Thursday, October 30, 2014

PHRENOLOGY and the criminal mind

What is Phrenology you ask?
Phrenology was developed by a German physician named Franz Joseph Gall in the late 1700s. Gall noticed that the cerebral cortex of humans was much larger than that of animals, which he believed was what made humans intellectually superior. Eventually, he became convinced that the physical features of the cortex could also be seen in the shape and size of the skull.


After examining the heads of a number of young pickpockets, Gall found that many of them had bumps on their skull just above their ears. He then suggested that the bumps, indentations and shape of the skull could be linked to different aspects of a person's personality, character and abilities. With his young pickpockets, for example, he suggested that the bump behind their ears was associated with a tendency to steal, lie or deceive.
  • Moral and intellectual faculties were innate.
  • The exercise or manifestation of these faculties depended upon their organization.
  • The brain controled all of the propensities, sentiments and faculties.
  • The brain was composed of as many organs as there are different faculties, propensities and sentiments.
  • The form of the skull represented and reflected the form and development of the brain organs.
Gall sought support for his ideas by measuring the skulls of people in prisons, hospitals and asylums, especially those with odd-shaped heads. Based on what he found, Gall developed a system of 27 different "faculties" that he believed could be directly diagnosed by assessing specific parts of the head. He created a chart that showed which areas of the skull were associated with specific traits or characteristics.

So, if the hat don't fit, then you must acquit!

However, Gall's methods lacked scientific rigor and he chose to simply ignore any evidence that contradicted his ideas. Despite this, phrenology became increasingly popular from the 1800s well into the early 1900s. Gall's ideas gained many followers, but he began to attract considerable criticism from scientists as well as other groups. The Catholic church believed that his suggestion of a "religion organ" was atheistic, and in 1802 his publications were added to the Index of Prohibited Books. After Gall's death in 1828, several of his followers continued to develop phrenology, taking it from Gall's attempts at science into something of a cult. Phrenology references also began showing up frequently in popular culture.
Despite phrenology's brief popularity, it eventually became viewed as a pseudoscience much like astrology, numerology and palmistry. Criticism from some of the best-known brain researchers played an important role in this reversal of popular views of phrenology. In 1843, Pierre Flourens found that the fundamental assumption of phrenology - that the contours of the skull corresponded to the underlying shape of the brain - was wrong. In his Elementary Treatise on Human Physiology, physiologist Francois Magendie summed up his dismissal of phrenology by writing:
Phrenology, a pseudo-science of the present day; like astrology, necromancy, and alchemy of former times, it pretends to localize in the brain the different kinds of memory. But its efforts are mere assertions, which will no bear examination for an instant.

Influence of Phrenology

While phrenology has long been identified as a pseudoscience, it did help make important contributions to the field of neurology. Thanks to the focus on phrenology, researchers became more interested in the concept of cortical localization, an idea that suggested that certain mental functions were localized in particular areas of the brain.
While Gall and other phrenologists incorrectly believed that bumps on the head corresponded to personality and abilities, they were correct in believing that different mental abilities were associated with different areas of the brain. Modern research methods allow scientists to use sophisticated tools such as MRI and PET scans to learn more about the localization of function within the brain.

FALL 15 HAT TRENDS

Hat trends for FALL 14 are a little bizarre, going from sugar loaf MOUNTAIN high to valley WIDE.



Armani

ARMANI pulled the look off pretty well, but these hats are just not practical and a little too Halloween costume looking.

 A chic and less WTFRUWing way to pull this look off is like this.






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GAME OF THRONES INSPIRED

Love these game of throne inspired hoods with gem stones.


Thick knit beanies, often adorned with gems, are also selling briskly.





There is a lot of Russian influenced fashion fur for fall 2014. We see it on bags, shoes, scarves and of course hats.


Note the high circa 1970s mod newsboy crowns.

Remember that you will always be right on style in a CALLANAN hat.



Saturday, October 25, 2014

BRADLY COOPER GOES VIZOR

We all love Bradley Cooper, who happens to be the lead in the current Broadway based Elephant man.
With the trending of buckets of the past year, I have being keeping my eye on visors as a new trend lately. Gosh, remember when Abercrombie and Fitch's half naked models pushed the baseball off the head of American guys a few years back, well, they might be ready for a comeback.
Let's watch and see if Bradley Cooper is an early adopter or maybe he was just having a bad hair day;-)


 You too can get the Bradley look, even if you are thinning on the noggin.



Good idea to try and match it to your beard color.


Friday, October 24, 2014

HARLEM'S BEST HAT SHOP - FLAMEKEEPERS HAT CLUB

Nice article about my friend Marc Williamson new hat shop by JUSTIN JONES FOR THE DAILY BEAST.
Marc is an authentic sartorial gentleman with a great swag. Mack was "hip" way before hipsters were even born. Dorfman Pacific wishes Mark the best of luck with his new store.

The Harlem Hat Shop You Have to Visit


Marc Williamson’s mission is to get us interested in hats, and find the right one for our heads. His shop, Flamekeepers Hat Club, attracts Wall Street businessmen and downtown hipsters.

When we meet, Marc Williamson tells me he wants to corner the hat market by “passing the torch of good taste from one generation to the next.” Seven weeks ago, he opened his shop, the Flamekeepers Hat Club on West 121st Street, steps away from Frederick Douglass Boulevard, where Harlem’s colorful history has merged with vegan bakeries and some of the city’s best soul food.
As I entered the asymmetrical space, Williamson, 44, greeted me with an aura of positivity and genuine ease—not the cheesy, forced welcome you get from a part-time salesman earning a few extra bucks in between class or Broadway auditions. After all, hats have been part of his life for the past 22 years; passion and positivity fuel his business.
The shop’s hats and caps, which range from $35 to $300, come from manufactures all across the globe: Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Ireland, Columbia, and some are even made domestically. Each one is designed distinctively, marking decades-old traditions from each manufacture, guaranteeing a plethora of options and hats to fit every type of person. Williamson’s mostly male customers range from Wall Street executives to downtown hipsters.
His hat journey began while Williamson was studying Business Merchandising at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology, where he sought out a part-time job to help ease the financial burden. He spent days going from interview to interview before being hired on-the-spot at New York’s oldest hat shop—J.J. Hat Center.
“The management really groomed me for retail,” Williamson said of what he thought would just be a pit-stop on his path to graduation. “Once I got pulled into the management side of things that was it.” He would later become part owner of J.J.’s for a total of eleven years, as well as co-owner of Pork Pie Hatters in the East Village and Williamsburg. He’s catered to locals and tourists, as well as high-profile clients ranging from Sarah Jessica Parker to Pharrell Williams.
Williamson wasn’t always a hat guy—clothing was more his forte—and his experience in the hat industry evolved his personal style to almost always include the structured accessory. “My signature items would be my headwear…my scarves…and my socks,” he told Time Out New York when they dubbed him one of the Most Stylish New Yorkers of 2013.
Williamson’s 22 years in the business has also honed a trained eye in selecting the right hat for a person based on their look, energy, and style. Williamson stands by his record of rarely disappointing a customer when they are at a loss as to what suits them. But, he says, what ultimately makes a hat look good on a person is the symmetry of the crown of their head to their jaw line. “It’s key to a hat looking good,” he said. “That’s really the sweet spot.”
What ultimately makes a hat look good on a person is the symmetry of the crown of their head to their jaw line.
Flamekeepers, outfitted with its dark woods, bare-stone walls, and copper pipe shelving, occupies a completely modern space with a subtle ode to the past. It’s a play on Williamson’s idea of the current perception of the business. “I think hats around the world are looked at as old-fashioned,” he said. “I wanted to create a space that was more contemporary so that people would understand that hats are just as much [modern] as they are old.”
Just as hats are diverse, so are their wearers. “Anyone who wears a hat,” Williamson said, “definitely wants to tell you something about themselves. They want to speak about who they are.”
Flamekeepers Hat Club is located at 220 St. Nicholas Avenue at 121st Street in Harlem.


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

What’s the difference between interfacing, lining, interlining and underlining?

I am presently working on a fabric constructed hat and there seemed to be a little confusion on the "stuff" used in between the outer shell and the inner shell. On this project it is called Interfacing.
I hope this helps.

Building structure and support into a hat or garment can be confusing and a recent query brought this to light. The question — What’s the difference between interfacing, lining, interlining and underlining?

The answer: All of these terms refer to construction details that are usually hidden from view when you’re wearing a garment, but they serve an important function in maintaining the shape and comfort of your creation.
Interfacing is a support fabric used in areas that need more stability than just the fabric weight. For example, you’ll find interfacing in collars, cuffs, waistbands, closures (like buttonholes), and sometimes hems, as well as fabric hat brims and sometimes hat crowns. In tailored garments, you may find interfacing under entire garment sections, and more than one type used within a single garment.

Lining is used to help hide the inner construction details of a garment, and also to help it slide off and on over other clothing with ease. Lining fabrics are usually slippery and silky, though other types may be used for effect. Lining is constructed separately from the garment and attached at facing or hem areas by hand or machine.
Interlining is a fabric added to a garment when more warmth is needed, like in a winter coat. It may be a heavy fabric with batting added, or a lighter weight one like flannel or fleece. Interlining can be constructed separately from the actual garment (it’s sometimes removable), or used as an underlining.

Underlining is a fabric added to fashion fabric for more body and/or opacity. It’s a separate layer attached to the corresponding garment fabric section wrong side, and then treated as one during construction. The hat underlining fabric is often "fused" to the back of the hat fabric.  Pattern markings are often transferred to the underlining to avoid show-through on the garment fabric.

Sometimes, when we do not want to add additional fabric to summer hats we use 
BIAS TAPE is well known to quilters for finishing the edges of quilts, but bias tape is also a staple in garment and hat making as well. Bias tape can either be store-bought or made at home and comes it in a wide variety of solid colors and prints. You can custom make bias tape in nearly any thickness or fiber content. It’s been said that bias tape is the duct tape of the sewing world – you can use it for nearly everything.

Here we added a bias tape to finished a Dorfman Pacific summer bucket hat.

available at your local sewing center

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

TRENCH WARFARE FASHION

The trench coat's forgotten WW1 roots


Aquascutum advert for their Storm Coat from the 1940s

Related Stories

It is a fashion classic that has endured through the decades. But away from catwalk shows and Hollywood glamour, the trench coat's first starring role was in World War One kitting out battle-weary soldiers. 
From Humphrey Bogart to Audrey Hepburn and Kate Moss, the trench coat is now synonymous with elan and sophistication.
Clocking up countless appearances on the silver screen and in the glossy pages of fashion magazines, it is considered a timeless wardrobe essential.
But while today it adorns the shoulders of supermodels and celebrities, it seems - despite the heavy clue in its name - its origins in bloody battlefields may be less well-appreciated.
"If you read articles about '10 items everyone should have' the trench coat will probably feature along with a pair of jeans and a leather jacket," says Amber Jane Butchart, author, blogger and associate lecturer in cultural and historical studies at London College of Fashion.
"It's become a perennial classic.
"Many people may be surprised about where it comes from, but for centuries fashion has influenced military dress and vice versa."
As World War One took a stranglehold on Europe, the Allies and opposition German forces dug deep with defensive lines stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border.
There in the trenches as the onslaught raged were the soldiers - caked in mud and battered by biting winds.
A British Grenadier Guardsman keeps watch on 'No-Man's land' as his comrades sleep in a captured German trench at Ovillers during the Battle of the Somme in 1916Trench warfare was one of the defining characteristics of World War One
 Models Cara Delevingne, left, Malaika Firth, centre, and Tarun Nijjer feature in Burberry's latest ad campaignToday the coats are more associated with preening and pouting
Their heavy greatcoats - long wool overcoats which had been regulation garments for British forces since the Crimean War of the 1850s - proved ill-suited to the desperate conditions.
In contrast, the lighter, shorter, waterproof coat produced by English clothing companies such as Burberry and Aquascutum was a perfect fit.
But they were not its only practical benefits.
Epaulettes displayed an officer's rank, while a gun flap buttoned at the chest was designed to provide an amount of additional protection when in combat.
Map cases and other equipment were attached to D-rings on the belt, and covering the upper back area was a storm shield that enabled water to run off the coat cleanly.
Their subdued colour, too, played an important role.
"It became imperative for soldiers to not stand out," says Ms Butchart, who is writing a book examining the links between military wear and fashion.
"Khaki is the Hindi word for dust. Before that, military clothing was incredibly brightly coloured.
"For centuries you needed to recognise the side people were on very easily, so colours like blue and red that were quite easy to dye relatively cheaply got used a lot in European uniforms.
"However, by the time of the African campaigns [in the late 19th Century], warfare was getting more industrialised and those colours were basically putting a target on your soldiers."
Grey line
Who invented the trench coat?
Burberry trench coat advert
  • Two names loom large in the history of the trench coat with both laying claim to having invented the garment
  • In 1879 Hampshire's Thomas Burberry developed gabardine, a tightly woven, water-repellent cloth which was later used for the forerunner of the trench coat, the Tielocken
  • To make them waterproof, fabrics had previously been waxed or rubberised - resulting in them becoming heavy, stiff and uncomfortable to wear
  • In contrast, gabardine was lightweight, weatherproof and 'breathable'
  • The coats were first used in the Boer War in 1895 - Burberry developed them further and supplied about half a million during World War One
  • London's Aquascutum, meanwhile, claims to have used designs which later formed the basis for the trench coat as early as the 1850s
  • Using patented waterproof wool, the firm says its coats were worn by soldiers fighting in the Crimean War
  • A number of companies advertised variations on the trench coat during World War One including Thresher and Glenny, Gerrish Ames and Simpkins, Kenneth Durward, and David Moseley and Sons
Grey line
That shift reflected a marked change in the psychology of battle, says Jane Tynan, lecturer in cultural studies at Central Saint Martins in London and author of British Army Uniform and the First World War: Men in Khaki.
"The introduction of the trench coat is really significant - it's a story of clothing becoming part of the technology of warfare.
"Armies' very bright colours were often reminiscent of their flag, but they were also associated with honour.
"In World War One, French soldiers wore red trousers because they felt it was dishonourable to be in camouflage.
"But the British were enthusiastic adopters of khaki from the time of the Indian Mutiny in 1857.
"It went hand in hand with a belief that pragmatism was more important than honour.
"Uniform became a lot more functional and decorative features were less in evidence."
Weighed down by sludge, it was not unusual, Ms Tynan says, for frustrated soldiers to slash away feet of fabric from their greatcoats using bayonets.
The trench coat alleviated that issue, but despite its suitability it was never a regulation garment supplied to each and every soldier.
Burberry trench coat as worn in World War OneThis Burberry trench coat is featured in an exhibition at the Museum of the Great War in Meaux, near Paris
Adopted by officers who, unlike other ranks, were allowed to procure their own clothes from tailors and outfitters, its use became more widespread from 1917 onwards.
Desperate to clothe an army which had quadrupled in size, the manufacturing of uniforms was put out to trade by the War Office with civilian firms entering into mass production.
It resulted in cheaper garments - a benefit for newly recruited officers, some of whom were less well-off than their predecessors.
It highlights, Ms Tynan argues, an issue that still resonates today with concerns over kit shortages for British soldiers during their recent campaigns in Afghanistan.
"A method previously associated with clothing lower ranks, it presented firms such as Burberry and Aquascutum with a huge opportunity to market the trench coat.
"Having a mass-produced item for officers became quite normalised.
"There are so many myths around soldiers all being clothed and kitted out to the necessary standard, but the reality is very different.
"When you think of the scale of the First World War, you realise it would have been impossible to fully regulate the dress of each soldier for such a large conflict."
While the trench coat's popularity was not restricted to the battlefield, the qualities embodied by the armed forces did help widen its appeal.
"Even during the war you got ads in the Illustrated London News for the Burberry trench coat being sold to men and women," said Ms Butchart.
"It was a unisex item.
"Then when the soldiers returned from battle there was the idea of heroism and patriotism that people wanted to buy into."
Aquascutum advertAs with this example from Aquascutum, many adverts for trench coats played up links to military heritage
But having been firmly rooted in military campaigns, the coat was soon to be taken in a different direction - one which would shape popular perceptions in decades to come.
As Hollywood cemented its grip on the public imagination, filmgoers increasingly looked to the stars of the silver screen for fashion inspiration.
Men were drawn to the effortless cool displayed by detectives in slick film noir crime thrillers, while alluring leading ladies such as Marlene Dietrich provided a template for women to follow.
"By the 1930s Hollywood was really influential," said Ms Butchart. "Its reach in terms of fashion was becoming huge.
"Warner Bros produced a lot of gangster films that featured characters wearing trench coats.
"And by the time of World War Two they were becoming strongly linked with film noir and Humphrey Bogart.
"He embodied that trench 'attitude'. Many people think of him in Casablanca, even though he only wore one in two scenes."
Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade in 1941 film The Maltese FalconHumphrey Bogart played trench coat-wearing private eye Sam Spade in 1941 film The Maltese Falcon
Humphrey Bogart, left, and Ingrid Bergman in CasablancaThe following year, 'Bogey' starred alongside Ingrid Bergman in romantic drama Casablanca
The coats remained a favourite with Hollywood costume departments into the 1960s and a beige trench in romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's helped confirm Audrey Hepburn's status as a style icon.
That transition will be the focus of From Field to Fashion, an exhibition running at Winchester Discovery Centre in Thomas Burberry's home county of Hampshire from 4 October until 21 December.
Alongside an authentic World War One Burberry cavalry trench coat will be the one Dietrich wore in 1948's A Foreign Affair - on loan from Berlin's Deutsche Kinemathek Museum.
Today, the coat's popularity on catwalks and the High Street shows little sign of waning.
The centrepiece of Burberry and Aquascutum's lavish ad campaigns, other brands continue to produce their own versions annually too.
In fashion terms, the trench coat has gone on to win the style war.
But, a hundred years after the outbreak of World War One, its beginnings on the battlefields should not be forgotten.

Fashion Trend Analysis: Top 10 Color Womenswear S/S 2016. update 11.26.14





Callanan millinery F15 LV355

FROM WINTER 2015'S RUST ORANGES WE MOVE TO SUMMER 2016 PAPAYA.

Channel orange leggings F14.
Channel orange coat F14
This TOD'S handbag display is a good indicator of the papaya and powder blue trend direction

Louis Vuitton orange bag F14.












or will it be POWDER BLUE.



And for those of you who need a more natural visual of what Papaya looks like and how it differs from its cousin the mango, here you go.


unpeeled papaya

papaya flesh
unpeeled mango

Peeled MANGO on left, Papaya flesh on right