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Wouldn’t it be nice to have your uniform that you put on everyday like Ms. Herrera? Sigh…

I love that the crisp white shirt is paired with a multi-colored loud skirt, and I love her blue nail polish!

I was recently in New York and went to see The Daphne Guinness collection at FIT which was curated by Guinness and FIT museum director Valerie Steele. It was an amazing collection of clothes to put it mildly. The only other time I’ve been to see someone’s closet was the exhibit of Nan Kempner at The De Young in San Francisco. It was interesting to compare the two. Kempner’s was much more restrained and classic whereas Guinness has such a different eye for luxury. Cara Kelley of the Washington Post writes “Guinness, who consistently demonstrates her intrepid approach to fashion, has become a creator and style governess in her own right, stimulating the designers with whom she has grown close. One such designer and friend was the late Alexander McQueen. Two dozen of his garments that have never previously been displayed are featured in the exhibit.” The show will be up until January 7th- it’s worth seeing and it’s free!

This picture was taken by Mr. Newton, a North Carolina born, NYC based street photographer.  I look at his blog regularly for inspiration. The woman he photographed here in NY is just stunning the way she can put together an outfit. The shoes are Costume National, by the way! -Max
Mr. Newton says – “I think the best street style photography has a sort of reportage quality about it…you are blurring the lines between fashion photography and travel photography and photo journalism…and through the use of natural light and interesting contextual backgrounds, hopefully capturing not just a snap of a cute outfit but a real sense of time and place and mood. I definitely look for all of this and think about all of this when I’m out shooting. That said, sometimes I just like to shoot photos of cute hipsters. Accessible but aspirational is often what I’m going for – the cool girls and styling assistants who mix Alexander Wang with vintage with Topshop with something they made themselves – the girls who realize that the glue that pulls an outfit together is often just confidence and attitude.”

I found this pic of Ashley Olsen on the blog HAUTE MUSLIMAH.
Haute Muslimah gives you a fresh perspective on the world of fashion. Asma started Haute Muslimah as a way to give women, and girls, who love fashion and their religion, a place to find ideas on trends, accessories and outfits. However, this site is not meant for only Muslims; Haute Muslimah is for anyone who wants information on designers, new trends, what to shop for, and where to get it. Asma says , “Ashley Olsen is sporting one of my all time favorite looks- a crisp white button down tucked into a long, full skirt.”

http://www.vogue.com/videos/my-first-met-janelle-mone-and-bruno-mars/

Tamu McPherson is the photographer behind All The Pretty Birds blog, a fashion blog out of Milan. Here is what she says about the photo above: “I love Stephanie’s approach to color blocking. Plus, she always has the most incredible accessories. Stephanie is an editor at Elle China.”

I’ve been following Tamu’s blog for years now and am always inspired by her photography and her seemingly free and easy life in Italy. I love to show how many different ways there are to wearing the ubiquitous white shirt.

Yesterday my daughter and I went to see Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave at the Legion of Honor in SF.

http://legionofhonor.famsf.org/legion/exhibitions/pulp-fashion-art-isabelle-de-borchgrave

They have extended this fascinating show for one more week, so if you have not already seen it, I would hurry and get over there as soon as you can. The way de Borchgrave creates movement and fluidity in her sculptures held my daughter and me rapt for hours! I have to say, there will be a shirt directly influenced by one of the pieces there in the last room. It will be named de Borchgrave and I am so excited to create it. Since no pictures were allowed, and this one sleeve happened not to be in the books, I’ll have to go on memory, which I prefer, so it will be altered from a recreation of an original dated more than 300 years ago.

A Conversation with Sandy Ericson
I first met Sandy at San Francisco City College where she was the Chair of the Consumer Arts and Science Department and taught the fashion courses. From her I took Sewing, Advanced Sewing, Flat Pattern, and Draping Classes. She was the kind of teacher who encouraged perfection for ourselves—knowing that we the students would be ultimately dressing in our creations. In one Advanced Sewing Class she motivated us to take on the task of making a Madeleine Vionnet dress for ourselves, and to create it so it would last us for years. Most of us took up the challenge and for the final class party, we gathered in our dresses and sipped cocktails at the Top of the Mark. She was that kind of teacher.
After she retired from teaching, she started up The Center For Pattern Design in St. Helena, where she lives. The CFPD’s mission is “to recognize the skill of pattern designing, to educate and provide research for professional development and to explore contemporary applications. We hope this leads us all over the place; there is no end to all the fascinating pattern design approaches and how they came to be. Most of all, we want new generations to follow their curiosity, create new form and learn from the best in history.”
I was lucky enough to make it to several of these master classes with other people as passionate about pattern making as I was. I would encourage anyone to go to the website and see what inspiring classes and events she has up her sleeve. You can sign up for the monthly newsletter and I can tell you it’s about the only newsletter I’ve signed up for that I actually read because there are so many interesting articles in it.
I had the good fortune to catch up with her between breaths as she organizes the Shingo Sato & Timo Rissanen Master classes and her own Draping Series Schedule. The Draping Classes coming up are Yves St. Laurent, Cardin, Yamamoto, and Vionnet. (Did I just read Yamamoto? I am there!)
Our conversation took place on the phone and while I took copious notes, much of the conversation below is not verbatem, but an approximation as best as I could put together. Enjoy!

MAX: Pattern making has always been a passion for you. You used to regale us with stories with your many original pieces you’ve produced over the years. The one that comes to mind is the incredible lightweight black wool dress you made for an entire trip to NYC in the late 60’s or early 70’s. One dress for 3 days! Are you lamenting the days where women made many of their own clothes? Or is the cheap clothing trade-off worth it to have 5 times as many clothes in your closet?

SANDY: Clearly it’s not a better trade-off. The number one reason is having so much waste in the environment. 7% of all world waste comes from the textile industry, and 15% of the world’s waste is cast off clothes put into landfills. Fast fashion is a bad idea and it’s not sustainable. It came about from the Boom Years. We are entering a different paradigm where well-fitted clothes and the quality of fabric will once again be at the forefront of consumers. And the most highly underused labor force is our own two hands!

MAX: How do we get young people interested in making their own clothes when high school kids don’t even have the option of taking Home Economics because of severe budget cuts? This is across the board in high schools and in city colleges.

SANDY: People sewed out of necessity even before there were Home Ec. classes. There will always be private sewing teachers, dressmakers, sewing shops offering classes. This is actually great because people will actually be able to make a living again from having made-to-measure shops.

MAX: What are the new and exciting happenings at The Center For Pattern Design?

SANDY: There is sheer excitement surrounding Shingo Sato. He has become a cult figure thanks to You-Tube. There are 20-30 videos featuring him cutting and manipulating vortex spirals, pieced waves, and all kinds of 3-dimensional effects. This is terrific for young people coming into the clothing world. He is going to be teaching Master Classes in SF (at The Hotel Rex), Vancouver, and Chicago. His book is called TR- Transformational Reconstruction.
The other exciting event coming up at the CFPD is that Timo Rissanen is joining Shingo Sato for one Master Class in Vancouver. Timo Rissanen, a Zero Waste pioneer who, with Alison Gwilt published “Shaping Sustainable Fashion: Changing the Way We Make and Use Clothes” will be also be leading two classes on Zero Waste on his innovative techniques in Vancouver.

MAX: That is super exciting! I really want to take a Timo Rissanen class, but I can’t get up to Vancouver this time around. Are there other dates for his classes?

SANDY: I’m going to see how he’s teaching the class and I’m going to do a Zero Waste Class in the Bay Area soon. Check the website for details.

I could have talked with Sandy all morning, but I just wanted to give you a taste for the exciting things she has going with The Center For Pattern Design.  Sign up for their newsletter to get the latest on the classes and events

I am writing about Julian Roberts because a month ago I was contacted by my friend Sandy Ericson, the brains behind The Center For Pattern Design (who I will be interviewing for the next News item) to do some photography for his dresses. Sandy had been traveling with Julian for his Subtraction Cutting tour across the world and had many of the dresses he made for those classes. Sandy knew I was a photographer and wanted me to photograph the dresses so that they could be sold on her website http://www.centerforpatterndesign.com. Look for them on her website in November– they are truly one of a kind works of art.

I took a Subtraction Cutting class from him in 2008 and it was a fascinating journey into the geometric way his mind worked and how he translated that to patternmaking and dressmaking. The dress you see Julian taking a picture of is the one that I made.

Below is part of an interview that I took off of Julian’s website http://www.julianand.com

To read the whole interview, and I encourage you to do so because he is such an interesting designer/patternmaker, go to his website.

Two Wrongs Make A Right

Julian Roberts is the inventor of a unique and revolutionary method of pattern cutting known as Subtraction Cutting. He is now busy demonstrating his technique internationally to fashion and textiles students, and perhaps more strangely, to those of architecture and mathematics. Julian told Arc that his cutting method arose out of a series of chance happenings, mistakes, and misconceptions: intrigued, we asked if he would care to elaborate… What were the ‘mistakes’ that inspired you to do things that bit differently? There were a whole series of errors and misinterpretations, which still continue! When I was taught garment cutting at college, my tutor taught the class from the other side of a desk with the work orientated towards her, meaning I learned upside-down. Rather than turn what I’d seen the ‘right way up’ like most people would, it became stored in my mind as a possible rotation or inversion. Similarly, I hold my knife and fork in the wrong hands and my pen in a claw-like grip, because I first mimicked my left-handed brother sat next to me, and my right-handed mother sat opposite across the dining table. They made me write lines at school ‘I must hold my pen correctly’ x 1000, but in my mind this just reinforced the possibilities for alternative pen grips! These confusions of orientation and vantage point have since helped me develop a method of garment construction that works by designing garments from odd or reverse perspectives. I’m naturally well organised and have a good sense of direction and proportion, but I find abstract measurements and terminologies relating to direction and perspective all rather irrelevant and interchangeable. “About there” is a very instinctive response to positioning and proportion, and yet it becomes less accurate the more you try to measure or straighten it up!

Every time I write this I get it wrong – but they had the good graces to obtain http://www.rencenter.org for their website for those of us who are spelling impaired. If you don’t live in the Bay Area, and those of you who do and haven’t heard of it, the Ren Center is the place to go if you have an idea for starting a business. I didn’t say good idea, I just said idea–because no matter what kind of crazy idea you have, they will hold your hand, nurture you and take you through the steps to help you understand whether your idea is feasible or not.

I would encourage anyone who is just getting started in business, or who just has a great idea, to check out their website. I cannot recommend them highly enough. I took their 14 week business class and came out so inspired and prepared to work!

And it doesn’t stop after that. I’ve attended the Fashion roundtable where we hash out ideas and problem solve for each other and I’ve taken a one night inventory class. They have so many things going on- I always come away reinvigorated and inspired.

I discovered the Hipstamatic app by accident one day and wanted to shoot the Fall 2010 collection with only my I-phone. I did a couple of shoots on different days and this is what I came up with. I really loved the mood, but knew that I needed a real model to flesh out the shirts and give them personality.

One of the first pictures I came across when I started researching women’s shirts was this lovely woman sitting and having a picnic.