So I finished the doll for Unicef yesterday and first I wanted her to be a Gothic princess but she turned out to look more of a cute queen, right? She wears a black lace dress with the top part made of faux leather with metallic details. The eyes and the lips are also hand sewn.

I will donate it and send it to Unicef for the “Create A Doll- Help A Child‘ charity event, which will take place next year. You can have fun and create a doll yourself, get all the instructions here. I promise you that it is a whole lot of fun!

By the way: her name is Francesca.

I am featured in this ThreadBanger video at about 2:12. View more videos here.

Before telling you how I got to ‘Google myself’ in the first place and find this old ThreadBanger video in which they actually featured me ( ‘yey’ better late than never), let me state that it’s exhaustively difficult to attach pieces of fringe to a dress-base made from tulle. That’s why I took the break from work in the first place and somehow got to browse the internet. Then I thought that I have never Googled myself before. Seriously. So I did.

And big was my excitement when I saw this video made by the super cool guys over at ThreadBanger. I used to be a very active user of their forum when I first started out with the DIY’s (about a year ago). I admired them a lot and I really can’t believe that they took notice of my humble existence and actually browsed through my then-wordpress-blog and featured me. That is beyond cool! I am so excited right now I could scream. But instead I’ll just shout out a big ‘thank you’ to Rob and Corinne, even if it happens sooo late!

Also, thank you to 4Evershop and to Miss Devona, for the lovely mentions. Sending the love right back at you!

I’d call this a recession outfit, just because the top is actually a random piece of black jersey fabric that I wrapped around myself. You might remember it from here, where I wore it differently under a fitted blazer. I also wore the same piece of black jersey at the RFB meeting, of course, in a whole other way, over a tank top (see pic here). One piece of fabric, three different ways of wearing it: if that’s not scaling back, I don’t know what is! PS: the royal red belt is worn, of course, for contrasting purposes.

I mentioned before about my participation at the “My Grandma’s Backyard” event at La Scena, in Bucharest. Well, it happened and it was a bunch of hard work mixed with fun and sales. I didn’t know what to expect regarding the clothing sales, I had yet to see customers browse through my handmade clothes on the hangers. And I tell you, it is such an amazing feeling to see the way customers react, to see them touching your designs, trying them on. You can learn so much from analyzing the way random customers react to your work! I didn’t even know it was such an enlightening and thoughtful experience. Seriously. It was such a great lesson to learn. Right now I eagerly want to get back to work, as I’m afraid not to loose my thoughts after the event.

These are the clothes I took to the event. Unfortunately I didn’t have many spring/summer 2008 designs left, as I had sold most of the collection (see the look-book here). I had to buy my own standers (the metal thing you place the hangers on; I’m not sure how they are called) and a lot of hangers, but it was cool to realize how much better the clothes look placed on hangers. I almost felt like a designer.

So, this was my corner and this lovely lady is Elena, the editor of Cosmopolitan Sunshine, wearing one of my fall/winter 2008/9 designs. I brought a few pieces from the up-and-coming fall collection too, just because I didn’t have so many of my summer designs left.

The lovely and super-friendly Andreea from Biba Bijoux had a new collection to present called Filmstrip. Jewelry featuring original cutouts from vintage magazines about movies and movie stars. The idea, like the designs, was unique and you can still get your own Alice Faye (*or any other retro, glam movie star) earrings, reasonably priced, by contacting her. Hurry up because they are one-of-a-kind.

See more photos from the event and read more about who attended by reading the whole post!

From top to bottom, left to right: “Rezistenta Materialelor” installation of two geeky dressed dummies who represented the DJ’s; Oana from Vintage Boutique, and a very sweet and friendly, up-and-coming shoe-designer: Coca Zaboloteanu. Hopefully well collaborate sometime soon; I’d love it if she made the shoes for my future collections.

Denisa at Brain TV was there interviewing people (she did interview me too; I have no idea what I blabbered about, as I was just so tired and exhausted and excited all at the same time; I’ll post the video of the event as soon as it’s edited, so stay tuned for that); Andreea presented her “Somethings…with a twist”; Flu was represented by the ‘mysterious-as-in-hiding-behing-her-camera’ fashionista with the perfect trench-coat (we had a great chat and she is such an amazing person! I can’t wait for her to send me pictures of herself wearing one of my dresses); random, lovely colored gloves (unfortunately I don’t know the designer); a cool, gray, wool jacket; Elena’s (of Cosmopolitan Sunshine) clothes and a view of the ceiling from my corner of the room.

Other participants included Naive Design who created a vivid living space/room, Oana Unciulean who presented some of her artworks and I apologize if there are people who I didn’t mention.

It was all organized by Vlad Gabriela-Maria, at the beautifully-retro place called La Scena. Hopefully I will get the chance to participate at future events like this. It sure was an all-in-all amazing experience!

For other lovely pictures of the event check out Alex Conu’s blog.

I transformed a lot of clothes by now, most of them I left back at home thinking they would stick forgotten in their corner. But I’m gad to see my sister, Florina, discovered my [homemade] clothes and she is actually wearing them. For example this dress that I made last summer, from a pair of sweatpants. Yes, you read it right. Just look at the top part with the elastic and closure, it’s that of a pair of sweatpants. The reason why I didn’t want to throw them away was that I loved the color, soft feel of the fabric and of course the dragon embellishment on the back.

A dragon spitting fire on the ass looks a bit off putting (just like “Juicy” does), but when placed on the back it suddenly fits in. Thanks sis for being a trooper and wearing my clothes; you are indeed my first customer.

What to do with a random t-shirt that your mom stained while washing it? I usually wear them layered, so the stain doesn’t show, or if it does, I just tell those that attention me about it, that I’m a painter and that I’m supposed to have all my clothes stained with color. Guess what, it works! But this time it was my sister’s tank top that got stained, and she cared about it a lot (I really don’t know why), so she asked me to do something about it. I decided to paint it a bit, with textile colors, to hide the yellow stains that were visible. I chose a contrasting color (red-green > pink-light green), so that the eye is easily distracted when looking at it. If you do look closely at the first picture, you might actually notice the stain, but when you wear it’s unnoticeable.

So, next time you stain your shirt, don’t waist the fabric, just recycle it by painting the stained part. This way you also do something for the environment. Let’s go green!

I am a handbag person. It all goes back to my hight and the fact that I don’t “dare” to wear high heels when walking amongst normal people, because I don’t wanna look like a giant, so handbags are my favorite accessory. In about two years I got about 80 different types of handbags, I also sewed some myself. Today I got inspired to sew another one. Why? Because all it costs me is the invested time.

So, I wanted to do a clutch from textile fabric. I had about 20 bits of square fabric, but used only 6 for this handbag. It also has a harder material on the inside, because the striped fabric was too elastic for holding stuff inside. The closure is a zipper, on the inside of the top part of the bag, where the pleats are. I had such a hard time sewing the zipper on, because the fabric got too thick for the needle to properly go through. After two destroyed needles and 2 hours of work, I finally finished it. If you want it, just let me know at diana[at]sofashon.com or dianabobar[at]yahoo.com. [God, I can't wait for the website to be finished, including the "Contact" part, so I don't have to always write my e-mail addresses].

Anyway, looks pretty decent, right? Click for more images after the jump!

These were the pieces of fabric that I used. I got them from my aunt, I’m sure she’ll be excited to see that I really used them in a creative way. Maybe this will encourage her to bring me bits of fabric whenever she can. PS: I won’t mind patent leather!

One piece of fabric, 30 (!!!) different dresses. I wanted to try and see if it’s possible to build different shapes of dresses from the same fabric, and guess what: it certainly is! Using only two pins, a belt, a bra and some creativity I created 30 different dresses. Who says you need a gazillion event/party dresses in your closet? I say if you own a couple of basic, versatile pieces, you got everything you need to shine in a crowd! In my case, literally.

See all my looks, my inspiration and what kind of fabric it is that I used (you will probably be surprised), after the jump!

You probably noticed the same shape of that infamous wrinkled, strapless dress worn with a wide belt, a la Dolce&Gabbana. I guess you don’t need to pay lots of thousands of dollars to re-create that shape: there is no amazingly complicated tailoring; all you need is a tube dress and some pleating. And a dominatrix belt!

After seeing the Vivienne Westwood ss08 collection, I got more and more interested in this kind of black, shiny, almost latex/leather looking fabric. Those Requiem see-through plastic pumps would be the right shoes for my outfits, no?

Then, noticing the cape thing in Jeremy Scott’s runway show, I knew I had to have such a dress. But unfortunately I couldn’t find/didn’t have the right fabric, until…

...until I used a garbage bag! Yes, that is right. What you saw up there is the most random garbage bag ever, worn in the most diverse ways. And dare I say, I would really wear it out one night, at some club. I doubt that I’d see other girls having the same dress!

But it’s worth the wait, isn’t it?

First one, tied around the neck; second one, tied in a bow or left hanging (1st row); Both tied around the neck (2nd row).

Straps, left loose (1st row); or tied at the back (2nd row).

For me, versatility in fashion is very pleasing!