Archive for the ‘Mood Boards’ Category

It’s spring! and you know what that means!? Time to crawl out of the dark hole you been in and find beauty in the world again. Such a lovely long holiday weekend I took myself to Williamsburg for some shopping and mimosas with the cool kids.

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”

(shopping blog post to follow, stay tuned. I found some pretty little things in lovely little places.)

This post however, is about all the beautiful, ugly, ironic, and just plain inspiring things I saw along the way. It’s Brooklyn, a giant collage of strange and cool. So walk with me if you would…

The Future Perfect…

Don’t Panic!

“Life is Hard, but Not Today”

“The World ain’t always Disney”

“You’re Face to Face with the Man Who Sold the World”

“Not Swallowed in the Sea”

“Helping Hands Will Show You the Way”

“Which Way Would You Like To GO?”

“There is a Crack in Everything,That’s How the Light Gets In”

“No More Pipe Dreams”

“The World Turned on it’s End”

But Everything’s Coming Up Roses”

“You’ve Got Tulips: Speak”

“You’ll Find Home…”

“…When You’ve Found Yourself”

I’m a big fan of peeping in windows as I drive down streets to see how people live. What colors are the walls? What things do they surround themselves with?  Does it look like a happy place to live? You can tell a lot about a person by the respect they show for their living space.

It seems like everyone has that corner of a room or home, or yard that they just hate to walk by but get use to. I really think that exposing yourself to clutter and unhappy places in your house hinders creativity and well being. It’s just bad feng shui and “You don’t have to take it”!

People often say they want color in their life but are afraid to paint the walls, or buy large furniture in COLOR.  Why not  color your life happy?  I recently moved into a bigger creative space and designed myself a pretty cool pad. So I’m writing this to help you figure out how to decorate your happy place, starting with color!

Enter my coveted issue of Home and Garden April 2000.

How to use COLOR!! I got this issue when I was still in college, and I loved to look at the ideas and use of color in spaces and dream about how I would design my space, post dorm life.

I love this color story, very modern, clean, lively and crisp.

I have always insisted on having the coolest pad I can no matter where I live, or what my budget is. I want to love my space and feel at home in the warmest way.

How about a warm inviting elegant and sophisticated arrangement?

I Love the color red, and I have always been inspired by Ms. DianaVreeland’s “Red Room” It’s so “Moulin Rouge“!

Or how about a playful use of color?

Have you ever stopped to consider green?

Or get really crazy and go with pattern AND bold color!

Soft neutrals don’t HAVE to be boring…

So, think about what colors make you happy, go to Home Depot pick all your favorite colors no matter how dark, bold, or  acid and pretend you could do ANYTHING you want with them.  Once you’ve got a few color pallets laid out, come back here for the second part where I show you how I arrived at a happy place with my wicked cool newish art studio/living space.

Summer 2011 is coming out with a slew of comic book movies and I’m too freaking excited about it. Why? cuz last time comics hit fashion it was pretty cool. In 2008 The MET exhibit “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” rocked my world at least a dozen times, and the Costume Institute Gala inspired celebrities to pull out the most amazing couture.

Iron Man

In fact, my favorite piece from the Gala was this Givenchy dress worn by Christina Ricci. Very Wonder Woman of her, I adore it!

Freaking Fabulous!

Gisele Bündchen in Yves Saint Laurent blew me out of the sky as well.

And isn’t Zac Posen just adorable? Seriously!

I don’t see why some comic book inspired fashion trends end up so cheesy.

Some times, even when the movie totally sucked, the clothes are utterly worth a reinterpretation.

In fact, I knocked this dress off in 2003.

Obviously, Jean-Paul Gaultier saw something worth salvaging from the terrible film debacle of 1998’s Avengers. Unlike, Star Trek, an excellent movie both for fashion and film. I’m not even a Treky but I’d totally borrow from Uhura’s closet any day.

Trends don’t always have to be too literal, for example, my all time favorite comic movie, Watchmen, inspired my obsession with Rorschach motifs.

My Hero!

But why not be a bit literal every once in a while? I mean, who doesn’t want to be both Lois Lane and Superman sometimes?!

Even one of my real life heroes, Ms. Diane Von Furstenberg has a hero to look up to.

And if it’s good enough for DVF it’s good enough for ME!

I can’t wait for these movies to come out, and I don’t care if they are bad, there will be plenty of eye candy, what’s not to like? Thor, Green Lantern, Transformers, Captain America, Conan the Barbarian, and X-Men.

And just in case you don’t have the right dress to wear to the premier, worry not, get your Garrott on!

Spring is here and thanks to Gucci and Marc Jacobs so is COLOR!! Check Refinery29 for the whole Spring 2011 color trend.

Fall 2011 runway is out with lots of feathers, especially the cool necklaces at Cynthia Steffe, not to mention the whole fabulous collection! Peek the raven’s feathers at Ann Demeulemeester for a little dark indulgence.

For those who just don’t have much to say….

This week’s Garrott Tee style “look #6 Rebel Rebel” (though more of an 80’s look) sent me digging through my old Mood Books from a few years ago when Nickki and I were working at the same fashion house (fall 2007 to be exact). I was walking past Nickki’s desk when she had pinned up a swipe from this photo spread in Elle Magazine (“Fashion Rocks”  Raquel Zimmermann) and I had just glued together this page over the weekend. Nickki informed me that this would be her aspiration for her new fall look. I still love this page, I don’t think either of us have got a giant purple faux fur but we can still dream can’t we?

I started “Fashion Comics” as a creative exercise using collage, fashion swipes and found items to tell a story. “She Felt Like an Experiment…”  is about getting dressed on Monday mornings. Make your own “fashion comic” and email it to me, I’ll share it on my blog.

email to garrott@garrottdesigns.com

I promised an all new blog with an all new website, it’s long overdue on the delivery. So why don’t I start with some of my favorite pages from my tare books. These books are pasted full of ideas, colors, images etc, that make me want to do what I do all day. So here is a peek into the back of my mind, enjoy!