New York's gone Mad!!

The new season premiere of MadMen is upon us!  For those of you who don't watch the show, MadMen is an AMC Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series. The provocative drama takes place in the 1960s in NYC following the lives of men and women in the cut throat advertising business on Madison Avenue.

MadMen is sexy, witty, and highly addictive.  Not to mention, the costumes are incredible.




Filled to the brim with sharp suits, quips, and banter, the show has inspired the present world of fashion.  Banana Republic recently jumped on board to recreate the show's style in it's own Mad Men clothing line.

The premiere is this Sunday!  You can go watch the screening July 25th at 10pm in Times Square.  Dress to impress in your 60s attire for the pre-screening costume contest at 7pm.  You can trust i'll be there.


Alix :)

Pleats Please!

From high fashion to home fashion, pleats are among my favorite and most versatile design accents. I pulled a few inspirational swipes to get my creativity flowing...

You can find them in sophisticated gowns and little girls' tea party dresses.

 

 

Accessories and jewelry couldn't do without them either.

They have even made their way into home accessories.

So add some frills to your life! Want to know how? Stay tuned for Monday's posting when I make a pleated kitchen cover-up!

Happy Sewing!

-Katie

Textile Tuesdays: Sub Saharan Africa

 Tribal Drum Performance

Last Fall I had the opportunity to study in Ghana.   Their colorful fashions perfectly suit their vibrant and open minded culture. The fabrics they wear are intricate and beautiful to look at, but the meanings behind them go far deeper.  The cloth weaving process is very spiritual.  Certain ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa believe that weaving should  be done only in daylight hours because to work at night would be to weave silence and darkness into the cloth.  Unique patterns also identify different tribes.

Ghanaian woman selling textiles

Kente cloth, the most famous of Ghanaian cloths, is a type of silk fabric made of interwoven cloth strips.  It is a royal and sacred cloth worn only in times of extreme importance.

Weaving the Kente cloth

                                   Finished Kente cloth

Each color of Kente cloth has a different symbolic meaning:

Black- Maturity
Blue- Harmony
Green- Spiritual Renewal
Gold- Spiritual Purity
Grey- Cleansing
Maroon- Healing
Pink-Female essence of life
Purple-Feminine aspects of life
Red-Death
Silver- Joy
White- Festive Occasion
Yellow- Fertility

Titi Ademola, a Nigerian/Ghanaian fashion designer, works with Ghanaian influences to create her pieces.  Look at her collection.

Alix :)

The Apron

As our first craft show of the summer draws near, production has been in a bit of a frenzy in our final stretch to the finish line.  We have been washing, cutting, pressing, sewing aprons and aprons and aprons oh my!

With the many aprons passing through my fingers, I couldn't resist thinking about their history.  How many other women have been in the same place I am at this moment, sewing straps and pockets.  Did they create their own patterns?  What kind of fabrics and trims did these women use?

So let the search begin...

The aprons of Victorian era mimic the fashions of the day and incorporate the same fine fabrics and trims found on the intricate dresses of the day.  

 

The apron made a drastic change in the 1920s reflecting the simplistic fashions of the time.  The fine fabric is no where to be seen and the trims are replaced by simple style lines and a long sash to secure the apron.  Functionality was the name of the game at the this time for aprons.

The aprons of the 1940s and 1950s sported brightly colored printed fabrics and ric rac trimmings.  Utility and functionality still came first but with a playful twist on the design.

all apron images from Ageless Patterns

I love looking through the pages of fashion history.  It's both telling of the times and quite inspiring for this Brooklyn seamstress.

Happy Sewing!

-Katie