Where to Find It: Art-minded Handmade Style
Neodandi’s Western Ave showroom, and a new collection at SAM Shop
Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Sep 23, 2009 at 07:00AM
1 Comments
Neodandi’s Western Ave gallery-like showroom
View Slideshow » Illustration:I love the way the space is used inside the shop
View Slideshow » Illustration:Those great tee-shirt dresses I mentioned; the cut-out shapes and jagged edges – and of course, the gray jersey – are so now.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Though white cotton’s season is just behind us, I still love the look of these reworked shirts
View Slideshow » Illustration:Niilartey and Ullie (behind every great man there is oftentimes, of course, a great woman) have also created a perfume. It’s bottled in antique jars and sold in the shop.
View Slideshow » Illustration:Niilartey and Ullie De Osu, both in Neodandi. Ullie’s wearing the scarf style that will be offered at SAM Shop.
View Slideshow » Illustration:These are the Tyvek bags that will also be offered at SAM Shop. You can’t tell from here, but the shapes are wonderfully irregular and wildly, in a good way, off.
If you’ve passed by the storefront at 617 Western and suddenly felt the urge to, say, hop a night train to Tokyo with Jimi Hendrix for a secret party just above the cloud cover, it’s because there’s something very ethereal, other-worldly, and eccentrically urban about Neodandi Couture.
It’s also quite possible that they were closed when you happened by. In keeping with their non-trad, boundary-busting ethos, their artful showroom, which opened last month, operates from 3p to 10p on Wed-Sat, and from 11a to 6p on Sunday.
It makes sense that you’d encounter this stuff during the cocktail hour. Designer Niilartey De Osu’s body-hugging, tucked, gathered, sculpted, and geometrically transfigured lines – for men and women – are most definitely spirited. Some pieces — asymmetric skirts, ghost-like sheer gray short-sleeve tops — are newly constructed from thoughtful fabrics, others are reconstructed using upcycled garments, and often embellished with found objects. I tend to favor the former, then again, the tee-shirt dresses made from PE class unis are super hot in an Alexander Wang s/s 2010 kind of way. (Check the slideshow here.)
A trip to the storefront is imperative if you like thinking about your wardrobe — or your body — as art. (And not to get too off track, but while you’re at it, you’ll want to stop into Totokaelo/Impulse down the street, and the moodily lit sneaker joint Gems next door and imagine a Seattle where that strip of Western Ave becomes a destination … there are rumors of meat-packing district-esque restaurateurs poking around, but that’s, well, almost too exciting to think about.) I have a pet-peeve about shops that throw the word couture around as if you don’t know the deeper meaning of the term, but Niilartey is really draping and pinning and tucking and creating by hand. Slowly, with intention, in small batches. Naturally, Neodandi offers custom work as well.
But a trip to SAM Shop is imperative too, to see their upcoming collection of Neodandi shopping bags and scarves. (images of both in the slideshow) The pieces should be in by next week — then again, by that time, you could be on cruising into Harajuku Station going, ‘Hey, you, get off of my cloud.’
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What else are you looking for? I’d love to help you find it. Just use that email the editor link over there to the right.
This designer, has such interesting stuff!! x