Our First D.I.Y.

Remember those bentwood rockers that occupied everyone's living room in the 80's and 90's. If you didn't have one, there was one at your Granny's house. Many a cute sibling picture was taken in the bentwood but these rocking chairs eventually got relegated to the basement corner. Lots of trends clung on from the 90's and stayed around into the twenty-first century, but the monotone brown colour scheme-theme, thank god, did not. Every now and then, we are going to bring you one of our favourite DIY projects. To start it off, here is one of my proudest turn arounds.

When you look at the bones, the chair is pretty wicked. Beautiful design, unique and quirky. The problem is the hole-infested seating doesn't make it all that comfortable. I decided to paint the walnut brown wood a soft white, carrying on with the other decor in my living room. I covered the mesh with 2" foam and covered in a bold printed upholstery fabric. While its a pretty bold fabric, which I do like, there are also a ton of other neutrals that I can pull from as my apartment changes

To upholster, I took apart the chair, wrapped the foam around the seat and back and used my good ol' fashioned staple gun to make it all stick. I then wrapped the paisley canvas tightly on top, pleated it around the corners and stapled them all in place. A glue gun and some gorgeous navy blue grosgrain ribbon to cover all the seams, and the only step left was to screw it all back together.

I love how it all turned out. Its a great piece to stand out from the corner of my living room. A unique, comfortable chair that everyone retreats to. All of these steps are easy to use to transform any chair or antique furniture. As long as the piece has good bones, no cracks or rotten sections, go ahead. It's easy to replace screws and bolts. A little bit of wood glue, sandpaper, primer and paint go a long way. Furniture from the decades before Ikea and Jysk were made strong and solid. Not only is it an excellent form of recycling, its costs less money than buying something new and it will hold up much longer.

And I gotta say, it rocks! 

The Business of Fashion

In honour of Vancouver Fashion Week, we've decided to talk a little bit about the local industry and give everyone a glimpse into the inner workings of a fashion city that's a little off the beaten path. When you think fashion week, most fashionistas or design fanatics are thinking New York, London, Paris, Milan. The thing is, most large cities have a fashion industry, and therefor a fashion week to go along with it. Both brains behind Fair JAKE did their share of backstage shifts at Toronto Fashion Week while attending Ryerson University, and while TFW is no New York Fashion Week, it was a quick glimpse into the most glamorous 20 minutes a designer will experience every six months. Its kind of like a play, with eight months of rehearsal, no sleep, financing stress, problem solving and recasting... and than a 20 minute show that is somehow supposed to capture all the beauty in what you've pulled and picked and put together so the audience is nothing but amazed at how easy you've made it all look. I love a good fashion show, just as I love a good play. The set, the lighting, the music; its all such a unique and eclectic way to get a glimpse of the creative mind behind it all. And lucky us, here in Vancouver, we have four fashion weeks a year; the VFW Fall and Spring shows as well as the Fall and Spring shows for Vancouver Eco Fashion Week. Both are awesome, and we'll talk a bit more about Eco Fashion Week as it nears.

You may take a look at the lineup for this year's Vancouver Fashion Week and wonder, damn where did they find all these awesome designers from the far reaches of the globe to come to our little ocean city? That thought might take you to my second question: where the heck are the local designers? Where is Dace, and Cherry Velvet, and Plum and Chloe Angus? What about Aritzia, Lululemon, Arc'teryx? We have so many wicked designers in this city, and none of them are showing at Vancouver Fashion Week. I'm so proud of our local talent and put a strong emphasis on buying local, so where are the designers hiding out?

Here is the thing; fashion shows are a great way, as a designer, to get your label into the public eye. However, they can be ridiculously expensive with no gaurantee the people seeing your show are interested in buying your product. You're also showing them what they can buy next Fall while they're anxious to get out of their winter duds and into some shorts and spring colours right now. The fashion industry is pretty archaic in the way it does things, and with a poor economy, the outdated ways can prove to be inefficient to the point of collapse. Those names you recognize that aren't part of Fashion Week? You know those names because they have sustained the test of time. They've used their business savvy and non-traditional thinking to keep their business growing in a time where a lot of companies are going under. Look at any of the companies I listed and you will notice they all have a unique approach to marketing that keeps their label accessible to customers but financially palatable.

You may be thinking, well that's fantastic but how do I learn about these designers if they aren't showing at Vancouver Fashion Week? It really just comes down to being interested in what you are buying. There are tons of local shops around Vancouver, BC and Canada that focus on local labels. Labels that aren't big enough to have a fashion show, or labels that exclusively do wholesale and stay somewhat under the radar. Next time you're shopping at your favourite boutique and try on a super cute dress that fits like a glove, take a look at the tag, go home and take a look at their website. They'll have their collection's lookbook online as well as a list of the boutiques that carry their label - this part of the fashion industry is a little more with the times. And of course, you can keep checking back here because you know when we find another wicked label designed and made in Canada we won't be able to stop talking about it.

I hope that gives you a little insight into the business side of fashion. As a designer, its all about balancing your business strategy with your creative desire to throw all the numbers out the window. It can be a close call sometimes, but the companies that are succeeding are the ones using new technology  and business practices to be more efficient and sustainable. If they're doing it right, it won't be hard for you to find them. And check out Eco Fashion Week - it tends to have more media attention and attendance and their lineup is mostly locally based designers who have a socially and environmentally conscious outlook to their work. And in a city that was just awarded the global Earth Hour capital by the WWF - what could be more fitting?

MOOC: The Future of Education

This is my first blog post for FairJake; actually, this is my first blog article ever. My name is Francis Knowles and I will be contributing every now and then with technology related posts. I am an Aerospace Engineer by profession and a technology junkie by passion. Recently, with most people I talk to in my age group, I have found that we all have something in common; we are constantly looking for more information, whether it is the newest phone or how to use the latest version of Microsoft. We all are looking to be educated. 

This article is going to focus on education. I went to university, and 4 years later I walked out sleep deprived, with a drained bank account and an Engineering degree. Now 4 years later, I have found myself feeling that I just need to know more…not sure what… just more stuff. However, the thought of going back to school, does not seem realistic as I am advancing in my career and don’t want to get off path. So I was ecstatic when I heard about Coursera!

I was introduced to Coursera, a social entrepreneurship organization which aims at providing free education by partnering with some of the top universities in the world. Coursera is, along with a few others, a hub for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The name is pretty self-explanatory, but since I am using the term, I’ll go into a bit more detail. MOOCs use technology as a means of providing education to thousands of people who would have otherwise not had the opportunity. Some courses have over 100,000 students enrolled; I am now one of these people. I found the idea of getting free education incredible, and more than anything else I joined Coursera out of curiosity, and then enrolled in 3 courses. The idea is simple; somewhere in the world, a professor posts video lectures on a weekly basis, assigns homework, encourages discussion though online forums and students gain, what they hope, is useful, free knowledge. Like with any other university course, you are expected to submit homework, some of which is actually graded. Grading is done by means of peer reviews, or online quizzes. The courses offered cover any topic you can imagine, from pet care and guitar lessons (where you submit recordings of your work), to genetics and quantum physics. The beauty of these courses is that you can do them on your own time and do as little or as much work as you want. You can choose exactly what you take, and can even pickup and drop courses at will. MOOCs are a new concept but one that is surely here to stay. Who knows, this could be the beginning of a change in the way we learn, and the education system as a whole. If through online education you study the same courses as someone who is enrolled in a conventional university, who is to say that they are more desirable to potential employers. I encourage all of you to explore MOOCs, and keep up to date, because the rest of the world is.