6th May is Free Comic Book Day, a day to bring new readers to comic book stores. It’s observed every year on the first Saturday in May.
Comics are a popular theme in fashion – I’ve chosen this picture from the AW2019 show by Comme des Garçons Shirt featuring prints with onomatopoeia sound effects. Other brands collaborate with comic book publishers – for example adidas x Dark Horse, Stüssy x Marvel and Lanvin x DC.
The first Sunday of May is Mayday for Mutts, to remind people that what matters about a dog is its personality not its pedigree. Whatever dog you have, designers seem to want you to buy something for it – lots of brands are now expanding into lines for pets, and Pitti Uomo even had a Pitti Pets event to showcase clothes and accessories for dogs (and cats too).
More people are buying clothes for their pets, and there’s now a lot of animal “influencers” on social media – I guess everyone likes watching videos of cute cats and dogs.
If you do fancy splurging on something for your pet, here’s a couple of ideas.
National Have a Coke Day falls on the 8th May every year, celebrating Coca-Cola, which has probably one of the most recognisable logos in the world. The font gets reused by designers in their collections all the time – I’ve picked out this t-shirt from DSquared AW2023, but you’ll also see it in Jeremy Scott’s AW2011 show as Enjoy God rather than Enjoy Coca-Cola, or dressed up in sequins in Ashish’s SS2014 show.
Coca-Cola themselves have also collaborated with designers – just a couple of examples are their use of Karl Lagerfeld’s silhouette on their bottles in 2010 and when they featured Marc Jacobs in their Diet Coke campaign in 2013.
Beauty brands have also been working with Coca-Cola. OPI Nails produced a line of Coke-inspired nail varnish in 2015, and Morphe have released a number of make-up sets co-branded with Coca-Cola in the past few years.
9th May is Hurray for Buttons Day, which is all about celebrating buttons, which actually have a really long history, with the first buttons dating back to 5000BC.
Buttons actually remind me of my grandmother who had an enormous collection of them in old biscuit tins – now that she’s passed away I’ve got the button collection (I also inherited her tendency to hoard items). I’m not sure how she ended up with so many, but this isn’t a blog for personal stories anyway.
Back to the history of buttons: they were originally used for decoration and stamping, and weren’t actually used as fasteners until the 13th century in Germany. In 1938, the National Button Society was established in the US, but it now has members from all over the world.
I’ve used an image from Christian Lacroix’s SS1988 couture collection featuring some sun-shaped buttons, and if you’re looking for something with unique buttons, Moschino have a range of items with heart-shaped buttons at the moment.
10th May is National Shrimp Day, and apparently this is celebrated because shrimp is the most popular seafood in the US.
I’ve picked this particular holiday as an excuse to talk about the British brand Shrimps, which was launched in 2013, focusing on faux fur outerwear and accessories. Today the brand has a range of dresses and jewellery, and its style would best be described as cottagecore.
