of the Back to the Future movies possible. If you were to ask Einstein about this statement today he would say nothing because he’s dead. But if he were alive, Einstein would agree that meat and wrapper should go hand in hand, one complimenting the other. (Statements always sound more credible when you include an “Einstein would agree.”) So by all means fix up and look sharp, but clothes shouldn’t make the man. Rather, they should enhance him. Enhance him till he is a remorseless and unstoppable party killing machine. Take the peacock. Did you know that,despite their beautiful plumage, the peacock has a naturally horrible disposition and is the loneliest creature in the entire animal kingdom? It isn’t, but think how blown away you’d be right now if it were.

Fashion is at the forefront of most cultural movements of any significance. Be it jazz, punk, hippy, grunge, hip-hop, Amish or Goth. Were the Goths a movement? I let that one slide but it’s debatable if wearing eyeliner and writing bad poetry in your “book of tears” could be considered a movement. What all these groups wore (and what the people who just won’t let it go still wear) is as important as anything they ever said.

I’ve racked my brain long and hard and the only place I could come up with where fashion isn’t relevant is prison. No one in prison gets made fun of for the outfit they’re wearing cuz criminals don’t get a choice. Discussions of why one decided to wear orange coveralls when in prison are rather moot as they’re forced to wear them. How bad ass your tattoos are and the speed at which you can make a shiv out of your lunch tray is what will get you props in “the yard” when you’re doing time.

But I can’t ever dress myself so what do I know. The majority of my week is spent wearing, or “rocking” if you will, Shady brand sweat-pants. They’re black, they have Shady patches all over them, they cost $30 and for some reason have a fly. I don’t really get the point of a fly on sweat pants. The main reason people wear sweats is they’re easy to put on and take off thus not really requiring a fly. But fashion doesn’t need to be functional and I’m not one to question Eminem’s design aesthetic either.