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Fashion Zombies!!! (P.S. Happy Halloween)

Zombies! People everywhere are fascinated, even obsessed with these ghoulish undead, a perennial favorite for Halloween costumes. In fact, it was reported last week that zombies are worth over $5 billion to the economy!

But looking like a zombie year-round? Not exactly socially acceptable unless you want to be mistaken for a homeless heroin addict.

Too bad, because zombies can be pretty interesting to look at. The strategically revealing clothes, the washed out makeup, the awkwardly stilted walk, the unfocused distant gaze, the complete lack of emotion. I mean, we could be talking about runway models.

I guess in that sense, a lot of runway collections have a certain zombie element. But a full-blown zombie inspired collection? May sound crazy, but the S/S 2010 collection from Lonely Hearts took a stab at it and makes me think, come the zombie apocalypse, I'm not sure which side I'd rather be on!

There are several key elements to Lonely Hearts's "Brains for Dinner" collection which make it a complete zombie-fest:

Gothic Victorian Lace

 

Rotting Flesh Toned Fabrics

 

Ghostly Silhouettes

 

Cut-Out and Slashed Pieces

 

The Lonely Hearts "Brains for Dinner" collection definitely brings out that inner ghoul. Or maybe just that inner goth punk rock star. Siouxsie and the Banshees anyone?

Anyways, have an awesome Halloween! Looks like much of the snow will melt today, and hopefully everyone has power back in time to watch their favorite scary movies tonight!

And looking for some year-round zombie fashion for yourself? Check out these awesome pieces!

  

 

Zombies Olive Green Tee from International Robot $24

Blood n Stitches Zombie Slip Costume from Smarmy Clothes $75

Zombie Lovers White Tee from Rocky the Zombie $25

Zombie Necklace from Pinz n Thingz $8.95

Hand Painted Blood Spattered High Heels from Sweet Sin Couture $38.50

Halloween Inspiration: Garth Pugh Meets the Predator

As I said in my last post, while classic movies are a fabulous source of inspiration for us regular folk designing a wear-it-once-and-donate-it-back-to-Savers Halloween costume, they are often a powerful source of inspiration for designers to create much more not-destined-for-Salvation-Army looks.

And while many folks may not consider the 1987 movie The Predator to be a classic, I most certainly do, and I couldn't help but recall this 2008 A/W collection by Gareth Pugh for fairly obvious reasons.

 

   

Not sure you could pull of the Predator look? Pugh's collection also features some awesome samurai warrior inspired looks (always a classic) as well as some looks that, if I had to guess, I'd say were inspired by the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz...

 

 

You can check out the rest of Gareth Pugh's collection here. And if you like his aesthetic, you can see some more looks in the same vein from his Spring 2012 collection here.

And if you're looking for your own Predator fix, check out these awesome pieces!

      

Meta Cortex T-Shirt Designs $20               Metal Water Studio $125         Musetap Studios $10

Halloween Inspiration: Alexander McQueen's The Overlook Collection 1999

Yes, I've dressed up every single year for 28 years. If it were socially acceptable I'd still be going door to door begging for candy. But when it gets this close to Halloween and I still haven't decided on a costume, I start to panic.

My cure-all for belated costume planning? Classic movies. A fool-proof, recognizable character that can be put together for under $20 at my local thrift store and will ideally allow me to avoid whipping out the sewing machine, which also implies avoiding the two-hour-long search for where I put away all my sewing and craft supplies that only come out in the weeks ahead of Halloween. And of course, it's a great excuse for some more vintage shopping, but that's not the point (or is it?).

But anyways, looks like I'm not the only one getting inspired by classic movies at this time of year! There have been some pretty spectacular, classic movie inspired A/W collections for years. Remember Alexander McQueen's The Overlook (A/W 1999-2000). Entirely inspired by the hotel in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. And since that just so happens to be my own inspiration for Halloween this year, here's a look back at that collection!

You can check out the site for the recent Savage Beauty exhibit at the Met for a brief video from the show to get a sense of just how eerie the whole thing was. McQueen famously kept yelling at the effects guy to just add more and more snow, making the air so thick, it seemed almost suffocating, a very visceral reminder of the cabin fever pervading the film. The audio changes throughout, but there is the sound of wind and wolves howling through much of it and the show even wrapped up with the 1920s song which closes the film, "Midnight, The Stars, and You".

Looking to add some Shining-inspired goods to your own collection? Check out these great items from some amazing Etsy artisans!

  

by Colin Newman at Traumatron $28                         by Adam Rabalais $20   

by Justin at Square Pixel $40

Modern Vintage Sighting: Marc Jacobs Faces Down the Great Depression

All these Jazz Age looks got me wondering if any designers were bold enough to tackle Depression-era styles in light of the current economic climate. It seems like an issue fashion has been delicately sidestepping, with only veiled references to 1930s art and design movements cleverly hidden within 1920s silhouettes.

You can't blame them. Just as dreamy Hollywood glamour reached new heights amid the Great Depression, today's designers are doing their part to help us forget things. There has been a resurgence of bright color, bold prints, and high glamour in recent years, and a certain idealization of more carefree times. But you can't escape the fact that the fashion industry has been taking hits and there is little reason for optimism. So it's especially interesting that one of the few collections to tackle the lifestyle transition from the roaring '20s to the depressed '30s comes from the same man asking for $10 million a year from Dior.

Marc Jacobs's Spring 2012 RTW collection, while not his most successful outing, fills a certain void left in the fashion world in recent years: the idea of facing the reality of economic hardship, and the fact that it doesn't have to mean drab and purely functional clothing.

The girls who strutted the runway in this collection were those who grew up in the carefree '20s and are now working in the '30s. There were still the flapper silhouettes, but there was a sense of heading off to work rather than dancing in the streets, except for a few questionable street walker looks, though I guess that's heading off to work in another sense.

There was also the mix of country elements (gingham prints and cowboy boots) with a more urban vibe, reflecting on the rural exodus during the Dust Bowl years in which farmers were forced to flood the city unemployment lines. This all makes for a collection that takes the most direct stab at economic hardship and reminds us that just because we may be working harder than ever, we don't have to hide behind an idealized image of a more carefree and glamorous time.

1930s working class women in the city

      

1930s women and girls in the country