This page provides King a format to showcase projects that he creates, which don't fit neatly into the other categories of his work. The photos are rough, and are really meant to convey the ideas he's working on. The format is somewhat like a blog, where the most recent work is posted higher up, with the earlier work further down. Be sure to scroll down the page, so you don't miss anything!

 

Here's a really good photo of the hair jacket shown below.

The photo was taken by Jack Deutsch for Threads Magazine, and the wind machine helps convey

the life that motion gives to this piece.

 

 

I do have a love affair with watches. 

These two are ways I could use vintage women's watches in a way that didn't look too precious.  The contrast between the dainty watch and gruff band in the photo below is something that's fun to contemplate.

 

The watch below has an emerald green glass, and that, combined with the stones set into the bezel, makes it look like a jewel.

Contrasting this watch with the spikes gives it a look-but-don't-touch quality.

 

 

This watch is the second iteration of the Hamilton watch I posted below.  Since the refinisher had made the die for the reprint on the dial, I thought I'd try another combination, and this is the result.  By the way, I made the watch band from leather culled from a vintage baseball glove.

 

This bag was obviously inspired by the hair extension jacket. 

Some people might not like to have such a high-profile jacket, but reduced in scale, it makes a really dandy handbag!

 

 

 

The jacket pictured below, is a restyling job for a customer. 

This customer inherited her mother's ocelot evening coat, which was bought in the 1960's.  She had admired my jeans-style jacket from leopard (scroll down to have a look), and wanted to have a more restrained version of that.  This jacket is the result--paired with buffalo hide, and tied with a matching belt, this made up as a really handsome jacket.

 

This is another iteration of the camera bag, for a customer.  He wanted a small bag for traveling, to carry passport, glasses, and the like.  It's made from pigskin, and lined with lipstick red kid leather.

 

 

I needed a new computer bag recently, and had this really wonderful leather in the studio, so this is what I came up with. The design was inspired by an antique camera bag, from one of the first Kodak cameras.

              

 

 

 

I came into this pony hide at the flea market, and decided to make myself a messenger bag. The lacing suggested itself, because the hide looked so western.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a thing for watches.  This project was my first attempt to design a watch of my own.  The movement is a Hamilton 917 pocket watch movement, cased in a large sized wristwatch case.  Since the dials on pocket watches are oriented so the "12" is at the winding crown, I had to have the dial refinished.  Since we had to sand everything off and re-print, my watch dial man suggested I design exactly what I wanted it to look like--a little time on Illustrator produced this result, which is inspired by the Rolex California dial.  I'm doing another iteration, in a square-ish shaped case, black dial with red numerals and white markings.

 

                                                            

 

 

 

 

The hair weave jacket is finished! It just needed closures and a trimming, so you can get a look at the finished article!

 

                

 

 

To see the piece that came before, and was the foundation draft for it, I'm showing the black fur jacket pictured below. This is vintage monkey fur, re-styled from a vintage coat. The yoke is alligator-embossed leather, and the join between the fur and leather is a herringbone stitch sewn from a double strand of rayon ribbon floss.

 

          

 

This jacket is another in my hair series. The blend here, is ash blonde weave, and multicolored clown hair, in a 4 parts blonde/one part colored ratio. The leather here is embossed natural leather,and joining the leather to the fur is brown hand lacing. These photos are of the piece on progress--finished photos to come later.

 

                

                                                      

 

 

 

Since Mariano Fortuny is a design influence of mine, I was delighted to come into an entire bolt of Fortuny printed cotton. This fabric is the Caravaggio pattern, gold metallic block printed onto a curry gold twill. I liked the reverse as well as the face of this fabric, so decided to construct the shirt with the reverse side out. I like the gold inside, like having mink inside your raincoat.

 

                                                      

 

 

 

The "hair coat" is an experiment with dynel hair weave. Before making the coat, I first had to make fabric from the weave, and then construct the coat. The collar is brown, alligator-embossed leather, hand- laced together with a double strand of black ribbon floss.

 

                                                             

 

 


The leopard jacket here, was made from a recycled leopard coat. Since the coat had damage between the shoulder blades, using the jeans style jacket (since it cuts in small pieces) made the best use of the material. Also, I liked the contrast of the commonplace style made from the extravagant material. Adding the coffee brown leather made less contrast to the fur. The lining is a wild, bargello-patterned jacquard.

 

                                                             

 

 

 

This little bolero is made from the cutwork method, but the sweet part of this, is the bustle and cuff ruffles. The tulle was embroidered on my antique chain stitch machine.