Tag: fashion
Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: T-shirts – Week 2
misery loves company
Chances are that if someone has said it and someone else laughed, it’s probably been printed on a t-shirt. With over 2 billion of the little suckers being churned out a year, everything from the sacred to the profane has became graphic fodder. From Buddha and Obama to Cookie Monster and Death’s Heads, alma maters, slogans and superheroes, corny catchphrases to the downright rude, anything in fact, can and probably has been screen-printed onto that otherwise innocuous garment.
Across the Bored will admit to breaking up at some of the funnier ones but certainly wouldn’t be caught dead wearing clothing with a message having a big enough problem already with those who do not understand when we “use our words”. Putting our ideas on our chests would seem to be inviting trouble, after all, one has to actually be willing to hold forth if a topic is brought up in the first place. Some say that the most popular print ever, one that has achieved an iconic pop-culture status, probably started the trend towards text abbreviation and is produced to this day, was derived from the longest running and successful marketing campaigns of 1977:
“I♥︎NY” – well yes we do, but we’d look idiotic wearing that to the grocery store considering how much trouble our own politicians are stirring up on a daily basis… Is there a happy medium? Probably. Is it age specific to the wearer? Maybe it should be but as with most things, it is a matter of choice most of us being old enough not to be told what to wear. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme this fortnight – T-shirts – clearly illustrates how the message can sometimes become easier to digest depending on where we see it.
“Do you have any favourite t-shirts?” – White or bright, graphic or plain, with a strong statement or silly message, baby Ts or oversized gangsta…
We would love to see your vision.
For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.
Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: T-shirts
wearing history
Long before the term fashionista was coined, Across the Bored reserved some articles of clothing for very specific occasions. That crew-neck number with the short, short sleeves and neon palm trees splashed across the front? Definitely non-public work-out wear. The grease-stained grey baby with the ragged hem? Saturday washing the car outfit number one. The one-size fits all Betty Boop blowing kisses sent by Mom? Bedtime for baby… Nowadays, with a decidedly different emphasis on comfort in the career department and a shifted view on what’s stylishly acceptable, that white supersoft, silk-thin pima v-neck is just the ticket. Add really good jewellery and a fab pair of shoes and this kind of simple top becomes an elegant option that no one will question.
The earliest record of this cotton coverup dates back to just after the Spanish-American War; what originally started out as part of the regulation uniform for the US Navy in 1913 has now become a billion dollar business. The Two Cents Tuesday Challenge guesses that (apart from undergarments and perhaps jeans) – T-Shirts – are probably the most popular piece of clothing now worn by man.
“Do you have any favourite t-shirts?” – White or bright, graphic or plain, with a strong statement or silly message, baby Ts or oversized gangsta…
We would love to see your vision.
For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?
- I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
- Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
- Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
- The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
- ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.
SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post
- Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
- To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
- If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
- Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
- Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Orange
put your best foot forward
and you will need no introduction
⊛
Search for something to rhyme with the entries of Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Orange.
Travel Theme: Costume
who sowed the flax, to weave the linen, to sew the breeches,
to wear on the farm, all on a day like any other
♕
Deck yourself out like the entries in Where’s my backpack?’s
Travel Theme: Costume.
This was Thursday: 1969 Wild, Wet and Woolly
A look copied and loved by thousands today
When the first rumblings about the music festival of the century hit our neighbourhood many went into “long and hard planning in secret” mode. Everyone fantasized how they would get there, who they wanted to go with and what they would tell their parents they were doing when they were actually heading on down the highway with a t-shirt and change of underwear to what was arguably one of the most popular concerts of the decade. Woodstock – four days of music in the fields of a dairy farm outside Bethel, New York where standing in line for water and toilets wasn’t a big deal and clothing was optional.
Couture had already picked up on the exotic nature of the hippie lifestyle – Woodstock would provide them with enough material for a few more seasons-worth of collections, it was the real thing. In Europe, designers like Ken Scott and Zandra Rhodes took the best elements of bohemian colour, texture and design and translated it into eminently wearable, statement-making clothing. The appeal of the counterculture refined hit the high street in a splash of vibrant prints and previously unused fabrics that changed the way we all looked at fashion – if the hippies and the hoi polloi could wear it, well, so could everyone else…
Dress by Ken Scott photographed by David Bailey for Vogue Italia, 1969
In our own time there is a huge resurgence among the under 30s in the terrible oxymoron that is hippie couture. The market with all the disposable cash that now asks their grandfathers if perhaps a vintage Levis jean jacket is tucked away or if that carpet-bag Grandma was holding in that faded black and white is still around are the ones being targeted by everyone from t-shirt and denim manufacturers to perfume panderers. It is not much of a stretch to guess that someone is making wads of cash on the replication of an era that eschewed most things related to capitalism.
Living the fantasy with a bottle of perfume the price of a 1969 Volkwagen…
45 years after half a million trudged through the mud, got stoned, listened to some of the best musicians of the decade, made love and planned how they were going to change the world, their descendants want “it” also. They want to buy the idea of 1969 – the cool factor of the beads and feathers hinting at an irresponsibility and freedom that just looks so good it has to be documented and shared, now: it is rebellion of the commercial sort neatly packaged by one of their favourite brands. Today’s petty-bourgeoisie has been agitated into a credit-driven fervour not by the ideals and aspirations of past generations but by what those who made history at Woodstock were wearing – hippie chic. Perhaps an unconscious longing for a new beginning underlies the obsession with these latest fads but that too seems questionable without an understanding of the original.
Grandpa Woodstock shows a peace sign as he walks with his wife Queen Estar. The couple were attendees of the original 1969 music festival. Photo courtesy of NY Daily News
The reality of it all is somewhat less glamorous. Time plods on or flies by depending on your state of mind and whether we sold out, became the man, kept our ideals and stayed on the commune or managed to find a nice balance between doing the right thing and still making a living, we’ve come a long way, baby…
Read more on:
Woodstock
Ken Scott Reborn
David Bailey
Remembering Woodstock – a slideshow
Where are they now?
1969
F is also for Friday: 1980s Fashion Illustration
we were young – heartache to heartache we stood
antonio lopez for missoni
In another lifetime every living breathing minute was devoted to fashion, art and the pursuit of activities that were somehow design related – it was the 1980s and everyone we knew, or at least the ones we admitted into the sphere filled with such rarified air one walked at least a foot above the ground, was oh-so-cool and doing something big, bold, shocking and usually public. It was the beginning of the glorification of brands, of celebrities becoming the poster children for trends and the public developing an unsatiable appetite for the latest thing that has brought our credit-dependent economy to where it flails about bloated and helpless today.
We’ve had some discussions recently with the Ghost and Miss Z about how much of what they see, hear, wear and take for granted comes out of the 80s – not to say that this was the most fabulous era, for many of us there are great chunks of it missing from our memories, but it was one in which extremely creative people thrived and produced and influenced others without the bonus of readily available internet. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that we ever got so much done…
Print media was huge and we spent more than our fair share on glossy publications from Europe and the States to feed our cravings. Loaded with enough inspiration for a hundred lifetimes, these magazines also made us fall in love with those who were capturing the essence of the era. Antonio Lopez, a prolific artist with an unfortunately brief but meteoric career, was one such object of adulation: he changed the way the world saw art, design and clothing as inextricably intertwined and some say, singlehandedly revived the art of fashion illustration.
More on the work of Antonio Lopez next week.
This was Thursday: 1966 Metal Mode
rabanne was “not so much a couturier but a metalworker” – coco chanel
Paco Rabanne, enfant terrible of French fashion in the 60s, was one of the first to use black models – here Donyale Luna, the first African American to appear on the cover of British Vogue, was photographed by Richard Avedon wearing one of Rabanne’s controversial metal and plastic link creations.
Anyone in a dress that radical would have needed this as an accessory…
1966 Shelby Superformance 427 SC Cobra
For more on 1966 visit:
A Word a Week Photography Challenge – Blue
You want to be free What do you do? Get yourself where The sky meets the sea
Blue on blue
A Word in your Ear’s favourite colour is inspiration for the Word A Week Photo Challenge – Blue. Follow the link for indigo inspiration…
Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Style
Whenever one needs a reminder of exactly how things looked and sounded at any point, in say the last 75 years, all we have to do is surf through virtual reality. The closest repository of all manner of trend, fashion, vogue and design, simple searches can bring back very particular memories – whether it is the sinewy curves of a buffed e-type jag, the pout of a hollywood icon, the grandeur of a world-class opera house or a melody long-forgotten, every bit is like a prompt out of the past.
Pull out your red shoes… and let’s dance
We all have ways of expressing ourselves and pretty much everything we lay hands to becomes impressed with a personal, distinctive hallmark. Across the Bored marvels at so many ways of seeing and the manner in which we put our stamp on this world and so the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge topic spotlight is on – Style.
“What is style to you?” – can it be acquired, assumed or inherent, is it old or new, the tilt of a hat, swagger in a walk or lilt in the talk, styling or stylish…
We would love to see your vision.
For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?
- I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
- Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
- Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
- The Challenge will be open for 6 days after it is posted upon which I will post another.
- ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.
SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post
- Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
- To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
- If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
- Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
- Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.
Serene amid the weeds
Rose quartz necklace – Ideflex Collection
An especially bright morning called out for closer inspection of the garden that we had left, somewhat unhappily, at the beginning of the summer in the hands of non-horticulturists. It tends to be wild back there on the best of days, a hodge-podge run to ruins English garden that lets grow what it will. Like us, it resists attempts at too-neat order – flowering weeds sprout rampant in the smallest patches of dark earth and each season brings a new yield of blooms that seem not to have been there the year before. Huge bright green elephant ears beckoned as an ideal bed for a piece of jewellery finished in another climate. A chinese clavicle pendant of rose quartz from Studio BBG was the catalyst for this necklace; two large Murano glass beads, some pink jade, blush pearls and silver spacers add lightness and bring an element of reflectivity to the larger rose quartz rectangles. Feminine in nature, this lovely pale pink stone is said to be the crystal of love, emitting a calming and cooling energy. It gives inner peace and makes the wearer receptive to matters of the heart. Much like the garden…
ACROSS THE BORED 