Tag Archives: Brianne Burnell

Lowbrow

What happens when bleached brows detach from the runway

By: Alyssa Garrison

I like my hair white. Freshly fallen snow white. Nearly translucent white. Sometimes the colour may shift to pastel mint, lavender, or pink, but for the most part I stick to shades of the printer paper variety. Some might say I’m a bit too obsessive about banishing any hint of a yellowy tone, and I’d probably say they are right.

This past week, I stumbled upon a look that would take my ghostly appearance to a new level: bleached brows. How did this revelation take so long? I have been fawning over barely-there browed models for ages, but I never quite made the connection: I could carry out this look in real life.

I clawed at the idea with the ferocity of a cat in a litter box. How do I do it? What volume activator do I use? How long before I get roots? The questions were endless, but the answer, it turns out, was pretty simple. I got drunk with my best friend and painted my brows with Jolen cream bleach. I started watching YouTube videos, completely forgot the bleach, remembered and frantically tried to rub it off as quickly as possible, and voila! No eyebrows!

But really, for that first hungover 24 hours I really looked like my brows has been pillaged, ripped right from their perch on my face and taken to an unknown location. It wasn’t until I bleached my roots and toned both bodies of hair to match that I attained the model-like result I’d been after. Bingo. I started to think of myself as a little more alien, more doll, more forest nymph/fairy/magical creature. But to my surprise, others didn’t share the same excitement.

When sifting through the internet for tips on managing the very quick grow-out phase (I already had teeny roots two days later), all I could find were warnings of potential blindness, the condemning of Kelly Osborne, polls debating whether the look should be “runway only” and some very direct reports banning it altogether.

My real life reactions were even more daunting than those of the voices on the internet. Friends literally looked and me and said, “Wow, your eyebrows look weird,” or (nervously), “When will they grow back?” From shock to horror, almost every reaction was negative.

The general consensus seemed to be “But why would you do that?” Perhaps the most confused and upset of them all was none other than one of Toronto’s top brow gurus. Known for her fabulous face-framing skills, she had just finished up with my best friend’s luscious brown brows when we got to talking about her doing mine sometime (when the lack of colour grew out and I needed more shape). The moment of realization that my eyebrows were not naturally light flashed across her face like tinfoil in a microwave, and she suddenly seemed unable to contain her dismay. She just couldn’t believe I had done such a thing willingly when “brows frame the face!” She asked, “but why?” at least five times while I struggled to comfort her and convince her it was a very solid runway trend, then eventually gave in to reassuring her they would grow back very quickly and it was just for fun. Although still confused, she greeted this possibility with hope and appeared to let it go.

Had I committed some form of facial faux pas? Was there a special place in hell reserved for women who purposefully erase their brows? Although I’ve tried many a crazy passing trend (full length denim jumpsuit, high-waisted pants that go up to my breasts, see-through dresses with nothing underneath, etc.) I have never experienced such negative feedback to a fashion statement: apparently challenging traditional beauty standards is not a risk I’m supposed to take.

It’s a well known fact that brows lighter than your locks just look “weird,” but why is that? Because we all need some level of sameness to feel comfortable when we gaze into one another’s eyes? As the tiny roots creep into sight on my brow, I’ve hit a crossroads: do I bleach them back? Or do I conform to traditional beauty standards and return to life as I knew it, with a perfectly balanced and shaped face? Is flattering more important than fun? The answer of course, is no. Despite the various people I’ve promised the return of my brows to, I think I’m going to indulge in this runway-only look a little longer.

photography // Brianne Burnell

T-Shirt Manifesto

Threadless tells the story of how an idealistic vision became a design revoluion

By: wornette

Threadless is not just a t-shirt company that produces inspired graphic work, and it’s not just an internet upstart that championed “crowdsourcing” and social networking. In the words of co-founder Jake Nickell, Threadless “is a living breathing community of people that can’t be told what to do.” In Threadless: Ten Years of T-Shirts from the World’s Most Inspiring Online Design Community, Nickell chronicles the scrappy start-up’s rise over the past 10 years and makes a pretty good case that the company is something of a (t-shirt) revolution.

Nickell is joined by a cast of new media experts, designers, and fans who collectively recount the company’s deal: users are encouraged to upload designs and visitors vote on which t-shirt will go into production. Guest essayist Seth Godin writes that Threadless is, “a company that hires the unhireable, codes the uncodable [and] markets the unmarketable,” and Jeff Howe notes, “The genius of Threadless is that they put the community on a pedestal and then stepped into the background.” The mini-essays illustrate a company that democratizes art, and are the highlight of the book’s written content.

Text is dwarfed by the technicolour t-shirt designs and I found myself recognizing a lot of the prints as I pored over the pages, like this graphic of a badass Scooby-doo fanfic drawing of Velma with a shotgun and a bloodthirsty Scooby. Threadless’s designs have become pervasive over the past decade, and my sentiments on ubiquity were shared by those interviewed. Barnaby Bocock from New Zealand, speaking of his design “Nuts” said, “I think the ultimate compliment is seeing how much it has been ripped off. It was especially surreal when I found fakes being sold in Bangkok.”

Nickell’s strength as a businessman is sharing the spotlight. And although he’s writing about the company he started, the charismatic and critical engagement of other thinkers and artists are what put his success into a broader context and make it shine. As Nickell says: “Threadless is a community of people first, a t-shirt store second.” He gets away with wide-eyed utopian statements because the book is just as much an inspiring testament to sticking to your principles as proving that innovation can be more than empty business jargon. Threadless isn’t so much a coffee-table book as it is a colourful manifesto.

further reading // Threadless: Ten Years of T-Shirts from the World’s Most Inspiring Online Design Community by Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff // Henry N. Abrams // 2010

book report // Cayley James
images // Brianne Burnell

Stories About Jewels

"Drawing Jewels for Fashion" is more about how to dream than how to draw

By: wornette


There is whole world of jewelry that exists beyond Tiffany’s and Cartier, and Carol Woolton’s Drawing Jewels for Fashion is the place to begin for anyone who wants to learn about it. Don’t be fooled: this is not a how-to. Although its title and cover indicate that it might be, the book profiles 36 modern jewelry designers and the ideas and stories behind their work. (This was a relief for me, as it meant I wouldn’t be reminded of how poor my drawing skills are.) Along with photographs of the actual jewelry, Woolton features pages from artists’ sketchbooks and images from their mood boards, helping the reader understand all of the processes that precede the pieces. Drawing Jewels for Fashion is for readers who are strangers to the who’s-who of contemporary jewelry design, and who want to know more about the “how” behind the art.

The book is organized around six different themes: Civilizations, the Natural World, Art and Architecture, Culture and Literature, the Material World, and History and Symbolism. The sections explain themselves—in the Natural World, designers found inspiration in everything from animals’ movements to different kinds of fauna. In the 36 designers profiled, no two are alike, and the book includes names I recognized, like Diane von Furstenberg, and designers I didn’t know, like Victoire de Castellane, who I learned designs jewelry for Dior.

It was hard to pick favourites, though the work of London designer Hannah Martin stood out to me. Most of the artists featured were creating jewelry for women, but Martin’s pieces were different. She explains that he dreams up various masculine characters, places them in made-up worlds, and then combines this masculinity with feminine elements to create jewelry that is both imaginative and androgynous.

What I took away from reading this book was that everything has a story, jewelry included. My understanding of clothing has always included designers’ inspirations—I obsess over fashion collections and their back-stories. But I had never extended those thoughts into the world of jewelry. I had always given my own stories and values to the pieces that I owned, but hadn’t considered the other histories that might exist behind this ring or that necklace. Not anymore. Long gone are the days where I simply muttered, “That’s a nice watch. It’s shiny. Cool, cool.”

further reading // Drawing Jewels for Fashion by Carol Woolton, Prestel Publishing, 2011

book report // Sofia Luu
photography // Brianne Burnell