Introducing... the Emelie

This week at Rant has seen us preparing the latest styles for the online store, and one of the most requested styles while doing this, has been the 'Emelie' twist top.

The lightness and viscose content of the fabrics Sarah has chosen means it functions well as a garment that you can wear a few different ways. It drapes nicely to sit as a flattering top layer, adding interest to a basic top.

The beautiful wool viscose blend has a lovely texture (always hard to translate in pictures alone) as well as being nice and light. The sheer wool viscose is available in a range of colours; including black, olive, silver and blue. The Italian tie dyed viscose jersey is also lovely and sheer, with each garment having its own unique pattern from the variation in the dyeing method used. The free form panels of black blend through to a dark navy then through to the cream base.

We've shown two ways to wear the 'Emelie' twist top below in a short animation Mel has put together...

The first one is the simplest way, where the scarf piece is taken, crossed over, and then looped over your head. Position the draping sections at the front to sit comfortably. For some arm coverage pull the section sitting on your shoulders down slightly over your arms.

An alternate way of wearing the 'Emelie' is to loop the front section over your head (without crossing over). Sit the scarf piece behind your neck and then let it drape down around your shoulders.

Visit one of our stockists or jump through to the Sustainable Fashion for your favourite version. 

Heirloom story

The next delivery from our 'Harvest' collection is on its way to our stockists all around Australia.

'Heirloom' are traditional varieties of fruits and vegetables, and gives us our name of the new story, with highlight reds, greens and textures in printed silks and a tie dyed viscose jersey reminiscent of these Old World plants.

There is a great story behind the 'Heirloom' vegetables we used in the cover photo, as one of the lovely people from the Northey St Markets collected these for us when we were preparing the selling book. The different varieties of organic tomatoes and the purple carrots tasted great too! See the vegatable Romanesco for yourself, it has most amazing shapes and we think it tastes like a nice combination of broccoli and cauliflower (lightly steamed with some butter!).

Back to the beautiful clothing; the key pieces for this story are the 'Emelie' twist top, 'Lorelei' crop cardi, 'Takara' double skirt and the 'Cedar' pant.

The 'Takara' double skirt is shown in the centre image (all black) and the 'Lorelei' crop cardi shown in the three images on the left (black, charcoal and moss available).

We'll be doing an individual blog on the 'Emelie' twist top very soon, as it is a versatile piece you can wear a few different ways.

Visit the current collection page here... to see more images from the 'Heirloom' story.

And stay tuned... lots of new things happening here at the Rant studio.

- Jay

Aubergine... first story for Harvest

Aubergine story opens the 'Harvest' collection with shades of the soft purple colour we call 'thistle'. This is a great highlight for your blacks, but also works with charcoal and silver.

The story has printed silks and silk cottons throughout, with the grass patterns well suited to the 'Harvest' theme. Find these grass motifs in our new 'Cassava' dress style (see next blog story) as well as the panel belts.

An easy wear style, the panel belts can be worn simply over pants with a tee (as shown above). Check out the Sami pants and Eva tee on the Sustainable Fashion store.

While you're there, the complete 'Harvest' collection is now waiting for you to view in the current collection page.

- Enjoy

Rant studio update...

January is traditionally a busy time for us here at Rant.

As I type, Sarah is down in Melbourne doing showings, while Mel and I are working on production for the new Autumn collection that will be out at the start of February.

I picked up the first of the new collection from our sewers last week, including new stock for the most popular styles from our Epidermal Layers range, such as the Thea skirt.

It's now time to get all those styles checked, tagged and then divide the orders for our stockists.

The new collection is called 'Harvest', which may not come as a surprise to people who have seen the Rant Tumblr page in recent months. We started some raised garden beds soon after photographing the 'Harvest' collection and been posting some pics of the vegetables we have been harvesting from them (yes we like to immerse ourselves fully in each collection's theme !). All the pictures for this story are from our garden.

Heirloom silverbeet and 'Fairytale' eggplants

Epic harvest of chilli

We will post more detail on 'Harvest' here on our blog soon, with the new collection divided into three stories, one for each month from February to April.

The current collection page for the Rant website will get a makeover for 'Harvest' too. If you haven't already, then you will be the first to know when the new collection goes live by signing up to our monthly newsletter here...

Last (but certainly not least) we would like to round out the start to 2012 with a big thankyou to our customers. A few of you in particular have been putting in a good word for us at your favourite local boutiques, as we have been contacted by potential new stockists as a result. This is very much appreciated and a nice demonstration of people power. So keep the comments about Rant here on our blog and to your favourite boutiques going, as it certainly is having an effect.

- Jason