Mina Perhonen

While I was in NY visiting Hannah we went to a Japanese book store that was devoted to all things Japanese. It had some pretty amazing Japanese pattern books but the highlight was discovering a series of three small books. They were the textile designs of Mina Perhonen and were divided into Woven, Print, and Embroidered, each having their respective book. I was blown away by her work. I think everybody should check it out so you can click on the title of this entry to go to her web sight, and I'm going to give you a teaser to encourage you to do so.

This one is wonderfully called licorice.


This one is titled tori-to-Hana

Odds and ends

1. I would like to point out that Hannah's last post was our 69th on this blog and her prize will be a wink, a nudge, and a heartfelt "Good Luck".


2. I would also like to note that a boutique in Brooklyn called "In God We Trust" has recently placed an order for my purse design. Its the one on the right.




3. I also have a draping question that anybody should feel free to answer. I have a dressmaker's form that's in pretty bad shape but I've gotten one side of it to closely resemble my body and am hoping to use it for draping symmetric garments. Today while I was trying to drape a cover to fit the form. I was aiming for a basic two dart, princess line shape with the cross grain level across the BP and under the arm. I was also trying to do this out of one piece of fabric that cover from CF to SS. All of this went really well but as I was pinching out the princess line dart I kept running into the issue of having the inside edge of the dart be shorter than the outside edge of the dart. Imagine the almost strait strip of fabric that runs the length of the body between the CF and the princess seam and the rather more curvy piece of fabric that's between the princess seam and the SS. This rather more curvy edge of the princess seam was longer than the strait edge. To remedy this I took a dart out at the waist from the princess seam to the SS, parallell to the floor. My question is this... Is this a common problem? Is it that my dressmaker's form is wonky, or maybe that I'm trying to drape something that is more fitted than any wearable garment? If it is common how do other people remedy this?

Ok I guess that was a few question but I would still value your input.

Remember those Pattern Magic inspired shirts I made for my portfolio right before my interview with Nicolas? - Jesse, I think you have the magenta one - I was looking through a few Resort collections just now and I think Jason Wu was inspired by the same pattern exercise I was...


I do like them, even if the end result has the same "look, I'm gift-wrapped" effect mine did.

A Study in Speed

This was a shirt I made for my grandmother's birthday in april. I know its a little over due but I wanted to post it anyway. Prior to her birthday she had asked me to hem a summer shirt for her. I decided to copy her shirt in a nicer fabric for her birthday present. However I only had about four hours before I had to be at her birthday dinner. I made the pattern, washed the fabric, cut, and sewed the whole shirt without being late for dinner. I definitely cut some corners but it won't fall apart and I doubt anybody but you guys would ever notice.




Notice the "Cut in one" collar stand. I've seen these on a few shirts I've liked but its crazy how much faster they are.


French seams are actually quite fast considering that serging them would require at least as many passes through a machine and a change of machines. Also note that I never waste time trimming my french seams I just sew an 1/8" seam allowance the first time and 1/4" the second.

Hannah's House

I know that Hannah should be posting pictures and explainations about her house but seeing as how I was just there and have pictures I'm going to post them and she can do the explaining if she want's to. I'm sorry about how blurry these are but i was in a hurry and running out of batteries.






Yes that is a faux brick kitchen


This is her room mate Lillian, a totally rockin' woman, and their kitten. And yes they are on an astro turf covered balcony.

It's really too bad we can't do this in person

Oh my God Hannah look at these shorts. I know you have probably already seen these as they're a old Sartorialist post but I have to go off about them. Someone in the comments calls them sailor shorts but they are so wrong. Instead of opening via a flap in the front they have a row of buttons down one side and a fly for an opening. This is my favorite kind of asymmetry. There is nothing loud or non-traditional about it except the perfect way its used. I also find it extremely difficult to find shorts that are the right length. Shorts on the whole seem to be either hoochy shorts or mom shorts. These are neither. Granted she's got better than average legs which make it easier. I think though that the real key is the subtle way that the bottom edge flares and the perfect height of the waist band. This is how the female body was meant to be displayed.

grading for shrinkage

I realized that I needed to clarify about the shrinkage on the shorts Im working on. The reason that the fabric isn't shrunk before sewing up the shorts, as it is nromally in home sewing, is that we are making production samples, and as such, they have to be representative of the shorts that will be manufactured in bulk. We're doing a small run - 50 shorts in all - but that is still too much fabric to toss is a washing machine and then iron afterwards before sending them to the sample sewer. What happens instead is that the shorts are graded for shrinkage. I did a shrink test, as mentioned below, to find out how the fabric will change when it is washed, and then the shorts are enlarged to account for that shrinkage. The pattern is enlarged by a really simple grading process which involves flat patterning in the necessary amount by slashing the pattern and opening it up at strategic points --you just have to make sure that your seams will all still match up, and that the extra was added evenly thoughout the garment.
Big manufacturing houses have facilities to wash and press all of their pieces, but the place we're working with is tiny - because our first run is tiny - and she only has the ability to steam and press our shorts. That means that there will still be a fair amount of shrinkage that occurs after the shorts are purchaced by our customers - something that will have to be mentioned to everyone who comes in and tries them on. This is annoying and we have to find a way to get around it, probably just by producing bigger runs and finding a facility that can take care of the whole process.

"wood" house

It's hard to tell in the photo, but this is a stucco house, painted to look like wood grain. Really big wood grain. From a Mexican Redwood or something.
I took this picture last Christmas while in Mexico, because I thought it was the best example of trompe l'oleui I've ever seen. Lately there's been so many shirts with things like faux tuxes and ties and giant chain necklaces, and it's almost witty but--
This, however, made me happy every time I walked by it. I love the brazenness of it.

More on Waistbands

I've been working on a pair of shorts for a company called Houndstooth Menswear -- more on that at some point when I have the time to sit down and really write a post -- but I was forced to revisit the waistband dilemna of a couple months ago. After reading Kathleen Fasanella reasoning for cutting waistbands on the straight of grain instead of the crossgrain, (see below) I was convinced it was worth a try. After the first fitting, it was clear that the waistband - initially almost completely straight, had to be contoured to eliminate the little wing-like things that were happening at the side seam and center back. So now the pattern is on the straight of grain at center back, curving into a slight bias at center front.
I'm interested to see how the shorts wash up. I did a shrink test on the fabric, and it shrunk an inch along the grain over 20 inches, and only 1/4 of an inch along the cross grain over 20 inches. Which makes me think keeping the waistband on the straight of grain is a damn good idea.

New designers at Nicolas'

We are expanding our client base at Nicolas', beginning I believe with the Spring Summer 09 season - which means immediately. We're going to be working with Alexander Wang, whose pieces I like for their dark street-y feel -- although most of his work isn't along the lines of what we normally drape at Nicolas' -- upon looking though his WF08 collection I found only a handful of pieces that looked like they would be draped instead of flat patterned. Am curious if he's headed in a slightly different direction...
Here's a dress from Alexander Wang:

We'll also be working with Band of Outsiders, who I love just on principle. There are so few lines that do good menswear, and I hope that their venture into womenswear won't detract from the men's stuff...We'll be working on the women's line - Boy by Band of Outsiders. Pretty structured, and again, more flat pattern territory, so I'm curious how things will unfold.

Also word that we may work with Marc Jocobs. Which means, Marc Jacob's people. Nicolas doesn't like to work with companies that are so big that you don't get direct designer contact though, so I have a feeling that one won't end up happening.

Hard at work

I made it onto the internet! This is my first fitting with Houndstooth Menswear, my amazing boss and co-collaborator Maria posted this picture on her blog.



There's so much to write about my work at Houndstooth, and all the things I'm learning as their Production Manager as well as Patternmaker....unfortunately I'm currently just taking a break from finalizing a pattern before we drop it off for our sample sewer tomorrow.
More later.

MTV Awards

I was looking for a picture of Charlize Theron wearing a Proenza Schouler bustier to the MTV Awards, and I found Anne Hathaway wearing Proenza as well, a dress from SS08 that I loved and worked on a little bit when I first started with Nicolas.



And here's Charlize, wearing a Resort 09 that we just finished - my coworker Erin was covetting this so badly, I could see her fingers itching the whole time it was in the studio.

Bobbi Clothes

I went to a fun fashion show tonight -- my dear friend Susanna's soon to be siser in law Barbara has a line called Bobbi Clothes, and she showed her newest pieces in a gallery in the meatpaking district. I've been a little bored with the fashion I've seen lately, I think partly because of over-exposure, but also perhaps because everything seems so derivative -- with the economy the way it is, everyone is playing it safe.
Barbara's clothes -- or more accurately, her textiles, which she creates herself, were a welcome change. Everything was hand-dyed, in washy, tie-dyed variations, in a wide-ranging but still very cohesive palette -- a combination of deep intense earthy and jewel tones. Printed on top of that were designs in lighter and brighter colors. The designs were all at once nintendo/cross-stitch/cave painting/various other things, which, although it sounds crazy, worked brilliantly with the tie-dyed base.
It made me think a lot about context. In Portland the show would have been downright hippie. I probably even would have been a little annoyed by it. But here, it was amazing. It was fresh and a little punky and had a sort of grit to it that only comes from people living in a place that isn't easy.
More to come on that. Now I must sleep.

Yes, those are hyenas.

My rommate Lillian and have been talking a lot about Mad Max-ish style lately. We love it. These photos by Pieter Hugo have that same feeling that I love, but Holy Shit!! Nigerian men in a post-apocalyptic landscape with hyenas! I think they speak for themselves.

waistband followup

Yesterday i was roaming around on one of my favorite sites, the fashion incubator, and found a whole tutorial on waistbands. I am beginning to think that the site is magical. Every time i need some very specific patternmaking information, it just floats my way on the fashion incubator -- like when i was having camel-toe problems with the jeans i was patterning, and then poof! there was a full three part tutorial on how to fix camel-toe! And it worked..

Anyway. According to Kathleen Fasanella, the reason waistbands are traditionally cut cross grain, is that it is practical for the industry -- it can be fed in long strips, whereas if it were cut on the straight of grain, it would have to be cut across the bolt, and it would be impossible to have long continuous strips to cut from later. Sometimes they even leave the fabric in a roll, and just slice it jelly-roll style -- hundreds of yards of continuous waistband to use as needed.

The problem this causes however, is that the crossgrain and the straight of grain behave differently -- or course the crossgrain have more give, which is why it is situated horizontally on our bodies, but also, the staight of grain shrinks at a rate of 3 to 1 -- obvious when you have jeans that may not get tighter, but do get shorter over time with many washings. When waistbands are cut on the crossgrain, they tend to shrink dispropotionately to the rest of the pant, which distorts the fit of jeans over time. I've experienced this so many times, but it wasn't until reading this blog entry yesterday that it began to make sense.

Apparently the couture way of making pants always involves waistbands cut ongrain. Also, there was a lot of discussion about whether bias or contoured waistbands were better for lower waisted pants -- as mentioned in the comments from the previous post. I made a couple pairs of highwaisted pants last fall, where the waistband was at least 3 inches thick, and found that contouring the waistband with the CF and CB on the straight of grain and the sides on a semi-bias worked nicely.

Does everyone out there already know that the grain on a waistband goes the opposite way? Because somehow i missed that valuable bit of information...especially horrifying when i remember how many pairs of jeans i made last fall...oh, the little gaps.

Vintage (please click here)

These posts are a little over due seeing as how they were purchased some time ago. I went on a small streak of craving embroidered cowboy boots. I had spent way too much time looking at full color spreads of classic western fashion and had started coveting all sorts of inapropriate things. I recommend a book called "How the West Was Worn" if you want in on it. So anyhow I found these boots at a cute vintage store near my house called Xtabay. She had them marked at thirty eight dollars. I offered her thirty and she promptly upped the price to fourty dollars. The moral of this story is don't haggle over things this cool.





Then just recently I found an original White Stage jacket from the fourties. I love the very idea women's camping gear that still makes you look like a woman. I also found this at Xtabay also for thirty eight dollars. Apparently that is my magic number. I'm thinking of copying it, but turning it into a pair of black canvas coveralls for working in the shop at Terrazign.

Christmas in March

I have a new prized possesion: My lovely roommate Lillian wrangeled up two dress forms this weekend -- one for each of us -- for the ridiculous price of 100 dollars each. They're top-of-the-line, 5 times that price new, and virtually new still as all they were used as were display mannequins. They've got collapseable shoulders and a cage bottom and are size 6, a good middle ground. I'm planning on trying to create a fat suit of sorts to pad it out to my size -- something that's removeable, like a stuffed dress, that morphs the form into my exact shape. I want so badly to be able to drape my own clothes, especially sun dresses in the summertime.

Motorcyle jackets and zippers

I met a guy this weekend with a double-zippered coat that struck me as brilliant. It was a leather motorcyle jacket, with the traditional off-set side zipper, but where there normally is only one running up the side, there were two, about an inch and a half to two inches apart. I asked him about it, thinking maybe it was just a design feature -- the coat was one of those garments that are full of details that are ambiguous as to whether they're just design features or have some practical application -- but he told me no, it was so that when you wear a thick sweater, the coat can be a bit looser to accomidate the extra bulk.
Having sat and thought about this for a minute, I realize that despite the amount of time I've spent chatting about motorcycle jackets, between Den and his love of motorcycles and Carly and her job at Langlitz, I haven't ever really investigated the zippers on the jackets. Is the double zip a common thing?
Either way it seems like a great solution to the "buy it big enough for a sweater" dilemna that Scott Schumann writes about in The Sartorialist: "...put an end to a dreaded sentence heard in shopping malls all across America. 'buy it one size bigger so you can wear a sweater under it!' I loath that sentence."

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.