3D Printers - Printing clothing, eyewear, jewelry and shoes???

3D Printers Democratize High Fashion for the Casual Consumer

The accessible world of 3D printing has allowed designers to create businesses around printable goods, using online stores like Zazzy and Etsy as virtual storefronts for their wares. It also brings down the price points of high fashion pieces, giving designers the tools to make anything they want, in any quantity. For those who are still skeptical, take a look at the legendary artists and brands that are putting out 3D-printed work. For example, pioneering designers like Janne Kyttanen and the Freshfiber team have worked with 3D Systems to create custom jewelry and platform shoes without gouging customers. Meanwhile, the United Nude fashion house has produced 3D-printed work like the “Float” and “Coral” shoes, which can be printed at home for $35. Perhaps Kanye West will even be getting into the 3D printing market soon. Below, we’ve shared a few more of the latest trends that keep prices low for printed fashion.

Presented By Cubify

Kish - The Epitome of Men's High Fashion

Every Fashion Question Any Man Ever Had Has Been Answered By One Store - Kish

By D. Eze.

Fashion is usually a woman’s game. All the fashions show usually have women strutting their stuff down the runways of Milan, New York and Paris. Sure there are a few men’s collections, but for the most part it is usually women who get the most of the attention.

The fashion trends that come out of these fashions shows usually revolve around women and focus on what colours women should wear and what styles are the most fashionable this season.

Men are always the proverbial bridesmaids in this situation. Without the resources available to women, what can a man do if he wants to look good?

The truth is all men want to look good too, but they just don’t know how. They have no options on style, no information on trends and no opportunities to improve their looks.

Enter Kish Wear.  This men’s fashion atelier solves men’s problems regarding style, affordability and quality.

With products that range from heavy winter coats to crisp white dress shirts, Kish provides every man with every possible need.  The clothing also has the added benefit of being extremely fashionable as if they stepped of those runways I referred to earlier.

When I shop for pieces I always look for two things: how much will it cost me and does it look so good that I just can’t say no.  I am happy to say that Kish takes care of both of my concerns pretty well.  Below, I elaborate on why the price point and the style at Kish are just what you need to take the next step toward a more fashionable you.

Price Points

I decided to put together my own outfit just to see how much it would set me back.  Upon first looking at the website, I have to admit the style and quality had me a bit  worried that I might have to pay a hefty price for my desire to step my style game, but quickly learned that my worries were for not.

I put together a pretty amazing ensemble including Burgundy Incotex Slim-Fit Trousers made mostly of cotton and Elastane that were made in Albania, a nice Plain White Spread Collar Shirt that is crisp and clean made of cotton and polyester, and a pretty wonderful looking Knitted Italian Zipper Turtleneck Sweater made of polyester, viscose and alpaca for less than $200.00 dollars.  At other stores I could be paying twice that for the same amount of quality and style.

This is a great three-piece outfit that I could pair up with things I already own to expand my wardrobe choices exponentially and I gain the ability to make my tired old clothing look extra special given the quality of the pieces.

Style

I have mentioned before that these cloths look like they came directly off the runway and I was not lying.  The range of colours, patterns, cuts and fits all combine to make even the most unstylish schlub into model material.

Kish releases men from their black, navy blue, grey, and brown/tan prisons and lets them revel in the freedom of bold, interesting colours.  Turquoise and burgundy are among some of the colours you can look forward to wearing with this atelier along with the mainstays listed above.  You can mix and match with a broader range of hews and experiment with something you may not have considered wearing before.

The patterns are much more interesting too.  You no longer have to choose between tartan and pinstrip, now you can be guided by whatever inspires you.  One interesting patterned piece is a lovely blue and white water drop skirt that is definitely one of a kind.

Slim fit is unquestionably in and very much represented by Kish in a broad range of slim fit styles.  Their European cut trousers and blazers are very trendy and will absolutely turn heads.

Asymmetry, dynamic cuts and clean lines are mainstays with this fashion house and are most prominent in their sweaters and jackets.  Some prime examples are the Charcoal Grey Peacoat and the Knitted Italian Wool-Blend Brown Cardigan.  If you want to look like you are forward thinking in terms of style give these wonderfully tailored pieces a try.  One thing is for sure; your admirers will not believe the price.

There is no need to wonder what can I do to improve my style, Kish answers all of your questions with simple, clean, dynamic clothing.  Pick and choose which pieces you think will make you look your best and walk with pride with your chic self.

So look no longer men, you have finally found your salvation.  Be stylish, be bold, be daring and check out Kish.  You sense of style will thank you for it.

Hemp Fiber Hats!!!

By Tamyka Bullen

Hats come in different shapes and come in different fibers. I only have one hat that is made of hemp and the design of it is so beautiful. It is hard to find more hemp hats at mainstreamed stores as you only find them at a few fair trade stores. When I bought the hemp hat, the texture was rough but wasn't itchy. It was flexible like the coil string that you can bent. Hemp hats are perfect to wear during the spring, summer and fall times.

What I do not know that there are some benefit to wear hemp hats...
1. They are lightweight, absorbant and longlasting.
2. They are UV and mold-resistant.
3. Hemp can blend with other fibers
4. They are organic since a little water is only required and is renewable resource.

James Laver's Law of Fashion

FASHION - James Laver was a museum curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from the 1930s through the 1950s. Laver was also a fashion theorist and historian and having no other claim to fame he conceived of Laver’s Law — an attempt to make sense of the "fashion trend life cycle".

Here is James Laver's Law of Fashion:

Indecent	10 years before its time
Shameless	5 years before its time
Outré (Daring)	1 year before its time
Smart	Current Fashion
Dowdy	1 year after its time
Hideous	10 years after its time
Ridiculous	20 years after its time
Amusing	30 years after its time
Quaint	50 years after its time
Charming	70 years after its time
Romantic	100 years after its time
Beautiful	150 years after its time

What is interesting is that James Laver's Law of Fashion's has become the standard by which clothes buyers now operate. ie. Stanley Marcus, the former president of Neiman Marcus, recounts in his rather boring memoir titled "Minding the Store" how Laver’s Law was used by Neiman Marcus clothes buyers in the late 1960’s.

At the time there was a heated debate on whether the trend for the next year would still be the mini skirt (which was the current fashion) or the longer midi skirt. Marcus recalls asking Laver point blank if the mini skirt was dead. Laver told him that the mini skirt had at least another 2 years to go... whereas other experts were saying the time for the midi skirt would be soon.

His forecast was right, the midi was a complete flop, many women continued to wear the miniskirt, and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make up their minds went into the pants suit. Pants were bound to come, but the skirt-length controversy made pants acceptable at an accelerated rate.

The real and sheer brilliance of James Laver's Law of Fashion's timeline is that it can be applied to nearly all creative mediums — not just fashion but also art, design, architecture and even music. So called Smart or Current Fashion, doesn’t have a particular time frame attached to it. Something can be smart for 1 year or a even few years. It might not even be a trend, but a wave lasting generations, such as when bikinis were first introduced and became popular.

Now think back to some of the trendy things of the past and you’ll see how it applies: Brightly colored iMacs, Victorian wallpaper, Disco, Preppy clothes, stainless steel art deco appliances...

Hitting that sweet spot around Daring and Smart is what fashion designers are trying to design... because obviously they want to make a product that everyone will want to buy and it can be mass produced. Go shopping and look at all the stuff that in a few years will start to look bad.

In 10 years it will look horrible.

And then eventually your kids will raid your closet or attic and it will be hip again.

Guide to Fashion Sketches

FASHION - The intense competition in the fashion industry makes it important for any fashion designer to showcase the designs to a larger audience. This can be done by creating fashion sketches and displaying them on the Internet.

The sketches give an insight to the fashion fraternity and also to the common audience on the concept behind a particular fashion design. It is a way of communicating the theme to the people associated with the apparel industry. Hence, they are extremely important for any fashion designer.

Fashion sketches are illustrations made by professional artists and designed in a way that they can be easily displayed on the Internet. They portray the true creative genius of the designer. These can be considered a blue print of the final product.

The perfection in making sketches is a prerequisite as they serve as the main marketing tool of the fashion professionals. The sketches reflect trends and the value added features of the design. They can also be used to evaluate the various patters used by different designers.

Fashion sketches are important, since they are the preliminary designs that have to be taken to the different apparel manufacturers in the market. The sketches are then used to select the different fabric samples from the wide range on offer.

Computers are increasingly being used for the purpose of making fashion design sketches. Several software are now available that assist the designers in making the drawings. While some still prefer the traditional hand-drawn sketches, others choose to opt for the speed and convenience of computer-aided designing. Hand-drawn sketches can also be fed into the computer with the help of a scanner.

The art of making fashion design sketches is important for creating a niche in the highly competitive fashion industry. Fashion designers can make their presence felt only if their sketches are different and original. Good quality sketches are the only means of establishing a firm foothold in the fashion industry.

Is Fashion Design an Art Form?

The question of what constitutes "Art" with a capital T has been around for a long time. People pretty much agree that making a good cup of coffee is not an art form but there is still a lot of dissent about certain modes of expression like writing, movie making and fashion.

There is the idea that fashion cannot be an art because it evolved from sewing and tailoring which is a craft even though tailoring has been referred to as "architecture" and the draping of fabric across the body as being "sculptural".

Many designers make references to art and artistic theories and concepts in their work yet are nevertheless relegated to the ranks of the frivolous where haute couture is viewed as the fetish of the financially well-to-do.

And once haute couture and runway collections have been watered down for consumption by the general public then they are seen as nothing more than financial commodities and functional apparel in the marketplace.

Another reason why fashion is not considered to be art is because, as with film making, a number of people performing different functions take part in the creation of a garment, such as the designer, fabric producer, pattern cutter and seamstress to name but a few.

Because designers often don't work alone to produce a garment, they don't fit with the traditional view of the artist as a solitary genius and are therefore not considered artists even though their vision of what the garment will look like is their own.

In short, there is no clear-cut answer as to whether fashion is Art or not because there are so many ways to interpret and use an individual garment. It can be seen as protection from the elements, an expression of belonging to a particular socio-cultural group, as a personal form of expression when it is worn, or in its purest sense, as the embodiment of the vision of its creator, the designer.

Because fashion is so fluid and open to interpretation, it fits in with the theories of many disciplines and forms of expression, of which Art is only one.

Ameircan Apparel going bankrupt

Is sexy still profitable... or is there such a thing as being too sexy?

American Apparel, in the business of selling everything from sexy socks to sexy shirts for 21 years, is going kaput. With 280 stores in 20 countries its difficult to imagine how a company that only sells fashion items that are (more or less) chosen for their sexual appeal. Admittedly it isn't very focused... American Apparel sells everything - socks, shirts, bed linens and even stuff for kids and pets (which is a tad disturbing considering how raunchy their advertising campaigns are). They market to a very narrow audience of mostly SKINNY female 18 to 24-year-olds.

American Apparel also uses only a single factory in L.A. to pump out all of its clothes. Everything is Made in America. Except it wasn't all being made by Americans. The L.A. factory was discovered last year to be using a workforce of 1,500 illegal immigrants (one third of his staff) and has since been struggling to replace that staff with American workers.

But American Apparel wasn't paying their staff low wages either. The workers in the L.A. factory were getting double what the minimum wage is, generous health care benefits, free English lessons and even massages.

Last year, American Apparel posted sales of $559 million USD. Profits are up 93% in the last years, from a huge downturn during the start of the American Recession in 2007.

But a combination of debt (AA owes $91.4 million to London-based lender Lion Capital), over expansionism and a too narrow focus on skinny young women has resulted in a company swimming in debt and not enough skinny young women buying clothes. (Especially in the US market where 33% of teen girls are obese and approx. 60% are overweight. Which is ironic because American Apparel also owns Colossal Clothing, a plus size line for men, but not for women.)

Unless saved by a miracle investor American Apparel is expected to be out of business by the end of June.

SEX SELLS... OR DOES IT???

You've probably seen American Apparel ads before. They tend to stand out for their sheer luridness. Like watching the opening trailer for a James Bond movie.

Lots of ass, lots of breast, lots of skin in general. It appeals not to the average woman, but to the more slutty variety. American Apparel founder and CEO Dov Charney once commented "there are some of us that love sluts. It could be an endearing term."

So yeah. Unashamedly slutty.

Not slut shaming here. The glorification of it?


Its been the stuff of feminist debate for a generation, with women pointing out how American Apparel objectifies women... and the opposite argument that women who shop at American Apparel are simply expressing their sexuality... an idea that is bolstered by post-feminism (which says women always have a choice when it comes to how they want to express themselves).

The thing is however is that not many women have been choosing American Apparel. Its gone out of fashion to dress like a slut.

Oh sure, there will always be those women who prefer to dress slutty (for whatever reason), but the fact remains that the women out there who are buying clothes apparently are not flocking to American Apparel for their choice of slutty garments.

With time American Apparel could probably make a comeback by cutting back on production of clothing that isn't selling, focusing less on advertising and more on quality (at this point all the young women who like American Apparel already know about the store anyway)... and presumably American Apparel's style of clothing would come back into fashion and popular again at some point in the future.

But the problem is that American Apparel doesn't have that much time. Its gone the way of the Dodo bird.

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen commits Suicide

February 11th 2010.

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen was confirmed dead yesterday morning. The 40 year and 4 time British Designer of the Year hung himself in his luxury apartment. According to McQueen's twitter website he was upset over the death of his mother, Joyce, who died a week ago.

McQueen is described as the Hooligan of British Fashion, first starting in London’s famed Savile Row at age 16 where he worked as a tailor for Anderson & Sheppard and Gieves & Hawkes. He was lead designer at Givenchy from 1996 until 2001 before joining Gucci. He was awarded the CBE in 2003.

McQueen first gained attention for his “Bumster” look (pants cut low at the back to reveal ass cleavage). In haute couture he was known for his sculptured silhouettes, sending trained wolves down the runway and even based a collection on the Salem witch trials. He even sewed a vulgar message into the lining of Prince Charles' jacket.

His Highland Rape 1995-1996 collection featured torn bodices and was a commentary on the Scottish Highland clearances of the 18th century.

McQueen's mentor, Isabella Blow, also killed herself three years ago at the age of 48. After her death, McQueen went on a pilgrimage to India in hopes of finding spiritual solace.