Tuesday, August 24, 2010

dollar a day dresses


Recently my amazing friend Tess turned me onto a blog that drew inspiration from the film Julie & Julia....mind you this is a fashion blog I am writing about so no cooking is involved in this post. The blog I am referring to is called New Dress a Day, and it cultivates the art of fashion resoursefulness, something that I, myself am quite familiar with. The blogger has foregone all department store shopping from her life for a period of one year and has instead given herself a budget of a dollar a day to purchase one item from a flea market, garage sale, thrift store etc. and customize it to fit into modern day fashion wear. She has given herself 365 days and 365 dollars to accomplish this task and I for one find this to be incredibly courageous. I sat through at least 50 pages of her blog completely astonished at some of the pieces she was able to create out of something that most would easily pass by. The amount of creativity and ingenuity she puts into each piece is incredibly prevalent when you compare the before and after pictures of each item. This site offers not only creative ideas for out of date clothes, but also a lesson of never judging something at face value. What may seem like a lost cause such as a floor length floral moo-moo; could turn into a beatiful flattering dress with just a few quick steps and a little imagination. (Yes I just threw a life lesson into this blog...learn from it) So please take a look at this blog, I'll even make it easy for you by posting the webpage http://www.newdressaday.com/, now you have no excuse not to take a look, and I promise you'll appreciate it.

all my love,

Ali rude

Sunday, August 15, 2010

What decade are you?


I was asked a very thought provoking question the other day as to which time period I most identify with in my range of style, and for the life in me I could not come up with an answer, mostly because my outfit ideas are a culmination of whatever trends I most identify with at the time and whatever is clean in my closet. But I suppose my silly ideals actually have a lot to do with the overall concept of fashion; after all some of the most widely known trends derive from the art of necessity. When you begin to look back and dissect certain key decades, you begin to realize just how much of an impact history has had over the art of fashion. The 1920's was the time of women's liberation, and because of that a tom-boyish style began to develop in the "speakeasies". Women were getting bobs, and wearing flapper dresses that allowed optimal movement capabilities while they were doing the Charleston at all hours of the night. The 1950's was a time of great conservatism. T.V shows were representing the nuclear family with Husband and Wife sleeping in twin beds and the youths of this generation wearing varsity jackets, poodle skirts, and sweater sets. The 1960's provoked an emancipation from these conservative ways with the hippie style and their peace and love ideals. Disco brought on bell bottoms and huge hair and so on and so forth. If history has taught us one thing its that fashion is an ever fluctuating idea that creates trends that allow us to express ourselves in a myriad of different ways, and I for one am truly grateful.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

the art of inspiration


I was flipping through the pages of my high school magazine, because just like any good high school, they believe you still want to know what's going on after you graduate, and I stumbled upon an article about New York Fashion designer Derek Lam who just happens to be a fellow alumnus. Derek Lam is an incredibly talented and esteemed fashion designer who helped design for Michael Kors before starting his own line and becoming Creative Director for Tod’s, a company specializing in leather goods, best known for its D-bag. This guy has quite the impressive resume and it doesn’t hurt that we share the prestigious Wildcat heritage. In the article, written by Annie Wilson, another alumnus and fellow blogger (check out her blog Poetic & Chic), Mr. Lam discusses the powerful influence San Francisco has on him that inspired him to create his line, “the myth of the west”, an interpretation of the colonization of the Wild West and how people from the East created an entirely new culture that has lasted to this day. This idea really resonated with me because I feel incredibly lucky to be living in an area of such creativity and personal identification where all forms of creativity are freely encouraged and I have seen this first hand with the creation of Rude Etiquette and how much support we have received from outside sources. It’s truly inspirational to see someone like Derek Lam doing what he loves to do and sharing his passion with others so successfully, and I can only hope that Rude Etiquette can be as successful and certainly makes me proud to be a native San Franciscan.