The book Total Living by Maria Luisa Frisa completely excited me when I discovered its content. This is exactly the type of book I want to be making when I’m sufficiently older and experienced.

I’ve searched this book on Amazon and found it covers many aspects of art that I cover for my blog. This is a fairly recent book published in 2002 displaying and discussing lifestyles, fashion, industry and culture,

“A fabulously rich and interconnected iconographic passage visually narrates the various forms and ramifications of total living today and in the recent past through a succession of utopias, life-projects, urban visions, architecture, special homes, stores, art galleries, museums, and editorial pages and ads from fashion and lifestyle magazines.”

Since it’s 488 pages, I believe I would find endless material to write on or to choose a specific subject to focus on. What was interesting is that this was the single book that popped up when I searched “consumerism”. This is a perfect match for what I want to do. The book is a more detailed examination into the art and culture and influence of all things art and design. Unlike blogs, Total Living is more permanent and academic based that could aid me in researching a higher understanding of culture and art.

This is a big change from my post talking about the toy and USB-stylist, Friends with You, switching now from playful collectable USB’s to USB’s with a fashion statement. Sometimes we have secretive and important files we’d like to keep locked and this USB makes it possible to lock away files from people we’d like to keep away from. The addition of the clock makes it a more useful accessory to put on a keychain like most people do with their USB drives.

I’ve always loved when major designers or fashion brands open their minds to create more accessories for their line — partly because I can’t afford the other big items they have on sale.

Fred de Garilhe, a French professional luxury accessory designer, produced concepts for big brands such as Chanel, Kappa, Chloe and Le Coq Sportif. Aside from accessories, he also makes fashion and apparel, industrial design and exhibition design. His most recent and prominent concept was the Chanel Choco Phone that has been hitting all the high fashion to street fashion blogs. His designs are original and push the envelope for new ways for looking at technology. The curves in the USB make it distinctively unique from other straight sided USB drives. Even if we look at the Chanel phone, his ideas are unconventional and create something that geeks and girls can drool over.

These USB drives are nowhere near subtle, but it personifies Louis Vuitton’s brand. The majority of their clients are fairly gaudy and really like to make it known that they own Louis Vuitton. It’s a great way for them to tap into the technology world, satisfying geeks, fashionista’s and collectors from all over the globe.

Source: Coroflot.com

X’s over O’x

B

The illustrations remind me of Shakespeares’ A Midnight Summers Dream, with it’s fantastical characters falling in love with everything and anything. A few days ago, Prada premiered the “Trembled Blossoms” video in which James Jean designed the frames, characters and storyboard. In terms of collaborating mediums, we can see that this whole project involves illustration art, film and fashion. The influence of James Jean definitely takes a big shift in high-end fashion by exploring the aesthetics of different mediums to raise the bar in the fashion world.I am completely enamored with the juxtaposition of the photographed advertisements and the images that James Jean produced. Even though a starving college student can’t even afford a shoe from Prada, let alone an artwork of James Jean, the ingenious collaboration definitely raised the status for both artists in their field.

Source: Notcot, James Jean

X’s over O’x

B

Converse for Target

Iconic eyelet grommets and half-moon details adorn pieces in the collection, calling attention to the brand’s signature style and vintage vibe. Varsity jackets, knit jersey tanks and fitted Henleys cater to the easygoing tomboy while A-line tunics and lace-trim camisoles in flirty fabrics and subdued shades appeal to the style-conscious woman. For summer, mixing the shine of silk with matte jersey fabrics on everyday pieces creates exciting ways to dress up a weary wardrobe.

Her descriptions are well planned, using a wealth of vocabulary to explain details of the subject matter. She also puts the subjects in context of season, then proceeds to discuss fabric, design, etc. Even though my blog won’t be exclusively mentioning fashion, Lam supplies me with great up-to-date and detailed postings of her subjects that I would like to model my blog after. She also gives helpful links from her posts for me to be able to research more about the subject if I like. Also, she links to other related articles in her blog that might interest the viewer. In her most recent Stella McCartney for Adidas post, she adds multiple links at the bottom of the post that take the reader to her previous posts that mention Stella McCartney’s collaborations with clothing items for Adidas.

I believe she writes academically and professionally, considering the vocabulary she uses. Even though Lam may use blog slang like “more pics after the jump,” she still maintains a professional writing structure as if she were writing for a published magazine. She set sets a great example for bloggers to write professionally and accurately about their subject. Her great background knowledge and context of subjects makes her a credible person to reference.

Another example of her detailed post is:

Michael Jordan Air Jordan XX3

In this reading she discusses the new Air Jordan XX3’s. This item has been an ongoing collaboration with Nike and Michael Jordan and has elevated it’s status from a regular shoe, to a collectible over the past decade. Lam discusses the special features of the shoe, it’s context, a detailed description and how Nike took part of this collaboration. This is very helpful because it provides me with a structure I would like to follow for my blog. Some people may not take certain fashion collaboration or other artists collaborations serious, but her writing style and etiquette proves that it should be taken seriously. This extensive posts also displays her great blog etiquette in research to gain more credibility.

One thing I am not particularly fond of is her layout of advertisements. This makes me wonder if she writes solely about her interests or through advertisements. The layout gets confusing because there are too many links that lead to too many different pages. I think it’s a great way to organize her material, but I feel it could also be condensed to become easier to browse. At first glance, it looks like an overdone Myspace page with too many vibrant colors and distractions.

Lam also structures her most important posts much like a journalist. I believe she receives press releases from public relation companies and works her posts through the information given to her. Her audience are much the same as people who read the magazines of Vogue and other fashion magazines. Visually, the site appeals mostly toward woman, and to my knowledge would most likely interest a crowd that lives in New York City. However, I find this helpful because I find New York as the capital of commerce that is more frequently updated with art and fashion than Los Angeles. Being a native of New York, she enriches her posts with a lot of urban culture influence like sneakers and street wear brands. Lam doesn’t limit herself to only high fashion posts, but shows her well-rounded character by covering haute couture and street wear products that wouldn’t otherwise be juxtaposed in other exclusively high-fashion blogs or street wear blogs.

Her style of writing and subjects is the direction I would like to model my blog. Her writing is sophisticate yet personal to the audience. In her posts, she writes objectively about the subject, then highlights her thoughts and comments about the subject she is discussing. The difference between her blog and mine is that I would like to cover more underground artists emerging with bigger brands. Lam covers mostly women’s street wear and high fashion, but I will be covering electronics, architecture and design news. My focus would be more in the art world and seeing the development in that realm.