Jan-Jan Van Essche: Collection#1 Launch

Just as everyone goes to vote on the 13th of June in the most obligatory manner, I invite you to the new pop-up store organised by Atelier Solarshop in Antwerp. They will be hosting the showroom/shop for the first collection by Jan-Jan Van Essche named ‘Yukkuri’. Principally menswear, and there’s not much of a preview on his website, but the sparse images you may find look incredibly promising. As I recall, he received the Flanders Fashion Institute Award back in 2003 for his graduation work at Antwerp Fashion Academy, and if I may spy on his CV, the 13th of June is his birthday. These are some curious facts for starters… for more - see you there!

thumbs up for Tumblr

Watch out with signing up for my Tumblr moodboard – you’ll be littered with non-coherent and irrelevant posts. I try to keep most of these musings and reflections out of the pages of this blog, but eventually they must be put to use, hence ‘.origami mon ami’ on Tumblr. It’s just too darn easy to blog via iPhone, connect it to Facebook and Twitter(no I don’t Twitter, I’m too ‘old’ for that) and let everyone know what you think at any given moment in time. So if you’re curious, have a look at:


http://www.origamimonami.tumblr.com/

suits you, madam. reprise.

Playing around with my new suit. I was very wrong to say high-street brands don’t do suits. I found mine at Zara and sized up on a jacket. The trousers were a tough choice, because they looked great when oversized, buy then without the jacket. I’m still hesitating about them because I’d love to wear the jacket tucked in, but I don’t think my hips can tolerate that much volume. Wanting a loose suit initially, I found a compromise that suits (literally) me the best. Then changed the plastic buttons for the natural mother of pearl ones, (even if I wear my sleeves rolled up at all times), and pinned a ‘Grave Escape Records’ badge, don’t know why.

batman dust

A small selection from the inspiration folder based on one image...

Sou Brette necklace, l'Officiel archives, Elke Kramer bracelet, Justin Morin 'Batman Dust', Imogen Belfield ring, Stine Goya blazer @Hunting and Collecting

Londonium: prologue

I’m jumping of joy because I got my tickets for the London trip. I have mixed feelings about the city since the time when I got a chance to live and work there in 2008, and finding myself still living in Brussels half way through 2010 – it does seem odd. Now as I’m through with COS, the bloggers are finally becoming recognised as press in Belgium and I can entertain myself with writing articles about fashion and beyond, while being just a professional slacker, the familiar thought of moving to London is creeping up to me again.
Next week I’ll set off for a short trip of site-seeing, shopping (making the synopsis of numerous addresses and designer names written off StyleBubble to aid me on the long shopping spree), a visit to the Margiela expo, and of course the therapeutical Tube rides with a take-away coffee in my hand – it soothes my nerves like nothing else does. As a highlight of my short trip I’m going to The Chap album launch gig, and may even get a chance to help team-Mewbox with the interview – we’ll see how it goes because music interviews may not be my calling just yet…but do we really have to talk about music or can we discuss The Chap’s visual aesthetic or Johannes’ (the singer) literature reviews?

This is still my London, unfortunately Big Ben is not on it – what I saw 2 years ago when I walked the streets alone somewhere near Aldgate East.


And this is from a small designer market in Shoreditch.

suits you, madam

The summer has been giving us the extreme highs and lows so far – the blistering heat yesterday and the tropical storm today (there were tornados in Germany, says CNN)…but shall I once more revert to the trenchcoat praise? No, today is something new…for this blog and for my wardrobe at least.
There’s an unexpected garment on my wish-list – the matching coloured suit.
So it’s a set of garments – a loose oversized blazer, preferably unlined and trousers of same material and colour(kaki, beige or anything in between), masculine cut, pleats at the front, long enough to wear them turned up. Ideally, this should be worn belted up, with a light barely-there t-shirt and the wedges, of course, plus some huge spiky bracelets/cuffs/rings to contradict the entire idea of the suit. Yet I combed through internet to no avail – looks like there are no high-street brands that do suits. Why? There’s at least one suit in every issue of Encens, so why aren’t the high-street brands catching up?
And where is one to look? Second-hand and vintage shops or men’s department in Zara? I might give it a try.

image from www.freshfishh.blogspot.com

Beyonda (Movie Trailer)

So the trip to Antwerp was over before it really begun. I showed up at the railway station to find out that all trains and in all directions have been cancelled because there’s a bomb alert at one of the stations in Brussels. Great! I made my way back home. Even greater to hear on the news that it was just an empty shoebox – we don’t want any of the real stuff here! Either way, I missed the screening of Beyonda. Here’s the trailer:

A to the Z

Something incredibly beautiful dropped in my mails today. I’m not going to bore you with my tedious explainations – have a good browse through http://www.clairenereim.com/ and see for yourself!

all images of Claire's installation work via http://www.clairenereim.com/

Claire Nereim and Julie Cloutier collaborate on many projects, one of which is a reconstructed and recoded alphabet. Together they have launched the STYMIE Apparel – a collection of limited edition t-shirts, in which the artists explore language and its relationship to form. Their first shirt was the A/Z, which presented an A made from a Z and a Z made from an A, printed front and back on super soft tees, that has been followed up by B/Y and C/X, available here.

The font is insane, and it seems I know where to put it…. just a thought...

this is what i do when i love what i do

http://www.mewbox.com/blog/the-chap-15510/

If you ever want to see me play the world’s hottest music journalist – watch this space! No just kidding, I have never thought to venture into writing about music, but here I am… even if it’s just a silly concert review, I feel like I have accomplished a little something the day I reviewed The Chap gig at Botanique.
It looked like most people have completely misunderstood this band, almost taking their performance as an attack… no offence to Cold Cave fans, but the only ‘artistic shit’ to climb the stage that night was The Chap themselves, and the ‘real music’ joke is about an age-old track which has been around since the ‘Mega Breakfast’ release in 2008 – that’s pre-ColdCave by any means. So chill, the chaps weren’t making fun of Heartworm Press, or any other artistic activity that the former Some Girls’, XO Skeletons’ Give Up The Ghost’s Mr. Eisold may indulge himself into. Take my word for it!
On a side note: my next accomplishment must be mastering the basic photographic skills in order NOT to stick my finger into the shutter of my reflex camera! A messed up camera looks pathetic, costs a lot, and most importantly does not take any pictures, hence the image-free review. Well, have a read on Mewbox.

let's build crystal castles in the sand

I love getting up early on a sunny Sunday to go to a flea market. Today I bought some crystals and a lump of quartz, but I wish I could have bought much more from the seller who had amethysts and other semi-precious stones. He had a stand loaded with chunks of all shapes and colours, what a pity I didn’t have my camera with me! I spent plenty of time choosing, but had just enough change to grab a beautiful ‘cave flower’ brown aragonite and a small crystal with a mint-coloured formation inside. It would be great to find someone who has the right tools to drill holes in them, just to put a chain through. These are raw but beautiful.

This happy shopping morning was followed by a bikini afternoon, doing nothing but drawing my new crystals and basically all the other stuff that was laying around. Bliss!

the Sunday outfit:

Henrik Vibskov shirt-dress

second-hand shorts

second-hand Moschino belt

Jeffrey Campbell wedges

self-made hair necklace

if i wear a trenchcoat to an exhibition, does it make me an exhibitionist?

Will you care to read yet another post about wedge shoes? No, no one is paying me for the promotion, although I secretly wish to get a pair of wedges for every time I write about them. Neither is my shoe wardrobe containing wedge-soles only. I’ve got 5 pairs, 3 for summer and 2 for winter, but only one costs good money – the Opening Ceremony sandals that I wear the least because they hurt, the rest are courtesy of H&M, Topshop and Jeffrey Campbell. 4 of them are black. So naturally I’m looking for fresh colour, midseason sandal-boot hybrids with voluminous shoelaces, elastic inserts and Velcro straps. The simple reason is that above all the clothes and shoes I wear must be practical and comfortable, yet I do not own a single pair of sneakers, Converse or ballet flats – I find my comfort in loose volumes and soft draping fabrics with a bit of tailoring, the wedges are the perfectly stable but dressy shoes, plus they balance any volume out.
Therefore it’s not too hard to guess that the item number two that I’ll never stop wearing is a trenchcoat – the two are just the best complimentary items. Once again I own 5 trenchcoats, 4 of them are beige…there is definitely a pattern emerging here!
Logically if I’ll be getting a new pair of shoes, I should start looking for a new coat, which isn’t much of a headache in Brussels, because we’ve got one fantastic seller at a local flea-market with a massive amount of dead-stock coats, that’s where I hunt mine out.

Two vintage coats from Time's Up store.

A perfect example of a beige trench and black wedges put to use. This is a picture of Veronica B Vallenes (from copenhagenstreetstyle.com).

on the other side of the rainbow

Today is a happy day – the day when I’ve had it with freakishly expensive shoes. I’ve worn my faux-A.Wang shoes out and I was amazed at the comfort of the 9cm heel, softness of fake leather and I noticed some stares of admiration. The greatest thing about cheap shoes is that I will not cry about messing them up when some party goers start spilling drinks and stepping on my feet. And honestly, we always buy a new pair of shoes for the new season, so why bother about the old ones falling apart – strangely enough they don’t!
I feel upset for not being able to go crazy in a shoe shop which is selling these beauties somewhere in far-faraway Korea, but Internet saves my day.
The question is: which ones?

all shoes via this site.

editor's letter teaser

Here’s another mega teaser: ready-for-print page from my magazine!
I did promise the unreadable fonts and awkward layouts, so there you go. But over the time while working on this magazine I changed from landscape to portrait, I will be using glossy paper for some pages, I cancelled the cover completely – it will be just a blank page. I tend to do everything the hard way, but in the end it pays off. Substituting the hyper-expensive silkscreen prints for the hand-carved lino-prints, made me iron every page to straighten it up…and I will do it again!



Let’s hope we’ll be celebrating the mid-summer’s night with a copy of a first new-born Brussels-based fashion magazine.

Start Hunting And Collecting!

Start making wishlists now! The Hunting and Collecting online store is open, and they do ship absolutely everywhere. The web shop is may be the highlight of their brand new website for those who live abroad – now you can get yourself a piece of Brussels for any price you are willing to pay. And when in my previous post I said that I believe in beauty, this is exactly the kind of beauty I was referring to. You see! We’ve got it all! And we are proud to be the believers.


I like the fresh and clean ‘interiors’ of the web shop and many teasers and spoilers from behind the scenes. You can see how the store has been created, the opening evening and the backstage photos of the lookbook shoot


But most importantly you can pre-order Hunted and Collected – the soon-to-be-released journal, a small collectible piece of printed matter where you’ll find background information about the brands and word-shaped visions of guest writers. I’m happy to announce that I got my little part in it contributing a small article alongside with Adam Bryce of NewOrder magazine and Stijn Verlinden of I Love Belgium blog. I hope you will have a pleasant read when it comes out.
So thumbs up for the Brussels’ power-couple Aude and Niels!

all images via H&C