Fashion for everyone

Jon


Adam, Connor, Jacob and Jon

Jon

Connor

Jacob

Adam

Signature style

My long-distance-BFF Aapo is a man of few words, so when he restarted his blog, it made sense for him to switch over to Tumblr. While I'm going to miss the random assortment of teenage party Polaroids that populated his long defunct blogger site (a throwback to when I first met Aapo at STEREO), his new site is undeniably more refined, featuring his work as a stylist in Stockholm and Helsinki. Ironically, just as I plan my move to Stockholm--I will be temporarily relocating there in November while Jimmy goes to grad school--Aapo decided to move back to Helsinki. I am already planning on making many Drunk Boat visits back and forth, but am happy that in the meantime I can follow his going-ons, and his signature style. See you soon Aapo!

Lovely Lulu chilling on the East River

This past Thursday, we shot our Triskaidekaphobia Fall lookbook with our dear friend and favorite feisty blogger, Lulu Chang. Lulu has coyly been hinting at a move to New York for the past year, which is yet to happen. In the meantime, we have to settle for quick glimpses when she comes over for her business jaunts. This time, we really made Lulu work, putting her through an eight-hour shoot that had her climbing, perching, and tilting dangerously off of anything high up and unsafe that we could get her on top of. We even had the misfortune of all getting caught in a flash thunderstorm which drenched us to the bone, in addition to ruining half of our electronics. Thank you Lulu for being such a good sport, getting soaked, and taking a tumble or two! And an extra special thank you to our photographer Serichai Traipoom, our hair stylist, Dakota Heman, and our makeup artist, Terese Bennett. Please check out their websites!

Dakota getting Lulu ready for her princessy look

Seri shooting Lulu at the basketball court

My favorite dress from the collection, featuring a Rorschach inspired digital print.

This past Friday, I was invited to stop by the Sachin + Babi Resort lookbook shoot, to get a glimpse of the new collection, and take some backstage photos of the pieces up close. Husband and wife design team Sachin Ahluwalia and Babi Ahluwalia have a long and storied history in the textile design industry. Both Sachin and Babi grew up in families involved with the textile industry in their home country of India, and then ended up meeting while studying Textile Design at F.I.T. They first started their textile company, ANK, in 1996, providing fabrics to legendary fashion houses like Oscar De La Renta, YSL, and Derek Lam, before launching their luxury home line, ANKASA in 2004. In 2008, the couple launched their ready-to-wear line, and the clothes heavily feature their background in textiles. Each garment is made from their custom prints and fabrics, and often feature three or four contrasting fabrics mixed together.

This season, Sachin + Babi drew inspiration from Rorschach test ink splatters, starting with a distorted digital print of the original ink splatters rendered in a rainbow burst, which was meant to have the appearance of a modernized Ikat print. They also laser-cut the ink-splatter silhouette into the fabric, and created leather ink-splatter cut-outs, which they applied to their bags and accessories. My favorite pieces however were the jewels of course, and I totally fell for the giant collars made out of metal cutout Rorschach splotches.

A close up of the digital print

One of the Rorschach inspired enameled collar necklaces

I loved this sweater, with it's mixture of different embroideries.


The accessories table was overflowing with these mixed metal and leather bangles

Jon Pierce shot by Hedi Slimane. All photos from Hedi Slimane Diary.

While it's definitely awesome to see your best friends skyrocket to rock stardom, there are also some major drawbacks. They're on tour 90% of the time, or busy hanging out at Hedi Slimane's house in California, having dinner with Gaga and taking hikes with Gus Van Sant. Then, when they're home (for four days at a time), plans have to be made at least three months in advance--dinner in June, and meet up in Goteborg in August at Way Out West maybe? And when they do contact you, it's from their secret IM accounts under fake names that you don't recognize. When Jon IM'd me last night from England, "Hey Tiff, I miss you, I've been thinking about you and your husband" I immediately thought "INTERNET PERVERT!" and almost deleted him from my friend list. Seriously. But then there are those glorious moments when I see Jacob and Jon plastered across the cover of NME or watch The Drums broadcast on the BBC, and Jimmy and I both simultaneously yelp with glee. Which is exactly what I did when I saw these pictures Hedi Slimane shot of Jon during his last visit to L.A.

An image from Goran Kling's lookbook

Almost every young designer I know still has a day job, or does freelance work on the side. We ourselves have too many side hustles to even name or keep track of. My good friend Gorjan Lauseger is one half of the design team behind Odeur, but he still does a lot of work as a stylist. The last time I was in Stockholm, I bumped into him doing a shoot on the Liljeholmen Bridge during the day, while he was putting the finishing touches on the Odeur collection and preparing for the runway show during the evening. Aspiring designers take note, you have to work very hard to make it in this industry. Yesterday he sent over the link to his styling portfolio, and I thought I would share some of my favorite images with you.

Another image from Goran Kling's lookbook

Light shoot

Light shoot

Light shoot

Muse

Gorjan's own line, Odeur

Leila Shams butterfly dress, Triskaidekaphobia necklace. All photographs by Leslie Van Stelten for International Playground.

A couple of weeks ago, our friends Johnny and Virginia from International Playground asked Christina and I to participate in their first ever Real People shoot, featuring their friends and family modeling pieces from the Fall collections that are currently on sale. Since we will be selling Triskaidekaphobia at the store in spring, and generally love Johnny and Virginia, we of course agreed to be shot, and picked out a couple of our favorite garments from the racks to be photographed in. We were joined by two of our amazing designer friends (who also sell at the store), Becca of Chromat, and Astrid of Upstate. As always, it was super fun to hang out with the crew, and dress up in garments from some of the best under-the-radar designer around (which included shamelessly representing our own brands). I naturally went for two of my favorites: Daniel Palillo and Leila Shams. Here are some of the photos from the shoot, wearing pieces that are currently available here. Also, don't forget we'll be doing a shop-in-shop at International Playground from December 17th-19th, so you better stop by!

Becca wearing RHLS press your luck, cry your eyes crew sweatshirt and leggings, and a Chromat belt.

Christina wearing a Chromat underwire half cage and a Vibe Johansson shirtdress.


Becca wearing a Wackerhaus Juna Jumpsuit and a Chromat half cage underneath
Astrid wearing an Upstate silk shibori wrap, Chromat zipper half cage, and H. Fredriksson dress

Daniel Palillo Heavy Hoody over Leila Shams dress