Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, DIY, online stores, style | Tags: DIY, etsy, jewels, shopping, threads, vintage
unicorn ring by fleathers. rainbow not actually included. i wish
Finally, a place where my obsessions with gold, with the awesome, and with cute lil animals doing silly stuff can be safely and conveniently satisfied in one magic place.
Have you ever been to etsy.com?
Well it’s on the internet. This is ideal because usually I would go to the flea market on Sunday, but it’s suddenly October in Berlin which is wet and cold and generally awful. I’ve officially declared the start of my seasonal hibernation and won’t be going outside voluntarily unless I am escaping a fire or replenishing the larder, which is what I’m calling the fridge, because I’ve sort of started to think of myself as a character in The Wind in the Willows. As in
The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and a delicious supper from the larder.
Anyway you sort of have to spend a lot of time on etsy, like I do, to move past the crocheted throw pillows and “whimsical” little kitties (e.g. HERE lolololol). But once you’re down the rabbit hole there’s no going back to kansas. yes, i mixed that metaphor, I know what I’m doing.
I’ll stop talking now, here is some etsy magic..
Varieties include:
1. all manner of choice baubles in what i like to call frontier aesthetic
<<brassy guns and antlers by missmouse
<<cheery fatalism by chainchainchained
<<talismans (talismen?); these are made from spent bullet casings and reclaimed chains by leoravon
2. laser-cut acrylic like crazy (not expensive!)
<<by brevity
<<by plastique
3. really cool animals, all kinds
<<take careful note of the owl in mary-janes. by Julia Pott
<<bears in love by kg + ab
clothes too, i’ll cover that in an upcoming post!
what is your favorite etsy treasure?
Filed under: boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, made in berlin, style | Tags: black door beauty, friedrichshain, shopping, t-shirts, threads
So while I’m on this kick of blabbing about how great my hood is, I thought I’d present some real hard evidence for the jury.
BLACKDOORBEAUTY T-shirts. Yea, not so keen on the name either. But it’s so cool, I promise.
Frealz – I’ve never really seen anything like it at all. It’s got kind of a minimalistic thing going on, just a big plate-glass window in the front with a view on long neat, endless rows of T-shirts (in rainbow order – to my delight!) with weird/funny/wacky/wonderful designs on them. Every size and color you can imagine, and every shirt has the same modest price tag, regardless of size or style. (29 €)
The concept is cool, no question, but the real key in my mind is that the designs themselves are sassy, fresh, and just plain dope.
Not long ago I had the pluck & gumption (imagine!) to wander in and accost the owner with a few questions she was not especially happy to answer, even after I told her it was for my blog. Come on! Lucky for her she has a kickass store regardless. And I’m feeling generous so I’m going to give her some free publicity even though she didn’t want to be friends with me.
The shiny-and-new look is not a deception: this little baby dinosaur of a store hatched in June 2009, although it is run in partnership with the BLACKDOORBEAUTY jewelry store (Kopernikussstr. 7a, Ecke Warschauerstr. / Mo-Sa 10-20h / 03054719098), which seems like it’s been there for EIGHT years. because it has. Fact. Just sitting there with its floor-to-ceiling display cases of basically every style of jewels you can possibly imagine. Just beckoning to you to come in, stay a while, leave with a laser-cut acrylic turntable pendant, some silver hoops and baubles, a gold chain or two. Ok but now it’s time to talk about the shirt store, not the jewelry store.
Here’s what the nice lady told me (in German – my translation)
How would you summarize the concept behind this store?
Like the jewelry store, the keyword is variety. But rather than having many different kinds of things, it’s about just having one product (tees), and a HUGE selection of designs.
(Ed. note: word)
How are these beautiful T-shirts born? Who makes them and where do they come from?
The shirts themselves are produced on our own label (BLACK DOOR BEAUTY). The designs come from various designers from all over the world, mostly unknown, some of them just come into the shop and introduce themselves, show us their work, and if we like what they do then we put their designs on the label, too.
And what about Berlin? Why here, why now?
I’m from Berlin and have a background in fashion, and I really just felt like opening a store.
I think Berlin has it’s own particular style, very relaxed and laid-back, and that our store fits in well with that look. I can probably imagine the project being successful in a different city as well, but I want to be here, I feel good here.
Whatup fellow Berlin-lover. We would totally get along.
So yes – she was a touch on the cagey side. But in the end she opened up – realized I was not trying to steal her ideas and open a T-shirt store across the street where all the shirts are 28EUR – but rather just share the love via interweb, and then she even let me take some pictures.
Give them a visit! Nobody else in the world will have the same shirt as you! I am all about that.
Keep in mind they have weird-ass hours.
Smart, in a neighborhood where most of them krazy kids probably haven’t even realized the sun comes out before noon. Can’t say my new BFF doesn’t know her target demographic!
BLACK DOOR BEAUTY T-shirts
Simon-Dach-Str. 15/Ecke Kopernikussstr.
(030) 54719097
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, online stores, style | Tags: boots, fabrics, threads
OR
the girlz in the hood are always hard.*
*…or like to look it, at least.
{all the pics in this post click through to the really awesome store/blog/etc. that I borrowed them from}
Whilst many stylish men for a minute have gotten it into their heads to dress up as precocious little English boys on holiday with Mummy in Provence:
The ladies are kicking out into a different direction.
They wear their leather just so, as if to say my heart is ice, my guts are steel. Just try and touch me through all these studs, just try and look me in the eyes with my 5-inch heels on, my parents don’t love me and i had whiskey and fruit loops for breakfast.
That’s why my jeans are ripped. That’s why I’m wearing all these chains.
There’s a certain essential vulnerability to it.
But her eyes say she knows how to destroy you.
stylestalker‘s version is the “Runaway” look. It seems to say, I’m 15, but I say I’m 24. Don’t ask questions, just go with it. Perhaps this has the added jailbait appeal/risk. I bet your mother don’t know you can spit like that.
But the look might go a little more mature, less sweet &innocent. It’s about looking dangerous and hard, but like you maybe sometimes want someone to save you just a little.
KEY
-
chains, studs, spikes
this looks very edgy.
-
leather & denim
hangs around biker bars, but doesn’t go inside.
-
buckles & zippers
-
Big Bad BOOTS
via models.com
knowin nothin in life but to be legit.
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, Favorites of Fashion, style, vintage | Tags: dresses, jewels, l'officiel, magazine, threads, vintage
Yesterday I went to internet France and returned with furs, diamonds and pearls, lavishly red lips and dark eyes.
Treasures treasures I filched from frenchy french L’Officiel Magazine, because they went and archived their ENTIRE (?) backlog online…
Obsession.
My brain is all a-tingle, trying to figure whether it is depressing or humorous that fashion, in fact, NEVER CHANGES. …
November 1924/September 1971.
lady, is that the same coat?
no matter, it all tastes like candy. spicy little antique gumdrops.
um ew.
Conclusions:
1. The 50s were ADORABLE:
o pilot man, do plz show us your helmet!
sad that we’ve lost the art of hats.
maybe we like it because it makes her look like a chef bear?
the circus! a gown! she glows, champagne and a quiet orchestra.
yesyes, notgood the hair, but can we look the other way because she’s on a boat in red lipstick and her furs are so silvery?
2. things maybe got a little weird in the 80s:
3. 1990=badass:
pink
double
breasted
blazer
.
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, DIY, made in berlin, music, style, vintage | Tags: bags, Boxhagener Platz, fabrics, Flea Markets, friedrichshain, jewels, Mauerpark, pooristhenewrich, prenzlauer berg, shopping, threads, thriftstores, vintage
Here I am, sheepishly awkward, feeling sort of like I should, like, recant some things I’ve said not so long ago. To wit, that is, the thrift stores I said some more or less nice things about. This is not say that they aren’t excellent stores in their own right, nor do I necessarily mean to eat my words, so to speak.
I REPEAT I am not hating on vintage stores. I <3 vintage stores.
too much, probably, it has been argued
BUT. but. I’m onto them. i used to assume that vintage store owners had some mysterious monopoly on cool cheap shit, some esoteric relic pipeline or maybe a timemachine but this is not true, not in Berlin. we all have access to the raw materials. all. all those with free time on Sundays.
FLEA MARKETS friends, where these shops clearly get their goods from, then turn around to sell at KUH-RAAZYYY inflated prices. Now I know the secret. There is no going back. Irreversible and existentially hazardous as your own long ago personal unmasking of the santa claus/stork mythology. Truth.
Exhibit A: Mauerpark
I’ve heard some prissy bitches say things like, Mauerpark is crowded expensive etc. blah.
I don’t know what they mean by this, except that probably they hate pretty things and people.
Mauerpark is a huge park in Prenzlauer Berg. Every Sunday the flea market claims like half of it.
Mauerpark flea market is a big-kid party, highlights include -outdoor karaoke madness:
*yes these ppl are ALL watching one tragically brave individual under the technicolor beach umbrella interpret Britney into a microphone, whipping around periodically, boozily to read words off the prompter located, meanly, inexplicably, behind his back. karaoke 2.0*
-lawn-lazing:
-and a wide selection of nourishing refreshments:
then this cool lady will make you a tortilla or something:
maybe you will find your way back to weird mementos of a lost childhood:
maybe you’ll weirdly laugh at someone else’s lost mementos:
but in the end you will have a prize: buttons, baubles, batteries, timekeepers and stuffholders ruthlessly bargained for and proudly won. i got all this stuff for less than 30euros. you may not understand, but they are treasures
Mauerpark is magic. just you try naming something you’d rather do with your hangover on a Sunday afternoon.
Exhibit B: Boxhagener Platz
So what is homeboy in the photo at the very top of this post so surprised about?
perhaps it’s because my eagle eyes picked up a dark relic i wasnt sposed to find?
*but why was it for sale? i like to give ppl the benefit of the doubt, specially ones with cool glasses, so let’s say for now that he didn’t know*
even tho, volume-wise, it’s just not fair to compare it to mauerpark, boxhagener platz is one stellar flea-vendor.
scary dubious old photos aside, trawling this little magic one-block radius on a goalless Sunday is like panning for gold. among utter junk, there are festive festoons and softly scintillating baubles>>
and then there were things of true beauty>>
this jewelry was so cool, and definitely original, but the guy at the booth had zero information to give: I don’t know who made them/how they were made/if there is more. alls i know is I want the chandeliers.>>
yea.
there’s a weird mix of vendors who are clearly antique/vintage dealers and know what their stuff is worth(/suffer delusional fantasies about what their stuff is worth), and random ppl who just throw cool shit at you for pennies
so the other rad thing i noticed bout this plc is the plethora of receptacles on offer. i love to put things away, so boxes and purses and cabinets are what i need to feel happy and zen.>>
speaking of receptacles, the end of the adventure is that i found a shadowbox and left in ecstasy.
plz note also my other wonders, acquired for nearly nothing. not pictured is a shirt that was free and a plaid wool skirt for 30cents.
THE end
?
Filed under: by me, clothes clothes clothes, DIY, made in berlin, style | Tags: DIY, shoes, threads
so after a week of wearing them every day i decided my elastic jeans/leggings/uncategorized legwear from h&m were boring (and being from h&m, probably owned and worn daily by millions of other kids&twentysomethings, cant risk being caught im partnerlook).
they needed a zipper. somewhere. preferably a big nonfunctional one. still working out the ins&outs of the new sewing machine, but all in all im pretty pleased with myself.
also the new marc jacobs heels are keepers
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, Favorites of Fashion, style, travels, vintage | Tags: boots, corset, dresses, en route, fabrics, jewels, threads, vienna, wien, wien museum
you may all wonder where I’ve been these past few weeks; the full answer is diverse, complex and boring.
what you need to know: i was in austria, jogging up mountainsides, rowing a little boat across crystal lakes, and illegally photographing exhibits of turn-of-the-century viennese society-wear. (Wien Museum am Karlsplatz – “Grosser Auftritt: Mode der Ringstrassenzeit” 10.6 bis 1.11.2009)
you enjoy the fruits.
the shoes above belong only in one century: the one i’m in.
here is more:
while we’re on the shoe theme, these riding boots i WANT with a painful intensity:
& I promise I’ve never gotten wide- and watery-eyed at the sight of a wedding dress before, but there’s a first time for everything:
&why is it that you have to set ur timemachine back over a hundred years to find a really money bike-riding outfit?
but don’t be fooled, women back then were not about maximum comfort.
SHIT
(not pictured is a scale model of a liver SEVERED by lifelong tootight corset wear)
and JEWELSJEWELS
this is a partyfavor. yea i want an invite to that ball
and more sparkles
unrelated to the fashion exhibit, this fascinating lamp lowered outside as part of a separate installation, demanding to be photographed:
and even vienna’s modernday boutiques have a pretty bauble or two to catch the eye:
but no colors manmade can compete with austrian flowers
not to be outdone by any common field variety, the blueribbon beauties of my omi’s garden get the last word:
Filed under: clothes clothes clothes, online stores, style | Tags: i don't like mondays, sale, shopping, threads
I would like to put forth the postulation here and now that the slick/sexy/class-factor of an outfit is inversely proportional to the number of items it requires in order to function…so it follows that dresses, jumpsuits, overalls, spacesuits are no less than the brainbending apex of perfection. extras should be limited to shoes and gold chains.
What I’m trying to say is that when I Don’t Like Mondays offers up what’s called a “KALEIDOSCOPE ROMPER“ by Samantha Pleet (on SALE, no less), the time for doubts and questions has come to a close. why haven’t you burned all your other clothes yet? kaleidoscope. romper.
Filed under: boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, made in berlin, style, vintage | Tags: dresses, garage, memory, pooristhenewrich, scarves, shopping, threads, thriftstores, vintage
This right here is a work in progress. Since thrift store shopping is just something that happens to me, like a tornado in a trailer park, a sinus infection, there is as little way to avoid its happening again as there is of knowing when and where it might wrap its sludgy tentacles around my brain
Already discussed in an earlier post, previous occasions have seen me at the likes of Lindt 2nd hand, in Kreuzberg, and Humana, in Friedrichshain.
Gradually, perilously, my experience with Berlin thrift swells like a water balloon left unattended on the hose in the backyard as you run inside to answer the phone and then its just AT&T wanting to talk about your long distance plan (do those still exist?) and the heat makes you forget about whatever sinister plans you had for the balloon and you get a popsicle and check your email and then you drip purple sugar water on the keyboard and have to wipe it off with ur sleeve &then youre like ah crap that was dumb now i have to change my shirt…
What all this means is that the other day I decided it was thrift store day.
having nothing else to do, i gave myself a mission: make a list of thrift stores, hit as many as you can. my scavenger hunt began at this randomly selected an- und verkauf (buy/sell) place in pankow near S+U Schönhauser Allee, found by googling, which turned out to be called “Dies&Das”, in addition to having been permanently closed and gutted since an indeterminate time ago.
its (was) on the corner of schivelbeiner&malmöer str., but dont go there, obv.
still, the visit wasn’t a total waste of time since I had some adventures on the way.
on shivelbeiner str. i discovered a miraculous arachnid.
& all this time i thought spiders were just being rude when they ignore me asking them to fucking stop building homes in the corners of my room.each day brings new facts into my world.
Then on the way back to the train i went into a little chinese dollar store where the elderly chinese shopkeeper talked to me (topic unclear) in what may or may not have been german, but a sweet man, generally. i bought 4 jeans zippers in different colors for 1euro each and considered, but finally abandoned, some peacock feathers (50cents). is that a good deal for peacock feathers? I have never tried to buy them before.
At u2 senefelder platz things really got started; here I visited Memory (Schwedter Str. 2; café next door, same owners; +49 160 650 14348), a vintage store I can confidently recommend.
As hand-picked vintage goes, this is an impressive little boutique.
If ur looking to dig up cheap treasures from piles of junk (my favorite activity, but rare, at least around here) u best look elsewhere. the polyester, bakelite, leather’n'silk, orange, brown and candy-colored assortment here has clearly been pre-selected and priced accordingly, though it’s still remarkably affordable, comparatively.
Scores the highest points in the accessories and household items category, with lots of retro pitchers and tea services and sweet, brightly colored plastic jewelry–a jar of shark bangles in red and blue (4euro each) caught my eye, and some creepy little DDR dog/cat/owl pins were kinda cool too (also 4eur)
if you ever decide you dont have enough pink egg cups….
The selection of clothes, handbags and shoes is small but careful. White button-up YSL corset top for 55 euro? Check. (see pic above). had to make mental list of other things worth 55eur to keep from making it mine immediately.
The owner is a really personable and helpful lady, and happily put my precious SHARP GF-800 weird ghettoblaster device on hold for me for several days while i thought about how my life would be different if i had one. i went back first thing the next day and i’ve never looked back (ended up putting me out 65eur, but worth it). I can even hook it up to my ipod/macbook. also, now i can finally play tapes.2tapes.
also found this cool treasure chest of plastic and metal which i ended up not buying, woulda cost 12 euro, which isnt THAT bad, but still.
Chat with the owner revealed that the vintage business is rough these days, surprise, as most others are too, so help them out! buy weird retro pitchers and not weird IKEA ones.
In this spirit i continued my journey, down to U1/2/3/4 Nollendorfplatz, Kleidermarkt Garage (Ahornstr. 2).
So far, this is really the closest Ive found to quality salvation-army-style shopping in Berlin, with plenty of junk and items of questionable quality to sort through in search of diamonds and rubies and golden emerald treasures.
Items are roughly divided into two separate pricing categories: some are hand-picked and individually-priced; anything without a specific price designation costs 13,99 euro a kg. (30% off “happy hour” on wed. 11am-1pm) (have to say the hand-picked stuff is clearly better, for the most part, but the quality of vintage can be pretty random, natch)
If you for some reason happen to be looking for a vintage fedora your search is probably over. Bins and bins of hats abandoned by old lonely German men seem to be the theme here, about 10 euro each.
Also home to a vast rainbow of bright pouffy, ribbony taffeta 80s-style party dresses.
But I was there for a long time, and somehow in the end the only thing out of the armful of randoms I was carrying around that I couldnt put down was this (prtty xlnt) military-style scarf event (4,99eur)
they did have a lot of scarves, which gets them extra points. sort of makes up for all the abercrombie garbage.
dont be sad! theres more to come.
Filed under: by me, made in berlin, style | Tags: bags, DIY, fabrics, threads
This condition can be overwhelming. Nothing is too small, ostensibly useless to be made into food, an ornament an accessory.
I feel straitjacketed in by millions of years of evolutionary programming, not a transcendent human, just another vulture scouring the desert for something that sparkles. nothing catches my eyes unless it’s a used thing whose purpose I can reallocate; reappropriated trash. bread scraps, bottlecaps, buttons. prone to the same comically compulsive collection tic as a crow, or a crackhead. (alliteration seems to be the lexical manifestation)
So it’s not really an evil or harmful urge, as long as I keep it under control/unleash it on projects, like this bag I made of leftover IKEA curtain fabric and the panels of a broken umbrella:
budding photoshop skills applied to edit out pair of underwear left hanging from doorhandle out of oversight. “raw” look intentional.
in the absence of a sewing machine, the entire piece is hand-stitched and several months separate the time between when i first started snipping frenziedly and when i was inaugurating it as my carryon bag to nyc by stuffing it full of passports and redbulls. (i didn’t work very hard and was usually watching the OC at the same time)
reinforced. extra sturdy
extra wide straps for carrying around heavy treasures
pocket 1 is just a scratch
pocket 2 is a deeper kind of wound. gash.laceration
A dear friend had a pair of sunglasses with transparent blue plastic frames that she once, in what seemed like a slip, revealed to me that she thought of as a toothbrush. To this day im not 100% sure I understood her correctly, but I think I did. In the same way, this bag is not a bag. it’s a parachute.
