Archive for October, 2009

Photo by Natalie Wang

Gearing up for the winter, this stud keeps it warm by bundling up in a fleece scarf and layering a blue cotton hoodie inside a dusty black bomber jacket.  He keeps it cool with skin tight stone washed low-rise jeans, sculpted-messy hair and an italian accent. read more…

When would this ever be okay?

Well, not exactly a dead ringer.  But this professor has a slightly-more-than-casual resemblance to former Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant.  I knew him (Plant, not the professor) only as a frontman for the Zep, and only recently, discovered his 2007 collaboration with Alison Krauss.   If you haven’t heard it, you need to find it on bittorrent, on iTunes, or at Amazon.

The professor does a good job with this outfit — making a tailored pin-striped suit look casual.  The untucked shirt, white tennys and wild hair take the formal out of something you’d usually see in the boardroom.  Or the classroom.  Instead, he’s assembled an outfit good for wandering the Shanghai streets on a Saturday afternoon.

• MRKT makes the bag and other interesting felt items, but if you’re not in China, you can check this messenger bag by do loop Design, and a slightly smaller wool felt bag by byrd & belle
• the kicks are the original chinese sneaker, Feiyue.
• the glasses frames are vintage French celluloid from the 1960′s — originally a sunglasses frame — here are some more vintage frames.
• get yourself some rock-star hair
• and then wear it while listening to the grammy winning album, “Raising Sand”

[edit: unbeknownst to us at posting time, the professor is actually a prominent member of a band that riffs off Led Zeppelin:  Dick Zeppelin's site, and their myspace page.  good stuff.  also, he has provided us with the contact information of his favorite tailor, so if anybody is in Shanghai and needs a suit, let us know.]

For Ana, 28, going to funerals has always been a problem. Adorned in a slew of colors, the native German, does not own very many black garments. “Black makes people depressed, people who wear black feel sad inside.”  Meanwhile, I am sitting across from her wearing a form fitting long sleeved black jersey dress, black ballerina flats, black eyeliner, with my usual black hair. I start to fade away to my thought bubble counting and revisiting my closet of the immensely black wardrobe, of all the pieces I own and love to wear. The approximate number comes out to 48? No, 49. But I digress.

So…oh yes, just like her mother, Ana learned she was creative at an early age growing up in Xinte; a small traditional town in Germany housing 18,000 people, old Roman structures, big beautiful lakes, and conservatism. That didn’t stop Ana from discovering she was destined to be a crazy fashion designer at age 6, after dismissing her initial (programmed) thought of becoming a lawyer and painting the town bubble gum pop pink. hex #FF1493.

Two decades later she wakens daily in the aggressive city of Shanghai, China. For the past three years she has been slaving away, designing for another company. At long last, this September, she launched her own label featuring her ridiculously color-infused line of contemporary sportswear (ridiculous is a good thing). Now available at http://www.frau-ana.com, the new Frau-Ana line pays homage to the superfluous days of the 80′s with over-the-top neon colors, unisex stripes galore, and extra large Star accent pieces that even a blind person could catch from miles away (over-the-top is a good thing).

Frau-Ana additionals:

- She holds no real love for other designers, but appreciates Karl Lagerfield’s work

- Her best friend, Johannes Kuhn, is her muse.  He dresses, and dresses well, according to mood;  he wears his emotions AS his sleeves: .

(also, black is a good thing)

Fresh from Moscow, the Motherland, Ayala was caught near Suzhou Creek in Shanghai wearing this kimono sleeved, blue ribbon-tied shirt-turned-dress.  Her secret pair of white denim shorts keep her safe if she drops a pencil.

A perfect way to take your no-fuss wardrobe up a notch in energy and creativity is by adding a new pair of colorful kicks. Old-school style, high-top sneakers, circa 1980, make for a cool retro look without being dated.  This pair of hot-pink slash electric-blue feetcovers was caught on film on the Shanghai streets, and they bring spiiice to an otherwise blah outfit.

• pink Nikes are a China knockoff special, try these retro Nike high-tops
• and for women who aren’t of the high-top persuasion, Cairn recommends these bright Christian Louboutin’s Rolando blue lambskin leather pumps