Coilhouse Magazine Launch Party // Group Art Exhibit

It is time! We’re happy to announce Coilhouse Magazine’s Launch Party and Art Exhibit.

Held this Saturday at Hans Haveron Studios this event will be stuffed full of excellence. Look forward to:

  • Art, photography & fashion exhibit
  • Refreshments, with Mer’s “special” Electric Lemonade
  • Incredibly strange music
  • Photo booth with weird medical props, straight from Zo’s cave
  • Wall projections of Issue 01 art
  • Your first glimpse at the actual magazine!

Enjoy art. Become art via expert lenses of Polaroid superstar Lou O’ Bedlam and Zo! Style Technician’s own Andrew Yoon. Dress your snazziest and bring your friends. Everyone’s invited!

Venture below the jump to see work by the exhibiting artists.

POSTCARDS FROM NERD PROM: Slave 4 Jabba

A comely consortium of Slave Leias gathered at Gentle Giant‘s booth this morning to pose with GG’s larger (and droolier)-than-life Jabba statue. Not pictured: legions of mouth-breathing Frito-eaters with cheap instant cameras and sweatpants boners.

Butt Panniers! By Scherer Gonzalez.

How hot is this? Needs to be worn with a space helmet, though. Another lavish image after the cut, and more from this collection at Scherer Gonzalez’s site.

Previously in futuristic fashion:

[thanks, Storm]

POSTCARDS FROM NERD PROM: iSpidey

Huzzah, comrades! I’m here at the 38th annual San Diego Comic Convention, the smelliest largest comic book and popular arts convention in the entire world. ‘Tis a strange and wondrous place, brimming over with fascinating media, enthusiastic people, stimulating conversation, and entertaining outbursts from shut-ins with socially crippling personality disorders. Over the next few days, I’ll be sending you postcards from the proverbial edge. To start things off, here’s some free product placement for the new iPhone:

Celebrating Tesla’s Birthday, the David Bowie Way.


Twink poses with The Haunted Corset, an Ebay find that terrified me so much I had to give it away.

If Nikola Tesla were alive today and he went to The Edison, he’d be pissed. “Why’d they name it after that guy?” And since it’s his birthday today (thanks, John Colby, for the reminder), we’re going to rename this incredible venue The Tesla for the next 24 hours in his honor.

So… looks like there’s some electric kissing party going on up in this joint! Happy Birthday, Nikola! The designer here is Mother of London, creating a sequel to the panoramic shoot that showcased an earlier collection – the first interactive, 360-degree fashion shoot ever created. Photographer Will Pearson came to LA from London to do this follow-up, and what you’re seeing here are preview stills – a taste of what’s to come, yet phenomenal images in their own right. When the panorama is complete, you’ll be able to navigate around The Tesla until your head spins.

Allan Amato (aka Venus Wept) was the art director for the shoot. Models above are Ulorin, right, and Evan, left. Hairstyling by Linh Nguyen, NoogieStyle and Jamie Gatlin. Makeup by Daven Mayeda. You can see more images from this heart-stopping shoot on Allan’s blog. There were many more models involved, including some very cute boys.

[More Images From This Shoot]

P.S. – Over at CoilSpace.com, we were able to salvage everyone’s images, even if you didn’t email. There are probably twice as many as there were before. Enjoy, and thanks again!

The Tarnished Beauties of Blackwell, Oklahoma

Criss-crossing America’s interstates on shoestring music tours, my bandmates and I see scores of battered roadside billboards. They advertise ramshackle sculpture gardens, art brut outposts, World’s Biggest Fill-in-the-Blanks, rustic museums, and obscure historic landmarks. Such attractions are usually located in quiet little towns only a short distance from the highway. More often than not, we make a point to stop, stretch our legs and explore. These spontaneous jaunts expose us to beauty and knowledge we would never have discovered otherwise.

Possibly the most delightful surprise on this last stint with Faun Fables was a visit to the Top of Oklahoma Museum, housed in the somewhat dilapidated (but still glorious) Electric Park Pavilion on Main Street in Blackwell, OK (population 7,700). A grand, white structure with a large central dome, the Pavilion was built in 1912 to celebrate the advent of electricity in Blackwell. Its design takes after styles exhibited at the famous “White City” of the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Its lights, which originally numbered over 500, could once be seen for miles across the windswept prairie.

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These days, the Pavilion could use some serious TLC. Multiple leaks in the dome have endangered the museum’s contents. Plastic tarps enshroud several exhibits. Many items bear marks of water damage. One of the kindly septuagenarian docents who works there followed us from room to room, clucking over the holes in the roof, the rusty stains. These senior preservationists take a lot of pride in their charge, with good reason. The “TOOM” is a sprawling treasure trove of turn-of-the-century ephemera, railroad memorabilia, articles of Cherokee life, hand-carved walking sticks and pipes, dioramas, dollhouses, baby buggies, hobbyist’s taxidermy, antique musical and medical instruments, Victrolas, zinc smelting documentation, delicate handmade lace, linen and clothing, exceedingly creepy dolls, sewing machines, china, vintage propaganda, picture books, elaborate quilting, and countless other keepsakes left behind by the city’s first brave citizens.

Judging by these artifacts, early non-native residents of Oklahoma were hardy, determined folk who struggled to eke out a life on America’s frontier. How they maintained such an unshakable air of dignity and refinement is beyond me, but Blackwell is a true, sparkling diamond in the rough. For me, nothing symbolizes the spirit of its citizens better than the following portrait, unceremoniously presented on a torn, water-stained bit of pasteboard in the museum’s “School Room”: ”

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Who were you, Lola? Whatever became of you?

The girl’s name was Lola Squires, and she was a student enrolled in Blackwell High, graduating class of 1916. That’s all I know. Her gaze knocked me back several feet. Once I finally stop staring at her, I realized that there were countless other flint-eyed and bow-bedecked young beauties on the walls nearby. I must have spent well over an hour in that one room, moving from portrait to portrait, documenting as much as I could, just stunned.

Fashion in 2008: Good So Far, Still Needs More Lace

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It’s nice to see that “weird shit” is back in style. Above, the latest from last week’s Christian Lacroix haute couture show in Paris (via parlour). Although there were no uniformly mind-blowing collections, there are a few choice pieces here and there, including this 20s-meets-the-future ensemble by Galliano (and from that same collection, these evil-looking shoes!), as well as this sexy number from Chanel. In truth, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasant to behold.

However, the one designer who’s truly been kicking ass this year is handsome devil Gareth Pugh (previously here). What I love most about his Autumn/Winter 2008 collection is the texture. I bet wearing his stuff feels like being a piece of origami. And I have a feeling he’s only getting started. Go, Garteth, go!

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“Starch Makes the Gentleman…” – Beau Brummell

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Deformed ribs, fainting rooms and OMGDRAMAZ – why should ladies have all the fun? Men wear corsets too! Male corsetry was first popularized in Regency England by Beau Brummell, the original dandy – a man who polished his boots with champagneHere he is in his pre-insane-from-syphilis days, sporting abs of whalebone. “Sixpack? Don’t need one.”

There’s been a spectacular revival of dandy style in fashion magazines and on the runway, but it’s not until now that I’ve seen a strong new take with a darker tone. Photographer Peter Ashworth (previously mentioned here) recently collaborated with designer Stefán Orschel-Read (who also models in the shoot) to create Orschel-Read’s A/W fashion lookbook, “Mourning for Orlando” – a series that, at various turns, perfectly marries dandy and deathrock. My favorite images are of the streamlined corset/jacket combo; I imagine Mr. Pearl would approve! The collection includes a wider array of unusual pairings, including geisha, punk, Baroque, and, amazingly, the 70’s leisure suit. How do they all combine? See for yourself.

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Daily Mail Posts Striking Images, Condescending Text

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Yesterday, Sociological Images reposted these incredible images, which originally came from the Daily Mail, a conservative British tabloid. These images appeared in “Femail” – the Daily Mail’s lifestyle section for women – under the title “Out of Africa: The incredible tribal fashion show inspired by Mother Nature.” Both SocImages and another fascinating blog, zunguzungu, took issue with the vapid exoticization that was going on in the article. I highly reccomend reading zunguzungu’s eloquent analysis of the Daily Mail’s presentation of these images, titled “Recycling Africa“.

Serious Business aside, I just want to say this: the images themselves are absolutely striking. When I separate these images from the Daily Mail’s silly writeup (“As they paint each other’s bodies and make bold decisions about their outfits… it seems that the only thing that motivates them is the sheer fun of creating their looks, and showing them off to other members of the tribe”), and from SocImages’ somewhat guilt-tripping Daily Mail smackdown (“What does it mean that people in the U.K. (and the U.S.) are consuming these images? What is the relationship between these images and colonialism? How do such images interact with “development” rhetoric about how Africa is un- or under-developed, developing, or undevelopable?”), on a purely visual level, I’m just absolutely inspired.

It’s amazing, how we can rearrange ourselves.

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Zo! Style Technician. June 23, 2008

My affection for Los Angeles is a drawn out, turbulent affair. I stay, for now, because of the nuances not found anyplace else, entirely unique to this place. Case in point: say you’ve got a party to go to and that party is Lenora Claire‘s birthday bash, held at Houdini’s mansion on Friday the 13th. You know for a fact that there will be: music, monkeys and circus acts. What do you wear?

When presented with an invitation to an event you know will be off da hook, as the people say, you’re given a choice to be understated/classy, or to concoct an outfit that will be admired by the drag queens in attendance and leaves a trail of jewels wherever you tread. My choice was made when I found a dress I’d forgotten about, a dress with a story worthy of a party with monkeys.

It was years ago at a now-closed deathrock club called Ghoul School. I complimented a perfectly obliterated girl on her pink dress. A vintage hand-beaded number dripping with faux pearls and diamonds, it was as out of place among the torn fishnet and leather as its tall, brown-haired fresh-faced owner. My compliment was met with an unexpected gesture of generosity: with one multi-step maneuver the girl slipped out of the dress, signed the hem, handed it to me and wandered off. Inexplicably, she was wearing a striped bikini underneath. My heart sang a song of gratitude.

When I saw Mer the night of Lenora’s party she said I looked like a cupcake and I knew it was right. Now I bring you a re-creation of the outfit as masterfully captured by secret photo agent Yoon. You can read a bit more about Lenora’s party in this LA Weekly article. Hit the jump for more.