Very Cool Bay Area Designer

Innovation and creativity abound in the Bay Area...

http://www.cariborja.com/Home.html

Christmas Stockings from Wool Remnants

As we all know in the fashion industry, we usually have remnants from our various design work - Here is what I do with my vintage and post-consumer wool fabric remnants, also incorporating old buttons. I sell these 'one-off' stockings during Christmas, and I design and manufacture all stockings in the U.S.A...

keep an eye out for a list of stores for this year!

This year, I will also include stockings for our barking and meowing friends!

Oh, and the best part: "malvar home" donates a portion of each stocking sale, after taxes, to local charitable organizations.

Help support this small effort in keeping remnants out of our landfills!

NY Fashion Week

NY Fashion Week is in September!

Here's a nice link that features nice coverage of the different events and shows:

http://www.chiff.com/fashion/new-york-fashion-week.htm

Rainer Wolter

Wow, check out this NYC designer who has turned a bunch of discarded umbrellas (which we've all seen just laying around our neighborhoods) into a true work of 'fashion art'...the interview with him is charming too...

http://www.girlsgonestyled.tv/episode/GGS_20070820

Project "Ida"

I've finished my latest major project - no, I'm still writing my thesis.

I have had the joy and honour of redesigning this wedding gown by Pronovias for a dear friend!

Here are some photos courtesy of Bliss Photography

(for more, see blissblog.squarespace.com).

I altered...well, really more like 'reconstructed' it from a size 10 down to a size 0 (had to take in 12 inches alone from the front side seam to side seam). I replaced the original lace around the top of the bodice to one I found in nyc's fashion district, I reshaped the back into a soft v and added satin buttons. I used the same lace when making the veil, and mimicked the beading on the dress. I also changed the silhouette into a trumpet silhouette, and of course hemmed it (reshaping the sides into the train).

These were all details that the bride wanted for her "dream gown", and I was very excited to be able to furnish them for her!

It was an intense project, but the bride was happy which is what mattered the most, and as a bonus, I found so much joy in sharing my God-given gifts!

little malvar

Here are a couple of old designs from my little malvar collection of one-of-a-kind children's coats. My lil models are Eve, which is also the name of the coat, and Michael who is my Godson's little brother...cute aren't they?!!

Eloquence

"An artist's warehouse, full of experience, is not a store of successful phrases, ready for use, but is a store of raw material. The successful phrases are there, but they have been broken down to be made over into new form. Those who have the will to create do not care to use old phrases. There is a great pleasure in the effort to invent the exact thing which is needed. Use it. Break it down. Begin again. It is a great thing to be able to see. Seeing is without limit. It is a great thing when one has a fair measure of seeing. Then to invent the means of expressing it. To be a master of technique rather than to be the owner of a lot of it. Those who simply collect technique have at best only a second-hand lot.
A great artist is one who says as nearly what he means as his powers of invention allow."

Robert Henri