glam.spoon: fashion blog

just a little 3-day getaway

via Portland Sunshine

This adorable little purple house has been pinned and reblogged so many times, I can't find the original image source, but it's a great representation of our little 3-day getaway to La Conner. We're leaving in a few minutes and I will be without wi-fi for most of the next 72 hours. It will not be easy to unplug, but maybe it's necessary? Hopefully, I'll be back online and re-energized on Thursday. Have a great week!

blog spot feature on seattle met

So many thanks to Laura Cassidy for featuring me on her blog, Wear What When, in the series Blog Spot. 

Laura Cassidy is a local fashion icon, Style Editor of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine who blogs at WearWhatWhen, as well as Editor of Seattle Met Bride & Groom. She takes fashion risks and embraces that in others. I've never seen her look like she didn't belong on the cover of a magazine. You may remember my post about her Doposcuola class at Cafe Lago. It was such a treat to talk Italian fashion with a true fashion enthusiast. If you have a girl crush on her too, just follow her on Twitter.

2012 Fashion Blog of the Year - Nominee

Thanks to Eduardo Khawam and Metropolitan Fashion Week for nominating the glam.spoon blog for their top blogger award! I heard the news in person at last Friday's Project Red Dress event, and now it's public on the internet. 

If you haven't heard of Metropolitan Fashion Week, you should click here immediately and check it out. This brand new week of local fashion shows is kind of a big deal.

 

Erin McKean, American Lexicographer

Erin McKean is an American Lexicographer. It says so right there on her Wikipedia profile. She is the author of several word-focused books and sits on the advisory board of Wikipedia. It was only a matter of time before she created some new way of looking at language, having also served as the Principal Editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition. Is it just me, or did anyone else imagine that the person squinting at and editing THE DICTIONARY was some old guy with white hair and bifocals?

Wordnik is the first word navigation system that helps people unlock the value of words and phrases to discover what information is most meaningful and matters to them. Wordnik goes beyond traditional dictionary definitions to deliver words in context. 

I've been searching my whole life for context.

 

"Wordnik.com is an online dictionary and language resource that provides dictionary and thesaurus content, some of it based on print dictionaries such as the Century Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, WordNet, and GCIDE. Wordnik has collected a corpus of billions of words which it uses to display example sentences, allowing it to provide information on a much larger set of words than a typical dictionary."

This girl has got it bad for words. My vocabulary is already feeling intimidated.

Just to give you an idea of the flavor of the site, I typed my first name into the search box that comes up on the home page at Wordnik.com and this example sentence popped up:

"As he watches TIna continue to get sliced up, their friends Nancy and Glen -- sleeping elsewhere in the house and separately -- hear the screams, but are unable to get into the room until Tina is already dead.”

In addition to wielding a razor-sharp turn of phrase, in her spare time she writes a sewing blog chronicled at A Dress A Day. I've been following her fashion adventures for years, and she was recently featured in Sew It All magazine.

Combine her love of sewing with a rich linguistic arsenal and you get The Secret Life of Dresses. The book started as a series on her blog and was compiled and published in 2011 as a work of fiction. You can read the very first entry on her blog, here.

Erin graciously agreed to answer a few of my burning questions around the subject of her two interests, words and sewing:

glamspoon: Which came first, your love of dresses or your love of words?

EM: Definitely words. I fell in love with words at age 8, but I was a big tomboy until I was about 12 (when I started sewing).

glamspoon: Is lexicography your super power?

EM: Lexicography is my day job. I think my friends would say my superpower is making analogies.

glamspoon: Where did the idea come from that dresses have a secret life?

EM: I was up late one night thinking about what to blog about the next day, and just thought "what about writing from the perspective of a dress?" I wrote it up and posted it quickly before I could chicken out, and then people seemed to like them!  

glamspoon: I understand that Wordnik can give aspiring fashionistas enough fodder for dinner party reparteé with Anna Wintour. If you saw her at a cocktail party, what would you say to her?

EM: I think I would tell her how much I enjoy the "Nostalgia" column in VOGUE -- clothing and fashion can be so evocative and hold so many memories. It's great to have a place for reflection in an industry that is so focused on the next and the new.

glamspoon: What do you hope to contribute to language through Wordnik?

EM: With Wordnik we want to map the whole language, so that we can help people discover all the words that they need and all the ideas that that are interesting and relevant to them. Every word deserves to be understood ...

 I couldn't agree more. 

nicole by Nicole Miller Spring 2012 ... for JC Penney

Nicole Miller Spring 2012 Ready to Wear - images from Style.com

Watching season two of All on The Line with Joe Zee tonight, I was shocked to see a whole episode dedicated to Nicole Miller. The show typically focuses on up and coming, struggling or has-been designers that Joe Zee has to nurture and guide and scold into figuring out how to be successful; but Nicole Miller is a very successful 30 year veteran icon of the fashion industry. Apparently, when you're trying to get your audience to see you in a different way, even an established designer can use a little help.

Most people think of Nicole Miller as a classic, special ocasion, prom wear and bridal designer. After 30 years in the business, she's ready to be seen as a modern sportswear designer too. Her new collection is aimed at 20-30 somethings with street appeal and edge, but she needs the public to see her in a new light. Joe Zee to the rescue!

In the episode, he steps in to help Nicole focus her collection on a new market with a hip vibe and youthful customer appeal. He comes up with the idea that Nicole should reinvent some of her vintage pieces. Everyone else is stealing from the 80's but Nicole can steal from herself. He dubs it "Nicole Miller Rewind" and Nicole loves it.

Then Joe realizes, from polling young shoppers outside Nicole's boutique, that she needs to get the information about her young hip sportswear into the hands of those informing young hip girls today: bloggers. The PR department is instructed to give 5 front-row seats to the top fashion bloggers, and work with a casting agent to hire a few young, it-girl celebrities to wear Nicole's fresh designs while attending her runway show at New York Fashion Week. I hate to ruin the ending for you, but she killed it. The formula, the messaging, the presentation really reached it's audience, and the blogging community bought the whole enchilada - as did Neiman Marcus!

Then I received a press release for the nicole by Nicole Miller spring 2012 look book - her affordable line sold exclusively at JC Penney. I was really excited by the new looks. I've been a JC Penney shopper for years, and I've noticed the nicole collection over the years. I may have a piece or two in my closet, but this collection is really fresh. Nicole has translated her runway sportswear into a very wearable, affordable collection for JC Penney's customers. I especially liked the bohemian looks.

Although she's been producing her line for JC Penney for about 6 years, this current collection is the most vibrant, relevant aesthetic I've seen from her. She's a real inspiration to designers like myself who are (ahem), no longer in our 20's, but are designing for girls in their 20's and 30's - and the fashion bloggers they worship.

If you haven't checked out JC Penney's nicole collection in the past, this may be just the right time. Most of the sportswear, dresses, handbags, shoes and sunglasses retail for under $100. I'm looking forward to checking out the very boho looks from the upcoming collection.

Last week I ranted about the whole Missoni for Target hype, but now I'm wondering, why aren't people around the country staying up all night to get in line for this collection? Why aren't they logging onto JC Penney's website and purchasing furiously until it crashes? These designs are on point, wearable, affordably priced. I guess everything in America comes down to a popularity contest, or perhaps Target pays more for their marketing and PR consultants than JC Penney does, but that's OK with me.

Check out this cute behind-the-scenes video from the nicole by Nicole Miller Spring 2012 look book shoot. You'll see the stylish Ms. Miller herself, dressing and directing the models. 

 

Nicole Miller behind the scenes photo shoot from Hello Super 8 on Vimeo.

The brand also recently launched a sleepwear line which should be in stores in February with prices ranging from $20-$30 as well as a sunglass line hitting stores in March, beginning at $20.

For the record: I did not receive any products or monetary compensation for this post.

 

2012 wardrobe resolution

Over the holidays I contributed to a post about Style Resolutions on Wear What When. Laura Cassidy, style editor at Seattle Metropolitan and editor of Seattle Metropolitan Bride & Groom - as well as the aforementioned very stylish blog - solicited fashion slanted New Year's Resolutions from a slew of style obsessed Seattleites and shared them with her readers. I'm going on record with this plan, and will document it here on my blog... 

Being a designer myself, one might think I wear nothing but my own designs, but that's simply not true. Although there are a fair amount of glam.spoon dresses and skirts hanging in my closet after nearly six years in business, I'm a true collector and have dozens of favorite items - many without a label. But in the spirit of reducing my carbon footprint, I've decided it's time to let go (a little). I've already weeded out the bulk of items that haven't been worn recently, so I'm well on my way to net zero - if not "net negative." At the end of this year, I want a wardrobe that is so suited to me, so full of pieces that I love, that I can't wait to get dressed in the morning.

And another thing: I don't care what the rest of the country says about our fashion sense here in the Pacific Northwest - we have some savvy folks in Seattle! Laura's own resolution to "stop over-thinking things and wear what I want to wear!" could be the Western Washington manifesto. This list of Style Resolutions includes a diverse cross section of creative folks who have a lot to say about their relationship with fashion. You can read the full article here.

 

#IFBCON streaming online

If you can't make it to the conference, let the internet bring the conference right to your laptop!

Whether you're a seasoned blogger or just getting started, there's something for everyone to take away from Evolving Influence: Independent Fashion Blogger Conference. Check out the full schedule here and take some time out of your day to stream away! I'm looking forward to the keynote speaker, Mr. Joe Zee of Elle Magazine at 6pm EST (3pm for you left coasters). And please share your thoughts in the comments section.

 Watch live streaming video from ifbconference at livestream.com