Last week, we blogged about our wonderful Small-Business Advertisers. Today, we’d like to honor and give thanks to our five full-page advertisers from Issue 05. Thank you to Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, Fluevog Shoes, Frenzy Universe, Swatch and Zivity. Two learn more about the businesses that support us, and receive some discounts for Coilhouse readers, venture beyond the cut!

This year, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL) are celebrating their eight-year anniversary as the online purveyors of perfume oils and scintillating scents. All oils are lovingly hand-blended by Elizabeth Barrial and Brian Constantine at their North Hollywood headquarters and then shipped out to customers across the world. Elizabeth and Brian take care to ensure their products are safe to wear, environmentally sustainable and have not been tested on animals.

Currently, BPAL’s permanent catalogue contains over five hundred distinctive blends, drawing inspiration from folklore, Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, but also taking a turn for the darker with Lovecraftian mythos, demons, villains, and a page of funeral scents. Their website also regularly updates with limited edition seasonal collections, full moons oils and new scents concocted for Friday 13ths that occur on the calendar year.

If you’re not sure what type of of scents to go for, you can order some sample vials. Once a month, usually when the moon is full, BPAL hosts an open house at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. Check Yelp for details. BPAL’s retailers are as eclectic as their scents, ranging from Whole Foods to the legendary Mütter Museum.

BPAL collaborates with authors, artists and comic book creators to add some cross-sensory sniffing experience to your favorite printed media. Many of these collaborations are wholly charitable ventures with all profits being donated towards worthy causes such as Habitat for Humanity, Hero Initiative and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Recently, Coilhouse featured the Neil Gaiman Neverwhere Collection as a large pull-out poster in Issue 05. The poster’s color illustration was especially created for BPAL by Enrique Alcatena and depicts the silhouette of the great Beast of London Below lurking in the ancient sewer tunnels. Each character or element has a particular scent and illustration. Mr. Croup, for example, has a “pompous and predatory” smell of tonka bean, black musk, bourbon geranium, and crushed porcelain, while the Marquis de Carabas smells of bay rum, leather, dusty black wool, massoia bark, and opium residue. Another recent collaboration of note featured Coilhouse contributor Molly Crabapple’s work on a beautifully-illustrated line called The District – a series of perfume oils celebrating New Orleans, with 100% of the proceeds going to the city’s restoration.

BPAL’s beautiful gothic-style Madame Talbot illustrations have become a staple on our back cover since Issue 01.

John Fluevog has been designing shoes for decades and, despite mainstream press from celebrities and fashionistas (or perhaps in spite of it), retains a large cult following of freaks and misfits for his offbeat creations. Customers who have caught the “Flue” often become devotees for life and preach the comfort, durability, and expressive originality of the brand.

You can spot a Fluevog by their exaggerated shapes, their bold and often contrasting colours, their distinctly retro feel and by the quirky individuals wear them. Other hallmarks of Fluevog include heart-shaped heels, asymmetrical lacing, swirls, and the rare, much desired Grand National wedge which creates cloven-shaped footprints in the wearer’s wake. Many of their shoes come with a personal message on the sole just for the wearer – tea illustrations and “Served and be Served” on their Teapot range and famously, “Resists alkali, water, acid, fatigue and Satan” on their Angel boot.

Recently the company launched online projects for followers to become more creatively involved with the brand. Fluevog’s Open Source Footwear project has received hundreds of submissions from customers with ideas about shoes they’d like to wear. Thus far twelve customer designs have been integral in producing new and real shoes for the company. The FluevogCreative website encourages artists and graphic designers to submit work ads for a particular shoe line with the winning entries chosen by popular community vote. Coilhouse published Samantha Zaza’s winning advert for the Hope line in Issue 05.

Frenzy Universe is one part clothing boutique, two parts retrofuturist digital bazaar and a dash of whimsy added to the mix. Well-dressed gentlefolk will enjoy their choice of lace jabots, topographic and engine printed neck ties, and classically embroidered waistcoats. Saloon girls and burlesque lovers will love the corset and bustle skirt for an excuse to flash their garters to show a pair of frilly panties or bloomers. For the more classically inclined, see their blouses with high-collared ruffles, long velvet frock coats and jackets for the sharp airship captain.

For the finishing touches to your outfit you can’t go past a pillbox hat or a grey topper, some spats for your boots, and a (genuinely) battered canvas bag slung across your shoulders. Before portable electronic telephones, social butterflies kept and exchanged calling cards, but these card cases are also suitable for holding money, credit cards and cigarettes. And instead of sending your friends an impersonal telegraph, why not write to them on Frenzy Universe’s selection of Victorian stationary? Nor can you go past their entire catalogue of moustache products for when you, ahem, moustache with your facial hair.

Frenzy Universe was founded in 2009 by sisters Maureen and Kris. The home-spun business maintains an active relationship with its fans; Maureen and Kris have written about their adventures in steampunkery on their aether log, conducted giveaways and sales via their Facebook page, and will be vending at a variety of North American conventions in the future. Readers of Coilhouse can receive 10% off by using coupon code COIL5 upon checkout.

Swatch is, as the name suggests, what happens when the Swiss meet watches. The range of their designs, patterns and colour schemes are surprisingly diverse, ranging from their fluoro and bold monochrome core collection to stainless steel minimalist designs to ever-practical sports watches. Swatch has strong has a history of collaboration with independent artists, and currently features the work of illustrator Takashi Koshii, comic book creator Enki Bilal, and fashion designer Cassette Playa, who creates augmented reality clothing.

Swatch enthusiasts can join the Swatch Club to receive Swatch’s biannual magazine and access the annual limited edition Club Watches, which often serve as miniature artworks in themselves. Past designs worth noting include the Once Again, Again watch, on which a silhouette of the watch is printed off-centre to the physical object, and cyber.commander, released in the year 2000, which contained a microchip that could store information and access the internet when combined with their special mousepad.

More recently, Swatch launched the Swatch MTV Playground, a community developed to showcase the work of young artists. The website accepts submissions from across all media including fashion, animation, film, illustration, music and graphic design, and runs competitions to inspire the community to create new works. The winning entry for their Design A Swatch competition is a kitsch vampire design that would make Tim Burton proud.

Zivity, a network of over 66,000 users, models, photographers, and video artists, thrives in an ad-free environment with access to beautiful works founded firmly in sexuality.

A truly unique aspect of Zivity is their application of a royalties system. The site allows for customers to directly support creators whose work they enjoy by employing a dollar-backed voting system that passes royalties to the artists and models involved in creating each set, rather than buying them once from the artists and making money off them indefinitely. Some artists even use Zivity to raise money for various causes. For example, San Francisco-based photographer Icka Boo used her set of Zivity co-founder Cyan Banister to raise money for fire arts in the Bay Area. “In keeping with the Zivity philosophy of supporting the art you love,” Icka wrote on her blog, “I am donating the royalties from O Fortuna to Interpretive Arson.”  Recently, Zivity hosted an indie fashion show benefiting more than half a dozen charities. SF/geek/art blogger Ed Hunsinger writes, “for me personally, it’s a small way that I can help friends make a little bit of money making the art that they enjoy.”

Zivitiy also strives to provide a safe, positive environment for models. Zivity states that it is one of the only fashion and photography destinations where there are equal amounts of working female and male photographers, and where models decide the sets they want to publish. There is also a strict “no creeps allowed” policy created by the community where members police each other. To further protect models, Zivity refrains from perpetual licensing. “You’re not stuck on Zivity forever,” said Banister in a Village Voice interview. “We ask for two years. Then, if you decide it’s not for you, your content comes down.”

For examples of Zivity’s fares, enjoy their many free photo sets, such as “A guitar in shadow and light” , “Simply Sultry,” or “Darth Vader doesn’t wake up at 7am.” You can also check out the Zivity Tumblr blog for previews of recent sets. Zivity’s collections feature gorgeous women, exquisite settings and artistic skills, with themes to suit any appetite or particular craving. Whether you are a seasoned pursuer of internet delights or a newcomer to the waters of sensuality, Zivity is sure to bring you something new, beautiful, and delicious. Readers of Coilhouse can get 30 days for free by visiting  www.zivity.com/coilhouse and entering promotion code “coilhouse.”

Thanks to Connie Chen and Katherine Topping for helping put together this post.

Posted by Coilhouse on November 26th, 2010
Filed under Advertising, Shopping