For you Twilight-weirdos

I am sure not all of my readers are fans of the series but for those who are may enjoy this nice feature. Women's clothing company, BB Dakota, made the jacket used by Kristen Stewart (as Bella) in the first Twilight movie. I guess it is a big hit because Karmaloop got another shipment in as well as two additional colors. Check it out you weirdos.

Karmaloop

Brand of the Week 3: Ben Sherman

Company: Ben Sherman

Website: www.benshermanusa.com

About: Ben Sherman was founded in 1963 by Arthur Bernard Sugarman. Ben Sherman was the first company to produce the famous Oxford button-down shirt, which became popular during the Mod era.

Why I like them: Ben Sherman is known for its jacquard, stripes, and checker board patterns. Most of the clothes has stuck to slender fits. Combine the ingredients and what we have are timelessly elegant clothes.

Where to buy:
Ben Sherman
ASOS Men's
ASOS Women's
Nordstrom
Zappos

Notes: Ben Sherman is an essential part of British cultural heritage. The whole Mod scene is intrinsically connected to both music and fashion, which is why Ben Sherman is close to the UK music industry.

NylonTV - Christopher Bailey

Nylon TV spends time with Christopher Bailey, creative director with Burberry. I love this video, especially when he mentions his favorite embellishment to an outfit.

Sneaker Pimp: Rudolf Dassler Wellengang Mid

Yup, I am a shoe fanatic. Some people focus purely on Nikes and others collect the other brands like Reebok. I search for the obscure. This shoe is manufactured by a well known company, Puma, but it is from a relatively unknown line; Rudolf Dassler. Before I go into the shoes let's do a back-round check.

Rudolf Dassler is the brother to Adi Dassler who started Adidas. Originally Rudolf's company was named Ruda but then changed, for reasons I do not remember, to Puma. There you have it. Now Puma has a range of higher-end shoes that is a patronage to the man who started it all.

The Rudolf Dassler Wellengang Mid in Cloud White and Dassler Black is my choice of poison if I could buy a pair. Check those and a few other shoes at Zappos and the Rudolf Dassler site.

Making undies

I found this at the PACT site. It takes us into the factory to show how under garments are made. More videos can be seen after the video is finished.

PACT - underwear manufacturing from Wearpact on Vimeo.

GOOD Invention: Déjà Sole

GOOD Magazine is a must have in any person's magazine rack. GOOD covers such a diverse set of issues one may never know what the next one will be about. Here is a video of Robert Fabricant, the Creative Director at Frog Design, imagines a new kind of shoe that can take you anywhere.

Brand of the Week 2: WeSC

Company: WeSC aka We Are the Superlative Conspiracy

Website: www.wesc.com

About: WeSC started in 1999 but I first saw the brand in Skateboard magazine around 2001. If I recall correctly the brand was just called We until a few years later the "SC" was added to create the present acronym. WeSC is a street brand hailing from Sweden. The idea is to create clothes for people looking at life after skateboarding. Extremely functional clothing that is playful yet smart.

Why I like them: The clothes have a futuristic feel to them. It must be the funky stripes used in the designs on many of the items. One of my favorite jeans are pictured in the Straight Leg jean topic done six days ago. The fit is superb, although going one size bigger will not hurt. The cardigan pictured below is comfortable and extremely light in feel. I love wearing it.

I also love the knitted pieces: cardigans and sweaters. Finally, I am a huge sucker for their women's line. Anna has some cool leg warmers as well as a killer button-up top.

I always talk about G-Star but WeSC is definitely one of my favorite brands I rarely talk about.

Where to buy:
Karmaloop
RevolveClothing

Notes: I firmly believe the Swedish fashion scene owes it to WeSC for putting the country on the map. Since then Nudie Jeans and Cheap Monday have sprouted.

my WeSC Fredde Cardigan

Random Find: Naked and Famous

Naked and Famous is another denim company focused on raw denim treatment; straying away from washes and what have. At the website, the company claims "now true denimheads and newcomers alike can enjoy these special fabrics at a reasonable price." I am all for good looking jeans that do not run at the same high price of Atelier LaDurance.

NylonTV - Shoes

Shoes at the Nylon offices.

Why I hate the term trendy

Trendy, how that word would bug me growing up. For a while the word was rarely used. Until recently it irritated me when I read in a forum, "I don't even think it looks trendy" in regards to a line of clothes from Harvard. Since then the word continues to agitate, even more so when I am at work.What does that even mean, "I don't even think it looks trendy?"

In middle and high school there is an eager interest for the pursuit of a superficial fad that will likely last a very short time. With such a brief shelf-life, how can it be so appealing knowing something that is so "great" will eventually be replaced by the next big thing? This might be reflection on their attention spans.

Working in retail the word haunts me, as anyone remotely youthful crave trends. Most of these are created by brands that are perceived as avant garde. Gradually these cooler ideas pick up momentum by mainstream companies for, well, mainstream customers. This harks back to a topic I did on Friday. Mainstream consumers shop at locations where things are readily available like shopping malls and department stores.

Malls are highly competitive because a certain amount of effort goes into luring customers to their products away from competition. Brands are always looking for ways to making money, in which if ideas are not generating the best option is to discreetly duplicate what is doing well for another brand to bring back some customers back. Maybe this is why shopping malls are supersaturated with trendy items that are either the same or similar nonetheless.

The idea of a company following a trend eventually leads to entire populations buying into these ideas. Ideas such as "Hey look, I read in this magazine this season scarfs are really in!" How and when did scarfs become so lame that it had to be revived by these so-called leaders of fashion (Express and Abercrombie & Fitch)? Really? The biggest suckers are the consumers.

Random Find: Join the PACT

Yesterday PACT, an underwear brand, lunched its entire operation. Partnered with Yves Behar of fuseproject, the brand focuses on environmental and social difference. By doing so it produces its goods within a 100 mile radius from the farmers who grow the cotton for the plant to keep things local and close-knit. Also it is currently involved with three major organizations. 826 International; encourages the enrichment of literacy for youth. ForestEthics; protecting surviving forests. Oceana; protecting the oceans. Check out the website and online store.

Ed Hardy Recipe Card

I find this amusing.

NylonTV + Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Watch it for yourself and tell me what you think.

G-Star Raw Fall/Winter Campaign

This is a cool inside look at behind the scenes of the upcoming campaign. I feel bad for them; taking photos fully dressed in Miami. That's rough. Also Toby Kebbel cracks me up, them Brits.

Brand of the Week 1: Cheap Monday

This is the start of my Brand of the Week series. I will be covering various clothing brands from around the world, providing brief insight on what they are about.

Company: Cheap Monday

Website: www.cheapmonday.com

About: Cheap Monday is a Swedish denim brand. Before it was eventually sold throughout Europe, the clothes were sold from the back of a store around 2004. Cheap Monday are notorious for slim fitting jeans for both men and women.

Why I like them: The men's jeans remind me of affordable Nudie Jeans (also from Sweden) without the superlative details. The women's denim jeans are fantastic, as some are in interesting washes or have awesome styles. My favorites are the women's high-rise waisted jeans because they look alluring in appearance and not something that can be found everyday.

Where to buy:
Karmaloop
ASOS
Ssense

Note: Cheap Monday does run one size small when it comes to pants and jeans. If you wear about size 27 then purchase a size 28.

Helping you out

For a while people wondered how I could afford to buy clothes. Well it all comes down to finding fantastic deals online. Check out these five sites that I check out periodically. I mainly use Retail Me Not and Coupons.com but Any Coupons is a superb site from what I can tell.

Coupons.com: This is only for grocers and drug stores

Coupon Cabin: Claims to have more than 100,000 discounts from more than 20,000 merchants

Retail Me Not: This focuses on apparel

Any Coupons: Knows about discounts on just about everything

Woot: A single deal everyday

The best way to save is just don't buy things but if things appear to be a must, see if you can save through the sites I posted.

More than meets the eye

Working in retail opened my eyes to many facets to the clothing industry; greater insight to what I like and dislike about it. Some of it seems manipulative. Some of it appears to be honest. I am amazed how they all seem to be working together to create these 'trends' that are must-haves in our wardrobe today although in six-months time they will be discarded as 'yesterday.' Maybe it is the companies who are primarily found in malls who are teaming up. How is it that all these brands are releasing the same products at the same time? Maxi dresses. Fedoras. Gladiator-style footwear. Pastel-colored apparel. Gaudy shirts that are similar to Affliction and Ed Hardy. For a place where individuals can purchase clothing that will accentuate their individuality, does little to accomplish that. It seems to be more of a variety of the same things.

This is why I have been willing to quit purchasing at the malls and shop at local small businesses despite the price differences. Alright, where I live most small businesses do not cater to my preferences but there are certain items that catch my attention. All in all what I am getting at is buying clothes far away from the malls or department store will greater increase your chances of not looking like the same people (which is a lot) who shop at those locations.

Origin chapter 1

I can recall (barely) when I first started to care about what I wore. It was around the time when Barney & Friends debuted itself to the world. While slowly every preschool child in the United States had blank faces with fixated eyes glued to the television set before nap time, I was playing with G.I. Joes and Transformers with my friends. There are two key things to know. I was not in the United States at that time. I lived in Frankfurt (Germany), which that purple abomination took a long time to register on my radar. Secondly I was about ten years old so I was in a different demographic.

At that age I was more concerned about toys, cartoons and comic books but whenever the word cool or uncool rang in my ear I was in full attention. Being ridiculed is nothing to look forward to. I must have been sitting in class probably drawing rather than doing homework until a discussion about a not-so-cool purple dinosaur came up. This was the moment I was introduced to Barney. The exchange between several students about how dumb he was left a negative impression.

Maybe a few months after hearing the exchange about this mysterious purple dinosaur my mother gives me a brand new t-shirt. As you can probably guess it had flipping Barney's huge face plastered in the middle of the gray colored t-shirt. There was no way in heck was I going to wear that to school (it was only worn as a pajama shirt). Using my imagination of what might happen to me is the same time I started to be more aware of what I was wearing. Despite my awareness from indirect feedback of others it did not instantly make me fashionable or, I do dare say, trendy.

Fashionable and trendy, these are words I want to talk about later.