kove Giveaway Winner

Drumroll please!

The winner of the highly coveted Pacific Cowl from kove handmade is:

Emily Ross!

Congratulations!!

Barefoot Contessa Giveaway Winner

Ladies & Gents, we have a winner!

Congrats Kelly Man (@glassedpickles)

You're the winner of this lovely sequin turband!

Giveaway: kove knitwear

My friends at kove knitwear want to hook you up with some warm, knitted goodness. Last week I picked up my Cypress Warmer and absolutely love it.

And now it's your turn!

kove knitwear wants to give one lucky Haus of Hybrid reader a Pacific Cowl!

The best part? It will be made to order, so you get to pick the colour you want!

photos via kove knitwear

To enter:

1) Comment on this post with: your name, email & what colour you'd want your Pacific cowl in;
2) 'Like' Haus of Hybrid & kove handmade on Facebook.

Open to all readers (including International)!

Contest closes at 11:00pm PST on December 21, 2011.

One Month Unlimited Yoga

It's almost time to start thinking about your New Year's Resolutions so why not check out Ethical Deal? For $29 you can get one month of UNLIMITED yoga at Moksha Yoga Burnaby.

This is the studio I practice at, so we can get our downward dog on together.

Wish List

In addition to Christmas being just around the corner, I also have a birthday coming up. I would happily appreciate receiving any of the following as gifts.

Also, there's still time to enter to win a earwarmer / turband from Barefoot Contessa!

This Life Lately

Candy Bar at Style Spy X GAP event

Looks styled by The Style Spy team

Purchase from the Obakki warehouse sale #1

Obakki warehouse sale purchase #2

Velvet men's blazer from H&M that I got altered

Score secondhand find - $30 Dries van Noten

Amazing

Ballin outta control

TEDxVancouver

Muffin frittatas

Rainy day sunshine

Vintage fanmail

A good reminder

Fun in Chinatown

The Anthology at the VDxBR event

I'm the It Girl at the VDxBR event

New cape from ASOS

Pretty skirt from Banana Republic - channeling my inner Blair Waldorf

TEDxSFU

Mozy19 giving his Five Hole for Food talk - Charity 2.0

The holidays are here!

Lights at work

My un-holiday holiday mani

Outfit: House Guest Media Event

I know that you're dying to know what I wore to the House Guest media event a couple weeks ago.

Not the best quality photos, but that's what happens when you take photos in the middle of an Open Bar event.

This was the first time I'd broken out the sequin jacket in Vancouver (and since NYFW!) and it was such a hit (as I knew it would be)! Although, I had a date afterwards and I excitedly asked him, "Do you like my sequins?!" He said something to the effect of, "Uh...they're...special. And sequin-y....." I replied with, "It's OK, I have a change of clothes to go out in." (Because sometimes straight guys just don't get it and get scared. And sometimes, you just shouldn't wear an awesome sequin jacket to a concert at the Commodore, no matter how awesome the sequin jacket is. Lesson: Be Prepared.)

Dress: Forever 21 Sequin Jacket: Vintage Shoes: Michael Antonio (last seen here) Bag: Le Chateau

Barefoot Contessa Holiday Picks

Yesterday I teased my Holiday 2011 picks with Barefoot Contessa (sidebar: did you enter my Barefoot Contessa giveaway yet???).

And today, here are some of what I think you should pick up for the fabulous people in your lives.

Check out Barefoot Contessa's blog over the next few days to see what else I picked!

Holiday Tweetup 2.0

I'm hosting a tweetup! See your fabulous faces there!

Barefoot Contessa Giveaway!

As part of my blogger collaboration with Vancouver boutique Barefoot Contessa, I get to do a giveaway!!

The giveaway is a sneak peak at my holiday picks from Barefoot Contessa, so check back tomorrow to see some of them.

In the meantime...

Enter to win this super awesome sequin detailed turband / earwarmer from Barefoot Contessa!

It's been balls to the walls cold in Vancouver (this is what happens when it doesn't rain) so if hats aren't your thang, then this earwarmer / turband is just the thing for you!

To enter:

1) Like both Haus of Hybrid & Barefoot Contessa on Facebook
2) For an extra entry, comment on this post with your name & email

Contest is open to North American residents and closes at 11:00pm PST on December 15.

the lip slip

Last week I told you about the new lip scrub i bought from Beauty Mark and mentioned that I really wanted to try Sara Happ's the lip slip.

One of my favourite things about Sara Happ's line is that the packaging is just so precious. I love the little boxes and ribbons. You can't really see it in this photo, but the box is a beautiful metallic pink colour...kind of the same as the Alexander Wang Fabiana.

As for the lip balm itself...it is glorious. It's thick and silky (though a little bit sticky). I don't need to apply it often (it stays on my lips forever!) and it doesn't smell or taste bad. It is extremely hydrating and I don't have that itchy lip balm addict feeling I get from other products (this is apparently due to the use of camphor in other similar products).

So all in all, I'm definitely hooked on Sara Happ.

Ear Candy

I don't often ever post about music, but this is really too good not to share.

The Head and the Heart - Rivers and Roads

Meet Divina Deneuvo

I am not a crafty person. I wish I were. I love reading up on DIYs, but I get craft ADD / forget / don't make the time. So when I was at Eco Fashion Week in October and saw the stall set up by Divina Deneuvo, I felt like I had met the crafting / DIY masters.

Divina Deneuvo duo, Victoria and Dave, create bags and accessories by hand from upcycled materials. Their items are one-of-a-kind, each having some sort of backstory to them. After spending an awkward amount of time fawning over the bags, other leather goods, and jewelry*, I knew I had to share them with you lovely folk. Meet Victoria & Dave.

What was life like before Divina Deneuvo? How did you and Dave meet? 

VR: I was born in Argentina, immigrated to Vancouver in ‘89. After high school, I was afforded the opportunity to study in Scotland, in the oldest university in the country, University of St. Andrews, and lived in what I can only describe as a fairytale castle (complete with turrets and a tower!). I loved every moment of walking through the cobbled streets and stone buildings, wondering who was there before me. I studied English Literature and have a profound love for Shakespeare and what I imagine “Old England” was like; and I collect strange things like antique wax seals, thimbles, and all sorts of opulent oddities. I have what I like to call “artistic ADHD” in so much that I am, and have always been, creating. In addition to designing for Divina Denuevo, I also do all the product photography, web design, graphic design (business cards, posters, etc), staging and booth display. I also have a jewelry line that focuses on the same values as Divina Denuevo, often repurposing the hardware you see on the bags into jewelry (Pieces of II *). I am also a photography nut and take pictures wherever I go. Dave and I met while working at the same company, my alter ego is in communications and marketing, and Dave was the hardware integration manager at the same company.

DK: I grew up in a smaller community in Northern British Columbia and moved to the Lower Mainland to attend SFU and study Psychology. I work full time as a Manager at a Point of Sale Company and on evenings and weekends I work mainly on the behind the scenes activities at Divina Denuevo, including pricing, inventory, troubleshooting and dabble in the design world focusing mostly on Cuffs, Straps and some larger bags. I had been looking for a creative outlet and when Victoria had mentioned that she was preparing for a craft market and was short on time, I offered to help her prepare for the show and have been hooked ever since. The upcycling and attention to the environment was also a big draw for me.

How did you get into leatherwork / upcycling / creating Divina Deneuvo?

VR: I’ve been passionate about sustainability and eco-consciousness since I was 16. I shop local as much as possible, check the carbon footprint of my groceries, try and eliminate the use of plastic in my household, and use my purchasing power to encourage the organic food industry.

Before leather, I was sewing making fabric bags in an effort to carry something unique in a society where most people are wearing something mass-produced. I hated walking down the street and seeing someone carrying the same thing as me. When our clothing is an outward expression of our personality, why would we want to spend any of that space looking the same as someone else? I was tired of hanging someone else’s logo on my shoulder.

When I came upon my first piece of leather, I was intrigued – the rustic look and raw edges looked like they belonged as a bag. My love for all things ‘old-world’ led me to collecting skeleton keys and I couldn’t stand the thought of these beautiful pieces being thrown away or cast aside out of redundancy. I don’t know why – but to me, leather and metal seemed to go together. The shiny glints of hardware on the rich leather makes a perfect juxtaposition, and the second I held a key against the piece of leather I had bought to play with, I knew that I loved it. From there, I started looking at anything that was old hardware that might end up in a landfill: doorknobs, cabinet handles, keyplates, hinges – It became my mission to find anything that I could save, repurpose, and make beautiful again.

Where does the inspiration come from?

VR: I am drawn to antiquities and the opulence of the past. I seem to always seek out anything that seems ‘old world’ and that incites a romantic mystery like the kind you associate with Old England. From that, I draw my inspiration. More often than not, I create the leather around the adornment: when I find a particular treasure, I design the piece to suit it perfectly. In terms of the shapes of the bags – that is something quite organic: I try very hard to not waste leather, so I use the raw edges of the hide in the design: it’s those edges that give the bags that ‘rustic’ look, and make most of the pieces one-of-a-kind. The shapes that the hides naturally come in are often far more interesting than anything I could dream up and cut!

DK: Inspired by anything, nature, anything vintage or antique. I would describe our aesthetic as rustic, rugged with a romantic twist.

What is your design process?

VR: I tend to make more of the purses/bags, and Dave makes more of the belts and cuffs, though he often will help with the design of a bag by providing feedback and brainstorming. We get along surprisingly well and rarely have a disagreement – usually if we have creative differences, it’s because we’re looking at a potential piece with different uses in mind.  The way we work best is when we both start creating, and ask each other what the other thinks about a design as it’s in progress: this ends up with an impressive evolution and we come out of it with designs that we love and couldn’t have come up with without the other.

As for the actual process – it varies from piece to piece: some bags are finished in my head before they’re even started. Others are a painstaking process of trial and error, prototyping and laying out, sewing and unsewing. The ones that are a breeze usually start with us laying the hide on the floor and looking at the shapes of the sides. When we see something there, we get a rush of inspiration, cut it out and get to work on sewing. Then we spill out our box of treasures and hold different pieces up to the bag, seeing which adornment of hardware looks the best. Other times, we design the bag around a specific piece of hardware – as we often find amazingly cool pieces that inspire us. The more difficult bags usually start with little to no direction, just a rough idea in our heads of what we want to do (like the duffle bag we debuted at Eco Fashion Week – that bag took 3 days to make). We constantly hold the pieces of leather in the places we think they should go, and when we’re happy with the shape, we sew, or rivet into place.

How important is it for you to try to convey the story of the details you're adding?

VR: So Important! The whole idea behind our line is that you’re carrying a piece of the past – like a time machine. Every item has a story, unique and arguably what makes the piece enchanting. We struggled to come up with a way to convey the story: at shows it was easy, we could simply tell someone – “the key on that purse came from a shipwreck.” and dive into how we found the key and where it’s been; but when we started to sell in stores we saw that people thought our hardware was replicas and new. We hated that, it completely defeated the purpose behind our line – so we came up with a solution. Now all of our bags have a label inside that tells you a little bit about the hardware that’s adorning your piece. Some, we know the story of, and they’ll say something like “The antique key on this bag came from a shipwreck off the coast of France in the late 1800’s” – others, which we don’t know much about, will simply say “This antique hardware was rescued from a landfill.”

You're currently in 2 Vancouver boutiques - what's next for Divina Deneuvo?

VR: Oh so much in the pipeline! When we did Eco Fashion Week we were lucky enough to be chosen by celebrity designer Jeff Garner to accessorize his men’s line (Prophetik). Then Jeff asked us if we’d like to send our collection to him to be part of the rest of his shows for the season, so our men’s line, which debuted at EFW, is currently traveling with Jeff as he finishes his season’s shows for his ‘Rebel Yell” collection. We also won the Excellence Award at Eco Fashion Week in the Accessories category, and along with it a distribution deal in the US. We have a bunch of exciting things in the pipeline, but I don’t want to jinx them or give away too much. We’re at almost all the major holiday markets (Got Craft?, Make It, etc.), and we are really hoping to be in some more boutiques by then too – we’ve had almost everything in our business develop organically, so we are hoping that will continue to happen.


Images from Divina Deneuvo.

Little Party Dresses

My work Holiday Party (how PC...) is this Friday and while a new dress wasn't in the cards for me this year (I have plenty...and I mean plenty), that doesn't have to be the case for you. Here are some great festive (aka: obnoxiously shiny) dress picks:

Vince Sequin-embellished crepe dress, Net-a-porter - $495

ASOS Sequin Dress with Long Sleeves, ASOS - $290.88

Haute Hippie Sequin V Neck Dress, Singer22 - $895

Studded Scoop Bodycon Dress, Topshop - $110

TFNC Sequin Dress with Long Sleeves, ASOS - $99.99

ASOS One Shoulder Dress in Metallic Jacquard, ASOS - $88.17

Tibi Metallic Jacquard Sleeveless Dress, Shopbop - $352