JANE BY DESIGN Style Challenge #6: Pretzels as Fashion Inspiration!
In the weeks leading up to the January 2012 launch of JANE BY DESIGN, a fun new fashion-centric show on ABC Family, a posse of us fashion & style bloggers have participated in a bunch of style challenges. So far, we have...
...shopped for something interesting & video'd the haul (Challenge #1)
...upcycled a tee inspired by a style icon - mine is Chanel (#2)
...described the most "me" handbag in our collection (#3)
...transformed a fugly Xmas sweater-vest (#4)
...styled a plain white buttondown for a day at the office & then out for cocktails (#5)
For the next challenge, we were first asked to think about the future of fashion & to take a look at the world around us and describe how it makes us feel. How about you: how are you inspired by everyday life? A roll of tape is rumored to have inspired one of the most coveted "it" bags ever. What have you been inspired by that seemed ordinary but resulted in something unexpected, fresh & amazing? Be sure to mention it - or just talk about who your style icons are - on the Jane by Design Facebook page and don't forget to say that Fashiontribes sent you. (Also, here's another sneak-peek of the JBD show to check out!). Oh, and when you tweet, be sure to use the official hashtag: #JBDStyleChallenge.
For Challenge #6, the instructions were to find inspiration in...a bag of pretzels and create something fabulous.
...pretzels. *Sigh* Now I love to snarf down a yummy soft pretzel with mustard, but I can't really say they readily bring fashion to mind. Hoping for inspiration, I promptly ate the contents of the bags of inspiration I was sent for this challenge.
The German word "Brezel" is thought to have possibly derived from the Latin for bracelet, "bracellus", or even "bracchiola" ("little arms"). Pretzels date quite far back, to the 600s or earlier even, when they were most likely invented by monks. Why, however, remains in dispute. Some say they were created to reward children who learned their prayers, while others believe they were derived from Greek ring-bread used in monastary communions a thousand years ago. Yet others think the pretzel might have been a sun cross, a heathen symbol, in disguise.
Regardless of origins, the shape is undeniably cool. Which is more than I can say for this extremely weird yarn & button necklace I got one season at Fashion Week attending a Ports 1961 runway show - devoted to Scottish mythology if memory serves. The show itself rocked - very Braveheart meets Pringle - but the oddball necklace...not so much. In fact, it was too ugly to even sell on eBay where many, many ugly items go to die.
So in my stash it sat, until...pretzels!
Pondering pastry and how to translate it into something cute, I started nosing through my stash, just in case the muse (hold the mustard!) struck. And then I saw the Ports twine-thingy. Picking it up, I began twisting it this way and that, wondering if string and pretzels made for a match.
And why not?!
As I laid it out on my desk, cut it up and started manipulating it into a pretzel knot, I realized I really liked the pretzel'y shape, but not the buttons. Clipping those off...better! I took my string-pretzel in-the-making over to my closet to see what this might be paired up with. Ah, my army-green satchel. A bag adornment, no, a zipper pull!
So I sewed the pretzel shape down, retacked on the buttons, and sewed/glued a pin onto the back allowing it to be used as either be a zipper-pull or a brooch. Granted, it's still kind of weird but also kind of cool. I really like the pretzel'y shape and the rough texture of the yarn, especially against the earthy heather-green of the bag.
- Lesley Scott
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