May 2013
5 posts
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It’s Back: The Transport Tote
Good news: It’s finally warm enough for those upstate jaunts and coastal road trips you’ve been dreaming about. Even better? The beloved bag you’ll need for all of ’em is now back in stock. Cleanly cut in different shades of buttery leather, it’s bound to look even better as you wear it in. Which is good, considering how many summertime adventures you have ahead.
Get it now before it takes a...
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Labels We Love: Plomo
We love tucking our toes into wooden wedges and easy heels all summer long, but finding a versatile sandal for a few days away is no simple task. Enter Plomo®, whose effortless and easygoing flat sandals are perfect for slipping into your carry-on.
Designers Keltse Bilbao and Galia Katz founded the line in 2010 and we’ve been enthralled with their supercomfortable—and superstylish—traditional...
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A Label We Love: Mollusk Surf Shop
The California surf spirit is alive and well, as evidenced by Mollusk Surf Shop’s San Francisco and Venice Beach shops. Inside you’ll find surfboards (naturally) and coastal-inspired art, as well as the supersoft tees and sweatshirts with sun-washed graphics that we love. We asked the founders of the eight-year-old house of cool, John McCambridge and Johanna St. Clair, to share their secrets for...
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Host Well: A Cinco de Mayo Party
A celebration of Mexican culture, Cinco de Mayo is one of our favorite holidays, and a true sign that spring has finally sprung. While we’re gearing up for the 5th, we’ve put together a no-fail five-step guide to throwing the perfect fiesta, featuring ideas from some of our favorite bloggers around. (No pre-made margarita mix here, folks!)
1. The Pretty Piñata:
You’re going to burst through it in...
April 2013
15 posts
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Notes from Madewell HQ: Weekend Getaway Essentials
We look forward to sunny mini-breaks as much as anyone (in fact, we’re counting down the seconds until Memorial Day weekend) so we deemed it the perfect time to ask some stylish ladies here at the office: What’s the one Madewell item you’ll be bringing along for fun in the sun?
Joyce Lee, accessory design whiz
The Turnabout Sandal
“The mini wedge heel makes it supereasy to run around...
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Calling All LA Foodies: You Won’t Want To Miss...
Two of LA’s best chefs (Nancy Silverton of Mozza and Roy Choi of Kogi BBQ) will team up with the big names behind Paris’ top-rated restaurants (Inaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand, Grégory Marchand of Frenchie) for the first ever Le Grand Fooding Crush Paris-LA 2013, a two-day food festival outside of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA on April 26th and 27th.The tasty spectacular is hosted by Le...
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On Our Way to San Jose: 5 Must-See Stops
We just opened our first store in San Jose and so, to mark the occasion, we thought we’d share our five favorite spots in this quaint corner of California. Think Egyptian relics, homemade favorites and grown-up board games.
1. The Worldly Wonder
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium
This local institution houses the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in western North America....
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A Label We Love: Skargorn
As Barcelona celebrates Lover’s Day—a sweet holiday that honors romantic writers Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, who died one day apart in April of 1616—and the season of l’amour falls upon us (you know, the birds and the bees and all), we’re putting the spotlight on one label we adore: SkarGorn™.
As the brainchild of LA-based, Danish-bred denim expert Rikke Korff, SkarGorn is...
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Great Dressing, Direct From Tennessee
Photos by Jessica Comingore.
Along with Sous Style, Tomboy Style and 4th and Bleeker, Pennyweight is currently topping our daily must-read list, as the Nashville-based blogger (aka Elise Joseph) speaks our language completely. Blogger, style guru and curator extraordinaire, she has her finger on the pulse of the best indie music, stylish home goods, new shopping destinations—the works. In other...
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Labels We Love: Ace&Jig
Jenna Wilson and Cary Vaughan, the textile-obsessed team behind Brooklyn-based Ace & Jig™, started their breezy, laid-back label to create summery clothes they could wear through all seasons.
All of their fabrics are custom-designed directly with weavers in India, built around a stripe of some sort (so really, how could we not love them) and constructed into the kind of clothes you want to...
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A Madewell Girl We Love: Emma Louise
When the Brisbane-based singer stopped by our store in Austin during SXSW to play a few tracks off her just-released album Vs Head Vs Heart, we were floored. It’s one thing to write music that has celestial qualities to it, but crafting a song that truly sounds like a dream? That’s where Emma Louise excels.
Photo by Chelsea Fullerton of Go Forth Creative
We interrupted Emma’s jam-packed touring...
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Labels We Love: By Zoé™
Leave it to the French to master the art of effortless romantic style, which is why we’re pretty much always on the hunt for hidden fashion gems from the City of Light. Our latest find is By Zoé™, a Parisian line founded in 2005 by a trio of stylish sisters. We chatted with eldest sister Melvina Sebban (she also doubles as head stylist for the brand), to hear first-hand how she and her siblings...
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Bands To Adore: The Coachella Edition
For those of you who have Coachella on the horizon, it’s major crunch time for putting together a festival look. In addition to our breeziest dresses, cutoff shorts and supersoft linen tees (it does get really hot in the desert), we’ll be piling on the bracelets. (After all, what goes better with the mandatory wristband than an armful of bangles and friendship bracelets?)
Photo by Bryan...
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Turn It Up: An Interview With La Sera’s Katy...
We’ve been fans of Katy Goodman since we first spotted her bouncing around on stage with Vivian Girls, the all-female peppy punk band she has been the bassist for since 2007. And while she remains a faithful member of VG, we have found ourselves even more smitten with her solo project, La Sera, which brings Goodman’s utterly charming, soft-focus vocals and knack for catchy pop songwriting to...
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Art Star On The Rise: Michelle Peterson-Albandoz
If you swing by our new Chicago store (and you should—doors just opened at 932 Rush Street on April 3rd) you’ll notice a captivating multipanel wood installation.
The impressive piece is the work of Michelle Peterson-Albandoz, a Chicago-based mixed-media artist and painter we commissioned to build a sculptural screen for our first-ever Windy City store. We’re excited for you to see it,...
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A Collaborative Effort
If you haven’t already heard, these are no ordinary beach blankets—in fact, the story behind them is quite extraordinary.
The mission of the Collaborative Group brand is to partner with and provide sustainable employment for artisans in small communities in need around the globe by connecting them with brands looking for unique products. “I founded CG in September 2011 after spending four...
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In Honor of April Fool’s, 5 Of The Smartest Pranks...
Did you know one of the earliest records linking the first day of April to purposeful foolishness was in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? While today the faux holiday is celebrated with silly inter-office emails (among other shenanigans), there was a time when hijinks were taken very seriously. Here, five all-time bests that’ll make you think twice about investing in that whoopee cushion:
1. The...
March 2013
15 posts
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This is How We Spell Spring
This season, Madewell designer Maggie put colored pencil to paper to spell out her spring love on a dreamy linen tee using all the beautiful things she associates with the season: M is a vine-covered wall, A is daisies, D is leaves and a rose, E is a hose and water, W is braided leather, E is leaves and those double L’s are calla lilies.
Here, a few snippets of her handiwork as it evolved:
...
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New Tees, New Faces
For a fresh look this season, we are in love with linen tees. Lightweight and perfectly draped, they are supersoft perfection thrown on with everything. They’re also a key piece of the effortless, off-duty model look, so we asked three of our favorite faces to give them a spin. Here, they share their thoughts on tees and other warm-weather pleasures.
1. KRISTINA
What do you normally wear to a...
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Labels We Love: Whit
We’re longtime fans of Brooklyn label Whit, led by ever-charming designer Whitney Pozgay (she of the signature top knot and coral lip). Her new collection—full of feminine silhouettes and whimsical prints—is so perfect for the season, we decided to pick her brain about all things spring.
10 Ways Whit Thinks Spring:
1. What’s your dream destination for a spring break?
I have always wanted to go...
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A Madewell Girl We Love: Model Liu Wen
Model Liu Wen is by far one of our favorites. Born in Hunan, China, the 25-year-old beauty is known for her outgoing and funny personality (not to mention killer cheekbones).
But what we love most about this girl is her impeccable personal style. Her knack for mixing denim with designer duds and streetwear constantly provides us with style inspiration. The cover star of our first-ever Madewell...
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Travel Dispatch: 5 Marrakech Musts
By Susan Cernek
Chalk it up to a few too many viewings of Casablanca and The Man Who Knew Too Much, but a trip to Morocco has topped our fantasy getaway list for some time—notably, the palm-tree-dotted city of Marrakech.
And so, with visions of long lazy lunches of steaming tagines and trips to the souk to find tooled leather bags and vibrant woven rugs in mind, we packed up and headed south to...
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Meet Rivet & Thread
As you’re probably well aware, we here at Madewell know a thing or two about denim—after all, the brand has been carefully making it since 1937. And because our heritage is such an important part of who we are, we have an in-house capsule collection called Rivet & Thread devoted to keeping it alive. We asked our resident denim designer (and all-around jeans guru) Tonya to give us a quick...
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Denim School: How to Keep Your Blues, Well, Blue
Welcome to our very first installment of denim school, wherein we offer a lesson in all things denim-related and pick the blue jean–filled brains of some of our resident experts for answers to all your pressing denim questions. So, without further ado, denim school is officially in session.
Lesson 1: How to wash your blues so they don’t lose their blue.
According to Madewell denim designer...
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Get Ready for Some Newness
After months of bundling ourselves up under wool, wool and, oh yes, more wool, there is nothing quite so exciting as the prospect of lighter wardrobe fare. Enter a myriad of easy, breezy styles — from textured dresses to a parade of shoes (in springy pastel hues) to tees and shorts in a rainbow of colors and prints. It’s the breath of fresh air we’ve all been waiting for. Springtime, here you...
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Madewell Makes: Winter Braised Short Ribs
By Marcy Roberts
Here’s a perfect recipe for a winter dinner party with a few friends. Six happy people recently enjoyed it over a potato and celery root purée with a crusty baguette to dip into the delicious sauce and a green salad to start.
Photos by Greg Vore
INGREDIENTS
5-6 lbs. bone-in short ribs
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large Spanish onion,...
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Turn It Up: Our Interview with Wild Belle
Photo by Tom Oxley
Whenever a new band with their music manages to subtly reference the past while simultaneously experimenting sonically in an entirely current way (and, perhaps most importantly, gets our toes tapping at the same time), they can count us as immediate and ardent fans.
Natalie and Eliot Bergman, the brother-sister duo behind Wild Belle, do just that. Their singular sound (on new...
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Throw them on and go: Perfect Pullovers
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Calling All Shutterbugs
Foam Talent 2012 / from the series Les Amants Haven Her Body Was © Noémie Goudal
Are you a constant chronicler? Unlike the Instagram-ing masses, do you rely on something more than an iPhone for your nonstop picture-taking? Can you rattle off your favorite photographers the way most name-check celebrities?
If you answered yes to all of the above, Foam Magazine’s annual Talent Call just may be for...
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February 2013
15 posts
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Artist Spotlight: Rebecca Kolsrud
Playful. Awkward. Irreverent. That’s how we’d describe painter Rebecca Kolsrud’s portraits of anonymous women she discovers by combing through old photographs or books. Though these women remain nameless, Kolsrud captures little subtleties and gestures that manage to offer a glimpse of their personalities (or at least who we imagine them to be). With a new show at New York’s JTT...
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Keds x Madewell: Our Prints, Their Sneakers
When it comes to timeless sneaker styles, Keds is king. And they are definitely more than mere jeans-and-tee fare; in fact, the iconic sneaks can, with a little know-how, have a dozen style lives in your wardrobe. Need further proof? Check out our Keds-inspired, color-coded ensembles on Facebook, and tell us which one gets your vote for a perfect pairing.
P.S. Be sure to join us in Madewell...
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More tees, please.
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Travel Dispatch: Jessica’s Berlin
A chat with Jessica Taylor, a performance maker and curator, confirmed a travel fact we had long suspected: Berlin just may be one of the coolest European capitals, period. Expat Taylor, whose next project is conceptualizing the menu for a weekend pop-up eatery at Sing Blackbird, a spot local to Berlin, shared some of her favorite places in the city she now calls home.
Avant-Garde...
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Behind the Seams: Chimala Denim
Everyone has wardrobe investments. You know, those pieces that despite their slightly higher price tag we deem worth it because of their impeccable construction and timeless appeal. Since our heritage is rooted in denim, we consider great jeans entirely splurge-worthy. And the amazing pairs crafted by NYC-based denim brand Chimala® definitely qualify. We went behind the seams with Noriko Machada,...
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Hey Billie, You’re So Fine
Meet Billie. The newest boot in our collection, she will steal your heart with her rich, top-to-toe soft Italian suede and entirely walkable stacked heel. She likes to be worn with jeans, ladylike dresses and everything in between. We’re fairly certain this is one boot you won’t want to walk away from.
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A French Import We Adore
When it comes to matters of style, we are avowed Francophiles. So when See by Chloé, the hip little sister of luxury ready-to-wear powerhouse Chloé, landed at chez Madewell, we were, in a word, ecstatic. And the timing couldn’t be more fortuitous: Chloé just celebrated their big 6-0 last fall with a retrospective at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and a book devoted to the iconic label debuts this...
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An Ode to Denim
To say we love denim would be kind of an understatement. Truth is, we’re obsessed. And we like to think we are aware of all things in the denim culture-sphere, from timeless denim icons like ’70s-era Cher or ’50s-era Marilyn, to jeans-related songs (ahem, “Blue Jean” by David Bowie), to, yes, even red carpet appearances (the so-bad-it’s-good Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake matching,...
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Big Screen Love
We admit it, we love a great big-screen love story. And since Valentine’s Day is the ultimate occasion for celebrating mushy sentimentalism in all its various incarnations, we couldn’t think of a better time to pay homage to eight of our favorite lovey-dovey movies. We separated them for your convenience into comedy and tearjerker categories, so you know whether or not to have tissues handy.
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Three Talented Ladies, Three Winter Escapes
As you can probably tell from the bikini picture, we’ve got vacation on the brain. We asked three of our favorite creative ladies whose work inspires us to spill their own winter getaway plans. And, because we couldn’t help ourselves, we had to know the one thing they always pack, no matter what the destination.
Mara Hoffman: Swimwear designer extraordinaire (aka, the genius brain behind the...
