Josh submits (pasted from his comments under product review 12658
“Project Runway” was this incredible reality show on the BRAVO network. They took 12 up and coming designers and each week they had a challenge. As an example, make a dress out of what you can buy in the grocery store. And each week one person was eliminated. There will be a seaon 2 this year. This is the website. Michael Kors was a judge on the show and he would say the funniest things. Like once he called someone’s outfit “Farty”. You can catch reruns of it all the time. It’s on tonight.
Has anybody seen this show? Unfortunately I got Josh’s post too late to watch the show. While I’m thinking of it, are there any shows I should be watching? Please let me know. I’m trying to watch more tv -a new year’s resolution and I even got cable. I’m thinking tv is a good socialization exercise. Consider the alternative of my daily reality; it’s difficult to chit-chat or converse with the average person if you haven’t watched tv since Reagan’s first term in office.
Speaking of social niceties and the fluffier side of things, you may want to check out DailyCandy and select daily delivery of news from the fashion mecca closest to you. Daily Candy seems to be good at getting the skinny on designer sample sales among other things. If you’re a girlie-girl, this is right up your alley. A sample info-byte:
Every industry-insider’s secret weapon, Bluefly.com is like a sample sale that never ends, carrying high-end designer clothing, shoes, accessories, and home wares at prices up to 65 percent off. Fresh merchandise arrives on a daily basis, from runway classics like Marni, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, and Christian Louboutin to quirky young designers like C. Ronson, Juicy Couture, Capital Tailors, and Temma Dahan.
I’ve finished reading _Call of the Mall_ by Paco Underhill and while I’m not sure what or how I feel about it yet, I do know that you all should read it too. There are 93 used copies if you’re short on cash. As it is, I’ll have to buy a copy -mine is borrowed- because he validates what little I wrote of retail in the entrepreneur’s guide. While Paco Underhill is often described as a “retail anthropologist”, there’s nothing academic about his writing style. Call of the Mall is an easy evening read. If I had any complaint about the book it would be that I wanted more meatiness -and I’m a vegetarian- more facts, more hard statistics and data that were merely alluded to within the text. I do not believe he was being intellectually stingy or building room for potential consultancies because he’s just too open with his information. I believe he omitted these things from the book to increase readership amongst laymen and retailers. If you browse research on his website, you’ll find some stats and charts to append the text. Lastly, while you’re checking out this book, go ahead and get _Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping also by Paco Underhill. I certainly will be.
I am looking forward to reading Edward Tufte once I manage to pry, bribe, contrive, lie, steal, seduce or otherwise crudely manipulate the book away from its owner, so expect influences. His work explains the elements of high-quality instructional design, graphs and charting, validating the necessity of conventions and schematics in technical or instructional renderings (including patterns). For one thing, iconography is highly useful in labeling, hang-tags and as signage in retail environments as well as instructive in plants particularly where multi-languages are common. The New York Times describes Tufte as “the Leonardo da Vinci of data”.
This is a compilation and crude importation of all the comments posted at the original site for this document. Feel free to add your comments.
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3/11/2005 11:11:10 PM Josh said:
I am a TV nut! Don’t worry about missing “Project Runway.” They show it constantly so you are bound to see it some time this week or next.
Some shows that I watch regularly:
“Good Eats” with Alton Brown on the FOOD Network – This show is a very nontraditional cooking show. It’s entertaining and funny but you learn so much about the culture and science of food too.
“Joan Of Arcadia” on CBS – It’s about this girl that talks to God every week. I don’t know why I watch it really. But I do.
Also there was this program on the DISCOVERY TIMES network called (I think I’m remembering this correctly) “Secrets of the Fashion Industry” (thought you might like the title alone lol) I saw on last week. I’ve since seen it repeated several times. Might be something of interest to you.
I’ll have to check those books out. Especially “Call of the Mall.” Do you know any good books about the history of men’s fashion? I’ve been looking for one. I’m currently interested in Native American stuff. So I’m reading “Vision Quest – Native American Magical Healing.” Jess and I both have been getting into Native American stuff for about a year now. And I’m seeing it pop up in fashion a little bit. I believe you’re going start seeing it a lot more. Jess as I said designs fonts and I was discussing with him just recently that he should think of a font that is inspired by “Nativey Americany” things. And oddly enough, today he gets an email from The Lakota Language Consortium (http://www.lakhota.org/) asking him if he can create a Lakota font which will be used in helping teach the language. He has created several fonts that is used all over by teachers everywhere to help students learn cursive. So they saw this font and wanted one specifically for Lakota handwriting. There are subtle differences in their alphabet.
3/13/2005 09:09:59 PM Kathleen said:
Native american stuff? Oh my…funny that you’re into that. If you’re interested in that fashion-wise, pick up a copy of _Cowboys and Indians_ magazine. Personally, I wouldn’t even know where to tell you to start with that stuff; that’s all I did for several years! I could show you how to do anything related to that stuff. Cut fringe, twist it, lay hair pipe -hell- I have about 200 lbs of 4″ bone hairpipe in my back room! I have studs, nailheads, silver ranger sets, any kind of hardware you could think off. Say Josh, why don’t you come down, bring a big truck and pick up all of this stuff? Oh, and I have leather too. Whole hides and boxes of scrap. Some of it I think is barf-ugly. If you’re thinking native american, you’re going to have to do leather.
gee…am I po’d. said tufte-book owner said “I read your blog…(blah, blah, blah)”. Can you believe he wouldn’t even let me touch the book? He showed it to me but it didn’t leave his hands, lol. I can see I’ll have to buy my own copy. He doesn’t like people writing in his books anyway, while I figure that’s what the margins are for.
3/14/2005 08:36:30 PM Josh said:
What about moccasins? I wouldn’t mind making a pair for myself but not for a living, too many people doing it. I think the Indian thing as a trend is pretty much covered. I don’t know how I could work any new magic into it. There are tons of places on the internet to get Indian inpsired garb. I don’t even know what laying hair pipe is. I would LOVE to see more of the things you have done over the years. You should put a gallery up on your site so we can see. I’m very interested in the plight of the Indians. Ward Churchill has really woken me up. Not that I’m defending all of the things he has said recently but he makes some very good arguments.
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