Shelby Di Marco

Shelby Di Marco, an artist from Los Angeles, has quite a cult following. Both her film photography and her mixed media creations have gotten her acclaim with Greyhound Magazine and Urban Outfitters among others. With billowy shapes and hippy relaxation, her art and her style have a very Californian feel which she describes is "eclectic, earth toned, and flowy."

When asked how she became interested in art she states "I think it was the whole idea of freedom and the ability to create your own person through it." With over 300 followers her art is certainly something people can identify with. Currently, she works at Space 15 Twenty, an experiment by Urban Outfitters in West Hollywood.  There she resides within the creative department, something she's perfect for. "I see myself anywhere my art takes me." To see more of her work click here. 

Zanita

Zanita, a model from Australia, has killer style and a blog to go with it. Her clothing choices look effortless and have that mysterious ease which only those from Down Under seem to possess. When asked to describe her look she states that it remains "inconsistent and comfortable". Her favourite piece of clothing is a pair of high waisted mustard trousers which she picked up for a mere $3. This girl is definitely one natural beauty. 

When asked about how her blogging journeys began she states " A friend recommended I start a blog, I spent so much time researching fashion on the internet anyway it seemed like a fun way to collaborate my ideas." Her blog includes photo shoots, daily fashions, and interesting adventures. And where does this cool cat see herself in the future? Well, it doesn't really seem to matter. " As long as I'm happy and healthy I'm open to whatever comes along." To check out her blog simply click here. 

Music Review - Karin Dreijer Andersson

Karin Dreijer Andersson is a swedish goddess.

Her voice is so distinct and as well as the persona she has created for herself.

Probably best known for being in the popular swedish electro duo The Knife, which consists of her and her brother. They're famous for being mysterious and always wearing masks, pretty stange pair of siblings, but they make some great music.

She also has a fantastic solo project that made its debut in 2009 with her self titled album Fever Ray. Her work as Fever ray is truely beautiful and unique. Stand out tracks are definetly "Seven" and "When I Grow Up", which has this magical video:

She recently won "best artist" at the swedish P3 Guld awards [fantastic award show] for her work as Fever Ray, with a very strange acceptance speech:

She's crazy, forget Lady GaGa, Karin is way more amazingly theatric. She also done some great collaborations with the Norwegian electro duo Röyksopp on their tracks "What Else Is There", "Tricky Tricky" and "This Must Be It". Whatever she's involved with, her amazing voice and accent work perfectly and beautifully.

Recently, she is back with The Knife and teaming up with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock to create a opera based on Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" called "Tomorrow, In a Year", how neat does that sound? You can sneak peak a track entitled "Colouring of Pigeons" [here] at their site. Its spectacular. The whole thing will be out on March 1st so mark that on your calenders.

-Laura Schütte. [more from me here]

Lauren Stratton

Lauren, a student with a double major in photography and illustration, makes wicked art. Her doodles are full of life and her photos are full of wonder. When asked to describe her art style she states "I love to make dreamy photographs. As for illustration, I make whatever I feel like making. I suppose you could say it is monochromatic for the most part." While looking through her pieces one thing is for sure, they're never boring.

Yet when it comes to tools it seems that basics work best. "I love film (for photography). I'm just learning to appreciate digital but it doesn't seem to satisfy like film does. I miss the raw feeling that film photographs have. For Illustration, I love my mechanical pencil and a red coloring pencil." Lauren demonstrates that you don't need the latest tools to make great art, just a great mind.

And where does this bright young thing see herself in the future? "I have a lot of goals and the future is wide open right now. I'm planning on moving to a big dirty city after I graduate--I'd love to work for a fashion magazine. Eventually I'd like to end up living on a mountain in France doing freelance work from my own studio. But we'll see what happens. Things never turn out like I think they will!" To check out more of her work click here.

Marie-Louise's Pulse

 Marie-Louise, a senior at Providence College in RI, has style and talent. Aside from her studies she sells and designs clothes for Queen of Hearts, a one-of-a-kind consignment shop in downtown Providence. Marie-Louise created her website just under a year ago as a way to share and be inspired. Her blog shows her designs, her do-it-yourself projects, and her day-to-day styling. When asked about her clothing choices she states "I always seem to include something comfortable, something basic to work off of and something studded. From there, I create an outfit that reflects my current mood/inspiration. Lately I've been quite monochromatic." She has quite a Scandinavian-like style with her bold knits and classic layering. Either way, her style radiates cool. 

So she's got cool style, but her blog is much more. She's quite an inventor and creates  things that will inspire your attire. Her latest diy is fresh, no ripped jeans or spiky things. Instead, it's a black texturized leather vest. "It has a black scale-like pattern. I started with a grey vest and sewed on over 200 black leather circles which were cut out from extra pieces of leather. I punched holes at the top of the circles to sew them on but still have them hanging off the vest." A second skin and, as always, Marie-Louise's outfits look natural and classically thrown together. To check out more of her style and creations simply click here. 

From Rags to Riches: Natalia Vodianova

Natalia grew up in a poor area of Russia with her mother and two sisters one of which had Cerebral Palsy. To help support her family Natalia would sell fruit on the street. She knew that there was something that she had to do, so she enrolled in a modeling school at the age of 15. She was told that she had to learn English before she could do anything else. She learned it in 3 months and at the age of 17 she headed off to Paris and signed with Viva Model Management.


Her career sky rocketed. In 2001 she was on the cover of Teen Vogue and even opened the Yves Saint Laurent show in 2002. This was just after giving birth to her first son Lucas. Natalia has been on every magazine cover, in every campaign, and has walked for every major designer. Her covers include iD, Vogue, Italian Vogue, British Vogue, Japanese Numéro, V, and W. Just to name a few. Her campaign list goes on forever but some of her most predominant ones are Gucci, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, and most recently; YSL and Givenchy.


Recently she has begun to focus more on philanthropy. She was named Woman-Of-The-Year by Glamour Russia in 2005. Natalia also started her own charity called the Naked Heart Foundation that builds playgrounds for kids in urban areas of Russia. They built their first park in 2006 and since then have created 30 more. A mother of three kids, a humanitarian, and a top model; sounds like a triple threat to me...

Photo Credit- New York Magazine

Victoire Boutique

Victoire is one of the most stylish and fun places to shop in Ottawa. With a new location opening up in Westboro, we decided to ask the owners Regine and Katie about Victoire and what makes it so cool. We were able to get in touch with Regine who informed us about the beginnings of the store and what to look forward to in the future. 

Victoire was ultimately inspired by a dream. When asked about how Victoire began Regine states "We had been talking and dreaming about what our ideal store would be like since we met in high school. After years of talking about it, and on the cusp of graduating from university we decided to go for it.  We very quickly got all the pieces together and opened our first shop in a little space just down from where we are now. Besides a great dream and a really solid partnership, Victoire took a whole lot of hard work and the ladies of Ottawa to embrace what we were offering and support us in any way they could." And embrace it they did. Victoire is a store which carries mostly Canadian designers such as Dace, Mauve Naif, and Hand & Shadow. As Regine states "[Canadian designers] make it easy for us to stock the shop with so much that is made in Canada. When we first opened the shop, it wasn't really our intent to highlight so many Canadian designers...but with such amazing talent located so close to home, it made that decision easy!"

Bringing the cool back into Canada, Victoire is girly and quite vintage inspired. "We often use the tag line 'A rock'n'roll tea party' to describe the look, style and mostly feel of our shop. We want customers to feel really comfortable and inspired when they come into our shop. So we have really friendly sales staff, pieces for every budget from $10 scarves, to $220 dream dresses, and cozy furniture." Entering the shop is akin to experiencing a magical parlour room paradise. So check it out! To find out more about Victoire boutique simply click here. 

Prose Studio

The German design duo behind Prose Studio, Miriam Lehle and Sabine Egler, came together in 2008 to found their design house. In 2009 they made it to the final rounds of the Mango Fashion Awards and their line has earned lots of attention and respect though still in it's infancy. The patterns on their clothing are so organic in nature with splotches of colour with grays which keep the line modern. Overall, the clean cuts with this mixture of marble patterned design make Prose Studio one of the major players for 2010. To see more of the duo's work simply click here. 

Covert Candy - Vintage Clothes Swap

Covert Candy, a new vintage clothes swap site, is allowing you to have your cake and eat it too. We all have clothes that we just don't get around to wearing. They lay there, gather dust, and ultimately we begin to wonder what we were thinking in the first place. Well, now you can swap those items you don't use for ones you will. Harry, one of the creators of the site, emailed us a few days ago to discuss Covert Candy's idea and concept. When asked about the site's creation he states "We imagined a big pile of clothes with everyone throwing in stuff that they no longer wanted and taking out stuff they did want. We basically worked backwards from there to work out how something similar to this could happen online. From here the concept of CovertCandy was a long process of plans that took two years to turn into a community that works." 

And how a clothing swap might work in an online space? Well there's a credit system where clothing you contribute earns you points which you can use to shop with other clothes-swappers. As Harry states "the credit system basically functions as a way to swap clothes collectively rather than the one-on-one swap that other sites facilitate." And it's not only the free clothes that are creating a fan base. The idea is sustainable for no new clothes are created and therefore everything is inherently recycled. "Sustainable fashion is about creating processes and clothes that provide alternatives to those that harm the environment." Eco-friendly and fun, you can check out Covert Candy by clicking here. 

Music Review - Vampire Weekend

So we've all been waiting to hear from Vampire Weekend since their first self-titled album came out back in '08, so I was very impatient for Contra to be released. With their same old preppy sound and a few twists, I was not left dissapointed. They even prepared this fancy little widget for you to give it a listen:






I fell in love with Vampire Weekend the first time I heard their crazy quick paced hit "A-Punk". It was such a new sound for me. Their music was very distinct to them as well, and in the first album it all followed this. I feel like Contra sounds more experimental, with some tracks even sounding like the keyboardist's side project Discovery, theres definetly more variety this time around. Its a little weird since its as if they had found 'their sound' in the first album, but now they're trying out new things.

They've really hit it big with Contra though, A-Punk did get plays on the radio, but I've had friends telling me how Contra is all over the HMV, not to mention all over the blogsphere. It's huge, but how can anyone not like these guys?



They're fantastic. So fun. So fresh. I had the pleasure of seeing them live in the summer, and I will be impatiently waiting til the next time they're near.



-Laura Schütte. [more from me here]

Rising Star: Lisanne De Jong

This Dutch beauty has shot from being a newcomer with Ulla Models in Holland and is now being featured in campaigns for Balenciaga, Celine, and Burberry Eye Wear. Not bad considering that she started in 2008 after submitting her pictures to a local agency. She debuted this past fall for the SS 2010 collections and walked for BCBG, Balenciaga, opened Max Azria and Miu Miu, and was an exclusive at Prada. She was also featured on British Vogue's blog not to long ago as well...

She also was featured in an editorial for Dazed and Confused and just recently shot the Pre-Fall 2010 look books for Proenza Schouler, Burberry, Missoni, and Celine. Though she started modeling at 18, where as most girls now start at 14 or younger, this newbie has a strong book that any model would be jealous of. I can't wait to see what shows she does in February...

Photo Credit- The Fashion Spot

Artist Lisa Solberg

An ex-professional skier, Lisa Solberg has now become a vibrant and honest painter. Her paintings are moody yet with optimistic colours and forms. Born in Chicago, this young artist attended the University of Colorado where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts. With over 23 exhibits in the past four years and an article in NYLON, this twenty six year old wonder is certainly on her way to success. You can see more of her work by clicking here.

[ photo credit - lisa solberg and NYLON magazine]

Eline from A Fluffy Blog

Eline, a second year illustration student, is a stylized version of colour block. With pinky blonde hair and vibrant outfits she seems like a character right out of ones imagination. Yet her fashion manifesto remains quite down to earth. When asked about her style she states "I would describe my style as myself; irregular with lots of ups and downs but always hunkering times that never were in vintage clothes and child-like prints, fluffiness and glitter." Her favourite item of clothing is a leopard jacket which goes well with her quirky-cool sense of style. But where does this style vision see herself in the future? "I've no idea, I'm one of those people for whom it's absolutely impossible to envision anything further than an hour in the future. But I'd like to do something with books as in illustrate and possibly write them. Time will tell if I'm capable to do so." With a creative mind such as this one there is no doubt she will. To see more of Eline's style and life simply click here.  

do it yourself - the jimi hendrix jacket

step 1: you'll need a black tux jacket, gold rope, gold buttons, gold ribbon and fur trim

step 2: pop the collar of the tux jacket so that it's a strait edge down the front, cut as necessary

step 3: gold collar - sew lines of ribbon to the collar of the jacket

step 4: arm bands - sew lines of ribbon on the arms of the jacket

step 5: the band tassels - sew lines of gold rope onto the jacket in lines with two hoops on the sides. do this step by hand.

step 6: sew the buttons onto the tassels where the hoops meet

step 7: sew in fur trim by hand and voila!

note: this took about 2 full days so do it over time or during a long weekend

The Supermodel: Kate Moss

Who doesn't know who Kate Moss is? She is an icon. Standing at just 5 feet 7 and a half inches tall she was, and still is; the 90's Supermodel. After being discovered at an airport at the tender age of 14 by a Storm Models agent she immediately was loved by casting directors, designers, you name it, they wanted her. Her first big booking was a cover of The Face in 1990. Then two years later she became the face of Yves Saint Laurent. I could go on about her career highs forever because if you look at New York Magazine's Model Manual profile on Ms. Moss, it is at least double the length of every other model's on there.

Though her personal life has been in the spotlight for quite some time. She has put that off to the side and focused on other projects, including cutting a deal with Top Shop to create her own line. As a mother, designer, and model she handles her self quite well considering the circumstances. Now I am not saying that Kate has led the straight and narrow path her entire life, but look where her career is now? Not many people can say that they made 8.5 million dollars this past year. Whether her face is on the cover of French Vogue or US Weekly, she is one of the most well-known and highest paid models ever.

Photo Credit- Models.com, New York Magazine, and Fashionising.com