Santa Fe - Fashion Forward

We made another pilgrimage to Santa Fe. This time for Fiesta! Viva la Fiesta. Santa Fe is celebrating it's 400 years and it happened to fall during the annual fiesta celebrating taking the city back from the Indians by the Don Diego de Vargas' peaceful re-occupation of the city of faith in 1692. 

Fiesta starts with the burning of Zozobro on Thursday evening and continues through Sunday. Events include the pet parade on Saturday morning, a Mariachi extravaganza, the Entrada de Don Diego de Vargas, continued entertainment in the plaza, and an arts and crafts venue with lots of food vendors.

Today, I want to share with you some of the fashions I saw. Of course the price tag was in direct proportion with the number of visitors to the city.

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day. And if the day is full of stores, parades, music and a New Mexico sunset, then it's most important. Fresh croissant that will rival any made en France, from Cafe Paris.

My most favorite morsels served along side a regular breakfast.. garlic, butter and parslied potatoes. I could live on these alone.

Netting seems to be the rage of the day. Not fine English netting which is cotton. No this is fine polyester netting. See the large flowers along the hem? And all the delicate stitching?

It's a shame that merchants aren't more agreeable to taking pictures in the stores.. but here's a close up of the hem.
For the flowers, gather one edge of a length of tulle and wrap the gathered edge around itself to create a flower. This would be really fun on some jackets too. Use a very fine gauge tulle for this, not the rougher one you find in the crafts dept. More like a bridal tulle. 

Beautiful bronze fountains and they were all going at the same time.. I have no room, I have no room.

Simple boards with metal rings through which the wine bottles are threaded. Be pretty neat in a wine cellar to display those favorite vintages. 
You could use old fence pickets, painted in various shades, attached on the back to a 1x4 and then bend some heavy gauge metal to hold the wine bottles. Be sure to drill holes evenly spaced through which to insert the wire.

Bejeweled and glitzed tights. I think everyone needs a pair.. or two, ha ha. But you did see them in lots of places and on lots of bodies.

This is Poem. A favorite place to shop in a little courtyard off of the main shopping trek. Do you see anything on this display you wouldn't love to have???

In the chocolate store next door, the gentle man had a blessing chain hanging on the back door. It's his personal tribute as a thanks for all the blessings having been bestowed on him.
One possibility is to purchase a large metal ring that opens and insert blessings on this ring and hang it on a door. Blessings can be small cards, pictures and other ephemera that means something to you.. It should make you smile when you see it!

Everything was all about layers.. skirts where in layers and tops were layered. The skirts had the base longer skirt and then the layers got progressively shorter as they neared the outer layer. This was a beautiful skirt with lost of lace.

Use a gauzy cotton as the background and embellish with lace motifs and laces.

I think the metal decor are grave markers. They were pretty cool while being a bit morbid. Love those belts on that chair!

One of the many beautiful leather jackets we saw in the stores.

Leather pillows with a Western flair.

This is the most incredible skirt. embroidered on guess what?  Tulle. I told you it was everywhere.
Yes there, was an underskirt under the tulle, but leggings would have done as well.

Test your embroidery motif and be sure to reduce the density for this type of design. Use either matching bobbin thread to the top thread or use black bobbin thread. Personally, since bobbin thread is lighter in weight than the embroidery thread thus making the design less dense, this would be my choice.

Beaded embroidery on - yup you guessed it.. Tulle.

This wasn't on tulle, but on another very lightweight cotton. You would think that all this embroidery made the top very stiff and uncomfortable. Nope, it floated and the embroidery was certainly not stiff.

The most looked at jacket on the square. It garnered more than it's share of window shoppers.

Another - you guessed it! Tulle embroidered skirt...

Another layered skirt..   All you really need for this are scraps of lace, scraps of madiera appliqued fabric, and there is no hem.

I hope you enjoyed the shopping.. I'll be back later in the week with some more updates from the City Different!! Hope to see you there.