Tuesday 31 January 2012

Yaw

Yaw is Booked 




There's only so much I really need to say about Yaw; his style speaks for itself, and it speaks loudly.  He has arguably the most distinctive look on campus.  When Tori and I began to discuss starting a style blog, we knew Yaw had to be featured somewhere...  That 'somewhere' ended up being on the team with us producing Booked. 

"I'll never see someone else wearing exactly what I am, even if they have one part that's the same."

Clothes just look a certain way on Yaw, and he takes full advantage of that.  The man is a master of proportion  he can pull off long cardigans and harem pants in a way seldom seen off a runway. Between layering, adding colour, and playing with proportion, Yaw ends up coming with something new every day; something neither he nor anyone else has worn before.  By always trying to build something new, Yaw has expanded the possibilities of his personal style beyond the parameters most people keep themselves within.  Where you or I would put on a longsleeve shirt over top of a tank, Yaw might wear a tank top over a henley over a longsleeve, allowing him to display more layers and more colours.  

"I love the James Dean look, the Marlon Brando... but then there's than hip-hop in there: I always wanted to be the next Spike Lee, wearing a ballcap every day until I die.  It's about taking people I admire and getting little parts that are me, or can be me."

Yaw points to his Chicago upbringing as the reason for his flavour and his hardness.  Becasue of Chicago, a Yaw outfit can be manly even if it's extravagent, can be assertive even when it's dignified.  Meanwhile, as an artist, Yaw has a fearlessness in what he wears, and an abstractness.  Visually, he's a statement; the medium (or XL, or small, or any other size he wants) is the message. 

"Maybe because I draw, I love the idea of the triangle, the look of wide shoulders and smaller legs"

The thing about Yaw's style is that it never feels inappropriate for the situation.  You never think "oh, he's dressed too fancy for school" like you might if you see Liam in a high-fashion look.  Yaw combines classy cardigans with sweatpants, or a herringbone overcoat witha 90s ballcap, and it all makes sense.  It becomes one self-contained thing that just feels right, and is distinctly and recognizably Yaw.  You don't question it.  You just know it's that way, and it will always be that way.  If you know Yaw, you know there's no other way it could be. 

-Cam





The Find

Vintage Oxfords 



It’s the perfect place to find designer clothes for affordable prices (and I don’t mean 50% off of $800, I mean affordable as in affordable for students). Located in Vancouver’s exclusive South Granville shopping area, at Turnabout you’ll find the perfect black YSL blazer for $50 or a vintage Chanel broach for $40. I found these amazing distressed black oxford shoes there last month for $5. They can easily be paired with a casual pair of jeans or they can give a more formal outfit an original vintage feel. Amazing find? I think so!

-Liam


Cam

Cam is Booked 




Defining someone’s style is much harder than we first thought, especially because what others consider ‘fashionable’ changes almost weekly. But that is what makes Cam’s style so amazing – Cam knows himself and this truly shows through his style. His eye for proportions, textures, and layering is pure perfection. Cam has mastered a look that is disheveled but also so put together. When you look at Cam, you don’t see pieces of clothing you see a complete head to toe look, yet it in no ways looks planned or too ‘outfitty’.

A lot of Cam’s influences come from the 1990s and 1950s, but are so current that we haven’t seen anyone else do it yet. Cam’s love for skinny jeans, amazing boots, and as many layers as possible create a style that is almost impossible to define other than just as Cam. His style isn’t an act, there is no distinction between Cam and his clothes, they are as much a part of his as his personality – you aren’t going to find it anywhere else. Cam says, “I guess overall I think that wearing clothes is like being an animal able to choose its skin, so I tend to go for things that all work together and become my body's appearance rather than being painted on top of it if that makes any sense.” 

You can see a few of Cam's influences in his style (Kanye, Street Etiquette, Theophilus London, Kid Cudi, some Ryan Gosling even) but it never translates to a replicated or copied look.  Cam’s style has clean lines but also a street-esque style that is very hip-hop; it's a mix of clean and dirty. Which lends itself to Cam’s love for thrifting. Cam has some innate talent of finding the most amazing things at thrift stores.

“I approach it with strategy; I thrift things where I'm getting a garment (like brown wingtips or a denim jacket) that is essentially identical to a new version, and especially good bang-for-buck (i.e stuff that usually costs a lot, like shoes or coats or bags).  On the other hand, if I see something new in stores that wouldn't be available in old clothes then I'll pick it up new.”

Cam’s mixing of old and new is done absolutely effortlessly, which really is the epitome of how he dresses.  Can you think of anyone else that can wear a sweater under a button down with a denim jacket and coat over top and not end up looking like a Stay-Puff marshmallow? Not only can Cam pull of layering better than anyone I know, but he makes it sleek and city-worthy stylish. 

-Tori





Street Style

January 27, 2012

Tim was Booked outside Blenz on Pandosy


Jovi was Booked outside UNC 



Tori

Tori is Booked 



What does it mean to have style? For Tori, someone who has style isn’t someone who sports outfits that reek runway. They don’t simply put on whatever (Insert designer here) sent down the runway or put in a look-book. In fact, when she sees a girl who looks like she’s simply a walking advertisement for Louis Vuitton, she rolls her eyes and scoffs (in her head of course, because she is not rude like that). For someone whose first sentence was “Daddy, that doesn’t match!”, having style is the ability to take what is on the runway (if you can afford it) and mix it with H&M, Topshop, Gap, Forever 21 and Aritzia to create a distinctive look.


Simply put, Tori has the ability to mix and match seamlessly. She has an intuition when putting together a look and is willing to experiment when it comes to creating an ensemble. Tori’s style is a kind of West Coast-uptown mixed with undertones of bohemian casualness. Her wardrobe essentials include oversized scarves and casual blazers in every colour you can imagine. After getting her first blazer at the age of 15 from the Gap, over the years Tori has accumulated enough blazers to fiercely dress an army of fashionistas. Her wardrobe is a mix of staples that last throughout multiple seasons with trendy statement pieces thrown in without anyone noticing. Tori's style is her own because she never tries to stay on trend, she dresses for herself. 


Having lived in Melbourne, Chicago, San Diego and now Kelowna, her style is clearly an eclectic mix of these cities. She identifies Rachel Bilson and the Olsen twins as having very unique style that she sometimes uses as reference in her own way of dressing. She is also an avid blog and magazine reader - she is always paying attention to what is going on in the fashion world, but still manages to avoid being a slave to the trends. Because of this she has seen her own style progressively change over the years - her style has grown up with her.


Tori, a self proclaimed California-girl, acknowledges the difficulty in wanting to be stylish while living in a city where the average winter temperature is 20°F. By layering and wearing various garments such as t-shirts, light cardigans with blazers, and wool coats topped off with a statement piece scarf, she is able to battle the ‘Kelowna cold’ without having to sacrifice her style and being mistaken for an Alaskan Eskimo.


-Liam



The Find

MAC Fluidline


Finding the perfect eyeliner is almost as hard has finding the perfect man, but the thing about eyeliner is once you find a good one they don’t change. I’ve gone through far more eyeliners than boys – but this is the one I’ve decided to stick with. I’ve always found that pencil/kohl eyeliner smudges over the course of the day, and never really stays where you put it. Liquid liner is so tricky, you either find one with a good applicator but smudges or one that stays put but has a terrible applicator. Solution: MAC Fluidline. The paste/gel consistency goes on super smooth and stays put all day. In short, it’s perfect. The price is fairly reasonable too at just over $20 with HST, all you need is a good angle brush and amazing eyes are yours for the painting. 

-Tori

Liam

Liam is Booked 




Liam Randhawa's style is everything you expect from fashion. It’s high class, it’s trendy, it’s ambitious and it complements today’s fashion trends while referencing older vintage styles. He is always layering and takes on old classic looks by combining them with new pieces. If I could take on anything from Liam’s style, it is his ability to wear runway looks like it’s everyday life. Liam’s uptown city style makes you think you’ve arrived at NY Fashion Week, but his comfortable yet classy elegance makes you feel like you've shown up in a towel.

On a given day, urban chic may be one way to talk about Liam’s style, but on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we’ve got to call him something else. He describes himself as an introverted person who uses clothing as a means of expressing himself. You will rarely catch him outside without a pair of sunglasses on. It is difficult to define Liam’s style in one way as he constantly changes it up day to day. He embarrassingly admits having gone through several style-phases throughout his life including a ‘skater’ and ‘baller’ phase in early high school, but now the majority of the staple pieces in his closet are more casual-preppy. 

Having worked in London, Paris and New York, Liam recognizes that the city he is in hugely impacts his way of dressing. A look he might wear in Paris would be received as completely outrageous in Kelowna, but he admits he likes pushing style boundaries and sometimes experiments with looks (even if, as he describes it, they end up failing miserably). Yet Liam's model demeanor lets him pull off pretty much anything - even his giant werewolf mittens - with ease.  It's easy to find people in high end outfits where the clothes are wearing them.  But when Liam Randhawa walks in, you know he's the one in control.


-Yaw

Manifesto

Welcome to Booked 


Anyone can have fashion, but it takes someone special to have style. We want to not only recognize campus and city style in general, but recognize the particular people that have style.  Style isn’t merely wearing expensive designer clothes or replicating celebrity looks.  Rather, it is the innate ability to effortlessly rock an ensemble and make it your own.  Style turns personality into art. Fashion is about wearing other people’s looks; style is about wearing yours.  At Booked, we’re here to document your looks and ours.


Our purpose is to make style accessible - we aren’t here to tell you how expensive designer clothing can look good. Anyone can look good if they spend thousands of dollars on their clothes.  But what we think of as style has more to do with how someone puts together what they’re wearing.  Kelowna isn’t a fashion capital but there are definitely people here who bring it every day.  We want to showcase them, and to make it normal for people to talk about style and fashion in a relatively uncosmopolitan place like our city. 


Meanwhile, we want to bring a fresh approach to the wide internetty world of fashion blogging.  We’ll be taking a more deliberate approach than most blogs out there, and instead of just documenting what we wore today we’ll be doing everything from examining the different ways people wear a particular garment to doing think-pieces on changes in style and culture to highlighting unexpected finds to documenting what it’s like to be a working model or stylist.


-Yaw, Cam, Tori and Liam

Photo credit: Nothing But Jason