Reusable Grocery Bag Design Entry

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Advocacy, Contest, Photography, The OC

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I got an email from my friendly neighborhood Ralph’s (part of the Kroger conglomerate) today and about it being the last day to submit a design for their reusable bags, where the winner would receive a $1,000 gift card to the store. I took a peek at the design submissions gallery and thought if people could submit half of those designs of random pictures and such, then why not submit something of my own. Who knows, right??

I picked this picture I took of a surfer contemplating the waves at The Wedge in Newport Beach, which is an old haunt of my friend John. The waves break too close to the rocks, so it’s more of a place to do boogie-boarding, skimming and body surfing. Since the ocean is negatively impacted by plastic bags, which is the reason for the plastic bag ban in Los Angeles, the adage to “respect the ocean” seemed to apply here in both situations.

Sadly, while I was able to get my design in for the submission period ending today, it doesn’t appear I’ll get much time to solicit votes and there’s no way to direct you specifically to my design. But the last I checked, for most recent submissions, I was on page 5…if you care to throw a vote my way.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained…right?

Out And About: Costume Designers Fashion Week Preview

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Costumes, Hollywood, Out And About

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Costumes, Hollywood

This past Saturday I attended the Costume Designers Week Hollywood Preview and Press Conference with my friend Nasira and her friends. She was invited by her friend Sean Purucker who was debuting some of his designs (here’s a video montage of his work).

The costume is made of jute and glass beads, and the larger glass ball (in the scepter below) is a fishing buoy.

Sean Purucker with his designs

The event was a preview for the Costume Designers Gala Show that will take place October 24, 2013, the preview featured the latest works of Sean Puruker, Amanda Holser, Swig Miller, Kicka Custom Design, Rocky Gathercole Atelier, Marzia Paparini, Fabio Giampietro, and a special presentation by Myth Mask. The Gala will include over 150 works of art created by national and international costume designers, a special tribute to Bond Girls presented by ADICORA Swimwear, a presentation of the Costume Designers Life Achievement Award and live performances by one of Los Angeles’ Top Symphony Orchestras. A percentage of the proceeds will benefit The Hollywood Museum, located in the Historic Max Factor Building.

There were other fabulous costumes there, here are just a few (my apologies for not getting some of the names of the artists):

Costume designed by Rocky Gathercole

Costume designed by Marika Soderlund-RobisonK

Costume designed by Marika Soderlund-RobisonK

Costume designed by Fabio Giampietro

The event was held at For The Stars showroom on Melrose Ave, which sells unique shoes and costumes, and supplies them for events, red carpet, and editorials.

It was an inspiring night to see the incredible costumes that designers can create via their imaginations.

Watch: “London in 1927″ Video

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Fashion, Film/Television, Vintage

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Fashion, Vintage

Watch this amazing video shot in London in 1927 by English cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene, and see the first double-decker buses in Britain, women in fashionable clothes and cloche hats, a teaming crowd of men in Petticoat Lane (many who likely fought in the trenches of war a decade earlier)…and it’s all in beautiful color.

Out and About: ‘Center City’ Pilot Table Read

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Film/Television, Friends, Hollywood, Out And About

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Film/Television, Friends, Hollywood

Photo Credit: Soap Opera Socialite Productions

Recently, my friend Colleen and I went to a table read for the pilot script of ‘Center City’ written by my friend Giovanni Vitacolonna and read by actors Jason-Shane Scott (One Life To Live), Brian Gaskill (Port Charles), Lisa LoCicero (General Hospital), Ronnie Marmo (General Hospital), Danny Donnelly, David Moretti (The Lair), Daphne Di Cinto, Dawn Greenidge (Yes, Dear), and Richie Nuzzolese.

Photo credit to Steven Bergman

The pilot script centers on an Italian family who own a restaurant in Philadelphia. The restaurant is owned by Gaetano, who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and the restaurant now being operated by his twin sister Anna, who is considering declaring him legally dead. The script weaves in and out of her and her two son’s lives, as well as the goings on at the restaurant. It’s an interesting snapshot of a family struggling to stay together, even though circumstances and secrets seem to constantly keep them at odds with one another. The actors involved in the Hollywood table read were fabulous, especially Lisa LoCicero whose ability to absorb voluminous pages of script for her job with GH served her well in becoming the central character, Anna.

The project was created with an eye on bringing it to cable TV. Check out the Center City facebook event page here or if you’d like to be a backer, go to the crowdfunding page

Fashion Film: Advance LA screening of ‘Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorfs’

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Fashion, Film/Television, Hollywood

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Last night, my friend Sinclaire and I attended the advanced screening at the Arclight of the fashion documentary ‘Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorfs. The movie theater was filled with an audience wearing fascinators, hats, statement pieces, hipster clothing and their love for fashion.

The production value for the film was pretty high in comparison to some fashion documentaries, with graphics and animation woven in. There was a huge amount of designer and celebrity cameos, but what I found to be most fascinating was the feedback the designers got when they do or don’t get their line into Bergdorfs and the store’s history.

I did find the first third of the film a bit like an infomercial with tons of testimonials of “You only make it as a designer if you’re in Bergdorfs”…rah rah rah. However, once they started weaving in the history of the store’s beginnings and building the excitement of unveiling the windows, the pace picked up.

If you missed the advanced screening, not to worry, you can attend the 7:50pm showing this Friday at the ArcLight Hollywood. Special guest Johnson Hartig with Libertine will be hosting a special Q&A following the showing.

The ArcLight Hollywood will also set up a glamorous step & repeat along with a red carpet. Grab your picture on the carpet and use the hashtag #GetScattered and tag @ArcLightCinemas Twitter handle to enter for your chance to win a $750 gift card for Bergdorf’s in NYC.

A Little Weekend Reading – 4/6/13 Edition

06 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Randomness, Weekend Reading

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Coffee

I’m enjoying a relaxing weekend at home and meeting a friend for coffee, before school starts again on Monday. My last required class starts in June and when I saw this late start spring class advertised, I thought it would help up my draping skills in the interim. What’s on your plate this weekend?

Need some reasons why that cup of joe in the morning is actually healthy for you? (Huffington Post)
Facebook Home will available on Android so that you will always know what your Facebook friends are doing. But it will also know what you are doing, what other apps you use are using, what notifications other apps are sending. Zuckerberg is becoming the Big Brother you never wanted. (CNET)
So…Mork and Buffy are bizarrely going to be playing father and daughter in a new CBS comedy pilot called ‘Crazy Ones’. Check out the cute pics of Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar on set. (Huffington Post)
China may have a vested in interest in reining in an increasingly belligerent North Korea, otherwise face a larger American military presence in the area (NY Times)
Check out the new ‘The Great Gatsby’ trailer…just five more weeks! (Time)
There’s a new government initiative to map the human brain to discover how it works, what disrupts those processes (i.e. mental illness, Alzheimer’s diseases, etc), and potentially lead to better treatments of those disruptions (The Atlantic)
I was sad to hear of the passing of film critic Roger Ebert, I loved his reviews because he knew film history, wasn’t a snob about it, and understood context (i.e. good as a sequel). Here are his best takedowns (Newser)

LAFW: Madisonpark Collective

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Downtown LA, Fashion, Film/Television, Rising designers

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Daniel Nguyen, Fashion, Hart of Dixie, Hollywood, Jamar Rogers, LAFW, Rising Designers, Ross Phillips, Style Fashion Week LA, The Voice, Tori & Dean

A couple weeks ago, I went to the Madisonpark Collective fashion show at the Vibiana in downtown LA. I ran across the brand while looking at the lineup for Style Fashion Week LA and wanted to check out the line in person, so I contacted them to see if I could get an invite (and since they touted there was an open bar, I wasn’t sure if they’d let a random fashion blogger in). Luckily, I got a response right away to confirm I was in!

What I liked about this L.A. brand is that it has a quintessential California cool look – a mixture of sophistication and casual in denim, leather, layers, and color. According to Apparel News, this collection was inspired by a trip to Mammoth, CA where everyone was bundled up in earth tones, in colors of oxblood, marigold, cream, olive and navy. For the menswear he “utilized Japanese and salvage denim and experimented with treatments such as overdyeing, ‘80s acid wash, and destroyed and waxed effects”.

The Scene:

Style Fashion Week LA, Madisonpark Collective, Madison Park, menswear, womenswear, runway, lafw,

Check in for Madisonpark Collective at Style Fashion Week LA

The multi-tier Press Pit

Jamar Rogers from ‘The Voice‘ – I rooted for him!

Daniel Nguyen (aka Super Fan Dan on ‘Tori & Dean‘) was walking the step and repeat when I came in, and funny enough, later I took a picture for him

Ross Phillips (aka Tom Long on ‘Hart of Dixie‘) – a better picture here on Getty images

Catering to everyone is always a special feat, especially when VIPs arrive late…

The scene right before the show….

The Runway (runway photos courtesy of MadisonPark Collective, taken by JRPhoto.biz ….video by me)

To introduce the womenswear and menswear lines there was some dancing on the runway…while I usually like the clothes to speak for themselves, the performance added to the fun atmosphere of the presentation of the line.

Favorites from the debut womenswear collection:

I liked the leather sleeves on the long cardigan sweater, which was paired with grape colored denim skinnies. I love this moto jacket being paired with azure colored skinny jeans.

Favorites from the menswear collection:

I never would’ve thought to put the marigold yellow, olive green and purple together, but for me, the look totally works (the marigold yellow leather jacket was the standout). I also loved the mix of greys, black, leather and purple that made this one sophisticated yet casual look.

Here’s is the rest of the collection:

You can find the collection at Ron Herman, Atrium NYC, Bloomingdales, Saks, Nordstrom and other smaller boutiques.

P.S. You can now follow my blog on Bloglovin if you like to use that service as your RSS feed reader or you’re looking for another reader for when Google Reader shuts down:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Quote Source: Apparel News

The Adventures of A Delinquent Mac Updater – in animated gifs

16 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Tech Stuff

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Animated gifs, Mac, Tech Stuff

Mac Update

I’m usually pretty tech savvy, but I’m a complete avoider when it comes to doing tech stuff that’s a bit over my head. And it finally caught up with me last weekend…

I knew I needed to update my Mac from 10.5.8, I’d already missed updating it to the next operating system, Snow Leopard, and then Mountain Lion, but doing that required me to figure out why the last time(s) I’d tried to back up my data via Time Machine didn’t work (jump drive memory was too small).

Fast forward to just recently, when my browsers Firefox and Chrome stopped working correctly – not playing videos, crashing, and the final straw..not printing a boarding pass correctly (argh!) – I knew then it was time to get my techie act together.

And when I did, the situation wasn’t pretty and at times made me feel like doing this:

computer,dumpster, mac problems

My first clue this whole escapade was going to be a headache was at the Apple store, Apple doesn’t allow you to download Snow Leopard online and they don’t physically carry it in their stores anymore.

They’ll ship to you for free, though

I sent out a pitiful plea on twitter about needing my own geek, and my friends Sinclaire and Leandro came to the rescue! But…according to Leandro, I needed to purchase more memory to run Snow Leopard and a larger hard drive with Firewire for Time Machine before I could do anything. A hit to my wallet or crashing browsers?

indecision, animated gif

Once I got the hard drive, Time Machine was pretty much a one click operation (love it!) but took a lonnnnng time to back up.

bored, animated gif

Inserting the RAM chips was not a one click operation and required the laptop to be cracked open. Some of those screws in the back are tiny (place them next to each hole to keep track of what goes where), there was a lot of dust (Swiffer sheet works well here), and replacing the chips required finesse (I’m glad Leandro knew what he was doing!)

happy dance, you're awesome, animated gif

After the new memory chips were in, I inserted the Snow Leopard DVD and started the Installation and….nothing happened. After texts back and forth, Leandro decided the Install hadn’t initiated the Restart and I had to turn off the laptop and restart manually to do it.

Come on…help a non-techie out here, Apple

The manual restart did the trick and Snow Leopard was installed! (twirl). But wait…the DVD only had the version up to 10.6.3 and Mountain Lion requires the OS to be at 10.6.8 before it can install. So, I clicked on Software update…it does it thing…and no prompting for what new updates I need to install.

Angry, animated gifs

After mistakenly thinking I’d need to download each update individually, Leandro has me restart my mac and then run software update again and this time it gives me the update version I need to download.

tiger woods, yes, animated gif

I download and install 10.6.8 Combo v1.1 and it’s all good! I wanted to update to Mountain Lion, but it looks like all the kinks haven’t been worked out when running Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS5

that close, animated gif

So, I’m all updated now, thanks to Leandro. Let me be your cautionary tale about keeping up on software updates (don’t do this at home, kids)…until the next adventure….

adios bitches, animated gif

Animated gif source: Twisted Sifter

Day 2: Los Angeles Fashion Council Collections

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Downtown LA, Fashion, Made In America, Rising designers

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Fashion, Made in America, Rising Designers

I attended Day 2 of Los Angeles Fashion Council’s Collections, the set up was the same for the first 2 shows and a larger runway for the last show. I met up again with Heather from The Style Confessions, and met Gina of Bespoke Baroque and Brittany of Lipstick and Leopard Print (a lovely person, whom I spent most of my time talking with).

The well-dressed fashion crowd before the Odylyne show

Fashion bloggers are going to the next level with video

Los Angeles Fashion Council founder Kelsi Smith

The photographer pit (who weren’t happy with the Odylyne models who kept coming too far forward)

Props used by Odylyne

Clever use of lighting to create the illusion of a skylight

SOLDAT

Finland-born Camilla Wright began her fashion career in New York City and in 2008, launched her brand. The brand uses eco-twill, 100% wool and silk fabrics, and is geared for the corporate woman in the creative industries.

Favorites:

I loved the use of zippers as a detail on the shoulders of the midriff-showing jacket and the cut and look of the shorts (similar to the beautiful black pants in the last thumbnail). This tangerine-colored suit was beautifully tailored (but unfortunately gaped open on the runway due to the hand placement). While ikat print is en vogue right now and interspersed in the collection, it didn’t really work for me.

The rest of the collection:

8000 Nerves

Created by 4 sisters, the brand unites texture, color, and vintage inspiration to create unique pieces. The collection is produced domestically.

Favorites:

I thought this pretty copper dress had a great interesting pleated detail on the bodice. The black dress is in tune with the babydoll look coming out of Paris via Chanel and Saint Laurent.

The rest of the collection:

Odylyne

Much credit goes to Stephanie Lampkin, the interest in her bohemian brand Odylyne seems to exponentially grow each season. The fall 2013 collection was inspired by “our relationship with the universe”, evidenced by the cosmic print.

Favorites

The black hi-lo lace dress will play well to the Coachella-going crowd. This cosmic dress has just the right cut to allow the wearer to either dress it up or down.

The rest of the collection:

About Los Angeles Fashion Council

Los Angeles Fashion Council was founded in 2011 by Kelsi Smith, to promote, educate and support Los Angeles fashion designers through shows, show rooms and other retail and promotional projects in Los Angeles, nationally and internationally.

Designers are selected by our team, and must be L.A based, in business for one year and have produced a minimum of two collections. There are no fees for designers and participation in any of our programming is either free or at cost price.

Day 1: Los Angeles Fashion Council Collections

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by A Sunny Day in LA in Downtown LA, Fashion, FIDM, Made In America, Rising designers

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Fashion, FIDM, Made in America, Rising Designers

I attended Day 1 of Los Angeles Fashion Council‘s collections, an airy renovated space in the heart of downtown LA’s fashion district. While I was waiting outside for the venue to open, I met up with Anne of Spy Girl and Heather of The Style Confessions. Once the venue opened, you can see why it’s the perfect spot for a runway, its long space allowed everyone to have a front row seat.

fashion, fashionistas, front row, ISM Mode, Sarine Marie, LAFC

Runway for the LA Fashion Council Collections

Photographer pit for the LA Fashion Council Collections

As usual, the fashion crowd was dressed to impress and using their smartphones to record the moment.

Fashion crowd for the LA Fashion Council Collections

We met the lovely Leah of Factory LA, which is a fashion incubator to promote manufacturing in Los Angeles, who helped support LA Fashion Council present the collections.

fashion, fashionistas, front row, ISM Mode, Sarine Marie, LAFC, Factory LA

Leah for Factory LA at the LA Fashion Council Collections

One of the sponsors of the event, Peroni, provided drinks for the event. While I didn’t imbibe, others went back for a second round!

fashion, fashionistas, front row, ISM Mode, Sarine Marie, LAFC, Peroni

Peroni (Sponsor) providing drinks for the LA Fashion Council Collections

Kelsi Smith presents Inka Sherman of ISM Mode a cupcake for her birthday

The Collections

ISM Mode

Inka Sherman founded her label in Berlin, Germany and recently launched it in Los Angeles area, she hails from a background interning for Anna Sui and working in costume for Oscar-nominated and winning productions. Sherman’s collection is a mixture of easy dressing and experimentation in dying techniques, leading to some very interesting looks.

Favorites:

I thought the half dying on the striped skirt made the whole outfit a standout. I love cowl necks and the diagonal striping made this easy look all the more interesting.

The rest of the collection:

Sarine Marie

Sarien Marie is a high-end upcoming and coming women’s designer, a graduate of FIDM, and is one of the rare natives to the Los Angeles area. Her collection created feminine silhouettes and tailored jackets with a mixture of silks, wools and tweeds.

Favorites

The black dress with the high ruffle at the shoulder was strong, feminine and chic, and the standout of the collection. While the lavender silk dress is simplistic in its shirtwaist design, it moved like a dream on the runway. While the other pieces were very pretty, coming from a corporate environment, many would difficult to wear more than once because the shimmer element makes it memorable (double-edged sword)

The rest of the collection: