March screen saver - London cool

http://www.21centurydressmakers.com/Full%20pages/Freebies%20frame.html

Click on the above link and download the March screen saver.

I just returned from London and loved the casual, somehow effortless, Camden fashion scene - and that turned into the March screen saver sketch. The super short cropped jeans, layered over ink blackened tights, a rose tucked into a cap, and neon-toned shoes, it's a fresh cool that is happening right now only in London. It all works layered over a background of psychedelic daisies and butterfly images that came to mind when I visited friends across from Abbey Road. Anyway, whose influencing whom - Amy Winehouse or Camden Lock?

Satin bowed valentine pleasure

Valentine's Day inspires -- a mauvy-rose-tinted satin bow (cut a long bias strip, fold in half, stitch and turn inside out) -- sunk into a headband softly draped in a sheer savage silk chiffon (again on the bias with the bottom edges left naturally raw) -- finished with lavender cotton grograin on the inside. Isn't it all a bit romantic?

Young and hip designer style

I'm always bumping into wonderfully imaginative designers. I love how they are freely expressing themselves and their lifestyles through their clothes, illustrations and thoughts. Here are five, very young, hardly launched designers:

Carly is a knitter, artist and writer and her sketchbooks (of enormous dimensions) are diaries filled and patched with delightful girlish fantasies layered with her own politically correct thoughts and dreams. After we met I realized that I saw her socks on BBC on Sienna and Savannah Miller.
carly.juneau@alumni.rca.ac.uk

Helen's humor is reflected in her bag designs that are covered with images that fall into her funky, fifties-retro style. It's pink, sweet, sugary, and every bag has a tale, of friends, objects or chocolates. With their silver trim they really suit up for valentines. Her husband is so far only designing for himself, with collars up to there, and zoot suits and I can imagine how they dress-up their two year old as they buzz around London.
http://ww.helenrochfort.com/

Only 17 - Camille and Luna are two friends who have formed "MILK". Camille designs while Luna photographs and invents their site. The clothes, which seem to have tumbled out of their closets, are made from discarded fabrics and re-cycled clothes, all re-styled with their signature bows, baby doll, Courreges look, or whatever they feel, at that moment-look. It has a sincerity and sense that works in a refreshingly, crazy and uncommerical way.
http://www.myspace.com/milkcreation

Jean Michel, his must-have shoes - are neon-bright, wild, free-spirited and original -- his whole crew and style is a wanna-be look, full of positive energy, artistry and action that makes you want to hang out to not miss what's going to happen next.
http://www.myspace.com/espezial

When you meet someone like Laura, painted top to toe in her own wonderfully creative look - even her business card is brilliantly all hers – it's beauty, the Italian hip way, spun with lots of charm and personality.
laurapastrello@hotmail.com