Fashion & Fancy

I've pulled myself out of a Twin Peaks mega-binge to share some of the gifts I've found on these here interwebs.  Enjoy! 

• Very soon, I will be in Scotland where I will be spending time with some of my favorite Americans at the Gargunnock House.  The place is ridiculous, but the entire Landmark Trust website is full of amazing locales- from converted pigstys to palaces- that you can rent and take fancy-dress photo shoots in (or maybe we're the only ones who do that?).  I want to visit them all! 

• Currently swooning over the book Icons of Men's Style by Josh SIMS. (hat tip Coco)

• When I moved to this country and plugged in my speakers, they fried.  Oops!/I'm an idiot.  Needless to say, I've been looking for new speakers and am totally jazzed about the speaker design by Hidden.  The speaker looks great, [supposedly] sounds great, syncs with all your other devices, is wireless, and is chic as shit.  Add to the cool-factor that the company got it's funding via Kickstarter- who doesn't love a good Kickstarter success story?!

• Fun Fact: I'm totally one of the few people on earth who still watches Project Runway.  It's like the Survivor of the fashion world- you're probably like, "Oh, that show is still on?" and I'm like, OBSESSED.  That being said, I'm constantly amazed by the grotesque display of product placement, endorsements, and producer manipulation on the show, and this week I was even more appalled to learn the the network actually auctions off each of the runway looks.  Sadder still, people buy these looks, and sometimes for hundreds of dollars.  This is crazy, people!  I mean, do you really want an un-lined jacket or an unfinished jersey dress that was made in eight hours for a model who is 5'10" and 114 pounds?  I sure hope not, so here's my idea: if you want a garment one of the designers made on the show, stalk them on the internet, contact them, give them your measurements and pay them to make something custom-made for you in fabrics that you want/like and pay almost the same amount of money as you would have spent in the auction (in some cases).  Judging by the sound-bites, most of these designers need a little extra coin, and if they're smart/have more than eight hours free to create a finished garment, I can only imagine they'd be pleased with a custom-order from you.  Give the money to the designer, not to Lifetime.  Okay?  Okay, great! 
  Maybe the designer won't be interested, but maybe they will.  You never know...

• While we're on the topic of Project Runway, if you're a total fangirl/boy and you don't religiously read Tom & Lorenzo's P.R. recaps, then you need to start doing it right now.  They are the Queen and Queen of P.R. and I love them.  Brian Moylan used to write great episode reviews back in his Gawker days, too, and I'll always love him for coining the names Queen Tangerine and Grandpa Gunn but he left the P.R. world, sadly.
• And because you were wondering, I totally want Sonjia to win.

Over & out.