At NeoCon on the 10th Floor
21.05.2013 § Leave a comment
We will be meeting many, many people at NeoCon this year. I’ve been going in and out of the Merchandize Mart nearly a third of my life; this NeoCon I will probably meet more people than the sum of all the past years combined. At least I hope so.
NeoCon feels like a big party for our industry. I once heard a young party-loving girl say, “to go to a party is to see and be seen.” That “to be seen” part was new to me since I have never thought that way. In this case, to open a new showroom on the 10th floor of the Merchandise Mart is for sure an action “to be seen.”
There is a sense of confidence in taking this stride. It is important enough to benchmark Brentano’s history. We are excited about the opportunity to exhibit our style—yet nervous about the amount of work we have to put in to reach our goals. I am sure there is hard work ahead of us from here on out, but this leap will strengthen our capacity to design. I shall open my arms to greet the challenge, or I shall wither with the comfort of an easy career.
Patching Meditation
02.05.2013 § Leave a comment
I don’t know when people stopped learning how to sew. I guess when ready-to-wear became a common thing, maybe after World War II? I wonder how many young people nowadays know how to do the simplest sewing?
During my childhood, when I visited my grandparents with my siblings and cousins, we would run around their house playing like wild kids. One time my grandmother held me down to show me how to sew up a split pair of pants. She showed me the step-back stitch, a stitch technique that would make a strong seam. I was fascinated and learned it with great interest. That was my only official sewing lesson, but I still use the technique whenever I need something firmly sewn.
The other day I was mumbling that I needed to buy another pair of winter trousers, the kind made of wool with a lining to keep me warm in the coldest winter. My husband went to my other closet and pulled out a whole bunch of trousers and asked me what I was planning to do with those. « Read the rest of this entry »
Woven-Words 