let's go time-traveling and pretend that i'm back on track with the chi fashion report, shall we?

who's shakin' on tuesday.

i have to admit, i was feeling a wee bit challenged seeking out well-dressed conference attendees on the second day of festivities. perhaps everyone had already vested their best on the first day? was this really the sad truth? i scoured the field, staring quite intensely (though may have appeared strangely) down hallways and up escalators, through the rose-coloured lenses (and fuschia-tinged windows) of the palais. my eyes blurred through the endless parade of nondescript apparel.

so, for these lucky few, thank you for making the day that much brighter.

up first (and cinching my max quota for one medialabber per day)...



amanda parkes: tangible media group, mit media lab

anyone who has ever seen amanda knows full well her fashion intellectualism and outrageously unique style. her shirt above comes from (one of my favourite labels) cop.copine, of french design. amanda confessed that about half of her wardrobe is furnished by skunkfunk, a spanish company, that she scoops up happily whenever she has opportunity to faire du shopping in europe. amanda was a tad ambivalent about favourable shop ops in boston, though she recommends scoping the hayes valley district in san francisco (her old digs), and attends to the usual haunts of nolita and williamsburg when traveling to new york. her favourite place in the world to go, though, is germany. 'i'd just go to east berlin... it's awesome!' if there were any method to her clothing madness, amanda remarks that it's quite an organic process, starting from a single object like an accessory or a shoe and adding layers up from there. her enthusiasm for shoes run deep, and some of her personal picks include united nude, a footwear-meets-architecture company started by rem koolhaas; and muxart, a sporty yet spunky shoe label from barcelona. after surveying the chi masses, she would advise: 'please... no khakis, no button-downs. learn from the europeans!'

spoken like a true american. :)

tuesday evening was a job fair in the big central 'common' complex. read: lots of cheap swag and free xxl white tshirts. *shudder* however, among all the ritual of shiny card-swapping and corporate soul-stealing, i spotted this gal after espying her tie-back ribbons and to-die-for shoes:



maryam tohidi, of university of toronto + microsoft research, cambridge, UK

finally, a sliver of hope in the midst of the circus. relief washed over me and curled expectantly at my toes.

speaking of toes, her gorgeous shoes warranted a story. and what a story! maryam does research in cambridge, UK, but takes occasional visits to bath (bahth!) 180 miles away. she found these awesome shoes at the office in bath, and lurved them, but wavered and figured she could get them back at another location in cambridge. well, she went back to cambridge, and soon discovers the office there had the same style, but not the same colour (brown crocodile) as the ones she fell for. honestly, sometimes you really cannot settle for less! so she went back to bath just to fetch the shoes, the original and best. together at last! i love happy endings.

in her university surroundings in toronto, maryam likes the funky and local designs at queen street. her fashion fetishes are jewelry, where she confessed to having a 'ton in her collection', and handbags. shoes, bags, chic metals... what more would a girl want? maryjam fights for originality! continue your noble campaign, dahling!

mmmm, let's show those luscious shoes again, now shall we?



seeing these make me instantly happy. sigh.

and presenting the last fashion plate of the evening...



jamie zigelbaum, of tufts university

jamie, take two:



if you can't tell, there are gold rolex watches silk-screened on the inside of the black sweatshirt. jamie demonstrates flinging the bling. he got this brilliant garment at one of my favourite stores, proletariat in harvard square. (i knew them back when they were down in the dingy lower level on jfk street! hardcore, you garage-monging punk wannabes... heehee.) the owner of the vintage clothing shop, kerry simon, also handscreeens a bunch of original designs. so rockin', right? anyway, jamie describes his personal style philosophy of pastiche, stealing a bit from here and there, remixing bits and pieces, and basically following a trajectory of organic evolution. true darwanism at work here, folks. one of his fav clothing meccas is karmaloop on newbury street in boston, where they have an 'awesome array of shoes' including the kisaragi koyomi by reebok and special series puma kicks.

jamie concludes with this gem of wisdom: 'be a nonconformist. wear what you like, not what anyone else says.'


'unless, of course, that person is your girlfriend. then it's probably in your best interest to wear what you're told.'

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so those were tuesday's muses. thanks everyone, you all look smashing! readers, stay tuned for more chi fashion reports! (virtually) live from montréal! ;)