The long-running Bargain Hunting 101 brought together independent retailers and vendors from Portland and beyond, who offloaded samples and limited run clothing, art supplies, gardening accessories, and more at clearance prices. Traditionally held on Super Bowl Sunday, with a summer installment to supplement, organizers Angie Heiney, Julz Nally, and Jen Neitzel announced today that they are calling it quits, with no event planned for next month. (No apparent drama, just the usual "moving in a new direction" stuff). However, they have a proposal for you:

We will no longer be running the sale, but are interested and willing to sell some of the intellectual properties of this sale and at an affordable price: this would include, our mailing list, our contacts, the business name, the website, all of the information on the site and we'd even advise others on how to run the sale- answering questions and advising along the way and more.

This sale could be a great supplemental income source for anyone, but especially for an artist or business with product, because you can generate income by selling at the sale and you can also receive revenue as a sale organizer, as well. If there's anyone out there, either a former vendor or shopper who is interested in purchasing all or parts of our intellectual properties, please let us know and then we'll let you, the public, know what we find out.

In the meantime if you're looking for a big sale featuring local retailers, the PDX Collective Sale is still going strong.

• Business of Fashion
• Table of Contents

The fancy fashion website Business of Fashion, called “The Economist of Fashion,” just posted a piece about the buzzworthy new shop Table of Contents, in which the reporter refers to us as a “a hub for urban American cool” (amongst other things.. will the term grunge ever go away?). I personally haven’t popped by to visit Table of Contents yet, but have heard good things from my fashion friends who have. I was quite interested to see the newcomer getting mahjor street cred on such a powerful site, and I guess other Portlanders were as well. Scope the comments sections for some sass regarding the similarities between longtime fave Stand Up Comedy and Table of Contents and read the entire article here.

What dingdong is advising Rihanna's career moves these days? Whoever it is should relieve themselves of their duties because this is the saddest thing I've seen since the Baby Elephant Zoo Scandal of yesterday: "Rihanna To Produce & Star In Fashion Reality Series For Style."

Um, that's the sort of thing you do after your successful career as one of the best selling pop stars in the universe. Not right in the middle of it. Even if she really has time for that sort of thing, she shouldn't be admitting it publicly. She should be making an avant garde book full of naked black and white photos of herself or maybe breaking into Hollywood, adopting children from developing countries, or even acquiring a taste for fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, or—I don't know, recording her next hugely successful record, maybe? All of which are activities that befit a star of her magnitude. Reality TV is for the old and/or failed, Rihanna. Don't you dare step off that pedestal before your time.

On the other hand, I kinda want to see it.

Music superstar Rihanna will executive produce and star in Styled To Rock [COULD YOU PLEASE COME UP WITH A LAMER NAME???—Ed.], a fashion design reality competition series for Style from Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and Shed Media US. The series, which has been picked up for 10 half-hour episodes to premiere in 2013, will feature 12 up-and-coming designers, hand-picked by Rihanna, who will get the opportunity to create fashion pieces for A-list celebrity talent. This marks the first competition series for Style. “On the heels of our successful network rebrand, Styled to Rock and Style’s new partnership with Rihanna will reinvent the fashion competition genre, fueling our viewers insatiable appetite for all things style,” said Salaam Coleman Smith, President, Style Media. Candidates can apply on Style’s website. “Fashion has always played an integral part in my life and career,” said Rihanna. “I am so excited to partner with Style Network and share my creative insight with these 12 designers and give them this opportunity to showcase their work.”

Actually, never mind, I don't think I can watch this. Just reading that gave me the sads.

• Sebastian Kim
• Wang

The industry has seen quite the game of musical chairs among heavy hitting designers recently, with moves like Raf Simons leaving Jil Sander for Dior (who could forget Galliano’s unceremonious departure?) and Nicholas Ghesquiere parting ways from Balenciaga after 15 years at the helm of the iconic French House. Next up comes New York darling Alexander Wang. Known for his young contemporary collections, luxury tees, and unlikely friendship with Die Antwoord, A.Wang is being tapped to take over Ghesquiere’s position, with a full announcement expected this Monday. Twitter has been abuzz with rumors and rumblings of this unlikely move, which have some industry insiders questioning the future of Balenciaga. What direction will Wang take following in Ghesquiere’s gigantic footsteps? One thing is certain: Balenciaga is one to watch this coming season (I'm crossing my fingers that Wang will sack K.Stew as the brand's celeb-u-model). More deets on the situation here.

Last week, Education Management Corp. (the umbrella company that owns the national chain of Art Institutes, including the Portland chapter) began enacting drastic layoffs in a move to restructure staffing. Reports indicate that about 800 jobs nationally were lost, while just over 300 new job listings were added.

A source at the Portland Ai says that many of the cuts appear to be an attempt to consolidate the jobs of several people into single positions, and at least two high profile staffers in the school's fashion program—Sue Bonde, Academic Director for the Apparel Department and Melanie Risner, Assistant Director of the Fashion & Design Management Programs—have been included in the cuts. This has potential ramifications for the survival of the annual graduate fashion show, which is not only the public debut of Ai apparel design students, but the school's largest fundraiser for scholarship money across all departments.

This would have all been alarming enough news, but as it has unfolded at Ais across the country, an apparent failure of communication at the Portland school has left students out of the loop. According to a source on staff, an email was sent out to the faculty, informing them that an email communication had been sent out to the entire student body. The problem, though, is that nobody appears to have actually received it, leaving the students reliant on whatever information they can glean from hearsay. As one student, Mercury Fashion Intern Toby Robboy, points out, this has created a certain level of panic among the students, who often plan their next year of classes around programs specific to certain professors who may or may not be included in the layoffs, potentially throwing their planned academic track into question.

On Monday, Portland Ai President Tim Moscato posted on the school's Facebook page, "Attention AI Students-I sent all students an email to your school email addresses explaining the changes that have been made here at AI Portland. If you have yet to receive that email or would like to talk with me, please feel free to call my cell," followed by his phone number and email. This was followed by several comments from students saying that they had "yet to receive any e-mails and am only getting bits and pieces of the story."

A copy of the email that was attempted to be sent is behind the cut. in the meantime I have messages out to both Moscato and Bonde for more clarification.

Continue reading »

News broke this morning that Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime Cosmopolitan editor and pioneer of sexual politics, died this morning at age 90. She retired in 1997 from four decades at Cosmo's hem, which is right around the time it plummeted to "very last choice" of supermarket magazine impulse buys for me, but women everywhere owe her a debt for pushing female sexual liberation into the realm of frank discussion. (Even if today's The Onion headline "Cosmopolitan Releases 5 Sexy Helen Gurley Brown Obituaries To Drive Your Man Wild" is kinda funny.)

• Cheezburger

Over the weekend, longtime Portland designer/perfumer/vintage purveyor Julia Barbee posted a pretty horrible status update:

I knew something was wrong when I regained consciousness and heard strangers talking about collecting my teeth off the street... If you're biking at se 32nd & lincoln, that blood is mine!

Barbee was biking when her "bag caught in my wheel and I think maybe I was going over a speedbump? My face hit first..." Luckily, she was wearing a helmet, but the photo she later posted after two hours of surgery is rather grim. So! Due to that, she has also announced the likelihood that her studio in the 811 E Burnside building will be closed temporarily, most likely through the end of the month, at which point you should pay her a visit to compliment her scars and perhaps score yourself one of her wildly imaginative, one-of-a-kind, conversation starting pieces. Here's to a smooth recovery.

• Julia Barbee
• Just a two and a half foot long necklace made out of skunk fur. NBD.

It was a whirlwind couple of weeks in the wedding department; Leandra Medine from The Man Repeller got hitched to her longtime beau in Marchesa (off the rack to boot) at The Saint Regis Hotel. While Margherita Missoni wore a custom Giambattista Valli (which she mainly designed herself) for her Italian gypsy chic ceremony. Marrying racecar driver Eugenio Amos in front of fashion elite like Carine Roitfeld, Mario Testino, and duh the whole Missoni clan. Scope the photos below:

• racked.com
• Man Repeller Leandra Medine

• jewelista.com
• Now, those are some wedding shoes

• jewelista.com
• Topped off with a custom Rebeccca Minkoff moto jacket

• graziadaily.co.uk
• Margherita Missoni

• Startraks Photo
• Gorgeous!

• Vogue Italia
• Missoni table setting, yes please

Tuesday British company Marks & Spencer launched what they claim to be the world's most sustainable suit. Four years in the making, it features Australian organic wool that was dyed in Italy using GOTS (Global Organic Technology) approved technology, and then the fabric and other components (which included linings made from recycled PET bottle polyester from a hi-tech processing plant in Japan, recycled polyester zippers, reclaimed pocket linings from their own production lines, and reclaimed stray buttons which would otherwise end up in a landfill) were shipped to China to construct the suits, of which only 500 will be made.

This may be the world's most sustainable suit, but it still leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. All that shipping from country to country is not very sustainable at all. I do think however that it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully if big companies keep thinking this way and implementing new technologies to be as sustainable as possible, we will really achieve a garment industry that is truly sustainable.

• telegraph.co.uk
• Marks & Spencer CEO Marc Bolland Shows Off the Sustainable Suit

Source: telegraph.co.uk

In a somewhat related topic, what if you could use the remains of your loved ones to make clothing? The treatment and disposal of human remains is easily one of the most toxic activities on the planet after all. Imagine remembering your loved ones by not just looking at a picture of them, but by actually wearing them, wouldn't that be a great tribute?

Okay, this is not actually real, but an interesting project by Kerry Greville called Salvage. She proposes using the ashes of cremated remains to create woven textile products in a world of material scarcity. What do you think? Would you agree to have your remains made into clothing, or is this just a little too Soylent Green?

And in WTF news, you may remember the uproar that was caused when Francesca Eastwood and her photographer boyfriend Tyler Shields burned a Birkin bag, but in more disturbing news, Birkin actually burns their own bags. If there is one little blemish or minor imperfection it is burned so as to not compromise on their high standards of quality. I am all for not selling botched Birkin bags (if I paid that much money for a bag it better be perfect!) but is burning the entire bag really the answer? Couldn't the materials be reclaimed to make something else? I think so. Just another example of a wasteful garment industry.

• Francesca Eastwood by Tyler Shields

Source: The Cut