wardrobe_remix(ers) o' the week

celebrating the boys AND girls (some of them sporting a menswear look! HA!) this week!
bunches of them! for you!
enjoy!

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this here is the ORIGINAL and OFFICIAL weekly wardrobe_remix recap of the latest and the greatest from the wardrobe_remix community, from yours truly, the creator of wardrobe_remix!
any wardrobe_remix photos that find themselves here showcase great style + great photography = the two meet and merrily marry to make a perfect expression of YOU and your singular personal style! and i've said it a million times before, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it...the ticket is the confidence and sureness you exude when you express yourself the way that makes YOU feel most comfortable. that confidence shines through and is captured on film. so whether you're wearing couture clothes from the finest designers, mass market threads, stuff you made yourself, thrifted finds, or even a shirt you stumbled across on the side of the road...rock it! it's ALL GOOD and it's ALL WELCOME in wardrobe_remix!

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memepunk:
bimsboy:
dodidoune:
boboniaa:
Chic Looks:
dave.camera:
Sandy_Rose:
tripletlads:
m.drummergirl:

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thanks to everyone who's been posting about wardrobe_remix or featuring fashions and folks from the group in their own blogs or websites. thanks for getting the word out. i am glad that wardrobe_remix inspires you! remember to give credit to the people in the aforementioned photos (if you use them in your blog posts, etc.) and to wardrobe_remix itself. it's good internet/blogging karma! (plus it actually goes with flickr's terms of service and a little thing called copyright!)

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remember: you can click on the photo of any of these terrific wardrobe_remix(ers) to learn more about their photo or outfit, explore their flickr photostream, and beyond. all of the photos are owned by the awesome people who are depicted in them, of course!
join us over at wardrobe_remix and show off your awesome EVERYDAY trendbusting and trend-SETTING personal style!
spread the word!
and see you there!

kiev street style (from FAK!) on current TV

http://current.com/e/89515052/en_US

an amusing clip on street style in kiev, ukraine. it's by street style site, FAK!'s founder, phil bananov, and was recently featured on current.
i love the attitude of anton, the guy who looks like an "ordinary american punk/skateboarder". :P seems like america is still loved, in some way, around the world (for some of our culture, if not our politics!)... :)

clothing (as memorial): passage quilts

(images via passage quilts.com)

dear ada, one of my favorite art blogs, posted recently about passage quilts...quilts made from the clothing of those who have made a passage in life (i.e., a birth, wedding, death, or perhaps a retirement or recovery from an illness, etc.). these quilts serve to commemorate and/or honor those passages, or those people.
according to the passage quilt website, each quilt...

"[begins]with the architecture of the clothing, these quilts are pieced without a predetermined pattern. this process provides the maker an opportunity to examine his or her life patterns.
the resulting quilts reflect the relationship of the maker to the materials, retain a sense of the body, and in the case of bereavement, carry the consoling essence of the beloved."

many of the quilts on the passage quilt site honor a deceased person, and employ clothing that that honored individual wore during his/her lifetime.

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i love quilts, i love quilting. i feel that quilting can be and really is an art in its own right. and i'm clearly fascinated by clothing, fashion, style, and the meaning of all those things, in a broader sense.
the fact that these quilts use a person's clothing as the source for the fabric, delights me, as they are a deliciously meaningful intersection of my own personal interests.

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i look at these passage quilts, like the ones above, and think:
clothing, in and of itself, is meaningful, rife with messages. even hanging on a hanger, apart from a person. it's style, craftsmanship, source (check the tag!) all suggest a story.
but when we step inside of our clothes, make them our own, take them into our fold, and our closets, and fill them out, mixing and matching and layering them with other things we own and love and feel the need to wear (either by custom or choice), we give our clothes even more meaning. our clothing speaks louder, and with more complexity, with us inside of it. we form our own stylistic language, give even subtext to the story the clothes already embodied, sans our bodies.
and our clothing, once we have worn it, also has meaning for others around us: our familiars...our families, friends, colleagues, acquaintances. they see us in certain pieces of clothing, and they add a visual memory of each piece, each look we don, to their own (sub)conscious, collective memory of us, of who we are and were. when we shuffle off this mortal coil, we may (and often do) leave behind the fibers we once wore. they can help our memory to live on, in the minds of those who loved us. we can, in a sense, keep speaking, can keep telling the stories of who we are, or once were, once we are dust.
the somewhat haphazard, improvisational piecing of the quilts shown above also strikes me as being like memory too...little shards of this garment or that garment in the quilts are, in most cases, arranged in an organic fashion. memories and thoughts themselves are not always linear, they come in fractured, incomplete flashes, not always in a sensical order. they aren't always beautiful (together or apart), they don't always make sense, but in the end, they are personal, and when put together, make a powerful statement about the story of a person's life.

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what would your passage quilt look like? what would it say about you? what would you like it to say about you?
what pieces of your clothing would you want to have included in such a quilt?