Monthly Archives: February 2021

……………………………Before the day escapes me…….I want to wish you all a…………..HAPPY VALENTINE’s DAY!

…………………November 06 was a Holiday group. I always tried to get my Holiday clothes shown as early as they would let me, because the Holidays started with Thanksgiving…NOT CHRISTMAS! I wanted to make sure there was plenty of time to get them delivered….though I don’t remember deliveries then being the problem they are today. The first jacket at the lower left came right off my Anne Klein runway. That’s Christy Turlington, [at the height of her career], wearing the suit from my Anne Klein look book. The original fabric was again made from a company that made many of Chanel’s fabrics, but this time the company surprisingly was in Scotland. It was always fun to visit this particular mill. The outside looked like buildings you would expect to find in Scotland or something out of some old novel like Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.  They were old stone buildings with sheep in the meadow….It was almost too bucolic….but once inside it was like Santa’s work shop. All of the different types of yarns….wool of all kinds, angoras, and mohair, and all the fancy yarns that were made by spinning different yarns together. Then there were the FANCIES…..the lurex and tinsel  yarns. I loved working with these men and women, and could listen to all of their accents…..much better than my NY accent. The fabric I used for AK had a high percentage of the tinsel yarn that made the fabric glitter…..Of course the fabric I used for Linea had a lot less tinsel in it, but still looked pretty good! I was able to use a nice rhinestone button in glass on the jacket and not a plastic one! The CAD indicates that there was also a solid skirt that went with the jackets, but I don’t remember the fabric]. The scoop neck stretch velvet top at the center top had bracelet length sleeves and went with the velvet skirt that had a fabulous wide border of large and small “dancing ” sequins with bugle beads. The dancing sequins had one hole at the edge so they weren’t sewn FLAT. They moved and fluttered when you walked…..and there were LOTS OF THEM!…[sometimes the descriptions on the sketches, like fabric suggestions, were changed in the process]……The last jacket at the upper right was very beautiful and had a somewhat period look because it buttoned high. It was in a beautiful rayon crushed velvet, and it had DTM satin trims…….The large round glass buttons had sun ray facets so they really glittered. It came in a beautiful deep MAGENTA ….a beautiful deep ROYAL PURPLE [a real purple not royal blue above] and BLACK………..the photos do the colors absolutely no justice.

Have you checked out the President’s Day Jewelry Sales. I believe Sunday will have Free Shipping & Handling so check it out. The silver will be reduced too!

…………………..The Sept 06 TSV was an embroidered Wool Boucle jacket with emb………My embroidered boucle jackets were by now highly anticipated and were quickly becoming collectors items. The coordinating TN and sweater knit pencil skirt were the upsells. I believe they were in a wool and acrylic blend…………The emb. was truly exquisite. The type of emb. is called “Bundle Thread”, because there are many threads  that make up each longish stitch…The colors were BLACK, DARK JADE and CLARET RED, and each jacket had different color emb.

………………..Sept 06 was chocked full of fabulous things!!!!!! Starting at the lower left was a fabulous suede jacket that came in the most beautiful GOLDENROD color and BLACK. It had a jewel neckline that had an opening which created a V, and came down and kissed just above the waist line. There was a slight cutaway to the bottom. By making the closure above the waist and not at the waist allowed me to make the bottom half of the jacket longer in proportion that the top which ALWAYS makes you look longer and leaner.The jacket had TWO BODY SEAMS in the front and two seams in the back. The fact that it was real suede meant that I had to have horizontal seams for the size of the skins. Instead of doing them the usual way by just making horizontal cuts I decided to make them all on a slant creating Vs which also helped me to give the jacket a certain shape, and also made the body look longer and slimmer. It had a self suede tie closing which was attached on one side so you couldn’t lose it! I had done a very similar jacket to this at Anne Klein and Jac still had it. I brought it in to Elaine for her to see the very special grommet. It was not your typical punched on grommets with prongs in the back….oh no not for me…..The one I used for the AK jacket was hardware used for bags….expensive hand bags. The front and back looked the same with full metal grommets…only prongs didn’t keep in on the jacket. These special grommets screwed on with tiny screws. Elaine looked at me like I had ten heads!!! I remember her saying we aren’t doing couture with hand screwed grommets!!!!! It was actually very funny…..We had to send Jac’s jacket over so they could see the grommet with the screws! As it turned out it wasn’t as difficult as we thought it would be. Within  two weeks they returned Jac’s jacket with samples of “The Grommet” screwed into pieces of suede for us to look at. The jacket was done…….The sweater set, cardigan and short sleeve shell had gold metal studs all over it with small gold buttons down the front that looked like the studs. Jac and I loved this set and she wore it a lot…..It came in BLACK and CLARET RED both with gold studs…….The jacket above was a zip front velour jacket that had very dimensional horizontal TRAPUNTO STITCHING at the hems of the jacket and the sleeves. It came in BLACK and a beautiful vivid VIOLET………The next sweater jacket was the WINNER OF THE SHOW!! It was a wool OTTOMAN STITCH cardigan. An ottoman stitch is a horizontal rib. It is as dimensional as the gauge and yarn it is made in. These were made on 5 gauge machines so the rib was pronounced……I made the GOLD NUGGET BUTTON to go with them….This was a sweater I had done for Anne Klein in fabulous colors with the same gold nugget buttons. The cardigan had band knit pocket set in on a slant for easy entrance…. The colors were bright and pure [the swatches above photographed are pale except for the red]. …..RED, BLACK, ROYAL BLUE and KELLY GREEN were the colors and all sold out in a flash…..Needless to say these were reordered for two or three more years! The blouse to the right was made in a beautiful silk crepe georgette. It had a lovely small collar and beautiful stitched down pleats in the front. The sleeves had shirring in the cap and the full bottoms were shirred into French cuffs. Tiny faux shell buttons closed the front placket…….The next jewel neck, elbow sleeve sweater was made in one of my most favorite fancy stitches. It is called “Frosted Flowers”, and hand knitters know it well. It has old world charm…….,A knit pant was part of this group…..The BOHO tiered skirt below was made in my original RAYON/SILK crushed velvet. It was light and silky….a true designer fabric….unfortunately when the silk prices escalated it was another fabric we couldn’t use…For those of you who still may have this skirt you have something very special. Today crushed velvet is made out of polyester or maybe a blend of rayon and poly We did the skirt in BLACK, CLARET RED and VIOLET to work with the sweaters and blouses. The black skirt look fantastic with the gold grommet suede jacket and a black TN. It would look just as fabulous now………FIFTEEN YEARS LATER!