xAZD

FAD Vol2 No3 - AmpliFAD

2011-05-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of FAD Magazine, the brainchild of xAZD, has been released! Below's the abbreviated version of the editors' letter:

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Welcome to AmpliFAD, the Music and Fashion issue! It’s a first time collaboration between Horace Mann’s music magazine, Amplified, and fashion, art, and design magazine, FAD. Many a fashion magazine will have its “Music Issue,” but this one is unique. These two magazines have combined in order to provide the school with the best representation of two creative forces. We have joined the visual aesthetic of FAD with the text-based culture of Amplified to create a potpourri of talents and passions.

Check it out online; it's embedded into this post just above!

This is Daphne, Zoe, and my last issue of FAD that we'll ever work on, seeing as we graduate from high school in 3 weeks! (I have yet to see Dazed + Confused...any other high-school-y movies you recommend I catch before the big day?) It was emotional and loads of fun, and as we said in the extended editors' letter, we left no regrets and no creative outlets unsatisfied as we pass the torch to our 11th grade successors. See the rest of FAD's issues online here.

Enjoy!
Alice + co.

Fashion Show

2011-04-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

Daphne, Zoe, and I were some of the primary organizers of the Fashion Show Fundraiser Event, which FAD Magazine hosted in Horace Mann High School's Cohen Dining Commons on February 4th 2011. The evening also included raffles, a panel discussion with industry insiders (see the program for more information), and this fashion show. The event ended up being bigger than we could have imagined andtruly successful, raising over $2,000 for the charity that we chose; The Northside Center for Child Development. See the event invite, which I designed, below.

FAD Fashion Show Gala Program (click to download, or view individual descriptions with look photos below)

The show was inspired by the the alphabet with each look representing one letter. Read below for details about the individual looks!

All below studio photographs by Andrew Catomeris, one of our official student photographers of the evening. Check out all of the other photos (backstage prep and runway) from the event on FAD's Facebook page.

I strongly encourage you to check out the official FAD website with the writeup and complete look book of the event. It was a genuinely fun, energetic evening and the photos display that in full! Below, photos of the looks I designed and/or helped to sew.

V: VERSATILE

Model, Kia Hampson ’11. Concord velour top and ciffon shirt of three ruffled tiers, one of which snaps out to render this floor length gown into a knee-length party frock by Alice Taranto ’11 and Veronica Williamson ’13.

F: FEATHERS

Model, Tucker Caploe ’11. Feather rugby-striped crewneck shirt, jeans are models own by Alice Taranto ’11 and Noah Margulis ’13.

A: ANGELIC

Model, Frances Ikwuazom ’11. White dress with cotton sateen under a pleated chiffon layer by Veronica Williamson ’13, white chiffon shawl by Daphne Taranto ’11 and Alice Taranto '11.

L: LACE

Model, Katie Cacouris ’11. Mauve and concord ultra-suede motorcycle jacket and whisper pink with lace overlay skirt byAlice Taranto ’11 and Veronica Williamson ’13.

My L look with S (Sophisticated Menswear). I spent so very many hours (upwards of 40 I would say) working on this jacket! It was my first-ever legit paper pattern project, and it's very complicated! Many thanks to all of my helpers...mom + dad + co....
The description of the S look:
Model, Steven-Louis Dreyfus ’12. White dress shirt with grey printed trim, and flower print ascot, pants are model’s own by Noah Margulis ’13.

Katie backstage during makeup/hair prep.

My V with Y (Y-Neckline). The V dress sort of doubly represents a "V," as the neckline has a particularly V-esque shape, and the official meaning of Versatility. The dress totally works - the student model Kia snapped off the skirt's third tier on the end of the runway and walked backstage with it flung over her shoulder!

The description of the Y look:

Model, Florence Ngala ’13. Blue sateen, blue floral lace, and blue tulle gown by Zoe Kestan ’11.

The final six models (U through Z) had copper leaf applied to their brows to highlight their bone structure on the runway.

Love this shot by Lily Sands, another of our student photographers of the event, of student model Lauren Cantor '13 in the Z look, a pink velvet and snakeskin gown by Zoe Kestan ’11.

One of the raffle prizes was a tour of the Teen Vogue NYC offices!

On each chair was a copy of FAD, the evening program, and a gift bag with FAD chap stick, notebook, pen, and pin.

xx
Alice

p.s. Here is the look book from our fashion show 1 year ago!

Image + Text

2011-04-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

One has to submit three home tests as a part of the application for the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, where I have just decided I will be attending next year!). One, a depiction of a bicycle (I will be posting that up soon). Two, use the front and back of a piece of paper (see my This/That). Three, to combine text and image - see my drawing below.

My actual artist's statement:

Read and See, 16 x 20,” Graphite on Paper. December 2010. When I started considering the third prompt of combining image and text, I was reading the novel C by Tom McCarthy with my English class. A major motif of the book is ciphers and new WWI-era telecommunications, like Morse code. I find very interesting these visual, portable manifestations of the spoken word that can be “read” without the eyes. Upon more thinking about and research on this, I realized that if Morse is speaking through hearing, then Braille is speaking through touching. Braille is the quintessential combination of image and text - it combines message and a tangible image to create one means of communication for the blind or visually impaired. After reading about and then in Braille, I have really come to enjoy and appreciate, albeit on an amateur level, this dying language, its power, and its history. The image reads various parts of the following: “For the third sample, your visualization must combine image and text. You may approach these three drawings in any way you wish.”

I used many websites' and non-profit organizations' information to help me with this project, including CBS Kids' Arthur, which has a site You've Got Braille (essentially a Braille translator. Very cool, see above.) Upon the recommendation from the site, I used Elmer's glue to make 3D glue-dots on top of the 2D Braille print-out from the website. That way, I actually was reading the "Braille" that I had translated with this site. Braille is extremely interesting; I recommend you read up on it and try to read some Braille yourself!

One of my biggest challenges in drawing is photorealism - it's really just not my thing. Often the perspective of my drawings will be even slightly incorrect and throw off the entire picture to the point that the wrongness of the perspective becomes distracting from whatever else is going on. In this drawing I really focused on getting the perspective just right - I did a lot of tracing, gridded overlays, computer work, and calculating (perhaps this was all overkill) to make sure it wasn't off. Above, see one rendering of the perspective: the black squares are each about 3 Braille characters wide, and the white gutters are the spaces between the characters. As you can see, the angle of the original photograph is very dynamic and the perspective shifts in every direction: left-right, front-back, diagonally, etc. (and the Braille dots themselves had to shift in darkness, width, and height to convince the eye that they are going back into space).

Above, the original photograph which served as the base of the drawing. Those are the hands of a boy from an art classroom next door to mine. I chose to use young hands because I thought they would be more interesting or thought-provoking than an older person's (who might have lost sight due to age). Some questions might be...why is this young person reading Braille? What happened to him? Etc.

I hope you enjoy it!
Have a great week,
Alice

p.s. Check out this blog in Blogger's new "views" options, like flipcard.

Images

2011-03-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

I have decided to put up a little post in the style of Daphne's previous image-collection posts. These are the pictures that have survived on my desktop beyond the usual lifespan of desktop images (1 week)...meaning they are extra special for some reason or other.

 gwyneth paltrow in vogue august 2010, photographed by mario testino

 maryna linchuk for miss dior, by sofia coppola

 camila alves and matthew mcconaughey at the oscars 2011

jane at sea of shoes 

veruschka by avedon ... this is also ridiculous. 

sean lennon (could that rhyme any more?) and charlotte kemp muhl (the face of sam edelman shoes) in nylon 

prada's stripes at fashion week via tommy ton (jak & jil)

 kanye west in possibly the coolest chair ever

great hair via tommy ton (jack & jil)

 two typical pugs via

illustration by garance doré

have a great week!

alice

Great Minds Think Alike

2011-03-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

You may have seen my last post with some of my street style pictures from New York Fashion Week. I included my below photo and caption in that post:

Photograph by Alice Taranto

"As I was exiting the tent, three columnar blondes caught my eye in my peripheral vision. I'm not sure who these people are, but they are quite attention-commanding when they stand in a 6' group like this. I especially love the bold red outfit."

So, I was quite stricken when my dad handed me the Thursday Style Section from the New York Times today, and voilá there were these same three blondes! The NY Times wondered exactly what I did - the first line of the article titled "In This Family, Turning Heads Is Not Enough" by Bee-Shyuan Chang is "Who are those girls?" Well: "Mystery solved. They are Virginie, Claire and Jenna Courtin-Clarins, granddaughters of Jacques Courtin-Clarins, who founded the Clarins skin-care company." No wonder they are so angelically clear-skinned!

"Virginie, 25, and Claire, 23, are sisters and Jenna, 24, is a cousin...During Fashion Week, it would have been hard for anyone not to notice the three: Virginie donned a blazing-red pantsuit one day..." In my photo, they are arranged L-R Jenna, Claire, Virginie. If you read the article, they actually sound like very nice, good-doing people to boot. The article references the above equally attention-commanding outfit of Claire's, of which I like the fact that her shoes are a bit scuffed up - not totally fresh-out-of-the-box perfect. [Check out some other pics of the young ladies here and here. Keep these girls on your radar - they may become very big very soon.]

Jenna has a twin sister (just like me!) who "was too tethered to the chain of nail salons she has in Paris to join her relatives in New York." Ok...

Enjoy the last of the a/w 2011 Fashion Weeks!
Alice

Spotted: NYFW February '11 Pt. 2

2011-02-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

All photos by Alice Taranto. Click all images to zoom.
After the ADAM show, I went out into the New York Fashion Week tent and the central plaza square of Lincoln Center and got my shutterbug on. There's no shortage of eccentric fashion folk (read: nuts) out there, and they all gather under one roof - well, tent - for fashion week. This was my first experience with real street style photography (meaning, the kind where I actually approach the person and ask to take his/her photo vs. just trying to get a clear shot before the person crosses the street.)

Above: A photo I took of what I think is a similarly arresting quality as the images of Karlie Kloss on the runway at Lanvin last season. It's really a shock of red. Be sure to check out the foot-long feathers in her cap. The woman gave me her card - you can check out her work at her Etsy shop, Diva Wear Designs.

I spotted this character amidst the crowds - it's not hard to understand why. When I asked him if I could take his picture, he said sure and that he's going to be featured in the Bill Cunningham New York documentary film. I had no idea this guy is a style icon until I came home and looked him up. Check out stylist Shail Upadhya dominating Bill Cunningham's Sunday Styles "On The Street" photo column one week. Also peep a video of Shail here, where he explains an outfit and talks about his clients, whom he dresses in such fashions that he says "make the velvet ropes part for them."

As I was exiting the tent, three columnar blondes caught my eye in my peripheral vision. I'm not sure who these people are, but they are quite attention-commanding when they stand in a 6' group like this. I especially love the bold red outfit. Edit: See my post here to find out who these ladies are!

I couldn't resist snapping a pic of this guy. He said he dresses like this all the time, going around New York. I asked if his jewelry was from Arizona, and he said perhaps, and that it was all Native American. I wonder how many animals he is wearing? In any case, this guy seems like a trip. P.S. - he's the most appropriately dressed person I saw (if not overly so). Some fashion week attendees seem to have forgotten it's onlt February and still around freezing outside. Edit: See that this same "Mountain Man" caught Racked's eye!

Three black-clad fashionable people I found and asked/photographed. They were waiting around in the Lincoln Center plaza for their car service. Daphne identified the girl's shoes as Gareth Pugh.

Happy Fashion Week!
Alice

Spotted: NYFW February '11 Pt. 1

2011-02-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

It's Fashion Week! And what an exciting week it is indeed. After having stalked Style.com and other runway reports since NYFW started on Thursday, I was just too excited to see the ADAM by Adam Lippes show today. I am very fortunate to have been able to attend - many thanks to my generous boss from my summer internship. You might check out our previous NYFW posts, here and here.

The runway was very simple, with a "casual chic"-looking chevron design in the background. Above photo via. Some of my shots below! Click all images to zoom.

The adorable, ubiquitous, perenially blue-clad photographer Bill Cunningham snaps a pic at the end of the runway.

A model stomps down the runway, right past front-rower Derek Blasberg, journalist/editor and author of Classy.

See blogger/model Hanneli Mustaparta (in green) photographing a feathery cable-knit sweater dress runway look. Maybe the photo she's taking here will appear on her blog!

One of the things that always shocks me about live runway shows is just how fast everyone evacuates/sprints out of the place. Within a minute the seats are clear - I suppose all of the editors are so busy getting to the back-to-back shows that they haven't a minute to lose. For those of us attending just one show, we have time to laze around and soak up the runway - or, like me, sneak backstage. A model snapped this pic of me with designer Adam Lippes. I got only a second to tell him how great I thought the show was - he was busy talking to his parents (aw) and hearing Linda Fargo tell him how much she seriously loved the show.

The set list backstage. This sign is huge - maybe 5 feet across. One thing that bothered me was that the models didn't have a proper changing area, let alone individual changing rooms, an issue that model Sara Ziff notes in her documentary Picture Me (see a special mini-series of the film here). In the backstage area where Adam was being interviewed, the models were changing in the wide open with everything out for all to see.

In the middle of the tent there's this pit where journalists and photographers sit, editing their runway photos and posting them to their respective websites. If you zoom in, you can see someone picking runway shots. Maybe they were picking some of these shots (my favorites from the Adam show) ... all via Fashionologie.

Happy Fashion Week!

Alice

IMAGES!

2011-01-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

images from alex prager for bottega veneta, naoki honjo, numeró, todayandtomorrow blog, sea of shoes blog, jeremy young/charlie france + co, space, karlie kloss by patrick demarchelier, male model clement chabernaud at salvatore ferragamo and prada.

Burberry Prorsum Menswear Autumn/Winter 2011

2011-01-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

oops a little slip there

SO GOOD! ACTUAL RAIN! WATCH THE VIDEO!
Includes some of my favorite models including Jeremy Young, of course.

Thanks to Magica for excellent (as always) commentary. Her tumblr has some sick fashion pics + male model fanatica.... (is that a word, you know what I mean anyways) :D

xDaphne

I don't think so!

2011-01-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

As I was catching up on my RSS reader (a snow day will get you behind on your blogs), I came across a post on a great NYC style blog The Glamourai that referenced Proenza Schouler's Pre-Fall 2011 collection, modeled by Julia Stegner.

See the whole Proenza collection on Style.com here

Bloggers and fashion sites have commended designers Jack and Lazaro on their new wacky prints, foray into knitwear, playful boy-girl mix, and international inspirations. While I usually love Proenza, this time I wasn't too keen on the collection, especially after today's FAD Magazine Clothing Swap Fundraiser, for which I purged my closet to make space for my reconsidered personal style (less artsy/trendy/"fashionista," more of that oft-stated "well-edited wardrobe" idea/a high school kid's attempt at chic). When I saw the PS collection, I just thought ... well, I hate to be a traitor to fashion folk everywhere, but am I really supposed to like this? To want to wear this? To swoon?

Then - it hit me. The similarities were all too apparent! The reason I'm not falling for PS this season is because it reminds me very much of the costumes from a wonderful scene from a fabulous movie ...

photo credit

"So, OK. I don't want to be a traitor to my generation and all, but I don't get how guys dress today. I mean, c'mon, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants, and take their greasy hair, Ew! And cover it up with a backwards cap and like, we're expected to swoon? I don't think so!"
-Cher from Clueless

Maybe the clothes from the PS collection would be ok if they weren't styled just like these 90s high school boys - with those leg-stumpifying pants, untucked shirts, and just-rolled-out-of-bed hairdos. At least, that's what I think. You?

Alice

Sølve

2011-01-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

Painting by Daphne Taranto, December 2010. Acrylic on wire screen with molding paste. Approx 25x20 inches. (The red frame is the screen's metal frame that I painted). (All photographs by Daphne)

No, that's not solve (like a math problem), that's Sølve Sundsbø, whose portfolio you can see here. He photographed the below image, which really captured me when I saw it. You can see the whole spread that I was inspired by here, from Interview Magazine's latest December issue.

PS the model on the left is Melodie Monrose, a big up and coming model.

I really liked the image and definitely wanted to make something of it art-wise. The only canvas in the house was one my sister wanted me to buy from her, so I being a "frugalista" decided to go an alternate route with the extra window screen we had in our basement. Zoe did a painting on mesh fabric earlier this school year, pictures of which she'll post soon. It's a cool way to paint because it is an additional challenge (being that the paint slides through the screen).

You can see that the paint does not solidly cover the mesh, but rather that some parts that are see-through depending on the wall or surface it hangs on. The wall it is hanging on now is light green, but a pink wall would make it look different.

To start, I blocked out the painting in modeling paste and white gesso from both the front and the back. I let it dry in front of a fan so the screen would seal over.

You can see the painting oozing through the screen like those troll dolls with their clay hair.

Here I had originally painted the back of the screen navy and then squished white through the other side, so a little grid came out.

When I squished black paint through the backside to make a shadow, it ended up kind of looking like she has a bunch of black heads - gross.

Happy snow day!
xDaphne

Images

2011-01-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

My desktop always gets totally full of images usually by the end of a week. Then I clean it out by organizing all the images into my various folders on my computer - here's what's on my desktop this week. I keep the icons on my macbook at the biggest so that I am basically looking at all the pictures that I think are pretty whenever I am on my computer. That way they are stored in my head and once I put them away in my digital folders, I still can remember them and use them for inspiration in paintings or whatnot.

photos from garance dore, mert + marcus, jak+jil, models.com, new york times, http://simonnepal.blogspot.com/, tim gutt, worldphoto.org, today and tomorrow blog

Have a good Wednesday!
xDaphne

This/That

2010-12-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

see video copyright info at the bottom of this post
Click the "play" (aka the ">"-looking) button, then please allow several seconds for the video to load. Please bear with me if it's choppy, and try pressing "play" again if it is funky/completely skips back the first time through. There are sudden motions in the video, especially towards the beginning, and if it is not properly loaded you will miss the fun. P.S. - full-screen it!

Above you will find the video for my latest big art project, entitled This/That. I used a graphite pencil on one piece of 16 x 20" white paper, then cut it with a blade, and folded it according to my prepared plan. Above, you see the video I made for the project. Here's the artist's statement:

Upon the challenge to use both sides of a piece of paper, I created this systematically folded, double-sided piece. The project is best experienced in-person, where one can flip and fold the project to reveal the various possible combinations of faces. The bespectacled face is my own, the other is my identical twin sister’s (Daphne's). I initially intended for the project to be a physical, paper-made study of our intimate and complex relationship, but the project developed beyond this to become an exploration of fun, of physical space, and of perplexity. The accompanying video I made better translates this three-dimensional excitement for those who cannot play with the piece in person; the video also serves as an instructional video of sorts for those who can.

I recommend that you watch the video, read the statement, then watch the video again. Here are some flat scans of the project, just in case the video doesn't do it for ya. However, keep in mind the piece is meant to be seen with the flipping and folding and the scans alone just don't cut it.

Above: My complete face, Daphne's complete face, the complete front (one 16 x 20" piece of paper), the complete back (the reverse side of that same one 16 x 20" piece of paper). Click all images to zoom.

Enjoy! Happy Holidays!
Alice

VIDEO COPYRIGHT INFO

This/That folded drawing demo by Alice Taranto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

A lil preview...

2010-12-15T19:45:00.001-08:00

Can you guess what this is? It's for the upcoming FAD issue.
xDaphne

Spotted: NYFW

2010-12-12T21:20:00.000-08:00

**click all pictures to zoom**

Although it's a bit belated (New York Fashion Week was in September) - here are some cool shots from NYFW. Daphne and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Badgley Mischka runway show, and wow was it incredible or what! I feel very lucky to have been able to go (through FAD networking efforts) to 2 New York fashion shows, one (ADAM by Adam Lippes) during the last season at Bryant Park, and one (Badgley Mischka) during the first season at Lincoln Center. You can check out the article Daphne and I wrote about the show for FAD Magazine right here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

The runway was remarkably long (about 100 seats in length, with a shutterbug press pit at the end) and had a beautiful/soft video projected in the background. The runway was dappled with blue light, and it made the show all the more dramatic.

____________________________________________________________

Here, Vlada Roslyakova walks the runway in one of the final looks. Left, Style.com's shot; right and above, mine. (Note how she walks so extremely backwards-tilted - just goes to show that runway walking is a whole different animal from hallway walking.) Daphne and I gasped when we saw "Vlada" written on the program - she's a very prominent model. The collection was largely delicate, cloud-esque blues and whites...until the last few looks - the closers - where coral popped up. While the clothes are more glamorous than my lifestyle affords, I would wear these painstakingly embroidered dresses in a heartbeat if I could. Interestingly, the one runway show included looks from the Badgley Mischka (very expensive + posh Red Carpet-ready gowns) and Mark + James (like the Marc by Marc of Marc Jacobs) lines.Check out all the professional documentation here on Style.com.

____________________________________________________________

Right, Siri Tollerød stomps the show in Style.com's photo; below, my photos of her strutting the catwalk. We also gasped when we saw her name on the program - Siri has been one of our favorite models ever since the Harajuku Lovers fragrance campaign and since she started modeling for J. Crew a couple of years ago (notably, Siri is in Miu Miu's FW 10 ad campaign.) Siri was the closer for the Badgley Mischka show.

Loved how the models' teased hair picked up so much light - runway shows are all about opulence and drama. As one fashion teacher once told me, there's no scraggliness on the runway. (I think Christophe Decarnin would have something to say about that.) The woman sitting in front of us had a very aggressive, tight spinny bun which reminded me of that scene in Zoolander where Derek swish-fixes "Matil"'s tight bun so she doesn't get wrinkles.

____________________________________________________________

After the final boom of the runway music (which was, by the way, totally energizing and made-for-runway - check out the video/music here), the lights went up and the busiest editors literally ran out of the tent to get to the next show (I believe Vera Wang was setting up next door). We noticed that a literal sea of well-heeled people was flowing into the backstage area. Daphne and I pondered for a second if they had backstage passes, or if their famous faces served as such, but decided there was no such thing. We just kept subtle and flowed on backstage with the journalists and taste-makers...

Two women checking out the look board backstage at Badgley Mischka. (Note: on the left is this woman). So cool to see that professional, totally "legit" designers make these boards too. We always make them for our fashion shows - it's the only thing that keeps us sane backstage!

In the same aforementioned fashion, we shuffled along with the other hopefuls and actually got a picture with the designers, Mark Badgley (leftmost) and James Mischka (rightmost). Daphne is 2nd from the left, Alice is 3rd (in a dress of her own design).

____________________________________________________________

You (of course!) saw the interview with Jenny Carter Fleiss (an '01 graduate of our high school, Horace Mann, out of which FAD is based), co-founder of Rent the Runway, in FAD Vol. 1 No. 2. Here, RTR interviews BM designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka about the collection that Daphne and I got to see.

Enjoy! Happy Holidays to all, and good luck to any high school seniors in this telling week!
Alice

p.s. Some pics from outside the tent in the plaza of Lincoln Center. NYFW did an excellent job of making a camouflaged façade for the tent setup. Very camouflaged, except for the 5-foot tall "Mercedes Benz Fashion Week" aspect. Anyway, below is a pic of someone getting snapped for a street style blog!

Sketchy-book

2010-12-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

hey all -
remember how I said, prepare to be silk screened? See below!

I always print extra runs on my notebooks when I silkscreen - this time I brought some of these extra red notebooks specifically for that purpose. (The notebooks are red, the ink is green, as below.)

Here is a spread from my notebook that I printed and scanned. It's what I think is the best part of the screen. Of course I am incapable of going through the printing process without totally messing something up ---! This image was supposed to be the opposite, with the ink on the jewels part, but instead the white background is inked. Oh well! It worked out anyway, basically.

The cover of my notebook has a Takashi Murakami sticker on it that my friend got me at the Gagosian gallery gift store in New York.... it was the only thing we could afford...... ;)


I had this Daisy Marc Jacobs ad on my desk for a while but was not sure of how to use it. I was in a similar situation with these extra butterfly wings from the below picture from the last issue of FAD. (They are real butterflies, but not to worry, Alice and I collected them from the side of the road and from windowpanes where they had already died.) I got the fortune cookie a while ago and kept it since I think it's hilarious - "you are a person of culture :)" -- who says that??

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Enjoy! I hope you are scrapbooking/whatever-you-call-it, as well, because it's very fun + a nice creative outlet that's not stressful (ie, meant for a portfolio......)
xDaphne

Prepare to be silkscreened.....

2010-12-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

photo from J.Crew, digitally edited by Daphne.

HOPE!!!

2010-12-01T13:29:00.001-08:00

A new addition to the painting below the communal painting.

AUSSIE TIME

2010-12-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

This week at school, a bunch of Australians have come as foreign exchange students to our school. ('ELLO MATE!) They are art students and so are following the classes of a bunch of the students in our art classes. We have all collaborated on a huge painting as a cross-cultural arts exchange experience. Below find pictures from the first day's work. Alice, Zoe, and I have all assisted in the collaboration.

The whole painting, a collab between about a dozen Aussies and about 20 Americans. It's about 20 feet wide, in acrylic paint.

Paint I dripped

I brushed the countries' flag colors first, then whipped/jump-roped a painted string on the canvas for the Pollock-esque effect.

I painted this image from an old yearbook. It's sideways on the canvas.

Enjoy! We'll probably have more pictures as it comes along and then once it is finally hung in the school, wherever that may be.

xDaphne

Lace Case (pt. 3)

2010-11-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

Alas! The lace case final post (it's been a bit of a week of final posts, hasn't it?). In the late summer I started making the little green purse seen below. I documented/blogged this first foray into handbag making here, and then here.

Alice, left, wears a black moto jacket (probably from UO), a vintage orange-and-black crinoline from Allan and Suzi (see our interview with the wacky store owners here), Christopher Kane for Topshop heels, and a necklace by Daphne (worn as anklet). Zoe, right, wears a lace top, cutoff shorts, F21 shoes, and the bag I made. Photo by Rachel Scheinfeld, the future Co-EiC of FAD.

This photo is from a photo shoot from FAD Magazine, the high school-based publication of which I am Co-Editor in Chief, Zoe is the other Co-EiC, and Daphne is Features Editor. The shot was meant for the All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) shoot - thus the orange and black combo - but we ended up cutting the photo, and actually, this whole aspect of the shoot. A bit of a kill-your-darlings moment, if we ever had one. We chose a unified, cohesive shoot where the photos all had a similar mood (see the final spread here) over trying to force in these shots.

Also check out the little (or not so little) Ann Demeulemeester green beetle brooch on Zoe's ankle (left). Photo by Rachel Scheinfeld.

For the first photo, we taped long rolls of cheap white butcher paper to the walls. Using our art teacher's lighting kit, we created this makeshift photo studio-inspired setup in our living room. For the second photo, we just stepped outside and photographed against the side of the house. We thought the high flash looked cool, but ultimately it didn't work with the final choice photos.

Above - I start to machine-sew the bag, with a green lace overlay on tan canvas. (I long for the days when it's warm enough to wear tank tops!) Photo by Daphne.

Above - sewing those nitty-gritty spots over and over. Photo by Daphne.

I wanted to reinforce the bag quite a lot - my biggest frustration with store-bought handbags (no matter how high in quality) is that with moderate abuse, they fall apart.

Have a great day! Good luck this week to all the high school seniors out there.
xx
Alice

Switch! pt. 3

2010-11-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

In the spring, I completed an installation art project entitled Switch!
For my project, which I first documented on this blog here and later documented here, I painted nine 18 x 24" canvases with acrylic paint and placed them in a roughly 6 x 9' white-painted wooden structure that I made with some help from my art teacher.

Here comes the artist's statement/description:
For this piece, I challenged myself to consider art display in an alternative way. How could I create a piece to display in an unconventional method - art that doesn't just hang up on the wall? I was also inspired by my constantly recurring impulse to create art that is fun, playful, and interactive - much like the exquisite corpse idea - not art that is overly precious or "does [no]thing other than sit on its ass in a museum," as Claes Oldenburg said. The installment was set up for some time in the lobby of my high school so the community could play and interact with the project, switching out canvases to create whatever 3-part body they wanted. Perhaps one day I will create more canvases to swap into the structure.
Below, see the 9 canvases all lined up. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the structure would never house the 9 at once (there are always 1+ canvases resting alongside the structure), but it's good to see the 9 pieces at once anyway:Happy Thanksgiving!
Alice

Study Up

2010-11-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

Hello!

This year, in replace of a major course, I am working on an independent study: I am creating a clothing collection!

In the fall, I had a bunch of ideas as to what kind of collection I was going to create, but in the end I decided to mix my creative project with some study of art history. I decided I would create a collection of 10-15 looks based off of a study of German Expressionism, particularly the Die Brücke movement. Every project in the Independent Study Program must be split up based on the trimester system at our school; so, this past trimester (which recently ended on friday!) I focused on research and design. I did a bunch of reading about the history of Die Brücke, and as I learned more and more I began to sketch out clothing designs. The movement is most easily characterized by tension, more specifically primitivism vs. modernity (through content and style). Check out these classic Die Brucke paintings and prints:

After studying a bunch of works, including the four above, I developed a 12-look collection centered around a conscious tension in fabric, silhouette, color, and theme. The following are the 12 looks that I plan to create over the next 3-4 months!

I will be updating with the actual clothes as they come along! Enjoy.

Zoe

Insta-pART 3

2010-11-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Hello all! As mentioned in the previous posts about my installation, it has been finished this week. The opening is tomorrow at school! Here are some of the final photos. I realllllly like the blacklight effect and how it translates in photography (with about a 10-second exposure - woof!).

All photos by Daphne Taranto, 2010.

Here you can see how it looks in the blacklight. In real life (not in the photo) the gallery is totally dark except for the glowing strings. Here, the long exposure picked up on light that our human eyes can't even see. The flecks on the ground are yarn lint and glowing paint chips that are illuminated by the blacklight, which is just right out of the camera's frame.

Tomorrow we are doing the first shoot for the newest issue of FAD - and it's going to be in the gallery (amongst the yarn)! half of the images will be in the blacklight - I'm excited to start!)

John Galliano show image. By a happy accident, the fluorescent dust looks a lot like the fantastical light show from his past fashion presentation!

Have a good day -

xDaphne

Just a preview of what's to come ...

2010-11-18T18:24:00.000-08:00

Click to Zoom.
Board, color palette, and color names by Alice + Daphne.

Peek-a-Boo

2010-11-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

At school, Zoe and I are the Co-Presidents/Co-Founders of the Fashion Design Club. In April 2010, the club produced a Fashion Show as a part of what we founded as our in-school Fashion Week. We organized an event every day after or during school for the April Fashion Week, which was hosted by FAD Magazine (of which Alice and Zoe are Co-Editors in Chief and Daphne is Features Editor). You can check out FAD's Facebook page for photo albums from the various events, including a workshop with former Project Runway contestant Elisa Jimenez.

I made the first look of this post (side-by-side with my sketch), which is modeled by a fellow classmate in our school's cafeteria. You may have already read a bit about it here. The look is a silk charmeuse large-scale floral print scrunched miniskirt and a stripey tank top. Alice sewed alternating bands of black stretchy mesh and soft white jersey to create a rugby-style black-and-white stripe pattern, which she then sewed into a tank top. The top was inspired by the 2010 trend that I call "censor-tape" fashion. Many shows, including Stella McCartney (just above, Anna Selezneva walks the Stella M runway), featured this style of alternating bands of nude-colored or simply transparent/mesh fabrics and and solid fabrics. The look was also inspired by the fashion show's general theme (50's/60s pillbox era and Jackie O. style, below) - the alternation of the transparent and opaque fabrics represent the emerging sexual tensions of 1960s women.
I drew the (far) above sketch by hand in black pen, scanned it in, and on Photoshop added the highlighting and colors. I chose to use Photoshop because, well, I temporarily misplaced my markers ... and because the filling in is so lovely and consistent with the virtual pen.

Enjoy!
Alice

Insta-pART 2

2010-11-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

Yet another pun.... and another post about the installation! We started working on it yesterday after school. By we, I mean I designed/am designing it as it evolves and Zoe and I are executing it along with several other classmates. (Thanks, classmates!) All pictures below from Zoe's phone (sorry for bad-ish quality, we are doing proper documentation on a school (ie unavailable-right-now) camera).

That's me working on the string on the ceiling. You can see the little hook towards the middle top of the picture - we are using those hooks as base points for many of the strings.

It's a little difficult to navigate the strings.. maybe you can tell? We are really trying to fill the space. I want it to be very dense outside of the arches so it's like a tunnel.

There's a special surprise coming up (with the installation), involving blacklights! Will fill you in on the next post....

xDaphne

Insta-Art

2010-11-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

As you may have guessed, no, I am not doing Insta-Art (a la, insta-coffee, haha..... OK JUST LAUGH WITH ME!). It's a yarn-installation in the gallery at school. Anyways, digital sketches and my artist's statement are below.

I've had this idea for a couple years, but it always seemed to be a fire hazard. A couple weeks ago there happened to be a gallery opening at school, and the fire hazard issue is a non-issue, so VOILA! Pictures coming up soon (we start work on Monday!) A million thanks to the school's maintenance crew for installing the basic structures so we could start work!

One intent of the project is the physical response to being with it – being in school provides easy access for many students to see and interact with the piece. It will capture a feeling of being delicate and tiny within a larger structure – each person may interpret the larger force as something different. The simple fact of having a physical reaction and being able to appreciate the physical space you are in greatly contrasts the images and screens we always see.

The other intent is asking what that physical response may represent, whether that’s a recreation of a particular feeling or an examination of the connections between topics such as humanity and technology. The interactions between digital and analog are topics I have examined thoroughly in the past year that continues to regularly appear in my daily conversations with different generations.

The Impact Art Club members will assist in the execution of the project. We will use multicolored yarn and sleek arches to arrange the “tunnels.” The arches’ metal material will be subtle in order for the yarn to impact the viewer the most. The yarn will be attached to the arches and extend to every corner of the room, including the ceiling, if possible. A grid of wooden planks will be painted white and attached to the walls. The yarn will be tied to the grid in order to keep it strongly attached. The yarn will allow us to easily fill the space in a colorful way.

In this way, the space can be defined within the space, the fragile tunnels appear out of the vastness of the gallery. When people walk under the arches (through the tunnel, the negative space created within the yarn) they may experience certain sensory emotions. For example, I imagine it would feel like when someone is walking through a room and he doesn’t realize he has walked into a spider web until he has already walked all the way through it. Or it may simulate the feeling of when a thread is pulled through fabric so that you can feel the tiny line pricking through the cloth.

enjoy!

xDaphne

17 at Seventeen, Pt. 2

2010-11-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

All photos by Alice Taranto. Click all images to zoom.

This is the second installment (see the first) of the 17 at Seventeen post series. As stated in that previous post, during the late summer, Zoe and Alice had the fortune of spending a week at Seventeen magazine. We were high school interns shadowing Sittings Editor Betsy Mullinix. During our 5 days, we did fun projects for and heard from an array of the editors and other interns. Check out the previous post to see the F.A.D. Magazine spread about our week's adventure!

In this post, you'll find lots of behind-the-scenes shots (see shutterbug Alice above) from the fashion/beauty photo shoot where we hung out as one day of our week. The actual shoot will be published in the December/January issue of Seventeen. Keep your eyes peeled! Above, the shoot's makeup artist Janeiro powders the model to perfection.

Now, a few shots of the shoot's hair stylist Alberto Guzman working his magic. All of the models' hair looked incredibly full and vibrant ... so incredible, in fact, that we realized that hair inserts were used (see photo above). That's right, that bounce and body of the shampoo commercials and cheery makeup spreads is indeed faux. Not sure if seeing the hair inserts disillusioned me, or if I finally have the key to voluminous hair. Maybe both?

The model in the photo below had such an otherworldly, even angelic, face - it really shows that modeling is for extraterrestrial types.

Some of the products used on the shoot.

The photos below are of one of the holiday shoot's models, Claire. Chicago native Claire is a high school sophomore, and writes papers/does homework on downtime during shoots! She was really amiable, as fashion models tend to be, and was there with her mom (probably for legal reasons on the shoot). Claire is seen in the hair clip-ins photo above. My favorite photo from this bunch is the first shot of this post, where Janeiro applies mascara to Claire's lashes. She has a statue- or doll-like perfection about her - again, that almost eerie look that models have.

Seventeen is published by Hearst, whose in-house photo studio is called Studio D. All of the Hearst magazines, including O The Oprah Magazine, Cosmo, Seventeen, and Marie Claire, use these studios. Below, a pic of one of the boxes that photographers sit on while they photograph/equipment is stacked on top of/are used as additional seating.

Alice + Zoe

P.S. - Ever wonder how they make those cool lipstick smudges, nail polish swirls, or crushed eye shadow clusters on magazines' beauty pages? ... Spotted: a sheet of trials for a gold nail polish.

POTY Award

2010-11-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

Digital photograph by Daphne Taranto, 2010.

My cover photograph from last year's third issue of FAD made the shortlist for the Young Photographer of the Year Award! According to the website, it's "the leading contest for photographers aged 17 and under. It is dedicated to encouraging and revealing new photographic talent and runs alongside the main competition, Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2010. The competition is organised by the UK's best photography title, Digital Camera."

From over thousands of entries in the age 15-17 category, the shortlist has been narrowed down to 34 digital photographs. I entered a few of my photographs during the summer after hearing about the competition on a past winner's blog. The 2010 winner and two runner-ups are announced December 9th. (Wish me luck ☺) Check out the competition online here, and below, the issue of FAD for which this was the cover!

xDaphne

Open publication - Free publishing - More magazine

17 at Seventeen, Pt. 1

2010-10-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

During the late summer, Zoe and Alice had the fortune of spending a week at Seventeen magazine. We were high school interns shadowing Sittings Editor Betsy Mullinix. During our 5 days, we did fun projects for and heard from an array of the editors and other interns.

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

We created a spread of our visit featuring tidbits from the editors we met for F.A.D. Magazine, the in-school publication of which Alice and Zoe are co-founders and Co-Editors in Chief, and Daphne is Features Editor. Flip through the Issuu-powered magazine-style browsing function above. You'll find several pictures from the week below, and check out F.A.D. to read about our experience!
To find more of F.A.D., check into the magazine's extensive online presence including Wordpress, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Issuu, and YouTube.

(All photos by Alice, unless otherwise noted or Alice is in the photo)

Stock shoes in the closet at Seventeen.

One day, we had the assignment of sorting through lots of tights. Very fun/colorful and good for the compulsive type! here, Alice sorts yellow/orange tights upon a step ladder.

A blonde Zoe rummaging through the closet. This post is entitled "17 at Seventeen" because Zoe turned 17 on the final day of our shadow week! Alice finds that more charming than Zoe does.

Seventeen magazine is on the 17th floor. Adorable! Here is the gorgeous lobby of Hearst Tower.

Alice descending the waterfall-lined escalator of the lobby. What an incredible building!

Zoe in the lobby of Hearst Tower. Simply a stunning place. We decided that the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic (...we don't recommend it) was filmed in the Hearst Tower lobby. In the movie, Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) works at the über-chic "Alette" magazine. One quick search later- from the Wikipedia page of said movie: "Production on the film also included creating a group of faux upscale brand stores at the base of the Hearst Tower. Present were brands such as Valentino, Anna Sui, Catherine Malandrino and Alberta Ferretti."

From Seventeen's website, on why to watch the movie: "See Seventeen's office! The (fictional) financial magazine Becky gets a job at is located in our very own building, the Hearst Tower. See where all your favorite magazine (and Website) magic happens! We only wish we got to see Hugh Dancy in the cafeteria every day."

The subway stop we took to get to Seventeen every day. (Photo via.)

Other Hearst magazines include Cosmopolitan, O The Oprah Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, and Redbook. We were stunned all week with the knowledge that these mega-magazines were being published in the very same building in which we interned.

Check back soon for behind-the-scenes photos (more than are found in our spread in F.A.D.) from our trip!

xx
Alice and Zoe
xAZDdesign

keith haring - growing IV + FAD

2010-10-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

Hello! As I said, we'll be posting our individual works from the latest issue of FAD magazine (of which Zoe and Alice are co-eds in chief and I am features editor) which we work on at school.

Digital photograph by Daphne Taranto, 2010. Student model. Hair by Daphne. Makeup by Zoe + Nicole. Jacket borrowed from Allan + Suzi. Digital editing by Alice.

It was really fun to do this shoot - we had 4 makeup looks which were inspired by various artists' works of the 20th century. I shot this look while Zoe, Alice, Charlotte, and Rachel (the last two are FADdies - what we call FAD contributers) photographed the others. I did the hair by tightly pony-tailing the model, wrapping the ponytail with a black ribbon, and sticking an eyeliner stick inside to keep it upright.

My original sketch for the image (from my notebook) - I knew I wanted a profile and that the jacket had to be in the shot. I always like to plan out ideas on paper, especially for photography.

See the video (below) that our staff videographer, Sara, made about the shoot! You can see the others on our YouTube page. As seen in the video, we used a very simple lighting kit and a homemade splash to photograph the shoot.

Here is a still shot from the video of me taking the photo.

And lastly, the spread itself!

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Happy Thursday -
xDaphne

Portfolio Roll

2010-10-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

It's been so so hectic recently- with FAD in full swing, school work, and everything else that's been happening- it's been way too fast. I promise I'll make it up to you! Here, are some photos of clothes I shot for my portfolio! Our lovely Frances (who always loves to model for FAD) helped me out one afternoon posing in all the frocks:

All three of us at xAZD put this dress together back in March of 2009 for our April 2009 show. It was loosely inspired by Betsey Johnson, so we called it "The Betsey". Click here for a flashback to a post about in-progress work on it!

This is my Frick Dress that I made last summer based off a painting at the Frick Collection in NYC for the museum's
student newsletter.

My "Asia Night" Dress- Alice and I each made looks for our school's Asia Night fashion show last February. Also- see this in the most recent issue of FAD! Frances models it on the streets of China Town in "New York Minute" on pp. 56-57.

This is one of my two looks from Operation Smile back in April--- I love the
contrast between the simple, light colors of the fabrics with Frances' skintone!

Here is our "Rocker Skirt" from the show back in April 2009. Remember this?

Another one of my Operation Smile Dresses!

My "Mermaid Dress" was one of the first, complete, official dresses I've ever
made. It was my final project for an FIT class I had been taking, and it was my
first full-length dress! I love the vibrancy of the blue mixed with the simple
structure of the silhouette.

I've got a promise to keep to you all now! Expect some updates on my current workings soon-- I've been working on an Independant Study at school-- I'm relating German Expressionist art and translating it into a fashion collection.

Happy Sunday!
Bring on the week-
xx
Zoe

Inspiration Sunday

2010-10-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Freja at Prada by the Sartorialist, Fruit stand http://simonnepal.blogspot.com/ , Siri Tollerod on runway taken by Alice, as for the other ones, I forgot where I found them...
Inspiration music: The Fratelli's Flathead and Le Tigre's Deceptacon
xDaphne

FAD MAGAZINE vol2 no1 hits the shelves!

2010-10-10T10:26:00.001-07:00

Hello all! Sorry for the recent slow-down in updates... it's been very hectic, and for good reason! Drumroll please...Cover of FAD Magazine vol2 no1. Cover photograph by Daphne Taranto of 2 student models in Little Italy.

Ta da! The new schoolyear has begun, and you know what that means - VOLUME 2 of FAD! Alice, Zoe, and I all work on the magazine at school. Zoe and Alice founded the magazine last Fall while I was at a semester-long arts program. Since I returned I've been Features Editor with Alice and Zoe as co-eds in chief.

Logo designed by Daphne Taranto using Adoble Illustrator. (It's my first time using Illustrator but it wasn't so hard to use since I know Photoshop + Indesign.)

We are especially proud of this issue what with the new logo design (see above) and the fresh photoshoots (see the embedded Issuu below). We'll be posting our individual works over the next couple weeks.

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Below please find the letter from the Editors from Alice + Zoe:

Welcome to F.A.D. Volume 2! As the leaves turn and the air cools, you
can’t help but be bombarded by such punny catchphrases as “Back to
Cool!” and “Fall For Tights and Socks!” splattered across magazine
covers everywhere. When thinking about what to focus on for this
issue, we decided not to go the back-to-school route, but instead to
create a year-long perspective. What can readers take from F.A.D.
to guide them (if only through their closets) in the coming academic
year? Well, we love to publish interviews with the words and advice of
real-world design professionals in every issue. Why do we love a great
interview so much? Because fashion and the industry can often seem
overly glamorous, elite, inaccessible, and ultimately far away. How-
ever, fashion is as close as the shirt on your back! This is only proved
by such events as Fashion’s Night Out, the Vogue-sponsored worldwide
extravaganza that just held its sophomore evening on September 10th.
As the Editor of US Vogue, Anna Wintour, stated in an interview, the evening makes models, fashion celebrities, designers, and more of what readers want available to the public as they have never been. As special as FNO is for giving the public and Vogue readers a chance to see fashion firsthand, at F.A.D. we have a truly unique opportunity in the publishing world – we literally know our audience member for member, since the readers of F.A.D. are our classmates themselves! This allows us the opportunity to cater to our audience’s established interests and tastes with exceptional accuracy. However, we also always try to expose new parts of the fashion, art, and design worlds that might otherwise remain unknown. We love the idea of design and design knowledge for everyone, and – did you think you could escape this without an autumnal pun? – we hope you’ll fall in love with fashion as much as we do every day.

Enjoy!
xDaphne

(ps - the X before our names stands for "by" as in a 4x4 canvas, "a four by four canvas." Hence the name of the blog, xAZD, By Alice, Zoe and Daphne.)

FNO

2010-09-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Throughout: Click all photos to zoom! All photos by Alice Taranto, unless Alice is in the picture itself...

Here's my big FNO post! My "writeup" bit is being published in FAD (soon to be printed... count the days!), but here find my pics from the night around NYC. I had a really fun time! I met up with a few friends from school, a few friends I've made along the way via FAD and summer jobs, and had a great night! Compared to last year, this year was a lot more commercial, larger-scale, and had more of those tipsy adventure-seeking shoppers running around downtown in too-tall shoes on unstable cobblestone streets. Still an impressive feat, though - organizing all of NYC (not to mention the dozens of other countries and cities that got involved) around fashion and shopping for one night!

Check below to track my journey in photo form...

I stopped by the W Hotel in Times Square to meet Danny Roberts, the blogger and illustrator behind Igor + André, and ended up meeting Rumi of Fashion Toast there as well. They were both super nice! I had interviewed Danny for FAD Vol. 1 No. 2 (p. 18-19), and was glad to meet him in person at last.

This next slew of photos are from the TeenVOGUE/ASOS Block Party from FNO - it was down on Bleecker Street, and the magazine took over a whole block for crafty booths (with Erica Domesek, the blogger of P.S. I Made This), a VV Brown concert, and fashion show! Below, my runway shots from the fashion show (which featured over 30 vibrant, young, fun-lovign models in ASOS clothes.) The show was open to the public, and people lined up with their cell phone cameras to see the active and hip show.

A model (possibly Ajak? But I'm not sure, let me know if you can confirm this!) rocking the official FNO tank top on the runway. The runway was actually just a long, tented portion of the street!

I thought it was really great that TeenVOGUE hosted an event since parents probably felt more comfortable letting their kids run free on a closed off street with magazine-sponsored events, rather than meandering around the city (potentially towards harm).
As with food photography, I realized that runway photography is actually a lot more difficult than it seems! I tried to pick the best, clearest shots. Models walk so incredibly quickly that it's hard to even get in a photo where they're not just a fashionable blur.

This is one of my more favorite photos that I took from the night. This photo actually has its own spread in the next issue of FAD. I'll post it online soon!

The show featured both gals' and guys' clothes.

Some models got very enthusiastic. Racked called the show "unintentionally hilarious" because some of the models got so into it that they literally high-fived on the runway. Not exactly, professional, but a crowd-pleaser (if the crowd is full of tweens and teens) nonetheless.

I love this photo very much - I think the model's facial expression is super intense! All of the models at the show actually looked relatively healthy - I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a real NY Fashion Week show, and the state of some of the models was pretty scary. Some of the girls at the NYFW show looked like they were literally about to fall over - and not because their heels were too high. The models at the ASOS/Teen Vogue show all looked vibrant and comparatively rosy.

Fans of the magazine (and of the clothes) eagerly snap photos.

The final walk!

To me, this model has a very Ralph Lauren look about her.

Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to pop into that pretty press pit. But I just love the wave-like sound of dozens of photographers' lenses snapping as the model makes his/her dramatic end-of-runway turn!

Zoom in on this sweater. It's pretty swanky and trendy, with meshy shoulders and a military-inpsired silhouette.

This feels very Lacoste to me - even down to his slick side part.

The styling was very young, very TeenVOGUE, and very reproducible. Even if you don't own exactly that skirt or those shoes, you can still pull things from your own closet to get the look. I love when a show is styled like that.

This model's hair was literally incredible - see the next photo too. It was so healthy and long, I hope I'm not gushing over extensions!

I liked this trend of long, tulle skirts under baggy, non-scandalous grandpa sweaters. What do you think?

This model tripped several times on her few-inch heels. I felt bad about that!

During the final walk, models upped the energy even more!

My musings from after the show, catching up with the various editors and designers who were walking around at TeenVOGUE fans' disposals...

Designer Henry Holland's cool Christian Louboutin kicks.

My friend Emma, me, TeenVOGUE Beauty Editor Eva Chen (as with everyone at the magazine, super nice and receptive - she introduced us to all of her colleagues!), my friend Rachel, and friend Maya.

VV Brown performs.

TeenVOGUE's Laurel Pantin and me. I recognized her from the Club Monaco look book (shot by street style blogger giant Garance Doré) but didn't know that Laurel works at TeenVOGUE. It's a small world, after all!

The whole TeenVOGUE clan after the fashion show! It's fun to be able to recognize members of this crew from our January visit and FAD coverage. Who can you name?

My friend Emma and me with TeenVOGUE Editor in Chief Amy Astley. Amy is so welcoming and friendly - everyone wanted to talk to her, and she wanted to talk to everyone! For instance, she spent considerable time talking with a young (extremely tall and slim) girl who was interested in becoming a model.

After the Block Party, my friend and I kept walking around and came across the nearby Cynthia Rowley store.

Two models pose outside of Cynthia Rowley in the street at a makeshift "photoshoot" ...

... Joan Smalls is on the right!

We popped in the store to grab a picture with her (in her FNO tee).

xx
ALICE
xAZDdesign

P.S. - Here was the scene at the 93 Mercer Street Piperlime pop-up shop. People were cuing up to meet celebrity fashion stylist/celebrity Rachel Zoe. It was a mad house! I merely observed the chaos from across the street. Did any of you make it inside?

The Savory and the Stylish

2010-09-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Photograph (and below photograph) by Alice Taranto
Hand-made bread (not from my hands, though)

Many style bloggers have double obsessions as gourmets and as followers of fashion. Take, for example, Emily of Cupcakes and Cashmere (food post and fashion post) or Judy Aldridge of Atlantis Home (food post and fashion post). Both blogs feature high quality and high taste (pun intended) images of both the savory and the stylish. This post is more of an experiment in food photography than AZD's breaking into the food/fashion blogosphere.To me, this combo is summer personified (tricolore salad on a sandwich with coarse sea salt, pepper, "EVOO," and balsamic vinegar) and the tomatoes here that I photographed are a decidedly summery red - no watered down, wimpy, white tomatoes during August! The basil is from our home plant (more like mini-forest - it kind of went wild in the heat/rain), and the mozzarella is that really legit, soft, flavorful kind that comes all twisty wrapped in plastic.

Taking these photos made me further realize that food photography is really difficult! No matter how enticing something may look in real life, it can look quite unpalatable in the shot. I'll have to experiment with this further...

Alice
xAZDdesign

Spotted: Proenza Schouler @ NYFW Lincoln Center

2010-09-23T17:13:00.001-07:00

photographed by daphne taranto

Runway

2010-09-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

As you may have seen on the sidebar of this blog or in previous posts, at school (Horace Mann) we three produce and operate a fashion | art | design magazine, F.A.D., and co-operate its sister organization, the Fashion Design Club. Back in April, the Fashion Design Club held a fashion show as a part of HM Fashion Week, presented by F.A.D. Magazine. Check out the look book (which Zoe created) from the runway show below!

Open publication - Free publishing - More show

During HM Fashion Week we had five days of events: Monday we had the aforementioned Fashion Show, which included 18 original Jackie O.-inspired looks all modeled, designed, and created by various HM students. Tuesday, F.A.D. sponsored a presentation of looks (including garments from HM's very own costume shop) from our most recent fine art-inspired photoshoot. Wednesday F.A.D. collaborated with our school's Documentary Film Club to watch The September Issue with 60 Minutes producer David Gelber. Thursday, designer, artist, and former Project Runway contestant Elisa Jimenez did a workshop with students and we all walked away with an original pattern! Friday, we checked out the crazy costumes of HM Seniors at the Decades Dance, where everyone dressed up as a different style era/decade.

The show was a lot of fun, but as most runway shows go, it was also very stressful. 18 fully dressed and groomed models (including student makeup, hair, clothing, and accessory design) is a lot to handle - it's a good thing there are so many dedicated students at HM, so there were lots of hands backstage! We tried to make the show as professional as possible, basing our work off of what videos, reports, and other documentation we've seen of backstage and pre-show processes from professional designers' fashion shows.

Below, find the program from the fashion show. On the 2 pages you will find all of the information about the designers, models, inspirations, artists, and assistants on the show.

The show took place in our school's cafeteria. The maintenance department did a great job of arranging the chairs with a long catwalk area running down the middle. Many of the garments from the show were made by Zoe, Alice, or Daphne - check out the models' identifying paragraphs in the look book to see which ones! Some of the looks we made were also in the Jr. Operation Smile show, which happened a few days before our school fashion show. A fellow student was the deejay - he did a mix of various upbeat techno songs that combined for great audial energy. All of the photos from the above look book were taken by student photographers at various locations along the runway.

Hope you enjoy the look book!

Let us know what you think :) Would you wear any of it?
xAZDdesign

p.s. NY Fashion Week just wrapped up - what were your favorite shows?

Seen: Ginkgo

2010-08-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite posts from the whole blog is this one from over a year ago. Daphne made a fashion illustration of a green dress out of a scanned ginkgo leaf.
With already one feature under its belt, the ginkgo dress has gotten itself another! The wonderful blogger behind Kaysens nye klæder just wrote a post about nature-inspired fashion, and included Daphne's ginkgo dress.
Have a great day! Maybe you will find fashion inspiration in nature too, and let us know about it?
Alice
xAZDdesign

Spotted

2010-08-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Anybody recognize this Times Square billboard from Gretchen's win on Project Runway a couple of episodes ago? I'm just passing it now!
-Daphne
xAZDdesign

Lily

2010-08-25T11:03:00.001-07:00

Hello! Here is a quick sketch of Lily Donaldson that I did a couple weeks ago. I drew freehand from an image from an old British Vogue.

Drawing by Daphne Taranto, 2010. Pen on sketchbook paper. (Click to zoom)

Enjoy! Happy Wednesday,
xDaphne

Paintings

2010-08-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

We haven't shown our work in painting in a while, so I thought I would post up a couple of my pieces. These are both done with acrylic paints on illustration board, around 11 x 17", and are inspired by the work of the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. As I stated in a previous post, my painting style tends to be very blotchy and multi-colored, as if the person had developed some kind of painterly skin syndrome where the spots and scabs were made of brilliant acrylic paint.Neither painting of mine has significant symbolism or metaphors behind it, but were rather personal experiments in technique and color. I tried to let the backgrounds feel natural with the painting - sometimes a wonderful portrait is ruined by an out-of-place background. Painting in the background at the same time as the person, not afterwords, can help to diminish that effect, I learned.

Enjoy the week!
-Alice
xAZDdesign

Lace Case (pt. 2)

2010-08-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here comes the update on the aforementioned lace case: the essentially hand-made, free-drafted, draped pattern pieces are done and I'm soon to sew them together into a finished product! I'm really excited about it, since I've never made a handbag before, nor have I done lace overlay projects before.

Sewing up a storm! Despite the fact that I used a denim-worthy (read: super sturdy) needle for this project, I still faced difficulties with the thickness of the materials. At times my poor sewing machine had to chug through several millimeters of muslin and lace! (all photos by Alice, except the photos of Alice taken by Daphne)

I'm very proud of the way the zipper turned out - I think it looks very clean.


I decuple-stitched the important enforcements (the "heavy traffic" areas of the bag like the zipper pull). My most frequent complaint with my handbags is that the stitching slowly loosens and weakens with heavy use, and I wasn't about to make a purse about which I'd be likely to complain!

The inside of the zipper panel - I think it turned out very well. Surely, no fabric fringe will be getting caught in the zipper tracks any time soon!


See? I was serious about my decuple-enforcement. These enforcements aren't going anywhere.


This loop will form the structure of the bag - the two flapjack pattern pieces will be sewn on either side of the loop.

Measuring and cutting

I did my best to exactly match the thread colors. See the buff-colored heavy-duty thread on the zipper, and the forest green-colored thread on the lace? Oh, you don't see the threads? Great.

Can't wait to finish it up and post pictures of the finished product!
xx,
Alice
xAZDdesign

KBFA - BKLYN YNG RTSTS

2010-08-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Two of the Brooklyn young artists chat with Elizabeth Goodspeed (in blue), Alice (of xAZDdesign) in stripes. All photographs by Daphne Taranto.

A couple of weeks ago Alice and I went to go check out the gallery exhibit opening party at KBFA (Kenise Barnes Fine Art) gallery in Larchmont in Westchester. The actual artsy/young artists occasions/happenings in Westchester are a little... limited (most cultural events happen in the city instead), so it was exciting to be able to go to an opening!


We note the large number of silly bands (bandz?) on our wrists...

Elizabeth is an old friend of Alice + mine from grade school - she now runs a magazine Domestic Etch. As it says on the magazine's blog, "Domestic Etch is the online manifestation of a locally printed NY art magazine." They are always open for submissions so I encourage you to submit!

Honey Bear lamps, cast resin. By Daddy (Artists Collective). You can see the window of the gallery in the background.

As said on the KBFA website, "For a decade Brooklyn, has been a magnet for young artists. In the beginning, they came for the cheap and plentiful studio spaces. Now the vibrant gallery and alternative art scene roots them. From Williamsburg to Bushwick, Brooklyn is populated with artists, hipsters and savvy collectors."

Mantra, 2010, watercolor on paper, 72x51 inches (unframed). By Carl Fererro.

"But... It is summer in Westchester, and this gallerist has no desire to schedule any studio visits in the steamy outer boroughs. So we have shipped an exciting offering of fresh new work out of the artists' studios and up to leafy Larchmont and the air-conditioned gallery!"

Above is "a glass sculpture installation by artist David Licata. Hundreds of delicate, intricately-interwoven glass loops, hand-formed from Pyrex rods and carefully installed by the artist, grace the front window of the gallery. The loops play with the morning sunlight, and form a serene backdrop to the photo exhibition."

Here you can see the whole roundup from the exhibit "Cool and Collected: The hot and cool art from a new crop of Brooklyn artists" at the actual gallery's website. All quotes are from the KBFA exhibit website.

The view from outside - the Honey Bear Lamps are visible, glowing from inside.

Artists: Julia Whitney Barnes, Ernest Concepcion, Daddy (Artists Collective), Maj Anya DeBear, Carl Ferrero, Scott Goodman, Sarah Hardesty, Michelle Hinebrook, Christine Lebeck, Amy Lincoln, Rebecca Litt, Rebecca Simon.

Enjoy!
xDaphne

Outfit Posts - Roundup Edition!

2010-08-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

All photography by Daphne Taranto (except the last one).

Hello all! As you may have noticed, I have been posting my "outfits" over the past few weeks - I styled + shot them all in one day, so here are the pictures of them all together! I tried to make it like they were actually animated and not just objects on the ground, (kind of like in the music video for Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie).

In the blog archives you can see the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth post.
There I am photographing the outfits individually - you can see how blue my hair was then! I was inspired by the Proenza Schouler dip-dye hair. It's since faded to a more greenish blue (less punk-y) what with the surf n sand and chlorine...

happy week!
xDaphne

"Outfit" Post Part 5

2010-08-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

All photographs by Daphne Taranto, 2010.

Hello all! Here is another installment of my "outfit" posts. I put it in quotes since I'm not really wearing the clothes. I prefer to think of the clothes as a composition and a photograph rather than a diary, so I choose to remove myself from the pictures. You can see my earlier posts in the blog archives - here is outfit post number one, two, three, and four.

Happy Thursday!
xDaphne

PS - Alice is getting hard to work on her bag tonight - expect "lace case part 2" soon!

Lace Case (pt. 1)

2010-08-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

Today I started working on a little handbag. I've never made a bag before, so it's an exciting new project! Here are some of my in-progress photos - I'll be sure to keep an update on the progress of the pack!
My basic "ingredients" were khaki-colored muslin, forest green French lace (or so says the salesperson at Mood), several feet of gunmetal-colored chain, two matching lobster clasps, and muslin-color-matched threads and zipper. Let's not forget lots of pins, a sewing machine, and scissors!
(For me, the key was buying a quality metal chain with just enough heft to know it's not made of plastic, but not too much heft that it would lacerate your shoulders upon wearing the bag.)
The lace reminded me of Marni lace clothing I'd seen on the runway a few seasons ago. I loved it there, and I loved it on the bolt in the fabric store! Had to have.
I doubled up the 2 fabrics - see my little Venn diagram above! I love the mix of colors. I'm afraid to admit that I couldn't pull myself away from the military trend totally! Forest green and army buff colors are invading my style psyche.
I based the design of the bag off of a handbag I already own. I first double-layered the muslin (to give the satchel more structure), measured the dimensions of the inspiration pouch, and used some basic Geometry skills to cut 4 identical, flapjack-like circles of muslin.
Then I cut 2 equally-measured and sized circles of the lace. I made little sandwiches of fabric: 1 muslin + 1 muslin + 1 lace = one side of bag.
With two sets of those under my belt, I made the next part of the bag - the rectangular bit that will give the purse its depth.
I'll put up pictures once I've completed the bag. :)
Have a fantastic day! Hope this inspires you to start up a project of you own.
xx
Alice
xAZDdesign

Connected

2010-07-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This week I finally did another piece concerning the topic that I studied for a major final project this past fall semester (the post with that piece will come soon, but for now you can see it on page 39 of our FAD Magazine Issue 3 along with my artist's statement).

"Connected" Photography by Daphne Taranto, 2010. Digital.

Below is my statement that I wrote about the topic - as you can see this piece goes deeper than just an image...

I have been meaning to make another piece concerning the topic of the Internet for a while – it is a subject that continually and persistently comes up in my conversations, especially in those with older acquaintances that did not grow up with the technologies that my generation did. A recent front page story in the New York Times concerning cyberbullying and hurtful texting has sparked further conversations. The article is meant to call attention to something that may be under the “radar” whether because kids keep to themselves or because adults simply do not understand (beyond just “kids these days” or “Jimmy likes to keep to himself” but rather because parents do not understand the media that the young folks are using/abusing) – but does it simply make us (Americans, youths, internet-users) seem silly, petty, preoccupied by wasteful and time-consuming activities and products?

The old toys that used to entertain us are starting to be replaced or juiced up by wires and cords and screens. The picturesque innocence of dolls is no longer enough. When we start kids off with technologies like the internet and text messaging so early, what morals, what values does it teach them? Are these effects merely dramatized or are they true? Can or should we change our habits and lifestyles?

Having the doll so in its own world from the viewer it contradicts the title – connected: are we really? Our brains and hearts are being pulled away from each other towards a greater network of people who are each hooked in. Does this make us suffer from our national ADD (constantly skimming our reading material) or does this allow us to keep moving on to the next, newest, better thing?

The wires almost act like or appear to be a life support – we hold on to these technologies like an umbilical cord. We are merely floating in space on the world wide web. If we cannot see the physical actions that we are doing, then how can we know the true effects? If we cyberbully someone, the hurt may not sink (synch) in because we haven’t actually seen it like we see a punch or tears.

Of course, new technologies and “toys” are brilliant devices that are created by great inventors and techies, but they may need to be monitored differently than they currently are. The typical response is, “Imagine instead that you were posting this on the bulletin board at school rather than in a “private” area online.” Can we learn this lesson or will be continue to be removed from our selves?

Sorry if the above sounds dramatic - this subject always ends up sounding kind of doomed/"I have a stance on the world that no one else does..." But that's what you get when you write an artist's statement, I find! (Especially in museums - art oftentimes analyzes society, modernity, technology...... other words ending in Y.)

Happy Friday!
xDaphne

"Outfit" Post Part 4

2010-07-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

All photographs by Daphne Taranto, 2010.

Hello all! Above is my fourth outfit post. You can see here my first, second, and third outfit posts. As I said in my past posts, I like to post outfits as a composition of the clothes and as a photography project (not just as a visual diary). I hope you like the outfit I've put together!

Above I photographed my Alex + Ani bangles. They have a really cool new feature of their website - a bangle bar! You can drag and drop which individual bangles you want onto a "wrist."

I normally don't buy/wear brand name items or garments with logos on them, but this is my first name initial - how could I resist!

Enjoy + have a good week!
xDaphne

Lee

2010-07-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Although this is belated, I just wanted to make my R.I.P. Alexander McQueen post. Better late than never? It goes without saying that he was one of the most inventive, brilliant designers ever, and here is where I halt in the tracks of my long-winded spiel. I mean, those Armadillo shoes speak for themselves.

18x24"

Acrylic on Canvas

Alice Taranto

2010

In art class a long time ago, I painted this of McQueen. Zoe and I were feeling sad about the whole situation, so we both spent a couple of classes making a little memory wall in the hallway where I hung this painting. In issue 3 of our mag F.A.D., we dedicated one and a half pages to a Lee obituary, which you can see here just below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More magazine

Can't wait to see where the work of Sara Burton (the new Creative Director, once the head of womenswear at McQueen) will go.

Alice

xAZDdesign

Licked Clean

2010-07-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

If you're getting pummeled with these summer rain storms right now, I hope you're keeping as high + dry as you can!

A couple of weeks ago I finished up a painting (above) based on a photo of Lara Stone. My painting style tends to be a kind of ~~impressionist~~ very blotchy and show visible brushstrokes. I suppose I have heavy handwriting in my paintings. Normally when I try to break that rut, I end up being very precious with my paintings and resort to finger-painting -- rubbing around minute amounts of paint into oblivion.

For this piece, I tried to challenge myself to neither blotch-paint nor precious-paint. I used moderate amounts of paint and blended colors/shades together (as much as I could using characteristically quick-drying acrylic paint) to attempt a "licked clean" look in the painting style.

Compared to my standard work, the brushstrokes are relatively invisible here. As I painted I was thinking of licked-clean styles, like the work of Jacques-Louis David in his 1780 Académie d'Homme dite Patrocle below.

Your position as the artist is distanced a bit if your handwriting is less present, I feel. This squeaky-clean brushstroke style and the bubble-gum-pink background contrast the (ahem) less-than-clean nature of the photo and of Lara Stone's reputation as that-curvy-yet-thin-model-with-a-significant-bust. After the jump, (click "Read More >>" below) some in-progress photos for you all:

I used a gridded system to keep the proportions of the original photo - this painting was sort of a "rush job" and I didn't want an oddly sized nose to be terribly distracting.

And again, the final product:

20x24"

Acrylic on Canvas

Alice Taranto

June 2010

Enjoy it!

Alice

xAZDdesign

Look to the future, Pt 2

2010-07-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

Drawing by Daphne Taranto, pen on sketchbook paper, 2010. +++(Click to zoom)+++

I drew this a while ago using a Micron inspired by the idea of crowds - especially those that are affixed with something they are seeing for the first time (hence why it tends to be a crowd from the 20th century). Here, it is a new type of screening -- in 3D. In Part 1 of this post it was people watching the space ship lift off from Florida.

In the movie Amelie she mentions at the beginning that she likes to look back at the crowd and watch their reactions as they are lit up by the screen - do you like to do this during movies? (See here for this part of the film - this movie is the best!)

Enjoy and Happy week!
xDaphne

"Outfit" Post Part 3

2010-07-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Digital photograph by Daphne Taranto, 2010. Blazer jacket - Vintage Tommy Hilfiger; Tshirt- Jcrew; Necklace - Rent the Runway; Shorts - consignment Zac Posen; Watch - thrifted.

+++(Click to zoom all pictures)+++

Since this is called "Part 3" you may have guessed that there have been more of these shots! I photographed all these outfits one day when I first got my new camera a few weeks ago. I've worn versions of all these outfits but maybe not these in particular. You can see in the xAZDdesign blog archives my first outfit post (an edgy-ish look) and also my 2nd outfit post (the "tribal" one).

It may seem like "They are just shorts, why even bother getting nice ones?" but really if you invest in a pair of designer shorts you see the difference in the details! These were discounted since they were consignment (from Cadillac's Castle in the East Village) but were still in investment. What I mean by details: these have a silky blend fabric shell that ~never~ gives a cameltoe and are lined in a stretch seafoam green silk - even the pocketliners, inside of belt loops, and backs of buttons are lined in the green silk! It's so nice compared to just denim cutoffs or something of the sort.

By the way, Rent the Runway is a great service and they always have discounts or $20 off or something! It's like the Netflix of dresses - so, I don't own this necklace: I sent it back last week but had it for 8 days and got to wear it several different places.

Enjoy and happy week!
xDaphne

AbBey L.

2010-07-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

The painting above is the last painting I'd made at school this year. It was inspired by an image I'd seen of model Abbey Lee Kershaw from Moussy's Spring 2010 Campaign. The entire thing is quite large- I painted it on unstretched canvas that had been tacked to the wall of our art studio. Check out Daphne's feet while she was trying to hold it up!

As i painted, I really liked the flatness that evolved from the outlines I used, so the last thing I did to the painting was put an entire outline around the girl. I think it gives a sense of 60's POP! prints? What do you think? One other thing is that I ended up really emphasizing her gap-front teeth...maybe too much. She's starting to remind me of Georgia May Jagger! (PS. Nylon went crazy over Georgia's look in the Chanel 2010 Resort collection!!)

Keep Beating the Heat!
Zoe
xAZDesign

SUM/MER/SALT self-made photoshoot

2010-07-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More summer

As written in the "backstage" post, Daphne photographed this shoot over July 4th weekend, and Alice modeled. Once again inspired by the image of 1950s glamour, the shoot includes pool-side shots and more "studio"-like shots (which we actually did in the backyard with white posters as reflector boards and backgrounds!). Also, we have just invested in a new SLR camera and Daphne was itching to take her lens for a spin!

In the creation of the layout, we used a combination of Dafont typefaces and standard typefaces as well (Helvetica Neue Ultra Light was one). It's always surprising just how much time layout takes - it's very nit-picky, and there's a lot of detail to pay attention to.

Enjoy! Hope you are inspired to do your own shoots -
xAlice + Daphne

sum/mer/salt backstage

2010-07-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

Here are backstage shots from our "SUM/MER/SALT" shoot we did. Daphne photographed this shoot over July 4th weekend, and Alice modeled. Once again inspired by the image of 1950s glamour, the shoot includes pool-side shots and more "studio"-like shots (which we actually did in the backyard with white posters as reflector boards and backgrounds!). Also, we have just invested in a new SLR camera and Daphne was itching to take her lens for a spin!

Photo by Daphne Taranto; Model: Alice Taranto.

We simply tacked up this huge white paper roll to give the illusion of an expensive studio. As Alice modeled, she held a stiff white poster board in her hands, reflecting the light onto her face to give the illusion of a high-end lighting set. This method led to our favorite spread of the shoot (the final spread) which is only lips-down and features this great Free People sweater. DIY at its best!

After the jump (click "Read More >>" below, find "backstage" shots, the spreads themselves, and read more about the inspiration and work behind the shoot!

Clothes we just pulled from our own closets, and we tried to pull garments/accessories with these images in mind:

Yellow dress photo source, Pink car photo source

Hope you enjoy it! See the upcoming post for the shoot itself.
Alice + Daphne
xAZDdesign

Look to the future, Pt 1

2010-07-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello All! I drew this photo a while ago because I was so inspired by a photo published in the New York Times about the 40th anniversary of men walking on the moon. It is basically a contour drawing of the vintage photograph of the Florida spectators watching the liftoff.

Drawing by Daphne Taranto, pen on sketchbook paper, 2010. +++(Click to zoom)+++

As you can see - I also made a digital design for a tshirt idea (mildly inspired by the Christopher Kane for Topshop alligator designs), as I posted about in a past post.

Digital Photoshop image collaged by Daphne Taranto, 2009, (using NYTimes image + Hubble telescope space image + tshirt template).

Happy weekend!
xDaphne

Summertime

2010-07-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hello all! I took these photos this past weekend (happy belated 4th!) of our pug dog (love her) and of the water off a pool - the light is so bright + colorful! Love the way the shapes play off each other and the leaf just graces the surface. (Alice has sketched fashion illustrations inspired by our dog in a past post.)

Digital photos by Daphne Taranto, July 2010. Digital SLR. +++(Click to zoom)+++

By the way - did anyone else out there get to see the Lady Gaga concert? I thought that the Nick Knight videos during her costume changes were fabulous - one of the videos is available on SHOWstudio.com, a website of which Knight is director. One of the clips from the background - this 2:19 minute footage is called "Puke on Gaga" and is available online, that is, if you can afford the £4,000 price tag!

Enjoy + good luck bearing the heat!
xDaphne

"Outfit" Post Part 2

2010-07-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

All styling/photographs by Daphne Taranto, 2010. Knit skirt-Thailand, silk tank top - Sunshine & Shadow, comic book/crochet necklace - vintage, metallic scarf - Missoni. ++(Click to zoom on all pictures)++

Hello all! As I wrote in my last "outfit" post, I photographed a few outfits and am now posting them as a whole expression of the look, the photograph, the layout, etc - (not about me going to some party/event/gathering wearing these clothes, or whatever it may be.)

^^^ Love the pattern on this one! It was my desktop background for a while.

Here is what I call the "tribal" look - a look that has been on trend for a while now. I like this kind of theme because you can mix worldly items with more local ones while they all have a "traveler" look to them.

Enjoy + happy 4th!
xDaphne

Web of Wonder

2010-06-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks very much to blogger ChloeCaroline of Heavy Words - Lightly Thrown for a great little feature post she wrote about xAZD! We're really flattered, and are glad that she enjoyed the painting so much.

In an effort to continue the "linking" spirit of blogging, we'd like to create the Blogger Nod. Each anointed blogger can choose another blog to give a nod to, perhaps a really interesting and talented, albeit under the radar, blogger. We pass the Blogger Nod to the Wanderlusters: Sati and Rockie! They have great taste, talent to spare, a new Etsy vintage shop, frequent posts, and we can't say we mind that they're also a collaborative team like us!
Image from the Wanderlusters blog.
To start a little tradition here, if nominated bloggers could please do the following...
1. Pick a new blogger to give the Blogger Nod to, and make a little post about that blogger.
2. Copy this bolded text (including bullet points) and the Blogger Nod rosy logo image above into your post.
3. Make sure that the blogger knows (!) you Blogger Nodded them, and post an updated list of all of the bloggers who have already been nodded. So far, this list includes:
Heavy Words - Lightly Thrown
xAZD
The Wanderlusters

Daphne drew up a little sketchbook drawing of one of the Wanderlusters after we decided to start the Blogger Nod tradition. Daphne's sketch is pencil on sketchbook paper. Drawing by Daphne Taranto, pencil on sketchbook paper, 2010. (Inspired by photo below)
The logo that Alice designed uses this "rosy" image, and she hopes it can apply to many different types of hip blogs. Enjoy it all, and we can't wait to see where the Blogger Nod system goes! Who knows to where it could spread?
AZD

Greg Kadel Inspired

2010-06-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Painting by Daphne Taranto, Acrylic paint, 38x30 in, 2010.

Hello all! I am an avid reader of the blog Fashion Gone Rogue, a blog which posts "the latest in editorials, ad campaigns, and covers." I was scrolling across this post in my google reader several months ago and was totally gripped by the photoshoot in Numéro #112 of Anna Maria Jagodzinska by Greg Kadel. I decided to paint my favorite shot.

(see above for scale - the mannequin is at about a 5''5' height.)

Here I am with the finished product! And below you can see me painting it, about halfway through.

I went for likeness in this painting but used abstract brushstrokes or color wherever I could - I recently have been doing very realistic portraits, so I wanted to loosen up a little bit with some more abstract painting. For this reason I chose such a large canvas so that it would be physically painstaking to use too much detail. This is the largest painting I have ever done (it's not unmaneagable).
There was a lot of "white" (quote unquote) space since the girl was so pale - I tried to work in colors and texture wherever possible (allover, of course!) and took inspiration from the likes of Monet and Van Gogh who may paint a "white" shirt but really it contains every color of the rainbow.

You can zoom on all these pictures - the textures look nice abstracted from the whole painting.
I started this painting a few months ago and worked on it for one day (the grid + outline drawing took most of my time, but then i worked on it for an additional 3 days this June to complete it. So in total it took me 4 days, plus a couple months of inactivity. I like to work all day or in long stretches of time, like for 5 hours straight, just running through a whole album, Pandora or Grooveshark playlist. I especially like to paint to Of Montreal.
Enjoy! And enjoy those crazy wonderful Viktor + Rolf heels!
xDaphne

"Outfit" post

2010-06-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

Hello all! I don't really like to post outfit pictures... I prefer to post artwork, fashion designs, sketches, etc. But if you consider an outfit a work of art in that it is styling, photographing, and coming up with the creative layout and pulling the look together, then I am all good to go! So here you have some outfits that I styled and photographed using pieces from Alice + my wardrobe (we share clothes).

glass necklace: local designer, ring: KJL, blazer: urban outfitters, shorts: blank, shirt: HOH. All Photos by Daphne

Thank you all so much for your support in the PDN The Look photo contest! There is still time to vote - my photo is doing well but of course it can do better! And you can vote with however many emails you have, so go for it (please, haha)!

Enjoy your weekends,
xDaphne

PDN The Look Photography Contest - Please Vote!

2010-06-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I recently entered a photography contest sponsored by PDN and Milk Studios called "The Look." It would mean a lot to me if you voted for me... you can see my entire portfolio here, but I'd really appreciate it if everyone voted for the the cover image of F.A.D. which you can vote for HERE, please. :)above, the digital photograph I took + entered for The Look contest. Digital SLR, 2010.

Dedicated readers may recognize this image from the cover of our high school's F.A.D. Magazine for fashion/art/design, of which Zoe and Alice are co-eds in chief and I am features editor.

The People's Choice Vote solely relies upon popular vote and not judge's vote, so every vote counts!
Thanks so much + enjoy your weeks!
xDaphne

Prom Dress and More Operation Smile!

2010-06-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

Last month, I went to my school's prom with my boyfriend (who's a now-graduated senior). When I began thinking about my dress to wear, I looked everywhere!! I spent a day down in SoHo with a friend of mine and we looked in practically every store! I spent time looking on every website possible- yet still I couldn't find a dress I liked. What to do? I decided to make it! I bought some black jersey at Mood NYC and just a yard of light pink mesh over at B&J Fabrics. I did the whole thing patternless- draping and draping and more draping. But the whole thing turned out pretty secure!

Here's my mom and I at the pre-prom! Dress worn with Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremoy Buckle Boots.

My Boyfriend and I- A close up of the rouching on the top!

I also just ran into a few other photos of one of my dresses from the Operation Smile Fundraiser!

Model Lea wearing my dress with a lace bandeau and Chanel pearl necklace.

Lea with her friend backstage before the show!

Happy Happy Week Ahead!

Zoe

2010-06-20T12:26:00.001-07:00

Daphne and I have each started new paintings while we've been on summer break... keep your eyes peeled for the finished results!
Above: Daphne, her canvas, and her paints
Above: I paint alfresco

Happy Summer Solstice (tomorrow)!
Alice

p.s. Of course, this is the greatest artist photo. How many of us have not bought a sailor-stripe shirt hoping to look as adorable as Picasso here?

Masquerade

2010-06-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

Hello! Here you see a part of a photograph spread I did for the third issue our school's F.A.D. Magazine for fashion/art/design, which Zoe + Alice cofounded this past fall. Going into senior year, we are very excited to be able to continue the publication!

Digital photograph/editing + outfit styling by Daphne Taranto, digital SLR camera, spring 2010.
(click to zoom)

We did these beauty (makeup) shoots over spring break inspired by the idea of play, fun, and "clown"ing around. Nicole headed the makeup mask idea, and our classmate was nice enough to model for us on a whim! I used to wear this dress (with the cats) when I was a kid and brought it out again for the fun look of the shoot. See the full spread above as it appears online in the magazine on p 48-49.
Clearly, significant false eyelashes (like caterpillars!) were used, and we used common surgical tape across her face to create borderlines between which we used several teal/navy/other blue shades of Coastal Scents inexpensive eyeshadow.
Above is the photo we decided to not use but which was in the final running for the print version. A lot of people contributed to this shoot, including photographers, models, assistants, makeup artists, stylists... The only post-production work was in very minimal Photoshop'ing - mostly, I used the dodge tool since the heavy lashes blocked out the sunlight from her eyes. We 3 at xAZD narrowed down from literally hundreds of shots from the day to just a handful of the best!

Enjoy -
xAZDdesign
xDaphne

Operation Smile

2010-06-16T22:05:00.001-07:00

Hey All!

Back in April, Operation Smile Jr. had its gala fund-raising event. We three at xAZD were lucky enough to be asked by a classmate, on the OpSmile (student-run) board, to contribute hand-made, self-designed looks to the evening's fashion show. Our own work walked alongside designer pieces by full-fledged fashion labels such as Vera Wang (Lavender Label), ADAM, and Theory. We contributed total 6 self-made looks (2 each), and are glad to have been able to give our own personal time and efforts to such a great cause!
See our name (xAZD) on the program below as Fashion Sponsors! We were so exited when we saw one of these on each seat in the ballroom!The photos are not the greatest, but these are the actual live-runway photos. More images of these looks to come in a future blog post! All the models are student models (all the young ladies are board members of Operation Smile Jr.)

We each, essentially, made individually themed 2-piece collections. Zoe's were romantic, soft, Liberty print-esque, ultra-feminine looks. One dress was just above the knee, and looked fantastic with the model's flowy curly hair.
Zoe's second look was a full-length dress and featured similar nude, stretchy mesh and delicate, wheat-colored florals.
Prepping backstage! Zoe stands on the side making last-minute decisions; the board with the setlist of models/looks, Zoe's full-length dress on the student model, the rack of other soon-to-be-worn-down-the-runway clothes by professional designers.Daphne's 2 looks were color-block, happy, and bright, yet drapy and sophisticated. The first was a magenta silk charmeuse flowy skirt with an exposed zipper and belted, drapy matte dove gray silk top (with a convertible hood!).
Daphne's second look was a teal silk paper-bag style skirt with an exposed zipper in the back, and a wonderfully luxurious one-shoulder lime velvet top, secured with a feathered brooch (here covered by the hair).Alice's 2 looks were very "aggressively feminine" - while still definitely meant for a woman, whereas Zoe's looks were soft and pretty, Alice's looks were brightly colored and loud floral printed.
The first look was a silk charmeuse large-scale floral print scrunched miniskirt and a stripey tank top. More details to come on the tank top later (an individual post, again). Basically, Alice sewed alternating bands black stretchy mesh and soft white jersey to create a rugby-style black-and-white stripe pattern, which she then sewed into a tank top.
[One photo (with the yellow bow) is not from the actual OpSmile runway, since we also placed this look in our in-school, self-produced runway show, but the shot was so great we couldn't resist putting it here too! Full post with all in-school shots to be put up soon.]All the girls had so much fun modeling! They couldn't stop smiling, dancing, + laughing. Alice's look in the middle (with stripes):The second look was a hot pink magenta mini dress in the same fabric as Daphne's self-made skirt. Zoe worked a lot on this dress too, helping Alice to clean up the waist line (by sticking in an elastic band to make the dress fit smoother) and braided x-back straps with an exposed black zipper.
Alice's dress on the left, below:
On the runway! Just missed the end-of-runway shot.
The event was covered by Teen Vogue, and we're highly anticipating when the story is published! We'll be sure to post about that when it happens.

Have a great weekend!
xx,
xAZDdesign
Alice, Daphne, + Zoe