Black Snakes, Blue Blues, and White Panties?

Black Snake Moan, a film that I saw a few years ago, is the creative crux of the collection that I'm designing right now. I already had a strong and strange affinity for the south -the sunshine, warmth, slow pace, nice people and simple lifestyle- but this movie, with physical and mental grime contrasted against the idyllic beauty of the deep south really hit my head hard. I want to visit the magical land where it takes place, but I still can't figure out if that's Tenessee or Mississippi. Any help? It's a bizzarrely entrancing setting.

This film still totally embodies the feeling and style elements that you'll see in the collection. I'm definitely incorporating the midriff t-shirt style. It actually made an unexpected comeback (referencing the 90's so soon?) in the Fall collections this year. The confederate conflict tee print is hilarious...maybe I can do something with that too, although I know that I need to play that card carefully. Cute underwear/hotpants will be there too. And of course, chains and bruises. And then there's this fabulous tattoo that I just noticed:

That's one of Christina Ricci's real tattoos. It's praying hands (to declare her Christianity, apparently) that was a coverup for a previous tattoo of a bat. Ironic. And what a great image for a potential screenprint.

Dues, Blues, and Bruises

Life is finally having a heavy momentum to it.

I've paid my dues as a grunt of the sick and savage NYC fashion system, I've educated myself under the gayest of fabulous professors at New York's state's institution of fashion. I've pimped out my most cherished personal hobbies and talents for the sake of scraping together rent and libations (these winters are long and grey, and alcoholism seems to be a socially acceptable alternative to insanity). And with the few bucks and braincells that I've managed to reserve in a lock box, I'm heading south.

Around May 1st, I'll be traveling by road with my sewing studio and a couple hundred Autonomous Clothing Company labels in the back of a purple scion-mobile to the great city of New Orleans. I will be living and working amongst other inspired (and hopefully a bit depraved) artists at the Greater New Orleans Artist Mansion. Four months of subsidized artistic indulgence, uninterrupted by the survival-work so necessary in NYC, in the articulated bowels of the deep south will result in my first full blown and shown, Spring collection.

As raw, visceral and real as I hope this experience to be, my Spring collection will be based on the mythical south...the decadent, feral and hedonistic version of Eden that exists in the minds eye of non-southerners (myself included) and that has been romanticized to the point of bastardization in films and literature: the southern belles, blues, booze, bibles and bruises of a sweating, sinning, and saving broken-promised land. Oh yes, the grass is much more verdant in the south, when you're living in the grey, grey north! And I'm salivating for the dripping, rare, smoking hot meat of this salvation!

But I digress. This blog is for updates on my progress...to keep you updated, and to keep me progressing. I'll be posting pictures of my creations, my travels and the fabulous people that I meet and eat (southerners are cannibals, right?). And I welcome your constructive criticism of my garments, sardonic bashings of my ignorance, recommendations for books or movies or restaurants or brothels or bogs that could fertilize the growth of my delicious collection.