Nancy Judd of Santa Fe is brilliant!  She creates what she calls “eco trash couture” as her statement to the world about conservation, and shows them at Recycle Runway.  Nancy has been commissioned by major corporations to design fashions for them too.
Nancy teaches workshops that aim to have the participants create functional pieces, with the goal of at least 90% recycled material going into each project.
Each of Nancy’s original hand sewn garments like the ones shown below take between 100 and 400 hours to make.  Her work is exhibited in airports all across the country:

Fan Mail Dress, 2000.   Junk mail.

Plastic …read more

Food and fabric are two of my favorites things, but Japanese clothing designer Ritsuko Shirahama went a step further and combined the two during her recent Tokyo fashion week show.
Ritsuko Shirahama created clothing that was inspired by the colors, texture and shape of vegetables and fruit.   Taking it one step further, she then created entire outfits entirely made of fruits and vegetables!

It’s definitely worth taking a look at her collection – what a great way to look at fashion…
You can see some great photos of her collection online here and here.
image: Stock.xchg

My sister-in-law just sent me this inspiring website from Cosmoworlds – their winter 2008/2009 forecasts!
They’ve come up with four set of colors, as well as their picks for the hot fabrics too – seriously yummy!

“Construct”

“Preserve”

“Reflect”

and last but not least “Revive”.
I can definitely work with those colors – good inspiration for a grey day!

I was going through photos of the recent Haute Couture fashion shows in Paris for my other blog, Her Accessories, and noticed some amazing pieces of clothing.
Check out the embroidery on this jacket from designer Franck Sorbier:

Isn’t that spectacular?
This dress is also by Franck Sorbier:

I’m not sure if it’s beaded or embroidered… but I’d love to get my hands on it and see!

Again, I’m not sure of the exact technique used to make this scarf/shawl, but I could see using it as inspiration for needle felt, or applique… or even painting & free-motion embroidery.
Couture is the most “artistic” of the …read more