Tag: fashion

Let’s go into the world of high fashion

Amongst those considered to be the most elite in the world of clothing design, the idea of couture in fashion involves the best of the best pushing their craft to it’s most (extreme, and sometimes extremely odd) realized form. In Couture in the 21st Century, compiled by writer Deborah Bee and photographer Rankin (of course he only has one name), you’ll see some of the most famous fashion designers’ most extreme work. Tucked in with the pictures, you’ll also find essays from famous fashion personalities like Oscar de la Renta, discussing where the clothing world is heading.  This is a great resource for fashion students, art students, and fans of design in general

We Just Want You to Know…

… That this book exists.

Fashion Law: A Guide for Designers, Fashion Executives, and Attorneys. Edited by Guillermo C. Jimenez, Barbara Kolsun.

I’m beyond curious. Do people copyright or trademark buttons or ways of stitching? or fancy pleating? Check it out at JCCC. I can only imagine how crazy some of these things must be.

Behind the Scenes: Inching Closer

So this process has been pretty crazy.  We’ve got a batch of ten items photographed and cataloged, and now we have to meet with a fashion expert and the photographer to make sure we’re doing it right.  After that we’ll be ready to roll on forward.

Until then, here’s a link to the test collection: http://bit.ly/Oyd8p. We’ll be manipulating this, cleaning it up, then adding to it at a fairly rapid pace.

2490 garments to go… eesh.

Summer at the Library

What’s up? This blog is getting dusty, and that’s because the slowness of summer is the excuse we use here at Billington Library to start getting more done.  Some things end up getting skipped over: you’re looking at one of them.

DSC_0001That right there is a gaggle of dress forms. I’m not comfortable with them hanging out so bare, so they’ve been covered for the time being.  The reason they’re around is because we have this fashion collection out here at JCCC, and we’re ready to digitize it all.   We’ll be throwing dresses on these and hammering our photographs for the rest of summer, and then fall… it is likely a year or two year project. And it is time consuming. Eek.

Meanwhile, we’re still getting quite a bit of new books, and still doing instruction for classes throughout summer.

Coming up soon is SIDLIT, the summer conference for distance learning. JCCC’s ScholarSpace is the new home for digitally archiving the conferences proceedings, and we’re super-psyched to be attending and collecting presentations.  We’ll probably be following it at our Twitter account, on SIDLIT’s Twitter account, or collectively at #sidlit, starting when the conference goes down: July 30th – 31st.

Also, supposedly in the next two weeks, we’ll have the Campus Ledger in our posession: digitally.  From creation to 2007, the only gap being one year that seems to have left this earth in its entirety.  Exciting? Yes. I hold my breath, though, in anticipation of its arrival.

And yet, there’s more.  I’ll talk about it when it is more solidified.

Book of the Day

So today’s Book of the Day is a real upper!  Let’s take a look!

AAHH!!!!  New book!  New book!  New book!

YES!  Thank goodness.  I can’t take any more nuclear scares.

I’d much rather get my fashion on with A cultural history of fashion in the twentieth century : from the catwalk to the sidewalk.  It is 177 pages of designs, designers, and the integration of innovation into daily wear.  Certainly this is more uplifting than the first choice, plus I truly can respect someone who can go through this book and point out shifts in cultural asthetic paradigms… I see pretty pictures for the most part.  But at least it can be enjoyed on both levels.

Book of the Day

Well, football fans may have noticed that the Chiefs may have lost a game, but they somehow boosted everyone else’s chances of winning games this year.  Me, I’m a Bears fan (stop booing), so I had a good night.  One thing that could have made the night better for me?  A Project Runway marathon.

I’m not kidding, I love that show.  The one thing that always amazes me, though, is when they start nagging about each other, because inevitably, someone will try “draping”, and someone else will say, “Sally has no idea how to drape properly”.  This will leave me staring at the TV thinking “Dude!  You just drape it!  How can that be hard?”  Thousands of college kids adorn themselves in homemade togas for parties every year, and I guarantee you that few and far between have fashion design experience.

Hopefully this book will help me understand the world of draping.  Well, more specifically, The Art of Draping.  This is the 3rd. edition:  That immediately tells me there’s more to this than I realize.  Any need to revise an art like draping makes it immediately complex.  And then, I open up to see a type of draping called a “hip yoke”.  I’m guessing that isn’t slang for a really cool egg.

Okay, draping, you win.  If you’re a fashion student, you may want to thumb through this.  Because if you don’t keep up, one day you’ll be in.  And the next… you’re out. (I love project runway!!)