Luxury: Year of the Rabbit Tee

"Nestled in San Francisco's historic Jackson Square neighborhood, Carrots occupies the storied former space of Ernie's restaurant, a San Francisco landmark featured in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, which closed its doors in 1999. The 4,000 square foot luxury emporium is home to a carefully-curated selection of women's ready-to-wear, shoes and accesories....The stores name, 'Carrots,' is a wink and a nod to Grimmway Farms, the Grimm family business, which is the worlds largest grower...and shipper of carrots." Now in their third year, officially the Year of the Rabbit, Carrots' presents this  kitschy-cool exclusive t-shirt designed by Oliver Maxwell Kupper.  Only 15 tees are available.  www.sfcarrots.com

Totally Bananas: The Footwear Creations of Kobi Levi

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Kobi Levi's heels are "wearable sculptures" that verge on fetishistic with an ironic, seemingly dadaist, wit. If Roger Vivier, 20th century French fashion designer credited with revolutionizing the stiletto heel, is considered the "Fragonard of the shoe," than you might call Kobi Levi the the "R. Mutt of the shoe." R. Mutt is of course the name signed on Dada artist Marcel Duchamp's iconic and ridiculous 1917 ready-made sculpture entitled "the fountain" - which was simply a found urinal. Is it genius or asinine? Levi, like Duchamp, is certainly making a statement. Levi's pieces are "...humoristic with a unique point of view about footwear." Throughout the history of civilization, women's fashion has taken turns as bondage and liberation.  Levi's constructions might be both, or the handiwork work of a batty sculptor with a foot fetish.  From semi-blatant sexual innuendo to slingshots to banana peels, Levi's shoes are cartoonish, bombastic, and in their magical kitschyness there is a beautiful complex brilliance which makes them insanely cool. www.kobilevidesign.blogspot.com

COVHERlab "PIECES" ss 2011

New Covherlab collection by designer Marco Grisolia." From the press release: "Sartorial ties and embraces, open, allowed to decant with hems kept raw and an obsessive succession of paneled sections declined in different chromatic solutions, in various weights, textures and rigidity that doubling the main piece with gauze, georgette, micro net and chiffon, opaque it with glaze and, thanks to the superficial cut outs, build a silent dialogue of “chiaroscuro” and layered geometries.

Exotic Regrets by Aoi Kotsuhiroi

I received an image over the weekend of the fascinating first chapter of sartorial sculptor, poet, and conjurer Aoi Kotsuhiroi's new collection entitled Exotic Regrets. As in past collections, Kotsuhiroi, based in the South of France, releases imagery of her new collections in chapter's to express gravity and anticipation. www.aoikotsuhiroi.com

LittleDoe

Invoking the Jazz Age. "Limited edition freshwater pearl chain headpiece with raw crystal geode by little doe exclusively for [I Don't Like Mondays]....hand made in NYC." Proceeds go to Designers Against Aids. Find it at www.idontlikemondays.com

Jet Set: Marc Marmel

The idea came to Marc Marmel whilst vacationing in the French Riviera: "There was a time in history when travel was about the journey, not the destination.  A time when custom made luggage was a privilege only afforded by the wealthy. A time when luggage traveled to exotic locations by steamship, railroad, and horse drawn carriage."  So Marmel, based in Los Angeles, began to design and construct, by hand, one of kind luggage. Beautiful leather bags that undoubtably stand out in large contrast to the ubiquitous and ever so homogeneous black rolling suitcase: the exact opposite of unique.  What with rolling sidewalks and flight attendants with an ever changing job title and muffin tops who serve bad coffee, I think soon we'll see a small revolution in the way we travel. Oh lord that blows the wild wind: bring back a time that hearkens back to Pan-Am, luxury ocean liners, and the great discovery of mysterious flora and fauna; all with a gorgeous blond at our sides,  a ridiculously tiny unsafe car that reeks of leather and petrol, and a Marc Marmel bag in the trunk.  www.marcmarmel.com

Not in Fashion: Photography and Fashion in the 90s

MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt/Main is showing how fashion changes our view of the world. In the 1990s, the fashion scene fundamentally reinvented specifically the medium of photography. That decade gave rise to a new generation for whom personal identity, individualism and a self-defined style were of crucial importance. Back then, the joie de vivre of the generation of 20-30 year-old creative minds thrived on music, subculture, intimacy and fashion. A new notion of corporeality was being celebrated in the major capitals of the world, such as London, New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Paris. The protagonists of this era sought to distinguish themselves from the established art and fashion scenes, and develop an alternative, lived counter-culture. They felt that the overly artificial images of prêt-à-porter, haute couture and glossy fashion magazines needed to be overcome and replaced with “real life” pictures instead Youth-Culture. They thus collectively dismissed the notion of the beautiful, and tried to elide gender differences and other social conventions.  Catch the last few days of this show - more info here.