Bettie Page Clothing - Retro Style dresses for todays woman styled after the infamous Bettie Page

Bettie Page is a Pin Up and Fashion icon whose naughty girl next door appeal made her the original favorite Pin Up Model of many. She had literally thousands of photographs taken of her and was then immortalized by the artist Olivia. Bettie's sweet girl next door wholesome beauty combined with her willingness to be photographed in quasi bondage style attire or poses contributed to her amazing appeal.

Recently a Clothing Company started that licensed Bettie Page's name to recreate dresses that were photographed on Bettie along with other retro styles from that era. Bettie Page Clothing has a flagship Retail Store in Las Vegas Nevada and is carried in select boutiques and online stores. The designer, Tatiyana pays amazing attention to detail and chooses great fabrics to create her designs on.


Some of our favorite Bettie Page dresses are the Delilah Dress and the Claudia Cherry Dress. The wonderful thing about these designs is that they appeal to today's Pin Up Girls who love retro designs yet they also have universal appeal as they make great wardrobe pieces for women of any style. They make great cocktail or party dresses.

Exclusive Shirt designs have amazing popularity - the power of co-branding

If you are a shopper you will certainly have noticed that co-branded design work has become popular between some brands, clothing lines and medium to large retailers.

Co-branding can be done in many ways. A retailer may have a creative person on their own staff who creates a design that they like and the retailer then pays a popular brand to manufacture the item for them since they do not have a manufacturing plant of their own.

My personal favorite way to utilize the power of co-branding is when a retailer chooses to utilize the design strength and flair of the chosen clothing brands design team to create a new design that stays within the flavor of what the consumer is accustomed to seeing from that brand yet incorporates the elements that the retailer wishes to see in the finished product. A great example is the Exclusive Lucky 13 Tattoo Girls T Shirt that was released today by Retailer Perpetual Vogue. The owners at Perpetual Vogue had a vision of what they wanted the design to be and then trusted in the design team at Lucky 13 to create their vision while staying true to the feel of a Lucky 13 design. The result is a shirt that any Lucky 13 customer would immediately recognize as having Lucky 13 design elements yet is also co-branded to the retailer as an exclusive item that is not available elsewhere.

Rockin Jewelry for Rock Stars and the Common Man or Woman

Rock n Roll has had a strong influence on fashion for as long as I can remember. As fashions get edgier this influence is seen more and more. Lets face it Rock Stars are seen as being edgy and living on the cutting edge to start with. Some Rockers have custom made wardrobe items created to wear on stage and it is not uncommon to shortly afterwards see similar design details appear in popular clothing lines to appeal to the masses. Some Rockers favor wearing standard pieces from specific brands that appeal to them to create mix and match wardrobes rather than having wardrobes sewn just for them. Sales often spike for clothing lines who have their items seen being worn by Rockers on stage.

Over the past few years we have seen trends in bold accessories that have become unisex as more and more Rock Stars were seen wearing them. Highly detailed belt buckles, Rocker style pendants and other bold jewelry items in pewter and other metals with semi precious stones, leather and studding accents now have totally unisex appeal with the masses. Guys that years ago would never consider wearing a pendant are now seen sporting chains with Skulls, Tattoo Art, Crowns and Anchor designs.

















Joel Hoekstra, guitarist for Nightranger is a fan of just such types of unisex Rocker Style jewelry.
The crown pendant that he is seen wearing on stage in the above photos can be found at www.RockerJewelry.com where lots of highly detailed edgy jewelry pieces can be found.












We are fond of the Skull pendant that sits on Black Leather in a Pewter setting that can be seen on Brooke Burke (who will soon be seen on ABC's Dancing With The Stars Show) and other celebrities. www.RockerJewelry.com recently added some new designs that we really like including ones with tattoo guns, a Cobra, crossed guitars and gorgeous Leather cuffs.
















So if you have been wondering if you can carry off bold jewelry styles - worry no more. These edgy styles are for everyone and a great way to enhance a Rocker style Streetwear wardrobe.

To Bling or Not To Bling, That is the Question

Over the past six months the style of heavily embellishments on shirts has made real inroads into mainstream streetwear. Previously shiny rhinestones and eye catching bling were mostly popular in clothing lines that targeted the Hip Hop scene. As this cross over continues more clothing lines have had to come to terms with bling and decide whether to incorporate heavily embellished designs into their product offerings.



Over the past few months many lines started to add lots of brighter colors to their detailing. Mission Clothing, which we have carried for some time has always been on the forefront of edgy streetwear trends. For the last two years they have been more adventurous then most mainstream Premium Streetwear brands and have been using a lot of foiling to highlight designs and some stone studding. They have gone even brighter on some designs for the coming Spring line. A perfect example of this is their Frida shirt which pays tribute to the artwork style of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo - this shirt even changes color when worn outside, going from beige to blue. A smart clothing designer knows though that not every customer is adventurous enough for such super bright colors so Mission has continued to balance their offerings with other more subtle designs such as the Black Button Front shirt with a Winged Mermaid design. The design has slight touches of silver on the wing tips including small rhinestones but is still subtle in color so that it appeals even to guys who normally would not go for bling at all.



DOCTRINE and Rebel Spirit have both created strong reputations for themselves based on their unique embellishments. Both utilize lots of embroidery, metal studding, stone studding and color in their gorgeous designs. When meeting with the designers of both lines recently we saw styles continuing to become brighter and blingier for this coming Spring. We were pleased to see that both lines continued to include some pieces that had great embellishments yet were not quite as colorful which allows us to carry pieces that appeal to a wide range of customers. DOCTRINE'S Long Live Rock Shirt has lots of Gold and Red braided embroidery and detailing while their Sunset Strip shirt is subtle in color yet strong on design with it's pole dancers being made of Black Leather as it employs a tonal Black on Black look accented with metal studs. Rebel Spirit's Royal Knight Shirt has bright Red Foiled detailing and a bold design while their Royal King is a Black on White design that is strong yet not as colorful.







Jade Howe of Hause of Howe decided long ago that bling was not something that would be seen in the Howe line. Yet his edgy Rocker designs featuring strong graphics and clean lines make Hause of Howe appealing to even the guys that like the bling. We have many customers that purchase Howe items and also purchase pieces from our DOCTRINE, Rebel Spirit and Mission Clothing offerings.



While placing orders and checking out the new items at the recent Christian Audigier / Ed Hardy show in Las Vegas I was actually overwhelmed by the amount of bling and bright colors. I had to remind myself that I was seeing hundreds of items together which equaled sensory overload where the average consumer is likely to have only a few items this bright in their wardrobe at any given time balanced by other more subtle pieces.

So the question for the average consumer remains....to bling or not to bling or perhaps the question really should be "how colorful do you want your bling?". I think that we will continue to see heavy embellishments on clothing designs for a long time to come. I am happy to see though that most clothing designers are offering up choices so that customers can decide whether they want the really bright colors or something more subtle. Pieces can be blinged out in subtle color schemes that have just as much heavy detailing yet will continue to have universal appeal and can stay in the consumers wardrobe for years to come.

Streetwear fashion trends as seen at recent Fashion Trade Shows

Well I think we may have just set a new record for the number of Fashion Trade Shows we attended in a 3 1/2 day time frame. We headed off to Las Vegas last Sunday with appointments set at eight different fashion shows between Sunday - Wednesday. We managed to make it to seven of the shows over the course of a whirlwind three days. Among them were Magic, Project, Pool and the new Christian Audigier show.

With so many shows in town at the same time it did make it a bit easier to get around as the halls at any given show were not as packed as usual since attendees were spread out all over town at various fashion events. The exception was the Project Show which seems to get bigger every time we attend and the aisles there were clogged with attendees the afternoon we attended to keep our appointments with designers of DOCTRINE, Hause of Howe and Anti-Social.





The new show in town with lots of hype to live up to was Christian Audigier's event at Caesars Palace - called the When I Move You Move show. Rumors abound as to whether this show was Audigier's brainchild due to arrogance or whether he had been banned from Magic/Project for problems in the past. Whatever reason for the new separate show I have to say that Christian Audigier does indeed appear to be a marketing genius. Buses, Taxi Cabs and billboards all over town touted his event so that there was no way anyone could miss knowing about it. The show was held in two Ballrooms at Caesars and clothing lines shown included all of the Ed Hardy lines along with new lines that Christian Audigier has come out with in collaboration music celebrities. What better way to have big name celebrities appear at your event then to be in the process of coming out with new clothing labels in their name. Celebrity attendees included Macy Gray, Snoop Dog, Dave Stewart and several Rap stars who I must confess I had not heard of myself being a long time Classic Rock Gal. The other attendees seemed to adore the rappers though and the media was there in full force to film it all. Personally I loved seeing Dave Stewart - he looked great and was very charming. The line of clothing with his name on it had nice lines and great styling without too much bling which tells me that Mr. Stewart himself did indeed have a hand in the design process. We had an appointment with the good folks at Ed Hardy Knits to place orders for new items for this upcoming Holiday Season and next Spring. I like the Knits line as it utilizes beautiful knit fabrics that are far and beyond better than regular Ed Hardy T Shirts yet still have all the beautiful Ed Hardy designs. We will be stocking many new designs of the womens Ed Hardy knits line in the near future.

So what do we see in trends??? Tattoo Art continues to cross over into all styles and genres of fashion. We find this to be a positive influence as Tattoo Art is very versatile. It can be subtle with clean elegant lines or can go out and out in your face blinged out. For our money the smart fashions lines are incorporating Rocker Styling and Tattoo influenced designs into their products utilizing specialty fabrics, print processes, detailing and effects to create wearable art that will stand the test of time, becoming wardrobe favorites for todays savvy fashion consumers. For women we see the retro Pin Up Girl style designs crossing over and becoming mainstream cool for women of all walks of life. Walking the aisles at the event I could not help but see that everyone from long term mainstream brands to new up and coming fashion houses had pieces in their ladies lines with cut and style that was reminiscent of the Pin Up Girl fashions of old. Oh...and Corsets ladies...Corsets with beautiful lines and fabric details are not just lingerie anymore! Corsets are to be worn out paired with pencil skirts for a sultry, edgy look. I was pleased to meet with two corset companies who are making wonderful pieces utilizing cutting edge fabrics and prints. We already have the first couple of designs in stock in our Retail Store and will be adding them to our web site in mid September after our next large photo shoot with models for product shots. For the guys we did see one trend that I thought was funny - vests with shirts attached to them - one piece that looks like two. Now I love a Rocker Style vest on a guy and as a matter of fact we just got some into the store from Hause of Howe (they will be available online as soon as we do our photo shoot) and ordered more styles....I just don't get the attached shirt thing that some designers are doing - a vest is a great versatile wardrobe piece but to me part of the beauty of it is that it can be paired with lots of different shirt styles - why limit the piece to only being able to wear it with the shirt that it is sewn onto? I was disappointed in this - do designers think guys are stupid and cannot manage to choose themselves a shirt to wear under their vest? A guy that is savvy and self assured enough to wear a vest is going to know what to put under it and want to mix and match his shirts from long sleeve button fronts to slim fit t's underneath.

We met with the designers / representatives of lines we already carry and were very impressed with the new styles coming from Christopher Wick's for The Fender Custom shop and English Laundry. We have many new styles in the English Laundry Lennon/McCartney shirts on order for Holiday / Spring. We loved some of the new things coming out of DOCTRINE and Rebel Spirit. For the fashion forward guy that does not like any bling Hause of Howe continues to be the ticket as Jade Howe continues to keep to clean lines with European Rocker edgy effects without the bling. For every day working guy tattoo styles and Pin Up Girl fashions Lucky 13 and Sailor Jerry continue to be staples.

We met with many new lines that we are very excited about. I will talk more about them on future postings but some of our new favorites were: Gibson Apparel, Royal Testament, Anama, Bettie Page Dresses and Anti Social. We look forward to items from these lines arriving over the next several months.

All in all it was a very productive group of shows and we are excited about the new products that will be arriving here over the next several months.

Lets Get Started

I decided now was the perfect time to debut this blog as I am about to head out to the massive Industry Fashion Event in Las Vegas known as the Magic Show. This season there are many shows going on concurrently including Magic, Pool, Project, WWIN, Store Erotica and the new Christian Audigier Ed Hardy Show.

For years our business has specialized in a mixture of niche streetwear fashions for Men and Women leaning towards Musician Stage Wear, Club Wear, Rocker Apparel, Tattoo Art Clothing, and a bit of Rockabilly/Psychobilly and Kounter Kulture fashions.

At the Trade Show we will be meeting with the designers of many of our current brands such as DOCTRINE, Rebel Spirit, Fender Custom Shop, English Laundry, Ed Hardy, Lucky 13, Felon, Sailor Jerry, Hause of Howe, Mission Clothing and Ed Hardy. We will also be meeting with the designers of some of our newer lines such as the new Bettie Page dress line, the new Gibson Guitar Clothing Line and the new Rat Fink licensed line of Ed Roth Apparel. Upon heading back I will be updating this blog with my thoughts and insights about whats new in Streetwear Fashions.

In the meantime here are some photos of items from DOCTRINE, one of the Limited Edition John Lennon Shirts (only 350 made) and the color changing Frida Kahlo tribute shirt from Mission Clothing which are items that we love and our Retail Store and Web Site Customers have been excited about also.