i know this may be old news (quelle blogge! sacre bleu!) but this concept is just so fantastic.



a chocolate fashion show for charity, featuring darling austin scarlett as one of the designers. i can totally see him frolicking among the glistening ganache and cocao rosettes. read the enlightening article in the seattle post-intelligencer.

above designs by Rita Jackson and Kim O’Flaherty of Valrhona; Jim Hodge and Sue McCown of W Seattle Hotel, Earth & Ocean

i cannot even imagine what went on backstage...

spring aint giving way to summers.

[ha.]

today, harvard prez larry summers has decided to step down. i suppose i experienced the meat of his presidency from 2000-2004, witnessing such dramatic episodes such as the cornel west debacle (yes, yes, we all know he was like a bull in a china shop), the heebie-jeebie thoughts of his hitting on an english professor ("she's a potent mix of sensuality and rigor"), and of course his diet-coke-guzzling atkins rollercoaster.

the roller versus the coaster:



read the nytimes article and either rejoice, regret, or remember. beloved harvard, thou deservest better!

hey kids! exciting news!

i have my first correspondant position as a guest writer on decor8, an awesome new design blog featuring lots of pretty, inspiring, colourful things for your surrounding [] spaces.

here's a formal introduction of my presence from decor8 hostess holly, who may just be my role model du jour...


plus, this just in:

WMBR 88.1fm is shedding skin with a new programming season for the spring/summer. on 2006.02.22 (tomorrow) i will have my last sans serif show at 7pm. starting next week, the show will be moved to wednesdays, 9pm to 10pm. (personal corollary: project runway + tivo.) please turn your dials, program your online radio, subscribe to my iTunes, whatever is your most lovable protocol. :)

and lastly, just because last night's dinner rocked:



bon appétit!

quick and dirty recap of last saturday's afternoon jaunt:

on a wonderfully + bitterly cold day i ventured to newbury street for a number of reasons, including checking out the "red is..." exhibit (i use that term loosely) at the school of fashion design, cashing in my 20% coupon at karmaloop, and drooling over the old-school rowhouse architecture.

i dropped into french connection, and there's a mega 70% sale.

with good reason, i say.

to you i present the fug of fcuk:




can we say gem sweater? and check out that crochet monstrosity. the skirt reminded me a little of santino's gypsy palliette number.

anyway, i carried on. down the street i went, into the school of fashion design. the window display boasted a typical fit-flare ballgown in a lipstick red fabric. typical, but okay. i went in and the 'gallery' is just the lobby, if even. about eight dressforms were clad in various red getups designed by fashion school alums. it's really not worth the visit unless you just happen to walk by, but here's the best and worst of the fug:



yes, that heart dress really is that bad.

cringing, i skipped off to harvard square to catch the part2 exhibition of double hung at the carpenter center (ves). it was a little confusing (lack of placards can do that) but i was surprised to see a conceptual (?) piece en tricot...



although i can sort of understand that she's attempting to knit a cozy of her own silhouette, it just doesnt reach any sort of ideal. the calculations are a bit funny (she writes the gauge as 16 sts x 6 rows = 1", which is a conflation of a 4" and 1" gauge), and although i dont think all her increasing and decreasing is linear, the calculations are crude enough to make the contours more reminiscent of bowling pins than organic curves. what's up with the pointy head? and the loose end? that was driving me crazy. also, the printout of the chart was not that mindblowing, but also it was poorly, poorly mounted onto the wall. it looked like an anti-masterpiece of plotter paper, a good wrinkle, and 3M clear tape. execution counts heaps!



anyway, you should go to the carpenter center to plop down and watch the animation exercises and pieces on the video. they're quite inspiring, and (to the non-animator) jaw-droppingly elegant.



this installation took up about half of the space. not sure what it was trying to get at, but i liked the organic wall sculptures composed of the kidney bean pans. [as niknak reminds me, the nth rule of successful art is use multiples of anything! numbers seduce.]

see the fox? cute.



this was also pretty cool -- at first glance it looks like a ratty sheet. but up close, you realise it's plastic garbage bag-like white stuff that's undulatingly textured, perhaps baked/burnt/heated into a sheer, rippled textile. quite beautiful with the sunlight peering in the le corbusier glass window...



and finally, i trekked down to the basement where i spent many-a-light-deprived-hour making prints for my b/w photo class junior year. utterly surreal to revisit the place where i slaved and acheived for soooo long. a small but intense photo exhibit about buffalo, ny by grey halpern.

admist the snow, the boy just stares back at you.

sigh. i love closure.

as for the james coviello jacket, pun is intended. :)

remember this fitting pickle i was in? i looked like an inflated drummer boy. with the magic of double-face gunmetal satin ribbon, i could simultaneously cinch the bulk of the jacket inwards, and clasp it close with shiny shiny.



(above: the bathroom series #23)

i got many compliments on the grey bohemoth today, including staff at the list and a totally random diner at mary chung. (cong you bing, mmmm...) the sweater also provokes an interesting reaction from orkan. it goes something like this:

o: *tickles christine by poking her, especially right under the arms*

me: *violently ticklish and laughing* hey, stop it! *trying to flee*

o: christine, i cant help it.

me: what are you talking about?

o: that sweater.

me: what about it?

o: it just invites, no, entreats me to do that to you.

me: why?

o: because you look like a sheep!

me: okay. and...

o: that's what you do to sheep. you reach behind them and POKE them to tickle!

me: *totally weirded out*

o: what? didn't you grow up with sheep around, poking them too?

me: ....

o: anyway, i'm not really allowed to tickle you. that's nick's privilege.

niknak: *pokes christine into violent tickles*


* * *

so that's the last chapter of the long-winded tale of the jacket, and probably the last you'll hear extensively of it on my blog. but i'm super happy on how it turned out!

let me know if you ever need a bobble, i think i have plenty to spare...

dailycandy plopped into my inbox yesterday, and the only words i needed to rev up for the evening were hot norwegian and swedish and fashion. fanny + delphine clothing boutique in the hotel commonwealth in boston was hosting a fashion show for fresh scandanavian designers arne nerjordet and carlos zachrison. i called in for info, and they said it was free and open to the public, so i dragged invited my friend + labmate orkan to the event.

a did a little research before going, and i was very encouraged by the online pix of past collections. here's stuff from '04:



how cute? v. cute.

we got there around 6:45pm, and we were like mice in a maze trying to navigate through the swaths of lush carpeting and vats of silk flowers within the innards of the swanky hotel. the show was to be held in the esplanade, and it was quite empty, the show slated to begin around 7:30pm. so we walked up and down the avenue, pausing to peruse the sad lonely shelves of bargain tomes outside commonwealth books and ogling the $12 chocolate bars in the temper display. there were people eating on the sidewalks of eastern standard; what with this bizarre weather, there's al fresco dining in february amidst piles of aging snow...

back in the hotel we go, up the cascading steps of oriental blooms, and a catering staff from great bay offers glasses of wine, fried calamari (i was pleased that there were tentacles a-plenty) served in sno-cone cups, eeny-weeny-mini-tacos, and pork paté on crostini. small cakes emerged later on in the evening, a vanilla with chocolate filling, and a sinfully dense flourless chocolate (the heft was almost hockey puckish, in a good way). everything was gratis, and the room was pretty small, about 40 chairs. small batches of word-of-mouth publicity breeds exclusivity, i suppose. pretty good job with that.

[after the show, this morning i found this boston globe article about small, pampering events to cull customer loyalty. i know it's all marketing, but it's good to see actual quality service trickling back into the retail industry...]



see that dj behind us? apparently he arrived at 6:45pm with only hip-hop and generic rock in his possession. i think they ixnayed the hip-hop with the swedish frocks, so we watched the models sashay to the likes of 1998 top-40 instead. mmm hmm.



there was an elevated runway, with two rows of seats on either side. it was an interesting crowd of hip couples, fashionista gals and their sistahs, fashion geeks like us (shoutout to hugo), and boston fashion patrons.

below are video clips from the show; they started off first with the spring/summer collection, and then afterwards the fall/winter collection, 18 pieces per collection. (note: i missed the first look, getting my camera situated...)



overall, i thought the collections were really cute. my favorite were the wool coats, with exaggerated lapels that gave a fluid line between the bust and the back, in bolero-type fashion. the collars always seduce me. :) i felt that the lipstick-red chunky heels were a little distracting; the spring line could have been really effective barefoot or with lighthearted flats, and the fall line with leather boots or dark italian heels. though completely understandable, the lighting in the hotel room felt a little flat with highlighting the models properly, which only convinced me further that lighting makes it or breaks it! my favorite model was the redhead (find her in MVI_0065, with the ruffly white top and skirt). she just seemed the most convincing (i.e. european-looking) wearing this collection.



the designers, arne and carlos, came out with the models and looked very cute in their glasses and dark suits. once we saw them a bit closer after the show, they appeared to be quite young, perhaps in their mid- to late-20's. they blog, too! (blogs.no and blogspot.) here's their designer statement, excerpted from their website:

located 190 kilometres north of oslo in the valdres region of norway, ARNE & CARLOS' base in a disused railway station is their source of inspiration as well as a haven for peace and tranquility.

there, ARNE & CARLOS can absorb the rich tradition of scandinavian arts and crafts while adding their own personal inspirations, ranging from dolly parton to gardening, cartoons to origami.

the duo's passion for knitting, macramé and crochet also shines through in their designs. a recent example is the spring/summer 2006 collection. this contains smock embroidery over pleats, and is linked directly to their love for detail.

with their unique designs, ARNE & CARLOS seek to put norway on the international fashion map but without forsaking the country's rich design environment and creative abundance.

i thought the pieces were sweet and deceptively simple. i definitely saw folk german dutch and the american midwest as influences in the spring stuff, and 70's motifs and flowing tent dresses for the fall. i spoke with the owner of fanny + delphine, eve kohlman, and she was supersweet and smartly dressed in something dutch design and silvery. she said that she is planning to have a series of these fashion events, one per month. to that i say yay; boston deserves it. also, apparently this boston event was the first showing of arne + carlos' stuff in the US (aside from nyc earlier this week). very excited about eve's focus on culling and promoting small-run, independent, international fashion designers.

the sweetness isn't over yet; fanny + delphine (right in kenmore square) are hosting an arne + carlos trunk show and fitting this saturday from 11am - 9pm. go ahead if you want to see the undulating hems and fancy stitcheries up close.

enjoy!