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Portland Mercury this week!

If you are in Portland, be sure to check out this week’s Portland Mercury! We are on the cover as well as the inside Open Season photo spread. The featured kasuri American flag was also made by us! I hope you’ve already purchased your tickets for Alexa Stark x Crazy Wind fashion show next Monday, May 12th. If not, follow the link below. We will be launching our SS14 collection as well as previewing our AW14 collection. Looking forward to seeing you at Doug Fir! http://openseason.strangertickets.com/

Photography: Chantal Anderson Model: Keely DiPietro Clothing & Flag: Crazy Wind

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Portland Mercury Open Season Fashion Event

We are excited to be part of Portland Mercury's 10th Open Season fashion event on May 12-14th. We will be showing our latest SS14 collection along side another local designer Alexa Stark on May 12th at Doug Fir. Tickets are on sale now for $5 here. Make sure to check out Portland Garment Factory's show on the 14th at Rontom and Mag-Big on the 13th at Mississippi Studio also! Hope to see you there!

Photo above: Anja Verdugo, Model: Serena Killion

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Black Magic on Black Friday

We will be participating in Black Magic pop up shop event next Friday November 29th, taking place at the Cleaners/the Ace Hotel Portland. We are especially proud to share this event with some of our favorite Portland creatives. Check out this awesome line up!

BLTN Jewelry, Olo Fragrance, AK Vintage, Tiro Tiro, Winnow, Sword + Fern, Portland Apothecary, Yo Vintage!, Boet, Crazy Wind 

We hope to see you there!

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Content 2013

We participated in the big annual Portland event called Content 2013 last Saturday November 9th. Content is a very unconventional fashion/art event where the Ace Hotel invites local designers & makers to take over the entire second floor, and each designer get assigned a room to create an installation that reflects their brands. It was a rare opportunity for us to showcase our label in a more abstract and visual way. We created sort of a bamboo forest of traditional Japanese flags called "nobori" which highlighted the main kasuri textile we use in our collection. We also made an indigo American Flag out of kasuri which seemed to be the crowd favorite. Here are some photos from that exciting evening and behind the scene. Great job to all the 28 participants, and thanks everyone for coming to the show!

We special made the Crazy Wind "noren" (traditional Japanese doorway curtain) for the entrance.

Our artist friend Dan Ness hand painted the logo straight on to the noren using an old school projector. We were blown away how perfect it turned out!

Here is the kasuri nobori forest.

American Flag made out of Kasuri.

One of the Content organizers, Kayla Rekofke showed up with the entire Crazy Wind outfit and made us so happy!! What a cutie!

Our handsome designer friend Gregory Jackson showed up sporting the Crazy Wind signature tote! This photo makes us smile every time.

We also had a bunch of left over off-cuts from production, so we asked the visitors to join us in tieing the scraps to the trees. This is what they looked like after the event. Thanks everyone for participating and making this event special!

Also very special thanks to my partner Nick Hans of Made on the Moon for all the back breaking labor. This installation wouldn't have been possible without you.

Portrait of me taking during the event by my designer friend Anoosha Foroughi. Thanks for this special photo!

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We will be showing our SS14 collection at WOMAN in New York. Hope to see you there!

Date: September 15th-17th

Address: 775 Washington St. NY NY 10014

Time: 10am - 7pm

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Seeing this sweetest mother and daughter Crazy Wind duo made me so happy this weekend.

Pants by Crazy Wind: Fabric made in Japan, designed and made in USA, worn by Norwegian beauties.

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Sarah from YO! Vintage wore this outfit for 5 days straight! Today is the one year anniversary of her beautiful retail shop in downtown Portland. Congrats & see you tonight for first Thursday!

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ALL WE NEED IS CRAZY PANTS!!! Here are some actual street style photos of my favorite girls wearing Crazy Wind pant. If you own Crazy Wind items, please send me photos!

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Portland folks! Please come join us this Thursday May 30th for a special Crazy Wind event at Table of Contents. 33 NW 4th Ave Portland OR. 6-8pm. I will be previewing these new unisex totes! 

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I’m so thrilled to announce that Crazy Wind is at Joinery NYC in Williamsburg Brooklyn (in my old neighborhood)! They’ve been our number one supporter & believer from the very beginning. These photos from their website are absolutely stunning! If you are in NY, please go check out their shop at 263 South 1st Street. Thankfully for those of us who are not living in NYC, we can still go to their website at www.joinerynyc.com.

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This vintage wooden shuttle was given to us by one of our favorite vendors, Mr. Yamamura, a fourth generation owner of kasuri manufacturer. He pointed out that the brand name is Toyo. They later became Toyota who used to manufacture weaving looms before they made cars!

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During my recent trip to Japan, I was able to visit my current kasuri vendors in the southern island of Kushu and witness how they create this beautiful textile in their manufacturing facilities. I learned that there are about 30 steps involved in making kasuri from start to finish. These photos help to explain some of the key steps in developing kasuri. It takes them approximately 2 months to finish１反 (pronounced 1 tan: an old Japanese measuring system for 1 kimono length, which is about 12 meter). I’m always fascinated with how things are made, but this entire process is so painstaking and time consuming that it’s truly mind-boggling. But this is the reason why kasuri is so incredibly beautiful, high quality and stands the test of time. The entire creation process has been studied and perfected over the years, and it’s executed by skilled craftsmen/craftswomen. I have so much respect for these manufacturers that are keeping this traditional craft alive from generation to generation, so that we can still enjoy this wonderful textile to this day.

Note: These photographs were given to me by the chamber of commerce & industry. I’m very grateful for all their help and support.

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Re-post from Mill Mercantile's recent instagram. Crazy Wind pant was styled with Chimala Jacket, St. James shirt & Maguba clogs. Such an awesome combo!

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Table of Contents is a beautiful Portland based retailer owned by Shu Hung, and Joe Magliaro. Their store is curated almost like a conceptual gallery, and they mix in artful publications and objects with high-end clothing brands like Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Opening Ceremony. We are so honored to have Crazy Wind be part of their store. Their SP 13 theme is called "A Piece of Cloth", so our story about kasuri fits in perfectly. We were also featured on their recent blog post! http://news.tableofcontents.us/tagged/crazy-wind

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Spring is finally here and we are happy to announce that our first Crazy Wind collection is now available at a few select retailers in the US! Check out Joinery in NYC, Mill Mercantile in SF, Frances May and Table of Contents in Portland, OR. We were also mentioned in Frances May's recent blog post. Thanks for the shout out and the beautiful photos, Frances May!

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This past weekend, I had a photo shoot for my fall-winter 2013 lookbook, and I was lucky to have a group of very talented people to help me. I've invited Anja Louise Verdugo an incredible photographer/blogger(check out Clever Nettle!)/vintage buyer, Karyn Carmona an amazing hair/makeup artist from Gold+Arrow salon, Fiona Woodman a stunning young model, and Nick Hans my right hand man and an all around artist. I was also able to borrow some awesome furniture/props designed and built by Spencer Staley from The Good Mod which made the shoot extra special. The actual lookbook photos are not ready to show yet, but here are some sneak peak photos of the hair styling by Karyn. I've asked her to create soft braids with kasuri scraps woven in. She knew exactly what I was after and created this beautiful look!

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Last week, I took a road trip from Portland to Las Vegas, and along the way I got to see some amazing desert scenery. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip. Enjoy!