Posted by Katherine Sharpe | March 16, 2010, 3:43 pm | Permalink
Clothes. Shoes. It’s the second week of intermittently nice weather in New York City, and there’s no point pretending I can think about anything else.
Fashion-wise, the arrival of spring catches me off guard every year. In darkest February, the spring catalogs start arriving at my apartment, filled with warm-weather clothing photographed on location in the tropics. I leaf through them over a bowl of oatmeal, and dream about what I’m going to wear when spring comes. But spring itself seems so far off that sartorial thoughts stay purely in daydream-land.
And then a week like this happens. The sun comes out, the temperatures hits 60, and suddenly there’s nothing to wear!!!
Switching gears from winter to spring dressing always feels difficult to me. Cornerstones of the ol’ look—the coat, the boots, the bag—are suddenly inappropriate, and new ones take time (and money!) to find. The result in my case is usually several weeks of fashion awkwardness.
Perhaps that’s why, today, I’ve found myself thinking about people who have the discipline to wear just one thing, day in and day out, season after season. Beginning in June 2009, Sheena Matheiken of The Uniform Project (pictured above) began donning a versatile black dress every day for a year. The dress, designed by Matheiken’s friend Eliza Starbuck, can be work forward, backwards, or open, and Sheena permits herself to “accessorize” with as many items of recycled clothing and shoes as she pleases. She posts a photo of her outfit every day, and loyal readers express their appreciation by donating money to a charity that sends under-privileged children in India to school (which is where Matheiken began wearing uniforms in the first place). Soon, copies of the little black dress in question–aka, the U.P. L.B.D.–will be available for purchase on the Uniform Project website.
But The Uniform Project isn’t the only exercise in extreme wardrobe discipline going. Years ago, I seem to remember reading about a group of people who had taken to wearing a simple gray sweatshirt every day, as a way of protesting consumerism.
And the website 43 Folders, which is all about “finding the time and attention to do your best creative work” has posts from people who are paring down their wardrobes in the interest of cutting down on the clutter inside their minds. Someone has considered going “100% khakis and plain white t-shirts. Short sleeve in summer, long sleeve in winter;” someone else is taking the all tee shirts and jeans route; someone else is keeping it to black jeans and red tee shirts.
What about you? Have you ever tried or been tempted to try some kind of wardrobe restriction—in the name of creativity, thrift, environmentalism, simple living, or simply hating to do laundry? Tell us!
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 16, 2010, 2:16 pm | Permalink
Artist Joy van Erven and designer Finn Ahlgren met one fateful night in Tel Aviv, and from this encounter grew Godspeed. Part furniture company, part commentary on contemporary design, Godspeed lets a one-hour time limit dictate the final piece: no sketching, no planning, just scrap materials and 60 minutes of human faculty. The result? Interesting pieces that are both playful and haunting at the same time.
For more images, check out their flickr stream here.
(via dornob)
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 16, 2010, 9:40 am | Permalink
@kumquats4all @irenenicolaevna @thienkim @Arimethia @Fishmods have each one a set of both the Yellow Owl LCD notecards and the Notebook Set.
Congrats! I’ll contact you 5 via twitter so you can DM me your mailing info. Thanks to the 124 of you who entered!
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 15, 2010, 9:14 am | Permalink
We’re so excited about the release of new products from Yellow Owl Workshop and Chronicle Books that we’re giving away 5 sets them today! Here’s how to enter for your chance to be a randomly chosen winner of a Yellow Owl LCD Notecards and Yellow Owl Notebook Set:
1.) Become a follower of Readymadetweets on twitter.
2.) Post “Hey @Readymadetweets, color me Yellow (Owl) http://bit.ly/cZGZXr” in your twitter feed between now and 5 pm Central time today.
We’ll post the winners first thing Tuesday morning and until then, scroll down to read a bit of the back story of the products from Yellow Owl’s own Christine Schmidt!
RM How long has this collaboration with Chronicle been in the works?
Schmidt Probably a year and a half.
RM What’s been the biggest surprise in working with a big publishing company?
Schmidt Sweet, sweet Freedom! I usually work by myself in the vacuum of my own studio. Ideas, drawing and prints are the easy part. It is the material sourcing, production details and budget concerns that swallow my time. With these projects I had all design liberty without the production concerns. I guess it is a big publishing company, but the whole experience was very personal. I collaborated with two crazy talented people, Jason Sacher (editor) and Kristen Hewitt (design director) and it felt like working on a art project with two pals.
RM I know that you all worked together to build on your line, but to tweak it slightly to create new products—was that as hard as it sounds?
Schmidt With both projects we pushed the original ideas further and expanded them in to a series. We took the format of the notepads, changed the art and made the interior pages and binding three florescent colors. We kept the covers natural chipboard with screen printed white ink. I actually submitted designs for the notepad series then resubmitted all new designs a week later. I was looking at the way Native American artists would depict the natural world with repeated geometric shapes and wanted to carry that premise to the notepad covers. Anybody that has had the misfortune of seeing me order off a restaurant menus could tell you, I am annoyingly indecisive. But I still like these designs much more.
We kept the LCD notecards basically the same, but made our own envelopes with a singular LCD character to show postage stamp placement. I still carry my debossed white LCD cards in my line, but I love the versatility of the three different sizes and the fun florescent colors. And you get so many cards you could send one to everybody!
The most difficult part of the process was the waiting! With my own line I draw and print almost immediately so it goes from idea to actual product sometimes within a few hours. I had to wait months to see the final product. Just like submitting a roll of film (remember those?) for development. You wait and wait and even though you know what it is basically going to look like, you are so thrilled to see the final product.
RM Do you have a favorite product or aspect of a product? (I love the elastic on the notebooks!)
Schmidt Yeah I dig the elastic bands on the notepad set! That idea was all Kristen and Jay and it does a great job of reasserting the color palette while adding a functional element. But I think my favorite part is the the pencil from the LCD notecard set. Kristen ran all over town trying to find just the right color and I would receive these amazing little packages of pencils with little scribbled color charts. That has got to be the best part of collaboration. A dead-serious lengthy discussion about colored pencils. I am a lucky gal!
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 12, 2010, 2:56 pm | Permalink
The folks at Core77 nailed it with “The Dreaded Killer Jellyfish of Graphic Design Favors” poster, and now it’s available for purchase—only $20 for the signed silk screened print. My favorite may just be “T-shirt design for a cute person who will ignore you forever after.” Wonder what other dreaded creatures are lurking in the deep…
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 12, 2010, 1:03 pm | Permalink
I’ve never made my own fudge, but I’ve seen a few posts lately proclaiming how easy it is. Here are the ones that have looked the most appealing, which involve some of my favorite flavors—nice extra motivation!
Coconut Milk Fudge (pictured above) from Smitten Kitchen. I love coconut milk in nearly anything, so I’m betting I’d love this.
Really Easy Chocolate Fudge with Toasted Walnuts from Everybody Likes Sandwiches. Straightforward and simple, this looks like a great basic to try.
Cookies and Cream Fudge from Nestle Tollhouse. I admit to having a soft spot for cookies and cream ice cream, so while I suspect this one might be too sweet for me, I am curious.
Peanut Butter Fudge from Chow. Peanut butter and chocolate, need I say more?
Posted by Andrew Wagner | March 11, 2010, 4:35 pm | Permalink
My introduction to any and everything DIY was through skateboarding. After a brief flirtation with BMX racing in elementary school I got heavily into skating by the sixth grade and spent most of my teen years building ramps and riding them. (Below, Tim Lane on one of the ramps I helped build in Davis, California, circa 1988. Photo by Greg Hanes.)
While my skating habits have dropped off considerably the past few years I always try to keep up with what’s happening in that world. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about getting a new board. This urge has picked up considerably over the last few days after reading Katherine Sharpe’s great post on reusing old skate decks and all of my thinking and writing about Detroit. Much of the talks we’ve been having about Detroit have revolved around skateparks and how they do or don’t fit into the urban/suburban/rural environment. After a flurry of email exchanges about this yesterday I got to thinking about one of the best skate spots in the country, the Brooklyn Banks, and decided to pay them a visit.
[Read more →]
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 11, 2010, 3:25 pm | Permalink
After spotting this pocket square made from neon tape over at Once Wed, I had to check out where it came from. For a recent Kate Spade event in SOHO, Rebecca Ward really outdid herself…she even had a tape bar for guests to decorate anything they fancied. To check out more photos, click here and here. My only question: What could you do with all of that tape after the event?
( via Once Wed, images via Kate Spade)
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 11, 2010, 1:39 pm | Permalink
By clicking through this link on the Kitchn in search of the source of the Semolina Butter Cookies with Sea Salt, I happily found myself at Cooking Books. Andrea is getting her PhD in art history and when not working on her dissertation, she’s cooking through some of her favorite cookbooks. The previously mentioned cookie recipe is from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, there’s a Tomato Quinoa Bread from Patricia Wells’ Vegetable Harvest, Lentil and Wild Mushroom Hash is from The New Spanish Table, and the Jam-filled Buttermilk Country Cake is from The Cake Bible, just to give you an example of the lovely recipes available on the site.
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 10, 2010, 2:56 pm | Permalink
(all images via Neil Coppen)
The melting snow and subsequent muck and dirt that’s left behind has me wishing for something beautiful, and Dutch Ink (a group of four guys from brand and communication school Vega) from Durban, South Africa, have just the thing. Their work, which draws inspiration from British street artist Paul Curtis, uses reverse graffiti to present various scenes on grimy city walls. By using stencils and stiff metal brushes, the group selectively cleans to leave behind a mural that fades over time. Beautiful.
(via Wooster Collective and Neil Coppen)
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 10, 2010, 2:14 pm | Permalink
I saw this simple, yet toasted and cheesy sandwich on Simple Bites today (on a post that also features Coco-Banana pancakes and a One Bowl Gingerbread) and am wishing I had a stove and a skillet by my desk. Click here to see the full recipe for this quick croque monsiuer.
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 9, 2010, 3:01 pm | Permalink
Anais Mitchell, Photo by Alicia Rose
Not only is Anais Mitchell gracing the ReadyMade stage at SXSW in less than two weeks, she also releases her folk opera, Hadestown, today with help from Justin Vernon as Orpheus, Ani DiFranco as Persephone, Ben Knox Miller as Hermes, Greg Brown as Hades, and the Haden Triplets as the Fates. And as far as album operas go, this one doesn’t give off an overly gimmicky vibe, but surrounds the listener with good, down-home folk that happens to tell a haunting tale.
Anais’ riff on Orpheus (set in a post-apocalyptic society), though rooted in mythology, takes on a very familiar tone: Every artist has the desire to make something so beautiful that they inspire the impossible—in this case, bringing back the dead Eurydice. First developed as a stage production in Vermont, Anais and her friends hammered out the details, wrote new drafts, and debated between poetry and story clarity before she went into the studio to lay it all down. Give it a listen here, and enjoy.
SXSW info below, and for more of the history behind Hadestown, click here.
This year’s music line-up includes:
12:15p Anais Mitchell / 1:00p Sarah Jaffe / 1:30p Birds & Batteries / 2:30p Everest /
3:30p Matt Morris / 4:30p Carney
Where: Beauty Bar @ Palm Door, 401 Sabine Street @ East 4th Street
When: Saturday, March 20th, Noon – 5:00p.
RSVP to attend: events@readymademag.com
Please put SXSW in subject line. Space is limited. RSVP does not guarantee entry. SXSW badges welcome.
Posted by Andrew Wagner | March 9, 2010, 12:33 pm | Permalink
A few weeks ago I wrote about my recent visit to Detroit. During that trip, my traveling companions and I were also able to get out to Bloomfield HIlls, about 30 minutes outside the city, to visit the Cranbrook Academy of Art. I’ve visited Cranbrook several times over the years and it’s always impressive. But this visit was particularly intriguing as we were able to pin down the director of the amazingly influential school, Reed Kroloff, and coax him into giving us a full-blown tour of the grounds.
The shot above is of the spot where Kroloff likes to begin any tour he gives because it is so illustrative of Eliel Saarinen’s unique take on architecture and design. Saarinen (the Finnish architect responsible for the design of most of the school) was known for combining the the urbane Art Deco style with a more earthy Arts and Crafts aesthetic. It was this Arts and Crafts influence that undoubtedly led to the architect’s obsession with creating near perfect symmetry and then tweaking it slightly as a tip of the hat to nature. Saarinen is famous for saying “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” [Read more →]
Posted by Amy Palanjian | March 9, 2010, 10:40 am | Permalink
When it’s gray and rainy as it’s been here in the Midwest the past few days, I get an enormous urge to spend my day in the kitchen baking. This past weekend I made granola and cornbread, but at the moment, there is a bunch of almost too ripe bananas on my counter just asking to be turned into this delicious sounding cake. Here’s a description of the Banana Cake with Dark Chocolate and Walnuts from Bella Eats:
This cake, while not the prettiest kid on the block, certainly has the possibility of being the most popular with its stellar personality. So dense, so moist, the banana-scented crumb is perfectly balanced with dark chocolate and toasty walnuts.
I like the thought of a cake with a stellar personality!
Photo via Bella Eats
Posted by Alexa Fornoff | March 8, 2010, 2:56 pm | Permalink
(images via Giver’s Log)
Sending mail, in my opinion, is almost better than getting it. Unexpected packages can brighten even the dimmest of days, and with the series 13 Ounces or Less from Giver’s Log, you can get inspiration for charming tidbits that fall within USPS guidelines. For even more ideas, check out their flickr group…the bouncy balls below are my favorite.
