Jacquie Severs

Like many of my contemporaries who (somewhat unfortunately) have excellent taste, I  like mid-century design. If I'm lucky enough to inherit a piece, or to find it cheap on kijiiji, or at a garage sale in the country, then that's awesome. But going to some tiny Toronto boutique and buying it at market value, (which of course includes a 'finders fee') ...no way! Not when I know the perfect teak side tables are in some senior citizen's basement in perfect condition, just waiting to find a curb. While the search continues for my design classics at flea-market prices, I can have a little taste of it now with these totally cute  Tiny Little Chair necklaces. Handmade in Montreal.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that sometimes in home decor, a trend will stick around forever. Or, what seems like forever. Using the below mood board to illustrate, I'll explain the importance of an evolving colour palette.
 First, check out what I've called "Fresh Picked Lipstick". (Click to see full size.)

For the past few years a particular lime green colour has been very popular. For the most part it has been paired with an equally bright, though less neon, pale pink colour, what I would call bubblegum. I think designers in my industry have had about enough of it, but consumers haven't, and are still buying this colour pairing.

Add to that the way that products are purchased - in bulk, and it means that companies still have stock of some green items and the sales aren't exactly booming the way they once were.

The best solution for this problem is to create an evolved colour palette using this same foundation (pink and green) and add some new tones to it to give it a fresh appearance. That's what I've done here.

By adding a hot pink, burgundy and grape tone to the pink palette, I effectively neutralize the bubblegum feel. The range of tones (that really plays on the "Red and Pink" vibration) creates a more sophisticated feeling. In addition, I've split the lime green in two - a greenish lemon faces off with a fresh cadmium green, and I've placed it on a neutral base including a stone grey to further break up the visual effect of the pink and green together, removing some of the hyper-feminine feeling and giving it a more timeless appearance.

 The whole palette is best exemplified with the floral fabric swatch below the computer. You could imagine in your mind how a handbag in this fabric could be merchandised alongside last year's pink accessories and the previous year's green glass vases, effectively tying it all together in a fresh new way.

Here's the official introduction of a new feature on the blog, Colour Lover. 

I've been in love with colour my whole life. My paintings are about colour. People will ask "what is your painting about?" and while I have many answers about themes and meaning and so on, the truth is, I always start with planning the colours. I not-so-secretly want to work on the Colour Association or name colours for Mac makeup or work for Pantone. All would be awesome.

Years ago I was working in a boutique and a woman came in wearing red and pink together. I lamented to my boss that I wished I had the guts to pair colour that way. She said to me, (and I remember the moment perfectly) "Don't worry, when you get old you won't care as much, then you'll wear whatever you like." It couldn't be more true. As I've gotten older I've grown more confident with mixing colours in unusual ways. I've even started doing it with patterns. Lately leopard print mixed with plaid has been a favourite.

I also forecast colours for work. I do this to provide myself with direction for the upcoming year. Colour trends are a trickle-down thing. I don't work in fashion, I work in gift and home decor, so the trends take a little longer to surface, and definitely take longer to go away, which can be annoying. The odd thing about forecasting colour trends is that by the time the colour is popular, you are kinda sick of it. Nonetheless, it is one of my absolute favourite things to do at work. I've done my three 'Upbeat' colour palettes for the upcoming year (which in my business is "everyday 2011" and "dated 2012") and here is a peek at one of them. I'll post the other two later on, to keep this rolling.

I call this one "Love Tiffany's". Click to see full size.

Inspirations include:
Cath Kidston
Martha Stewart Weddings
Fine Stationery Blog
Hawaii
Tiffany & Co.

I've discovered Polyvore. It is so damn fun. I couldn't stop making sets last night.
It's great. My thing is always exploring colour, so I did some of that. And I entered the Nike Contest, and I did up a steampunk look. Such fun! I'll be sneaking you a peek of one of my colour forecasts later on, but for now, check out a couple of my Polyvore mood boards below. If you want to see my future stylista work, follow my twitter, because it posts a direct link to my sets each time I post one. Follow me @jacquiesevers. Or add me on Polyvore - I'm actionjacqson!

I'm a specatcled gal. Yep, I wear glasses, day in and day out. But I'm lucky, because despite appearances I can go without for extended periods of time. I wouldn't do this driving of course, or working, but for a night on the town, I can be coke-bottle free.

And that's a good thing. Have a look at these Paperself delicious lash embellishments:


"these [are] synthetic-and cruelty-free alternatives to the screen-siren-worthy rollout. As delicate as lace, each pair of faux peeper framers is based on the Chinese art of jian zhi or paper cutting. Featuring traditional motifs such as peonies (for happiness), peach blossoms (romance), and horses (success), these flirty extensions are certain to set any heart aflutter."

Oh my word! You could have horses for eyelashes, how decadent! In spite of these looking extremely expensive and potentially hard to wear, they are actually feather weight and go for only twelve pounds plus shipping. Laser cutting machines have been hitting the production factory level for the stationery industry hard in the last few years. Suddenly you can cheaply mass produce beautiful, intricate designs that appear hand rendered.

I do trend forecasting as part of my job. Going forward I want to make it a bigger part of this blog. So far I've settled on two topics: Illustrator or the Month and Trend Forecasting will live here. Good stuff.

It's one part of my job that I really love. This post is to brag about a successful trend forecast! Ok, not really brag but sorta brag, because it feels good to see your work successful and anyhow, I'm pretty excited to share I was right about this. Called it! There is such joy in getting a forecast right. I wonder if financial forecasters feel this same joy?

Last week, the last week I posted on the old blog, I said I called it, when I posted this:

"Steampunk.


Yep. Disney is getting in on the movement. Nothing quite says "mainstream acceptance" like being a part of the Disney family."




 The post (on the other blog, which I'll stop referring to soon, promise) was in reference to a post a year earlier about the steampunk trend and how it was 'uptrending'. Well, I was inspired by the Disney art to mention it again, to point out how the trend is moving mainstream.


I couldn't help myself - I had to post it again here when I saw today an article on user-generated gossip blog ONTD. The article claims we are going to begin to see a lot more steampunk inspired gear too - a costume designer for Lady Gaga claims this is her next look.

I can see it.




Funny though, because the first thing I thought when I read about Lady Gaga doing a steampunk thing was the article I had just read about Christina Aguilara's new album.

Christina Aguilara, who is oft accused of trying to copy Lady Gaga, just realeased the cover art for her upcoming new album, "Bionic".

Have a looksee at it:

 Hmm. Pretty interesting. It definitely has that back-to-the-future steampunk thing going on.

I love to watch cultural movements. This movement fits well with the current economic situation, but it is also fresh and unseen by many eyes. As we know, pop stars usually appropriate looks from the underground, make them mainstream, and then somehow get all the credit.

Here are two fresh examples of that! As much as I really can't stand Lady Gaga's music, I have to say I look forward to what she's going to do next, wear next. She's got one hell of a creative team behind her so it us always interesting, or funny, if not always inspired or original.


Here is my original post from February of 2009 on the Steampunk movement:

"February 2009:


Once thought to be just a literary genre, this look is growing in popularity from the more hardcore enthusiasts:



And finding its way into mainstream influence. Think: Beards, Granny Boots, Crochet, Heritage Brands (ie: Woolrich, Hunter Wellington, Levi’s 501s), Typewriters, Pocket Watches, DIY esthetic, Optimism about human potential, punk inspired anti-establishment thinking, spats, corsets, Victorian things, etc.

Check out Steam Punk Magazine

Check out this Steam Punk Wedding!



This is the officiant:



See all the pictures here.

Check out this crazy Steam Punk Guitar...



There is something very MadMax about this look visually, yet I can’t help but mentally draw correlation between Steampunks and the devolved humans made famous by Devo .

The thing most fascinating about this subcultural trend to me is its trickle into other subcultures, and then of course into more mainstream culture, as bits and pieces seem to be popping up in Alt-Country, Punk and Emo, as evidenced by the aforementioned beards, plaids and vintage work boots, etc. It is sure to find a mainstream audience in the coming years as in an era of mass consumerism (hit by recession) it’s an affordable, approrpriate cultural esthetic."

Lady Gaga. Should'a guessed it'd be her.

I joined Twitter quite a while ago when it first had the big wave. I couldn't see the point. Afterall, if you aren't using your real name, why should anyone care what you say? The notable exception to this of course is if you are funny. I'm funny, but not so funny in 140 characters I don't think, and I'm not Conan O'Brien funny or Micheal Ian Black funny.

Anyhow, I've decided to give it another go, now that I have this blog under my real name, the twitter will be too. Follow me, darlings, @jacquiesevers.

Illustrator of the Month – November 2009

Olivia De Berardinis, known mostly as just Olivia, was born in California in 1948. She was an only child from a nomadic family who spent much of her time drawing to escape the world of adults she lived in. Her first model and muse was her mother, Connie. Her mother was a willing model, and as the artist describes, "She was a disgruntled glamour-puss, and would entertain me with terrible imitations of Mae West, Garbo, Dietrich, Hepburn and Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was a cross between Sophia Loren, Lucille ball, and Rosie the Riveter."



Olivia attended the New York School of Visual Arts, and worked for a few years as a minimalist oil painter, before turning to the commercial arts to make ends meet. She has painted all the classic girls from Bettie Page through to Dita Von Teese and as a result she has developed a loyal following of collectors and published hundreds of limited edition prints. Her work is also available as tshirts, cards and calendars. Olivia has published in a number of men's magazines but is now prominently featured in Playboy magazine, on the page previously held by famed pin-up illustrator Alberto Vargas. Olivia's images are hand selected by Hef himself, who writes the captions for her images each month.

I love the agression and feirceness with which Olivia portrays women. These aren't women who are accidentally caught with their pants down, these are women in control. These are women choosing to show you their sexuality and at times it is frightening, alluring, intoxicating. There are models who look innocent, there are models that look dangerous. I admire her ability to capture the spirit of pinup with a nod to the history of the style, but also her ability to do so in a totally modern way.

I almost missed this month's entry. It has been insane, with work travels to Atlanta and LA, and that on top of this being my busiest month of the year at work. It is lucky that Christmas falls when it does, because otherwise I don't think I'd survive. I think I might be the only person who looks forward to February each year.
This month the artist came to my attention reading Juxtapoz magaine on the airplane. One of the perks about travelling for work is that I can expense my reading material for the plane, and this time I picked my regular as well as Juxtapoz, for a change. Other work trip perks include staying in cool hotels and drinking premium alcohol for free on work nights. (I never normally imbibe on 'school' nights.)
Juxtapoz is excellent - art without stuffiness and pretention, but still real articles on the topic. More articles than advertising, that is always a treat to see. Their cover artist on the January 2010 issue is Kehinde Wiley.

Kehinde Wiley is a painter. His style is something different for me, not something I would normally pick as a love. But, after finishing the magazine, I kept coming back to the pages with his images over and over again. I keep thinking about the meaning behind them. I am enamoured with his ability to freehand paint patterns. No digital cheating here folks. Saying that makes it sound like making digital patterns this complex is easy. Well, it isn't, but it is damn easier than doing it by hand.


He paints portraits of youth - primarily African American, sometimes of other cultures or races, but always the underserved male youth. He places his subjects in settings that will feel familiar to you if you study art history - history at all really, as he places them in typical poses from early 19th century portraiture or Renaissance portraiture.

Those grand, proud poses.

The work is so engaging because the artist is clearly a master - his attention to detail, the style, the painterly strokes. But it is also totally current - relevant to today's youth culture and yet is haunting because of the oddness of the pairing of these two eras.




I find his work compelling because of this contrast, but also because I feel the artist is also commenting on white arrogance. There is, among a certain generation, or personality, in white folks, the inclination to find offense in black arrogance. Personally I find arrogance refreshing, I find confident people the most interesting. But I am specifically thinking of my (or your) parents "not getting" rappers braggadocio - or the "controversy" regarding Usain Bolt's "arrogance" at the last Olympics. That sort of thing. That sort of racist thing.

Because somehow, despite the oddity of this portraiture, people still hold it in very high regard. And likely wouldn't question the confident nature of the subject.
















Aside from all that thinking hard stuff, his images are really cool to look at. Juxtapoz has nice full page reproductions.

















Kehinde Wiley is also gay. Maybe this shouldn't be mentioned in this post, but it seems significant to his work to me. Should I mention it? I did.








Accepted in the hip hop community, Kehinde was comissioned to do a number of portraits for the hip hop honours. Hip hop & gay don't usually ...typically go together, so that is pretty interesting. And good.

I first saw the work of Angelina Wrona at a trade show. Gliclee prints on canvas of her work are now available to the mass market...but they wouldn't let me buy a show sample for wholesale. Meanies. Rule Followers. Hrumph. Guess I'll have to suck it up and order one, or find it at retail.

This is the one I wanted:






Wouldn't she be lovely in my powder room? I thought so.
Wrona blends Japanese Anime, folk art and representational styles and combines delicate, dark subjects with surreal twists and ideas. This collection of images is referred to as her 'Senta-Mental' dolls, as each one seems to live in a fairy-tale world, a world that is imagined and brought to life in the artist's Merrickville, Ontario home.
Wrona is having a show of new work beginning Sunday December 20th, 2009 at the Off the Wall Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. The gallery is at 450 Queen St. W.