The Rake Magazine

Author: Christy DeSmith

  • The Faces of Minnesota Fashion

    Joy Teiken, the brains behind the local label Joynoelle, opened her new studio and storefront yesterday eve. You’ll find it at 312 W. 42nd St. in South Minneapolis. Here she is, looking as carefree and chic as ever while taking a short break from basking in the glory of it all:
    Joy.jpg

     

    And here’s Teiken’s friend, Penny Larsen. You might remember her from our September fashion feature with The New Standards; she’s married to bassist John Munson. But she’s also a jewelry maker – and a damn talented one, I might add. I spent much of last evening admiring a crystal necklace and stunning hairpin, both of her design. She and Teiken are planning to host a "Design Your Own Gift" party for sometime in November, whereat partygoers will be able to make their own handbags, jewelry, and other gifty itmes. Check back for the 4-1-1 on that happening.
    Larsen.jpg

     

    I also encountered Kimberly Jurek, of Kjurek Couture (her clothes are available locally at Cliche), who looked around the Joynoelle work/retail space and remarked, "This is my dream."
    Kjurek.jpg

     

    Anna Lee of MNfashion and Ruby3 wore a sporty cap (it was not, however, of her own design) and knowing smirk. Already, she’s busy readying for the spring ’08 Voltage Fashion Show – applications are due TODAY, if you’ll believe it! As of late last night, she had already received applications from sixteen designers. Note that the show only has room for twelve.
    AnnaLee.jpg

     

    Russell Bourrienne was there, too, also with a smile on his face. He’s been swamped ever since MNfashion Weekend, he said. His open studio event, which was part of MNfashion Weekend’s offerings, yielded several commissions. Another boon to the business: Just last week, it was announced that he was runner-up for the Macy’s Distinction in Design Award. Bravo, Bourrienne!
    Russ.jpg

     

    Meet Nic Marshall, fashion photog extrordinaire. He was, roughly, my "date" last night – the boyfriend I left back home to cook me some din-din. Marshall is a favorite photographer of The Rake, as well as plenty of other local publications. Just announced: He’s also going to be the sole photographer for Voltage 2008.
    Nic.jpg

     

    Here we have Katherine Gerdes and her "little brother," Nate. These two were en route to a dinner engagement and stopped in for a quick hello. I took the opportunity to badger Gerdes yet again about availability of the beautiful jersey/satin dresses she showed at Eclecticoiffeur‘s MNfashion Weekend runway event. (Read more about them here.) She says I can order one direct, if I so desire.
    KatyGerdes.jpg

  • My favorite place to fantasize


    I wrote a piece on Scandinavian furniture/design a while back and, unfortunately, it came off as slighting one of the finest sellers of Scandinavian wares in all the TC land: none other than Danish Teak Classics. This is the place where your visions of a stylish, modern living area can come into focus. Sure, the prices aren’t in line with what you’ll find at cheap-and-cheerful (and chintzy) Ikea. For starters, their stock of furniture has already seen a good fifty years. And from the looks of things, the average DTC piece will enjoy a healthy hundred more. The Rake’s promotions depot is hosting one of its fabulous Gallery Grooves events at Danish Teak Classics on Thursday eve. Check it: Marinade your decorating ideas in a showroom full of vintage-modern chairs, desks, tables, and lighting fixtures. And the event comes replete with fine wine, food, visual art, and jazz to boot. But no vin rouge on the lounge chairs, please. I heart the pink one at left.

  • Cosmetic Dentistry: An Aside

    For more than fifteen years, the gap between my two front teeth has been a source of self-loathing. This is usually how that went: I pore over women’s magazines, never pausing at the pencil-thin thighs but rather marveling at the models’ perfect smiles. Next, I stare at my reflection, puzzling over whether my gap makes me look European (Vanessa Paradis), lusty (Lauren Hutton, Madonna), punk-rock (Mick Jones of The Clash), or just plain hideous. When I see photos of myself, I fix upon the gap-toothed grin rather than, say, the double chins. Call me superficial if you must, but believe you me: Diastema can cramp a girl’s style.

    In 1997, an unfortunate accident involving sangria, polka, and a good-looking Brit left me with a deadened front tooth. One root canal, a crown (which left the gap intact), and ten years later, the Chiclet started to show signs of wear. So, I figured, how harmless would it be to finally close the gap, since I would be replacing my crown anyway? My only complaint is that food sticks to my smile nowadays, whereas I certainly didn’t have that problem before. In any case, je vous presente me and my new, improved front teeth:

    smile.jpg

  • Scene Ripper

    “What do you know about the washability of Sharpie?” asked a curious onlooker as she watched Eric Inkala, a Minneapolis-based painter and graffiti artist, decorate an American Apparel T-shirt with the long strokes of his black Sharpie pen. “It usually fades to dull blue,” Inkala offered. 

    “I’m suggesting spot-cleaning,” said Emma Berg, a thirty-something fashion iconoclast dressed in opaque, teal tights and a long white tee that just barely passed as a dress. As it turned out, Berg, who had organized this first-ever Love’s Labourers: Art as Fashion/Fashion as Art event, had instructed Inkala not to fret over care instructions for his wearable artwork. Instead, his charge was to be as imaginative as possible—which seemed only fitting, considering that the event was part of MNfashion Weekend, a four-day festival designed to ignite enthusiasm for Minnesota’s small but extremely creative rag trade. At the same time, the weekend’s festivities launched a new nonprofit that, with any luck, will help local clothes-makers achieve some semblance of solvency.

    Joining Inkala at a long folding table (well-appointed with Sharpies, textile paints, and sewing machines) was another Twin Cities artist, Jennifer Davis, who also put a black Sharpie to use drawing a happy monkey onto a T-shirt. Yet another artist, Adam Garcia, used a Sharpie to bedeck a tee with the wide-eyed face of a doe. Together with three clothing designers—Annie Larson, Ra’mon-Lawrence Coleman, and Crystal Quinn—and in a matter of just four hours, the artists improvised twenty-four one-of-a-kind tops. In the case of an extra-long baby-blue T-shirt, the designers added an asymmetrical peplum while the artists lent it a little ghoul who cried (via speech balloon): “Here we go again.”

    Berg’s most populist gesture was instructing the artists to be friendly with the guests, many of whom were lined up to ogle the works-in-progress. (Some betrayed their cluelessness by asking practical questions.) Aside from that, unfortunately, her announcement to the general public failed to specify that admittance to the venue, a tiny marketing firm in the Minneapolis warehouse district, could only be achieved via a rear-entry loading dock. In my case, I rattled at the front door for five minutes before I decided to follow a pair of women who marched past in their platforms. And as if that weren’t enough to make an interloper feel conspicuously uncool, I arrived at the party only to learn that the coveted T-shirts had already been pre-sold, for just fifty dollars, to various V.I.P.s of the local fashion scene. A cursory glance at the list of buyers (it was left out in the open, after all) included such names as Anna Lee, founder of the fledgling MNfashion nonprofit, and Ben Olson, a Minneapolis painter and, perchance, the boyfriend of Berg.

    With fifty unspent dollars (plus two credit cards) in my handbag, I headed out the very next afternoon (Saturday) to hunt and gather other locally made clothes. How fortunate to have procured an invitation to MNfashion Weekend’s sole invite-only affair, the official Eclecticoiffeur Launch Exhibition and runway show. Who else had been so lucky? A handful of the creatively clad folks from the evening before, it seemed. Berg and Lee were there, of course, but so, too, was Matt Schmidt, a handsome fixture of the Minneapolis bar scene who founded the website mplshappyhour.com. There was also a tall, rail-thin blonde who, I noticed, made off with the most fabulous Love’s Labourers T-shirt. A trio of women in short dresses took their seats along the runway. They were killing time before the 5 p.m. runway show by flipping through an issue of L’étoile, a locally produced art and fashion magazine, when one of the women saw a familiar face amongst the spreads. “OMIGOD, that’s Heather!” she exclaimed.

    As it happens, the ladies of Eclecticoiffeur—an ultra-hip trio of hair, makeup, and fashion stylists—are also friendly with many players from the local fashion scene. Accordingly, they were successful in persuading some of the area’s hottest designers, such as George Moskal and Kimberly Jurek, to present their freshest fall ’07 looks. When the lights dimmed and out came the clodhoppers, a pair of jersey dresses by Katherine Gerdes stole the show. These beauties had bands of satin stitched across their necklines and shoulder straps, creating a more formal effect than usually encountered in offerings from the snowboarder and reality-TV star-cum-couturier. Yet they maintained Gerdes’s trademark casualness thanks to pouch pockets and soft jersey fabrics.

    An admirer’s impulse was to deficit-spend—anything to acquire these gems—but, sadly, there would be no cooperation from the operation’s supply-side. Gerdes couldn’t say how or when the dresses would become available at her online store or, for that matter, at the Design Collective, a local boutique dealing exclusively in local fashions. “I don’t know,” said Gerdes, smoothing the palm of her hand across a pale forehead. “I just finished these at three a.m.”

  • Generating Thermal Energy

    Here’s a fashion idiom indigenous to Minnesota: The piles of hoodies, scarves, polar fleece pullovers, and down-filled jackets that are just now getting unearthed from the closet. It bears mentioning, however, that there are two distinct paths to dressing for the frigid weather. The less inspired might insulate with a giant, balloon-like university sweatshirt and deflect the wind with tear-away nylon track pants. But we’ve spotted (and greatly prefer) a more polished approach as the temperatures drop, one that involves an “aerodynamic” micropolar fleece strategically layered over a thermal jersey, worn with dungarees or cargo pants and vintage sneaks. The best finishing touches are an extra-long, knotted scarf and wool earflap hat. This sporty mixture of fleece, track jackets, down vests, and colorful accessories lends its wearers a certain, covertly sexy je ne sais quoi. We call the look “Patagonia chic,” in honor of Ventura, California’s tasteful outfitter of climbers, skiers, and trekkers. The effect is just as well achieved with “technical gear” by other brands like Marmot and North Face, of course—the latter of which opens a boutique in Uptown this month.

  • A Stitch in Time

    If you enjoy local fashion as much as I do, then surely you’ll be interested to know that Joy Teiken (a.k.a. Joynoelle, see her dress at left) is opening a Minneapolis-based boutique and atelier this week. How very throwback of her, no? Right now, I’m fantasizing about how my fave fashion writer of all time, Lois Long (or L.L. or even Lipstick, as her byline often appeared in vintage copies of the New Yorker), might respond to such an affair. Oh, she’d probably write effusively about the interfacing or about Ms. Teiken’s ability to “fortify our optimism,” via, say, an evening gown, for something or other. In any case, the grand opening reception is this Thursday, from five to eight p.m. The digs? You’ll find ’em at 42nd and Grand Ave. S. I’ll definitely be there with my Elph (er, that’s my digital camera – not a boyfriend) to capture the scenes as they unfold. If you can’t make it, know that the store will keep hours on Thursdays from two to eight p.m. and Saturdays from ten a.m. to four p.m.

    And speaking of old-school approaches to fashion, here’s an event that ought to make the cut for any thrift enthusiast: the Minnesota Historical Society is hosting another RetroRama event (November 8, mark your calendars now). This time, the theme is all about ’50s fiction. My very talented friend Adam Demers is largely responsible for the event’s graphic identity, which you’ll find here. He worked with photographer Thomas Allen, formerly of Minnesota, to pull it off.

  • Men With Baggage

    FAIH_1007_Detail.jpg

    Hey guys, thought I’d point to this article, by an intrepid young writer at the Minnesota Daily, that riffs off my Men With Baggage spread from this month’s magazine. But he takes the topic a step further by actually dispensing with suggestions on how to find the right murse. Have a look-see.

  • In which I spaz about Yaz.

    Random thought related to the plight of womanhood: While watching mindless reality television last eve, I came across an ad for Yaz, a new birth control pill that also takes care the period’s pesky side symptoms, such as bloating, moodiness, acne, and fatigue. And, by the way, it’s one of those pills that can eliminate your period. All this, and it prevents pregnancy, too (I assume – the ad didn’t specify). At this point, I turn to my boyfriend, who’d be all-too-happy to have his woman on hormones (and who, in fact, wishes like hell I’d be compliant and just swallow the damn things) and say, “That seems like an irresponsible way to market the pill.”

    “Why?” he demanded. We’ve often sparred over the safety of oral contraceptives. Me, I’ve read plenty of earth-mother literature about the pill’s potential harms. And besides, I’ve tried three different types of pills in my lifetime, and I just haven’t liked how fragile I’ve felt. I much prefer my body and mind in their natural, un-medicated states even though, yes, I am prone to fits of bitchiness and bloating. (Diagnosis: Woman!) In any case, I ended up telling boyfriend that when he finally puts himself on a daily regimen of hormones (I’ll be fantasizing about his lost libido in the meanwhile), then I, too, will be happy to do so. The end.

    ADDENDUM: I hope and dream of the male birth control pill, which is currently in testing, curing such pesky side symptoms as anger, unrealistically high self-esteem, and horniness.

  • The answer is androgyny.

    Look 6_lr.jpgANDROGYNY

    In something resembling fashion news, Target will soon carry a David Bowie-inspired line of menswear by British musician-turned-designer Keanan Duffy. (See image at left.) Of course, I could be accused of writing TOO MUCH about Target and its various stabs at summiting the design-for-all market. But hey, it’s a local company; I figure you’re reasonably interested. In any case, the retailer has been lagging when it comes to menswear, so I’m happy to see them making this effort. And I consider it only bonus that the line happens to be androgynous; I’ll shop for my boyfriend (only discount for him) and then just steal the clothes from his closet.

    ON THE OTHER HAND

    If that all sounds too low brow for your tastes, then you might consider attending Neiman Marcus‘s Fall 2007 Hip Event this weekend (Friday and Saturday, normal business hours at the downtown Minneapolis store – By the way, I absolutely hate that Neiman is closed on Sundays). The event promises a peek at Phillip Lim‘s latest line for women, as well as the latest Diesel for men. But I was a little put off by Lim’s statement (from the press release) about his clothes being “an ode to the women of today … she is a citizen of the world, multi-tasking, balancing work and play and most importantly living her life to the fullest.” When, oh when will be stop piling more and more demands upon the beleaguered woman of today? Most likely, she is the household head of childcare and cleaning, in addition to her full-time job. She’s not as happy as she was thirty years ago. If she’s heterosexual (and partnered), then she probably can’t get a good night’s rest. In other words, she’s probably too fucking tired to live life to the fullest. So, lay off, will ya Lim?

    Also, I noticed something peculiar about the press release for this Neiman event (and I apologize, as it is not available online). It includes a list of fall 2007 “women’s contemporary launches,” and they include, almost exclusively, celebrities who now try to pass off as designers: TWENTY8TWELVE by Sienna Miller and her sister, Royal Underground by Nikki Sixx, Justin Timberlake’s William Rast collection, and “Elizabeth and James from design consultants Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen” – whatever that means. No wonder the best designers of our time are all clamoring to work for Target and Kohl’s. Dumb-shit superstars are now cornering the market on upscale retail, and pretty soon the real designers will be edged out.

  • Sunglasses so geek-chic

    In July 2006 The Rake published an excellent essay by my good friend Peter Schilling in which he enthused about his SolarShield Fits-Overs – these, in essence, are some cheap and ugly-ass sunglasses that fit right over existing eyewear. Well, Mr. Schilling wrote today to inform he’s not the only male, Minneapolis-based media figure rocking his $14.99 Fits-Overs. Writes Schilling: “Head on over to today’s blogumentary to see Chuck Olsen’s take on last Friday’s critical mass. Watch the video. You will notice, about a minute in, that fearless filmmaker Olsen, braving the streets and risking jail, is doing so wearing SolarShield Fits-Overs!”