Vests. Slouchy pants. Hats, maxi skirts and florals. There’s no doubt about it: Annie Hall is in fashion-town again, thanks much to the boyish style of current model and it-girl Irina Lazareau, and thanks a little, too, to the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s recent feting of Ralph Lauren, who designed the clothes worn so famously by Diane Keaton in 1978’s Best Picture Oscar winner.

Annie Hall style is a great one for thrifters - raid the men’s department at any of your better Goodwills for flat-front khakis, skinny ties and oversize tweed coats and blazers. But to master this particular look, the accessories are key: Watching the film again, costume designer Ruth Morley’s genius is most apparent in the details of Keaton’s outfits - note, for example, the South American woven bag that Annie uses to stow her tennis racket, and especially, those iconic sunglasses, cues for which Woody Allen actually wrote into the script. Small, tortoiseshell and rounded, and made by Colors in Optics, Annie Halls are Most Likely to Succeed the Ray-Ban as the next hot specs. Colors in Optics is banking on that assumption, in fact, re-launching several ‘70s-era frame styles for fall… And if you’re really an Annie fanatic, don’t forget the all-black Erno Laszlo soap: Not only is that soap the thing Alvy Singer finds himself carrying around New York long after Annie’s gone, but it’s also a good reminder that the best accessory to Annie’s boho-prep look was young Diane Keaton’s dewy, make-up free skin.

The pattern and design contest has been over for some time now, winners were announced and congratulated. Now we have to deal with the wait until we can all make our own versions of the JJ's blouse and Malissa's sweater dress. See the winner blouse here and the winner dress here. In order to shorten the sweet time we present you some of our greatest submissions we received.

Here is the key to all those gorgeous drawings:

1) Rachel Godwin 2) Mirela Popovici 3) Roberta Dragan 4) Monica Andrade 5) Yael Fuerst 6) Bryan Liu 7) Caron Watts 8) Pamela Gallagher 9) Akrista L'Abert 10) Yoeng Cen Chua

We congratulate all of you, who participated and thank you again. We are so excited to have so much talent on our site. Soon we'll present you the runner ups of the pattern contest....

I am so pleased to announce our latest project at BurdaStyle. We've just met Lauren Klein, from One Laptop Per Child. This absolutely awesome project aims to provide children all over the world with their very own laptop. It's been in the making for years now, and children already have these high-tech gadgets in their hands. These laptops are made with a special user interface designed with children in mind, with programs that help them understand the community around them as well as the emerging global community. The programs teach children important basic skills while giving them the opportunity to develop the technology savvy that will help them succeed later in life. There are special keyboards, available in several different languages, and even an easy carrying handle. Its been hugely successful and many countries have purchased laptops for each child in the targeted age group, at a price of only $100 each! Children are taught at school how to use them, and then take them home to share with their family. These laptops also have a battery life of 2 days! These children are finally getting the opportunity to advance themselves and explore the world! I read that in many of these countries, the first English word spoken by these children is often "google"! To read more about OLPC, see OLPCWikiEducator, World Wide Workshop Foundation, and the OLPC Rule.

We've been asked to develop a How To so the children can learn how to make a bag to tote their new laptops in. This is quite an interesting project, since the availability of materials will differ from country to country, as well as language. Most importantly, the bag needs to be something a 9 or 10 year old could make, without all of the resources we are used to. I've come up with a few prototypes out of felt, and even though I'm super excited about this project, this task is proving to a be a difficult one. Regardless, it's worth it! I am working right now on a How To and will share this with you in a few days!

UPDATED: as of Monday, August 6th- The How To is up! Check it out!

One of the most important aspects of pattern making and garment constructions lies in one word. Grain. The grain of a woven fabric directs the way the fabric will fall or fold. Pieces need to be cut in a way that the grains correspond, to ensure the garment fits the same (especially after washing) and to maintain a consistent stretch. On patterns you will find that a piece is either cut on the grain line, cross grain, or on the bias. Be sure to keep a look out for these important marks on patterns before you lay them out and begin cutting. And if you decide to upload one of your own patterns to share on BurdaStyle, be sure each pattern piece indicates the grain line!

Thanks to all of you that commented on my Tara top, it’s already been worn a few times this week and is proving to be very roomy for my growing belly! This week’s challenge was to alter Celestina. I had a number of comments recommending I change the sleeves in some way so to start with I shortened the sleeves to just above the elbows and gave them folded cuffs (you can see more details of how I did this in my How-To). The second alteration I made was to add a little extra room around the waist to accommodate my growing bump. To do this I made a slit in the main pattern piece to widen it, this worked to a degree but I fear in only a matter of months, if not less, it will be too tight since the extra room is only across the lower part of my bump. I need to figure out a way to increase the area across the inserts, maybe by lengthening the torso of the main pattern piece and adjusting the inserts to fit.
I used a length of soft denim fabric donated to me by a fellow crafter and while I like denim I’m not so sure I like it with this pattern, I feel this pattern is more suited to floaty fabrics like the one used in the original. This pattern was more time consuming than others here on the site but totally worth the effort (as long as you choose the correct fabric!). I’d like to make this again this week and try out the new adjustments I’ve mentioned above. I encourage you to leave a comment with any recommendations you have, should I keep the sleeves as they are or try something different? Maybe cap sleeves or keep them long but change their shape somehow? Do you think the waistline alteration would work? Also, what do you think I could do with the denim dress to spice it up a little? I was thinking of some embroidered swallows on either side of the neckline or maybe some ribbon or aplique? How about altering the hem by adding a contrasting fabric?

My next challenge will be to alter the Steffi jacket. This is a very fitted jacket so I’m not going to attempt to try and alter it to fit my growing bump. Instead I’ll be making it for a friend. I think there are a number of alterations I could make here, the sleeves could be altered somehow as could the collar, closures and pockets. Leave me your ideas in the comment section over the next week and I’ll show you the results in two weeks.

Hey Everybody and WELCOME to my weekly column, WARDROBE REMAKE.

The purpose of this column is to have fun. The other purpose is to HELP myself and anybody else, who suffers from the delusional mindset of having NOTHING TO WEAR!!! Quite frankly, there are quite a lot of things that I have and that I could wear, if not only I would find a million of little things that are just not quite right about this skirt or that sweater. This is my attempt to prove to myself that there is a lot of fun fashion in my closet, it just needs to be released!!!

This is only the first week of the wardrobe remake. But I am already so inspired by the idea of revamping my wardrobe, that when I enter my closet, I literally feel like my clothes are fighting for my attention to be revamped. There an old skirt, long out of style, but with a little tweak almost as good as new, here this great fitting, yet a bit too boring T…we got lots of work to do. This week we are giving the little extra to our newly shortened pants. Follow my how to on making a fabric flower belt, that will bring back the fun into your old pants. Next time you enter your closet, the question what to wear (without spending big bucks) will just have become a little easier.

Stars in the same galaxy, fashion and art orbit each other constantly, sometimes falling into perfect alignment. The last time that happened, Marc Jacobs sought out reinterpretations of the stodgy Louis Vuitton logo from artists Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami, and splashed their updates on sold-out (and much knocked-off) editions of Vuitton’s classic doctor speedy bag. Not so long ago, all that, but eons according to the fast-moving fashion calendar and still in the early days of the latest - and still upswinging - art boom, a boom the Vuitton bags did much to foment, in fact.

In the years since, the contemporary art market has only gotten hotter. And with this year’s confluence of biennials (notably Venice) and festivals like Art Basel, the influence of art on culture, writ large, seems at last to have reached critical mass. Fashion has taken note: Last season, Rachel Comey worked with gallerist Mirabelle Marden on a capsule collection; next season, perennial art provocateur Damien Hirst will debut his collaboration with Levi’s, for its Warhol Factory X label. Interestingly, however, luxury fashion brands are eschewing the young talent heating up the art scene, preferring instead to look to the past for inspiration. Marc Jacobs’ fall ’07 show for Vuitton fetishized Vermeer; when John Galliano showed Dior couture this summer, he referenced paintings by the Impressionists and Dutch and Spanish masters, pen-and-ink drawings by artists such as Bouche, Bérard, and Cocteau, and the photography of Irving Penn. And in one of the mini Resort season’s loveliest outings, YSL’s Stefano Pilati managed a double homage, casting a loving look back at the original Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dress by making a new one redolent of Cy Twombly. The Ab-Ex clothes comprised a small part of Pilato’s retro-cool collection, but proved just the kick needed to make it feel fresh. For once, the adage rings true: Everything old is new again.

Yes, you read correctly, August is the best month for fabric hunt. Because: Everyone is traveling, the stores are empty! Benedikta and I are on the side of the travelers: And we love it, because while we are discovering new continents - Benedikta is in Africa, I will be in Italy, we always look out for new and creative fabrics. We'll share this with you when we are back end of August.

In the meantime Nayantara and our intern Janina are alone, so have mercy when your mails are not answered right away and when your comments are left unanswered for too long...

And tell us (we are curious), where did you find your nicest and most precious piece of fabric?

I'm at it again. With a model and muse like this doll of gal shown here, how could I resist making more and more bags for her to carry! And with such a wonderful goal in mind- to create a How To and bag design intended for children- this project has resulted in a bountiful collection of accessories for this doll and prototypes for the OLPC project. The prototype I've illustrated in this weeks How To is quite easy to make. If you find yourself with some time, I'd love to see what you might come up with using the techniques I've illustrated and the concept of a How To that can be translated easily and understood by children, using materials that might be readily available in developing countries. For more information about OLPC, see this and if you are interested in working as an intern or sharing ideas with the amazing group of people that make this possible, click here.

While Nora and Benedikta travel the world in search of delicious fabrics to share with everyone, I am here in the rainy jungle that has become Brooklyn, immersing myself in the project of organizing the studio and office! This may not sound nearly as exciting as going to Italy or Africa (I'm going on a fabric hunt myself soon, too. . .), but I can't explain to you how much fun I am having. I actually squealed when I opened the latest shipment from Staples to find our new Label Maker and big box of envelopes for patterns. Even the new 3-hole punch got me giggling and when I started putting the spools of thread in the new mesh racks, I felt almost feverish! I've come to the conclusion that late-summer cleaning is the new spring cleaning. I'm feeling inspired to even start organizing my own personal stash of threads, unfinished projects, and fabrics. I found it especially helpful to separate the cotton threads from the polyester threads, particularly the bobbins wound in these threads. I know I've had several mini-disasters because of picking up a bobbin in a color I wanted, but not the right thread for sewing a stretch fabric. So, if its raining this weekend where you are, I recommend a good inventory of what you've got and perhaps a trip to your local container or office supply store!