Spotlight: Designer Kate Cusack

Meet Kate Cusack a Brooklyn based designer-costumer who creates jewelry pieces and sculptural work from unusual material. Unusual material you say? Yes, metal-tooth zippers and plastic wrap if you will.

According to Kate herself, she makes costumes and wearable art. And that's just the term (wearable art) that can be employed to describe her line of Zipper Jewelry. It recently caught my eye on fellow blogger Choeny Wagma's blog, where i can safely say i was immediately taken by the sheer genius of her work. Made with a unique and contemporary design aesthetic Kate's pieces are truly one-of-a-kind.

Kate's zipper jewelry was first noticed in 2002, while she worked as a window-dresser, creating five Marie-Antoinette-style wigs made entirely from plastic wrap for Tiffany & Co.'s 5th Avenue store. The lady in the visual merchandising department who had hired Kate admired the zipper pin she'd affixed to her jacket so Kate made the second zipper pin as a thank you.

Since 2003 she took to making jewelry like bracelets, necklaces, brooches and pins out of metal-tooth zippers.

She points out:

"It’s ironic that most fashion designers try to hide or disguise zippers in their creations. However, I love zippers’ shiny metal teeth and I want to show off, not hide, their sparkle and their sinuous flexibility."

These handmade pieces sell for between $70 -$400, with custom pieces going up to $1000.

Zipper jewelry can be bought at Kate Cusack's Etsy shop.

Sustainable Silk - a possibility

This is really interesting... young designer Elsbeth Joy Nielson from the Netherlands has discovered a way of producing silk without killing silkworms. As per the norm silkworms are thrown into boiling water when they cocooned themselves - which is the end of life.

The designer has been experimenting with an idea of sustainable silk production: before starting the cocooning she puts the silkworm on a shaped piece of carton board which is held by a stick that is centered on the downside. The silkworm then starts trying to escape from this platform - without success of course as it fall down at the edges of the carton. In the two days of crossing the carton in the search of an escape the silkworm so spins a random net of silk. The result is a very delicate texture made of silk which you can see in the picture. After this procedure the puts the silkworm back, lets him spin his cocoon and become a silk-spinner butterfly.

The only problem is that the butterfly has been breeded to produce silk for centuries and now his wings are not big enough that it could make him fly. Well - maybe biotechnology can help on that problem.

The resulting scarf demonstrates the fabric's exquisite beauty.

Via Roger Live.

Wearable Peace

I recently came across the work of Kali Arulpragasam, sister of rapper M.I.A and ex-ad executive who left the big game world of advertising to study jewelry design at Central Saint Martins London. She went on to create an edgy, avante garde jewelery line that highlights world issues through highly original pieces that push the traditional boundaries of form, design and reason.

Retailing under the London based label Superfertile I first caught sight of one of Kali's previous collections entitled 'Terrorism affects Tourism' while working on a jewelry project myself.

Intricately etched pieces which tell the story of countries torn by war and terrorism. Places we associate with strife and grief emblazoned and encapsulated on pendants for wearing, almost akin to armor.

In an interview to the New York Times, Kali of Sri Lankan origin voices, "There’s more to these countries than guys with guns standing in rubble."

"What are the plants like? What music are the kids listening to?" she asked and ventured to portray.

Images are hand-cut and plated together to create a mural in gold and silver: Haiti’s depicts children playing soccer under banana trees; Sudan’s shows cows and fishermen.

Some customers, Arulpragasam says, have taken to hanging them on the wall. “That’s the irony of it,” she mused. “People are treasuring them, while the actual nations are being destroyed.”

The necklaces, $800 to $1,000, can be custom-ordered from superfertile.com.

Little Red Riding Hood Goes to Tokyo via India

That's how designer Manish Arora describes his collection at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week that got off to a rocking start in Delhi yesterday. Renowned as the enfant terrible of the Indian Fashion circuit, Arora also ably sports the tag 'King of Kitsch'.

This collection was infact the same one Arora showed at London Fashion Week earlier this year and stayed true to Manish's hugely flamboyant style. His clothes take over the room and certainly aren't for the faint of heart. Looking back on the past few years, it appears that Manish is on a journey of excess, quite like the one the world witnessed a few seasons ago with Galliano.

Manish's is a roving eye. He allows all manner of visual stimuli to end up on his clothes. A million colours burst forth with each ensemble, with as many fabrics and embellishment techniques visible in each garment. The effect is nothing short of striking psychedelia.

Arora's world is a stoned man's paradise. A fantasy world where Lil' Red Riding Hood sets off on a journey to Tibet, taking the meandering scenic route. She finds herself in India meeting with Gods and animals. Elsewhere exploring forests, snow capped moutains, the streets and skylines of cities and taking many a detour along the way.