(via their blog)

We’ve teamed up with the International Child Art Foundation to create the Madewell Denim Drive, where we’ll take your jeans and put them to creative use. Kids of all ages will be able to use these materials for their many art projects—and in return, you’ll get 20% off your first Madewell jean purchase of the New Year. (Finally, a true win-win.)

My Xmas wishlist this year is still in the works, one item is making a repeat appearance from last year, and that would be Madewell’s highriser jeans. I’m not a denim gal by any means, but these jeans are a definite staple in my closet… I’m actually wearing them right now. I can’t remember life without them. Why are they so amazing?

1: No more muffin top. No need to keep hiking your jeans up every 15 minutes. I don’t care what body type you are, hip huggers are gonna give you some sort of over-hang. Not cute. These jeans are so flattering and comfortable.

2: They don’t stretch out! I swear these babies are magic. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a pair of jeans that have kept their fit between washings like these.

eclipse, saloon, and black frost

(I have the eclipse, but I can’t decide wish of the other two I’d rather have… such a tough choice)

So be sure to do some late – or maybe early – spring cleaning and donate some of your unused denim for a great cause!

I helped out with another photo-shoot for gr.dano back in August (yea, I told you this post was a long time coming too). It was the same deal as last time: awesome clothes, awesome hair and makeup, awesome model, awesome awesomeness. I helped out with the outfit changes again, and they even used my necklace in a few shots!

These are a few quick pics I snuck in here and there throughout the day, enjoy!!(That’s my necklace!)

The next two are my favs shots!(my necklace again!)

Isn’t she totally adorable?!?

Check out some of the official shots below and the rest of the collection here. (Seriously, do it!)

The seersucker jacket and shorts on the right are KILLER. I was oogling over them all day… and again right now.

I’ve been interested in bookbinding pretty seriously since last semester. I wanted to put together a portfolio for my design class, I checked out a few books for the library, but I never got around to learning how to do it because I never had the time above and beyond my regular work. Thanks to a friendly email from Refinery29 a few months back (yea this post is a long time coming… so is the next one I have planned) I learned about a bookbinding class that was happening at a new shop Press: Works on Paper! Obviously I signed up immediately, because I knew I had to jump on the opportunity.

Pressworks is a small shop stuffed full of goodies: stationary, wrapping paper, rare books, quirky desk items, and bookbinding tools (of course). If it’s unique and has to do with books or paper, I’d bet that they have it stocked or can get it for you.

I won’t get into all of the gritty details, but I had a great time! Our teacher Jennie was amazing. She was so friendly and passionate, and really wanted to make sure everyone understood each step. I definitely want to take another class to learn a different method ASAP. In fact they’re actually hosting a class this Saturday that I’m thinking about going to (info here).

I snapped a few iphone pics (sorry for the poor quality!) of the bookbinding process that you can continue to checkout below. If you’re interested in reading more about Press: Works on Paper, the Bold Italic did a really nice write-up on the class and took some killer pics (Me and my hands are in a lot of them [see below], no big deal.)

Honestly, please click on this link for the Bold Italic, hopefully you’ll get as big a kick out of it as I did!

I just came across this new site, NOWNESS, and it’s pretty enthralling. They describe themselves as:

“… the digital leader in luxury storytelling. Each day, NOWNESS showcases an exclusive premiere of the most inspiring stories influencing contemporary culture and global lifestyle, previewing the latest in fashion, gastronomy, art, film, music, design, travel and sport.

NOWNESS collaborates with the world’s foremost designers, creatives and thinkers in the luxury industry. NOWNESS is an innovative space where ideas, both timeless and timely, are first and foremost.”

You should definitely take some time and check out their site, but first you should watch the video they did about the Spring/Summer 2012 McQueen collection. In it, Cathy Horyn (New York Times fashion critic) chats with Sarah Burton at the label’s Paris atelier about the house’s marine-inspired collection.

I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video here, so (after checking out some of my fav screenshots of the video below) click on over to here and bless your eyes and ears!

Until then you can:

1- Get to know the designers on Fashion School Daily.

2 – Watch the show from last season!

Academy of Art University: Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Lincoln Center -September 9, 2011 at 5PM (Pacific Time).

Saw this earlier today on the glamourai. Note to self: male models apparently can’t dance.

My favorite looks from the video (the ruffles on the pink one are KILLER!!)

I have no words for this last one… other than it’s just too good.

During the party a photo was snapped of me by Stylenik. They posted it, with some other great pics they took at the party. You can check mine out below, and the others here!

I’m wearing a BDG top and ecote belt from Urban Outfitters, vintage Diane Von Furstenberg skirt, asos tights, Me Too shoes from DSW, and necklaces from Nordstroms.

Thanks Stylenik!!

If you follow me on twitter, you know that last month I helped out at a photo shoot for local designer gr.dano, who I am currently interning for. It was a total blast! A couple of the other interns and I were there to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible. I mainly helped out with the outfit changes, making sure that everything was ready and waiting when it needed to be. These are a few snapshots that I snuck in here and there when I could!

The Fall 2011 collection will be available at the 440 Brannan Store and Studio later this year. To tide you over until then you can checkout a few of the looks below, and the rest of the collection here! Also, read some other write-ups on Refinery29 and SF Indie Fashion.

Lately I’ve been trying to make time for a social life, and with as little free time as I have I’ve been somewhat successful the past few weeks! On Thursday some friends and I went to see Donald Glover – aka Childish Gambino – at the Fillmore. It was an incredible one man show, he started with some stand-up that had us all in stitches, and then transitioned into the music which had all of us hipster kids bouncing up and down and singing along. If you don’t recall I had a short encounter with Mr. Glover at SXSW that still makes me laugh to this day. A little part of me was hoping that I could get a picture with him licking my other cheek, but we didn’t stick around after. Anyway, this is what I wore to the show, any excuse to get dressed up… right?

I don’t want to be “that girl” (ie the girl I was in high school at every single concert that I went to) but I’m pretty sure we’re meant to be.

Details Dress: Betsey Johnson (purchased during a crazy sale at the Round Rock, TX outlet!). Jacket: Vintage. Tights: American Apparel. Shoes: Dolce Vita. Necklaces: (silver) somewhere in Pairs, (gold) vintage. Ring: Crofts Original. Nails: Sally Hanson Salon Effects, Frock Star.

Lastly, for your enjoyment:

The prompt for our first project was “Subliminal Souvenirs: Develop a collection based on your own memories and reminders of experiences by looking inward and outward for inspiration.” (There was more to it than that, but I’ll spare you the lengthy PDF.) I have to be honest and say that it kind of stumped me at first, mainly because I felt like I didn’t have many things that would qualify as”subliminal souvenirs”. When I moved to San Francisco from Austin I left those kinds of things behind. However, this made me come up with ideas that were less obvious, but at the same time – in the end – really more obvious. The majority of my research book was filled with pictures from ACL, as well as children’s toys and other knick-knacks. I’ll try to scan the pages in and post them when I get a chance!

One major learning tool that our instructor had us use for this project was that each week we were required to find different fashion illustrators and use their styles to inspire our croquis/roughs. These are two of my better ones from the project.

Inspired by Richard Chai’s illustrations.

Inspired by Stephanie Jiminez’s illustrations. I met Stephanie when I took some classes at the Austin School of Fashion Design about a year ago, and I loved her drawing style! I followed through with her illustrations as the major inspiration for my final girls.

On the day of our critique I ended up with 15 final looks and these are what I consider the best of those 15.

Overall it was a really good critique! (yay!) My instructor liked the boxiness/angularness of the collection as well as the oversized cuts. He also liked the hair (my signature from my previous projects [here and here] wrangled in a bit). He did suggest that I make the girl more “realistic”… ie shorter legs, arms, and neck. At the time I didn’t really agree (probably because I was running on 3 nights of no sleep) but looking at them now I definitely do and I’m glad I made an adjustmant for my second project.