Saran Wrap Wigs & Dresses by Kate Cusack

You may have seen one or two of Kate Cusack's wigs making the rounds on various design blogs, but those are only part of this artist's collection of fashions made from plastic wrap. Kate uses very unusual materials in her costume designs, window displays and sculptural and wearable creations. Her recent and unique line of Zipper Jewelry has been getting some nice press and recently featured on Ecouterre were her Saran wrap wigs shot by photographer Kriistina Wilson.


above: Kate Cusack, photo by Tony Gale

Her saran wrap wig designs include those styled after ornate 17th century wigs and she even created a multi-tiered wedding cake wig. As you will see in the following images, she has also designed dresses using saran wrap and bubble wrap.

Please note that I have manipulated the following photos to remove some of the color saturation that made them difficult to see the details.

Saran wrap wigs created for Tiffany's 2002 window displays (including the one at the beginning of this post):





Her "I do" wedding cake wig made of saran wrap:




Another Saran wrap wig and gown:

She made a bubble wrap dress as well:

See more work by Kate Cusack here.

New Fashion Label Current/Elliott: What Denim Dreams Of Being

Current/Elliott is a new fashion label by stylists-turned-designers Emily Current and Meritt Elliott, who met in college and became stylists under the name of MAUDE. They began by buying vintage jeans and customizing them for their celebrity clients.



Now, they've recreated their special one-of-a-kind pieces with japanese stretch denim, so that everyone could enjoy their sense of style, comfort and individuality.



Their 2008 Fall denim collection includes everything from a backlash against skinny jeans with their fabulous "boyfriend jeans" to denim smock dresses, shorts, chic denim jackets and hoodies. They manage to combine femininity with comfort, sexiness with style and vintage with contemporary couture.

Getting lots of press (even in the NY Times just yesterday) is the 'boyfriend jean', a wonderful slouchy but still sexy pair of jeans:




Here's a peek at some of my other favorites from their line:

The Shrunken JJ:

The Duckhunter:

The Fontaine Short:

The Tulip Dress:

The Moto Jacket:

The Kangaroo Dress:

The Seam Skirt:

The Navy:

The Mini Pocket:

The Circle vest:


Like all hot new fashion brands, these are not cheap. Expect to shell out about $225 bucks for the 'Boyfriend' jeans and the following items list for the prices in parentheses: The Circle Vest ($172), The Laurel Canyon ($194), The Fontaine Short ($159), The Elephant Bell 1971 ($226), The Artist Smock ($206)

Where can you find these?
Below are links to some of the stores that carry their line.
Ron Herman, Singer 22, shopbob, eluxury, lola boutique
You can also find them at Fred Segal, Barney's and Neiman Marcus.

Funky Find Of The Week: Jeremy Scott's Longchamp Pliage Credit Card bag

Jeremy Scott has collaborated once again with French luggage brand Longchamp on their famous "Pliage" bag to bring us the new Longchamp X Jeremy Scott 'Pliage' bag, an homage to consumerism.

The original Pliage Bag by Longchamp is shown below.

This time the designer chose the credit card as an inspiration. Once again the bag is available exclusively at Colette and goes for 175 Euros.

Fashion Find of The Week: Anna Ter Haar's Sunglasses for Klavers van Engelen

Dutch designer and artist Anna Ter Haar created these unusual 'dripping' sunglasses for the runway show for the 2008 fall/winter collection of Klavers van Engelen. Definitely worth a peek. Unfortunately they are not mass produced. Yet.






see the fashions of Klavers van Engelen here
see the work of Anna Ter Haar here

Trendwatching tips & Insights

the article below is reprinted from trendwatching and is part of a long series

How about: “A statistically significant change in performance of measured data which is unlikely to be due to a random variation in the process.” That won't get the creative juices going. So consider the following definition, which we (trendwatching.com) came up with years ago and which still holds pretty well:

A manifestation of something that has unlocked or newly serviced an existing (and hardly ever changing) consumer need,* desire, want, or value.

At the core of this statement is the assumption that human beings, and thus consumers, don’t change that much. Their deep needs remain the same, yet can be unlocked or newly serviced. The ‘unlockers’ can be anything from changes in societal norms and values, to a breakthrough in technology, to a rise in prosperity.

Example? One of the core human needs is to be in control, or at least to have the illusion of being in control. No wonder then, that the online world is so addictive. After all, it firmly puts the individual in the driver’s seat.

Just give it a try: apply the above definition to your daily spottings and observations of how consumers behave, and how that behaviour is forever changing, and you will find that many seemingly unconnected business success stories will start to make sense. Successful innovations often satisfy existing, dormant needs in new and attractive ways.

* P.S. Need to brush up on your knowledge of human needs? Re-reading Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs never hurts.

It’s hard to find two people who share the same language when it comes to trend watching. Here are a few common misperceptions. Not complete by far, so add your own:

Predicting next year’s colours. Trend watching is about more than spotting the next colour, fabric or hot designer. Sure, black may be back, and miniskirts may re-conquer the catwalks in 2009, but the consumer arena is infinitely more complicated than that. In other words, fashion in all its variety, excitement, and pioneering business models is just another part of the world of consumer trends. In no way does it define consumer trends.

Gazing into a crystal ball. Trend watching isn't about ‘hard-core’ futurism, either. Better leave gazing into a crystal ball, predicting what's going to happen 15 to 20 years from now, to futurists and scenario planning departments. Trend watching is about observing and understanding what’s already happening, the major and the minor, the mainstream and the fringe. In our case in the consumer and business arena.

Declaring the pizza cone an emerging consumer trend. We still get asked a million times about how to distinguish between trends and fads. A pizza cone is a fun product, but it won’t dramatically change the consumer arena. At most, it’s yet another manifestation that consumers want convenience no matter what. The latter is the trend. The product isn’t.

Applying all trends to all people. Don’t fall for this one. One massive mistake both trend spotters and brands make all the time, is to assume or pretend that a certain consumer trend will affect or be embraced by ALL consumers. No. Remember, in life and in trends: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The above HSBC ad illustrates it well. Whatever catches your fancy while spotting and tracking trends, please remember that not everything applies to everyone, and that virtually every trend has its anti-trend.

Furthermore, the new doesn’t always kill the old. E-commerce may be booming, but real world retail is far from dead. Has the latter changed? Sure. But take one look at excited shoppers and TRYSUMERS spending hours in Apple’s flagship store in New York and it becomes clear that both online and offline retail have many years of innovation and opportunity ahead of them. In trends, always try to figure out what the ‘AND’ is, not just the ‘OR’, and your trend (and opportunity) spotting skills will improve immensely.

Those who watch trends have to possess some rare kind of intuition. Not true. This isn't brain surgery, nor is it rocket science. Observing the world around you, with an open mind, is something many professionals have unlearned, but not something they aren’t born with. If you want to spot trends, you can.