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D M E I L N C Y E C D UP 2
UpcyclinG is the process of converting old or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful. Upcycling gives an item a better purpose. And while jimmying the lock on your car to is giving that hanger a new purpose, it’s not necessarily better or more beautiful.
Recycling vs. Upcycling Recycling takes consumer materials — mostly plastic, paper, metal and glass — and breaks them down so their base materials can be remade into a new consumer product, often of lesser quality. When you upcycle an item, you aren’t breaking down the materials. You may be refashioning it — like cutting a t-shirt into strips of yarn — but it’s still made of the same materials as when you started. Also, the upcycled item is typically better or the same quality as the original.
longer useful: Feed sacks became dresses or old doors became the new dining room table.
New again, but with a twist
Grandma Was an Upcycler
Thrift is still a trend today and a big reason some people upcycle. Others enjoy the artistic aesthetic, with lots of upcycled items rivaling those found in highend department stores. But one of the biggest reasons for the rebirth of upcycling is the positive impact on the environment. Items destined for the dump are rescued and remade into something useful.
...buckets made from tires. Genius! Upcycling is not a new concept. Some of the best examples of modern-day upcycling come from the 1930s-40s when families had very little economic or material resources. In this age of thrift, they reused almost everything, repurposing items over and over until they were no
Also, upcycling is a way of life for people in developing countries. Raw materials are expensive so people use what they can find to create bowls, baskets, jewelry and other useful and beautiful items. Raw materials are expensive so people use what they can find to create bowls, baskets.
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DENIM UPCYCLED The world of upcycling has exploded in the past few years, and there is a plethora of inspirational design in this facet of eco-fashion. An excellent summary of many designers throughout the world can be found in the newly released book “ReFashioned” by Sass Brown. To see some great examples on the runway, Redress Raleigh’s annual Spring eco-fashion show often features innovative designers using upcycling in their collections. Mother/daughter team Zass Design creates gorgeous jewelry from overlooked materials. And Little Grey Line takes old men’s work shirts and remakes them into adorable dresses for little girls. This coming spring’s show will also feature a North Carolina State University student duo using denim remnants, a Durham-based designer creating chic handbags made from plastic bags, and
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another NCSU student showcasing how simple white T-shirts can become an elegant wedding dress. In addition, a few companies are recognizing the combination of nostalgia and sentimentality many of us have about our clothing and seizing the opportunity to create memorable objects from apparel. Project Repat, based out of Boston, Mass., is one such example that creates quilts out of old T-shirts — a great way to
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As we move into the ’90s revival, grunge will be back, and upcycling will fit that look perfectly. I predict modern upcycling will actually look upcycled but with a much edgier feel. - Orsola de Castro, Cofounder of Estethica
UP CYCLE
commemorate all your favorite concert gear without having a closet exploding with shirts that don’t fit anymore. The world of upcycling has exploded in the past few years, and there is a plethora of inspirational design in this facet of eco-fashion. An excellent summary of many designers throughout the world can be found in the newly released book “ReFashioned” by Sass Brown. His coming spring’s show will also feature a North Carolina State University student duo using denim remnants This versatility, the ability to become all things to all people, is the secret to jeans’ survival as a clothing staple.
Recycled, upyucled & repurposed. Denim is a prime fabric for recycling, so don’t throw away that outgrown pair of blue jeans - put the wonderful hard-wearing qualities of denim to use once again.
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t hi nking
textures Texture is becoming integral to design. It’s gone beyond being a trend — it’s now a simple and effective way to add depth to a website. Wielding the power of texture is a great responsibility. It increases the effectiveness of websites and is a quality tool in the arsenal of designers. It can guide the user’s eye and emphasize the importance of key elements.
Rothenburg’s work almost looked, up close, like it had sand added into the paint. I bet the guard was a bit nervous with my nose almost meeting the surface. I know better than to run my hands (or nose) over original art, but I sure wanted to when that guard wasn’t looking! I experienced texture at my feet in Baltimore while walking across salt and ice encrusted sidewalks. I made my friends promise that we’d only be outside as long as it took to get from the car to where we were headed. After all, I do not own a coat just want to run their fingers across it.
However, texture has long been synonymous with “dirty” or “grungy” design. Its overuse can be seen throughout the world of music group websites and has left a bad taste in the mouths of designers. Due to its frequent misuse, its benefits have long been overlooked. Texture can bring a website together, but should not be the main focus.
What is it about the texture of collage and other mediums that is so appealing?
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THINKING TEXTURES
Oh, well. It looks good Design should serve a purpose, and each decision about texture should be made by weighing the pros and cons. Let’s start by going over some of the key benefits. Texture can highlight elements such as titles, headings, icons and buttons. It draws the eye to calls to action and main headings. This is perhaps the clearest way that the trend towards textures is catching on. When used minimally, texture separates the content from the rest of the website.It guides the user’s eye directly to the intended element. It can be a great way to separate key branding elements. Design should serve a purpose, and each decision about texture should be made by weighing the pros and cons. Let’s start by going over some of the key benefits. Visual appearance includes more than just shape and colour; texture and surface finish (e.g., matte, satin, glossy) also must be accurately modeled. The effects that these attributes have on an object’s appearance depend in turn on the illumination, which may be diffuse, from a single source, or both. There are several approaches to rendering the interaction of light with surfaces. We love texture on the Web for a multitude of reasons. Design decisions shouldn’t be made simply on the basis
Design should serve a purpose, and each decision about texture should be made by weighing the pros and cons. Let’s start by going over some of the key benefits.
A CALL TO ACTION Texture can highlight elements such as titles, headings, icons and buttons. It draws the eye to calls to action and main headings. This is perhaps the clearest way that the trend towards textures is catching on. When used minimally, texture separates the content from the rest of the website.It guides the user’s eye directly to the intended element. Before we get into textures in depth, let’s distinguish between patterns and textures. These words are often used synonymously. Patterns are typically small, repeating, tileable elements, whereas textures tend to be much bigger images that don’t repeat. Imagine a Venn diagram, with textures on the left and patterns on the right, with a little overlap in the middle.
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Texture is something we forget. it makes outfits
look very expensive. You can do a monochromatic outfit, if you’re afraid of things that are more colorful and printed, and still create interest - Stacy London
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COLORS Colour is a powerful and important communication tool, and it is tied to religious, cultural, political and social influences.By stopping to consider what each colour represents and is linked to in the ‘real world’ we can make informed design decisions that ensure we appeal to our target audience. Without this consideration we run the risk of offending the very people were are designing for. TURTLE NECK & Other Stories; BRIEFS: Baserange; SWEATER: Tricotage.
Most of us have a favourite colour or prefer some colours over others. This is because can affect our moods so we surround ourselves in the colours that have a positive impact on our mood.
FEELINGS Red can boost your energy, yellow often makes people feel happier, and blue is proven to bring down blood pressure and slow your heart rate which is why it is often associated with being relaxing. If you combine the happiness of yellow and the relaxing feel of blue you get green, a very pleasing colour for many people.Mental health units are known to use pastel tones on their walls so that patients feel calm, happy, and relaxed. Walls that are beige with a pink tint combined with mint green floors are a popular combina-
tion as it is said to create a soothing. At the other end of the spectrum, literally, schools tend to user bright colours that appeal to children. When choosing colours for your next design it is important to consider how they will combine and sit with the other elements on the page and what impact that will have on the mood of your audience.
MEANING Different colours mean different things in different places. This is extremely important for designers to know because without an awareness of the cultural significance of a particular colour, you risk offending your entire target audience. Purple for example is a colour of mourning in Thailand. In western culture however, it is associated with royalty, luxury, wealth and sometimes magic. The brand colour for Thai Airways is purple. On first glance this seems like a huge error on their part because as mentioned above, purple is a colour of mourning in Thailand. It is most likely however, that the Thai Airways website isn’t aimed at locals but at tourists, therefore if westerners view the site and see purple it will associate Thai Airways with values such as luxury and comfort, positive impact on our mood.
in nudes
SHIRT in rough silk are a great addition to every outfit.
The Pantone is a standardized colour reproduction system. By standardizing the colours, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colours match without direct contact with one another.
Beige stockings in Lycra are a great addition to every outfit.
TOP: Baserange SIDE: ZARA
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Pared down to its barest essence, wabisabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent. Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It’s a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time-Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe. For the 17
THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING, THAT’S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN. -LEONARD COHEN Japanese, it’s the difference between kirei-merely “pretty”-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful. (Omoshiroi literally means “white faced,” but its meanings range from fascinating to fantastic.) It’s the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabisabi is “natsukashii furusato,” or an old memory of my hometown. (This is a prevalent mind-set in Japan these days, as people born in major urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka wax nostalgic over grandparents’ country houses that perhaps never were country houses and spend the weekend there.
When the Japanese mend borken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that wehn something has suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
It is the cracks in the bark of trees that lets us know it is a mature and healthy tree, harboring an ecosystem while protecting itself from many of the denizens of the ecosystem. It is the lines in a persons face that lets us know how much they have laughed, considered carefully, grimaced in their lifetime. Krishnamurti speaks of our souls each being of the same paper but that which makes us unique is the creases left in the paper from all the folding and unfolding of experience.
What is this simple idea that has the power to take on an entire capitalistic culture, or at least the capitalistic culture within us? Wabi Sabi, the art and practice of honoring the imperfect. Yes, there actually is a whole field of study and devotion to this very topic we women are starving for. Wabi Sabi celebrates the cracked pot, the aged desk, the beaten up fishing rod, and the rusting bed frame that has become an outdoor border for a flower “bed” in the yard. It is Wabi, the “humble,” alongside Sabi, “the beauty of the natural progression of time.” (It is also much more and far deeper than that, but this definition is a start.) It leaves behind the pursuit of perfection while bringing appreciation to the simple, unaffected beauty of things as they are.
Tucked away in the deepest heart of Japan, somewhere beyond city life, probably beyond country life, resting in a humble shack on a simple shelf in a nearly bare room, you can find a really powerful idea about beauty. This idea, this way of life, this way of being, goes against everything the contemporary American culture sells. It is so radical, it goes toe–to–toe with any notion that the way things are—even when they are falling apart — are not the way things ought to be. The idea is scoffed at by those who offer something more beautiful, and bigger and better. Yet if we can find our way past the standard–issue scoffing, hunt down this old idea, and recognize it as the pearl of great price, we can heal these painful beauty obsessions of ours. Really, we can. It leaves behind the pursuit of perfection while bringing appreciation to the simple, unaffected beauty of things as they are.
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Which includes us. You and me, Wabi Sabi. The real us, below all our crazy attempts at being how we are supposed to be and all of our insecurities because we still have not pulled it off. Weathered by time, all our cockiness worn off, like the shine of brass on buckles and bangles, when we are Wabi Sabi we are simply beautiful because we exist. Nothing flashy. No need for a six–figure contract with options. Just us, with our weathered faces that have seen every expression known to humanity, our often sagging or misshapen breasts, and the hips and thighs that have carried us through our historythe bad.
THE BEAUTY OF IMPERFECTION
AN IMPERFECT CIRCLE One of the wabi-sabi symbols, representing the natural imperfection of the world.
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Bro ken Geometry TREND FORECAST
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Geometry offers the most obvious connection between the math and art. Both art and math involve drawing and the use of shapes and forms, as well as an understanding of spatial concepts, two and three dimensions, measurement and pattern.
Even if you hated geometry as a student, In mathematics, geometry is the here’s a chance to impress your peers with relative position of figures, questions of a new take on the subject. It is the season shape, size and the properties of space. of geometric fashion, which means that In fashion, it becomes a statement; squares, diamonds, rectangles, trapezoids taking on a vintage mod throwback, or and all kinds of geometric shapes should a more modern, almost futuristic look. be taking centre stage in your wardrobe Geometric patterns can be both clean and now. minimalistic, or bold and dizzyingly wild. Either way, the key to pulling off the look is Geometryisabasicscienceforarchitecture. balance. Though perhaps not for the timid, Duringthepastcenturies there were pairing mixed geometrics is incredibly chic; various evaluations of the role of the trick is to follow the lines. Pair a small geometry for architecture. Especially pattern with a similar-shaped larger one; just in the last decades the importance of remember the more of a color contrast, the descriptive geometry was pushed back bigger the statement. Another great way to more or less in most countries. Some wear is with color-blocked items; they actually countries try to keep the traditional take on a more geometric look, but also keep descriptive geometry discipline.keep everything in proportion. For those less bold, only the traditional discipline. of pair a printed dress with metallic accessories – architecture we have to react to the they hold their own against a strong geometric, challenges of our times and we have yet are also a balancing neutral. to be aware of the new, but also the remaining requests of teaching You may have not loved geometry class – but our geometry for architecture. favorite geometrics are guaranteed geometry.
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ASYMETRic balance creates greater reader’s interest. Pleasure derived from ovserving asymmetrical arrangements lies party in overcoming resistances, which, consciously or not, the spectator adjusts in his own mind. In mathematics, geometry is the Even if you hated geometry as a student, relative position of figures, questions here’s a chance to impress your peers with of shape, size and the properties a new take on the subject. It is the season of space. In fashion, it becomes a of geometric fashion, which means that statement; taking on a vintage mod squares, diamonds, rectangles, trapezoids throwback, or a more modern, almost and all kinds of geometric shapes should be futuristic look. Geometric patterns can taking centre stage in your wardrobe now. be both clean and minimalistic, or bold Geometryisabasicscienceforarchitecture. and dizzyingly wild. Either way, the key Duringthepastcenturies there were various to pulling off the look is balance. Though evaluations of the role of geometry for perhaps not for the timid, pairing mixed architecture. Especially in the last decades geometrics is incredibly chic; the trick is the importance of descriptive geometry to follow the lines. Pair a small pattern with was pushed back more or less in most a similar-shaped larger one; just remember countries. Some countries try to keep the more of a color contrast, the bigger the the traditional descriptive geometry statement. Another great way to wear is with discipline.keep only the traditional color-blocked items; they actually take on a discipline. of architecture we have to more geometric look, For those less bold, pair react to the challenges of our times a printed dress with metallic accessories – they and we have to be aware of the new, hold their own against a strong geometric, yet but also the remaining requests of are also a balancing neutral. You may have not teaching geometry for architecture. loved geometry class .
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BROKEN GEOMETRY
LEFT FROM TOP: dezeen.com, each-other.com, womendresslos.com, architectureofdoom.tumblr.com RIGTH FROM TOP: blog.andreasneophytou.com, maggieontherocks.tumblr.com
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