DIY wrapped bracelet

 You’ll need (for a double wrapped bracelet) :

• 44-55 inches* of 1.5mm leather cord
• 12-15 inches* of brass ball chain or crystal chain
• 58-72 inches* of waxed linen cord (scroll down in link)
• a 1/4″ brass hex nut
• a pair of scissors
* Lengths will vary depending on the size of your wrist (see comments for suggestions).

* Fold the length of leather cording in half to form a loop. The loop should fit around the hex nut, which serves as the clasp. Run the tip of the waxed linen upwards along the leather cord and towards the loop. Then wrap around the base of the loop at least 5-6 times, working downwards in the opposite direction. This secures the waxed linen cord and is the start of the bracelet.

Place the ball chain along the leather cording with the end of the chain meeting the end of the wrap. Holding the ball chain against the leather cord, wrap the linen around tightly.

Continue wrapping while checking it for fit around the wrist.

When you have reached the end of the ball chain wrap the linen cording around the leather strands 2-3 more times. Tie a knot with all three strands.

Thread the hex nut through the strands and tie a second knot.

Trim with scissors and your wrap bracelet is finished!!

The materials are listed for a double wrap bracelet. For a single or triple wrapped bracelet, divide the measurements by 2 and multiply by accordingly. Experiment with crystal or other types of chain!

It’s a party!

Primark knocked offPrabal Gurung???

Did my favorite British department store Primark knocked offPrabal Gurung for their spring collection? Some said photo evidence indicates it’s very likely. I personally love the prices, great design, and Quality. You can get big jackets and coats for around £15-£25 (sometimes £10 but you have to spot them fast!) and layer up underneath for a further £10. Jeans are about £8-£10 and you can get a tonne of socks for under £10...   

Our eagle-eyed friends at The Fashion Law were thefirst to see this tweet of a London Primark’s windows. Though the photo itself is a bit blurry, a few designs are clearly visible, including one that instantaneously calls to mine one of the more iconic looks from Prabal Gurung’s resort 2012 collection. (See below.)

The source of the tweet, @NickGFromDC, directed the photo to the official Prabal Gurung twitter, whichresponded: “Oh boy looks like it TY 4 lettin us know.”

A little digging on the Primark website unearths at least one more similar look. 

What do you think? Florals for spring is hardly a ground-breaking concept, but the shape and coloring of the Primark dress bares more than a passing resemblance. It is unclear if Gurung plans to pursue any legal action, but I’ll keep you posted.

                                

Mary Katrantzou Fall 2012

LONDON, February 21, 2012

By Tim Blanks

Mary Katrantzou's thank-yous today included a shout-out to Antony Price, the British fashion legend whose claims to fame included dressing Roxy Music and their cover girls. Price was a specialist in the dramatic silhouette, and Katrantzou had clearly been doing her homework, because she recaptured that drama. "I'd already done the peplum and hourglass," she said backstage. "So I was looking for different silhouettes to emphasize embroidery and embellishments." And, Katrantzou scarcely needed to add, to frame those extraordinary prints that have propelled her lickety-split to the top of the London fashion class. Hence a godet skirt, so difficult to engineer print-wise that she made only four of them. Or frothing torrents of chiffon. Or a strictly corseted shape she'd extracted from some historical research (specifically Elizabethan England) without, she was quick to add, "crossing into the territory of costume."

Katrantzou also extended her repertoire in other ways. For the first time, she focused on a single color top-to-toe, like the crayons on her invitation. And she'd chosen deliberately banal subject matter to match the colors. Green meant grass, for instance, rendered as an ornamental lawn working its way down a floor-length gown. Yellow was expressed in a mandala of No. 2 HB pencils, erasers attached. They were rendered in rubber by the Lesage embroidery atelier in Paris—not only the first time Lesage's artisans had worked with such stuff, but also their first collaboration with a London designer. Clocks, hedges, telephones, spoons, and forks also provided source material. The bodice of a rococo red velvet dress featured a red typewriter, its keys providing a coiling abstract geometry on the skirt.

The serial patterning was so intense at times that it made you feel like the one person who couldn't make out the 3-D image in those Magic Eye pictures that were a minor craze a few years back. As everyone else shouted, one after another, "Oh, yes, I see it now," you'd be chewing on your eyeliner in a blind rage. But Katrantzou's conceits were so beautifully conceptualized—here never more so than with the bathtub that foamed with crystals and pearls—that her elevation of the quotidian to the sublime was, once again, easily one of the finest pieces of theater in London fashion week.

DIY Jil Sander Veiled Beanie

Spring Trend Guide

whowhatwear.com