Comic book characters tend to embody the most petrifying of fashion nightmares, from wearing underwear as outerwear to donning full-body, technicolor spandex suits in broad daylight. Since life within the panels of a comic book tends to be only slightly less sartorially inspiring than being stuck in an ’80s workout video, we think residents of Gotham and Radiant City deserve an extra-hard pat on the back when they bust out runway-worthy looks. Browse our look book of the graphic world’s trendiest style icons after the jump.
Have you ever wondered what the women from The X-Men would look like if they decide to star in their own runway modeling event? Well, neither did we. Fortunately, artist Kevin Wada and Max Wittert did and they showed us just what we were missing out on with our lack of fashionable female X-Men thoughts.
Perusing social networking fashion blogs like Facehunter and The Sartorialist, artist Fernanda Guedes draws inspiration from the people they feature. In her series People and Their Invented Histories, the Brazil-based illustrator conjures up a colorful biography for the faces behind the photos with vibrant illustrations and handwritten profiles detailing the family backgrounds, jobs, thoughts, and feelings she imagines these strangers might have. The eye-opening collection consists of over 40 sketchbook drawings paired with captivating stories and serves as a fascinating example of online identities and communities influencing art. Look through some of our favorites from the series after the jump.
Forget tales from Fashion’s Night Out, today brings us even bigger news — at last, Nike Air Mags are upon us! The light-up, powerlace kicks made their big-screen debut in 1989’s Back to the Future Part II, when Marty McFly found himself saving humanity in the year 2015. Now you can have your very own piece of Hill Valley four years ahead of schedule. The rules of the game are explained over at Nike’s eBay page — basically, we have ten days, 150 pairs of Mags auctioned off each day, and all proceeds go to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. The eBay site even has an accompanying video, starring Bill Hader and Kevin Durant, to answer the question we’ve all been wondering.
If you’re into mid-century British youth culture — and who isn’t? — you probably know all about Teddy Boys, the ’50s rock ‘n roll dandies in long jackets and creepers. But perhaps you didn’t realize there was a whole subculture of Teddy Girls, too. Also known as Judies (we’ll take that as a compliment), they dressed much like their male counterparts, sporting short hair, pants, sharply cut suit jackets, and defiant sneers. Get to know them in the gallery of Teddy Girl photos taken by Ken Russell (yes, the one who later became a film director and made both Tommy and Altered States) in 1955, after the jump.
Last month, we took a look at a project by Los Angeles-based illustrator Claire Hummel that re-imagined Disney Princess costumes as they might look if they were historically accurate. Dante Tyler‘s work, which we discovered via Design You Trust, reinvents the princesses as Vogue cover models. We see Jasmine in big hair and Chanel, a pouty Ariel in a trendy fish-skeleton necklace (coverline: “Thingamabobs? She’s got 20″), and Pocahontas in a fur-and-feather get-up that wouldn’t be out of place on Beyoncé. It’s clear Tyler’s images are all in fun, but they can’t help but get us thinking about the way both Disney characters and celebrity It-Girls are styled and sold.
Recently, it seems like the internet has been all about the retro 8-bit reminiscing. We’ve given you a lesson in 8-bit art history and even played an 8-bit Saved by the Bellgame, and now the kind folks over at It’s Nice That have turned us on to Fashionary’s 8-bit high fashion plates, depicting some of our favorite haute ensembles in all their pixellated glory. It’s a little strange to see something that is usually so focused on detail (hemlines are important, people, just ask Nina Garcia!) in its most representative form, but hey, fashion is no stranger to color blocking. Regardless, we think the end result is pretty cool, and we’ve collected a few of our favorites here. Check out the next generation in fashion after the jump, and head over to Fashionary to browse even more outfits and, if you just can’t get enough, to buy prints to hang by your closet forever and ever.
We’re still recovering from the three days of sensory overload that were Lollapalooza 2011, and everything’s settled into a bit of a blur. Fortunately for us, we teamed up with GUESS to present a living photo mosaic of the festival — the perfect way to look back and remember exactly what went down. Check out a gallery of some of some of our favorite user-submitted images and then click through to visit GUESS on Facebook and see the entire collection. Plus, if you have photos of your own from Lollapalooza, you can still submit them to win cool prizes, including merch from the artists that performed this year in Chicago.
Rudyard Kipling defined the idea of an “It” Girl, writing “It isn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just ‘It.’” By that measure, if you have “It” you never lose it. So, in celebration of the release of “It” Girl Marianne Faithfull’s new album Horses and High Heels, we offer Flavorpill’s 10 favorite 1960s “It” Girls. Between the fashion explosion that launched the age of the supermodel, the rise of Swinging London, and the lasting impression New Wave cinema had on commercial movies, there are dozens to choose from. Narrowing it down to only ten was hard, but the ones we’ve chosen have made a lasting impression and turned their “It” Girl status into legacies we still dissect.
Old ladies in New York (and around the world) have style in spades. We’ve already told you how much we love New Yorker Ari Seth Cohen’s blog, Advanced Style, but now several of his fabulous septuagenarians star in a short film about their wild and crazy fashion choices, shot by the always-wonderful Lina Plioplyte. Cohen said of the film, “My goal is to inspire people to look at aging in a new light. I hope these videos help people get over their fears of getting older, and embrace the wisdom and strength that comes with age.” Cohen and Plioplyte also have a documentary on the topic in the works – you can see more of their amazing and inspiring footage here. Or click through to see orange feather eyelashes, enormous fashion goggles, and Andy Warhol on a sleeve. You wish your grandma dressed like this – or maybe she does? Let us know what you think in the comments!
