A personal favorite of the NYIGF, Alchemy Goods are design heroes: reusing old bicycle tubes, manufacturing in the USA (Seattle), and working with the inherent properties of their materials to make truly beautiful and unique designs.

I love the Magnolia – but check out these design details from sewing together innertubes!

Their work demonstrates a beautiful sense of design with an emerging mastery over their materials and processes. Alchemy indeed!

first seen on Elit Alice

It used to be that architects were also obligated to design chairs. Now that trend has shifted to shoes, at least for Zaha Hadid. Her recent endeavor is a footwear line for Lacoste.

The design and texture is based on series of overlaid and repeated patterns to give the shoe a dynamic fluid feel. A winding strap touts a bi-stable metal band to support the shoe at ankle or knee height for men’s and women’s editions, respectively. (Note: bi-stable metal band= snap bracelet technology)

Intrigued? You must act fast and internationally. This is an extremely limited edition of only 850 pairs available at exclusive boutiques in Paris, London and Milan.

Hadid is no newcomer to footwear, she has also designed a pair of unabashedly Zaha-esqe shoes for molded footwear sensation, Melissa.

Via Dezeen

Loving the styles this chilly spring in the shopping areas of Milan. This jacket by MaxMara was a really striking piece.

This dress also showed some nice sensitivity to textile pattern design.

The MaxMara line is probably the best known label owned by the Italian Maramotti family based in Reggio Emilia, a city that gave birth to one of the most progressive childhood education methods.

First, a primer: SPARKcon is a festival celebrating and nurturing the local creativity of Raleigh and the Triangle region of NC. It’s 100% volunteer… everyone involved runs entirely on enthusiasm, passion and talent, with a bit of support from some wonderful sponsors! This past weekend was the third year for SPARKcon, and it showcased all sorts of talent communities, including breakdancers, yogis, craftspeople, spoken word artists, hoola hoopers, music of all kinds, art, film, fashion and more.

FashionSPARK is an outdoor runway show which featured 13 local fashion designers’ work, as well as fabulous hair and makeup by local stylists. The show was beautifully directed by Allison Beale.

fabulous hair by Jesse and Carla of Marigold Parlour, makeup also by Marigold, fashion by Domino

woodland nymph fashion by Domino

doggy designs by Montage

fashion by Lllavender, hair by Salon Blu

fashion by Metallic Spiral, styled by Marigold Parlour

fashion by Marie Cordella, styled by Atomic Salon

The SPARKcon website is in a constant state of being updated. Check it for more pictures, designer info and links.

As some of you may know, Gamil puts a lot of resources into creating SparkCon. It’s a conference and showcase of local talent, and one of our biggest distractions! The conference goes out of its way to help let the world know the wide variety of artists, musicians, technologists, and thinkers in the Triangle area. One of the special parts of SparkCon is the FashionSpark component, which has jeans designers share the runway with piercing artists and doggy couture. 

Now you can see these videos on Youtube in the SparkCon group. Each video clip is split for each design group, so you can skip to your favorite design studio, and even embed them in your own page. Above is a clip of AHPeele’s show, a favorite local fashion screenprinter. This footage is courtesy of Alex Mengle and NufacesNC. 

Following sustainable design, I have been a fan of Nau. It is a great example of how sustainable design can be sexy. Borne of some of the more progressive, corporate minds in outdoor gear, I thought they stood a good chance of fusing a green focus with an innovative business model.

They did have pretty compelling stores, although a bit austere for my taste. Actually they were more like showrooms than stores, and encouraged visitors to receive chosen merchandise via mail rather than taking it with them.

The reasoning was that inventory and fuel costs of maintaining in-store inventory was more expensive than fulfilling from a mail-order model. You got a substantial discount for doing it (10%?) but it was off-putting, too. Clothing is too personal and impulsive of a purchase to receive a week later in a box.

A central theme to Nau’s work was their Partners for Change program where 5% of every sale was donated to a charity on the Nau menu. You could select with reasonable specificity where your 5% would go.

Unfortunately I think this diluted their message of sustainable fabrics, which was really where their innovation trumped the rest of the market. They used organic cottons, recycled polyesters that were super cool looking, and also PLA – a fabric made from corn fibers.

Despite their passing, I’m inspired by their attempts and we’d be fools to not try to learn from Nau. They have exposed an amazing amount of their corporate DNA, and have maybe pointed the way to do things. I think one lesson I draw from Nau is not to rely on huge fundraising stages. Perhaps the way to develop a sustainable business is to not rely on receiving a steroidal $30+ million from over-eager investors, but to grow slow and organically.