Ace & Jig Fall 2012

Ace & Jig has stolen my heart these past few months. I'm always thinking about this label and how simple, consistent, and beautiful it is. The fall line is no different. The ladies behind Ace & Jig have a real knack for selecting perfect yarns and dyes for their collections, and they really know how to work a stripe too. I only recently read about the design process on their website. I enjoyed it so much that I choose to include a small excerpt of it below.

A main drive behind ace&jig was focus and clarity. We wanted to create a seasonless women's collection loosely based on one fabrication. Not denim, tees or knitwear, we wanted to create our own yarn-dye woven fabric. A fabric that could lead many lives, and tell many stories. We wanted to create effortless clothes where the fabric could speak for itself. Read more. . .

Greens by Grinshpan: Summer 2012

The Buenos Aires label Greens by Grinshpan gets it right every season. They keep it simple with lots of denim and stripes and a nice tomboy aesthetic. I post about them nearly every season because I love their designs so much and, just as I have in the past, I'm still wishing they'd open an online shop. I'm posting their summer lookbook below which is as good as ever.

Ruta Puuc

My favorite moments in Mexico were definitely the times that our tour guide took a detour from the touristy places and allowed us to see and experience the culture there. When we left Uxmal we had a long drive back down the Ruta Puuc (or the Puuc Route) on our way back to Mérida. The Ruta Puuc is a beautiful scenic road that passes through several ancient Maya sites. It led us to the home of the locals I talked about in the last post and to the Ecomuseo del Cacao where I saw fresh cacao plants and banana trees and tasted some of the best dark chocolate I've ever had. It also led us to a ceramic workshop where two locals spent their time creating the most beautiful pieces of Maya art. The gentlemen crafted the ceramics while the lady painted on them. She referred to a reprint of one of the few surviving ancient Maya codices throughout the painting process so that her characters would look exactly like the ones found in Maya art, before the codices were destroyed during the Spanish conquest. I really enjoyed seeing them work and getting a peek into their workshop.

Elkin S/S 2012

I haven't had time to look at many spring collections yet, but if the rest are anything like Elkin's than I'd say were in for a pretty good season. I came across Elkin's winter collection on my most favorite Portuguese blog, Kiss Me Quick, and soon found myself on their website, dazzled by the photos from their spring lookbook.

Sisters Kara and Brit Smith are the magic behind the label, which combines Brit's love for lingerie, and Kara's love for staying out late and sleeping in her clothes. The clothes are meant to be seen in both the daylight and the after hours, with each collection themed around a particular literary genre.

These days it's seems like all my money goes to books anyway, if not for school than to satisfy my Amazon addiction, so I'm glad to see a label that's combining two of my favorite things. The behind the scenes video of the shoot is pretty cute too with all those farm animals running around!