Fashion by The Breakfast Club

They may have been from all different walks of life but they definitely had a few things in common, and one of them was style. John Hughes: A Life in Film details costume designer Marilyn Vance’s plans for styling each character from The Breakfast Club.

Costume designer Marilyn Vance (below) created a costume design board for each character in the film, either cutting out a face or figure from a magazine or sketching one herself to give that character a “look”. The original design boards became those characters.

Allison Reynolds (played by Ally Sheedy): Black was not happening at the time according to Vance, but that was Sheedy’s character. So her purse, fabric, and cashmere sweater, supposedly her father’s were black. She was a dark character.

Brian Johnson (played by Anthony Michael Hall): For Hall’s character, Vance chose green and khaki pants and regular turquoise blue and white sneakers with two different color socks. “Nike made me those three-toned sneakers for Michael,” she adds.

Claire Standish (played by Molly Ringwald): Vance explains she didn’t want to make Claire “hard” so she went with a pinkish look accented by a brown leather jacket.

Andrew Clark (played by Emilio Estevez): Vance went with royal blue for the team jacket, figuring blue to be the school color. She adds, “Then we cut those T-shirts to make him bigger and more muscular.”

John Bender (played by Judd Nelson): Bender, of course, is a renegade, anti-fashion guy (as was Jon Cryer’s Duckie in Pretty in Pink). Vance reveals, “I still get emails today about Bender – Where did that overcoat come from? A thrift store! WE cut the shirtsleeves off, beaded it up, and made sure the plaid material matched.

John Hughes wrote 46 movies, produced 23, and directed 8. He never went to film school, never spent time studying film and its history, but was unusually adept in three key areas — writing, directing and producing.

John Hughes: A Life in Film, by Kirk Honeycutt, former chief film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, is the first complete illustrated tribute to the legendary writer and director, and includes fresh interviews with Judd Nelson, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Columbus, Steve Martin, and more.

Merci, Madam, for the Lesson in French

Dear Madam Joie,

Merci beaucoup for being such a boring teacher.

Truly, Madam Joie, my dearest and most sincere thanks to you for being the dullest teacher I had in high school.

I enrolled for your class as a freshman with dreams of walking the streets of Paris, speaking sophisticated, flawless French with my gorgeous French lovers, riding bicyclettes and eating French fromage et baguettes. You crushed those dreams with your endless droning and odd, strangely-conjugated tangents that bored even the most passionate French scholar to tears. Gone was every drop of romance from this romance language. Gone was the grace, the majesty of the l’accent aigu and l’accent grave.

I don’t know if you were having personal problems the year I sat in your French class. Maybe your dog died. Maybe you were battling an addiction. Frankly, it would explain a lot. If so, I am sorry for your trouble during that time.

The good news is that I met someone in your class and your inept teaching helped deepen our budding relationship. My desk neighbor, my partner in boredom, Ben (remember him?), sat right beside me and kept me company. Instead of mastering the French language, we mastered the meaningful sidelong glance and became incredibly proficient at passing secret notes. Ben made me laugh and somehow we got each other through the fifty minutes of torture that you attempted to inflict on us.

So thank you, Madam Joie, teacher of French 101. I write to you on my wedding day. Because of you and all your shortcomings, I met the love of my life.

Merci.

Sincerely,

-T.

Thank You cards for every occasion… “So Many Ways To Say Thank You” Cards:

This set of 15 beautifully hand lettered thank you cards provide a unique way the send a thank you note to someone special. Featuring three cards each of Merci (French), Thank You (English), Danke (German), Grazie (Italian), and Gracias (Spanish).

A Steampunk Halloween — DIY Steampunk Your Top Hat

How steampunk will you be this Halloween? Go over-the-top with this DIY Steampunk Top Hat Tutorial from Anatomy of Steampunk. It doesn’t take much to transform a plain old top hat into a steampunk style top hat, except a few clock gears and some steampunk goggles.

The first step is to procure an ordinary top hat. Luckily, in the time close to Halloween, there is a plethora of top hats available for purchase. The second step is to gather steampunk materials for your top hat accessorizing.

Steampunk Top Hat Accessories List:
– Top hat
– Small clock face
– Clock hands
– Craft glue
– Pocket watch face
– Various clock gears
– Steampunk goggles

 

 

DIY Instructions:

Step 1: Glue the clock face and clock hands on the side of the top hat under the band.

Step 2: Glue the pocket watch face on the front along with small clock gears.

Step 3: Place goggles on the top hat.

Arrange the pocket watch face and small clock gears in whatever way you feel looks best. The steampunk skies are endless when it comes to the decoration of your Steampunk Top Hat.

About Anatomy of Steampunk: 

From formal outfits to costumes crafted for the stage, from ensembles suited to adventure to casual street styles, steampunk fashion has come to encompass quite a few different looks. But what exactly is steampunk?

Originally conceived as a literary genre, the term ‘steampunk’ described stories set in a steam-powered, science fiction-infused, Victorian London. Today steampunk has grown to become an aesthetic that fuels many varied art forms. Steampunk has also widened its cultural scope. Many steampunk practitioners, rather than confining their vision to one European city, imagine steam-driven societies all over the world.

Today the vibrance of steampunk inspires a wide range of individuals, including designers of high fashion, home sewers, crafters, and ordinary folks who just want to have fun.

 

5 Things I Learned about Fashion from the Classics

Fashion is fickle. Every week, it seems, the magazines at the supermarket are screaming out some new hot look (usually a look that only works for runway models). Whether it’s neon orange, bold stripes, or weird, puffy sleeves, something new is always “in.” 

My closet has a whole section relegated to seasonal, fashionable fashion trends. I recently donated some of my 90’s stuff: I got fed up with my old jester hat and jnco jeans mocking me every laundry day. But plenty remains: fancy camouflage, ribbed sweaters, and an embarrassing variety of peasant tops. I desperately hope some crafty person can find them at a thrift store and transform them into socially acceptable articles of clothing with a few snips and stitches. 

What I really want is a few timeless, classic pieces of clothing that will always look excellent. For the past few years, I’ve been threatening to reallocate all the money I spend on dozens of cheap, trendy things to one or two pieces of classic, beautiful clothing that will last a decade or more. Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, as I do with all life’s problems, I’m going to look in book for the answers. 

What does classic, timeless literature say about classic, timeless fashion? Let’s see, shall we?

(Also, join our Book Club on Goodreads to geek out about these topics properly…) 

Five insights about fashion from Knickerbocker Classics:

       

Upon reflection, isn’t it surprising that there aren’t loads of fashion references in Jane Austen novels? With her focus on society, manners, propriety, and decorum, it seems as though strict judgments on fashion would penetrate the books. While many of her characters rejoice in new dresses or parasols or bonnets (think Lydia and Kitty in Pride and Prejudice), only one of her books,Northanger Abbey, has a truly fashion-conscious character. The lesson I take from Jane Austen: who cares what you wear as long as it’s clean and respectable? It’s how you behave and how you carry yourself that are the true measures of fashion.  

Irene Adler, the red-headed diva and repeating character in Sherlock Holmes stories showed us that it’s rewarding to explore both your feminine and masculine sides in fashion. Irene dressed in her “walking clothes” (male drag) to go under cover from time to time to help Dr. Watson and Sherlock gather evidence. 

Methinks the number one fashion reference in Shakespeare plays is very likely to “robes” although I have not done a literature analysis to prove it. Not only were robes the fashion of the time, but think about it: when people were on the stage, they could change very quickly and effect an entire new look, thus indicating a new day, or a new chapter by quickly changing robes backstage. Fashion lessons from Shakespeare translated to modern times: different cuts and styles of jackets and sweaters can change up your look quickly and effectively. 

Little Women fashion makes me happy. In fact, I think I take more fashion cues from Amy, Jo, Meg, and Beth than with any other classic female characters (other than, maybe, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda…). Here’s the thing: fashion to the March family wasn’t something to be purchased. It was something to be cultivated and created. Amy, for example, painted up her old boots instead of deciding to buy new ones. How crafty!

And finally, fashion lessons from Dracula. Black is slimming, and dressing cleanly in a modern style will do wonders to detract unwanted attention as you’re preying on human flesh. 

@qgeekbooks

Steampunk Eyewear from Anatomy of Steampunk. 

Friendship bracelets have come a long way, pals.

Artful Handmade Wrap Bracelets

From The Art of the Handbag:

Priscilla Snyder was still in her teens when she began “painting with thread,” a technique that involves intensive textural embroidery and appliqué that is often mistaken for paint. She began by stitching studies of her hands and feet and was soon embroidering portraits of people and animals. When she joined her sister in puppet making, Snyder continued to use the same stitching techniques.

From The Art of the Handbag:

Alexander McQueen was celebrated for his meticulous craftsmanship and extraordinary creativity despite the controversy generated by some of his early ready-to-wear shows When McQueen died in 2010, he was mourned both by the fashion world and his millions of fans The label, however, has continued to thrive under the direction of his protégé, Sarah Burton, who brings her own sensibility to bear on her designs while maintaining McQueen’s exquisite workmanship

From The Art of the Handbag:

In the 1980s, California Bay Area native Mary Frances abandoned real estate for a more creative career. She began by designing costume jewelry, and her love of the genre lives on in her beaded and bejeweled bags. The designer launched her first collection of bags in 1989. Needless to say, it was a smash hit. Since then, her business has grown exponentially, but every bag is still made by hand. Mary Frances has twice been named “Star of the Show” at Paris Fashion Week and in 2004, won the Accessory Designer of the Year Award at the Dallas Fashion Awards.

From The Art of the Handbag

With the arrival of the twentieth century, the handbag came into its own In the early years, bags for the upper class remained small, and only members of the working class carried large bags Wealthy women carried different bags for different occasions or even times of the day, and evening bags in particular were lavishly decorated with fur, fringe, beads, and other embellishments

From there, bags branched out to encompass styles ranging from minaudières to roomy handbags, from vanity cases to practical shoulder bags Over the years, the range of basic materials expanded from fabric and leather to all kinds of synthetics, such as plastic, PVC, vinyl, Lucite, and Perspex.