inside/out/outside/in

I was mentioning on Twitter over the weekend that I'd be rearranging the furniture in my apartment. Alright, who am I kidding, I don't really have any furniture, mostly bookshelves and a rack of costumes/clothes I made. I'm trying to make my apartment more people-friendly. My next step will probably be to finally purchase a worthy dining table so I can stop eating college-style (upside down cardboard box).

When you're re-organizing, the best part is finding "that book" you thought you lost, or finding "that pair of earrings" you forgot you had. There was a book I bought quite a while ago at Urban Outfitters (I never even buy clothes there), titled "Bears".

"Bears" is by Kent Rogowski, a photography teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), who, according to a brief introduction by Diane Karp, "...Kent Rogowski turns all that inside-out (literally as well as figuratively) presenting us with the other aspect of a collection of bears that now become quirky alter egos to the ordinary cuddly things..." I spent most of my time upon purchase of this book trying to guess the actual appearances of these bears, and some of the "inside-out" versions of these bears were actually a bit freaky-looking.

As someone who makes clothing, the inside of a garment can be more important than the outside of the garment, which is why I enjoy showing the inner construction of everything on my blog.

Lanvin is a design house that also treasures the inside-as-outside idea, and if you visit any Lanvin boutique or Lanvin stockist, you can see that most of their garments have the seams along the outside.

Other designers enjoy showing their garments inside-out, and there's even one particular spread (one of my favorites) titled "inside-out", from Vogue Hommes International, styled by the fabulous Joe Zee....

L-R: Rick Owens' Lilies line is 90% knits sewn with the seams exposed (image via net-a-porter.com); Alexander Wang's corset dress from Fall 2009 has the boning sewn on the outside (image via google)

Comme des Garcons' Fall 2010 RTW collection included shapes that seemed to be body organs, sewn on the outside of each garment... (all CdG images via style.com)

L-R: Comme des Garcons Fall 2010 RTW; Juun.J Fall 2010 (image via wwd.com)