Fashionista Web Resources


An evolving index of sites and other goodies from around the interweb all of which will heighten your playa-fashion senses.

Bill Cunningham Fashion Blogging’s Founding Father

Do you care about the fashions that exist outside of the trash fence?  While there may not be many places in this default world where fashion is as radical as Black Rock City, there are a few where it is as alive.

One such place is good old New York City.   We were recently, and thankfully, introduced to the decades long work of NYC’s unlikely god-father of style: Bill Cunningham via the documentary below.

For over 40 years, Bill has been lovingly documenting the fashionable people of New York without prejudice or judgment.  His approach is so akin to our own that we consider him a brother in arms.

Want to be inspired by some couture that isn’t necessarily dusty?  Then become familiar with Bill’s “On the Street” style column via these brilliant narrated slide shows he does for the New York Times by clicking here.

Regarding the documentary, the first half is a wonder-filled romp through the nuances of 21st century fashion while the second could be considered … miss-able documentarian masturbation.  If, however, you enjoy gratuitous shots of Bill riding his bike and the inquisitor eventually getting Bill to cry then please, enjoy.

This is the first post in a series about how Burning Man fashion parallels and ties in with default world fashion.  Share any insights you have that we should include in the comments below or by emailing us.

BillNYC

 

Welcome To The Virtual Shoe Museum

We’ve continued falling ever deeper down the blogging hole and are consistently stunned by this internetty wealth of awesomeness.  Whilst trolling the archive of excellent posts at ObviousWinner.Com, we found this:
"Vegas Girl" Goat Hoof Shoe w/Revolver Heel by Iris Schieferstein

The “Vegas Girl” by Iris Schieferstein, a goat hoof shoe with revolvers for heels!  It’s just one of many mind-blowing examples of footwear in the “extreme” category at VirtualShoeMuseum.Com

Now, I know what you’re going to ask: Is there any Playa-worthy footwear in this here museum?  It’s a reasonable question since most of what you see would be uncomfortable to wear for even a brief evening out on familiar ground and would probably either break or break your ankle if you tried to wear it on the playa.

Playa-worthy boots by Naam Ben above & Eelko Moorer below
To which we answer: if, my fancy footed friends, you will feast your inquisitive peepers on the fun creations to the right by Naam Ben above & Eelko Moorer below, we think you will see that there are some wonderful ideas to be found inside this shoe museum that can be re-created and brought out to the BRC by you!

The two examples to the right include a fresh re-deployment of the old stuffed animal covered suit idea on an otherwise drab, but comfy, Ugg type boot and what looks like an easily achieved (with liquid latex) and very welcome customization to the exceedingly popular playa platform boot.

So far we’ve found lots of impressive minimalist footwear, abundant designs which utilize bio-mimicry, up-cycled creations, fiber-optics and that’s just from our first 15 minutes on the site!  The museum is looking for new shoe-works to add to their loving archive so if you know of any, email leads to  Liza@VirtualShoeMuseum.com

The interface (see large picture below) is brilliantly simple with every shoe entry categorized by multiple tags.  If you want to see shoes that incorporate a certain material (say feathers) there is a category for that.  When you find the shoe(s) that you like, look below the main image for a text link with more info and sometimes additional images.

We are certain that you will have lots of fun exploring this realm of fantastically real shoe-art.  Make sure to come back and tell us about some of your faves.

Screenshot of the Virtual Shoe Museum Interface Featuring "Cleopatra" by Barbara Zucchi

Recent Technical Difficulties With Email

We were tipped off yesterday morning by a friend (it was Monkey Grrrl of the Melting Pot if you must know) that emails being sent to us were getting bounced!  Lame!!!  Well, we’ve since had a row with our web-host over this issue and now it’s fixed :-)

So please, if you tried to email us recently and it bounced, please please pretty please re-send that email!  We’d really like to read it.

Also, we’d like to invite you to subscribe to our newsletter using the app in our sidebar (look just down and to the right of this post below the FaceBook banner).  It’s a good service that does exactly what you’d hope: email new posts from this blog to your inbox.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Check it out!

Washing Your Costumes

I’ll warn you right now that this may very well be the most boring post ever to appear on this blog.  Buuuuuuut, if you want info here it is!  There’s a note about washing fur and el wire at the end.

Hand Washing 01

Costumed Kisses From The Playa

This GREAT video by Jaime Nelson has been floating around our Reno tribe over the last couple weeks and the custom ensembles in it are so good we just have to share.

She captured so many beautiful burners in some pretty fine outfits BEing that special brand of silly we have all grown to cherish so … Enjoy!

Playa Kiss

Burning Man 2009


A Candid Survey Of Burner Style 2009

Worried that you won’t be dressed appropriately just cause you don’t have time or money for the Burner ensemble of your dreams?  Take a look at this vid and remind yourself of what people walking the streets of BRC actually look like during the day and night.

James Mahood posted this wonderfully candid survey of Burning Man fashions shot at random during the 2009 burn on his YouTube channel.  Hopefully he will have more for us at the end of this year’s burn!

Candid 01

Photo By Sasha Photography


Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes … We’re Evolving!

Welcome back!  While it may not be obvious to all you wonderful readers, some significant changes have taken place “behind the scenes” here at Dusty Couture thanks to the benevolence of a fellow MO-Bro  8-)
Frankenstein mixture of stuffed cow, duck, and musical paw.

We’re EXTREMELY excited about the dawning of this new era for our dusty little fashion blog and want to thank YOU sincerely for having been such an integral part of our success so far!  Without “you” there would be no “us”.  Without this sacred duality, there’s no universe of possibilities to dream up.

We urge all of you reading this to fully step into and embrace your role as a participant on our blog.  Leave a comment below;  Subscribe to the new RSS feed by clicking the image to the right of these words; Email us and recommend some improvements you’d like to see or topics you’d like us to research; Tweet or Facebook us a link to a fashion designer you think deserves the spotlight.  We are here to serve your fashion-info needs.

In addition to streamlining our site in order to Screenshots of Dusty Couture's Twitter and Facebook Pagesprovide the features that will best improve your experience, our current goals are to reach 300 Fans on our Facebook page and 100 Followers on Twitter.  This is an easily reachable goal since we’re already at 287 Facebook Fans and 94 Twitter Followers :-D

Ok, back to some of the updates/improvements we’ve just made.  Besides the new RSS feed (we sincerely apologize for not having this in place sooner) which automatically sends each new post to your email account, we’ve added a “Share” button-box to the very bottom of each post (please tell us what social media site buttons you want added).  Also, we’re going back to tag all images so people with disabilities can appreciate our content.  If you are or know someone who was turned off by our lack of blogging tech-savy, please tell them to try us again now that we’ve got a real IT!

A tremendous thank you to all the people on our staff (find their pictures below) who have contributed their writing, uploaded technological enhancements, or otherwise helped in any way.  They do it for the same reason you’re here, to spread inspiration and further afflict your passions ;-)

*Extra dusty thank yous to Troy Arnold of Electric Red Development.  If you’d like to set up a site or get more people to appreciate the content on your existing site, Troy is one of the best.  Email him via Troy(at)ElectricRedDevelopment(dot)Com
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Profile Pics of those beautiful souls who have directly contributed to Dusty Couture :)

The Socks of Your Dreams

How much do you know about stockings?  Long a seductive source of mystery, hosiery is a sexy and daring adventure in accessorizing.   Fortunately, we are not entirely without guidance …

Side-view feet taking a step in socks with long purple splotches edged with light blue swirl around a black sock worn on white skinned legs.

SockDreams.Com is our tout leading us into the fantastic realm of limb coverings.  Once there, it evolves into a learning tool, educating us on the finer points of hosiery style.

It can be challenging to realize how many entries there are in the glossary of terms to categorize stocking types.  Anklets and Half-Socks, Mid-Calf or Trouser Socks, O.T.K.s vs. Thigh-Highs!?  It gets wonderfully overwhelming in short order.

Ohhhh and we haven’t even touched non-podiatric accessories yet.  There are important distinctions to keep in mind between garters and garter-belts, leg warmers vs. leggings, gloves and wrist and arm warmers …  And don’t you dare get me going on the tutu/petticoat debate!  (Just kidding, we’ll definitely be blogging about that.)

*Sigh*  While it’s fun to BE in a place of newness & uncertainty, graduating with some degree of understanding after an hour or two of shopping beautiful, consciously designed and displayed products is mahvelous, not to mention a real accomplishment!

Side view of a pair of white gams extending provacatively from a pink slip edged in white lace.  The shear white of the stockings mimics the white flesh of the legs.  Black satin bows adorn the tops of the stockings and pin striping runs the entire length to the toes.

Especially enjoyable are the hand-written and well thought out descriptions of each wonderful creation carried.  It quickly becomes apparent that these Sock-Dreamers don’t just love socks, they love each and every item they carry based upon the item’s unique merits.

It’s a brilliant design/supply paradigm!  The designers consciously fashion and produce well thought out products.  Then, the supplier is able to sift through the flood of products with an educated and creative filter procuring only those that rise above the status-quo.  Finally, completing the pyramid, the supplier goes a step further by sharing their knowledge with their customers product by product during the shopping experience.  Bravo!

Speaking of sharing knowledge, make sure to check out the Sock Journal aka the Sock Dreams Blog regularly as it is frequently updated with style tips, deep socky thoughts, event notifications, and of course new product alerts.  And speaking of checking back regularly, make sure to click the Subscribe links to the right so you can be updated whenever we post something new too!

Stylized logo reading "Sock" in a downward curved banner on top and "Dreams" in an upward curved banner at the bottom.  In between the banners, a drawing of a seductive blue-eyed woman reclines her legs bent at the knees are adorned with rainbow striped thigh-highs.  Her long sliver hair flys all around the logo and in her hand is a blueish white lotus.

10,000+ BRC Costume Ideas? Thanks PhotoBOOF!

That’s right, over 4,000 four-shot photo-booth type strips of one to six BRCitizens at a time taken during the ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08, and 2009 Burns.  It’s a profound gift, an art-generator, and an archive of our dusty brilliance.Boof A

It’s the PhotoBOOF!, a quadruple-shot of well-dressed burner mayhem straight from the source.  Prepare yourself for thousands of smiles topping off a TON of radical styles.

Each year of its existence, the BOOF! has taken thousands of portraits, capturing Burners out on the town truly BEing “themselves” and wearing their best.  Shortly after each burn the photos are uploaded to PhotoBOOF.org to be appreciated in a variety of ways.

Our favorite way is the slideshow display within the “Map Animation” browser.  Just press the play button and watch the beauty flash by to a soundtrack.  (Hint: The Cure’s “Pictures of You” is an epic track to hear during this presentation and you can make it play by clicking any one of the day names under the photo.  Note: You might have to click more than once, clicking the names cycles through about eight or so tracks …)

Boof B

The BOOF! archives are a potent resource that will yield more inspiration and knowledge each time you visit.  In addition to getting a solid feel for the outfits of each person photographed, the archives contain pics of friends that you didn’t get a chance to see during the week, and, perhaps most importantly, it’s the next best thing to being on the streets of BRC, lost in a sea of exquisitely accoutered humans BEing in that special way you can love immediately without needing any introduction.

What’s great about Photoboof.Org, is it’s ability to accurately remind us of how people actually look at burning man.  Often we only see the pro-photogs’ pics of the one in five hundred costumes and forget that the true essence of burner style isn’t based so much on what you’re wearing but in how well you’re wearing it, how it becomes an extension of you, and whether or not it’s helping you and those who are interacting with you stay “dusty”.

Finally, all fashion aside, if you’re having Playa withdrawls, visiting these images can offer just the kind of energetic immersion you’re craving STAT.  And, if you’re one of the fortunate few who knows people that want to get some idea what this Burning Man thing you’re all excited about is really like?  Show them these pictures of your friends and ask them to tell you.

BOOF B

Our Time Is Now

Have you ever been amazed by a costume on the playa?  Or felt a complete sense of empowerment from a costume you created and all the delicious opportunities that came to surround it?Now A

Costuming is, for many of us, the very fun and experimental heart of “self”-development.  Whether it’s your first time cross-dressing or the creation of an entirely new character complete with idiosyncrasies you’ve never even heard of before, to the vitally empowering practice of creating through the manipulation of materials, the outsides we fashion and adorn ourselves with become a part of our story.

From now on you will see that story, our story, spinning, mutating, and radically evolving here.  Click the Subscribe links to the right, return often, stay dusty.

Sincerely,

Now CNow B

Now D