A Stormy Halloween

The other day I was at a friends house and she was making her costumes for Halloween. Yes plural. Well, she was going as Lady Gaga and if you saw the VMA’s you would understand. Either way I was completely inspired to make a costume in less than 24hrs. The choice was easy: Storm from X-Men. I say “easy” because my hair was already on it’s way to being white so finish the job and make a costume, right? Amazingly enough I had most of the pieces already (doubly amazing they’re all samples from the collection!), I just needed a collar, cuffs, cape thing and a big ole X. Score! So here is my *interpretation* of the mighty Storm



Storm

7th wonder of the world

As most of you know I am from Puerto Rico. A few months ago it came to my attention that El Yunque, the rain forest of the island (and the ONLY rain forest in the US Parks system), is up for nomination as a New 7th Wonder of the World!

So it has passed the preliminary round and is up for vote again. Please go here and click the icon. It will take you to a page in spanish. No worries though just click on the link and select the 7 you want to nominate one of them being El Yunque of course!

Thank you in advance for participating and consider visiting at some point in your life. Personally I would love to explore it in depth and see Taino petroglyphs in person.

Thanks!

Flannel v Plaid

With fall in full swing I would like to take the time to correct a common misconception held by many.

Back in the 90s the grunge movement brought to the forefront the now infamous trend of wearing flannel plaid shirts.




But, somewhere along the way things got confused. Flannel and plaid became one in the same. I have both heard and read the wrong term used for the wrong description by not just people but companies that make a profit selling clothing.

So, to clear things up:
Plaid)
-”Plaid” is also used as a synonym for tartan or, in the USA, any checked cloth.

Flannel
-Soft woven fabric, of various fineness. It usually doesn’t have a nap, and instead gains its softness through the loosely spun yarn it is woven from.

As you can see you can have a plaid shirt, you can have a flannel shirt, and you can have a plaid flannel shirt.

Get it? Got it! Good…

As seen in Jezebel

Moss Green - Boat Neck Tunic - Hemp/Organic Cotton $275



Jet Black Bamboo/Spandex Jersey - $82

Light Gray Bamboo/Spandex Jersey - $154


After much searching and hunting I finally found the new edition of Jezebel Magazine. In a previous post I wrote about working on a project with the wonderful Ms. Leslie Hines for Authentic Beauty. Well, this issue shows the fruits of our labor. In the Beauty section you will find “Urban Forest” a guide to an easy transition to fall beauty which features fresh faces and 3 of our luxurious pieces. If you are interested in ordering any of these please email me at onisha@bodypolitik.net

And yes there will be more amazing pieces to come so leave a comment, leave your email or save us in your RSS feed because you will NOT want to miss what we have to offer… It sends my heart a flutter just thinking of them. *sigh*

Dragon*Con

Dragon*Con: Atlanta’s infamous (and the Nations biggest) annual convention for all things Sci-Fi, toon, super natural, comic book and anime.

Although this event has been happening for 22 years (2009 was the 23rd) and I, myself, have been in Atlanta for about the same, this was my first time attending (and my first time at any con for that matter) and I was super excited to see the costumes. Yes I know there is more to it than that but being the un-fan-girl that I am and the avid sewing and fashion enthusiast, I was thrilled at the thought of being surrounded by thousands of people in not just costume but in character.

So come Saturday Tunde and I arrive somewhat early sans badges because we don’t need no stinkin badges…. wait, I think we do…crap, we forgot to get badges!

Is this the end of the road for our bloggers? Have they missed yet another year of concentrated fan-dom? Will this trip have been in utter vain?

Uh…no.

So began our quest for badges. It is here that I became fully aware of how amazingly well organized this event is. The fact that they have been doing it for so long is evident and it amazed me how completely and fully they took over 3 major downtown hotels. There were very well informed & sometimes costumed helpers at every street corner keeping an keen eye out for confused looking guests (like ourselves). Colored tapes marked who goes where in the registration area. Free water and plastic cups at every turn. Cross-walk and traffic monitors. I felt very at ease throughout the whole process as a local and believe any out-of-town visitors would be at ease as well….although we did have the upper hand when it came to navigating to more affordable off-site food vendors ($7 for a burger??!)

But I digress. Soon after we began we successfully obtained the badges and began the next part of our quest: explore the awesomeness that is the Con!

Like I said before I was mainly interested in the costumes and characters as was Tunde. So we ran around from hotel to hotel snapping pictures like we were collecting trading cards. It’s amazing how easily one gets caught up in this. I knew very well that they were not real but the excitement and energy around them was all consuming. These attendants had spent all year getting up to 4 costumes done (one for each day) so people like us (and people like them) can share a brief moment of joy and adulation and take a picture of and/or with them…the character they shared memories with, grew up with or didn’t know at all but was in awe of irregardless….

Oh look, Rogue! Boba Fett! 4 Supermen! Look @ that blue guy! It’s that guy, Tunde who is he? Rorschach…aw a little baby Rorschach. Look @ that fuzzy guy! Excuse me sir, who are you? Furling from Stargate? (well actually you never see the Furlings on Stargate except in episode 200 but nobody bought the Koala creatures they showed)…. yeah, nerd central.

We did attend some of the scheduled events but not many. We walked around the pavillions and checked out a lot of comic book artists and vendors of all sorts of wares. But, for me, the best was the MC Chris concert Sunday night…you know the guy that does the voice of MC Pee Pants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force? Yeah, that guy. It was awesome…and hilarious. He looks like a fan boy and talks like an MC but with fan boy lingo (and his voice is just about as high as the ATHF character). I also had fun partying with a whole different crowd.

And so the night went on and the crowds got thinner and after 2 ambulances pulled up to the hotel to carry off 2 over partied individuals, we decided to head home and process everything that went on this weekend. We also took like 10 rolls of pics so do me a favor and check them out here on the FreshIam blog

Writing on the wall

Body Politik x Leslie Hines/Authentic Beauty

The most recent project we completed was a commissioned work for a make-up artist looking for pieces to complete looks for a photo shoot she had coming up. While she was able to pull a lot of items from Jeffery’s there were specific items that needed to be created to complete the looks.

So Lauren, my super sexy redhead, got some preliminary notes regarding what was required of us and one of those things was a color we did not have and could not get in on time.

No worries. Friday evening I set forth mixing and testing a special blend. Saturday, Leslie came over and approved a color (yes!) and we agreed upon the pieces needed for the Monday shoot.

And off we went dying, adjusting patterns, making new ones, cutting and sewing… My sister even came over and made some jewelry for us despite being sick (thanks!) although I had to send her home after a while for fear of it taking us down with her.

We toiled into the night and into the morning and were stopped at the behest of my boyfriend to take a (much needed) 3 hour nap. Apparently 3 hours is just long enough to recharge but not too long to make it difficult to wake up. I have to admit he was completely correct on that one.

And back we were to the tasks at hand. Come Sunday night there was no sleep and no nap. But finally, finally at 9:30 Monday morning we were done! Lauren went to bed to get rested for work, I called into work (no way I was making it in that day!) and off I went to drop off the pieces.

Needless to say everyone was well impressed and swooned over the garments. Unfortunately I was too tired to join the shoot, I was literally sleep walking! But I hear the shoot went great and the pics look amazing….. I CANNOT wait to see them!

That was a crazy weekend and I loved every second of it. Can’t wait for the next project…

Cheers!

p.s. pics coming soon!!!