How It's Done, Continued

West 18th Street Fashion Show

On June 9th I showed my collection in the West 18th Street Fashion show.  The runway spanned the length of 18th Street from Wyandotte to Baltimore in the Crossroads.  Eighteen designers got the chance to show their interpretation of the theme, Triple Crown Summer.

My swimwear collection was inspired by the over-the-top race-day fashion and the colors of a mint julep.  Mint green, sugary white, and bourbon orange was the theme of the collection.  The twist was that I used KnollTextiles on all of the garments.  All of the cover-ups in this collection are made of sheer drapery and upholstery even made it into two swimsuits!  Knoll Textiles recently introduced Tryst which made it's first runway appearance as a swimsuit...

Being upholstery, this took a little bit of extra planning to turn upholstery into a fabulous swimsuit...

I started with a mock-up made out of some printed denim.  This fabric stretched about the same as the upholstery.

A minor setback was this new upholstery became so popular that it is still out of stock!  Luckily I was able to get three large square samples.  With the fabric constraint I probably laid out these pattern pieces 50 times!

Thanks to Tiffany Matson for the great photo!

How It's Done, Part I

In June, 2011 my sister got married.  I was lucky to be her personal couturier.  With me in Kansas City and her in Atlanta, most of the fittings took place over web-cams.  I would make a mock-up and mail it to her.  Then, over the internet, she pinched and pulled here and there and told me how much and I made the adjustments to the patterns.  I started with a $99 dress and chopped it to bits for parts like zippers and tulle.  The rest was all my own.  Quite an unconventional way to go about the project, but hey, that's my style!

Even my pup, Aspen wanted to help!

Adding bunches to the front...                                                         ...and to the back.

Loops for the lace-up back

Boning on the inside of the top

                                                                                                   

Close up of the lace applique

Color + Couture

Color + Couture...

What do you get when you combine Interior Design and Fashion?  A dress made entirely of wall-covering!  The event, Color + Couture, is for interior designers to pair with a material company such at wall-covering, carpet, tile, etc. and create a look for the runway.  Our inspiration came from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette.

                                          From head...

                                          To toes..

Everything was made of wall-covering!  Let Them Eat Cake!