Collage, Collage, Collage

Besides creating clothing, collage is probably my next favorite artistic medium. In many ways I approach clothing design much like making a collage....except that it must be made of materials that you want to put on the body. This creates fun constraints--for me! However,in the end the freedom allowed in collage is very rejuvenating.

A little side note about me is that I almost never--might I dare say NEVER---buy greeting cards. I have almost always made them myself, and use birthday, holiday greetings as a great excuse to get to collaging.

Therefore, I thought I would post one of my most recent letters. This one was made for the artist Nick Cave (one of my personal heroes) and I decided to finally write him to tell him how much I appreciate what he brings to the world.


Pictured here is the front and back of the card. I ended up writing on it, but I photographed it in its pure form.

I also had a great deal of fun creating the envelope. I used a pair of denim pants as the container and I used my sewing machine to embroider the addresses. It was a bit tedious, but I really like the result. For the name "Nick Cave" I used a freestyle sewing foot which allowed me to create the name in a more organic form, in comparison to the the programed address part.

If you like what you see click HERE to see other collages by me.

Varda's Women: The first dress

Over the last two weeks the interns and I have been working on creating the first dress of the new collection. The new line is called "Varda's Women" I love the name and it perfectly describes the way Varda adored women in both his artwork and life.

Dora--one of the interns--chose which of the sketches she wanted to start draping. This dress (which still needs a title) is a fun way to start, since the cut on it is pretty straight forward and the construction on it should be less demanding than others.

What I like about this dress is the way it juxtaposes soft and hard elements. For example, the bust of the dress uses softer repetitive shapes within shapes (although most people assume they are rosettes) that weave their way around the body. From the empire waist down, the dress breaks out into a series of triangle sets that fall down the body to the mid-calf.

The hardest part about this dress has been making the shapes around the bust. Catherine and Jesse (more interns) spent over 13 hours just playing with ideas of how to achieve the look I wanted.

The idea for the top area is based on the way Varda incorporates multi-layered shapes in the bust area. As you can see in the collage shown below, there are multiple circles covering the chest of the middle figure. How we translate this concept hasn't been easy. After some experimentation, we found a wearable version of the concept. Basically, we are using smaller and softer circles traveling around the top of the dress.

We are planning on iterating this pattern over the top of the dress. The finished product will be quite a bit more complex than what we have now. I'm excited to see what kinds of color combinations will make up the other circles here. I'm interested to see how this abstract element can be emphasized with color.

Workshop #2: Menswear

This second workshop was so much fun. We met at Angela's house to rework some men's shirts a la Kara Maria. I was able to pick up some men's tops in fun colors along with some vests that we could add fun elements to add to its brightness and playfulness that is key to Kara's artwork and as rumor has it....men are looking for in their clothes!

So, as is the typical format for our workshops we start off by hanging up a certain number of Kara's paintings and start playing with adding to the garments different elements of fabric paint, fabric pens, fabric swatches that we cut into special shapes, and went to town.

It reminded me of the craft table at daycare where materials were abundant and we were told to go crazy and create. I played the role of the counselor who encouraged everyone to keep going, keep adding. Like many of Kara's paintings, it is about layering and layering again. Adding to a certain aspect of excess or as I see it, abundance.

What I love about these workshops are the techniques you learn. For instance, Alix had an idea of cutting up a potato to use as a stamp. She ended up creating a very neat gun stamp from the root that worked out really nice.

Then Angela had a brilliant idea of using an eraser as a way to embellish shapes into thicker fabric like a velvet vest we had on hand. She cut out a star design of an eraser then to place the eraser design under the right side of the fabric, and press it with a hot iron for 3-5 seconds. The end result is an "imprint" of the design in the fabric. It looks great.

Overall, the things we produced were really fun and it got all our juices flowing for the next few weeks of producing before the big show. Time is ticking and we have a lot more creating to to do in the meantime which also bring me to the point of.....tixs are now on sale so get yours while they are still available....it will be a show you won't want to miss!