Friday, September 30, 2011
Giveaway: Win business cards from UPrinting!
Today you have a chance to win an important tool in every blogger's arsenal - business cards! How cool is that?
I was recently contacted by UPrinting, online printing that uses vegetable and soy-based inks in their products. UPrinting offers everything from template-based business card printing and custom business cards, to posters, invitations and event tickets. I've never offered a sponsored giveaway before, but was so impressed with the company's products and I'm making this my first!
In this giveaway, you will win:
- 250 pcs Die Cut Business Cards for one winner!
Details:
- 2 x 3.5" Rounded Corners, 2x2" Rounded Corners, 1.75x3.5" Rounded Corners, 2x3.5" Leaf, 2x3.5 Rounded one corner, 2x3.5" Half Circle Side, 2x3.5" Oval, 2.5" Circle.
- 14pt Cardstock Gloss / Matte / High Gloss (UV), or 13pt Cardstock Uncoated,
- 6 Business Days Turnaround printing.
This giveaway includes free shipping! Die-cut business card templates are available for download.
Restriction: Limited to US residents 18 years old and above only.
To enter this giveaway, please do the following:
- Follow me through Google Friend Connect
- Follow me on Twitter @dresscourage;
- Follow UPrinting on Facebook;
- Follow UPrinting on Twitter;
- and tweet the following about the giveaway: I just entered to win @dresscourage @UPrinting business card giveaway! Enter here: http://tinyurl.com/3b53hvy
Disclaimer: This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given. Please visit UPrinting.com for for more details.
Guest post: Can you take a compliment?
Follow B through Twitter here.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
[wild] west coast
We’re taking some time off and driving up the West Coast, a part of the Cape which is notoriously rugged, wild and gloriously unspoilt. I’m hoping for warm spring weather and anticipating some much-needed recharging of batteries. I’m looking forward to walking on quiet beaches, photographing the beauty surrounding me, reading and sitting on the rocks, basically doing sweet nothing. As the Italians say, dolce far niente, taking time for some pleasant idleness. This editorial taken from Marie Claire Italia seemed blissfully appropriate.
So I’ll be back later next week, energised and inspired. Please don’t forget to pop across to Freeworld Design Centre’s blog on Wednesday to catch my debut post as their newest Guest Blogger. I’m so excited to work with this dynamic team and I’ll be posting every Wednesday on their lovely blog. Please leave a comment to let them know what you think!
Thrifting 101, Part 27: The history of Dr. Martens
In 1991, I was sixteen years old, solidly entrenched in my prime eye-rolling phase and completely obsessed with Beverly Hills 90210, The Smiths, and Rolling Stone magazine. I wore ripped jeans and crop tops and floral babydoll dresses I'd thrifted from little hole-in-the-wall stores on the Hell's Kitchen section of 9th Avenue in NYC, a neighborhood riddled with hookers, drug dealers are all sorts of fascinating, derelict creatures. It was there that I first spied objects of sartorial lust so desired, so coveted, they eventually brought me to my mother's feet, begging to be purchased. She said they were clunky, ungraceful, and downright ugly. I argued otherwise. We fought. We debated. I attempted to negotiate chores and went so far as to offer a peace treaty with my brother in exchange for the object in question. Finally, she relented. I had won. And these were my prize:
If you are a child of the nineties like I am, or perhaps just infatuated with nineties style, you are well aware that Dr. Martens were the definitive footwear of that era. My friends and I obsessed over them, debating the merits of solid colors over patterns, Mary Janes over oxfords, 8 hole over 14. We cajoled our parents into plunking down $90 for them. We changed out the laces, decided we hated them, and changed them again. Our relatives whined that the shoes were ugly. They made a distinctive clomping noise when you walked. They made your feet look ten times their size. And yet we loved them.
Dr. Martens, once deemed an "offensive weapon" by U.K police forces back in the early seventies, have firmly made their place into mainstream fashion. When I spied a pair at Urban Outfitters the other day, I knew they deserved a post covering the history of the brand in my Thrifting 101 series.
Dr. Martens
Doc Martens had their humble beginnings with Klaus Marten, a doctor in the German army during WWII. After injuring his ankle in a skiing accident, he found that army-issue boots were too uncomfortable on his feet. While recuperating, he designed an improvement to the boot with an air-padded soles and soft leather. It wasn't until after the war that he paired with a university friend, Dr. Herbert Funck, and went into business selling his boots in 1947. Surprisingly, the comfortable, durable shoes were a big hit with housewives, with 80% of sales in the first decade going towards women.
Sales had grown so much by 1952 that they opened a factory in Munich. In 1959, the company had grown large enough that Märtens and Funck looked at marketing the footwear internationally. British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs Group bought patent rights to manufacturer the shoes in the United Kingdom. They anglicized the name, slightly re-shaped the heel to make them fit better, added the trademark yellow stitching, and trademarked the soles as AirWair.
The first Dr. Martens boots came out in the U.K in April 1960, in an eight eyelet, cherry red smooth leather design known as the 1460 (shown above, which is still in production today.) They were popular among workers such a postmen, police officers and factory workers. In the early nineteen seventies, British soccer fans began modifying the boots, removing the leather from the toes and exposing the steel toecaps to intimidate the opposing team's fans. U.K. police forces determined that boots with exposed steel toecaps were “an offensive weapon” and barred them from soccer matches. With fans continuing to use their Dr. Martens to batter fans of opposing teams, police developed a new tactic: they insisted that anyone wearing Dr. Martens remove the laces from the boots, reasoning that loose boots could do less damage. This move was met with fans’ smuggling in spare laces, with some enlisting their girlfriends to sneak the laces into stadiums. The problems became so severe that fans were sometimes forced to remove their boots for the duration of games. Boots could not be reclaimed until opposition fans left the stadium, at which point the barefoot fans would dash to reclaim their boots or, hopefully, a newer pair previously belonging to another.
According to Martin Roach, author of the definitive history of DMs, Doctor Martens: The Story of an Icon, reported to The Guardian that it was not until Pete Townshend, guitarist and songwriter with the Who, wore them in around 1966 that they became fashionable. Townshend recalls buying DMs because he was tired of the foppish clothes that were so popular during the 1960s. "I was sick of dressing up as a Christmas tree in flowing robes that got in the way of my guitar playing," he says, "so I thought I'd move on to utility wear." The air-cushioned soles helped him bounce around on stage, and wearing the boots, Townshend explained, reminded him of the working-class surroundings in which he had grown up
By the early 1970s, Dr. Martens were ubiquitous among the rising British punk rock stars. Sid Vicious was among the first punk to wear DM's, and soon it seemed all punk fans were wearing them. Dr. Martens boots were no longer the footwear of the working class; they were the footwear of rebel youth. Dr Martens had been taken up by mods and glam rockers, psychobillies and goths, but it was members of the emerging skinhead movement who would be the most feared wearers. It was because of the actions of some skinheads that the Dr Marten became associated with violence.
The irony was that even as violent groups such as the skinheads were wearing the boots, they were also on the feet of the police they were clashing with.
By the 2000s, Dr. Martens were sold exclusively under the AirWair name and came in dozens of different styles, including conventional black shoes, sandals and steel-toed boots. In April 2003, under pressure from declining sales, the Dr. Martens company ceased all production in the United Kingdom, and moved their factory to China and Thailand. With this change also came the end of the company's vegan-friendly non-leather products, which were produced since the early 1990s. In 2007, Dr. Martens began producing footwear again in England, in the Cobbs Lane Factory in Wollaston. These products are part of the "Vintage" line, which the company advertises as being made to the original specs. In April 2010, the Dr. Martens 14-Hole black leather boot won two fashion awards at the 2010 Fashion Show in New York City - one for the 'most popular men's footwear in latest fashion' and the other for 'best counter-cultural footwear of the decade.'
If you are a child of the nineties like I am, or perhaps just infatuated with nineties style, you are well aware that Dr. Martens were the definitive footwear of that era. My friends and I obsessed over them, debating the merits of solid colors over patterns, Mary Janes over oxfords, 8 hole over 14. We cajoled our parents into plunking down $90 for them. We changed out the laces, decided we hated them, and changed them again. Our relatives whined that the shoes were ugly. They made a distinctive clomping noise when you walked. They made your feet look ten times their size. And yet we loved them.
Dr. Martens, once deemed an "offensive weapon" by U.K police forces back in the early seventies, have firmly made their place into mainstream fashion. When I spied a pair at Urban Outfitters the other day, I knew they deserved a post covering the history of the brand in my Thrifting 101 series.
Dr. Martens
Doc Martens had their humble beginnings with Klaus Marten, a doctor in the German army during WWII. After injuring his ankle in a skiing accident, he found that army-issue boots were too uncomfortable on his feet. While recuperating, he designed an improvement to the boot with an air-padded soles and soft leather. It wasn't until after the war that he paired with a university friend, Dr. Herbert Funck, and went into business selling his boots in 1947. Surprisingly, the comfortable, durable shoes were a big hit with housewives, with 80% of sales in the first decade going towards women.
Sales had grown so much by 1952 that they opened a factory in Munich. In 1959, the company had grown large enough that Märtens and Funck looked at marketing the footwear internationally. British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs Group bought patent rights to manufacturer the shoes in the United Kingdom. They anglicized the name, slightly re-shaped the heel to make them fit better, added the trademark yellow stitching, and trademarked the soles as AirWair.
 |
The first Dr. Martens boots came out in the U.K in April 1960, in an eight eyelet, cherry red smooth leather design known as the 1460 (shown above, which is still in production today.) They were popular among workers such a postmen, police officers and factory workers. In the early nineteen seventies, British soccer fans began modifying the boots, removing the leather from the toes and exposing the steel toecaps to intimidate the opposing team's fans. U.K. police forces determined that boots with exposed steel toecaps were “an offensive weapon” and barred them from soccer matches. With fans continuing to use their Dr. Martens to batter fans of opposing teams, police developed a new tactic: they insisted that anyone wearing Dr. Martens remove the laces from the boots, reasoning that loose boots could do less damage. This move was met with fans’ smuggling in spare laces, with some enlisting their girlfriends to sneak the laces into stadiums. The problems became so severe that fans were sometimes forced to remove their boots for the duration of games. Boots could not be reclaimed until opposition fans left the stadium, at which point the barefoot fans would dash to reclaim their boots or, hopefully, a newer pair previously belonging to another.
According to Martin Roach, author of the definitive history of DMs, Doctor Martens: The Story of an Icon, reported to The Guardian that it was not until Pete Townshend, guitarist and songwriter with the Who, wore them in around 1966 that they became fashionable. Townshend recalls buying DMs because he was tired of the foppish clothes that were so popular during the 1960s. "I was sick of dressing up as a Christmas tree in flowing robes that got in the way of my guitar playing," he says, "so I thought I'd move on to utility wear." The air-cushioned soles helped him bounce around on stage, and wearing the boots, Townshend explained, reminded him of the working-class surroundings in which he had grown up
By the early 1970s, Dr. Martens were ubiquitous among the rising British punk rock stars. Sid Vicious was among the first punk to wear DM's, and soon it seemed all punk fans were wearing them. Dr. Martens boots were no longer the footwear of the working class; they were the footwear of rebel youth. Dr Martens had been taken up by mods and glam rockers, psychobillies and goths, but it was members of the emerging skinhead movement who would be the most feared wearers. It was because of the actions of some skinheads that the Dr Marten became associated with violence.
The irony was that even as violent groups such as the skinheads were wearing the boots, they were also on the feet of the police they were clashing with.
By the 2000s, Dr. Martens were sold exclusively under the AirWair name and came in dozens of different styles, including conventional black shoes, sandals and steel-toed boots. In April 2003, under pressure from declining sales, the Dr. Martens company ceased all production in the United Kingdom, and moved their factory to China and Thailand. With this change also came the end of the company's vegan-friendly non-leather products, which were produced since the early 1990s. In 2007, Dr. Martens began producing footwear again in England, in the Cobbs Lane Factory in Wollaston. These products are part of the "Vintage" line, which the company advertises as being made to the original specs. In April 2010, the Dr. Martens 14-Hole black leather boot won two fashion awards at the 2010 Fashion Show in New York City - one for the 'most popular men's footwear in latest fashion' and the other for 'best counter-cultural footwear of the decade.'
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Elle Decoration [spring style]
Have you bought your copy of the Spring issue of Elle Decoration SA yet?
No? Okay, keep calm and read on…
Floral inspired images abound in this issue, from Victorian floral printed Dr. Martens to the Paper Blossoms pop-up book by Ray Marshall.
This issue has tons of clever and inexpensive ways of decorating with and displaying flowers; for example, zigzag-fold white paper and wrap it around bottles. It looks gorgeous with a simple spray of green.
I love this room below from an Overberg farmhouse; its tropical wall scenes and quirky treasures are priceless:
Liezel Strauss, a South African art and design consultant living in Japan, began a fund raiser to help the victims of the earthquake and resultant disasters in Japan. She created a My Japan facebook page and asked people to submit their favourite photographs of Japan which would be sold and the proceeds donated to the Japan Emergency Network. This issue of Elle Decoration is worth getting, if only for these poignant images which tell a story of the hope and inspiration found in a beautiful country. Visit the My Japan site to find out more.
I’m smitten with this feature by Anna Loubser: it’s bubblegum pink and full of fun… that black & white striped dress from Habits is lovely, not to mention the floor delicately decorated with floral teacups.
A while ago I featured the delicate and simple creations by local girl Lorrae Mehmel of Tamarillo Ceramics. I was thrilled to see them featured here:
So what are you waiting for? This was only a sneak peak of Elle Decoration SA. There’s so much more to see and love. Go!
[all photography by me]
Adult female friendships: They're not so easy.
Aristotle said that "friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies."And while that certainly seems nice, a soul to go thrifting with would be nice too. But sometimes, it seems like even a shopping buddy is hard to find when you're an adult woman.
Many woman talk about why they find it so hard to make friends. They consider themselves loyal, approachable, sincere and genuine. But for some reason, they struggle with developing the kind of intimacy with other women that we all think should come naturally.
In kindergarten, I was best friends with a girl named Melissa. Or Danielle...I can't remember which. We climbed trees and had play dates and shared our sandwiches. Then one day we stopped being friends. I have no idea why. Clearly, we're not in touch. In middle school there was Melanie, who was my best friend on and off for a year until she graduated into the cool girls clique, leaving me behind. In high school there was Jennifer, an art major who was my best friend until I decided to date one of her classmates. Then she proceeded to ignore me for the rest of my life.
It has never been easy for me to make and keep female friends. As I progressed through school I learned that girls who were friends told and kept secrets. To be a friend, you had to know something private and hidden. And too often, your secrets were betrayed. There was boyfriend-stealing, public humiliations, and the horrible gut feeling of finding out on Monday morning that you hadn't been invited to what happened on Saturday night.
For a long time I saw women as mistrustful, gossipy harpies whose only intention was to undermine me and steal whatever success I'd accomplished. It didn't helped that I was teased mercilessly in my early years of school, and spent my adolescence competing with peers in music conservatory. As far as I was concerned, I was better off being alone. Whether the trouble was with boyfriends, academic or work achievements, or power struggles within our social strata, the most logical choice seemed to be for self-preservation, even if that meant I'd be lonely.
As I've gotten older, I've allowed myself to trust other women more. And thank goodness for that. The supportive, intimate qualities of female friendships are what makes them so valuable. And there are a slew of health and psychological benefits for having friends. A consistent and loyal social support system lowers blood pressure, boosts immunity and promotes healing. The very nurturing power of female friendship may help explain one of medical science's most enduring mysteries: why women, on average, have lower rates of heart disease and longer life expectancies than men.
"Women are much more social in the way they cope with stress," says Shelley E. Taylor, author of "The Tending Instinct" (Owl Books) and a social neuroscientist at UCLA. "Men are more likely to deal with stress with a 'fight or flight' reaction--with aggression or withdrawal." But aggression and withdrawal take a physiological toll, and friendship brings comfort that mitigates the ill effects of stress, Taylor says. That difference alone, she adds, "contributes to the gender difference in longevity."
I might always struggle with navigating female friendships, despite the benefits the relationships contain. I have a low threshold with feeling left out. I don't forgive easily. I become a tad bit competitive when I suspect that one of my closest friends is becoming equally close with someone else. I often wonder if I'm the only woman who wrestles with this. It seems like such a natural thing for some people. I am 37 years old, a mother of three, have had hundreds of different friends over my lifetime, and yet I am still not sure what female friendship looks like.
Is it talking to someone every day about work and what went on sale at Anthropologie?
Is it waiting a year to call someone but when you do it's as if no time has passed?
Is it feeling sorry about what you've said and wishing things could be taken back?
Is it feeling left out because you wasn't invited?
Is it sitting on the couch with a girlfriend watching Project Runway and eating popcorn and not having to carry a conversation?
Is it feeling jealous that your friend is friends with someone else?
I suppose the answer to all of these is yes. And as a black-and-white thinker, wrapping my head around such a complex picture of female friendship isn't so easy. In addition, as a friend, I have a tendency to be loud. I talk over people in my quest to show empathy and understanding. I overshare. I interrupt. I overEVERYTHING. I don't call enough. And I've heard from more than one person that the tattoo on my neck can be off putting.
But I can be a good friend, I think. I'm going to try harder. Being lonely stinks.
Do you have a lot of friends? Do you have just one or two that you confide in? Have you every struggled to navigate the somewhat complicated web of female friendships? Does making friends come naturally to you?
In case you missed it:
- Enter my giveaway to win a winter accessories set from Missoni for Target! Giveaway ends October 7th.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Yes please, Paul Smith
After perusing the shows for Spring 2012 rtw, I find myself drawn back to Paul Smith’s collection for yet another visual drool. Why? Well, when a collection is chic & elegant yet easy-going & wearable, has amazing pant silhouettes, smudgy floral prints and flashes of audacious colour, what’s not to love?
So that’s a yes please from me.
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