Month: June 2014

Dress The Iconics — Lem

I had been working on a post to dress Lem, using a lot of Balmain: elaborate jackets, skinny jeans, and a ton of swagger.  Looks like these:

lem2 lem1 lem3

(Balmain Fall 2010 Ready to Wear, Balmain Spring 2010 Ready to Wear, Balmain Resort 2012)

But then Saint Laurent’s 2015 Spring Menswear collection came out. And said everything I had had to say about Lem, making references to Keith Richards, Chris Robinson, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant, Lenny Kravitz.  I have nothing useful to add.

lemmOther looks for Lem on Pinterest.

Dress The Iconics — Crowe

Crowe is the new Bloodrager iconic.

crowelit

Chanel Fall 2008 Couture

The literal interpretation of Crowe’s look comes from Chanel. Because isn’t that what you think of when you think of raging barbarian? Actually, some of Lagerfeld’s recent work with the line has brought out the raging barbarian in some (he’s responsible for the Evil Queen of Hoth insanity), so it may be an appropriate choice after all.  The dress is grey and linear sort of evokes Crowe’s lamellar armour.  (Chanel Fall 2008 couture)

crowelightning

Diana Eng 2010

 

A big feature in Crowe’s story is the occurance of violent storms that accompany his rages.  Here’s a lightening storm in dress form, courtesy of Diana Eng. (Too literal?)

 

 

 

croweRodarte gave me the most Shoanti looking thing I found.  The styling helps a lot with that, this was probably chosen as much for the clothes as for the fake tats. Rodarte Spring 2010, Ready to Wear.

 

 

 

Mathematical Proof

While trying to figure out what Crowe would wear (it turns out heavy armor wearers are pretty challenging), I worked out a mathematical proof for you enjoyment. I have proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that shoes are not monsters.

  1. Premise:  All shoes are monsters.
  2. Therefore, no shoe can exist that is a monster.
  3. Axiom: monsters were not made by Aboleths. (reference)
  4. shoes Clearly made by aboleths.
  5. Therefore, shoes are not monsters. QED

My 6-inch-healed-Numerian boots disagree, however.

These awesome (yet slightly sinister looking) shoes are from Iris van Herpen and Rem D Koolhaas. Like van Herpen’s previous appearance these are 3D printed.

Numerian Boots

evilboots

Numeria Boots

These showed up in my web research on Numeria and cracked me up.  Their ‘model number’ is “Numeria” and they completely fit into my reto-futurism dreams and/or expectations for Numeria.

The were only $20, so I had to buy them. But the heal (including the platform) is six inches, so I’m not sure I can ever wear them.

Now that I’ve exposed my weakness and price point, I fully expect to see more shoes in the same line:  gold gladiator sandals named ‘Osirion’, baroque satin mules named ‘Taldor’, Kick-ass motorcycle boots named ‘Belkzen’.

Numerian Sleeves

I have become completely enthralled with the sleeve worn but the member of the Technic League on pg 33 of Numeria.  This is obviously how the TL recruits new members.  With great sleeves.

The sleeve part looks like a standard 2-piece jacket sleeve down to the elbow.  The bodice part has an undersized side panel, which ends just a few inches below the armscye (The seam where the sleeve is sewn to the bodice).  I have no idea what to call this, so I’m going to go with “gusset”, even thought that’s not what it is)

The coat is made from 2 different fabrics, one for most of the coat and one for the under sleeve and gusset. Presumably, this is for ventilation or freedom of movement.

I can’t wait to reverse engineer it and see how it works.  There’s also some interesting chevroning around the waist.  I have nowhere to wear this coat, but I’m dying to figure out how it’s made.

 

Plastic in Numeria

I’m pretty excited.  But I don’t get out much.  I’ve made it up to about page 30 of Numeria (because I’m the world’s slowest reader) and found this little gem on pg 25 in the section on Corrosive Rain (emphasis mine):

Rains vary widely in what they affect, some dissolving nearly any material, others affecting only organic matter, metal, or plastics.

Unrelatedly, last week’s What If xkcd tackled the question of how much real dinosaur (via petroleum) is in a plastic toy dinosaur. Short answer: not much. He doesn’t ask the more important question: What is the AC of a polyester jumpsuit, and whether it can be raised my adding more dinosaur.

Report from Numeria

This weekend, I got the answers to all my burning questions about Numeria when my book arrived. And, as always, more questions were raised than answered. I’m only about 20 pages in (as of this writing), so I may have to eat my words later.

Answer to the Most important Question:

Ruffian Spring 2011 Ready to Wear

YES (with caveat):  There is polyester!  I feel foolish for even asking.  The android on page 57 is rocking a mauve and white, belted, sleeveless, double breasted, flared pantsuit.  It is exactly as glorious as it sounds.  With that description, how could it be anything other than polyester?  It looks a lot like this white suit from Ruffian’s Spring 2011 Ready to Wear collection.  Also, since she’s an android described as having “synthetic skin”, she essentially is polyester.

Louise Goldin Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

The Numerian Gunslinger  on pg 55 is wearing a standard issue superhero/speed-skater suit.  The kind that requires an amount of stretch which is unattainable with natural fibres alone.  This piece from Louise Goldin’s 2008 Fall collection displays similar amounts of stretch and contrasting seam inserts. (ETA:  The artist posted the Gunslinger image on deviant art)

From these facts, I am cautiously optimistic that there is polyester, despite no actual mention of petroleum-based fabric.

Speaking of synthetic materials:  Am I the only one hoping the Technology Guide includes recipes for making polymers, like the formulas in the Alchemist’s Handbook?

 

Dress the Iconics — Oloch

‘New Icon Thursday’ has come and gone, giving us Oloch, the half orc warpriest. There are no new ways of saying “awesome iconic, awesome backstory”, and there are 7 more to cover, so let’s just take that as given.  Paizo made flail snails cool and cloakers sympathetic, so obviously the iconics are going to rock.

The most notable characteristics I wanted to capture in Oloch’s look were his bulk and the hardness and angular shapes in his armor. No flowing chiffon with a nipped in waist for Oloch.

oloch_lit

Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 Ready to Wear

 

The literal interpretation of Oloch’s look is this Louis Vuitton skirt from Fall 2011 ready to wear. (Warning, you might not want to click the link, as the full outfit is very un-orcish.  The skirt is the only good part. The complete look is, in fact, nipped in at the waist.)

 

 

oloch_1

Yoshi Yamamoto Fall 2013 Ready to Wear

 

This look (Yohji Yamamoto, Fall 2013 ready to wears) contains all three of my Oloch characteristics and then adds a purse that matches his flail. (Flail-purse is the new flail snail?)

 

 

 

 

Three more looks for Oloch (including one actually made from a metallic fabric!):

oloch_3oloch_2oloch_4

(Alexander Wang Fall 2013 Ready to Wear, Gianfranco Ferré Fall 2011 Ready to Wear, Christopher Kane Spring 2012 Ready to Wear)

More hard, angular looks for Oloch on Pinterest.