A Little on Me - A Lot More on Them

Of course I never dreamed that I would one day own a fashion business. I have to credit my greatest love and inspiration - my new wife Anja- for that little piece of manhood.

No, when I was younger I dreamed all the same as other young boys. I wanted to be Walter Payton or Ozzie Smith. Maybe an Olympic swimming champion like Mark Spitz or Matt Biondi. I wanted to play sports all day and love the pure joy of what I was doing for myself and others.


As I grew older I quickly realized I wasn't meant to be a football player. Being a 98 pound wire at 17 years old ensured that (no, that's not me to the right - I was much more of a weakling). So the quest has continued for something I could love all day where my contributions helped spread that joy. Anja has provided that love. Now we're both working on the joy.

To that end - we're looking to help point people to our favorite cause - Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). Their mission is to bring international independent medical humanitarian emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care. They work in nearly 70 countries, and enable adequate healthcare in places where war and disaster have prevented the appropriate infrastructure to be in place.


We look forward to this being our primary charity. Currently we can only try to help draw your attention to it - but when our feet are firmly planted on the ground we'll begin to contribute a portion of our earnings and time to the cause.

While we intend this to be our primary charity - it will not be our only cause. We strongly believe that all people are built the same - and all have equal potential for greatness. Tapping that greatness should be our global society's primary goal - and we would like to highlight those organizations that - regardless of label - seek out underprivledged individuals and give them the tools they need to achieve their greatest for society.

If you've got any time, please visit MSF's website. If you've got any other suggestions - please let us know or comment below!

If Music Be the Food of Love

- then, by all means, play on!

Once again Summer is almost coming to an end - some (like yours truely) are looking forward to Autumn, while others may not relish the thought of colder weather.

One of the reasons why I'm so looking forward to Autumn in Chicago is The Lyric Opera and especially their traditional outdoors concert - this year the Lyric Opera Stars will shine on September 10th at Millennium Park. And it's all free!

The first year I was in Chicago, my boyfriend (now husband) took me to hear the stars of the lyric opera. That year, to my great and joyous surprise, the concert was conducted by Sir Andrew Davis (see earlier blog entry), and it turned out to be a fantastic night with wonderful music performed by some of the world's greatest. We'd packed a small picnic basket and just sat back and enjoyed the music, the warm night, and a bottle of champagne.

The wonderful thing about the Lyric Opera's free concert-tradition is not only that it is free, but rather that it is such a generous and inviting introduction to some of opera's most popular and beautiful arias, overtures, and choruses. It's a splendid way of introducing a new audience to the world of opera - if only more "novices" would attend. We were struck by the fact that it seemed that most of the audience were middleaged or older. It's a shame that younger people have failed to take advantage of this great event.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to going again this year - having for some reason missed last year's concert. I'll have to come up with a new dress design to wear... Perhaps I'll be seing you there?

If Only I Were A Cobbler...

- What size do you wear? A size 4-5...
- No, I'm a size 3.5.
- Omigod, can I see them (looking under the table) - they're sooooo cute!

Or how about this one:

- Excuse me, what is the smallest size you carry?
- Which size do you wear?
- 3.5.
- Sorry... (looking at my feet in bewilderment) ...we only go down to 5.

It must be a relatively common experience for lots and lots of people. I may be a slightly short Korean (5 feet tall), but there are billions of Eastern Asians out there - not to mention very petite Latinos, Italians, Spanish, Portugese, and some Africans, and all the others, who do not come to mind. Is our money really that worthless that hardly anyone wants to make shoes for us?

A friend of mine recently returned from a vacation to Bangkok - she was so excited: "We had no problem finding clothes and shoes that fit!" (She's a 6-foot tall Dane with matching feet) " - it was great! And do you know what? All the locals were wearing shoes that were way too big for them..."

We live in a sizeist world - even in countries where feet are generally smallish, people are forced to wear shoes that are too big for them. A few weeks back I found myself toying with the idea of buying a pair of shoes that were actually a few sizes too big - but perhaps if I wore an insole or two, it wouldn't really matter... Wrong! I am actually ashamed that it came to that. Why should I settle just because my feet are small? Why is the shoe business, a business that really is built on diversity in form, function, and appearnce, so inflexible? WHERE ARE MY SHOES?

I am a true shoe addict. The lack of choice in footwear size 3.5 that is not over strewn with Disney characters or fitted with velcro turned me into this lunatic, who simply had to buy every single pair of stylish shoes of the right size that she came across. Unfortunately - or from an economic point of view perhaps luckily - coming across such shoes is just not something you do on a regular basis. The selection is about as limited as the average use of the human brain capacity; and the chances of it increasing are probably as far off as finding a human being, who uses all 100% of his/her little grey cells.

In Denmark, where I used to live, there was one shoe store that carried nice, adult shoes my size - it went exclusively online. In Chicago, where I now live, there are none: no store, no shop, no boutique. All I have left is the similarly diminuitive number of online shoe stores that for some reason have specialized in women's petite sizes. However, while I very much do appreciate these few heaven sent online vendors, their very cyberspace nature robs me of the entire shopping experience: no touching the leather, no smelling it, no trying them on - no fun at all!

Perhaps someday - far into the future - clothes and shoes will be like they were in "Back to the Future Part II" and adapt to the person wearing them. But until then I shall continue to sing my song of lamentation: woe to me, woe to my feet!

Links to online shoe stores that carry petite women's shoes my size (3-4 - European size 32.5-34/UK size 1-2) and perhaps your size too...:

Cinderella of Boston - a California based company that has specialized in small sizes. Very reasonable prices, however, the quality is perhaps not always top notch.

Zappos - I guess most people who shop online are familiar with these guys. They have a good selection of Taryn Rose - very expensive but sooooo pretty! And if you can fit into a size 4, they have lots of other great (and more affordable) brands to choose from.

Shoedini - a very good selection of size 4 shoes and boots, however, nothing smaller. They carry the very comfortable Sofft shoes, which I would highly recommend.

Small Shoe Co - based in England, this online store carries classic styles at affordable prices.

Dainty Feet - another English online store that emphasizes classic styles. Splendid quality and good service.

Small Feet - a rather small selection from this English online store, but very pretty and feminime.

Stravers Luxury Shoes - a Dutch company with storefront in Amsterdam and online sales to the world. Specialize in both very small and very large sizes.

Skowolter - my Danish small size shoe shop. They too specialize in small and large sizes. The selection is quite large and very varied. Carry mostly German and Italian brands.

Credits for Inspiration

As we get going here on our venture, I'd like to take a quick moment to point out those that, knowingly or not have inspired us in a portion of our work.

We have to reference essay by Karen Lehrman titled "The Decline of Fashion Photography". Her piece is an interesting and insightful photoessay that highlights the difficult balance of the creative art and marketing requirements of fashion photography. Finding this piece inspired us to put a little more thought into our own photoshoot and work.

At the heart of what [meen kyolë] does is allow people to express themselves - and we feel that is a philosophy that we should maintain throughout all of our business activities.

It is this essay that helped us to realize that we need to allow those that we work with a certain level of freedom and involvement in everything we do - as that is the way we can create the highest quality and most meaningful body of work. So for our photo shoot, it was important to us not only to highlight the clothing we design, but also the talents and joy of our photographer and our models. Our thoughts based on Karen's essay were - if everyone's individualism can come through in their work, and they have the freedom to perform in their specialty, then the quality of the work could only be improved.

We're quite pleased with the results of our shoot (hopefully Karen would approve), and we'd hope that applying the same philosophy to the rest of our work will turn out equally rewarding.

I guess it's a mirror of the power of the Internet that a single piece of work by an individual can become the genesis of what we hope to be a successful and rewarding approach to our business. We don't think she cares - or even intended such an outcome - but we owe Karen a portion of our thanks.

The Fashion Problem

Is there anything quite as lovely, flirtatious, and sexy as a skirt caught in a light Summer breeze? Especially the ones that are all the rave this year: over the knee or under the knee, lots of fun movement of fabric, vivid colours and patterns - and low on the hip to emphasize those seductive curves. But how many curves can fashion take?

Last year's Summer wonder was the strapless top, which initially seemed just perfect in as much as it emphasized the bust, kept the belly well out of sight, and didn't leave any tan lines on the shoulders. However, while there were no tan lines, boobs were more often than not squeezed out of shape by the massive amount of elastics and the lack of support; and the fat hiding element made anyone (who is not a mannequin) wearing this particular design look five months pregnant. Even men noticed!

So this year everyone is wearing hip hugging skirts with waist lines so low that the belly ends up spilling out over top, catching the eye instead of those sensuously swinging hips. Teenagers whose puppy fat has yet to disappear; college girls living on fat induced diets; young professionals whose bodies have grown up and therefore cannot get rid of that, which my friend Pia calls the 'oestrogen pouch': the layer of abdomen fat that will not go away, no matter what you do to it. They all seem to have forgotten that skirts do not necessarily have to reveal that, which most try to hide. But they do...

And that is the problem with fashion. It is not necessarily that we have all decided to let it all fall out, it is simply that fashion is generic. Cut, size, and shape - all too heavily molded on the assumption that a certain waist measurement goes with a certain length of legs or a certain cup size. Shall we just make do with the limited selection that mass producing clothing companies put before us - it would seem that we have no real choice. From the Gap companies to H&M and even to high fashion, the seasonal styles are almost identical in spite of the 'everything-goes' philosophy of recent years. The bohemian and the preppy styles may initially look different, however, a skirt from one style has practically the same cut as one from the other: the details and the fabrics and textures may be different, but the lack of cut diversity is the same.

Not two people are the same. One person may even have different left and right sides (I do) so let's not settle for less - let's go for that perfect cut.