Smashing Darling Blog

I took a field trip to the City on Friday. Even though the day was rainy and pretty sucky in the beginning, things got a lot better when I arrived on 9th street off Ave A in the East Village. I went to see the Punkin NYC collection that Deirdra Morgan designs and sells at her store Mark Montano. I know lot’s of names goin’ on but the one that is THE Most important to remember is Punkin NYC. This collection is to die for. It truly is ready made couture. I bought one, and let me just tell you they fit and they are comfortable and beautifully finished and don’t even get me started on the quality of the fabrics. Then my sister went out online and bought one. I am so glad we are the same size so I will get to wear hers too. She bought Juanita!

When I was at the shop I saw a peak at spring/summer and can’t wait to see it on the website so I can buy another. Deirdra is so fun and young, and fabulous, you have to go to Punkin NYC and buy one of these beauties. They will last you a lifetime and never go out of style! I wore it to work in my own design studio on Saturday and must have gotten a million compliments on it. I had a little jean jacket over it, I loved it, LOved It! I’m telling you buy one now before they are all gone!

The day turned out to be well worth it!

P.S. I am no where near as tall as her model, and if I do say so myself, I looked great in it anyway!

Start bugging Deirdra to put up her whole collection, what she has on Smashing Darling is just half of it! She’s holdin’ out! You only see half of what she is capable of!

OK, I know this is a bit crazy, but I want to find THE Material Girl and I want you to help me. I am a huge fan and have been from the very beginning. I was 3 when I first saw her sing ( that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! ). I usually try to keep this under wraps how much I have loved and followed Madonna, but then again with a store name like Mergirl, yeah maybe not so much. By the way Madonna, if your reading I need another pair of Dog Tags from your last concert tour. I wear mine so much they are losing stones, but they look very loved! My partner thought I should set out on this quest and I thought, why not, why not indeed! (said with a British accent, actually in my head it is John Cleese from Faulty Towers saying it.) Anyway, I think it is actually going to be fun and why not, she just launched a clothing line through H & M. I think she needs to open a store on Smashing Darling at least a sample sale! The other funny part I think we need to get Ellen Degeneres to help us. So I guess this is a double quest find Ellen so she can help me find Madonna. I think the grand finally should be Madonna and me on the Ellen show wearing the others clothing! any tips you have any leads you have post them. I am totally serious! The sooner we make it happen, the sooner I will shut up about it! ( total valley girl accent )

Tell me our styles aren’t similar! Well at least they would merchandise well together!

p.s. if anyone has Madonna paraphernalia they are trying to get rid of you can send it my way! I need as much Madonna stuff around me as possible! All that energy from the STUFF will get me closer. Send it to Mergirl po box 528 Chester CT 06412

Well, it comes that time of the week when you find out there is a function that needs attending. Not that it happens very often. I love the 2 minutes of freedom I do have, and never feel the need to venture out for those blissful moments. Those are my tiny moments to savor at the end of the day. Do you hear the relaxing music? OK Back to why we’re really here…an outfit. There happens to be a big event in Chester, CT this week…cocktail hour at Mergirl. GOOD GOD!!!!! What to wear? That’s right, it’s one of those ransack the closet kind of moments. It’s that in between time weather wise, when it’s not cold enough to layer up loads of clothes, but not warm enough to be easy breezy. Here’s a few pieces from Smashing Darling that would be perfect mixed with a cocktail!

Starting with the Vixen:

Layering the flirt on top:

Cover up with a black velvet jacket from NaikFur:

and finish off with Twist Style’s big hunkin’ flower ring:

and off you go!

Invite, INVITE , INVITE! This is absolutely fabulous or should I say SMaaashing, our invite and subscribe feature is now live! Isn’t it just slap you in the arm, bang on your chest holy crap kinda good. What are you waiting for go invite your peeps or subscribe to your faves! With this feature, if you can convince your posse to subscribe to you, they will receive daily or weekly updates about all the new and fascinating, can’t live without things you upload. Does YOUR current website do that for you! It’s all about marketing baby and we are trying to make it as easy as possible for you to pimp your brand, & for YOU, our favorite fashionista’s, we are trying to put the latest in front of you so you have first dibs. So fly be free start inviting and start subscribing!

Designers, it’s all about the power of suggestion, so go into your account click on INVITE CONTACTS and GO INVITE!

Gotta have it first fashion fans or just need to know users, go into your favorite stores on Smashing Darling and in the upper right corner choose subscribe and your life will never be the same!

Always shop indie! and as Jennifer from Pantyline Productions likes to put it “Saving the world through panties”

TTFN
Edina

I don’t know about you but I am always looking for new resources to
inspire me. The Powerhouse Museum in Australia has taken and
catalogued thousands of fabric swatches and kindly put over 700 of
them on line. In the online collection they date back to 1849. My
personal favorites are from the 1920’s. ( I think I may have lived
back then, but we will save that for another day ) I am always amazed
at the detail and quality of things created so long ago. I couldn’t
help but notice that some of the fabrics chosen by Whosiepie could
have come from then. Always in her true, no cares in the world
style, she makes us forget what decade we are in . LOVE
this headband, so timeless! Who knows could be anyWEAR, anytime!

Here’s what Trish and I found in Providence the other day. It’s hard to see much since it was a windy cold gray day and these were taken with a cell phone. So, I’ll try my best to describe.

This chicky had an awesome look. She was layered just right, had fun patterns front to back, and a really fun bag hanging off her back. Very cool! She was even a great sport about having a total stranger come up and snap her pic. Thanks!

The guy below was very funny. He never got off his phone the whole time I was trying to figure out my cell phone zoom function. Never figured it out, but that’s another story. Not sure he even spoke to whoever it was chatting his ear off either. He’s a listener! He was however looking very fashionable. He had all kinds of fun greens and yellows on to brighten up the cold overcast day.

We wanted to show you what the free tank looks like. So, here it is!

From April 16-30th we are giving this tank away to anyone who buys something on Smashing Darling (over $25.00).

We tried to make it as marketing free as possible. So, if you say “why can’t I see what it says,” that’s why. We don’t usually like logos on our clothes, so we thought you were more likely to wear it without it blaring out at you. Plus, this way someone really has to get up close and personal to find out where your shirt comes from…might get you that date you were wanting for Friday night! OK Maybe not, but it’s worth a shot.

Unlike Trish, I’m not into the bubbly (although I am presently drinking a glass of Malbec) or the bath…because this is how my experience would go. I’m all relaxed sitting there with my glass of wine juggling to keep my computer out of the water. Then, at the last minute right before I am able to hit the save button (but of course after I have written the whole post)…Whammo! Splash goes the computer. Yes, then not only would I be screaming bloody murder running out of the house naked dripping water all over the floor…my computer would be dead at the bottom of the tub, my husband would have to call 911 and I’d be out on the lawn in the buff afraid to go back in the house for fear of what the aftermath may be. Not very fashionable indeed!

So, my first blog is written safely on my sofa in my comfy pj’s with my old sweet dog, Lucy, by my side suffering from terrible bouts of flatulence (causing me to suffer as well) because we recently changed her dog food. Clearly the new food does not agree with her. But then, what is writing without suffering?

Now, all that said I’m pretty sure I’ve missed my opportunity to write a cohesive blog entry.

SO, on the days Trish has tied my hands to my computer and made me write in this blog these are the things that I’ll be writing about:

Day one–the mean street’s of Chester, Connecticut…aka STREET FASHION and it won’t only be CT, but that’s where we are, so unless we are travelling or I happen to be heading somewhere exciting…I’m going to show you how exciting CT fashion can be. Cross your fingers. If you happen to live in another place that has cool street fashion please email me a photo…I’d love to see what is happening in other places around the world, besides just where we are.

Day two–I’m going to split this up between a little fashion history one week, and then the next week a fashion bite about things I like online or on Smashing Darling. If you have any ideas here too please feel free to email me!

Well, that’s it for numero dos. Until next time, be Smashing…and thanks for reading!

I feel like Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, “we’re here, we’re here!” I loved them, well, we ARE here! This was written from my bathtub with a glass of proseco. I guess I can be the Bathtub Contessa! I was so stressed out about how I was going to write in a blog every week. After one glass, not so much of an issue any more. I don’t think I have anything special to say except now I’m just not stressed out about it! Just kidding:) Hopefully you will see that we have fun at our jobs and hope that you will have fun with us. My segments, me being trish, are Style Is Everything and The Material Girl. Julie my partner will be doing 2 weekly segments as well, one is Street Fashions and I am sorry to say the other escapes me at the moment. I know it was good though because when she told me what it was, I was jealous that I hadn’t thought of it first. So we will fill you in on that one later. Then on Saturdays we are going to sum up the week with the top 5 things from the blog or the site, so make sure you post comments and become active even in the forums. You just might find yourself in the top 5 on Saturdays. It’s ALL about promotion baby! Help us out, it will be pretty lame if we only have 2 things in our top 5! We have a lot planned for this year so stay tuned in so you know what we are up to.

Welcome to the very first SMASHING NEWSLETTER!

Dawson for MEN!

We are so excited to have a few menswear designers already on the site. Please let anyone you know who designs for men to sign up…we are always looking for great lines for men.

First off, we wanted to say Thank You to everyone who has signed up to start selling on the site and to all those who have bought products from the designers on the site…we couldn’t do this without either of you!!!!

We also wanted to let you know that even though it looks like things are not happening we are working harder than ever behind the scenes to make this a great place for everyone to be. Here’s just a few of the things on our plate at the moment:

WE ARE SAFE: Safety is highly important to us, yours and ours. We wanted to let you know that we applied to and got accepted by Hackersafe (thanks in great part to our smashing programmers). Once a day they audit the site looking for weaknesses so we don’t have any breeches in security. We passed with flying colors!

NEW FEATURES: We have started three new sections recently…Our Friends, Events and Press. (You can find these by going to the homepage and looking at the top under the headings for A COLLABORATION and A COMMUNITY) We are very proud of Our Friends and would like you, our community, to know who we consider a friend, because maybe you would like them too. We have added a couple in particular that need mentioning…Selvedge (www.selvedge.org)…for those of you that don’t know their magazine, you should run out right now and buy it. It’s beautiful, and they understand the importance of elevating fiber arts and independent design to the level of artistry. Our second friend is the trade show dedicated to promoting independent designers. Thread Show (www.threadshow.com) is still primarily on the west coast, but maybe with a little push we can get them over to the east coast as well. So check them out and pass along their info to anyone who may be interested.

We are also working on the Events section so our designers can list special events that they have going on or are involved in around their area. Also, the Press section has just gone up. This is where we will list all the articles and blogs written about the site and the designers in our site…so let us know if you have any additions or see something we may have missed.

WHATS NEXT: Upcoming features include INVITE, this will allow every designer to invite their email list into the site through their store. We think this is important, so that when your clients arrive they are in your store. When your list gets an email, they are sent straight to your store, not the homepage, to see what new things you have for them. Another way of trying to get more sales for you, and greater access to you as a designer.

That’s just a little of what’s going on behind the scenes at Smashing Darling! So, keep helping us build a great community where we can change the world one designer at a time.

Thanks for being part of Smashing Darling from the beginning.

-The Darlings

(Trish and Julie)