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The violence and destruction of property surrounding the 2011 London riots was devastating. Notably, a laundry list of independent record labels including Warp, Domino, Mute, 4AD, and XL lost valuable inventory when the 200,000 square-foot PIAS warehouse was burned to the ground. Countless retail shops endured days of looting and vandalism. During the mayhem, photographer Petra Valenti snapped the dramatic photo above of a few looters robbing a Carhartt store while a bright red sports car burns in the foreground. The designers at Carhartt, likely drawn to the gravity of the photo, have included the image on a new tee for its SS 2013 line. [via]

 

Kenzo pin, $402.38

Fringe is everywhere right now. Seriously. With the hippie look in full bloom for 2013 spring and summer festivals, you can't walk into a clothing store or scroll down a fashion blog without seeing a fringe bucket bag, fringe cropped top, fringe skirt, ad nauseum. However, as in-your-face as fringe has been lately, we think the manipulation of fringe into jewelry details is probably the most innovative and welcome sidenote to the fringe story. Whether it's subtle metal links cascading down a cuff or a leather fringe necklace, fringe jewelry provides options for riding the season's wave without embracing the trend in its entirety. Here are five options to get you started.

Adia Kibur cuff, $36 

 

 

Chola earrings, $120 

K/LLER necklace, $310

Auden Cuff, $388

With the new Daft Punk album, Random Access Memories, coming May 21 and streaming today, the electronic music duo couldn't have picked a better time to team up with their producer, the father of disco, Girogio Moroder, and fashion photographer Heidi Slimane for a sleek black and white photo shoot.

View the entire shoot on Dazed.

From dresses to shoes, bags and pants, white-on-white could be found in almost every major runway show for SS2013. Almost in rebellion to the over-the-top neon influx of SS12, this season's white-on-white trend is a clean, minimal, and subdued way to get back to basics. By keeping white as the dominate element in an outfit, other interesting, and more complex, details of clothing are able to be explored such as mixed textures, fabric manipulation and unique silhouette aspects. That, and it has the side effect of chicly drawing attention to the skin.

Whether done in small doses or all out, white-on-white brings a fresh perspective to dressing for the warmer months.

Rag & Bone, $325

Alexander Wang, $675

Vince Camuto, $158

Boy by Band of Outsiders, $495

An exciting collaboration between two L.A. favorites makes its debut this weekend. Jennifer Parry Dodge of Ermie and Mitzi Guidry of Los Angeles Leathercraft team up on a small collection of tie-dyed leather bags. We have already fallen hard for Ermie's collection of hippie-ish patterned caftans, maxi dresses, and leggings, and now we can add these totes and wallets onto our list of must-haves. 

The handpainted and handsewn goods will be available for the first time for lucky Angeleno's at the Echo Park Craft Fair, everyone else will be able find them on the Ermie shop in the coming weeks.

 




After releasing collaborations with Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, it seems natural that Uniqlo's next artist collaboration would be with their '80s contemporary Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Basquait T-shirt collection, like the Warhol and Haring wearables, features signature elements of the late artist's work in several different colors and designs. Basquait's influential graffiti-derived shapes can be seen on nearly all the pieces as well as his crown logo and signature. Unlike a real Basquiat, these Uniqlo versions come in at just $25.  

The Uniqlo X Basquiat collection is now avaiable for purchase from Uniqlo.

Los Angeles label The Quiet Life just released a very limited Mahalo Girls Pack of caps and bucket hats for spring and summer. They're out front in terms of pattern that explodes with color. If you can rock this much flavor, then rock it now, we say. Get on it now, only 100 packs (each with three hats and one bucket) were made available to stores.

The Mahalo Girls Pack available in select stores and online at thequietlife.com

 


Photo by: Dennis Morris, 1977. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, | Sid Vicious

Photos courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFAnyc.com

A new Costume Institute exhibition at New York's Met (lasting 100 days—like the first burst of UK punk—from May 9–August 14, 2013) examines early punk's impact on high fashion. And the irony of highbrow taking note of the influence from below has already made the show fertile ground for derision of the fashion biz and bigtime art museums.

It's also been stirring up a passionate conversation online and in the press on what punk was/is all about. Despite attempts to co-opt it and tame it, to own it or define it, here's evidence that punk still provokes, which was originally a big part of the point, anyway.

For critics of the show, it's easy to make the observation that punk music and culture wasn't about taking over the runway and selling brand-name perfume. But a largely homegrown culture having a significant impact on a commercial one isn't really strange.

There are many aspects of punk, too, that make it a perfect fit for high-end fashion art museums, and the mainstream art consumer. Interest in punk as cultural history has grown from being a critical concern for music heads to a regular literary event with memoirs from people like Patti Smith and Richard Hell. And taking cultural explosions from below seriously is much easier after three-plus decades have passed. Punk music, difficult to find in chain retail shops of the '80s, is but a click away now, so curiosity about it for those that missed it during the vinyl era is bubbling over. Punk, from '77 on, had a design and fashion aspect to it, not to mention a "hype" aspect. Its UK look was formalized in a fetish shop by shady impresario Malcolm McLaren, while its DIY ethic produced powerful graphics in flyer design and an individualized fashion within its own ever-shifting code of outsiderness.

Unfortunately, this leaves us with punk icons in punk iconic clothes that we've all seen before juxtaposed against designer duds that only seem vaguely punk. Odd then, that this show promises more to fashion fanatics—who perhaps haven't seen the way designers deliberately borrow from the Blank Generation look every few years—than it does to music fans.  Somewhat logically, the show concentrates on New York and London where the fashion world and punk scenes were in close proximity, but neglects any other spots where punk made early inroads. The show is organized, rather literally, by fashion techniques: DIY Hardware, DIY Bricolage, DIY Graffiti and Agitprop, DIY Destroy. If one has seen those videos of the Clash spray-painting stencils on their clothes, you've seen fashion history in action, evidently. 

For a good read on punk in the context of the exhibit, see New York magazine's recent cover story which offhandly makes the case that, in terms of fashion, punk won and elitism lost.


Karl Lagerfeld for House of Chanel. Vogue, March 2011. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by David Sims

John Lydon, 1976/ Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Richard Young. Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, 1982. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Peter Lindbergh.

Jordan, 1977. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph from Rex USA.


Rodarte, Vogue, July 2008. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by David Sims.

Richard Hell, late 1970s, Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Kate Simon.


Hussein Chalayan 2003, Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dazed and Confused, March 2003,Photograph by Eric Nehr.

Made in the U.S and hand constructed using 12oz 100% cotton denim and a 100% cotton trim, the Standard Work Apron brings the durability and romantic qualities of raw denim to the work space, or heavy-duty kitchen. Made by Denver-based Winter Session, the apron is available in both pure indigo and gray and has an adjustable neck strap that is secured with an overall buckle. Pockets cover the chest and waist of the apron and allow the wearer to stash a phone, tools or other supplies and keep hands free to work. Overall, the Standard Work Apron looks like a perfect fit for the stylish, yet practical, person and work space.

The Standard Work Apron is currently available from Winter Session online.

 

 

 

Lena Dunham recently paired up with Rachel Antonoff to create a fashion film for the designer’s fall 2013 line. Best Friends features Dunham’s sister and costar in Tiny Furniture, Grace Dunham, and writer Alice Gregory. The short, which is reminiscent of a Wes Anderson film, follows the lives of the best friends, through the narration of Adam Driver, while they share meals, interests, and deadpan humor. However, unlike the average pair of best friends, these girls also share an incredible wardrobe full of fun, vintage-inspired, Rachel Antonoff creations.