TFBB 9 was pretty fabulous!

Several of us were still sugared up from last night’s debut of Carolyn’s rock and roll band Satan’s Candy (the set featured the much anticipated number “Fashion up your A$$”). In addition to the band all in white I can think of three couples who dressed to complement eachother – lots of terrific outfits. The perfect blend of fashion and rock and roll – great party!

Other threads … technical drawings of knitting stitches … fashion Moo cards … missing Adrian … how artist agencies work … what to do when someone steals your posts … the unique culture of nail salons … and the pedestrian necessity of specifying a time and place. Brunch flies by.

So much thanks to everyone who came! Here’s the masthead -

Ali de Bold of Chick Advisor

Anita Clarke of I want – I got and blogTO

Barry Freedman – a reader, and we love meeting readers

Carolyn Rohaly of the TFI blog

Danielle Meder of Final Fashion

Eden Spodek of Bargainista

Gail McInnes of the Plutino Group

Henna Singh of Canadian Beauty

Jenna Wilson of Girl from Auntie

Sonja Andic of Toronto Street Fashion

Tierre Taylor of SNAP Downtown Toronto

Tons of extra thank yous to Anita for setting up the RSVP site, to Eden for making the reservations at Brassaii, and to Tierre for taking terrific pictures!

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“If the devil wore Prada, Adam and Eve wore nada, I’m in between but way more fresh-ah…”

1 bonus… hick version.

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“Weakness and fear are human, endearing and real. They’re something to amplify.”

Professor Julian Roberts

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My first shot at the Fashion Playlist CD Game. It is inspired by the playlist entitled “Fashion Week with Heatherette” by a girl named Rock.

Theme: Fashion Week with Heatherette

Filthy Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters
Fishnet Stockings – Stray Cats
Heroine Chic – My Dying Bride
Too Funky – George Michael
Up on the Catwalk – Duran Duran
The Model – Belle & Sebastian
Rip Her to Shreds – Blonde
New York Girls – Morningwood
First we take Manhattan – Leonard Cohen
Change Clothes – Jay Z
Hey Scenesters – The Cribs

I like it okay, but it looks like an expected way to use a square canvas, and I didn’t include the runway theme or the idea of “tearing her to shreds” which would have been a lot more exciting. Next time I shall try something a bit different. Keep suggesting playlists, good themes are inspiring!

Things are happening in the studio and in the city, things that keep me from posting very often, for now. I can not wait to post the delivery and review of Carolyn’s Moo cards, and I am eager to pick some of the awesome fashion playlists to make CD inserts for. In the meantime, here is what fell from the internet tree when I shook it…

• At fiftyRX3, Jill Danyelle has completed her cycle of documenting her clothing and its provenance. In a series of fascinating posts, she shows her exploration of style, fashion and consumption through the lens of the three R’s – reducing, re-using, and recycling. Her archives are not to be missed. If you want to keep following Jill’s perspective on style, this is her lab.

• My self-education on copyright continues, from the Copyright Act, to CAPIC, to the Girl From Auntie… but when I get in over my head, the best reference I have found fits on a napkin.

• How about this forehead slapping online content, for crying out loud. Google it, people!

• San Francisco Fashion Week turns those pesky fashion bloggers away, ensuring that the world will never know what sort of fashion comes from San Francisco. It occurs to me that bloggers may be the best thing to ever happen to second tier fashion weeks – after all, what other media with any international audience actually go to local fashion weeks? Exactly! Except in San Francisco, which is ironic considering what a techy city it is. Not to mention the high caliber of San Francisco fashion bloggers, including Verbal Croquis, Bits & Bobbins, and The Coveted.

• TFBB number nine number nine number nine ………. RSVP here!

• The Street Style blog trend is so fully disseminated that street style blogs are beginning to pop up in third-tier fashion cities like London, Ontario and even Ottawa. Some ask why anyone would want to see what non-Toronto Ontarians wear (it is pretty much what you would expect), but I say, why not? I am anticipating the day when really small towns get their own street style blogs. Lets see less posers and more hosers, eh?

• Bonus – check out some of Final Fashion’s much appreciated incoming linkers and commenters this week – Indyish, SICK, and FASH Report.

Now that the fashion playlist has over 100 titles, I find it intimidating and unwieldy. So here’s a new challenge for all my readers who love fashion and music:

Select 6 – 12 songs from the fashion playlist, within a theme. You can make up the theme – it can be anything you want.

I will select a few submitted themes that pique my interest and develop CD inserts based on the songs, with an original illustration (4.75″ x 4.75″) on the front and the playlist on the back. The creators of the lists I illustrate will receive a file of the illustration emailed to them ready to print and insert into their very own fashion-themed CD cases.

This post shall hereafter bear the brunt of all future edits to the fashion playlist. A list, that once I asked for submissions, turned into a most exhaustive and wonderful thing. Thanks to everyone who helped build it, and if you have any more additions or edits, please leave a comment. Full list after the jump…

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Click here to RSVP. Fashion bloggers and readers are welcome to come.

Returning brunchers, please note that this brunch starts at 2pm – not 11:30am as in the past. Why? Because many of TFBB’s stalwart characters will be fashionably rawking out the night before at the exclusive premier performance of Satan’s Candy. Some of us will need the extra couple hours to stumble down to Brassaii.

It was good to get away from the keyboard for a couple days. I enjoyed everything about my trip to Ottawa, with the major highlight being a terrific brunch with one of my all time favourite readers, Wendy of Of(f) the Deep End. Despite sadly having to say goodbye to her animal friends very recently, she granted me the pleasure of meeting up to chat about all the many things we are both interested in. I felt like we found a certain harmony when sharing our perspectives. Thank you Wendy!

Even the long, pastoral bus ride there and back was enjoyable. My reading matter over those trips is currently percolating in my brain, as all of it caused me to reflect on Final Fashion the blog, what it is, what it is not, and the way it changes.

All this thinking has resulted in a fat two-part post which you can read after the jump…

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Posting will be on hiatus for a couple days because I am going on a little trip to Ottawa. While in Canada’s capital I will be visiting family and friends, and in between I look forward to long open stretches of time to spend as I please. Perhaps, like Kathleen in Washington D.C., I will seek out my national library… if there is one.

While in Bytown I am taking the liberty of initiating an Ottawa Fashion Bloggers Brunch. If you’re an Ottawa located reader or fashion blogger and you would like to come, it is at the Manx on Saturday the 14 July, 11am. Please RSVP to me at finalfashion@gmail.com.

In the meantime, here is some capital C clicks for you to peruse if you wish…

One of the reasons I love fashion is its frivolity. No sooner do I read this article, then I see the very next day a biker dude wearing a t-shirt with the same effect. Cue the hail of bullets, this is DIY at its very finest. Hey, maybe instead of shooting people, people could shoot shirts. The effect should make it clear that you are wearing the shirt of your latest kill.

Point – counterpoint. Disillusionment with the green consumer movement. As suddenly as fashion for a subject overwhelms the public conversation, it dissolves and devolves. The next word on everyone’s lips is reducing consumption. In a world that runs on more, the next fashion will be antifashion at its finest – it will be about less. Some say the thirst for novelty will never die, but I propose that for a society addicted to novelty, no novelty could be a novelty – as long as it is in fashion.

The deliberate inculcation of obsolescence is the essence of fashion, and the main reason it intrigues me. One of fashion’s chief inculcators, Muiccia Prada, pulled a stunt this season that blew me off my chair. Last season’s Prada show was so phenomenally ugly, I laughed out loud when I saw it on Style.com. Short shorts and turbans? It looked so absurd! I could not imagine it in real life.

But I underestimated Prada’s power to lead fashion while mocking its ridiculous looking victims. For a long time, it seemed like I was right – I saw no turbans around me in real life, not even in shop windows. Only in fashion editorials. Then, two European style bloggers, Style Bytes and Style Bubble, both took the leap into turban-land. Then I was in American Apparel, and I think I saw this video loop of how to wrap a turban with this long piece of jersey they sell. Then I see turbans taking a prominent place in vintage store displays. It still hasn’t hit the streets of Toronto yet (will it?) but it is so obvious I was wrong about the turban. I will never again doubt Prada. The only thing that could make it even more insane would be if the turban was some kind of oblique commentary on world events. Perish the thought.

Bonus links – fashion blog zen – Your Destiny is Stone Golden and The Fray.

Carolyn has agreed to blog the process of getting Fashion Moo Cards. Carolyn writes the Toronto Fashion Incubator blog, but by night she rocks hard with her band Satan’s Candy.

What is this all about? You can read my into to the idea of custom fashion illustrations on Moo Cards here.

For a little peek into the process, you can read the email communication I had with Carolyn after the jump…

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