I wanted to point out how great these bags we have are by A. Kurtz. We have this awesome cargo backpack and a fieldbag as well. A. Kurtz makes all these amazing military inspired bags with really great details, like leather trim and cool hardware, screenprinting and stitching. They're both made of canvas. The backpack has tons of useful pockets and even has an extra handle on the side. And check out the A. Kurtz philosophy...
It's coming up, so clear your calendars, and make that road trip to NY! The Renegade Craft Fair is sponsored by Bust Magazine and is seriously awesome. This year is their biggest yet, with over 300 artists participating. And I'm sure some of our favorite craft bloggers will be there. Leave a comment with your link if you're going! It looks like this year there will be vendors set up in the pool instead of the park. I guess that lessens the chance of getting hit with a baseball. See you there!
Oh, and if you live near Chicago, the fair is held there too! Check out their site for more info...
Above are some photos from last year. Check out the rest on the RCF flickr site.
The first few images for the travel swap are posted! Check out the details on our flickr page.
Also, on the flickr page, I recommend checking out all of the messages left in our "introductions" stream. Find it under "discuss" or "discussions". Practically all of the swappers participating have listed their blogs, websites, or myspaces. Lots of new blogs and artists out there to be discovered. So get to it!
Wanted to show you some of the great photos you're posting in our free (people) style flickr group. I love how much effort some of you are putting into this, with amazing styling and creative composition.
But, I'm also loving all the snapshots too! This one is definitely a favorite!
Post your own photos here and get creative! We wanna see more photos!
I really love this digital mag style will save us, and they love "all things super-stylish, organic, ethical, eco-friendly, vintage, recycled and sustainable." In the current issue, they did an article on re-worked vintage and featured the "post-vintage" work of fashion and art collective Andrea Crews (pictured above). Check out the article here...
This is for anyone signed up to swap... You should have your partners by now. I'm still getting some comments trickling in about not having partner info. If you don't have a partner, then the message went to your junk box or you gave me the incorrect (or no) email address. So let me know asap and I can fix you up!!
Also, be sure to join our travel swap flickr group so you can share you photos and see everyone else's. I can't wait to see all the crafts!
I spotted these on coolhunting and had to share. Someecards (or Some Ecards) are for "when you care enough to hit send". I posted some of the cards that are just sarcastic enough for a smile, but check out the site. There are some that are just so ridiculous you will laugh out loud. I can't imagine ever sending some of these, but they make their site that more entertaining.
The girls at our Paramus NJ store were having a "fit session". They do this frequently to try on all of the newest styles to see how they fit and what you can wear them with. That way they can let customers know all the details and help them put together great outfits. This time the girls decided to make a mini photoshoot out of the event. I've posted some of the photos and I'll put the rest on our flickr group free (people) style...
Any readers in the Sydney/Gympie Australia area? We have a special project for you. Please comment with your name and email address if interested and we will contact you with additional details. (I won't publish your email address, so no need to worry.) Thank you!!!
Even if you're not a Bjork fan, I'm sure you can appreciate her visual artistic sensibilities. You have to admit, everything she does looks interesting if not beautiful. So showstudio has this activity on their site that I thought was really cool. To celebrate Bjork's new record, Volta, you can download tiles that you can print out at home. Once you have each tile, you can put it together like a puzzle to assemble one large Volta poster. Check it out...
I know this is late notice if you actually live close enough to Philly to go tonight, but I would like to support the artist anyway, so I thought I'd give her a shout out...
Tonight!!
May 11th, 7pm-9pm
At Benna's Cafe' (which is located on the north-west corner of 8th and wharton st in south philly)
Katie Henry will be having a party and you are all invited.
There will be mint juleps and miniature dinosaur cupcakes and miniature fruit tarts and wine and cheese and balloons and good people.
Oh and there will also be Katie's beautiful sewn drawings and handbags.
Please come if you can, and tell your friends to come as well.
I was browsing through this week's issue of Time Out New York, when I spotted the word "Etsy" under the "recently opened" section. It seems Etsy, our fav DIY web merchant, has opened up their warehouse, or the Etsy Lab, for...
*Workshops on making things
*Advice & help with your Etsy shop
*Meeting other artists
*Getting out of your house
*Creative projects
*Community events
So if you live anywhere near Brooklyn, I would check it out!
I am so happy we got some response to our new flickr group free (people) style! I wasn't sure if people would be into it, but a bunch of you have started posting photos and comments. It's so cool to see how different everyone styles their individual pieces. So the above photo is definitely my favorite so far. I know she's not exactly wearing Free People, but she drew this design inspired by the henna tattoos on our models from our India-inspired catalog!
Check out our new May catalog!!! Keeping along with our travel theme, this trend concept is inspired by Asia. Here's a little blurb written by our assistant creative director describing some of the process for this shoot...
our asia collection was inspired by quintessential asian-themed prints and colors...pattern and color everywhere...
we decided that, after returning from puerto rico for the africa book, we wanted to keep this shoot more local...(and besides, didn’t have a budget to travel to asia
to document...well...asia). so, we gathered up inspiration pix and, with the help of our creative assistant, learned how to make huge tiled backdrops from them...
which you’ll see we’ve been utilizing for a lot of our recent web shoots.
gathered these backdrops up, and headed to our wholesale showroom in ny, where the shoot was based. ransacked chinatown for lots of additional props – fake flowers, kites, lanterns, fans...
and spent a lot of time rigging them up with fishing line and binder clips!
we also threw in a new concept – karaoke - which is why you’ll see song lyrics (penned by our communications coordinator) and microphones popping up on a few pages of this book. the models sang along to our ipods while we were shooting those images...
for the shot of the chinese dragon, the team packed up and headed to a karate studio (located above our photographers’ studio) in the lower east side of the city.
The above photos are of the book our creative assistant put together for inspiration for the shoot. She gathered all kinds of images, photos, fabrics, yarns, and then layered on her own drawings and notes to start to piece together ideas for the finished catalog.
Free People is in love with mixing it up... mismatched prints, soft feminine with tough boy elements, the pulled-together with the super care-free. How do you wear your Free People? I know there are some Free People girls out there with some serious style. Well we wanna see it!
I've set up a flickr group where you can post pics of your personal FP looks. You don't have to be in head to toe Free People, I think it's cool to see how everyone mixes things into their wardrobe. We'll be checking out the photos and the comments people leave. I'll post some of your photos that really stand out on the blog, and somebody might even get contacted to participate in a Free People catalog shoot!
The above photos are some of the girls that work in our store in Paramus NJ. So style up your Free People and post some photos here!!!
One of my favorite artist / bloggers, Anahata, is on this month's cover of Cloth Paper Scissors! I picked up this magazine for the first time a few months ago, and it's really great for artistic inspiration, especially collage ideas and techniques. I'll definitely be buying this month's issue to check out the feature on Anahata...
She sent the above F & P tags to Free People as a little present, along with a bunch of other amazing paper goods she designed. Check out her goods and her blog too!
I was deleting photos on my camera and found these shots I took at a trend meeting last year. This is when the designers were first starting to think about the India and Africa trends that have been our past two design concepts. Everyone on the design team brought in inspiration that related to the themes. Some brought fabrics, some vintage garments, magazine tears, accessories picked up on travels... Someone even brought in some paintings they did while in school! This is just the start of the long development processs they go through when working out new concepts. Thought you'd like to see a little peek!
So there were seriously eight different FP employees in the home office yesterday wearing blue and white stripes. How ridiculous is that? And yes, we have an FP man! He merchandises the stores!
And about the swap...
There are just under 200 people signed up! woohoo! Thanks to all you bloggers that spread the word! So I'm gonna match up partners and email you info. There are about 10 people that didn't leave me your email address! If your name is listed, (I left out your last name for security or whatever) please comment with your email. I won't post the comments... This is gonna be fun.
Laura P
Cody F (male swapper! woohoo! he did the vday swap and the poor guy received a necklace, so this time I'll let his partner know he's an FP man...)
suzi b
Jessica G
Crystal-Ann K
Rachelle C
Natalie S
Claire B
Patrina F
Reethi J
Helen H
Heather R