[Koos van den Akker's influence on the Street]

In December I saw a painter finishing up a wall for desigual near Macy's before leaving on Christmas Vaca and all the snow.

I guess the painter is whatever color he happens to be painting...

  It would have  been fun to see it go from a blank slate to what it is now.  Love all these colors together and finally checked out their line of clothing.  Here is a page from their website.

Desigual Winter 2010

Not for me these days but looks alot like Koos van den Akker  from the 70's. . Koos was very popular back then and I lucked out and have one of my mother's coats from that period.   Guess that means it's vintage....(ouch)   He likes to mix all sorts of textures and styles and created his own patchwork of sorts.

Here are some pics of that coat.

front and back

 And Close-ups....

boucle, tweed and corduroy

 See the similarities in the Desigual line?  I wear this coat for black tie affairs.  I love putting it on.   It has a real weight to it the way a lot of clothes did back then...dense dense wool.

It's always interesting to look at vintage and see where designers get their "inspiration".  Nine years ago it was Balenciaga  (Nicolas Ghesquiere)  whose work looked very very Koos.

Balenciaga Spring 2002

Maybe a little too Koos!  I've read that Koos really doesn't care about the fit but Ghesquiere took it that step further by molding the mix of patchwork to the body.

When I photographed the painted mural I didn't realize this is where it would lead me.... but it was fun connecting the dots.