Eliza Starbuck and Coco Chanel Celebrate 128 Years of Style with The Little Black Dress
It’s Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s Birthday. And the Bright Young Things would like to pay tribute to her. So for one week only, starting on her birthday, Thursday, August 19th, we’re offering our little black dress to all for $150.
To celebrate, I thought I’d give her a ring. She doesn’t get out much these days, and most people seem to think she’s dead, but like Tupac and Elvis, she’s virtually immortal. She stays in and generally avoids society with the exception of only the closest of friends. She also has a rule to never celebrate birthdays, but I somehow convinced her to let me over for low key afternoon tea and some reminiscing about her 128 years of impeccable style. Naturally, I wanted to pick her brain on style, fashion, love, and her life philosophy. Her answers were uncannily current for someone who stays at home all the time. And once you get her going, she’s hard to stop. By the end of the visit we were playing dress up in her closet and posing for the camera. You should have seen her impersonation of today’s runway models! She had me cracking up while she coached me on how to pose for the camera to avoid regrettably bad angles for my face. She said knowing how to pose is a key skill to have if you are planning on being any sort of legend. Apparently no one gets famous if they don’t photograph well. Shortly after that Coco and I tried to vogue, but in the end I think we just looked rather smirky. I suppose we let our vanity get the best of us. However, I think we may have uncovered one of the greatest mysteries of the fashion world; why everyone in fashion photos always looks so catty. Chin insecurity… Read on>>
Bright Young Things Need But One LBD
The name is as clever as the dress (which is reversible and infinitely convertible), so what is a Bright Young Thing? “A Bright Young Thing is defined as someone who is open minded, optimistic, playful, appreciates beauty and still is conscious about their actions effects on the world around them. A conscious Joy-maker. It has nothing to do with your age, it has everything to do with being nimble, inventive, and enginuitive within the social, physical and environmental constructs of our times,” says Starbuck. -Johanna Bjork reports for Goodlifer
Get the scoop here.
Bright Young Things visits the Dress Factory
As a designer in the fashion industry, there were always certain disconnects between the process of design and the process of production. I would submit my sketches and then, as if by magic, sample garments would arrive 3 weeks later from China. This never quite sat well with me. Anything that fast had to be cutting corners and taking major short cuts, and from the other side of the world, I could never see or know what was really going on. With the launch of Bright Young Things, I decided that I wanted to be a part of my production process. The best way I found to do that was to produce locally in New York City…Read More>>
What is sustainable about fashion?
When posed with the question, “What is sustainable fashion?” the fashion world has come to no agreement… Read More>>
Treasure Hunt
Finding new clothes for the season was always a miserable venture with the hideous, generic styles that one would find at the department stores. We wanted embroidery, jacquard, beads, silk! So we finally got wise, and started heading to the thrift stores at the beginning of every season… Read more>>
StyleLikeU video of BYT Designer, Eliza Starbuck
Here’s a little peek at Bright Young Things’ Designer, Eliza Starbuck’s personal inspiration and wardrobe of vintage, used, and crafted. Styled her way on Stylelikeu.com… Take a look>>
The Beginning of Bright Young Things
When I first met Sheena Matheiken, of The Uniform Project, in 2008, I had come to the conclusion that fashion made a better creative outlet than a meaningful career. At that time, I had made the decision to walk away from the fashion industry and the mass consumer culture it fueled. So when Sheena told me she was looking for someone who could make her a dress, I was hesitant. But after she explained the concept behind the Uniform Project, I was excited at the prospect of using my skills as a fashion designer for a charitable cause that would also promote sustainable culture… Read More>>
The Uniform Project
Would you ever wear the same dress for a year, whether to raise awareness, raise money, save money, save natural resources, challenge yourself creatively, or just to remember what your closet can do for you?… Read more>>
