I’ve been obsessing over hats lately like crazy. I see so many cute pictures of girls wearing them with prairie dresses, rock T-shirts and polka dots. Whenever I throw on a hat I feel like a different person… like I’m in character… it’s kinda fun. It makes me feel like I need to be a performer for the day!! I think I need one in my life. There are so many adorable styles out there.
The look I’m chasing at the moment on the hat front is that naïve folksy look, the prairie look made accidentally cool. Mixing a hippie dress with a polka dot shirt, then either a bowler hat or fedora or if I just wanted an easy care free day – a vintage rock tee, dirty denims and yep topped off with any hat.
I gotten hat crazy this month but my life has been made easy with the great selection that is right here on our web.
i am very excited to announce our next book club read – just kids by patti smith! a couple of you recommended this book but it was literally yesterday during a conversation with our videographer that we chose it. here is what she had to say about it…
i’d heard friends talking about patti’s book and how powerful/inspiring/mesmerizing it was…
coincidentally i got tickets to see her play in new york for the new year.
i’m not much of a reader anymore, but…
i started the book on sunday – after seeing her perform which was downright amazing – and stayed up til 1am tuesday to finish it.
i don’t even feel like i can conjure up words to say what she’s already said – though when i read the last page, i texted my good friend,
feeling compelled to say “good lord, there’s good work to be done.”
i haven’t been so moved by a book in maybe…ever.
you’ll want to throw away all of your fears and reservations and excuses and go for it –
it being whatever the heck you want your life to be.
ok sign me up! i can’t wait to start reading it. i’ll give you all a week or so to get started and then i’ll start posting about it. in the meantime, here are some images of the impossibly cool patti smith.
i am so inspired by this story and artwork sent in from reader keely, from savannah, georgia. a college student who paints on the side, she was inspired by one of our summer display bikes to create jewelry out of wood, hemp, floss thread, scrapbook paper, fabric and free people catalogs!
it was this bike – specifically the wheels – that sparked her inspiration:
and here’s a look at the jewelry she created:
here are some of her paintings, which she creates using mixed media such as fabric, paper, glitter and acrylic paint. i love how colorful and cheerful they are:
finally, i had to share this photo of her christmas tree, decorated with all DIY ornaments!
now that’s a free people tree if i ever saw one :)
check out more of her work here. thanks so much for sharing, keely!
our graphic designers have made a new downloadable/printable calendar for 2011!
i can’t stop looking at it, they did such a beautiful job and have captured the mood of each month perfectly.
click here to go to our flickr page and download the large size – they made two versions, one for regular screens and one for wide screens :) enjoy and happy new year!
good morning, time for the final thursday poll of 2010! so for christmas i got a free people gift card and i think i might use it to buy a dress for new years eve… we’ve got some really cute variations on the little black dress – which of these is your favorite?
hey do you guys remember our concept intern anastasiya? she’s interning for us again during her winter break, and i wanted to share these dreamy collages she made in polyvore. the images she puts together and her writing are always so inspiring!
new romantic
sweeping tulle caresses the skin on her legs as a childlike wonder guides her through the rustic scene. at the far corner of the field glimmer apple trees of a distant orchard. she picks up the hem of her maxi skirt, cradling the ivory mesh between her fingertips, and sets on towards her new destination. bathed in a palette of nudes, burnt sienna, and myrtle, she feigns camouflage and imagines she is of the land.
picking sea shells on the surf
the water dances around her bare ankles as she tiptoes through the sun bleached sand. draped across her frame in soothing shades of coral and mint that reflect the oceanic scene, loose dresses bathe the free people girl in comfort, each fiber tickling her skin. she gently plucks each shell from its bed of sand and muses upon it for a moment, then tucks it into the glistening satchel suspended from her wrist where it settles amid her existing treasures.
snow treader
bursts of color fuse in the intergalactic sky, painting a warm glow over the snow covered field on which she walks. feet snug in her weathered boots, she treads on in the spell of the dewy night, dissolving the snow to sunken footprints that glisten in her wake.
when night falls
when night falls, her wardrobe mimics the moody saturation of the sky. deep jewel tones and dense black slather her skin. the romantic lace and vintage embroidery is protected from the night with buckles and sharp victorian elements from the things she carries.
on the road
the road shrinks in her rearview mirror as the distant call of the west pulls her forward towards new horizons. soft knits cradle her skin, a comfort she cherishes in the midst of the constant change. as she drives, the soft western trinkets cascading from her wrists sound against the steering wheel, filling her mind with images of the landscapes that will soon be hers.
you’ve all probably seen an image of photos arranged in a heart shape before… i know it’s been done. i found this one particularly sweet though – i like how it consists of all images of deer. and it got me thinking about other variations you could try this with. i have this one wall in my apartment with nothing on it, so i think i might do something like this but i can’t decide what!
my first inclination was to make a collage of my favorite photos of various places i’ve been… but then i thought this might be a really fun project for the new year – making a collage of photos from the past year. i decided to try it out at work today using some of my favorite images from our 2010 catalogs!
it was really cool just looking back through this year’s catalogs and tearing out my favorite images. i feel like they just kept getting better and better this year – i didn’t think our team could top the august catalog shot in the desert in morocco, but then i saw september and fell in love. and wait till you guys see our january 2011 book – it’s breathtaking.
i don’t know if there’s a certain way to do this that’s easiest, but i started in the middle. it was a little tricky because my images were all different sizes. i wanted the camel image to be at the center because i love it, then i just worked around it, using different image sizes and rearranging them until they formed a heart.