Desperately Seeking Sustainable Style

By: Ashley Rabin October 14, 2016July 15, 2018 Behind the Gilded Curtain, Sustainable Styleartisan, conservation, eco conscious, fair trade, featured, living wage, organic cotton, slow fashion, sustainable5 Comments

“Looking back in History, we see that the origins of fashion portray the character of a world built by manual techniques and natural fibers. Design was carried out as a reflection of culture and society. These are the images of an extinct world we need to recover.” – Adriana Marina, Founder of Animana Anyone with…

Gilded Mane

By: Ashley Rabin September 8, 2015December 13, 2017 Behind the Gilded Curtain, Gilded-Mane, Inside the Artist's Studioartisan, bespoke, eco conscious, etsy, featured, headband, made in USA, ornate, slow fashion, sustainable, upcycle1 Comment

TALES FROM THE WINDING PATH I must warn you in advance that the following story is incomplete. Memory has a way of presenting its own reality, of dwelling on some events and ignoring others entirely. All I have are my recollections, old photographs, written words, and my mother’s elephantine memory, in order to piece together the various …

Girls in the Years of Living Dangerously

By: Ashley Rabin April 20, 2014July 15, 2018 Through the Selfie Stick, Tripping through lifefeatured, girls, HBO, years of living dangerouslyLeave a Comment

“Why don’t you place just one crumb of basic human compassion on this fat free muffin of sociopathic detachment, see how it tastes.” Ever since the auspicious debut of the HBO show “Girls,” I have been trying to figure out why I continue to watch something that actually makes me physically uncomfortable. Is it the…

Eco-Fashion Directory

While the terms cruelty-free and vegan leather reflect a spirit of social responsibility, that does not automatically mean that the materials being used are sustainable. When you come across these buzz words, you’ll have to read the item descriptions to see what the products are actually made of. LIFESTYLE BRANDS & WEBSITES American Nomad artisan, handmade…

Gilded-Mane : Shop Links

“Gilded Mane” was born of a lifelong passion for design, as well as a commitment to conscious consumerism. What began as an experiment by designer Ashley Rabin, to see if she could create a headband using vintage jewelry, the line has expanded to include the “Winter Headband” and the “Shield Collection,” which is made using reclaimed leather scraps. Whether she’s getting dressed in the morning or designing for Gilded-Mane, Ashley’s motto is that “true style is never disposable.”

Once Upon a Tornado

By: Ashley Rabin July 26, 2018July 27, 2018

Behind the Gilded Curtain4 Comments

During a recent conversation with David Black, the author and family friend shared the essential ingredient for any successful story – mythology. He was reflecting on his own work, but was also commenting on the overall decline of storytelling, where myth has been replaced by supernatural fantasy and horrific violence. The Digital Age promised that…

Saturn’s Revenge : Political Therapy

By: Ashley Rabin May 11, 2017July 15, 2018

Through the Selfie Stick, Tripping through lifeAmerican history, American politics, astrology, Civil Rights Movement, liberal snowflake, Saturn's Return, Saturn's Revenge8 Comments

“In all the time that we’ve spent trying to figure out who the villain would be in the final act, not once did we consider the possibility that the greatest threat to our civilization could be us.”

Native Fashion Now

By: Ashley Rabin March 8, 2017July 16, 2018

Behind the Gilded Curtain, Inside the Artist's Studio, Sustainable StyleHaute Couture, Jamie Okuma, Kristen Dorsey, Native American, Native Fashion Now, Patricia Michaels, Project Runway, Seven Generation Stewardship, Sustainable Fashion, Wearable Art1 Comment

Just as Columbus-era Native Americans developed techniques for working with the colorful Venetian beads that they acquired through trade, the skills of their descendants have also evolved to reflect the latest innovations. In Wendy Ponca’s dresses that are inspired by the “Sky World,” she blends fox fur and bald eagle feathers with crystals and Mylar, a reflective silver material found in space shuttles.

Desperately Seeking Sustainable Style

By: Ashley Rabin October 14, 2016July 15, 2018

Behind the Gilded Curtain, Sustainable Styleartisan, conservation, eco conscious, fair trade, featured, living wage, organic cotton, slow fashion, sustainable5 Comments

Perception in the Age of Truth-iness

By: Ashley Rabin July 22, 2016November 2, 2017

Through the Selfie Stick, Tripping through lifeBlack Lives Matter, BLM, Fahrenheit 451, Plato, Ray Bradbury, The Cave, Truthiness, White Nonsense Roundup1 Comment

truthiness [trooth-ee-ness] – believing something that feels true, even if it isn’t supported by fact … “The entertainment industry and mainstream media perpetuate bias through the stories they tell and the images they omit.”

Gilded Mane

By: Ashley Rabin September 8, 2015December 13, 2017

Behind the Gilded Curtain, Gilded-Mane, Inside the Artist's Studioartisan, bespoke, eco conscious, etsy, featured, headband, made in USA, ornate, slow fashion, sustainable, upcycle1 Comment

Girls in the Years of Living Dangerously

By: Ashley Rabin April 20, 2014July 15, 2018

Through the Selfie Stick, Tripping through lifefeatured, girls, HBO, years of living dangerouslyLeave a Comment

The Life Experiment

By: Ashley Rabin March 17, 2014November 2, 2017

Tripping through lifeLeave a Comment

We have more conveniences, but less time. more experts, but more problems; more medicines, but less healthiness. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies then ever, but have less communication. We…

Traveling Through Time w/ Bianca Turetsky

By: Ashley Rabin February 12, 2014November 2, 2017

The Writer's Den, This Creative LifeBianca Turetsky, The Time Traveling FashionistaLeave a Comment

“Bianca had always known that she would be a writer, and her wardrobe tells the story of her journey from Julian Schnabel’s assistant to published author. Just like Louise – the character she fabricated – Bianca’s own journey began in a vintage shop.“ “The Time-Traveling Fashionista” is the kind of series that my younger self…

Juliana Lazzaro: Art in Motion Part II

By: Ashley Rabin January 22, 2014November 2, 2017

Inside the Artist's Studio, This Creative Life, VisionaryArt in Motion, Artistry in Motion, Juliana Lazzaro, Perfecto, Schott NYC1 Comment

Every day we make a choice and in that moment we decide which voice to listen to: insecurity, self-loathing, fear, reason, all of whom would be nothing without the energy we give them… Juliana is selective in this regard, listening only to her Intuition and the advice of those she admires. It has been six…

90’s Revival

By: Ashley Rabin October 15, 2013November 2, 2017

Behind the Gilded Curtain, The Trend Wheelgrunge, Kurt Cobain, nineties, throwback, Trends, Zara1 Comment

When we look in the rear-view, it is always the most outrageous moments that end up defining an era. The twenties flapper, eighties punk rocker, and nineties grunge bands represented small slivers of the population, but now seem to epitomize the decades in which they were the outlying occurrences. I thought that I was the…

Matthew Benson: The Seductive Farmer

By: Ashley Rabin September 9, 2013July 17, 2018

This Creative Life, Through the Photographer's LensAuthenticity, Dimension, Myth, Self-Reliance, Vision3 Comments

“Organic is really a euphemism for misshapen beauty, or the Eastern aesthetic philosophy of wabi-sabi, where imperfections, transience, and asymmetry have more value, and are ‘more perfect’ than perfection…The more crazed and cracked the teapot, the wonkier the pear, the greater its integrity, beauty and value.” -MATTHEW BENSON At the heart of every country, city, or…

Sandra Rabin: The Mentor Is In

By: Ashley Rabin August 7, 2013July 16, 2018

The Elder Flower, The Writer's Den, This Creative Life, VisionaryDimension, Myth5 Comments

“I know what you’re doing is difficult. You’re expecting immediate results from your efforts, but that is not the way life works. You can only plant seeds and when you reap benefits, it is because of the seeds that others have planted.” – A. Philip Randolph, on the advice of his father Dear Mom, I am…

Beacon’s Return Part II: Siren’s Calling

By: Ashley Rabin July 1, 2013November 2, 2017

Escape from the MetropolisDimension, Gender Roles, Myth, Self-Reliance7 Comments

“It has been a dream of mine to create a business borne of my desires. I refused to engage in a career based on the necessity of survival, working day to day feeling unfulfilled. My connection and relationship to the Earth was my greatest teacher in defining my life and career choices.” – Donna Brickwood…