Wear What When

Let’s Get RE Sourceful

Free workshop at RE Store helps brides and grooms get crafty

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Mar 03, 2010 at 07:20AM 0 Comments

Slideshow: Create cake platters, candlestick centerpieces, ring boxes, name card displays, and more at RE Store’s Salvage Bride workshop on March 13

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Slideshow: Create cake platters, candlestick centerpieces, ring boxes, name card displays, and more at RE Store’s Salvage Bride workshop on March 13

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Bair and her husband-to-be aren’t interested in a ring pillow per se, but a vintage coffee can and some hat pins could do the trick. She also thinks a group of these would make a charming presentation of escort cards and table numbers.

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Bair used discarded cabinet doors and chalkboard paint to create some sample signs. Speaking of paint: Recycled and DIY projects can be tricky if you’re not well-versed in safety matters. Bair and her associates know all about staying clear of lead-free paint and other potential downers. It’s that kind of expertise that makes this workshop especially appealing.

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Chandelier pieces and light fixture parts make great candlesticks and votive holders.

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Rachel Bair and outreach and marketing manager Sarah Krueger in RE Store’s classroom. The store hosts many workshops in this inspiring and motivating space, but I believe the March 13 course is the only one that includes tea and cake.

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Downstairs in RE Store’s salvage shop, you’ll find all manner of inspiring materials. As Bair puts it, “There is so much material here, the only problem is staying focused on one project.”

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What could you do with dozens and dozens of doorknobs?

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Or a collection of hooks? Bring your ideas, dreams, and tool belt to RE Store to sound out projects and get to work.

Got crafty designs on your wedding day decor but feeling unsure about sourcing materials, operating a screwdriver, and/or achieving an Amy Atlas-like ultraperfect atmosphere?

First, drop the notion of ultraperfect. It’s just not useful, or fun. Second, RSVP for Salvage Bride, a workshop led by the expert recycling-crazy repurposers at RE Store on Saturday March 13 from 10a – 2p.

Leading the day o’ DIY is Rachel Bair, RE Store’s shop manager and a June bride. She’s also the unofficial Project Lady. People come to her with “what if this?” and “how would I do that?,” so as she began plotting the decor projects that would lend personality and memorable details to her own big day, she figured she should use her employer’s light-filled second-floor classroom space to share resources and ideas with other engaged folk and party people.

Salvage Bride is intended to help you find and transform previously used materials into cake stands, candelabras, cool signage, name card displays, and really, anything your ceremony or reception requires.

Check the slideshow here for some projects that Bair was elbow deep in on the day I met up with her, and then email sarahk (at) re-store.org to reserve your spot on the 13th.

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Tags: Design, Weddings, reception, Locally Made, vintage, how to, experts, Ballard, Workshops

Stepping Out

Bellevue Arts Museum shows over a hundred shoes by pioneering designer Beth Levine

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Feb 08, 2010 at 07:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum

Slideshow: Beth Levine

View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum

Slideshow: Beth Levine

View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum
View Slideshow » Photo: Courtesy Bellevue Arts Museum

Considering modern designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Stella McCartney, and even Tory Burch, it’s hard to imagine an America that didn’t allow iconic, groundbreaking shoe wear designer Beth Levine to put her own name on the beautifully made souls of her artful pumps.

And in fact, as Bellevue Arts Museum curator Nora Atkinson told me, the designer and her husband Herbert Levine, whose name took Beth’s place there under the arched step of so many stylish women’s feet beginning in the early 50s, they were hesitant to use his when they sent their first shipment to a department store in the south, fearing anti-semitic backlash.

BAM’s Beth Levine show, which opens on February 18 and represents the only such show in this country (can you believe that??), is set to be a personality-driven, architectural heel-studded walk through fashion history that gives way to many conversations about the ownership of ideas and the cultural impact of haute couture and everyday dress in America.

Then again, it should also be really fun just crusing through and imagining wearing all that smart, practical, but completely beautiful design. And then maybe shopping afterward.

Some things to think about before you go:

-Levine was a Lithuanian farmer’s daughter who knew a thing or two about calfskin and animal hides when, at 38 in 1946, she moved to New York to work as a shoe model as a means of getting her … um, foot in the door to become a designer.

-Yeah, you guessed it: The leadership in the male-run factories in those days weren’t interested, until she proved to them that she was bringing ideas, and solutions. And an American design identity — until Levine came along, the shoe industry in the states was based on replicating European looks.

-Beth met Herbert in one of the factories; they opened their own manufacturing operation in ’49. It closed in ’75, though she continued consulting and designing after that.

-Her clients included Jackie O, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Cher, and Nancy Sinatra — Levine is credited with bringing those boots made for walking to haute couture.

-Yes, her sexiest styles would fit a modern day Carrie Bradshaw type, but she had a sense of humor and wild innovation, too. She designed one style lined in an AstroTurf-like material -- she was a farmer’s daughter, don’t forget, and thought everyone needed to feel the “grass” between their toes. Check the slideshow here for more.

-We wouldn’t know as much about Levine without expert and author Helene Verin, who will speak at BAM’s preview party.

-We wouldn’t have access to so many historical perspectives without the help of Seattle-based design legend Sara Little Turnbull, who loaned a dozen or so styles for the show.

Start making plans now to stroll through the exhibit with your most amazingly shod and design-savvy friends — as to whether or not you’ll want to wear your museum-friendly comfortable shoes, I’ll leave that to you.

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Tags: Design, Eastside, Bellevue Arts Museum, Shoes

Behind the Scenes: Blogger’s Blogs

Style Counselor Taylor Kieburtz shows us her links (and then I show you mine)

Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jan 12, 2010 at 06:00AM 6 Comments

Photo: Photo by Melissa O'Hearn

If you read the fine type in the print edition of this month’s Style Counsel page, you’ve been expecting a post wherein Hipsters with Kids blogger Taylor Kieburtz and I trade the morning shuffle – a.k.a. a selection of favorite blog links.

So here goes.

Says Taylor, who works by day crafting creative branding, visual solutions, and the like, ‘I mostly read design / graphics, art and music blogs — fashion is always evident throughout.’

Taylor’s list:

Design You Trust
Which feels like the universe’s collective junk drawer (in a good way) o’ ideas

Purple Diary
The not-very-secret life of art arbiter Olivier Zahm and company

Planet Awesome Kid
Just what the name implies

Fashion Gone Rogue
Editorials, ad campaigns, and other painfully awesome images

and the friends and family plan:

Metaphorical Child
One woman’s ultra-modern online art museum

Wolves vs. Lions

Black Books

Hunter/Gatherer
Gorgeous textiles and far eastern-feeling minimalist design

And, a handful of my favs; a just-so mix of style, fashion (yes, two different things), design, and my own inner circle of the blogosphere:

Common People
Like Flickr with a special moody / dreamy filter

Ready Set Fashion
Fashion magazine librarian pits 80s ad campaigns and 90s editorials against current spreads

Backyard Bill
Mostly men’s style, all amazing portraiture

An Ambitious Project Collapsing
The world gets bigger and bigger and more thoughtful, and this site becomes more essential every time

Friends:

Remember Me
What it misses in every-day updates it makes up for in the perfect balance of chaos and order

Picture of the Day
A proto-blog by an experimental, obsessive mind

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Hope you found something you like enough to bookmark yourself.

Now it’s your turn. What’s on your daily must-read list?

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Tags: links, kids, Design, hipsters, music