Timing is Everything

Went to Philadelphia for the first time recently (a shame considering how close it is to New York) and loved it!

And found a lovely graffiti by Penn's Landing.

Looking Forward...

... to the next season.

Starting a little collection of my own . Simple idea - to make clothes that you can literally wear to travel or to sleep.

Hence the title here, Wander - voyages of body and dreams.

New Job and New Collection

Recently started a new job as a pattern-maker/designer at Donna Karan's Urban Zen collection. Urban Zen is a non-profit organization, and the collection is a means to financially support the foundation to carry out its missions. Long story short, it's fabulous clothes, and for a good cause.

www.urbanzen.org

Here is the new fall/winter collection. I made the patterns and samples for looks #2, 4, 5, and 9. Especially love look 5, it's a padded deer-skin leather jacket!

I mean, air, water, a padded leather jacket, what else do you need?

Inspired by Charlotte Gainsbourg

I went to see Charlotte Gainsbourg perform live a few months ago in New York, she was touring to promote the new album, IRM. To say it was a dream come true was a bit of an understatement! She wore a phenomenal cut-away Balenciaga (it has to be!) little jacket that fit her like a glove, along with a rock tee and some skinny jeans that might as well have been painted on.

What can I say, she is so, so, so elegant, delicate, but bad-ass at the same time! Imagine her frolicking in the field and swinging her baby around in a Balenciaga leather jacket while puffing away on a Gauloise (not when the baby is around, of course, that would be unthinkable) ?!?! That's right!

Anyway, here is a little collection inspired by the very beautiful Charlotte Gainsbourg. What's all the Liberty prints got to do with rock & roll?! You wonder. Well, she is half British!

Jacket w/ Paillettes

Here is a very rough sketch of the idea.

I found a dress from Mango (a Spanish clothing chain), with some great metal paillettes! A nice start. Now I need to find the perfect navy jacquard.

Again, life really does take you by surprise. Who would've guessed that Mango would make such a dress? It looked Balmain!

New Directions

Life takes you (me, at least, anyway) unexpectedly. It's always been busy busy - going to work during the day, coming home to work on jobs all night long, then going back to day job the next morning, and planning the weekend by the hour to keep up with the deadlines. Now suddenly I am out of freelance work and unemployed, for the first time in a long time.

Full stop.

Woah.

Well, now that I have all the time on my hands, I am starting on a very ambitious personal project. The picture here is a dress from Dries van Noten's fall 2010 women's collection - fully covered with different metal paillettes and hardware. I mean, "amazing" is an understatement. The amount of handwork on it is just incredible; and it has to be done by hand and not by machine.

And why should women have all the fun? That dress needs a man of matching status. I set out to look for similar metal hardware and beads, some sort of wool/silk navy/black jacquard fabric, to make a men's jacket of the same spirit.

And oh yes, with chains of course.

A sketch and samples to come soon.

Just went to Barcelona in Spain, and have to say, it was quite a wonderful experience. There were just so much texture, richness, and brilliant colors everywhere.

Little details, as seen in the photo above, make me smile. (Yes, I did a lot of smiling there.)