(not so) random links

halloween is almost here, people! i feel like i wear a costume every day (i'm dressed as/am impersonating myself, natch!), so i don't often feel the desire to go crazy with the costumes and halloween stuff, but YOU can! my 2007 halloween suggestions for you include:

-this senator larry craig mugshot mask (via boing boing)

-or perhaps this michael jackson fright mask (oooh!! SCARY!!) (also via boing boing)

-woof! meow! (via swissmiss, via whip up)

-or these DIY options with directions delivered via video, from threadbanger: fairy wings, a mummy, and a pirate (ARRR!)...

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-ever fancied the idea of making your own street fashion website, so you can celebrate who and what is haute in your hometown? laura of tagtraeumerin runs tragfläche (leipzig, germany), and has recently made a post addressing that very subject, how to make a street fashion website. thanks, (again) laura!

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"it shows how much people are inspired by real people and don't follow blindly what magazines say"-yvan rodic of facehunter, in a NYLON magazine q&a with the social/street fashion photographers hailed at the from the street to the night exhibition, at colette in paris

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make your own simple yet sassilicious hair do-hickies, with the help of rakia and her fashion tips, over at fly. they feature feathers! so like a little facinator, really!

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zappos knows how to give good customer service, and then some. other retailers should take note, and follow suit.

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according to a new book by dana thomas called deluxe: how luxury lost it's luster, luxury isn't that luxurious anymore. that italian bag you just threw down US$1200 for? it cost $100 to manufacture in china. if you're willing to pay that much for something so cheaply made, the joke's on you. (via boing boing)

(not so) random links

here's some more great stuff i've spotted here and there of late: -wanna do it yourself, make something out of nothing, and look au courrant to the utmost? check out this miu-miu-esque shoe re-do by morgan (of DC street fashion blog, pandahead, fame) featuring some fresh ruffles (on brightest young things), or this hooded tunic dress/sweatshirt redux by of-the-moment designers mike & chris, in the LA times.

-of all the european cities, amsterdam is the one that's most familiar to me. i've been there three times, and i'm probably going back for a forth visit this coming april. would live there if i could! i just found out this morning that there's an amsterdam street fashion blog, dam style, and it is good.

-fashion is spinach posted this exceedingly lovely and riotously colorful batch of photos from vogue girl (out of s. korea), and i am in adoration. so much better and more creative than the yawn-inducing blahness of any similar vogue from the west. someone was thinking outside of the box for sure. if i could, i hang those on my wall. *wishes she had a nice color printer in her possession*

-i love blogs that are very personal and design driven. ones wherein the author or creator is a creator of things and has a singular, idiosyncratic vision. examples of such would be: the brash bold graphic goodness that is the work of graphic designer nubby twiglet (whom i also interviewed earlier this year for the remix(ers)_revealed series) and the girly, often fashiony little drawer-ings of kate, the illustrator behind little doodles.

(not so) random links

-i've been frequenting some sustainable/green-focused blogs in recent days, and i stumbled across this post by no impact man, the subject matter of which crosses paths with that which i discuss here on bits and bobbins (most of the time, anyway!): fashion, and the urge to create (in my case, primarily, that which adorns the body). he poses a pointed, of-the-moment question pointed at the designers, manufacturers, and makers of the world and the consuming culture at large in which they exist: "how can we reduce the use of resources without squashing the creative drive...? how can we not throw the baby out with the bath water?" -on that same or a related note, check out this article by environmental health perspectives, called waste couture: environmental impact of the clothing industry, that's been making the rounds on the internets lately.

-liisa-maria is the thinking woman's fashionista: she's a fantastically stylish finn with a covetably large marimekko clothing collection, who has a fine arts background, and is now after her PhD in cultural studies. i dare say her brain is one of her finest accessories! i interviewed her back in june 2007 for my remix(ers)_revealed series. she's started a new blog, entitled the suburban queen. it's quickly become one of my favorites, as she eschews the typical fashion-blogger fare, instead taking us for a journey down the fashion road less traveled: chatting about the crossroads of fashion and sustainability, championing quirky personal style, and upholding her mission to fill the uninitiated though interested in on some amazing local scandinavian creative talent that may not be well known outside of those fine countries. AND...she just posted about a marimekko coat i've been secretly coveting for some time now! fabulous.

-a quote i can relate to about fashion itself and the meaning of clothing and adornment, from the new york times style section article entitled admit it. you love it. it matters. (via final fashion):

“I hate it,” Miuccia Prada once remarked to me about fashion, in a conversation during which we mutually confessed to unease at being compelled by a subject so patently superficial.

"'Of course, I love it also,' Ms. Prada added, and her reason said a lot about why fashion is a subject no one should be ashamed to take seriously. “Even when people don’t have anything,” Ms. Prada said, “they have their bodies and their clothes.”

They have their identities, that is, assembled during the profound daily ritual of clothing oneself; they have, as Colette once remarked, their civilizing masks. And yet, despite its potential as a tool for analyzing culture, history, politics and creative expression; as a form of descriptive shorthand used through all of written history (including the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran); as a social delight, fashion is just as often used as a weapon, a club wielded by those who forget that we are saying something about ourselves every time we get dressed — not infrequently things that fail to convey the whole truth."

-remember the review i did of swede cilla ramnek's book, knitprovisation, some time ago? i love her work. apparently she has a blog (though it hasn't been updated in a dog's age), and is now designing textiles for IKEA! am i the only one who yearns to use IKEA's fabrics for clothing rather than interiors? so colorful and so graphic...just the way i like that which surrounds me, natch.