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Last week, we reported on Oak's "Bond Age" collection set to debut on Monday, September 8th to celebrate fashion week and Oak's relatively new Bond Street location. To recap, Oak worked with some of their favorite designers to create limited edition products around the theme of bondage, available for sale at their Bond Street location as well as online from September 8th to September 11th.

The collection debuted online yesterday, and we have to say: it is one of the most inspired store/brand collaborations we have seen in quite some time. Some designers adapted their well established aesthetic to fit the bondage theme, like say Complex Geometries' jersey binder dress. Other's ventured completely out of their element (don't expect to see anything like Vena Cava's naked print T-shirt to appear in their next collection). But it was all in good fun and succeeded in producing some seriously cool, seriously sexy, and sometimes seriously raunchy designs.

Erik Hart "You" T-shirt ($96)

Complex Geometries jersey binder dress ($292)

Look from London corset tights ($32)

Boyfriend snap headband ($78)

Erik Hart "Me" T-shirt ($96)

Robert Mapplethorpe early polaroids book

Julian Red monkie hoodie ($248)

Much, much more available here and here.

In the summer of 1995, posters started appearing on various walls around Vienna depicting women wearing delicate sheer tops. At the bottom of each poster: a phone number and the word "Bless". Thus began the fruitful and unconventional design collective that is Bless. As cataloged in Bless: Celebrating 10 years of Themelessness, the partnership of Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag is not a only a story of unwavering creative spirit, but also of impressive entrepreneurial acumen.

Bless, for its first official edition (No. 00) created a series of fur wigs, photographed them and put out an ad in several fashion magazines around Europe. While they might have been expecting a substantial response, they received two. One was a representative of Martin Margiela who wanted to order a series of wigs to complement Margiela's latest collection.

When money became tight, Bless, for its 5th edition, produced not a product but an opportunity. They proposed a subscription to Bless that would guarantee supporter access to the following four Bless editions. The announcement read "Bless No 05 is a test of the conviction of Bless customers to the fashion that Bless pioneers..."

While Bless may be known primarily for its clothing and fashion accessories presently, the partnership did not produce what could be considered a fashion collection until their 9th edition. "Merchandising" as a collection was a commentary on a over branded world. Every piece had some sort of logo, embroidery signature, or depiction that identified it as Bless. To introduce the collection Bless simply placed friends wearing the pieces at other shows during Paris' fashion week.

Regular fashion collections appearing twice yearly did not commence until Bless No. 18, and since then there is a comfortable rhythm to the creative output: two collections a year to satisfy the fashion buying seasons, around two other editions, "Bless Advance" collaborations or "Bless Beauty Product" releases that keep Bless as Bless has always been: a design partnership that earnestly dances to the beat of its own drum.

Bless No. 00 Furwigs

Bless No. 09 Merchandising

Bless No. 13 Basics

Bless No. 17 Design Relativators

Bless No. 20 O.kayers

Bless No. 29 Wallscapes

Like the classical structure of Rick Owens' own physical body, L'Ai Je Bien Descendu? (How Did You Like My Descent?) has a strong physical and metaphysical presence.

Contradictory to the monumental structure of the book, once opened its pages are filled with a plethora of questioning, dark, grainy, black and white photographs mostly taken by Owens himself.

The most notable image perhaps is a double exposed photograph of Rick Owens pissing into the mouth of Rick Owens. This, of course, takes the subject matter out of the realm of fashion and fashion designers into the psychological realm, which makes one confused as to whether they are looking at a fashion designers' monograph or that of a conceptual artist, much in the vain as Yoko Ono or Vito Acconci.

How Did You Like My Descent? comes packaged with a sheer garter belt-like material, which the audience must slide off and discard in order to even get to the first page of the book. Not a very different experience than undressing a lover, or even a dancer for that matter.

The book was after all titled in honor of Owens' favorite cabaret dancer in Paris, who infamously would make a long anticipated entrance, then turning to the audience would ask "how did you like my descent?"

This weekend we were wandering around the Pratt store when we stumbled upon a copy of Raf Simons Redux, a retrospective of the first 10 years of Raf Simons' work (1995-2005). The book is divided among various themes that have been explored in Simons' collections throughout the years, like "Youth" or "Machines" or "Future." Looking at the photos, Simons' substantial influence on men's fashion is remarkably obvious. Ideas and concepts just filtering down to mass market lines were explored at depth by Simons' years before.

We thought you would enjoy some scans from the book.

Poketo dream book at Factory People

Have you visited Bon&Ging's website recently? We hadn't and so we just noticed that they have a new online store that not only features their latest collection (S/S '07 on sale right now), but also includes the other fabulous labels they carry in store as well as a slew of edgy art/design mags/books.

Bon&Ging

Oumi

Natalia Brilli

Bless

Hansel from Basel

Momo Suzuki

Magazines

Book on Germany--a self-published, small run guide on where to eat, visit, sleep from the well traveled folks at Kiosk.

Most labels find it difficult enough to produce a modest clothing line. Perks and Mini produces a cool, casual cut-and-sew line that finds its way into hip clothing women's boutiques and a graphic T-shirt line that's in many a streetwear shop. When not busy doing this they publish art books and design toys and some funky sunglasses and shoes. What the Australian duo brings to all their work is a fun, buoyant perspective that's all their own. Plus they have quite the knack for graphics.

Find the clothes at Creatures of Comfort, the T-shirts at Sold Out, and other stuff everywhere from Australia to Denmark.

If you hate words, then Zakka is the bookstore for you. Graphic design is the shop's focus and they approach the subject from a unique perspective. With a field office in Tokyo and an emphasis on subculture, the store is a fun, fascinating look at the myriad ways graphic designers are making their mark.

Like in video games.

Or on skateboards.

And for those of us that can't tell Helvetica apart from Arial (gasp!) there are Godzilla toys straight from Japan and some T-shirts with (what else) nice graphics.

We're probably late to the party, but we just noticed last week that legendary San Francisco bookstore City Lights has online shopping. If you ever find yourself in San Francisco and have any interest in literature a pilgrimage to City Lights, and really the surrounding North Beach area, should be high on your list. But for now a bit of City Lights can come to you.

Besides a large and extensive collection of Beat literature there are a host of items you can't get anywhere else.

Like interesting prints of Beat literary figures like Allen Ginsberg pictured here in his San Francisco apartment in 1995 1965.

Or Charles Bukowski first editions.

Or Ferlinghetti broadsides.

We've now been to a few of the best comic book shops in North America, and with The Beguiling, we can check another one off the list.

Steve and Kristin from Magic Pony introduced The Beguiling to us as being voted the second best comic book store IN THE WORLD, behind some store in Belgium. All we can say is: believe the hype. If you're interested in comic books and/or strips at all, or graphic novels, or anime, or alternative art in its many forms, you're going to want to visit The Beguiling. Meanwhile, they have a selection of books and art you can buy online.