I traveled to Europe for my first time this summer, specifically France and Amsterdam. Paris! The French Riviera! How should I pack?!!? Glamorous? Chic? Comfortable? I kept my wardrobe to a backpacking minimum: Birkenstocks, skirts and tee-shirts, but quickly discovered that most other tourists were not as practical-minded as I was.

I saw the above couple across the bustling Leidseplein in Amsterdam. This exceptional woman didn’t speak English so she couldn’t possibly have understood what I was going to do with her picture, but she couldn’t have been happier I asked to take it. These two were so special that as I took their photo two other people came up and asked to do the same. She wouldn’t let me leave until I took a picture with them. She sent me off with a kiss on each cheek.



I met this girl in Old Town in Nice. It was close to 40 degrees out and most people were slinking off the beach in their bathing suits. I loved that the heat didn’t deter her from dressing up. If I had been wearing her outfit on such a hot day all I would be able to think about would be sweat stains. I suppose the peek-a-boo back could be built-in air conditioning.



The lovely lady on the left works at Colette, a concept-store in Paris. The top floor of this two-story mecca does away with the usual retail clothing displays, and instead displays their impossibly beautiful and impossibly expensive goods on mannequins styled like art installations through the store. I assume that you have to ask for your size but with price tags in the hundreds and thousands of euros I wasn’t going to find out. I met the girl on the right in Amsterdam. Her cat eyes and funky outfit stood out among a sea of cotton tee-shirts, blue jeans and comfortable walking shoes.
..


Almost two years ago, our Coco traveled to France and prophesied about The Next Big Thing: the harem pant. Just as she guessed it, the trend has arrived in North America and is still going strong all over Paris. I loved that in the picture on the right, her boyfriend wasn’t uncomfortable being photographed holding his girlfriend’s purse.



I practically tackled the blonde girl as she strutted down the streets of Paris. She had just finished a photoshoot and was strolling with her photographer. He showed me some of the shots on his camera. There were lots of sexy motorcycle poses, and in that outfit sexy biker was clearly the obvious choice. I met the woman on the right in the Louvre. This LA chica was very cool about having her picture taken. With her amazing look I get the feeling she’s used to getting stopped on the street, or in museums.



I had a great time on my trip and even more fun talking to strangers. People watching is the best way to travel.

-Sarah P.

While recently in London, I stopped by the Victoria and Albert Museum for the recently concluded Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. The exhibition featured a handpicked assortment of hats grouped by materials and styles (think “turbans”, “plastic”, “geometric” and “nature-inspired”) which Jones felt best illustrated the limitless sources of millinery inspiration. 

Catering to the knowledgeable couture-wearer and the fashion-layman, the exhibition included hats worn by the fashion elite, such as several sported by Anna Piaggi, alongside famous cinematic caps, like Audrey Hepburn’s pink straw and silk bonnet from My Fair Lady. Some might say millinery is an oft-unappreciated art, but it was hard to believe that in a room full of people ooh-ing over beaded appliqué flowers and watching videos on top-hat construction. And as Jones – himself a legendary milliner for celebrities and designers alike – points out, when someone wears a fabulous hat, they command attention!

"A hat makes clothing identifiable, dramatic – and, most importantly, Fashion…It’s the cherry on the cake, the dot on the ‘i’, the exclamation mark, the fashion focus.” -Stephen Jones   

Today hats are often sold in department stores, making the nostalgic allure of a hat shop (and those scrumptious hat boxes!) even more endearing. Milliners were originally supposed to recommend face-flattering hat styles to wealthy clientele who could swan around the showroom selecting fabrics. And fun fact: apparently Lilly Daché, a milliner in New York in the 30s even had colour coded celebrity fitting rooms: gold for blonds and silver for brunettes.

All this hat knowledge intake made me feel a bit giddy, and upon my return home, my sister and I decided to embark on a little headgear hunt of our own. Bottom-line: family is an EXCELLENT source for hats – vintage and contemporary alike…seriously, one man’s (or father’s specifically) Indian Jones fedora is another girl’s indie cap and grandmothers knew sunhats were cool even before skin cancer. As the summer heats up, I can’t wait to search out new wide brims, remembering “however, the cardinal rule of hat-buying, as French fashion editor Genevieve Dariaux noted, is to 'take the one you fall in love with, which mysteriously ‘does something’ for you, which magically makes you feel more beautiful.'” Amen to [t]hats!



- Esmé Hogeveen

A few weeks ago I decided (after many weeks of internal debate) to cut my ratty, peroxide-damaged hair short. Like really short.

Here’s what it looked like to begin with.

I already look like a little kid and I enjoy dressing like one, so having long uncombed hair with crooked bangs wasn’t really helping me project the maturity or togetherness that I occasionally require for things like job interviews and buying wine without getting carded (every time!). Standing around one day at work, I thought back to all the summers I had spent with thick wavy locks gathering sweat on the back of my shoulders and finally turned to my friend Tiffany who was rearranging the hangers on a rack of dresses and said, “Hey! Do you wanna cut all my hair off?”

Tiffany usually cuts my hair at her Montreal apartment. She’s a professionally trained hairstylist but became disenchanted with the salon world and went independent a few years back. “Sure! I could use some more photos for my portfolio. What do you say to doing a few different cuts along the way if I do it for free?”

Woah. Getting to try out a bunch of different hairstyles with no commitment and the whole thing would be free of charge

“My friend Liz does makeup for movies, and I’m sure she’d want some new portfolio pictures too. We could get Marilis to take the photos!” Tiffany continued. I dove straight into the bottomless sea of google image search to hunt for short haircuts and style inspirations. A week later we were sitting in Tiffany’s living room surrounded by garbage bags of clothes, chugging coffees to shake off all of our hangovers. I set up my laptop in the corner and broadcasted Day One of the Haircut/Makeover Photoshoot.

It took us five hours to cut, do makeup, style, and photograph three different outfits. We collaborated on all the looks, drawing on our professional experience and then stuff like America’s Next Top Model and icons like Twiggy, Edie Sedgwick, Agyness Deyn, and even Lady Gaga. By Day Two, we were in the swing of things and did seven different looks in about four hours. Both days felt way more like play than any kind of work and the only money exchanged was when we paid the delivery guy for Chinese food. My favourite photos are from the later looks, after I warmed up to taking photos.

I’d love to do it all again knowing what I know now and working with this awesome team, but I’ll have to wait a few years until my hair grows out again… Let us know what you think!






..










Makeover Team:

Tiffany Elton is originally from Newfoundland. She cuts hair out of her apartment, designs vintage-inspired clothing for her line LadyLike, does fashion illustration, and plays music.

Liz Furlong works on movies and events doing makeup with a focus on environmentally-friendly products. She recently started a holistic wedding and event planning collective called Bouquet with five other women whose skills cover catering and hospitality, custom tailoring, graphic design, event planning, photography, and of course, makeup.

Marilis Cardinal has a streetstyle and party photo website called ..The Pregnant Goldfish. She works for Nightlife Magazine, does freelance styling for fashion shoots, takes photos of bands, and makes delicious fluorescent cupcakes.

Tessa Smith co-runs Fixture Records, a CD-R and cassette label, and plays in the band Brave Radar. She does freelance writing for Worn and keeps a blog on tumblr.

All clothes are our own, including Supayana shoelace necklace, Preloved cowl neck sweater dress, LadyLike plaid babydoll, complexgeometries black hooded tee-shirt. Everything else is vintage.
..

June 6th at the Bata Shoe Museum

EXHIBITION:
23 pairs of Keds shoes were placed in the hands of Toronto and Montreal's most innovative artists and, designers.

AUCTION:
receive a bidding panel on your way in and get a chance to win a pair of exclusive, one of a kind designs.

DANCE PARTY:
Clinton's popular resident booty shakers take a trip East to fill the Bata with the sounds of 60s pop and soul.


For just $28...
-a two-year subscription to WORN!!
-Access to Bata Museum galleries all evening!
-$4 drinks! Free food!
-Great music and tail-shaking all night long!


Support our vision of independent publishing! A portion of the proceeds from this event benefit Fashion Cares, in support of the AIDS Committee of Toronto.

Tickets on sale NOW!

www.wornjournal.com

Winkel > 1107 Queen St. E
Frou Frou Vintage > 1616 Queen St. W
Left Feet > 88 Nassau St.

Can't come but still want to support WORN? you can DONATE on our website.
http://www.wornjournal.com/html/soled-tickets/

ARTISTS PARTICIPATING: Allyson Mitchell, Pat Lundeen, Team Macho, Damzels in Distress, Danielle Meder, Funktion Gallery, Renata Morales, complexgeometries, Tyson Bodnarchuk, Grant Heaps, Sonja Ahlers, Sam Purdy, Deadly Nightshades, Mark Laliberte, Karyn Gingras, Hilly Yeung, Norwegian Wood, Damned Dollies, Tyler Rauman, Dane Gerus, Hollie Dzama, Elif Saydam, Marina Dempster

When I discovered Cliff Muskiet’s website my sister and I engaged in an hour-long contest over who could find the wackiest stewardess uniform. (Her money was on the oil rich countries. I went for those with names like “Lion Air.” She won.) Cliff has received international attention for his collection, even appearing on television in Germany, the UK, Russia, and here in Canada. And with good reason, his collection currently sits at 820 airline attendant uniforms – all in pristine condition.
Herewith, the “uniform freak” in his own words:

In the beginning…
Ever since my early childhood I have been fascinated by civil aviation. The first flight I made (and that I can remember) was from New York to Amsterdam in 1970. I was five years old. I slept during the whole flight and when we arrived in Amsterdam, I was so disappointed because I couldn’t remember anything about the flight. I began to draw airplanes and I started to cut airplane pictures out of travel magazines. Every month I would go to Amsterdam and visit the airline offices and I would come home with bags filled with postcards, posters, and folders about the airlines and airplanes. I also cleaned airplanes in the summertime at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport when I was 15, 16, 17, and 18 years old.

My unique collection began in 1980, when I was given a KLM uniform. It was an old uniform from 1971. My mother was a nurse and she had a colleague who also was a part-time stewardess. At that time I thought, “This is great, I want to have more uniforms!” In 1982 I got two other uniforms from two Dutch charter airlines that changed uniforms that year. From 1982 until 1993 I didn’t do much to obtain more uniforms, something I really regret now because I could have many more. Ten years later, in 1993, I was in Accra in Ghana working for KLM, when I obtained some old Ghana Airways uniforms without any problem. When I received these uniforms, I started to contact other airlines. Most of my 800 uniforms were obtained between 1993 and today.
..


Hey, um, got any old uniforms?
I don’t tell strangers how I get my uniforms. That is my little secret! However, a lot of people send me a message through my website to inform me that they have something for my collection. This afternoon I received a uniform from a very friendly lady in Australia. She donated her Qantas uniform to me. She really made my day.
The fact that the airline uniforms are very hard to get makes my hobby even more special and unique. When I get a new uniform I am happy like a small boy and I get very excited! You can’t buy the uniforms in a shop or order them online. There are not many people that collect stewardess uniforms and – as far as I know – I have the biggest collection in the whole world. I am really proud of that.

The art of storing over 800 uniforms in your apartment.
I live in Amsterdam, near the airport. I have all my uniforms at home and I want to keep [them there] as long as I can. It would feel really strange to have my uniforms stowed somewhere else. My uniforms are like my little babies and you don’t put your babies away, do you?
All my uniforms are stowed in closets, containers, garment bags, boxes, and suitcases. When you come to my home you will not see any uniforms. All uniforms are put away in two special rooms. When you have to stow so many uniforms and items you get very handy using all the space you have in your apartment. I am very fortunate to live in a big apartment with three bedrooms so I have lots of space. If I ever want to move I need at least three bedrooms!
I don’t really have a cataloging system in place. I have most airline uniforms from the USA and Canada in two closets and I have most airlines from the UK, Asia, and Middle East hanging together. That’s all. On the containers I put little notes with the names of the airline uniforms that are in there so that I don’t have to open everything to see what is in there. Usually I know where to find a particular uniform, but sometimes I need some time to look for a uniform because I don’t know where it is stowed.

So, why airline attendants?
Because I like civil aviation (and everything that has to do with civil aviation) I am also interested in the uniforms. When I think of an airplane, I think of a stewardess. And when I think of a stewardess, I think of a uniform! The funny thing is: if [they were] uniforms worn by hostesses on a ship or train I would not be interested in them at all. I would get rid of the uniforms right away!

Gauging trends.
Male uniforms all look the same: jacket, pants, plain shirt, and a tie. Most men’s uniforms are dark blue – quite boring! The ladies uniforms are so different, you can see the changes in fashion throughout the years. There are so many different uniform items like the jackets, skirts, blouses, dresses, pants, vests, cardigans, and hats. The great variety of accessories makes the [women’s] uniforms so different and special. The blouses usually have colourful prints, stripes, dots, or airline logos. Scarves can have beautiful and colourful designs. Some uniforms have a hat and I love uniform hats! The hat is like the icing on the cake, it makes a uniform complete and stand out in the crowd.

Going the distance.
I am a purser with KLM. One day I had to fly to Singapore for work and I had some days there to rest. On one of my days off in Singapore I took a plane to Hong Kong (that’s a three and a half hour flight) went to the Cathay Pacific office at the airport to pick up an old uniform and flew back to Singapore that same afternoon.
Some people say I am crazy for flying all the way from Singapore to Hong Kong, but I enjoyed every bit of it and would do it again if I had to.

What do you have your eye on next?
I love the uniforms from the 70s. Most uniforms then had a hat, a short skirt, and shirts with big, pointy collars. In those years a lot of colours were used in psychedelic combinations and patterns. Some airlines [I’m looking for] are: Alitalia, Air France, and Japan Airlines.
My big dream now is to make a nice book about my collection, a nice book with beautiful pictures of the uniforms worn by professional models. A graphic designer has already made a show model for the book, but the only thing we need to find is a publisher.

-Sara Forsyth

The Worn office was all a flutter this afternoon; our web trawlers caught none other than Susie Bubble, fashion blogger extraordinaire, writing a whole post on lil' old us.

Susie runs the UK based Style Bubble - one of the most intelligent and widely read fashion blogs around (Susie is one of very few bloggers to land a front row seat at London Fashion Week - and she's been featured in British Vogue.)

After she "gobbled up" issue five, Susie had this to say about Worn:

So what we have is an actual journal of articles that whilst aren't 40 pages long are nice and chunky.  No 800-1000 word limits here.  In issue 5 which Angie sent me, I was enamoured with the personal tales, well researched articles and opinion pieces on a variety of subjects that with some historic or technical string are related to fashion, but are definitely unexpected and in some cases unexplored.

Thank you Susie Bubble! You can write that reply-back article to our own Emily Raine's op-ed piece on being a vintage-wearing feminist for us anytime.

Worn Photo Shoot from Lara Kaluza on Vimeo.

So we are all busy bees here at the Worn Journal office. We're getting ready for issue 8: the Shoe Issue and overdosing on platforms, pumps, and plimsolls. Marty and Lara, two our our favouite creatives from Montreal spent last weekend shooting ladies legs and vegan shoes from Duckie. They sent me a little movie they made setting it up. Yay!

or at least to our publication...

Worn call for submissions for ISSUE 9 (due for release in the fall of 2009)

Worn wants your ideas about fashion and style. We are especially interested in pieces with diverse political or cultural angles, and clothing articles from a non-traditional fashion perspective, as well as structured and well-researched explorations of fashion history, groundbreaking designers, aesthetic pioneers and all-around visionaries.

Think you've got something to say about fashion? Send us your ideas:
• Outline your idea clearly. Bullet points are fine, but don't skimp on the detail.
• Include any research materials you plan to use (texts, interviews, personal experiences, etc.)
• Give us a rough estimate of the length of your proposed article.
• Include at least one writing sample (two samples are even better). Unpublished work is fine.

Are you a photographer? Send us your pitch for a photo shoot.
An illustrator? We need some drawings too.

If you are pitching a photo shoot, please let us know as much detail about your concept as is humanly possible, including location, model ideas and clothing style.

Worn will be accepting proposals for new articles throughout the month of January, 2009.
More information available under How To Submit.

Come join us for Worn's Issue 7 launch party!

Worn Fashion Journal presents in partnership with Montreal's Slowdance night the Winter Formal Slowdance!

When: November 29th 2008
9pm-2am
Where: 805 Dovencourt Road Toronto

$10 cover gets you a copy of Issue 7 Worn Journal and a dance card!

The Worn Issue 7 release party will move you- but not too fast. All you have to do is dress up and dance slow.

Fancy dress desired but not required.

www.wornjournal.com

WORN FASHION JOURNAL is looking for Toronto reinforcements!


We need to fill the following positions:

* Circulation Manager
* Art Director
* Interns
* Advertising Salesperson
* Crime-fighting Ninja
* Public Relations/Promotions

(All positions part-time - hours negotiable)

Worn is a small, independent fashion publication dedicated to offering a unique and inclusive perspective on fashion and style. Worn is a print publication, priding itself on both
content and creativity. Our readership is expanding dramatically throughout Canada and the US,
as well as internationally.

We are increasingly recognized by fashion lovers, vintage hounds, academics and artists as a truly unique and smart journal for people who want more fashion and less fluff.



But walking on the side of the angels has its drawbacks - no matter how pretty your shoes are. For now, no one gets paid cash money.(Hell, the editor doesn't get paid.) For now, the money we earn goes back into Worn.

HOWEVER

You WILL get experience working for a rapidly growing publication.
You WILL get credit for your work.
You WILL get a chance to work on a project that is absolutely dedicated to quality and integrity.

contact
WORN FASHION JOURNAL
dearworn@wornjournal.com

(Worn is not responsible for the maintenance of ninja equipment.)