Sleeve What's Up At Vagadu!

Hey!

I'm not sure if any of you have wondered what happened to all of the blazer sleeves from the blazer vests that we create but if you have then today I'll answer!

We reuse those sleeves!

And we do this through some of the newer pieces that we're currently creating! One of the pieces is going to become a blazer sleeve blazer/jacket. Isn't that cool? We're reusing old blazer sleeves from past blazers and turning them back into their original form only better!

This piece blends fabrics together through the use of the blazer sleeves. These sleeves flow through the garment, creating a touchable blend of neutrals and patterned fabric. The blazer/jacket has 3/4 length sleeves and falls at waist level making this look ideal for flattering any body type.

Another way that we reuse the blazer sleeves is to use them

in the creation of the blazer vest that the sleeves just came off of. The sleeves become an elaborate collar or a new waist line but they stay within the original garment, how great is that?

Love & Fashion,

Kelley for Vagadu

Worker Bees at the Vagadu Hive

Hey! How is everyone's day so far?

This post is going to be all about the design interns here at Vagadu who work hard to make the wonderful items that you guys enjoy reading about! It is going to be a "Thank You" post and you'll get to learn a little about the behind the seams action.

Without the work that everyone at Vagadu puts in then things wouldn't get done nearly as fast which is always annoying! American culture is all about instant satisfaction and we know that, so we're working extra hard to make sure that can happen for all customers who are interested in Vagadu.

One thing that these women don't do is rush on the projects that they are working on. Each garment or accessory that they create, they work with until they completely understand the piece. They work with the garment making sure that everything lays correctly and that the colors all work together in a effortless way. The women make sure that they are putting their best work forward, so that you in turn get the best product.

It is great to work with these women because I know that

we all share a great passion for the clothing industry and for green fashion. The other women are all design interns at one of the design schools in San Francisco and some of them have already done their first fashion show (through their school)! Isn't that super cool? I am not a design intern, I am a marketing intern. I love seeing them work because I don't know very much about the behind-the-scenes part of the clothing industry but now I'm learning!

Love & Fashion,

Kelley for Vagadu

Varda's Women to Debut at the W Hotel SF!

New Vagadu Labels

Been away for a while because I was working on my Aug. 30th deadline for the photoshoot for the "Varda's Women" fall gown collection. The last two weeks have been really intense working at least 10-12 hour days to get the dresses ready! But now that it happened and went well (photos to come soon) I am working on the little details for the dresses.One of these details being the all-important LABEL!!!!

I mean, without a label who are you?
So, I got crafty and came up with an idea for the next series of Vagadu tags. I may have mentioned this before but I love working with the heat press and doing dye transfer with it. The heat press is often used for T-shirts, but Ana Lisa Hedstrom and I have been playing with this machine using shibori techniques for months now and having some real fun!

I needed a Vagadu stencil so the easiest solution was to use one of my hangtags that have the Vagadu stamp on it (these tags are great because they are made of a nice heavy duty stock) and use an exacto knifee to cut the letters out of it.

Then, I used it a bizzilion ways on my fabric (which once was a little girl's bridal dress). You can see in the pic how much fun I had. And, so the next step will be to cut the individual labes out and seal the edges ..... although if I were a label-whore I might have to make these Vagadu fabrics into a bag or hotpants ;-)))) !!!!

What does it mean to be Green?

It's 2009 and sustainable green-ness is all the rage. I love it. Mostly, I'm wondering what took us so long. Not to give myself too much credit here, but I've been on this track from the very beginning with Mazura in 2007. I want to write a little here about what it means to be green in my fashion world.


There are four major areas that need to be addressed when looking at sustainability of fashion: materials, labor, transportation, quality/waste management. To make things more complex, these factors don't exist individually, but rather they all impact one another.

First category is materials. At Vagadu, we only use fabrics that are donated (second-hand), found, or purchased from a second hand source. In other words, we don't buy anything new unless totally necessary. The few areas I do sometimes have to buy new materials because I haven't found a consistent source yet are; zippers, interfacing, structural reinforcement, and thread.
That equals something like 90 percent used materials that would otherwise go to the dump or sit around in someone's closet for eternity. I love working this way because it creatively deals with a big problem in the world of overflowing landfills. Although many designers are now taking the admirable step of using recycled fabrics and organic cottons, these are still more energy intensive techniques than material reuse.

The second category is a HUGE issue and that is labor. As you know, most mid-size to large design houses use factory workers in other countries to produce their garments. This allows companies to pay low wages in order to keep their production costs down and to provide cheap clothing for us. While this system doesn't have to be detrimental and there are some very good factories out there, for the most part sweatshops are bad for people and the environment. At Vagadu, we are taking a different approach entirely. We are working to bring clothing back to the individual with one-of-a-kind pieces. So it doesn't make any more sense for me to ship to China than it did for Valentino. It wouldn't work with our fabric sources anyway, we never have more than small amount of fabrics so it takes constant care and creativity to finish each garment with the fabrics we have. All garments are currently sewn by me or my interns. However, in the future,I would like to hire in-house seamstresses to work with me to create the pieces. Then, I know that no one is being exploited or treated badly under my label. Not only that, working together with the seamstresses we can collectively reduce waste, time and energy used for creating clothing.

Third category is transportation. This area is huge, and actually applies to all of the other areas too. Because I buy or get my materials locally, construct my pieces locally, and sell them locally, there is very little carbon footprint in the transportation of these garments. Most big companies buy their fabric from India, ship it to China to be made, ship it back to the U.S. to be sold, etc. By the time you see these items they have traveled thousands of miles! That said, as Vagadu grows, I will be selling in different parts of the country and world and the transportation issue will have to be addressed. I am hoping to use the most eco-friendly transport mode when the time arrives.

Last, I look at quality which intersects with waste management. What this means is that the original quality of a garment dictates how long it stays in use or in someone's home instead of in the landfill. Unfortunately, many companies like Old Navy and Forever 21 make items that look good for a couple of washes, maybe even up to a year or so and then pretty much fall apart and then you dump them. They were cheap, so you aren't totally sad when this happens, but this is not a green way to think. These clothes were made to be disposable. The low prices that draw the customers in here are an illusion, because the clothes don't last, and the cycle is perpetuated. At Vagadu, we are taking the steps to make sure all the collections from now on are of the highest quality we can achieve. Because we want these pieces to last like your grandmother's clothing...for generations. We are encouraging people to buy less, and buy better, in the hopes of phasing out the idea of disposable clothing for good.

These are just my ideas of what constitutes a basis of green clothing and in Fashion it is still not fully agreed upon what constitutes "green". The closest thing there is would be possibly the "Fair Trade" label but this means little to small designers like myself that produce everything locally in the U.S. I am optimistic that hopefully we will have an organization like CCOF is for farmers, for fashion designers. Until then, it seems it is up to individual companies and designers to define what being sustainable means to them.

Rope: An exciting new way to use it!

On VAGADU I like to take time to showcase interesting and creative work by the people who collaborate with me. This week my intern Sarah is on the spotlight.

Sarah is attending SF State, and for one of her classes they asked the students to create a garment out of non-traditional materials. Last year, my intern Megan--who also took the class--created a dress out of deflated bike tires. Other than the constant smell of rubber, it was a fun idea that really pushed her and the other students to think outside the box.

For Sarah, rope was the material of choice and as you can see from this picture here, and she sure knew how to manipulate it.

She isn't sharing all secrets on how to make this beauty, but I will tell you that she completely stitched the dress together by hand. I know she isn't lying because she came to the studio for weeks with raw fingertips! Note: Don't kill your fingers! When sewing with rope use thimbles!

I love this idea because I think we all could find or discover rope in our garage, at our parents house or wherever. It can be cheap, and is durable. If I had made this dress I might have hot glue gunned it, (depending on what it was for) just to save time, but ideally, thread is the couture way to do it.

Idealbite coverage

It has been remarkable the attention the Discarded to Divine vest has garnered. The latest hit has been from Idealbite.com a cool blog that talks about how you can "green" up your life, and especially your wardrobe.

Since VAGADU is almost 100% reclaimed materials, I can am glad they chose to write about us.

Take a look at the article, it is fun and sweet!

CLick Here

Starting the next collection

After months of rest and rejuvenation I am finally embarking on the next VAGADU collection.

2009 is definitely a year of change for our world and for me. I have decided to restructure Vagadu and simplify the model. I am returning to my original muse, and will be exclusively making make eco-formal wear based on the collages of my grandfather, Jean Varda .

I am very excited to be returning my roots again. Varda's art and life has been a major force for me the last 2 years and it feels right re-explore his work with some real experience and focus, that I lacked when I first attempted to make clothing from his art.

After three collections I have learned a lot all kinds of lessons. Most importantly, I learned not to get ahead of myself. This time, I am approaching the collection in a very slow and methodical way. Normally, I create by pure hands-on experimentation. That can be a fun way to work, but it does make it harder to create a more cohesive collection. For now, I am going a more traditional route. I am conceptualizing, drawing and draping before I use any of the fashion fabric.

One of the many reasons I am choosing this method is because my mentor-- textile artist Ana Lisa Hedstrom-- is letting me use remnants of some of her hand-dyed fine fabrics (as pictured above and below). These precious fabrics are in limited quantity so I just cannot risk any mistakes .

~~~~~~~

For the last two weeks I have been staring at Varda's collages and finding themes that I plan to use. As you can see in his art, he is very geometrical and bold, angular shapes are a constant in all of his work.

Within the stark shapes though, his women embody a curvy sensuality. He focuses on accentuating the bust, hips and curves of the female form. Therefore, I am envisioning the dresses featuring angular dimension along with soft accents.

Another element I see in his art is that some of the women in his art seemed to be wearing more traditional garb. Since Varda was Greek I decided to do some research. When I found a book on Knossos (an ancient city on the island of Crete) I wasn't surprised to see the women dressing like they were from one of his paintings.

I have also been taking note of all the different color palettes and combos that arise in his work. Quite simply, I went through around 30 of his works and sketched out all the different color sets that appeared. I then separated each color and took a tally to see which colors dominated his art. Various shades of red and gold were the definite winners.

In this preliminary sketch below you can see a dress that is using the color palette, along with some triangles and softer lines.

I'll have more sketches next week, they are great!

Favorite Technique of the Week!

We are having so much fun with the process of fabric manipulation for the Kara collection. It has gone beyond just the basics of painting and dying the fabric and expanded into other forms for example....

This past week Megan came up with a great concept for texture of the mini bomber jacket that I described in an earlier blog.

Megan wanted to give a sense of depth to the main body of the garment with an added ruggedness to it. To start, she took a dark green canvas fabric and sandpapered wholes throughout it and then sewed beautiful stay stitches around the holes to keep the fabric from continuously fraying. Underneath the top green layer of the fabric she placed strips of different fabric composed of bright patterns which allowed for different designs to peer out from behind each hole.

The overall effect is magnificent, a carefully crafted callousness overlaying bright beauty that out from behind. The symbolism of this piece is somewhat contrary to Kara's work whose top layer is bright and cheery, however the more you explore the art, the more the darker elements begin to shine through.

I love this rubbed out technique and could see it applied to many different projects. The only drawback of it is the labor involved. It took Megan 2 hours to sandpaper the holes into a very small amount of fabric, so this technique is not for the easily distracted. I really want to do more with this method but I think the key to doing it is a lot of this is to have a sandpapering party where each person sands for 5-10 minutes and then passes it on to the next person.

My philosophy of late is-- if something seems like too much labor find a way to still do it. One solution is to share it and make it fun. But there are many other solutions out there. Like I have stated in other blogs, Vagadu is a slow clothing movement, we don't want to cheat, we are about process and creating our vision however labor intensive if it accomplishes our goal. Because in the end it is worth it. The pride you will have for having done it, long outlast the fading memories of the struggles endured to create the piece.

(Note: We tried sandpapering the fabric technique and it is VERY advisable to use a dust mask when trying this, epecially if doing it indoors. The fibers in the fabric get into your nose and if you have asthma or allergies it could be pretty toxic.)

Vagadu has a Store Front!

Great news! VAGADU has joined the local SF co-op Pandora's Box. What does that mean? It means that I have a public storefront where I have my own section of vagadulandia. My fabulous interior designer friend Alex Steinhouse is going to take all the important elements of VAGADU like art, recycling, playfulness to display my stuff like you've never seen. I can't wait! We've already talked wall paper, paint, texture, lights, and other recycled elements.

Being apart of Pandora's collective is allowing me to get out of my studio and meet the world. To be part of something bigger than myself where we all come together and support each other with our respective talents. In a way it is like an instant family.

What I really like about this group is the fun energy, eclectic style and artistic sensibility. There are reconstructed clothes, recycled clothes, and all all are def. locally made. We are all small designers with lots of energy who alone couldn't dream of affording our own retail shop. I had been dreaming about starting my own co-op but then this opportunity came up, I jumped for it. Why not join something that is already started?

A little background on Pandora's Trunk. It was founded by Rachel Hospodar of Medium Reality and Miranda Caroligne the author of "Reconstructing Clothes for Dummies" and seems to have her foot in every cool art and fashion event, happening or performance here in the Bay.

Today when I started working the cash register it brought back memories. I mean I haven't worked retail in years, and it feels good to finally be selling a product that I feel proud to be representing.

So come on down, and see what I have, and check out the other artists too, you will probably find something you love.

Pandora's Trunk
544 Haight St.
SF, CA
11am-8pm Daily
Closed Tuesdays
I will be working here most likely Weds. 11am to 5 and Thursdays 11am-3pm.

Designing Kara

While watching Vagadu's Kara Maria Line move forward to May 3rd, I have begun to enjoy watching how each member of the team brings her own creative process to the interpretation of Kara's work.

...Megan, one of the interns...

Out of all the pieces of the collection Megan jumped on the opportunity to work on jackets and dresses.

For me, it is always interesting to watch what clothing items people gravitate to work on. Fortuneatly for Vagadu, it always works out that most of the interns want to take on different projects and so it works out that everyone is happy.

With jackets, Megan took on an area where we didn't have a clear design plan in mind. The only thing we knew was that we wanted a short jacket and a longer jacket. Other than that Megan was left to her own devices.

After a few days Megan emailed me a bunch of sketches. The first picture here above was the one that we struggled with most trying to find a fabulous amalgamation of ideas and themes true to both Kara Maria and Vagadu.

I liked the the sketch of the button over jacket, but besides the military/uniform element behind the design I just didn't know how it fit into the collection.
I went back and thought about all the different design themes that we discussed for Kara like bold, strong, symmetrical shapes. And content like birds and flight, fighter jets, war, invasion, women, exposed versus covered, Middle East versus USA. With that I thought, why not lengthen the jacket and change the opening to a button down instead of a button-over jacket? As you can see in the second sketch the design then becomes amazingly similar to the look of traditional Muslim wear.

Megan took that idea and went a bit further. She decided she still wanted a short jacket. But she went more with the theme of flight versus military with the bomber jacket like Amelia Earhart wore. Then, keeping with the Middle Eastern theme she used the Muslim decorative neckline for the jacket. (I can't wait until you see it at the show!)

There was a bit of frustration and butting heads over how to make this piece come together, but I am so happy with the final design. It is the result of a creative fusion of ideas, personalities and tastes while keeping to our core ideal. This type of collaboration where unique visions come together and find expression is what makes Vagadu so fun and special.

Bad Unkl Sista

What can I say but "I'm in love!"
The label is called Bad Unkl Sista and I had my first exposure to this creative venture last weekend at the External Spring Show in the SOMArts building.

It has truly been a long time since a designer, a local one at that, has deeply sparked my imagination so much that it brings tears of joy to my heart. Bad Unkl did such a thing and in honor of the week of love, this blog is dedicated to my new favorite fashion muse.

I have not personally met Anastazia Louise (the woman behind the designs) of this magical label, but her ability to passionately mix art, clothing and extravagance into a performance is very true to my own vision. Anastazia is pushing boundaries, living pure expression through her clothing and creating shared community experience through her medium.

Let me explain. Bad Unkl Sista was the last act of at least 10-12 previous designers in a runway show that lasted around an hour and a half. Amongst the other designers was a whole gamut of styles ranging from chic, wild, trendy, to just plain average. Most of the clothing line presentations followed the typical runway model; one model enters at a time, wiggles around, pouts, blows you a kiss, and retreats to the back of the stage to be followed by another model and so on. This is fine and dandy, but frankly after strutter #44 the routine feels pretty stale.

The audience reflected this, and as our attention wandered, we talked amongst each other, eyes scanned around the room people watching, we clapped but it was pretty minimal, a hoot here, a holla there, but the energy in the room was struggling to be truly engaged with the show. We needed something to move us, to captivate us all and transport us to another place.

Bad Unkl Sista knows about these things. Like a bizarre dream, when their show began out comes Anastazia (already a very dramatic woman herself) dressed in black, dancing Butoh with a gorgeous solemn-looking ballerina. Simply and slowly they moved their way towards us on the runway. And then the suddenly as if a circus let loose, all types creatures emerged, one after another until the stage was cluttered with an assortment of people dressed like Narnia-meets-The Yellow Submarine-meets tribal Africa-meets-Alice in Wonderland.

The mood of the room changed instantaneously. Trancelike, we all gazed with delight and held our breath as we took in the spectacle. Together, as a whole the entire audience was sucked into this fantastical world where bizarre is beautiful and dreams become reality.

When it was all over, you felt like you wanted to hug everyone around you, we were somehow closer, as if after having experienced a trip to the moon and making it back alive.

For me, it reinstated my own path of creating events that unify the crowds, takes them to other worlds, in a night of experiencing beauty in all forms.

Thank you Anastazia, you bring light and magic into a world that craves raw expression. You made my night, my week, my month and probably my year.

Here's to you and all the other people out there who take their craft deep into the imagination, unabashedly using talent and skill to create the un-creatable. You empower us all to live our life to the fullest and cloak ourselves as the kings and queens that we are.

Best of all, you took an ordinary night and made it extraordinary. You are a magician, you are Ix Chel the Mayan Goddess of Creativity, the dreamer, the artist who out of nothing makes something. From the malaise you awaken us; you startle us, frighten us in beauty, daring us to pinch ourselves, wondering where you came from, the tribe we strayed from, the lost city that birthed us and now is found again. Thank you.

Her blogs are great too, check them out at: http://people.tribe.net/stazia

Recycling not just for Clothing but a Way of Life

This week I have been away in San Diego visiting family, so things are a little slow in the studio. One thing I am really learning about is that the fallow times are just as important for the artist as the making times. Taking time off to relax and do other things actually allows more creativity to flow through you, fresh ideas to inspire you and new energy to fuel you.

I want to take this time to talk a bit about living a conscious life outside of the studio, and resources to apply to your everyday life outside of fashion.

One of the ways I was able to revisit the fashion/clothing world was to find a context within it that I could believe in. Creating clothing just for it's own sake is fine, but in order to motivate this whole process I needed more of a sense of mission, I needed to see how through my craft I could bring positive change to the world. This way, my art can be true to my values.

Part of Vagadu's social mission is to use creative re-use to break the cycle of constantly purchasing and discarding endemic to America's consumer-driven culture.

Magazines like ReadyMade and Craft are great publications because they challenge their readers to get creative, crafty and prove that great design doesn't cost a fortune, in fact it is readily accessible from things that we already have in the home.

VAGADU really isn't just about making fabulous clothes out of next-to-new materials, it is about a way of living that responsibly and creatively deals with our excesses. And if we can't reuse our all of our stuff, how to respectfully dispose of them that is gentle with Mother Earth. Here are some thoughts:

Stop Junkmail before it gets to you! Even though I have made some great cards from terrible magazines that I never ordered, it is better for the planet not to make paper products that go directly into the recycle bin. I signed up for this service and they stop your junkmail and plant trees to offset the effect. The company is called Green Dimes http://www.greendimes.com

If you live in the Bay Area and you have interesting junk that you don't need, a thrift store might not want, you should give it to my favorite place for getting materials for VAGADU called SCRAP (Scroungers resource for reusable art parts). http://www.scrap-sf.org/contacts.htm

From one of my many social networks this recycle resource guide is very helpful for those of us who want to make a difference.

21 Things You Didn't Know You Can Recycle

1. Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800/YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.

2. Batteries: Rechargeables and single-use: Battery Solutions, 734/467-9110, www.batteryrecycling.com.

3. Cardboard boxes: Contact local nonprofits and women's shelters to see if they can use them. Or, offer up used cardboard boxes at your local Freecycle.org listserv or on Craigslist.org for others who may need them for moving or storage. If your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.

4. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they'll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.

5. Clothes: Wearable clothes can go to your local Goodwill outlet or shelter. Donate wearable women's business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs, 212/532-1922, www.dressforsuccess.org. Offer unwearable clothes and towels to local animal boarding and shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding. Consider holding a clothes swap at your office, school, faith congregation or community center. Swap clothes with friends and colleagues, and save money on a new fall wardrobe and back-to-school clothes.

6. Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com .

7. Compostable bio-plastics: You probably won't be able to compost these in your home compost bin or pile. Find a municipal composter to take them to at www.findacomposter.com.

8. Computers and electronics: Find the most responsible recyclers, local and national, at www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html.

9. Exercise videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.

10. Eyeglasses: Your local Lion's Club or eye care chain may collect these. Lenses are reground and given to people in need.

11. Foam packing: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept foam peanuts for reuse. Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site: 800/828-2214. For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, 410/451-8340, www.epspackaging.org/info.html

12. Ink/toner cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1/each.

13. Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people who can use them. Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org listserv, or try giving them away at Throwplace.com or giving or selling them at iReuse.com. iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.

14. Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state: 202/682-8000, www.recycleoil.org.

15. Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell it to someone in a developing country: 770/856-9021, www.collectivegood.com. Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 and gives them to domestic violence victims: www.donateaphone.com. Recycle single-line phones: Reclamere, 814/386-2927, www.reclamere.com.

16. Sports equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet, 800/476-9249, www.playitagainsports.com.

17. "Technotrash": Project KOPEG offers an e-waste recycling program that can help you raise funds for your organization. Use Project KOPEG to recycle iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and chargers, digital cameras, PDAs, palm pilots, and more. Also, easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk's Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees. 800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.

18. Tennis shoes: Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. www.nikereuseashoe.com. One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America, and Haiti. www.oneworldrunning.com.

19. Toothbrushes and razors: Buy a recycled plastic toothbrush or razor from Recycline, and the company will take it back to be recycled again into plastic lumber. Recycline products are made from used Stonyfield Farms' yogurt cups. 888/354-7296, www.recycline.com.

20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25 , call 866/33-TYVEK.

21. Beds and Box Springs: Don't put your bed on the street! For a fee they will come and pick up your old be and boxspring and carefully break them apart to recycle all the materials. http://www.bedbusters.com/

Thanks for reading...let's not feed the landfill monster any longer! If you have any other ideas I have missed, be sure to write me and I will add it to the blog. Happy Creacycling!

Meet the Collaborators

Yeah! The new team has finally formed! As usual, I am blown away by the enthusiasm and excitement by the new ladies who are going to make the Kara Maria Collection a blazing success.

In no particular order....

Milan joins us all the way from University of Cincinnati to do a full-time internship. Lucky for her and us, she is here to spend all of her time dedicated to the development of the collection. Milan has a wild sense of creativity that is playful and mystical. In a Milan-centric world we would all be fantastical creatures fully bedecked and bedazzled. To the right is one of her sketches inspired by the fairy tales from the Czech Republic.

Alix has a BFA from the Academy of Art Alix which means that she has the skills and talent to pull off Vagadu's most wild designs. Born to paint, Alix is a an artist turned designer. Her style brings us classic shapes and lines, eclectic sensibility with a gypsy twist. She is a perfect match for Vagadu because her own designs are already very conceptual. The picture above is part of a collection she created inspired by "Tokyo Rose". Tokyo Rose was imprisoned for 10 years in Japan for treason being a translator at an American radio station in Tokyo during WWII.

Sherry brings a contemporary element to the team. Her sense of taking popular culture and transforming it into very current with-a-twist clothing is remarkable. I also knew we would get a long right away when she confessed her love of vests. It can be an obsession for some (like me). To the right she shows off her passion for nail art, which again is a contemporary form of self expression that continues to evolve. Maybe our dancers need to have original Kara Maria inspired acrylic nails! Hmmmm.....


Megan is a sewer with a passion. She has taken the Fashion Degree at SF State and has squeezed it for as much as she can. From a program that is more focused on merchandising, Megan has taken the opportunity to create and excel as a designer with innovative and creative ideas without strong support from the institute. When she came to the interview she brought a dress made out of deflated street-bike tires. It was totally crazy and brilliant. After seeing that I knew that no request I could possibly make would make her flinch. The photo to the right is one of my favorite of the designs she showed me. It is a dress where she cut the flowers out of the fabric and made the blouse portion from a strategic applique process. Just lovely!

Angela is as bright as the colors she chooses to work with. Her designs are exuberant, retro, flamboyant and decadent and at times almost like Versace on steroids. Not only did I know she would be fit because of her wild flare, but also her knowledge and passion for dying and manipulating fabric. She knows all the different techniques for changing color and texture of the cloth. Since the Kara Maria line will be very textile design heavy Angela offers us the skills we need to create what we desire. The bright colored photo to the right is one of her hand dyed batik prints.

Reemah is a woman who will try anything. She is the first person to bring in undergarments as a portfolio example. She has been studying how to make lingerie and nightwear. Since Kara Maria has a heavy pornography element, it is possible that we would make some creative slips and boxers. With Reemah's ability and experience in this realm I feel comfortable proceeding in areas never explored yet with Vagadu. To the right is a picture of some of Reemah's other creations besides sleepwear.

What a team! Thanks to the talent and inexhaustible creativity, this next Vagadu line is going to knock people's socks off... be prepared!

Spring 2008 Artist Announced!

I am delighted to announce the muse for the next VAGADU collection. San Francisco's own Kara Maria. More details to be found out about her at her site: www.karamaria.com.

First, I was drawn to Kara's work through her unabashed use of bright colors, bold shapes and abstract themes.
But slowly, I realized that her style of pop-graphics, cluttered scapes and cheery and cheery tones had put me in trance, and I was actually finding some heavier political messages. Don't let the Rainbow Bright palette fool you, Kara is exploring intense elements of our society where war, oil, destruction of our planet and porn are fed to us through a glossy filter of mainstream media.

Her art shocks and disturbs and for a moment I thought I might not be able to work with such dark energies. From Rex the king of Zen, to Kara is a leap in the opposite direction. While I want to be true to her work, my own differences of artistic expression is to extract the positive aspects of her art that appeal to me, that I would want worn around my body. For instance, I love the way she manipulates paint, from watery spreads, to drips, dots, splotches, gloppy smears to faint markings. I also enjoy certain reoccurring shapes, the birds, planes, and the Islamic inspired tiles that grace many of her works.

The dancers and performers I believe will have a lot more space to explore Kara's angst and juxtaposition of guns, and oil tanks, of naked women and women in burqas.

On another positive note, the Kara Maria collection is also going to be the first time that the whole process will be visually documented. It helps that she and the whole production crew isn't 1,000 miles away so as each element of the show gets put together, the clothes, the dance, the music, the stage--we will be there documenting the process.

Except for the food. Chef Efrain Cuevas will still be bringing us his delicious treats, but he will send us video via Chicago as he prepares for the big day.

(More information on the next show is forthcoming. Save the date of May 3rd!)

Reflections on Chicago Show

It is the holiday season so like most of the Western World, I've been taking a little vacation. It is time well spent recovering from the Chicago fashion show, prepping for the next and giving myself space to have some objectivity about the whole thing.

Chicago was nothing if not an experience. I undertook the challenge of fashion-at-a-distance with enthusiasm and great expectation. It was a chance to see my dream become reality in a town where I don't have my usual support network. All things considered, it was definitely a success.

I knew going in that this event would succeed or fail on the strengths of the supporting cast, and in here, this show was blessed with star performances. Some of the major highlights were set and event design, amazing dance/fashion performance, live art by Rex and delicious tasting menu.

The sets which were designed and constructed by Beth Gatza, Alex Lesniewski and Stanley Lesniewski turned out amazing! Beth and Alex really put themselves out there 150% to create a beautiful space and stage. The Orphanage is already inviting, if slightly chaotic. Beth went in and rearranged the furniture to create lounges, a bar and a VIP area which brought some tasteful organization to the space. For the stage, she and Alex created 8ft high light boxes that had tree silhouettes (in line with the whole "tree theme" at the Orphanage). These light boxes also allowed for the dancer's silhouettes to cast shadows which added extra ambiance and beauty. Lastly, was the elegant runway they constructed. Lastly, Beth and Alex teamed up to construct an elegant runway illuminated with under lights to add extra magic to the dancers.

Rex himself brought another dynamic element to the evening. He decorated the whole room with his art, which was so sweet to see in person after all these months of experiencing his art through computer printouts and screens. To me, the ultimate joy of art is being with it, seeing the brushstrokes on the painting, seeing it on the wall, and in context to all the other work.

Among his world of paintings, Rex started the evening painting on a original VAGADU dress/jacket. He accompanied that with a canvas he brought along to simultaneously do a live painting too. This aspect of the event turned out well, as it was yet another part of the evening that people were able to be part of and bare witness to art in progress.

Of course, the zenith of all the hard work and months of labor was the dance performance/fashion show. The dancers; Julie Haller, Allisa Zee Hartmann, Cindy Huston, Myah Shein, Lenah Parsons, Johannah Wininsky, Carlyle Wycykal choreographed by Mary S. Burns, took my heart away with the movement and energy that they brought to the room and the clothing.

For me, the most beautiful aspects of the experience were the last minute changes that conspired to create something different than I had imagined. This was so moving because I saw the event take on a life of its own while becoming reality. I thought the dancers would emerge from Rex's projected paintings, at a certain time to demonstrate the inspiration that lead to the garments evolution. This was not to be. The girls began the dance in the audience in their own attire, danced their way up to the stage and gradually-- one girl at a time--got into their first VAGADU outfit. Eventually, all the girls were in VAGADU designs and running around interacting with each other as different Rex paintings flashed behind them on a slide show. One of my favorite pieces also happened to fit me like a glove so I decided that I should wear it and it would give me an opportunity to be part of the performance that I worked so hard to see to fruition.

Overall, it was a lovely night, one that likely no one will forget. With amazing treats to tantalize the bellies of the guest by Chefrain, a visual spectacle that was a feast for the eyes, and movement bearing clothes that left you feeling like you really experienced Rex and his world expressed by so many other artists through their mediums.





To see more photos click here: Photo set 1, photo set 2, photo set 3.