Leather Blooms for the Holidays...

I hope these put you in a festive mood!  Between the usual crunch of the season I managed to dig out some beautiful skins that I've been collected over the years.  These are skins that I do not have enough to make any type of garment or regular item with,  and the leather is just too special to not do something with.

We put together some pieces... all inspired by an accessory we did years ago for Patricia Field.  Here is a start.

And we are trying something new here.  Buy Now from the blog...

Flowers ship to US,  for other destinations please contact us.

Exotic Orchid Fascinator 
Only 6 available as shown.  Hand made in NYC. Petals and blades are individually wired.
 Blossom can be contoured to highlight your features.

$165.00

Rose Band
( Forget about Alice!)

This band can be made to order in any combo of 2 of roses above.
(Each piece is individually Hand made in NYC)
from left: Cherry, Jewel Purple, Black Suede, Silver Shimmer
These colors are limited editions,  and once gone- they can't be repeated...
$145.00

color

black suede/ cherry black suede/ jewel purple black suede/ silver shimmer

Solid color- please specify

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

Leather Blooms for the Holidays...

BehrleNYC at the Vendy Awards

For those of you Lucky enough to have a ticket to tomorrow's 2010 Vendy Awards,  eat up & have a blast!

A celebration of the the best street food vendors in NYC (and Philly too this year) ranging from Venezuelan to Austrian to French Moroccan and on to Desserts!

We were not able to snag a ticket   :(    but one of our bags did!   This one-of-a-kind, unisex, Springbok & leather BehrleNYC messenger bag will be part of the raffle,  so if you are there,   buy a ticket to support all the best Street food vendors & the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center.  NYC just would not be right without it's street vendors.   If you are lucky you may wind up with a bag perfect to hit the street with this Fall!

& taste a little of everything for us!!!

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

BehrleNYC at the Vendy Awards

Speak of the Devil-Car Design

Its funny how things come up in conversation and then the exact subject / sentiment appears in your in-box.  Walking down the street today we were talking about tiny cars.  From comparing the footprint of a smart car to another (bigger) tiny car the subject moved to what we've seen of the new Fiat 500 and our inevitable grip about...

What the heck is up with car design today???  Why does everything have to look the same?  The smart car is hardly pretty,  but it's eye catching and fun. (I want my smart car shrink-wrapped to look like a roller skate!...MINE!)  The PT cruiser's appeal also had to have something to do with the vaguely retro (still not pretty) styling.  It looks like the new 500 will be following the herd as far as same old, same old,  (yawn) styling.

Why can't a car company do something with a little style & snap?  Like this:

 
  It's the same size as  the hot dog cart! 

 & I think it would fit lengthwise inside the crosswalk!  I love this car!

Even better,  I LOVE these CARS.

Why is it not possible to have cool cars today?

 
Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

Speak of the Devil-Car Design

Nice Work if you can get it.

My friend Karin sent me this  photo of this very cute Giles Deacon bag:

 

( I will refrain from comment on the pants....)

& I do think the bag is even cuter in solid white.

...but it sure looks suspiciously like this plush toy by Wild Republic that's "Licensed by the Natural History Museum and approved by NHM Paleontologists." as noted on the smaller version available on Amazon.  I wonder if  NHM or WR will see any licensing fees should this bag go into production? 

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

Nice Work if you can get it.

Rick Owens' Real Aesthetics

I had to post this, the first part a great interview with Rick Owens that I found here, On The Business of Fashion. Part two is on youtube.

I have known about Rick Owens since the late 80's. A roommate of mine was good friend of Michelle Lamy, who he lived with at the time, in LA. I was always hearing about the clothes he was designing. (We've probably been designing for the same amount of time.) So over the years I've always followed his work and have always held a great deal of admiration for it, especially as a fellow designer who works in leather. In this interview, I realize that we share a lot as far as our feelings about fashion, the industry and working in it. His POV, is both practical and realistic and he doesn't buy into all the BS that we are bombarded with constantly.



I love that he jettisoned his press office, and the reason why. I love, love, love his kind of aggravated comment on the cv's & "collages" he sees all the time.

"Everyone wants to be a designer, what I need is older people who know how to make the stuff"

I could not have said it better myself. Bravo!

(Case in point is a dear friend who gave up teaching her Senior's course in American Couture at FIT. Because FIT does not teach them enough construction to either make or differentiate between 4 types of buttonholes. How shameful of FIT.)

I love that Rick Owens has stayed so true to himself over the years and of course I love what he does with leather (& knits). We share an aesthetic about wearability and quality & I am thrilled that he is finally getting his due.

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

Rick Owens' Real Aesthetics

White vs Black vs Wordpress

Such a nice contrast! I don't work on white often, leather is such an attention getter and white makes it even that much more so! So it takes a certain, very strong and confident personality to own a piece like this!



Fun to work on project, hopefully my client will one day send a photo of it on! Shot like this definitely does not give full effect.

Here, another unique and very personalized piece. Soft lambskin leather sweat pants for kicking back in. With full details- zip pockets and lower leg and waistband detail.





And lastly, something I've just started to get requests for, a mens jean style in the same stretch leather featured in our womens leggings. This client opted for stretch throughout the waist, which appears as slight gathering at the waistline when shot flat like this, but smooths out completely on the body. First thing he remarked on was how comfortable these jeans are.



Also, I am in the process of putting together a blog where I hope to eventually give an
overview of the actual process involved in creating various custom-made pieces.

Right now, The-Process is (mainly) a foray into my own (little bit frustrating) learning curve with Wordpress, but I'll get there!

I could never have managed so far on WP without this class. So please bear with me on this one.
It is truly a work-in-progress.

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

White vs Black vs Wordpress

Vintage Leather

I feel overwhelmed with stuff sometimes, I collect things that are beautiful to me and inspire me.

I absorb them - very often from a technician's POV, which for me is in a big way inseparable from the aesthetic POV. I am very much into Beautiful things that Work.

Beauty, by itself is amazing, it blows me away. Beauty that works, I'm breathless, there are so many beautiful things- but when they become part of function- that inspires me,

These are two pieces that have inspired me for years. The first is an incredible Byron Lars vest from his First Spring collection.

The next is a wonderfully hand-crafted North Beach Leather jacket.

Vintage Leather

Iconic Punk Elvis Presley

I have been very lax in posting lately- and I have to go through my comments, but I had to post this today. I got in this afternoon and got some questions on something I'm selling on ebay- I have way too much stuff and way too little space- like everybody else in NYC and I periodically clean out my closets this way... So I listed this Iconic '70's punk t-shirt that I reworked:




Well, today when I got in I'd received this "Question" from an E-Bay member:

Q: This shirt should be burned! People who don't know anything about the king of rock n' roll design shirts like this! It is very rude to put a negative design over such an important picture from our history! Elvis was and is the only civilian to ever walk into the White house with guns! (my italics) Elvis did and is still giving to so many people! He has touched so many people with his huge giving heart! From giving money, charity, cars, houses,free tickets,jewelry, food, animals, clothing, medical care and trans. to & from, & the shirt off his back etc! There is Presley Place foundations that help people in need and also are providing help to the huricane victims so they can rebuild New Orleans. What other celebrity can you name that has done all this alive and dead? Before you sell such degrading shirts you should watch documentries on the "USS Arizona memorial in memory of Pearl Harbor" and also "Elvis meets Nixon" just to mention a few so you can get a glimps of what an amazing man Elvis was!!!

- cheyka123

It's pretty much common knowledge that Elvis was wacked out of his gourd during the time he accepted the DEA badge from Nixon, and who on earth thought it was a good idea to let anybody into the White House with a GUN? That's Special???

(Although, nowadays... I am being completely facetious here, or can't you tell?)

I must say, I was warned. You see this t-shirt has a back story. My brother wore the original to Graceland- I don't know when, I guess pretty soon after it was opened to the public. From the way he describes it he was physically hauled out of the place due to the uproar the shirt caused among the hardcore Elvis fans, who unfortunately lack any sense of humor or irony, and apparently don't get the concept of freedom of speech- or live and let live. It's not a personal attack, It's a FREEKIN t-shirt!!!

cheyka123 - please keep your child away from the loaded gun you keep in your bureau and remember your spell-check....

Add to Technorati Favorites
Del.icio.us
Digg

----------------
Now playing: Tunng - Bullets
via FoxyTunes

Iconic Punk Elvis Presley

Lost Colony of the Amazon

I’ve wanted to put up some these photos I am scanning for Diego, so, with your permission
D, here they are…

These photos were taken during a Amazon expedition led by Tibor Sekelj, in the late 1940’s, in 1947 or 1948.

Sekelj, was an explorer, writer/journalist, ethnographer and esperantist. He was a contemporary of Thor Heyerdahl , but I think is mainly known in Europe.


Diego, whose mother is wrestling the crocodile with Tibor, has a small collection of these photos, some which were published in Tibor’s books, but all the reproduction I’ve seen is very poor.

Diego also has some of the items seen in the photos, like the long radiant feather headdress, on the left in the photo below. Also some of weavings, earrings, a woven wrap and even a contraceptive cap carved out of some sort of nut or shell! The weavings in particular are very interesting and have held up well. Many of the adornment items are very aural, made with bits of hanging shell that jingle together at the slightest movement.






I can’t imagine the beauty in reality and I figure that these people and their life style were lost long ago. I find these images especially beautiful and evocative and I wanted to put some of them up.

I Love You Diego!

For more on these photos and artifacts,please contact me, and I will put you in touch with Diego.

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us
Digg

Lost Colony of the Amazon

"The Lost Colony" Costumes

I had meant to add to my couture and costume post over a week ago, so better late than never.
The costumes were for an incredibly long running production out of North Carolina called
"The Lost Colony" and are designed by William Ivey Long.

It's a very funny coincidence that I happened to have a program from The Lost Colony's second year in production. My Mom saw it as a child and loved it. She'd kept the program pristinely all these years! Here are some images from that program:

And here are some more photos of the new costumes which are replacing costumes lost in a fire last year:






Some finished Dresses:


I want to thank my friend Karin for these beautiful costume photos.

I am very behind on a ton of stuff, all of it computer related. Everything basically stops when I have projects. So only when I get a decent break or am waiting for an appointment and have stuff prepped, am I able to stay on top of this. I would love some help with this, so I'm putting it out there for any of you with ideas and/or suggestions.

I will be posting some more VERY amazing "Lost Colony" photos soon. Never, ever, before seen photos from the Amazon Jungle, circa 1947 or 1948. Some really gorgeous tribal life images.

----------------
Now playing: The Elysian Fields - Bayonne
via FoxyTunes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us

Digg

"The Lost Colony" Costumes

Post-Apocolyptic Kids

I love these new Diesel Kids ads inspired by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Brought to my attention by Hell for Leather, a site that combines speed, style and leather (what more could you possibly want ?)

Add to Technorati Favorites

Del.icio.us
Digg

Post-Apocolyptic Kids