Wave Hello: Mary Meyer Keeps Things Clean

If your poolside look is all over the place—or if you don’t have a beachy look at all (shame! ish!)—follow kick-ass designer Mary Meyer’s lead and go monochromatic. Here’s how she rolls. —erica

Mary showing us what she’s made of in the Dominican Republic.

“My beach essential is anything white: white bikini, white tee, white tank, white coverup— anything. It feels right.” —mary

Get more seaside tips right over here!

Meet Dusen Dusen

For this Brooklyn whiz, it begins with a dynamite print.

For Ellen Van Dusen, the Brooklyn-based designer behind Dusen Dusen, it’s always been about the textiles. “I loved to search for them. I could never make them small-scale because it’s just way too expensive,” she explains, “but it was always something I wanted to do.”

It took Ellen a while to wrap her head around the idea of going into fashion, though. Unsure that she could actually survive making clothes, she took a more intellectual road into the design world, creating her own major at Tufts University that allowed her to learn about how we experience aesthetics. “I basically studied the visual system from as many different perspectives as I could,” she says.

After interning for Norma Kamali and working for Mary Meyer (another textile genius), Ellen decided it was time to start crafting her own collection and trying to get it into stores. Within no time, she was picked up by the New York boutique Duo and was knee-deep in orders. “I was constantly sewing—back then I was doing all the sewing myself,” she recalls. “That went on for like four months, until I decided that I had to do it full-time.” No big surprise here: The pace hasn’t slowed since.

As for what’s next, Ellen’s focusing on how to move her line forward for fall 2011: “I want to make sweaters. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do that on a small scale. And I’d like to do pants. Those are my short-term goals.” —erica

Ellen’s edition (for your home!) is here! Make sure you don’t miss out on these denim pillows, guys.

S/He: Makr’s Round Backpack Makes a Case for Gender Neutrality

 Clockwise from top left:
+ Mary Meyer for Of a Kind scarf  
+ Thomas Sires for Of a Kind shirt
+ Tsumori Chisato cardigan
+ Robert Clergerie shoes
+ Cacharel pants
+ Makr backpack 

Of a Kind

Look what Mary Meyer made for all the good little boys and girls: a black cotton scarf hand-screened with pops of electric blue and white (you know, to keep your look from getting too dreary in the dead on winter). Bonus: It can be worn on all of those awful holiday flights, making your time squeezed into a middle seat about 18% more bearable. —erica

BUY / 35 of a kind / $97

Read more about Mary:

+ On getting into the design world.

+ On working with Sara Gates (who printed all of these scarves!).

+ On setting up shop in Bushwick.

Alumni News: Help Mary Meyer Help Kids

As if you needed another reason to be reminded of just how kick-ass our designers are: Mary Meyer is currently spearheading a Kickstarter project to raise money for Step Right Up, an after-school arts program she and her friend, Bonnie Pipkin, have been running since 2007. The duo write and produce original screenplays for students at Bushwick’s The Green School to perform—and, no surprise here, the kids love it. “I often run into groups of our former students who always want to make sure we’ll be coming back,” she says. (We wrote more about it here.) Bonus: Backing the project (which needs $4k by Oct. 12!) also get you access to limited-edition tanks from the designer, so contribute away. —jiayi

Of a Kind

If you’re in the market for FNO plans in NYC, pretty sure they should be BUY THESE SHOES. Osborn is collaborating with a slew of rad designers like Upstate (see above—the duo also made this amazing top for us), Mary Meyer, Study NY, and Chromat. They’ll be selling these puppies at International Playground, which also happens to be one of our favorite places in town to uncover new lines. 13 Stanton St., 7-10p! —erica

Alumni News: Mary Meyer Opens Doors in Brooklyn

One very good reason to hit up Bushwick: Mary Meyer, the designer behind our Blue Hex Scarf, recently opened shop on 56 Bogart Street—minutes from the Morgan Avenue L stop. In addition to Mary’s stellar, graphic designs, expect to find some of our other favorites—the dye-centric line Cook & Gates that’s produing an edition for us next week, for example—at the boutique-slash-designer studio. The spot is just around the corner from Roberta’s, so doubling up is probably in order. —jiayi

A Case for…Getting Your Sample Sale On

Hey, everybody! We’re hosting a sample sale at the Ace Hotel in NYC. With NINE amazing Of a Kind designers, featuring all of the pieces pictured above and lots, lots more for up to 75% off. Yah. It’s kind of a big deal. And you should probably warn your boss that you have a, cough, cough, doctor’s appointment on Thursday and will need to pop out for an hour or so.

The Deets:

11a to 7p on Thursday, August 18, at the Ace Hotel, 20 West 29th St. Credit cards accepted!

The Designers:

Ace & Jig, Brook&Lyn, Erica Weiner, Lizzie Fortunato Jewels, Mary Meyer, Rachel Rose, Thomas Sires, Toujours Toi Family Affairs, and Tucker.

Of a Kind

Mary Meyer taught us that discharge printing actually extracts the dye from the fabric—see the borderline-crazy white designs on this Gitman Vintage shirt. She also taught us that materials treated in this way get softer and softer with wear. Mmmm. —erica