Now that the dog days of July have arrived, you’ve probably given some thought to taking a dip. But first, you might consider some beach tips from a pair of books—both from the historical medical collection here at the New York Academy of Medicine, published in 1818 and 1918—once used to teach swimming. Of course,…
Welcome to our Red Room...of Beauty.
Welcome back to Friday DIY, where we spend hours making everyday things, because shopping in stores is for quitters. This week's project is a leather belt, and I was lucky enough to be schooled in the art of belt making by a young man named Maximum Cohen.
Got some crafty people on your holiday gift list? Fear not — a present like one of these is bound to please even the pickiest of Do It Yourselfers. (And — self-interested bonus! — it virtually guarantees years of awesome knitted/crocheted/sewn or otherwise home-built gifts for you in turn.)
It's summer! Have you noticed? The tell-tale signs are all here: long days, high temperatures, and the current social acceptability of drinking rosé. Mostly this means lots of fun things like swimming in [your local body of water], drinking gin punch, and spending inordinate amounts of time lingering in public spaces…
Are you ready for a nail DIY? This project explains how you can layer fabric paint over nail polish to achieve something akin to those "antique" and "distressed" paint effects that are so popular on home-decorating programs. (You know the ones where some hyperactive blonde is always convinced that what this suburban…
Elizabeth Cline, the author of new book Overdressed, has some advice for people who want to clothe themselves for not too much money — without contributing to the waste and supporting the lax labor standards of the global apparel industry supply chain. You know how Michael Pollan advises people concerned about their…
Or: Quick and Dirty Pattern-Draping for Fun and Profit! If you're even a neophyte home sewer, you've probably dreamed of making clothing from your own customized patterns. Commercial patterns are fantastic in many ways — the sheer variety always makes flipping through a pattern book (or browsing vintage reproductions…
This week's DIY is a t-shirt DIY — which is, in case you haven't guessed, one of my favorite kinds of do-it-yourself project, because of the ubiquity of the raw materials. And this t-shirt DIY comes to you with the help of a very special guest: fashion designer Natalie Chanin, of the label Alabama Chanin. She showed…
Summer's coming. Couldn't you stand to have some whimsical sunglasses in your life?
Strapless dresses: is there any other garment that promises so much, but at such high risk? If you've owned or worn a strapless dress, you've probably spent at least one night pulling the damn thing up every couple of minutes. That's because most strapless dresses are too cheaply made to provide sufficient support to…
Ombré patterns have been everywhere as of late. The French word ombré means "shaded," and in fashion it refers to pretty much anything that starts out one color and then slowly morphs into another. We've weathered trends for ombré hair, ombré clothes, ombré fur — last summer I even showed you how to ombré dye a scarf.…
One of the easiest things you can do to spruce up your living environment is re-covering a throw pillow or three. It's a great use for an eye-catching fabric-and-piping combination, because pillows are small and a busy print won't overwhelm a room. It takes no complicated sewing know-how — just a machine and an…
Those of you who are not already in possession of the November, 2005, issue of Threads magazine, which had for a cover story a step-by-step exploration of the inner workings of the Paris-based brand's famed unstructured, quilted, cardigan-style jackets might find this video useful. It pretty much covers the basics.
When I was watching Rihanna's "You Da One" video, I was struck by two things: one was the incredible shot-by-shot similarity between Rihanna's work and an old Numéro editorial by Solve Sundsbo (which director Melina Matsoukas, who previously was caught ripping off an old David LaChapelle editorial for another Rihanna…
If you've never made a purse before, this just might be the purse for you. My last bag, the envelope clutch, was a great opportunity to explain the basics of leather working and bag construction. But that project had six major seams and nine minor ones. This bag, on the other hand, has two: the bottom and sides are…
For me, a big part of the pleasure of giving a loved one a gift is in the wrapping. I'm not planning to give or receive many gifts this year — I have enough stuff, for real — but I get such a kick out of wrapping presents that the rest of my family tends to delegate all their gift-wrapping to me. With a few mugs of…
I love eyebrows. I love the variety of eyebrows people have. I love thick ones, thin ones, long ones, short ones. I love really dramatically arched ones and I love flat ones, too. I have always been into eyebrows. When I was a tween — not that we used that word back then — I used to stare long and hard at each new…
It's getting mighty chilly up here around the 40th Parallel of the earth's Northern Hemisphere, leading some (okay, me) to turn our crafting imaginations to scarves and visions in bulky-weight yarn. This Burberry-inspired cowl is warm enough to wear under a blazer or a jacket on a brisk autumn evening, and — layered…
If you're not into wearing loud prints or bright colors, introducing those things in miniature doses can make for a fun change of pace. Mixed prints and colors were everywhere at the spring collections, which ended last month, and a few designers showed head-wraps and/or had their models' hair styled with bits of…
