October 4, 2013 Speakeasy tour!
Labels: speakeasy tour
Everything about the fabric, trims and notions stores and shops of New York City's Garment District, plus maps for people who love to design, sew, and create.
Labels: speakeasy tour
"Being retro is associated with something conservative, but I think all ideas come from the past."-Vivienne Westwood
Labels: fashion design, FIT, Museum at FIT
Something I did for a dressmaking client - as posted on my other (older) blog on dressmaking. |
Labels: Daytona Braids and Trimmings, fabrics garden, Top trimmings, Truemart Discount Fabrics, Trumart Discount Fabrics
Focusing on the relationship between the punk concept of "do-it-yourself" and the couture concept of "made-to-measure," the seven galleries will be organized around the materials, techniques, and embellishments associated with the anti-establishment style. Themes will include New York and London, which will tell punk's origin story as a tale of two cities, followed by Clothes for Heroes and four manifestations of the D.I.Y. aesthetic—Hardware, Bricolage, Graffiti and Agitprop, and Destroy.
Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced is the first major examination of the work of the designer The New York Times called in 1977 the “brightest star of American fashion.” It looks at the period spanning the 1970s when Stephen Burrows’s meteoric rise to fame made him not only the first African-American designer to gain international stature, but a celebrated fashion innovator whose work helped define the look of a generation. With vibrant colors, metallic fabrics, and slinky silhouettes that clung to the body, Burrows’s danceable designs generated a vibrant look that was of a piece with the glamorous, liberated nightlife of the era. Through photographs, drawings, and original garments, the exhibition will trace Burrows’s evolution from creating eclectic looks for his friends in the 1960s to his work with the chic 57th Street retailer Henri Bendel to the floor of Studio 54, as he dressed such 70s style icons as Cher, Liza Minnelli, and Diana Ross.
Labels: inspiration, Metropolitan Museum fo Art, Museum, Museum at FIT
Labels: NYC fabric shopping, speakeasy tour
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They have what i need for my bag! |
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Now, look at those wavy stripes! |
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Textures... colors... |
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More cool buttons... |
Labels: buttons, home decor, leather, Mood, Mood Fabrics, sewing classes
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Of particular interest were these lace neckline decorations (also in black). I can see ways to use them beyond bridal. |
Labels: notions stores, Top trimmings
Labels: m s schmalberg, Vogue Patterns Magazine
"Ma also gave me $2.99 to buy a paperback Webster's dictionary. This cost us almost two hundred finished skirts, since we were paid 1.5 cents per skirt. For years, I calculated whether or not something was expensive by how many skirts it cost. In those days, the subway was 100 skirst just to get to the factory and back, a package of gum cost 7 skirts, a hot dog was 50 skirts, and a new toy could range from 300 to 2,000 skirts. I even measured friendship in skirts. I learned you had to buy Christmas and birthday presents for friends, which cost at least a few hundred skirts each. It was a good thing I only had Annette as a friend."
We lost all our money in the move to the United States. My family started working in a sweatshop in Chinatown. My father took me there every day after school and we all emerged many hours later, soaked in sweat and covered in fabric dust. Our apartment swarmed with insects and rats. In the winter, we kept the oven door open day and night because there was no other heat in the apartment.
Labels: american labor, bangladesh, cambodia, china, factory labor, sewing books, sri lanka, sweatshops, unions
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A hearty cotton twill, very denim-like in durability, in a shade of red I desperately needed. |
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A durable pocket, just right for a MetroCard and whatever sliver of paper I might wanna carry.. |
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My color story |
Labels: Daytona Braids and Trimmings, Elliott Berman, Metro Textiles, Rosen and Chadick Fabrics, star snaps