Posts with tag canada

We love companies that really give back, and when it's a tiny mom & pop business working hard to make a difference, even better! Vivian Cheng and Eric Jean-Louis are a Canadian husband-and-wife design team who started their jewelry company, Blend Creations, in 2005. They recently launched a fabulous new limited-edition line of pendants called Metal for Monsters with the goal of raising $10,000 for UNICEF.

Anyone who's been to a bridal shower has probably made at least one wedding dress or veil out of toilet paper. It's a surprisingly difficult material to work with, but in the hands of professionals, the results can be surprisingly pretty!

Canada may not be known as a hotbed of fashion design, but streetwear company Wings + Horn make shoes and basics for men that could trick you into thinking otherwise.

This is the second season the line has offered footwear, and the Italian-made low-tops and hi-tops are a hybrid of casual comfort and high-fashion detailing. (Think Dior + A.P.C. x Converse.) Clothing mostly comes in utilitarian gray and black, and includes worn-in T-shirts, zip-up hoodies in coated terry, and reversible, striped jersey scarves.

Find clothes by Wings + Horn at New York's Blackbird and kicks at Vancouver's own Roden Gray.

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

Campfire was started by three friends that "shared a sense of humor, a passion for art, and a love of typography. They wanted to wear their hearts on their sleeves." Yes, a love of typography. Beautiful.

Here are some of their creations, heart on the sleeve and picture on the torso:

Until recently most Americans knew Smart Cars in the limited context of European vacations. Nearly getting run over in Rome, admiring their ability to navigate medieval cobblestone roads in France. Perhaps a sighting or two in the wilds of Canada.

The cute, practical and energy efficient two seaters finally became available in the states this year, and their popularity in cities is soaring. The waiting list, while not as long as for the fabulous electric Tesla Roadster, it's still pretty long.

We're afraid that this video will make them even more popular, but not in a good way. Imagine the least eco-friendly thing you could do a car. Make it a monster truck, right? Outrageous waste of gas, pointless dirt circling, loud distressing noises to upset the local wildlife. What could be more fun?!

The video appears to be from somewhere in the UK. While the commentary is hard to make out, the accent sounds vaguely English, or perhaps Scottish, going by the "tartan" emblazoned across the sad little Smart Car body perched atop monstrous, ginormous tires.

Looks like we don't have to be quite so embarrassed by NASCAR now.

Although exceedingly skinny -- and probably unhealthy -- models have proven to be an effective strategy for the advertisers, they're not so great for avoiding bad PR and controversy. As Canadian department store La Maison Simons found out last week, there's a growing movement of socially-conscious fashionistas out there ready to send in complaints whenever they see models that look like poster children for a campaign to fight hunger.

Simons released their 36-page fall catalog in stores as well as inserted into newspapers last week. Almost immediately, the Quebec-based retailer got over 200 customer complaints about the emaciated look of the models wearing their Simons TWIK brand. Not exactly the kind of response you want from a fall catalog. Before the public outrage could really boil over, company president Peter Simons made the decision to pull the catalogs, saying that the images are "destructive to a more vulnerable portion of the population which is exposed to anorexia."

Do you think these models are over-the-line?

[via Jezebel]

Think tooth tats are over the top? Look again. A man in Toronto has gone for perhaps the most bizarre and disturbing forms of tattoo that we've ever heard of: the eyeball tat. Sometimes, when people sustain serious eye injuries, doctors inject their eyes with dyes to make them look more natural. Now, starting with this idiotic adventurous Canadian, the medical art of corneal tattooing is becoming a new type of elective body modification.

This guy's procedure, in which he basically had an artist turn the whites of his eyes primary blue, required forty ink injections at a Canadian body modification convention. Apparently, the artist tried the traditional tattoo needle, but when it didn't take, they had to go in with a syringe. Ouch. According to one observer "it's trippy - and definitely starts some interesting conversations."

While we're sure that's true, doctors warn that "infection, perforation, and hemorrhage are among the potential complications." Yeah, that and a lifelong case of buyer's remorse when you're sick of having blue eyes.Click here for images of the procedure.



[via InventorSpot]

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

Today is the 4th of July. Chances are that if you were in the market for a t-shirt commemorating the holiday you already have it on. However, if that isn't the case, or if you are entertaining thoughts of getting a jump on 2009, then check out these patriotic tees from T-Shirts.com "one of the largest online retailers of t-shirts!"

Whit Honea is a slacker, a borderline degenerate, and a daydream believer. He's also our resident expert on casual chic. If it's comfortable, and not heinous, he's all over it. He's quite charming, really.

Once bitten, Twice Shy, baby. We don't know what that has to do with the company or t-shirts, but we weren't going to be able to go any further in this post without throwing those lyrics out there. The song is just too damn catchy.

Twice Shy features "organic fashion for sinners everywhere." You know who you are. They also have a line, Fig, featuring organic styles for children. Kids, of course, are free of sin, ornery as they can be. They still need organic clothes though.

All right, perhaps it's a bit unfair to call Avril Lavigne's New Year's Eve outfit a "getup" because it seems to be what she's wearing these days. I'm not sure what kind of look she was going for, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be "Hot Topic clearance rack." Or maybe it was. I don't entirely know what to think anymore.

Note Lavigne's chunky streaks, oversized false lashes, wrinkled graphic shirt, bright pink nails, tiny plaid skirt, belt worn askew, skull-embellished Doc Martens, and thick checkerboard shoelaces. Now, let's take a moment to breathe and then hold out our arms to Lavigne in a unified expression of "What in the hell were you thinking?!?!"

Browsing around some plus size forums, I kept hearing the name Addition Elle and was curious -- a new plus size fashion outlet perhaps? A few clicks and I was at their website.

First of all, I love the name, Addition Elle. It says plus-sized without being too cutesy and isn't as resolutely humdrum as Lane Bryant or Avenue nor does it sound too youthful for me like Torrid or Forever 21 . Secondly, the clothes are decently priced and a bit flirty which is often in short supply in the plus size category. They also sell bras in larger sizes including the oft-hard to find DDD cup size (not that I would know personally). The only problem for U.S. shoppers is that they are Canadian and don't sell online. The clothes do show up on eBay from time to time.

Any Canadian readers out there with any Addition Elle experience? Are these clothes as craveworthy as I think?

Hey, we're not going to opine one way or the other about letting a sugar daddy take care of you. However, if you happen to love jewelry, particulaly gorgeous designs from indie designers, well then, we say, go with a Sugardaddy, all the way!

That is of course, if you are buying earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings from Canadian jeweler, SugarDaddy (www.sugardadyshop.ca). SugarDaddy is an online boutique that features jewelry designs from independent, original designers in Canada. They also carry handbags and other accessories.

If Google's acquisition of YouTube wasn't enough to convince you that traditional media -- particularly print -- is in a state of crisis then perhaps the closing of two Canadian fashion magazines will sway you. St. Joseph Media will suspend the publication of Fashion18 and The Look following their quarterly issues. Both magazines debuted back 2002. Over the four years of publication, The Look developed the largest circulation of any Canadian fashion magazine. A spokesman for St. Joseph Media said the closing was due to slow advertising revenue.

While magazines like Vogue seem to be getting fatter with every issue, the future of the fashion magazine industry appears dubious. No one doubts that Vogue will always be there, but the prospects for smaller, niche publications -- like the teen versions of established magazines -- aren't quite so sunny.

When you say "Canadian Fashion" most people assume that you are talking about the international fashion hub, Vancouver. (Relax, Montreal, we know you're there. And if this was about you, we would have said "Quebecois Fashion.") Even though Vancouver is the reigning Canadian capital of runway shows and design houses, the truth is that Toronto has its own an unexpectedly vibrant street fashion culture. There's even a site dedicated to chronically the outfits of budding Canuck street fashionistas called Toronto Street Fashion.

For a city that spends half of the year beneath the ground in network of tunnels, the above-ground streets have a great deal of flair. Then again, I suppose the city needs to make up for January somehow – and that might as well be done by donning a pair of crazy green short-shorts in sunny July.