A Stitch at a Time

Hell-o!

Hell’o’snow it is! and I’m loving every snow flake!

So once again, and again, and again, it’s New York Fashion Week time and as always I’m a small cog in the ticking clock of style.

I’ve worked for Custo Barcelona fittings for the last three or so years and it’s always hard work and long hours altering the clothes for the models so they look spotless on the runway. In the background: PR people calling to RSVP guests and inviting celebrities to feature front row. Press from everywhere come and interview the designer and us ‘tailors’! Last year I was interviewed! I felt so important! 😉 Who knows where they were from, the thing is that you see people with cameras speaking in different languages, pretty fun.

Besides Custo I’ve been working on the collection for the company I work for, I mean, my serious job, and I can’t wait for the show to happen! I really want to see how everything looks together! I must say that I really love the fabrics and in my head, if I were the stylist, I’d present it on male models! Hehehehee, I guess I think way out of the box….you’ll see why when I post the pictures soon. A little hint?…

Anyway…

I like the process of design and production of the collections and the thrill of the ephemeral runway. Though these days I’ve got the sulks. Pretty much because I think too much for my own good and try to live an honest life.

I couple months ago I started reading a book: Overdressed, by Elizabeth L. Cline, in which she basically talks about the unfair trade of the mass-produced-clothing for the fast-fashion-business.

Last year women in the UK claimed to had found a hand-stitched note attached to a label of a dress asking for help and denouncing the bad conditions factory workers had to endure in order, for big retail corporations, to profit at large from the production and selling of clothes. Factory workers that make way less than minimum wage and have to work overtime with no benefits and under ridiculous deadlines.

I can’t help to be a Debbie Downer here, I can’t un-see the words, forget the facts, pretend reality is different, and focus just in the fun part of this game. I wish I were more cynical in that sense. I have mixed feelings, but in the other hand I see hope. Not the hope that the system is going to change and that people will be fairly paid and treated with respect (we can only wish). But my hope resides in a new endeavour I just started.

I love designing and sewing and as I mentioned in previous posts I felt the need to be a part of a community of makers, dress-makers! I started a new blog, sewing related only and contacted some bloggers and Facebook groups that think somehow like me. We all enjoy being productive, we all have the passion of sewing and most of us have the attitude to prefer making, if not all, some of our clothes so we are a little bit less part of the fast fashion frenzy.

I found this website www.slowfashioned.com with a lot of interesting information and found some great motivation to get more organised and productive sewing wise. I joined the Stashbusting Sewalong 2015 and well, I think it is a great re-set mode to move on a fulfilling direction.

Let’s at least inform ourselves, shop local or even better, learn how to sew!

Knowledge is power!

Thanks for stopping by 😉