Bathing suits are tricky business, especially with all the new styles ready to give you horrific tan lines.  Take the We Are Handsome tee suit; that would give your arms a rather handsome farmer’s tan.

The new crochet styles are quite lovely at first glance, though after skin begins to color you’re going to have your abdomen looking like a fishermen’s net.. what a catch!  Possibly worst of all is Gucci’s cut out suit, which gives the impression of a swollen belly.  Excellent; that’s everyone’s top goal after sunbathing.. looking lardier than they are! Impressive.

Footwear fanciers worldwide went mental for the first round from Iris van Herpen x United Nude, but now we’re entering a new season and get another style to mad drool over.

Lay your corneas on these covered heels; a few bits wedge, a wee slice basket like and all summer intense and ready to wow.  These are truly evoking van Herpen’s style [check her runway looks], and are sure to be one of the most wanted pairs of shoes during summer 2011.

Solestrucke, Endless and Browns carried the first style, so it’s for sure they’re on board for the next incarnation.  Though these will undoubtedly be priced as much as looking to kill, but I can’t help being overexcited!

I thought I’d seen it all with the Burberry spiked arm trench, but no – this is a completely different level of insanity/awesome.

Feast your watering eyeballs on this baby; the studded leather bike jacket, complete with nearly all over metal additions for a super sick look.  I actually had a bit of disbelieving blink eye when I saw this; we’re more used to Balmain delivering this type of punch than a more traditionally inclined Burberry, but nobody will be caught complaining about this!

It may be nearly $6k US, but hell.. this is one damn intense piece of clothing that will last you till your grand kids think biker chic is cool.  Now to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Vancouver’s Eco Fashion Week in their second season is going through expected growing pains.  While the production is of high quality, there were some significant styling concerns within the Alternative Apparel/Sitka/Wesc group show on Thursday night.

The Alternative Apparel collection was first, and those familiar with the brand are aware of their incredibly casual lounge friendly line.  The pieces themselves were to expectation, though the female models came out wearing this bizarre, poorly matched golden head pieces (see left image).

In addition, all three runway presentations seemed to be oddly organized.  There seemed to be no flow within them; there were looks from one styling spectrum walking right after another from the opposite end.  What I mean is one does not have an incredibly feminine look followed with a androgynous female followed with another feminine style; the styling felt choppy and unprofessional.

Eco Fashion Week is showing much promise, and while I admittedly only went to the Nicole Bridger and Alternative Apparel/Sitka/Wesc shows, it was easy to identify EFW’s strengths and vulnerabilities.

Only time will tell how the event will be proceeding through their third season, though this is the most promise I’ve seen for a fashion event in this city within the last five years.

This Sunday I’ll be live chatting with a group of personalities on the Vancouver Sun’s website during the Oscar red carpet pre-show.  The chat will be from 3:30 – 5:30 and feature myself, Maggie Langrick (the Sun’s fashion and style editor), Terri Potratz of the Conveyor Belt, Klay Kaulbach (co owner of DuJour Boutique), designer Malene Grotrian.

Don’t worry, we’re going to be moderated so we won’t go too far off the rails! The conversation will be guaranteed to have spunk (I’ll make sure of that), so you’re going to want to tune in.

Mark Fasts’s recent LFW production was more exciting than usual, and surprisingly had nothing to do with knits.  All the fuss is over his new collaboration collection with Canada’s Danier Leather; a surprising team since Danier has been around the leather jacket scene for years but isn’t known for its up to the moment designs.  This has changed with the Fast designs, which are all amazing.

The four looks below are on the top of my hit list.  All are incredible, and quite wearable for the most part (except for the cape, unless you’re that adventurous on the daily).  We now must be patient and find out what the price points are, and if any design alterations will be done for the pieces chosen for retail production.  Let’s hope they don’t monkey too much with things; they’re already fantastic as is.

Check out the entire FW11 collection if you haven’t already; it’s worth a look.

I bet if you looked at Andrej Pejic on or off the runway you would never realize that he was actually a male model.  The delicate facial features, pin thin physique, long blond hair – all of it points to a fe, but dude looks like a lady.

I am in awe of Andrej’s ability to pull off so many feminine looks; he is a truly talented androgyne.  Look at him rock that Gaultier wedding gown.. freaking fierce! He may want to do Playboy, but I’m still interested in seeing more editorials like this; ala incredibly outrageous.

It’s not often that such a large and loved brand fails to embrace the business end of social media.  Indeed, this is rare not only due to its really crappy business decision making (come on, who don’t like nearly free advertising!) but incredibly frustrating for social media platform users.

Whether you’re a fan or a writer as myself, one takes being able to follow a brand on Twitter, fan them on Facebook, follow on Foursquare (the list goes on) for granted.  It was only a few years ago when you could find virtually no fashion brand identities on Twitter; I recall as I did a blog post for Invoke Media concerning brands that had gotten on board early in the game.

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to interact with your audience; one can troubleshoot [relatively] instantly, advertise to a targeted audience for nearly nothing but the cost of human maintenance and have a chance to build your brand around a more intimate customer experience.

Enter Cheap Monday.  Their website appears to support Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and StumbleUpon, but only two of those four icons link you through to a proper function.  When you click on Twitter, you are not brought to a Cheap Monday Twitter handle, but are brought to a Twitter page where a Cheap Monday tweet is pre-written in your feed.  Not only is that not what a user is looking for, but their pre-written tweet is only their URL! It’s embarrassingly bad not only due to that, but that the brand does not appear to have an official Twitter account at all.t

Facebook’s outlook isn’t much rosier; the link does not route you to the Cheap Monday fan page like one may assume, but prompts you to share a link to the news portion of the CM site.  If you’re able to locate the [assumed] official Facebook page (I only assume because it has 98k fans), one may wonder why it has been branded as ‘Cheap Mondays’, versus the name that is actually on their label.  Curiouser and curiouser!

Cheap Monday is an excellent brand with pieces we want and price points we can actually afford; it’s perplexing why this company is so behind on the social media times.

We implore you, Cheap Monday.. hire a social media manager and get things up to par with 2011! We want to see more of your brand, so give us something to chew on!!

If you want to talk about someone who used to have incredibly moronic spending habits in the clothing department, my face would be at number one.  The reason that brings me to recall this card swiping horror of years past are these boots: I bought them without trying em on and lost the receipt to return them on the same evening. Talk about a moron.

These boots were $250 new, and they’ve never been worn because they’re actually a size too big.  Since sizing varies for each brand and I figured they looked like a 40 (despite being a 41) things would be ok.  Wrong.  Me = idiot.

You have the opportunity to buy these amazing boots.. they’ve been sitting in my shipping trunk for over two years, and since I’m cleaning house I need to cut the fat! Time to give these babies to a lady or man who will wear them right.  These are fully androgynous, so a man could rock these just as well as a womang.

PRICE: $100

SIZE: 41; ladies 11, mens 9

Contact me to buy!!

While I concede not everyone in this great wide world loves skinny and tapered bottoms as much as I do, it’s still baffling to consider bell bottoms getting trendy again.

While fashion is definitely within ‘never say never’ territory, I can’t even imagine styling these – and I’m fairly adventurous in the wardrobe department.

Enter Diesel Black Gold’s FW11 extreme leather flares; these are blisteringly tight till just below the knee, when they become a veritable tents around the calf.

Even with slight adjustments for retail, I can’t even imagine wearing these.  I’ll stick to my cellophane wrapped-to-the-ankle pants, thanks – I’m definitely not ready.

Oh Cheap Monday, your Tallulah tank is a superfail – not only is it encouraging bare midriffs being bared, but its illusion of saggy tittays is proving rather unfortunate even for this skinny girl wearing it.

If hangin’ low breasties are your thing, you could have it for a measley $30. Yecch.

As the digital print trend really begins to take off, we’ve been given an eyeful of styles that we want but can’t necessarily afford (Christopher Kane, anyone?).  For that, I’ve put together a little list of digitally printed tanks and tees available from UK retailer Your Eyes Lie; they’re taking off, and the pieces are worth it.

A friend of mine just acquired the monkey tee, [which now appears to be sold out] and it looks fantastic with the all over print.  My favorites are the space themed pieces; the Red Nebula tank and tee, Inner Galaxy tank and Galaxy tee.  Close runners up are the nature themed bits; the Digital Light oversized tee (love the cut), Thanksiceland and Deathmountains tees.

There are tons more of digitally printed pieces (accessories as well) within the YEL online store; check out the full repertoire of goods before they sell out.

Pamela Love floats my boat, but not everyone has over six bills to drop on a bracelet, amazing though it may be.

Fast fashion may not be providing the most high quality accessory pool, but for those that want to represent a style, at least we’re being given the option.  Topshop has a take on PL’s cuff.

At $40, it’s reasonably priced.  Whether you approve or not of trickle down items,

I really like these kicks, but I have an alternative view as to how they could be portrayed.  I figure since JC is a fan of re-releasing slight design differences, the probability of seeing a varied Skate boot are quite high.  We’ll just have to wait and see!

demiCouture as a website and myself as writer are both no stranger to stirring the pot.  Indeed, I feel it is important to ruffle feathers, get people talking and get to the heart of a topic, whatever that may be.  You may agree with me, you may not, but there will always be commenting available on every post.

Blogs must have open comment forum if they are to be successful places of discussion, and it is important to be vigilant at moderating conversation to avoid link spammers and trolling.  It is when some individuals are particularly offended that the conversation turns heated, and often times those flinging their word defecation hide behind an ‘anonymous’ namesake.

Anonymity may be chosen due to shield your name from Google results, allowing you to shirk responsibility for your words, or allow you to comment at all due to a high profile job [etc], though every single time it is a cowardly option.  To provide a fine example of the type of response I’m referring to, I point you to my recent post on Obakki and its proximity to Nickelback [1].

Associating your name with your response provides culpability for your words, and would therefore encourage more intelligent and [ideally] mature conversation on the topic at hand.  Hiding behind a curtain and relaying how stupid you think something on demiCouture is does not only fails at translating your point, but hurts your disagreement by not providing any criticism of value.

I have found over the years, that those who include their name have been far more responsible with their words, and been far more willing to discuss what they disagree with, versus getting down into the mud.  While there will always be commenters that opt to cloak themselves in anonymity, I encourage you to take ownership for your words and stand up for your beliefs.

Such a large part of demiCouture’s existence is to provide a forum in which to agree or disagree with the views posted, though my aim for this website is for it to be encouraging and though provoking, not cowardly and low brow.

I have to admit; the espadrille base has been a favorite loathe of mine over the years.  That style of wedge has always been particularly unattractive to me, though the woven base does give a flat just enough of a variation of look to the typical rubber or leather base style.

We have three styles of the espadrille flat to view today; the loafer, sneaker and old faithful ballet flats.  It all comes down to the style you’re typically drawn to; a more androgynous look with the loafer, more casual interpretation with lace up sneakers or a feminine alternative found in the ballet flats.

My current favorite are the espadrille base sneakers; they are light, fun and just different enough to create a look using a style most everyone is comfortable wearing.  Tata Naka’s floral canvas and Jeffrey Campbell’s Caprice pairs offer the style in opposing price points and prints.

For the ballet flats, Steve Madden has a super cute leather and weave style in the Sandre; in fact these are the only pair that I have seen to use leather for such a price [$99].  Marc Jacobs’ tie ups are definitely dainty, though not for the faint of spender.  For two recommended loafers, look to Tory Burch’s regatta ready stripes or Missoni’s colorful interpretation.

This is only a very small sneak peek of what I’m selling tonight, Saturday and Sunday @ The Chosen Ones vintage sale @ The Waldorf hotel.

RSVP on Crackbook!

March and April showers are an unfortunate side effect of winter’s transition into spring for many areas, and therefore we need to have the basics covered (literally and figuratively) for when the more hopeful drizzling takes over from the gloomy day to day damp monotony.

You’re going to need three things to ensure that your 2011 transition is a happy and [ideally] dry one, all of which we’ll get into detail with examples for both ladies and gents.  Let’s do eeet!

Okay, so everyone needs a rad rain slicker, and the weirder the better.  Instead of your typical gabardine cotton weave, try something that’s full on leather, or a mix of the two.  Since leathers aren’t typically the warmest, we must save them until after the main blast of winter is over – in other words, really soon.  I am in love with Comme des Garçons’ Perfecto jacket (which really is) for the ladies, and this dark brown Burberry leather trench for the boys.  Bonus: the Burberry piece is 30% off!

Sometimes a rain jacket just ain’t enough, so we arm ourselves with our favorite brolly.  I’ve had a super compact style I found randomly at a drugstore which I paid entirely too much for, but it’s always been there due to it’s fold up design.  Consider how you will transport your umbrella, because that will prevent you from losing it.  Those with wandering minds and idle hands (such as myself) should have something that can fit into your bag, though sharper brains out there can handle the full size styles like Modcloth’s Raindrops on Railways or Barney’s house brand’s printed pieces.

Last of all is the truly essential rain boot.  For milder temperatures, I recommend a cropped boot.  Not only does a shorter rain boot show off a little more leg, but you can also wear fun tights and colorful leggings that you’ll actually be able to see more of.  Check out the old faithful pick of Hunter’s metallic Thurloe or basic color versions that are roughly $50 cheaper.  For men, you can’t beat Rokin’s leather Legion rain boot; they’re beautiful, waterproof and on sale for $158 (from $315).

It’s time again for your favorite multi vendor vintage shoptimes at The Waldorf! I’ll be there with a rack of my own goods (closet cleaning, you know) so make sure to say hi!

WHEN: Saturday, February 19th, 11am – 6pm / Sunday, February 20th, 11am – 6pm
WHERE: Downstairs @ the Waldorf Hotel [Googlemap]

A taste of whose vintage you can get a lick of this weekend (besides myself, of course): Angelus Novus, C’est la Vie, belles choses (consistently good), +Seeker+, Wendy Cook Styling, Dandi Wind (loud stuff), USED-House of Vintage (enough said), inherit, Community Thrift + Vintage, Victoria Potter (!), Mackenzie, the fair and Split Pea Vintage

Frigging Rodarte for Opening Ceremony; it’s all awesome and it never ends.  Now I thought that things were excellent when it came to Chloë Sevigny’s collaboration with Nana for OC, but the bar has been raised yet again with the Rodarte boots.

These are the ideal item for spring, and the perfect boot to live within multiple outfit changes.  The soft blue tapestry visual is dainty yet functional with the low stacked heel, and the coloring of the boot has one aching for summer.

I guarantee you that these booties will be the talk of your town, so admitting they’re $750 comes as slightly less of a bite.  They’re on pre-order right now, so if you have stupid bank to drop on some super stylish footwear, now’s the time.