Starting young....

Just saw this pic on The Sartorialist and wanted to share it all with you. Somehow this is just so, so sweet. I think that is one classy mom, and one very well behaved kid! How could she NOT grow up to have amazing taste!



Click on the pic for a larger version if you like (you can do this on all the blog pics, just so you know...)

Vernissage this Saturday: The Sexy Show!!!

I did a search for "triple X" and this was one of the images I got. Very blog appropriate

When I make my blog posts, if I don't have a picture to attach with the post I usually do a google image search to find something fun to ad. Word to the wise: doing a search for "the sexy show" will not yield anything blog appropriate, and is generally not a search you want to do while at work. Ahem. Sounds obvious. In retrospect. "triple X", not so great either. Although it was less explicit, it was quite heavy on the Vin Diesel, but I did manage to find the above gem.

Honestly, I have no idea what to expect when I walk into the gallery this weekend. Tyson and James Kerr (the curator) have hung the show and assure me that the pieces are amazing, awesome and, well, sexy. I have a feeling about this one though....I think it will be very entertaining, and a great party, so I suggest popping in. I'm going to go right ahead and say it out loud... I predict the possibility of some dancing.

For all you fashion minded folks out there, we're also starting to put out our new spring stock this weekend! We just got in a shipment of Hastings + Main dresses from Marianne's time in India (and they're gorgeous) as well as some other nice things we'll leave as a surprise for now.

Vernissage Saturday March 1st, 2008
6pm-11pm
Music by DJ Gary Vickers (with his new DJ stand!)
drinks-music-art
1649 Amherst

All are welcome!

Vintage Stuff from Headquarters is now online!

As many of you who've been down to HQ know, we sell some vintage shoes, jewelry and purses alongside all our wonderful handmade stuff and indie designer stuff. We like to offer things at all price points, and selling vintage stuff let's us throw some things in the store at really decent prices. I've always had a thing for vintage, ever since before I knew it was called vintage and I just called it "my aunts old clothes from my grandmas basement". Old stuff is often made better, using better quality materials, better techniques, and it also allows you to wear stuff that is not necessarily only available in "the" colours that are in all the stores. Currently I'm thanking my lucky stars that mustard is back "in" but before that, I relied solely on vintage items to get my fix of one of my favorite colours.



We've limited the type of things we sell at HQ to shoes, jewelry and purses because we wanted to keep the main focus of the store on handmade/indie items. So we recently decided to set up an Etsy shop for all our vintage stuff (which is allowed all you naysayers, check the rules!) and in this shop will be selling clothing as well as accessories. For all you Montreal shoppers out there, if you see something you like in our Etsy store just let us know and we can bring it down to the store for you to pick up. No need to ship within the city and waste paper on packaging and money on postage. Take the metro for heavens sake too, we're like 3 blocks away from it!


Currently we have some purses and shoes listed, but I'm working on photographing some clothing, so keep your eyes open for the pretty dresses, jumpsuits, cardigans, sweaters, blouses, etc. to come out and play. You can always get to our Vintage Headquarters store through the "etsy mini" I've just added to the right hand column of this blog (alongside our other Etsy shops), or get there through this link:

www.VintageHeadquarters.etsy.com

If you still don't know about Etsy, this is probably the first time you've read this blog, so I forgive you. Check it out here

Did I mention I love Cognac/Brown with Grey?

This scarf is like the clothing version of the best, most cuddly afghan at your grannies house. Damn. The pic is from Facehunter.

Apparently I'm hip....

Woah....

I'm a "Thrift Star of the Week" on Painfully Hip, check it out here

Little do the lovely sisters who write this blog know, I am SO not even CLOSE to being as hip as them. Thanks ladies!

For those of you looking for a new fashion blog to check out, Painfully Hip is amazing! I've been reading it for about 6 months now, love it!

***EDIT****

I've also been spotted here on the the blog of the lovely Tricia Royal who started the Wardrobe Remix Flickr group in the first place. Yeah!

Outfits of the Week: February 21st, 2008

Oh my, so much blogging/website visiting/etsy-ing/Flickr-ing to do, so little time. Sorry for the lack in blog posting friends, we're going a bit nuts getting ready for spring. Because spring IS coming, oh yes it is...

Dress by Supayana (Montreal), necklace by Shauna Rae Sen (Montreal),
black bow belt, vintage taupe coloured boots

The fabric this dress is made of is soooooo soft,
and the pattern is just beautiful!

This striped hooded cardigan is designed by me!
It has bamboo fibres in it, and it's sooo soft and drapy

The heather grey top is by Anastasia Lomonova (Montreal) Did we mention her fall stock is on sale now, pop in and get yourself some heather grey stuff with heart shaped buttons! The skirt is designed by me as well, it's a nice olive green canvas, we have one size small left, but it really fits like a medium high waisted skirt best, and fits lower on the hips as a small.

Valentines Day is lame-o!

Let's face it. Valentine's day is stupid. I've always hated going to the mall and buying some bullshit at the last minute just because. It's the same feeling you had when you were a kid and were forced to apologize for something you did. You weren't really sorry, but if you didn't apologize, you'd never hear the end of it. It's not so bad if you get a gift that's actually pretty cool, but when it's the old standard chocolates and flowers, you kind of feel like a douche. You know, standing in line with the other last minute dudes paying $50. for horrible chocolate or some weird mix of ugly flowers that may or may not give your partner hives. (By the way, does anyone understand what the hell that card at the top of this page even means... I'm at a loss).

Any-hoo, here is a small list of suggestions that may make it a little easier for all you last minute shoppers.

Standard Issue Design pillows. This is a small company from Toronto that released "Endangered Structures of Canada", a small series of pillows with images of igloo's, lighthouses, grain elevators and The Bata Shoe Headquarters screened onto them. $60. each

Our friend Elaine Ho has a line of silver jewelry for her Roadkill line. Lot's of guns, skulls, antlers and robots. Prices range from $65. - $125. (like the Royal Skull pictured above)

Original watercolours by Garrett van Winkle $40.-$50. Framed and one of a kind. We can't really seem to keep his work here for long as everyone seems to snatch up his work as we get it.

Honey Flower bath and body products. Dudes might tell you they don't like bath stuff but they are lying. Honey Flower makes a bunch of stuff like facial steam kits $6.00, facial cleanser $12. and body scrubs $15.

Jefffrey Brown writes a series of graphic novels about relationships, love and being dumped. Super funny, sometimes cringe-worthy. A must read.

New at HQ: Catch Frames by Hilary Thomson

Wow, I'm the queen of procrastination this week, I was supposed to do this post on Monday! Sorry Hilary! But trust me folks, these beautiful pieces are worth the wait! We first met Hilary at the Puces POP craft sale and loved her pieces from the get go, then met again during the crazy weeked of Souk@SAT where we were both showing. Finally we coordinated our schedules and Catchframes are now available at HQ!

"CatchFrames" are functional pieces of art created to arrange and organize your own personal collection of necklaces and earrings. They're being put to good use at HQ displaying the beautiful designs of our many talented jewelery designers. But don't be fooled, each and every one of these frames is also for sale, but it's kind of nice to see them "in use" to understand how they would look in your home.


Hilary Thomson moved from her home town of Gander, Newfoundland in 1998 to study Electroacoustics at Concordia University. After graduating and going on to work at The National Film Board of Canada for a number of years, Hilary came to realize that she was more strongly drawn to creating visual art; painting, drawing and other interesting art projects.

As a way to organize and display her own jewellery, Hilary began making CatchFrames out of vintage frames and started to give them as gifts to close friends. Their popularity grew, friends told friends and the orders started rolling in. Soon CatchFrames were being sold in choice retail boutiques around Montreal (check them out at Lustre as well!). Hand stitched, hand painted and dyed, each unique frame comes with a pouch of long pins used as hooks to hang not only jewelery but anything that deserves to be displayed. What was once a tangled mess of gold chains in a box is now displayed on a one of a kind CatchFrame!


The frames shown above are just examples of a few of the designs Hilary has come up with. Each one is entirely one of a kind, and we have 4 beautiful examples of her designs hanging at HQ right now. Not to put any pressure on you guys out there, but we think these would make an AMAZING valentines day gift for your honey. Most of us can't have a walk in closet, but this little piece would go a long way towards making us feel like we kind of do!

www.myspace.com/catchframes

FlipSide

Last Saturday was the opening night for "Flip Side", a colab show featuring works by Natalie Reis and Chrissy Cheung. If you missed out, you can still check out the show here at HQ as it will run for the rest of the month of February. All the work is jaw dropping and the two girls themselves are awesome dudes. I wish I had taken more pictures, nut I sometimes suck that way. There were lots of babies here that night. I think I was just nervous to ask strangers if I could take pictures of their children to put on the internet....


Natalie Reis

Chrissy Cheung.

Zombies!!!

Oh look it's James "I think I smell an Oscar" Braithwaite and his less famous friend, James "Scorp D" Kerr.

Everything I Know About Fashion, I Learned from my Mother: Worn Challenges You!

Worn Fashion Journal is sending out a call for submissions

Take heed, aspiring writers, we just received this call for submissions from Serah-Marie, the lovely editor of local Montreal fashion journal, "Worn". Here's what they had to say:

"Almost every one of us got our first lessons in style from our mothers. Whether by practical advice or in setting an example, how (and with whom) we grow up has a huge influence on the evolution of our aesthetic tastes. Hell, even the complete absence of fashion effects us somehow."

Do you have a story about how your mother influenced your sense of style?
Do you have sage advice the rest of us need to hear?
Have you carried your mother's sense of style with you all your life?

Worn thinks you do - and they think a whole bunch of people are going to want to hear about it. So the wonderful folks at Worn are putting together a 'zine all about how moms shape our view of fashion and how their influence and advice follows us all our lives.

So go ahead, pitch them your best stories and get your mom the recognition she deserves. They are looking mainly for essay/anecdotal stories, 800 - 1000 words.

You may include pictures, but it's not required. They will consider other formats for your ideas - just let them know what you'd like to do and they will in turn let you know if they can swing it.

Send in your pitches and ideas by: February 10, 2008
All final drafts by:March 1, 2008

Unfortunately, as an independent magazine, Worn can't pay writers for selected submissions - but they will make sure you get a free copy of the 'zine so your mom won't think you made it all up.

Don't procrastinate. Just think what your mother would say...

Contact Worn with your story ideas:
dearworn@wornjournal.com

Check out their website for more contact information:
www.wornjournal.com

Etsy Blogger - Simply Unexpected

Hey, lookie look! Toronto based Etsy seller FlyBallBags has started a blog called SimplyUnexpected, and has featured some designs from my line, Norwegian Wood! Here's a link to the post: I Can Smell Spring

One of the Norwegian Wood tops featured in the post

Diana started this blog awhile ago to promote her Etsy store, and then realized she wanted to write about more than just her own stuff, she wanted to write about all the things she loves and is interested in. Kind of similar to how I feel about the HQ blog. I don't really want to limit it to JUST what's going on at HQ, so Tyson and I write about store stuff and also whatever we're interested in at the time.

Here's some background info on FlyBall Bags, straight from her etsy store:
Behind FlyBall Bags is one highly motivated missy... Diana Coatsworth. Diana has many talents in the artistic field. She is a professionally trained dancer, singer, actor and improviser and has worked in theatre and film for over 13 years.
In 2003, she pursued another passion... to design and produce beautiful, one-of-a-kind handbags called FlyBall Bags. Diana uses a mix of quality vintage and new materials. In late 2004, she started making accessories to compliment her bags.

One of Dianas new designs, in a self-made photoshoot no less!

FlyBall Bags have been sold online and in stores across Canada.
Diana grew up in Niagara Falls and got most of her creative juices handed down from her mother, who is a highly skilled crafts person herself (sewing, knitting and cake decoration, to name a few). She is blessed to have an amazing group of friends and family to encourage this compulsion to create. These days Diana resides in downtown Toronto with her partner, Kevan. Simply put, she hopes to create beautiful things that people will enjoy.

Thanks for the shout out Diana, spread the Etsy love!

Post It Note Project

The Post-It Note Project

Today, February 1st is the day to do a little piece of art on a post it note and put it up around town. Take a photo of it and email it with the location to:
redtinsel@gmail.com
He'll then post the results here:
http://theartoffee.livejournal.com/
and here:
http://theartoffee.livejournal.com/postproject/

Here's one of my Post-Its

I put it in the alley way behind my work

And another on a parking meter on my street. I had to use a little bit of tape because I don't think the piddly glue will stand up to the cold Montreal weather.

Oh, and it's also my brothers birthday. Happy birthday little dude..... he's 31.

This is what he looked like, uh, like 25 years ago? Yeesh! What happened to this little cutey pie?