Here it is!

Amy Adams in her Proenza Schouler gown. Unfortunately she didn't wear the other dress we had made for her for her performance - no word as to why. This dress is has elements taken from the Fall 2008 show, the picture below illustrates the folds that P.S. used throughout the collection. I especially like this photo because you can see the folds on the back of the dress on the model walking away from the camera. I have plans soon to sketch out what exactly the pattern for these pieces look like, and post them -- a fun little folding puzzle, and exactly what I love about patternmaking.


Anyway, those folds are incorporated into the hem of Amy's evening gown, although they are a little hard to make out. The bodice of the dress is pure classic (can you say that about a line that's barely 5 years old?) Proenza Schouler, a style that runs throughout their collections.

More unrelated to fashion stuff

I spent yesterday at the memorial for my Grandma's sister Patricia. She is now the third person in my family to have died this year. She had been fading for a while but it still doesn't make it fun. My Grandma was the youngest of four sisters and now the last one left. If you still have grandparents go visit them. These people are wonderful and if you need another excuse they probably know more about, sewing, knitting, or wood working than you.
On a much happier note I got to see my cousin Gavin who might be my favorite human being. He turned four a little over a week ago and is a crazy amount of fun. We played with my mother's chickens and I taught him to use my camera. He took some wonderful photos.

This first one is of Gavin and I.
And the next ones are ones Gavin took.




Standing from left to right is Linda, Cathy, the man in the back you can't see is Tom (Linda's husband), my mother's other cousin whose name I'm embarassed to admit that I've forgoten, my mother Leslie, her brother Epic, and my sister Olivia and I in front.


This one is a photo of the whole clan, many of which I met yesterday. If you look closely you can see Gavin hiding between the two ladys in front, standing next to his dad Epic. This one wasn't taken by Gavin, obviously.

Addendum

As a follow up to Hannah's most recent posts I would like everyone to note that I have added On the Runway to the side bar so you don't have to bother google with it. I also looked up Amy Adams on Wikapedia because I didn't know who she was either. According to them she is a barely known actress who grew up mormon, worked at Hooters, and is best known for her role in Junebug. However the only place I've ever seen her is in Talladega nights. You may also know her from her occasional role as Katy on the Office. Most recently she's been in such illustrious movies as Night at the Museum 2.

Dressing the Oscars

Alert! Nicolas Caito Inc. is dressing Amy Adams for the Oscars tomorrow night, via Proenza Schouler, who designed the dresses. Until last week I wasn't even sure who Amy Adams was, but that's beside the point - I can't wait to scour the web's best-dressed pages after the event (I'll be working tomorrow and won't watch the show). She's wearing two dresses, one to present in, and one during her performance of a song from her movie. Both are beautiful and complicated and although I had only a small part in one of them, it was fun to watch the take shape. More to come soon, I'll put pictures up when I find them.

models, etc

I copied this from Cathy Horyn's NY Times blog, On the Runway, which, by the way, if you want fashion that gets seriously analytical and intellectual (which I often do) is the best fashion blog out there....
Anyway, since working backstage at Peter Som, I've been a little fascinated with models in their total alien-esque-ness. They're such tiny little creatures; in photos they look really thin, but in real life they're not just thin, they're miniscule in a way that took me aback. It may also be that I'm taller than most of them - the model I was dressing was barely my height in her Louboutin's. Some friends of mine asked me later if working with models in any way makes me insecure about my body and proportion, and I was surprised at how quickly I answered "No". Their size and proportion makes them seem so childlike that the idea of being insecure or jealous etc, is really just -- innapropriate? It hadn't even occured to me until he asked me the question.
Now I've gone off on a tangent and really all I meant to do was post this funny little bit from Cathy Horyn:

"I arrived in Paris from Milan last evening, on a flight with perhaps 20 models, including Lily D and Coco Rocha, and nearly half of them carried stuffed animals in their arms. It’s a strange sight to be standing at baggage claim watching ordinary travelers stare at giraffes with teddy bears and blue stuffed dogs."

misc.

Having a few extra minutes, i feel inclined to share a couple of recent non-fashion related discoveries:

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. This is the best new music I've found in ages. Completely in love. It fits my new Brooklyn environment the same way the new Radiohead and Ratatat fit my long Staten Island commutes.

And Cannonball Press, based in Brooklyn, has slews of nyc printmakers, among my favorites are Bill McRight, John Bartlett and some of Martin Mazorra....even better is that a print is only $20-$25...art buying for my income bracket!!




Corn Cobs and Radio by John Bartlett, Fine Feathers by Martin Mazorra

men coats and awesome pockets

I wanted to comment on the awesome nature of pockets on mens coats. These are two examples that I've come across lately that seem like a nice blend of form and function. I love the essential masculine look of them. I stole the last image from the sartorialist. I like the more modern look of the zipper on Han's coat but I love the almost military feel of this jacket.

Click on an image...

I just discovered that you can click on the photos we have on here, and see the pictures bigger. Brilliant! I had no idea, and was just lamenting how hard it was to see the details of the clothes...

Also, Style.com has a headline right now that reads "At Proenza Schouler, a Focus on Fit and Construction." Having helped fit and construct so much of their collection, it felt great to see that.

Sometimes the simplest pieces are actually the hardest

I had a really tough time with the sleeves on both of these jackets, probably for the most part because of my extremely limited draping experience. The armpit was so hard for me on the doublebreasted one, from Peter Som. It sounds silly, but it's so hard to see in there! If you lift the arm up it distorts everything, and you no longer know if the fit or how the fabric is lying is right, but if you don't lift it up, you can't tell what the hell is going on. I spent much too much time on the armpit and in the end learned that once again, intuition is best --


The raglan sleeves on this coat from Thakoon were difficult for me, because I was trying so hard to avoid that big flap of fabric at the armpit that so often happens with raglan sleeves. Also, the sleeves were supposed to be fairly wide, but fitted at the shoulder, and it was tough to achieve both of those without the sleeves becoming more of a flared shape than wide.
The sketch of this coat was actually more exciting to me than the final version is. The collar here seems to collapse on itself, but in the sketch it looked like a big fold-over collar, and the whole piece itself was much bigger and more Dior 1950's-esque (okay, I only say that because one of the inspiration photos I was given was an old Dior shot form the 50's - it was a gorgeous coat).

What about the final fabric on this one? I'm not sure about that herringbone running over the shoulder like that.

Two of my favorites from our studio this season:

The dress is Thakoon and the coat is Proenza Schouler. I didn't drape either of these, but pretty much everything that comes through our studio, we all work on in some part.


The hem of this dress is trimmed with a metal zipper -- zipper tape pulled apart, with the teeth facing out as if it were piping. Thakoon also did some short skirts with zipper trim, and all I could think was "So, when you wear tights in the cold of next winter, they'll be shredded immediately." My co-worker laughed at me and told me fashion isn't practical.

This was one of the garments they were working on at the fitting with Proenza Schouler that I got to go to. Originally the lower overlap on the sides of the coat was ruffled, which pushed the coat out and gave it a rounder shape, which was what I think Jack and Lazaro were going for. The ruffles looked like some sort of gills on an exotic fish though, and we were all rooting for them to take them off.

Peter Som's Show!





Two of the dresses I draped for Peter Som. They are basically the same asymetrical skirt with different bodices. The top of the taupe one looks complicated, but really, it was the skirt that was more difficult. There are three pleats on each hip, but on the left, they are all high, right at the high hip point, while on the right, they are lower, and spaced about 6 inches apart. Because of the asymetry, it was difficult to situate the pleats so that the three folds they create, that fall across the front of the skirt, lie in a nice clean line.
I wish there was a shot of the back of the dresses, because there's a lot going on. There is a long and also asymetrical bustle/train, as well as a giant bow off to the side. When I was draping the dresses, we couldn't help but make fun of the bustle/bow combination, but I have to admit, it looks a lot better in the final fabric than it did in muslin. That said, I have to agree with style.com when they said they were a little "too vintage-y." Maybe that's because the design came directly from a dress borrowed from one of our NYC vintage stores?

Pattern Magic, Finally!!!

I just recently bought these two books, after covetting them for ages, and can't recommend them enough. They're apparently only available in NYC and San Francisco at the Japanese bookstores Kinokuniya, which I hunted down and paid a visit to here in NYC (6th and 42nd, right across from Bryant Park). The store itself is incredible, the patternmaking and craft section blew my mind. Everything is in Japanese, but the photos are beautiful, and you can get the idea of things easily enough. Their design sensibility is so good, clean and simple, but still really interesting and innovative.


I have only made a couple of things from these books so far and they've all been mock-ups, no finished projects yet. When I complete something, I'll post a picture or two.

Proenza Pre-Fall

Here are a few pieces from Proenza Schouler's Pre-Fall collection that I neglected to post months ago -- this is what we were working on when I first arrived in NYC.
Tomorrow I should have bunches of pictures from the runway shows today

Deft Movements

This is an entry I wrote weeks ago, while I was in Mexico, but didn’t have the opportunity to post until now:

I’m sitting on top of my parents house in Mexico, looking out over the lagoon where several dump trucks and other big machines are tearing up part of the lagoon to make a walkway. One roof over a little boy of about 6 is sitting on a bucket watching the work – he seems to be there most of the time, completely absorbed. Yesterday a friend came up and sat and watched with him for a little while.
I’ve been watching the bricklayers who are reconstructing a wall, thinking about movement. The motions of their work are so precise and efficient, the way they apply the mortar, scrape the excess off, and reapply it. There is a point when the execution of common tasks becomes graceful with the sureness and ---it’s not automatic, -- maybe an unconscious confidence in the way things are best done. I love this. Watching the deft movements of anyone at work is a pleasure to me, as is developing them myself. At NC Inc, there are a couple people with a kind of unconscious grace in specific movements that’s so beautiful to me. I was watching Isabella cut out a pattern a few days ago – cutting that has to be perfect to the 16th? 32nd? of an inch – with no rough spots and no nicks. She was slicing along with a nonchalance at a speed that at first startled me, until I realized how effortless it was to her. And when Nicholas comes to check my draping, he has a way of unpinning and repinning that is so quick, but so precise in how it lets the fabric fall in the way that it should.
Most of the time, I feel incredibly awkward in my movements at work, but the other day I got to sew up a sample – one of our sample sewers was on vacation for a bit, and the sewing was piling up. Sitting down at the sewing machine felt so good, a big burly machine, in need of a little love, somewhere between the Phaff monstrosities at Beckel Canvas and the fancy fancy Jukis at Queen Bee. It felt good, all the little motions I’ve done so many times, taking out the bobbin, reloading it, changing thread colors, testing the tension, adjusting the bobbin casing. It was a little boost of confidence in a sea of still uncertain techniques and processes.

If anyone has bought the February issue of Vogue, two of our main designers –Thakoon and Proenza Schouler - are featured in the article and photo spread with Kate Bosworth. My very talented co-worker Isabel made the Proenza Schouler ensemble that Kate is wearing. Both Thakoon and Jack and Lazaro come by the NC Inc. studio often, especially as Fashion Week approaches, and they are all three very sweet and charming and don’t seem to fit the high-maintenance fashion-designer stereotype at all. Which is a relief.

Latest update from NYC

I haven’t been posting because my anonymous neighbors, whose internet I was piggybacking off of, decided to put a password on their wifi service. Alas, I’m much much too busy to actually take my computer to an internet café to connect with the world…but last night as I was leaving work, Nicolas told me he didn’t need me to come in tomorrow. Really???? With Fashion Week only two weeks away, and incredible amounts of sequined organza to sew picot trim onto, I had been planning on spending my whole Saturday at the studio. Now I have an entire free day ahead of me!
I have a couple bits of exciting news. The first and most thrilling is that I have found a dream apartment in Brooklyn. To list a few of the reasons that I am completely in love: intricately patterned hardwood floors, three levels with lots of ground floor space for bicycles, staircases in both the front and back of the place, a huge stained glass skylight over the main staircase, cut glass sconces in various places, a glittering gold tiled fireplace, built-ins, exclusive roof access, a back deck off of a big kitchen, chandeliers, a clawfoot tub, three bathrooms, and tons of dramatic huge windows. It’s on “Doctor-Preacher Row” close to the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Library, and Botanical Gardens, and only a block away from two subway trains. I sense the quality of my life improving greatly, with the length of my commute cut to a third of what it is now, and my lovely friend Lillian – also a patternmaker/designer - as a roommate. Anyone who wants to come to visit is completely welcome. Lillian just found an 80’s blue street bike for anyone who visits to pal around with us on.
Also, a new home means shared wifi, so I will be posting again regularly in a week or so.
Second bit of exciting news: I get to work backstage at the Peter Som show during Fashion Week! Three of our clients who show in the US – Thakoon, Peter Som and Proenza Schouler, all have their shows the some day, Monday, February 4th. I get to help because this creates too much work for Nicolas and Isabel backstage, where they have to be in case of fitting emergencies, and to help dress the models (sometimes it’s not apparent which way is up or front and back, and since we created the clothes, we help get the girls into them). Last season at Thakoon it was discovered half an hour before the show that all the buttons had been placed wrong, and had to be re-sewn, which is why it’s very important that someone from Nicolas Caito Inc be backstage. I’m excited to see the workings of a full scale fashion show, and to meet Peter Som, the only one of our clients I haven’t met yet. Actually I haven’t met Carolina Herrera yet either, but she doesn’t design anymore, I’m told she just waves at the end of the show and the rest is done by a team of designers headed by a friend of Nicolas’.

What I'd give for an industrial.

My curiosity was peaked about four years ago when I ran across a beautiful old White brand sewing machine at a thrift store. It was that lovely mid-century metallic turquoise-blue color.  At that point I hadn't seen a sewing machine in years (much less a metal one) and didn't know much on the subject.  But it was so charming in it's little foldaway cabinet, that I brought it home.  I hauled it into our little one bedroom apartment and plunked it down in the middle of the living room.  I cleaned it up, plugged it in, and figured out how to thread it.  And then I got bored.  After all, it only went forwards and backwards! Much less, I had nothing to sew. So, it sat around for awhile and was eventually returned to it's home, the thrift store.  

I had forgotten all about it until recently.  And why should I remember it now?  Because now I DO have something to sew, and all I want is that damn machine back (well, and an industrial).  Having had the opportunity to work on industrials, it has occurred to me that despite what I always thought to be true, I am actually exiting the dark side.  I know that there is a bright future ahead where I may own 25 machines that each serve a single function very well. Sure, my home machine does all the fancy tricks like buttonholes, zigzags, and blind hems, but very poorly. At any rate, it's just not doing the trick. When I  attempt to sew something rigid, the presser bar flies around causing the stitch length and the tension to vary, and sometimes the needle to break. This simply cannot be stood for! So what did I do? I bought another thrift store machine just like the one I foolishly got rid of. It goes forward and it goes backward.  Oh, and it winds my bobbin for me while I sew. It's the closest to an industrial I can get, so I love it.  Not only is it beautiful like a '56 Chevy, but it probably weighs as much too.                                                                                    

Grand New Adventures

Last week I got offered a job at the industrial design firm Terrazign. Once again Susanna has been incredibly kind to me. She recommended me to her boss Bill and talked him into interviewing me. He in turn has been very flexible with my starting dates in order to help me ease out of my commitment to Beckel with minimum hassle for them. I feel really bad about having to leave Beckle. Kathy was nice enough to give me my job back plus some when things didn't work out at Langlitz. I in turn told her I could stay till I went to school. Alas Terrazign's offer has made a lire of me. It is so exactly what I want to be doing. I will have a hand in the actual sewing and patterning of their projects as well as some training in the programs they use. Both of these things will be invaluable to me later, not to mention incredibly fun now. I will be working with just Bill and Susanna. I don't know Bill very well yet but I like him so far and Susanna is obviously about as sweet as they get. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.
In order to celebrate Jason and I went to the coast last weekend. The recent storms have scoured the beaches. Which gave a more stark and awesome feel to the already stark and gray Oregon winter beaches. Cape lookout state park had part of its embankment wash away leaving plumbing sticking out of the hillside and cement walkways that ended abruptly in cliffs. The beach itself had incredible formations where the sand had actually be flushed from the underlying surface. There were sandstone wrinkles raised up out of the water. It was a huge expanse of these spiny, rock laden, fingers of sandstone with the waves crashing between them. Unfortunately I left my camera in the car. The wood that had washed up was strange water logged roots that looked like they had been at sea for eons. There was also a whole chunk of beach that had washed away to expose a whole grove of tree roots below the waterline.


I did get some pictures from our drive up the coast.

This is it, for real

Here are the wonderful pictures that Susanna and Brent helped me with. It is the complete and official portfolio.


This is my first real tailoring project. A wool coat for Jake.


A wool shirt, pendelton-esque, made for Jason.


This was one one of my first sucesses, a canvas, wool lined coat. Note: I don't recommend lining coats with wool.


I love this skirt but I used a found fabric for the lining. I also didn't heat test it so the lining got charred. Oops.


I made this dress for my college graduation party


This is a design by Susanna who employed me to make it for her wedding rehearsal. It was also her beautiful choice of fabric. Its a subtly metalic silk.


This was my halloween costume a couple years ago. I was a Beckle canvas product.


This is a beautiful chocolate silk with antique lace. Its too light for a dress and too heavy for a slip so I mostly wear it around the house on hot nights.


Made from washers and satin ribbon


I made these for Hannah as a present. The white one is a bull head, not a bikini.


Knit mittens, obviously. Both are "Lamb's pride" worsted. I love that stuff.


These are slippers I made for my dad for christmas. They're a little heavy on the Crafting-For-Men thing but I like them. The soles are made from goat skin scraps from Langlitz leathers.


Re-useable grocery bags, also christmas presents.


Beckel Purses.


This was one of the first things I designed for Beckle.


Modular origami rules!


These are made from folded muslin.


I made this quilt for Becca's son Gus, who was still unborn at the time.


This quilt was made by dying scraps in the same dye bath to create uniformity. I made it for my mother.


And you know, this is what I do at work.