Diamond by Adesgo

This is not exactly shoe material, but it's somehow related. I wanted to talk to you Adesgo, a Romanian creator of tights that was started in 1926 (!) which has adapted so well to the changes in history and fashion, that they are still creating and selling tights and everything related. You can read more about their amazing history here, in the About section.

Their brand under which they create and sell their work nowadays is called Diamond and is made of several collections, grouped according to styles and fabrics: Classic Design, Tattoo Design, Side Design, Aquarell, Soft Touch, Socks, Leggings, Winter Design, Diamond, Sandals and Medcare. I love their branding, their calatogue and the way they present their products. We're talking about professionals here!

I got my hands on their catalogue for F/W 2010-2011 and I can't wait to go to their showroom and buy some of their wonderful designs (they even have the dot tights that I have been looking for for ages and vertical-stripped thick tights that I will obssesively wear this winter). 

You can find their well-stocked showroom on 220 Serban Voda str., District 4 (vis-a-vis of the Tineretului Park, down the hill). Happy shopping!

 

All about AloChic Meet no. 2

I was telling you here about the AloChic Meet no. 2 that was going to happen last Thursday. Now it's time to tell you all about it!

The girls from AloModa have planned to take us with every AloChic Meet to another concept store which holds Romanian designer pieces so that the public gets familiar with all these concept stores (that are usually on hidden little streets, far away from the hassel of the main boulevards).

For the second edition of the event, they have chosen Ordinary People, a lovely concept store that displays the wonderful creations of Lena Criveanu, Adelina Ivan, Alina Latan, Kinga Varga,  Anca Lefter - bag designer, Kristina Dragomir - hats, Mircea Codrin -  painter and many more you can discover on your own. They have some wonderful shoes from Melissa, Sepala and Chriselen B, so there's plenty of reason to visit the concept store.

The highlight of the evening was the launch of the AlocChic Pumps by Pixie Shoes collection. The design belongs to the AloModa girls while for the flawless creation the responsibles are the Pixie Shoes girls - who also came up with the idea of this collaboration. The design of the shoes is a classic one, featuring a comfy platform and a 12cm heel (but very comfy). Made of suede, they come in two colours: Purple - AloModa's signature colour - and Nude - the new black! A special feature is the contrasting colour of the sewing and the fabric label: for example, the Nude shoes have purple sewing and a purple fabric label on one side. Here are some photos of these beautiful babies:

The collection is limited edition so there are only 20 pairs available (on Thursday, two were already booked)! They will be made by order only, (it takes up to 10 working days to have them made) so hurry up and order them online here: andreea@alomoda.ro / adriana@alomoda.ro. Also, the shoes will be stamped on the inside with the number of the order, so you can always remember the uniqueness of these shoes. If you want to see the shoes first, you can go to the Pixie Shoes showroom (33 Baratiei Str.) and check them out. More on them, in a future article!

The evening continued with a styling contest: 3 girls were chosen and their task was to assemble an outfit and explain everything about it. The jury made of Andra Clitan, Alina Ene and Sanziana from Pixie Shoes chose the winner: a funky girl who combined some nudish items with splash-like colourful prints from Lena Criveanu. The prize? A limited edition goodie bag offered by Cointreau featuring the signature style of Dita von Teese!

The winner

Other finds: the lovely floral displays made by Adina from En Rose especially for the AloChic meet, keeping true to the style of the eveing - tres chic - using feathers, pearls, lace and leather gloves.

Also, I think you would want to check out the Cointreau website as they have a special concept contest  prepared for all party girls out there. Why would you be interested? Because cute bartenders are involved!

All in all, it was an awesome evening: we laughed, talked all about fashion, journalism, music, books, Bucharest and everything in between, drinking tasty cocktails, admiring beautiful creative clothes, bags and shoes!

 Be sure you won't miss the following edition of the event which will be next spring. Until then, lets hope that quality events like this will happen even more often and that they will become tradition.

photo source: alomoda.ro, more photos from the event here.

Happy Halloween!

I was keeping these shoes I'm about to show you especially for Halloween. Since everyone is celebrating it today instead of tomorrow as it should be, I decided to post them today. Maybe they will give you some ideas for your costumes!

They're not some beauties, but they're not ugly either - let's just call them fun and creative. The designer is called Kobi Levi and he is a young footwear designer from Israel. You can read more about him here.

 Banana

 Chewing gum

 Dog

 Market trolley

 Miao!

 Sling Shot

Sport elegant

Corset Boot

So, what do you think?  My favourites? The cat ones, of course!

photo source: http://www.kobilevidesign.blogspot.com/

I found out about them through the very useful alternative news website called Azi Vreau.  Subscribe to their newsletter and you will be the first to know about the most funny, cool and interesting stuff out there!

Ergorapido by Mihai Albu, Kristina Dragomir and Lena Criveanu

The three Romanian designers Mihai Albu, Lena Criveanu and Kristina Dragomir have accepted to be involved in the project called Ergorapido by Electrolux 2010. During July and October, the three designers were given by Electrolux the new vacuum cleaner Ergorapido 2 in 1, which each of them has transformed according to their own style and vision.

The innovating, special design of this vacuum cleaner has offered these designers true inspiration and possibilities to play with their immagination.

Therefore, the one customised by the famous shoe designer Mihai Albu not only reflects the character of this useful item, but also the artist's perspective on it. The shoe designer translated an organic concept, using natural fabrics - snake skin. This is what made the item come to life, leaving the relatively rigurous shape behind and adopting a new fluid and harmonious shape.

The designer Lena Criveanu associated household activities, apparently boring, to fun, using as inspiration the design, the functionality and the vivid colours of the Ergorapido Vaccum Cleaner. The one customized by Lena Criveanu talks about an adolescent, a fan of rock music, who transforms every day activities in fun, fun, fun!

The Ergorapido customized by Kristina Dragomir highlights the seductive design and the verticality of the item. Through the designer's work, the classic household item was associated to a spectacular bird, which speaks magnetism through its looks: the peacock.

These three special edition items which have been transformed by the three amazing designers will be given to the persons who will donate important amounts, with a charitable purpose, of course. This will be done during the Halloween Ball organized by Leslie Hawke and OvidiuRom Association which will be held today, the 30th of October, at the Parliament House (you know, the big communist building everyone knows about Romania). There will be a special guest attending the Ball, the one and only Nicholas Cage! Details for participation here.

For the rest of us who will not be attending the fabulous event, here are the photos of the 3 special items. I personally love all of them! Which one is your favourite?

 Ergorapido designed by Kristina Dragomir

 Ergorapido designed by Lena Criveanu

Ergorapido designed by Mihai Albu

AloChic Meet no. 2

AloModa.ro is proudly announcing the second edition of the AloChic Meet. The event will happen on Thursday, the 28th of October starting 19.00 and will be held at Ordinary People Concept Store (nr.10 Pictor Alexandru Romano str., Bucharest). The surprise of the night will be the launch of the limited edition shoe collection named AloChic Pumps by Pixie Shoes. The collection combines the signature style of the AloModa girls and the handy work of Pixie Shoes.

Honestly, I can't wait to see the collection! I will gladly tell you everything from the event, so stay tuned!

Details for participation on AloModa.ro

'The big iSHOES' III

For the past year we've been having in Bucharest a flood of vintage/second hand/designer fashion fairs. I think that the average is two fashion fairs of this type per week. 

Some of them have turned out to be a disaster: with a PR done through a Facebook Event only, with few visitors meaning that the attendees did not even cover their participation fees from the sold items, with low quality products and so on. Others have a great history and are celebrating several editions. 

Some fashion fairs are dedicated to vintage, others to accessories and others to designers but most of them are a mix of cool clothes created by young Romanian designers, Top Shop/Asos/H&M clothes that you cannot find in Romania and vintage (mainly second hand) items. 

I tend to attend them all: mainly out of curiosity and because I can really find some great things among the immensity of anonimous clothes. I also participate because the people attending this type of events are mostly creative young people, bloggers, journalists, art students and so on. It's like everyone puts on his/her  coolest outfit and heads out to meet others likewise. I even wonder sometimes where are these people when they're not attending these fashion fairs, as you can rarely spot creativity on the street.

This weekend I had the pleasure to attend the wonderful The Big iShoes III fair. As far as I know, it's the only Romanian fashion fair dedicated mainly to shoes, which is a pity as we have a lot of creative young designers who would benefit from them, as well as the public. The fair was held on Saturday, 23rd of October and Sunday, 24th of October at Cafe Verona, in the basement of the wonderful Carturesti (Tea shop, Bookstore, cafe). 

The purpose of this fair was to create a display that better illustrates the contemporary design, mixing in an intelligent and assumed way the creations of young Romanian designers (and not only) from a couple of fields:
- shoes and bags: Iulia Stanescu, Oana Lazar, DADA, Adriana Nedelea, Condur by Alexandru, Mineli boutique si magazinele: fashionlab.ro, coolbazaar.ro si Detailz

- fine clothes: clothing by Fe(Male), Rue des Trucs, A minuit Marie, accesories by Modamania, natural cosmetics by Soap Mill
- the Tuxedo Confessions who sells Romanian designers clothing (Izabella Petrut, Raluca Buzura, Renata Rakossy, George Neagu, Lana, Alina Ene) and foregin brands (Mitemite, i-Bag, Poketo, Starstyling, Tahir Sultan

The concept fair "The Big iShoes" is a militant of the slowretail trend, which encourages people to replace the shopping against the clock done in the malls with the peaceful interraction between buyer and designer. Slowretail is a protest against uniformity and loosing the values we have.

My big disappoinment was that Mihaela Glavan, Coca Zaboloteanu and Pixie Shoes (and other smaller designers/online/custom made shops dedicated to shoes) did not participate. I love their designs and it would have been great to have all the important designers in one place, at least just to have a good image of the contemporary Romanian shoe design.

However, I was delighted to admire again the Lust of Creation shoes, that I have found at other fairs, the new commers Condur by Alexandru (I have a surprise soon) and all the others. There were a lot of colours, mix of fabrics (patent leather and suede was the most popular), shearling boots (!), some very sexy 70's chunky heeled shoes, electric colours, thigh highs, oxfords, fringes. All in all, anyone would have found there the perfect shoe, since the display was so generous.

I loved the bags too. There were some ecofriendly ones from Coolbazaar.ro, in the style that made famous Nahui Ollin, or the mindblowing newspaper clutches from Mitemite that you can buy at Tuxedo Confessions.
As for the clothing, I loved every piece designed by Lana, the designs at the Tuxedo Confessions stand and Fe[Male].

There were many attending the fair, but this was done in a different way: every person had the chance to get to know the designer, find out how the item he was interested in was designed and then created, share thoughts and make suggestions. This is very important to me (and others of course) since it gives personality to the item you buy and a meaning to the act of buying - you add a story to yourself.

As for what the designers were concerned, at the end of the day they felt happy and fulfilled: every stand offered enough space (compared to other fairs they attended in the past), they all were part of the same area of contemporary design (no vintage and no second hand) and, most of all, they felt happy about the quality public that visited their stands, which helped create the chic mood that defines slowretail.

All in all, I was happy that there are still quality events that promote genuine creativity, where values are still  kept and cherished, even though there are still progresses to be made. But this is a promissing beginning!

Here are some photos to help you better understand what has happened:

photo credits: Cristina Dirnea, more here.