I am working on a company that produces clothing for larger women. We start at size 18. I started sewing on the machine at 13. When I saw Natalie Chanin's line, I knew that I wanted this kind of restyled, cotton cloud clothing, then sadly realized that none of the sizes were for me. It is not in me to take, "no" for an answer so I set about making them for me.
Natalie's concept was good, she won the 2013 CFDA/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge, but the sizes were skewed on the small size and I wanted them to fit everyone. I made patterns and I designed stencils and I loved the feel and the weight of the product. When the applique's and the beading were added the thrill was on. The truth is I was finally happy with how I felt in the clothing. It was comfortable, it was soft, the designs were unique to fit my personality and each and every one in the beginning was all hand sewn, hand beaded. Now we have so many more orders to fill so we had to tweak our efforts to provide maximum production by hand sewers. We sew major seams with the stretch stitch on the machine but the hems and neckline are all hand sewn and the designs and beading are completed by hand.
We also are allowing people to hand sew our designs themselves by selling kits of our clothing line. There is nothing like feeling proud of something you made. We include the instructions for your product. It is easy to follow the kit instructions, it only takes a short time and effort and you will have a beautiful shirt, skirt or tee shirt of your very own that is 100 percent cotton and uniquely yours. We have jackets and long dresses that take a little longer, but the results are breathtaking.
I feel wonderful when someone calls or emails and tells me how they love the fit and design. The comment has been made that they would sleep in it if they could. I know exactly what they are talking about because I have a favorite black shirt ( I got to keep due to a cutting error that I didn't do,, honest! ) that I painted a sugar skull on the front for hand appliquéing. We started talking about contrasting and complimentary colors we could apply and ended up splashing some yellow paint on it. Juan our project manager, was upset thinking we ruined the shirt. I got excited and ended up splashing all the colors in the studio on it. The result was awesome. Juan kept shaking his head and saying, "You sure?" Yep, I was. It is my favorite shirt, I wear it to bed, I wear it shopping, out for a drink with friends with a scarf. So sleep in it, go ahead, I totally get it.
Well, thank you for letting me ramble on about our clothing. I have included some pictures of our recent dresses. They are cotton, lagenlook with long sleeves. I couldn't wait to try one on and was excited to see the photo shoot going on. We had lots of laughs when the wind kicked up and all our pinning and straightening went to heck in a handbasket.
Let me know what you think, we will have lots to show you and would like to share some diy projects too that we do with the left over cotton. I love rings, scarves and headbands and that is just a peek at some diy's that we will do next week. Today is my 60th birthday and after writing about what we are doing I feel much better about the number 60. Thanks.
Share with you soon.
Denise
Here I am stressing about how they are hanging. When the
wind kicked up we had a good laugh about all my pinning.
I liked the brown one,, but Juan said we had to photograph it first.
I was asking him,, "Well? Hows' it look on me?" No ham in my
family, I have it all.
