South Park Style In Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's New JC/DC Collection

I love writing about the fashions of designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac because they are so downright fun. Wacky and irreverent, JCDC plays off of pop culture in his couture and RTW fashions. Lego®, Disney characters, Hello Kitty, The Muppets, Snoopy, celebrities, singers and most recently, Bambi have been featured in his collections. He even designed an Obama dress last year. His clothing has always enjoyable to admire but are rarely affordable.

However, earlier this year Castelbajac created a new diffusion line called JC/DC by JC de Castelbajac. A creative, pop-rock, playful, quality, and affordable clothing line for a new generation, available through a new online store.


above: Charles de Castelbajac, photo by Kathy Le Sant

For the second season (Fall Winter 2010/2011) of his JC/DC line, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac chose the characters of South Park to be the music icons of his collection “Holly boys and naughty girls”.

”I discovered South Park and Nirvana at the same time; I would mute my TV to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit”loudly. The fusion of the two made perfect sense for me! My JC/DC line is about rock and roll; and South Park with its characters, its colourful range, its brutality and its noisy drawing seemed to encapsulate the world I wanted to portray.” -- Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.

The playful and affordable collection incorporates Kenny, Stan, Kyle and Eric (even Butters, Token, Chef, Jesus, Timmy, Wendy, Mr. Hat and more can be found in some of the designs) into cotton and silk shirts, knits, dresses, and outwear for both men and women.
















Shop for the South Park JC/DC clothing and more here.

Stickers With A-Peel. Chiquita Banana Design Contest & A Little Brand History.

above: 6 of the 18 winning designs, all of which are shown later in this post

"I'm a Chiquita Banana and I've come to say...." Okay, most of my readers are probably too young to remember the legendary jingle, so I'll just get to the point.

The Chiquita brand just ran a design contest in an effort to both refresh the brand and elicit consumer engagement. They asked people to submit new designs for the stickers that are placed on their bananas, which they have been doing since 1963. Note that you can still use their sticker generator to create your own online sticker and then purchase that design from Zazzle.


above: the current Chiquita brand sticker was designed in 1986

Each entrant was limited to submitting no more than 25 designs. The designs had to be on a white background and in the classic Chiquita sticker shape and could not use "Miss Chiquita", the brand mascot, in any way, shape or form. Entries had to include the outer blue ring and the design had to be contained within what they term "the yellow racetrack."


above: the company mascot, Miss Chiquita, as the 1944 version by Dik Browne and the current version drawn in 1987 by Oscar Grillo, was not allowed in the new sticker designs

50 designs were selected as finalists based on the following criteria
* Creativity (30%)
* Visual impact (30%)
* The extent to which the sticker embodies the following five Chiquita brand attributes :Fun, Family-friendly, Youthful, energetic, Fresh (25%)
* The extent to which the sticker can be recognized as a Chiquita banana sticker (15%)

A person could have no more than one design in the 50 finalists which were then posted on the sticker-contest website. The public was then invited to vote for their favorite sticker design.


above: 8 worthy finalists designs that did not make it into the winning 18

Before I show you the 18 winning sticker designs, here's a little brand and sticker history:

Miss Chiquita was introduced in 1944 and Chiquita was the first company to brand a banana. The idea of the stickers came along in 1963 and believe it or not, they are still put on by hand so as not to bruise the fruit.


above: The brand used posters like this one from 1950 before putting stickers on the bananas.

The very first drawing of Miss Chiquita in 1944 and stickers from 1963 to the present:


Now, the 18 final winning designs which will be appearing on bananas in November.












Be sure to see all 50 finalists because there were some great designs that should have made it into the final 18. See all 50 finalists here

Go here to learn more about the winning designs.

Nike Jackets By Sander Reijgers Combine Contrasting Dogma.

Sander Reijgers, the designer whose very unusual use of Blow-up sex dolls as jackets and hoodies, has just released a brand new project.

His 'Cultural contrast of symbolism' is a series of Nike jackets whose designs combine the West with the East, and politics with religion.


above: Yasser Arafat wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh and above right: model/photographer Diego Lema wears the scarf, more commonly called a shemagh (image courtesy of Diego Lema /quemas™)


By combining the westernized sportswear with the Arab keffiyeh or shemagh (whose distinctive woven check pattern originated as an ancient Mesopotamian representation of either fishing nets or ears of grain and now is a controversial symbol of Palestinian solidarity), he has created a garb symbolic of the joining of two disparate cultures, politically and religiously.











See more of Sander's work here.