Riga Fashion Week

This week is Fashion Week in Riga, and I'm tweeting all about it! (See left-hand side of blog)  I've already written about a few here, but now that Twitter has expanded my world, I can do a more full report on the whole week of fashion and what I loved.  So far I loooove Triinu Pungits as much as ever, but Janis Šnē totally gripped me with (what I will consider) icicle inspired designs, possibly origami inspired since they look like paper.  Plus, putting icicle-origami daggers where your eyebrows are is totally what I'm into.  Because, FASHION.  People who have no imagination hate on haute design because it's inaccessible, but people who understand flights of fancy and the power of image through clothing get it.  I love me some practical wear, but I love some crazy shit that I would never dare wear outside the house because I am a timid person.  It's fun to see clothing be a wearable piece of art instead of the boring reasons we all wear clothes.

So follow my handle for some more fashion updates before I do a round-up of my favorite Riga fashion moments. (I am really hoping mareunrols shows up because their stuff is BOMB, too)  If you need the lowdown on a few designers in CEE to fully appreciate my tweets, read up here.

Lithuania & Belarus Student Fashion

I regularly follow a number of blogs, including those on fashion.  I gravitate toward the fringe fashion blogs as opposed to "recycle your closet!!11" kinds.  I have particularly enjoyed Style Bubble, which almost anyone in the fashion blogosphere knows about.  She's a big deal.  I love that Susie Bubble features student work and that she also features an incredible amount of international work; she doesn't settle for the big name fashion shows, but digs into the local fashion scenes to see what's ticking on the grassroots level.

I found this post on a student showing called ITS, which was also judged by the one and only Marina Abramović. I should probably do a post on her in the near future because she is one of the more compelling modern artists and is from the Yugosphere.  Anyway, two fashion designers of interest were featured!  See the photos below for a sneak peak and then read her post.  I would hate to rip off her work, so let me simply direct you to the good stuff.

Romanian Fashion

I'm bringing the clothes back!  I do not have a collection of designers like my previous posts because I am focusing on one designer.  Months ago, right as I was getting engaged, I received an email from Loredana Novotni, a recent MA in Fashion graduate.  After the little bit of flattery, she asked to be featured and all I had to do was scroll down to see the pictures before I hit "Reply".

I would introduce Loredana more, but her feature on Fashion Brewery is excellent and the feature on Re-Design for Life talks about her foray into fashion.  She's been featured on numerous websites, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel by asking my own questions.  You can see more of her work and find more features of her on her blog.  Let's get started on the collection she emailed me about: SacRED.

Latvija: More Baltic Fashion

Latvia is the last country on the fashion radar this week.  There will be reprisals on fashion week, do not fear, but today marks the last day of CEE fashion, for this week at least.

Estonian Fashion

We are finally getting to the Baltics. They've been entirely neglected and I can't ignore them, no matter how tiny they may be.  I came across this list and shamelessly went through and searched designers on it.  I often make notes on how I research for my posts, and I'm writing a post to address this very topic.  It's a whole matter in and of itself and for those interested in the region (who may not know the scads of languages necessary for such tasks), it's good to see how I come up with the information.  It's not as easy as it looks even with Google the great machine, I swear.

BiH Fashion

Today is Bosnia i Hercegovina, which also has a fashion week in Sarajevo.  I suppose I wasn't aware of all the international fashion shows since my exposure is mainly Milan, Paris, and NYC.  It's a great challenge to find these designers because it shows me a new side of fashion that's not so prominent.

Albanian Designers

Albania and it's fashion designers are all the rage today (in this post).  I had particular difficulties in finding websites (as in, I found none), but I have lots of pictures to make up for it.  Yay.

Hungarian Fashion

Today starts FASHION WEEK! YAY! It just so happen to coincide with the fall fashion season. I wish I could say I planned it this way, but I have to point to divine inspiration (or maybe an intuitive sense of fashion timing? nah...)  So this week fashion designers from all over CEE are going to be feature by country.  I plan on posting at least 5 designers per country because designers in CEE tend to use the internet to market their clothing.  This may be because the internet's ascent coincided with the renewed fashion scene, which no longer had to stay underground. (Pictures after the jump!)