Fashion Travels: Destination Asheville, NC

Today we travel a little further off the beaten path to Asheville, North Carolina, which earns its place on the fashion map as a hotbed of inspiration for the street urchin style, "hippy" counterculture that has been making its mark on the current fashion scene. Think refurbished vintage pieces you pick up at Urban Outfitters, and the layered looks of incognito celebs we emulate after seeing the paparazzi shots featured in our favorite gossip rag. Asheville is home to this at its most organic, deconstructed level, and as we find our way through the recession we can find some inspiration from this small, progressive town full of DIY denizens.

Here are a few photos from Mountain Xpress's Asheville Street Style, described as a photographic record of Asheville's "unique and evolving DIY fashion."

Local designer Ashley of her own line Tegonia describes Asheville as a place where people are "wearing what they want, weird things that other people might have second thoughts about wearing." Threadbanger, ( www.threadbanger.com ) an online gathering place for DIY fashionistas, visits Ashley in their video series "Threadheads" for a DIY tutorial, and stops by local boutique Honeypot for an inside look at the one-of-a-kind creative couture characteristic of Asheville designers.

While I might not put Asheville at the top of my list of shopping destinations, I'm definitely taking notes on their creativity and fearlessness, not to mention DIY designing is a great way to get more wear from your wardrobe, reduce waste, and never be seen in the same outfit twice!