Latest News from the Audra Jean Etsy Shop

A number of people have asked me recently if I'm still making hats for the Etsy shop. The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no, so I figured now would be a good time to give an update on the shop and highlight a few of the things that we've been working on.

Photos: Blioux photography, www.blioux.com

Mark and I have felt for awhile now that my hats and his leather accessories didn't mesh very well in the shop. The problem however, is that once you have an Etsy shop you cannot simply change the shop's name (one of the many idiotic things about Etsy that drives me nuts). As Mark's leather wares have grown in popularity, we were hesitant to move his stuff to a new shop and potentially lose our established customer base. And since the vast majority of the shop customers are there for the leather goods, we decided to make the existing shop exclusively his, even though it's still called Audra Jean. I do generate designs from time to time, but my biggest contributions to the shop these days are the photographs of the pieces on the dress form, and ones where I'm modeling the stuff (although I'd like to think I'm also Mark's muse). As my hat listings have expired, I simply haven't renewed them as we continue to think about the best option for migrating them somewhere else.

 Modeled by Nikki Dubose, Stylist: Francy Freixas

For the time being I do still take hat orders via the Audra Jean Etsy shop when they crop up. Sometimes people will dig up a past hat I've made via an expired or sold listing, and sometimes I get requests for custom work. Lately I've been doing lots of custom work for friends, neighbors, etc. which is always fun. Hats are a tough item to sell online; many people these days are not used to wearing hats and are uncomfortable buying one without seeing how it looks on them. It is likely that if/when I launch a new online shop it will focus mainly on fascinators and mini hats, which are one size fits all. In the meantime I'll be looking for brick and mortar shops in San Francisco (I do still sell a few things at Dark Garden) where I can sell my other designs.

Photography by Nick Mitchell
Hair by Angela Mitchell at Alter Ego Hair Design
Model Morgana www.threnodyinvelvet.com

In the meantime, Mark has steadily been building his portion of the shop into quite a business. He's worked with a number of professional stylists and photographers, from which we've gotten some beautiful images of his work modeled by the gorgeous ladies you see here. His work has appeared in Auxiliary Magazine, on Stylecaster, and most recently in Factice Magazine. Several of his pieces were also used in a theatrical performance called Secret Show, featuring Cirque du Soleil dancers. Click here to watch the amazing trailer for this performance; a couple of promo photos are below.

Photos: Anna Sweet

Mark has also caught the eye of a number of bloggers with vastly different personal styles. If you read Megan Mae you'll have seen her recently sporting a fabulous military + feminine look incorporating Mark's Genevieve bronze underbust harness. Darling MJ over at Dreaming Spires and Old Car Tyres has both the Jane Doe and Zoe harnesses, which she incorporates into her daily wear. Joy at Just Like Sushi sports the pretty Jane Light caramel-colored harness, our own beloved Sal wears the black Selena harness, and the lovely ladies at Singapore-based Monoxious have impeccably styled the Raven cross-strap harness, the Jane Doe, and the Annabelle double belt harness. The image below, featuring a custom piece Mark made, appeared in the street style section of the Dutch newspaper het Parool. This is just to name a few. It's amazing to see how many ways people style these pieces.

photography: marc van der zouw (Thanks, Suz!)

Finally, Mark has created a Facebook page, where you can stay up to date on what's happening at the shop, see customer appreciation photos, and so on. We actually need to migrate it to a different account so that the page has more functionality, but for now you can find us here. Don't ask me about Twitter; as talented as Mark is at working with leather, he's terrible at self-promotion, so it's taken us until now just to get the Facebook page going. I'm certainly not holding my breath for any tweets.

Stop by the shop and check out Mark's latest items, and be sure to "Like" us on Facebook. Stay tuned for further shop developments!

Sky Ferreira Wears Audra Jean on Stylecaster!

Stylecaster has a feature on teen electropop artist Sky Ferreira today, and they've styled her up in Valentino, Alberta Ferretti, Jean Paul Gaultier.... and Audra Jean!

In the editorial the leather accessories are fairly difficult to see, but in the behind-the-scenes shots you can get a better idea of which items she's wearing.

The photos are just beautiful, and gorgeous Sky wears the leather items so well. I like how the stylist actually turned some of the pieces backwards or upside down, showing that these harnesses and belts can be worn in different ways. The images are much larger on Stylecaster, so go check it out!

Pi�ce de R�sistance

The image that sparked the creation of this outfit is this one from the Prabal Gurung collection, which was part of my Fashion Week roundup post last week. And yes, I realize the two outfits really look nothing alike, but the kernel of the idea was simply to wear my furry vest over my long cream cardigan, not necessarily to recreate the whole outfit (though I still want to try that too). After that I just got carried away, grabbing as many white, cream, and beige items as I could find and throwing them all together.

The pi�ce de r�sistance was this cream harness that I snagged out of Mark's workshop; I thought it integrated really well with the other pieces and gave some geometry and structure to the outfit. I showed it here without the vest just so you could get a better look at it, but I did wear the vest all day at work so that the harness just barely peeked out.

Vest: Adrienne Landau
Harness: Audra Jean
Shirt: Michael Stars
Dress: Anthropologie
Cardigan: Max Studio
Skirt: Noa Noa
Boots: Apepazza

Pilfered

This is yet another belt I pilfered out of Mark's completed pile. He originally made it as a double belt; the other section is black with silver dome rivets, and hangs down around the hips. The two belts are held together with a leather loop, so that they can be worn together or separately. You've seen me wear the black section on its own as well, with the machine gun bikini in this post, and also as part of a work outfit in this post. One of these days I'll join them back up and wear the set.

What I really wanted to point out about the belt is the beautiful red leather, which Mark has just used to make a Jane Doe style harness (it's too thick for some of the other harness styles). It's a deep, brick red and although we've had it sitting around for awhile, Mark has just recently gotten around to using it. I'm hoping to see him make more items in this color; this could be really pretty for a winter look.

Capelet: Forever 21
Shirt: All Saints
Belt: Audra Jean
Skirt: a gift from Sal
Tights: MP, via Sock Dreams
Shoes: Born

Machine Gun Bikini

Ah, memories... these pictures were obviously taken when it was still really hot here. It's actually pretty nice today, but it rained like hell all weekend long, so our little summer is definitely over. It was a good weekend for getting things done though, and a GREAT weekend for sports -- I can't believe it, but our San Francisco Giants are going to the World Series! I can't even yet dare to hope for the outcome of the series itself, but the fact that they made it is wonderful.

Also, sorry Yankees fans (if indeed there are any -- everyone I know just loves to hate them), but holy hell am I glad they got defeated! I'm not sure I could stomach seeing them in the World Series again. Take a few years off, okay guys? It's nice to see other teams make it to the finals once in awhile, and the Texas Rangers have more than waited their turn.

Much of the weekend was spent inside working on creative projects, so if you check the Etsy shop you'll see lots of new stuff there. I've got several new hats up, and Mark created a listing for an elaborate custom piece that he did for a customer's Halloween costume; it's the machine gun bikini harness from Lady Gaga's Alejandro video. Originally it was going to be a one-off sort of creation, but it turned out so well that Mark decided to list it in case anyone else is looking for one. Hey, in this town you never know -- it might be too late for Halloween, but in San Francisco I'll bet you could find dozens of events during the whole year where you could wear a little number like this.

 The harness is hot for sure, but this Dorothy Hamill 

hairdo is not Gaga's best look.

Shirt: All Saints
Skirt: Anthropologie
Jewelry: Betsy Johnson
Shoes: Cydwoq

Anything But Ordinary

I've worn this combination of top and vest a few times now, mainly on weekends when I want a comfy but interesting jeans-based outfit. On weekends I've worn it with more casual indigo jeans and left the vest loose and open, but here I decided to dress it up with black jeans and the gunmetal harness.

Speaking of which, a few people have inquired about this particular harness. As you may recall, I described a few weeks ago how the leather is hard to find and a bit tricky to work with, which is why we don't currently have anything in this leather listed in the shop. But Mark does still have a small amount of it left and can do custom orders on request. The style I'm wearing here is the Ryder, and we've also made the Aria in this finish, but I also think it would look beautiful for a Willow, a Raven, or a Jane Doe. So far we still haven't been able to find any more of this leather, so when it's gone it's gone.

Anyhow, I loved all the striking black and white patterns in this outfit, and how the shoes even have a stripe pattern and silvery jewels that echo the finish of the harness. Which just goes to show that even the classic combination of black and white can be anything but ordinary.

Shirt: Max Studio
Vest: F21
Harness: Audra Jean
Jeans: Diesel (via Gilt)
Shoes: Bobbi Blu

Auxiliary

I'm behind on uploading my most recent outfit photos, so I thought I'd point you to the recent feature that Mark's belts and harnesses got in Auxiliary Magazine and on their blog. The feature starts on page 45 of the online magazine and features Mark's work as well as a few other designers. I was especially pleased to see a couple of harnesses worn by a guy; it gives them a whole different look over a button-down shirt and on a man's frame.

I'll be back tomorrow with another outfit post. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the gorgeous weather that has finally arrived in San Francisco. Look for bare arms and legs to be showing up soon!

Premonition

Well, this was just that kind of day, a day where I ended up pissed off and frustrated and really glad that I at least had the foresight to rock my leather pants at work. It's possible that it was a premonition, but so many of my workdays suck lately that a crummy day is really not very difficult to predict. At any rate, wearing a sassy outfit is always a nice way to combat a bad day, and this was no exception.

When I first got these pants I thought they were a little too tight to wear at the office, but the super-soft leather stretched to a very comfortable fit after just a couple of wears, and now I feel quite confident that they're work-appropriate. The continued rain was also a great reason to waterproof my legs.

Tunic: All Saints
Hoodie: local import store
Belt: thrifted
Pants: Firetrap
Boots: Modern Vintage

In other news, the Etsy shop has been filling up with new items in preparation for our ad in the June/July issue of Bust Magazine, which should be hitting the newsstands now. I'm really excited to be advertising in Bust, for one thing because it's great exposure for the shop, and for another because I think it's an awesome magazine and I'm happy to be a part of it. Bust is really supportive of small businesses like ours, and their very reasonable advertising rates reflect that.

On a related note, be sure to check out the gorgeous photos of our Bolero Harness, modeled and shot by the beautiful Morgana of Iberian Black Arts Photography. Click on Morgana to see the rest of her photo shoot!

Knee Deep

Well, I got nothin' for ya today, as we are still knee deep in boxes and I haven't even uploaded my most recent outfit photos yet. So here, look at these new hats I made!




I finished these a few weeks ago, not during the move.

I will resume regular posting next week. The move went very well, but with 2 households combining there has been a lot to do. I feel like by the end of this weekend we should be in pretty good shape, but right now I'm exhausted, disoriented, and a little overwhelmed. Thanks so much for all your well wishes regarding the move; it's exciting, and I'll be very happy to be able to share some photos of the new place once it's in a more presentable state.

Oh, and one more thing, since tonight is Girls' Night Out, and a very special one at that...

GO SHARKS!!!!

Keep on Pretending

This outfit was inspired by a fabulous leather shorts ensemble put together by the lovely Style of a Fashionista, who has been rocking some great outfits with the Selena harness she purchased from our shop. I don't own any leather shorts, and I strongly suspect that I'm too old to be wearing them (although, like Sister Wolf, I have an irrational desire to buy some). Come to think of it, 40 is probably too old to be wearing these herringbone shorts too, but obviously that isn't stopping me. One of the real, tangible benefits of getting older is that you get to stop giving a fuck about what people think. I digress.

I felt like this was a variation of the outfit that I could easily wear with dignity, and since this is the only pair of dressy shorts I own, they were my starting point. I loved the look of Fashionista's floaty sheer floral top with the nipped-in underbust harness; this semi-sheer leopard print top was fairly close, and anyway it went with the shorts. I probably won't be buying a leather pair (though I really should learn to never say never), but for now I'll keep on pretending with these.

Top: F21
T-shirt: H&M
Jacket: Victoria M. Ortiz
Harness: Audra Jean
Shorts: Mango
Tights: Falke
Boots: from Scoop in Copenhagen (2005)

Homburg

I made myself a hat a few weeks ago, which for some reason I haven't done very much of. This Homburg style was calling to me though, because it has a bit of a sinister Clockwork Orange look to it, as well as being reminiscent of the fabulous Homburgs that the late Alexander McQueen came out with last year (below, left and center). With this outfit I was also inspired by Christian Dior's wonderful equestrian looks in the SS10 line (below right).

I created this hat as an alternative to bowlers and top hats, which seem to be EVERYWHERE in steampunk and Edwardian fashion right now. And then, the ubiquitous stingy-brimmed hipster fedoras have put me off fedoras altogether lately. So I made this. I love how it looks tilted at a severe angle, almost dipping over one eye.


Hat: Audra Jean
Dress: Noa Noa
Blazer: Gap, a gift from Sal
Waistcoat: Last Kiss
Skirt: Noa Noa
Boots: Frye



Oops... almost forgot to add this last detail shot!