We came across a new Tumblr last week: Fuck Yeah Made in USA. We are thankful A Continuous Lean is taking the time and effort to share with us the fact that American-made fashion, though scarce, still exists. Call us crazy (we don’t mind!), but we believe that fashion businesses can be created and sustained right in your own community. Yes, we know there is a whole fashion system out there doing it’s own thing, with it’s own rules. But when places like Frock, a.k.a Darling Headquarters, can thrive … well it proves to us that the local system is working. Have a moment with us in this video tour of of our own happy, home factory and see howMergirl and Whosiepie are defying odds in Chester, CT.
We’re creating a model for sustainable design education that doesn’t yet exist.
Eeeeek! We are late and we are sorry! We meant to shout out this amazing campaign sooner, and here we are in the last hours. No matter, get over to IndieGoGo and support these darlings if you can. Bahar Shahpar and Tara St. James, of Guilded, are building a structure for all surrounding sustainability in fashion design. Yes, they aim to give us a language we can all speak together. Read on about where these ideas were born in this great interview at Ecouterre. Oh, and don’t miss the perks come along with your donation!
If you watched the video, you already know a little bit about us and what brought us here. After years of working in the fashion industry, we realized what a destructive impact the clothing and textile industry can have on communities, environments and economies around the world, so we committed ourselves to researching and promoting sustainable design as a solution.
The image at bottom is blurry – yes, and so are the memories of Iceland Fashion Week a few years ago when we first learned of Brazilian independent designer Helen Rodel. Her inspiration and vision, however, is crystal clear. Thanks to Not Just A Label you can be transported right into her studio and drink that inspiration up via this video below. This one is not to be missed darlings, grab your favorite beverage and take the time to watch.
Oh glorious are those who support emerging, local fashion designers! We are thrilled forCheryl and Marc Maleh who successfully funded their idea for L.E.S. Runway on Kickstarter mid-June. If you are a NYC designer in any of the five boroughs, check this out! Get to know their vision better in Cheryl’s video, then see if you fit the requirements over on the full application page on the Grand Opening website (only a one-time $15 fee). We’d love to be coming to your show this September!
About this project
Part fashion showcase, part pop-up shop, LES Runway brings the runway to the downtown scene. It is an opportunity for emerging, local fashion designers to present their work on the catwalk, display the same creations in a pop-up store and interact with the general public in a truly creative and unique fashion setting. Grand Opening will reinvent itself by day as a boutique storefront where patrons will have the chance to purchase select items straight off the runway and by night as the most intimate, interactive runway ever to hit New York.
My name is Cheryl Maleh, and I am working with Grand Opening to bring LES Runway to life for the month of September 2011. Runway shows will take place throughout the weekends, and a different designer or group of designers will be featured each night. We are looking for designers who live and work in one of the five boroughs to be considered. Designers who back this project with a small contribution of $12 will have their application fee waived. Participating designers will be chosen from these applications by a select group of established local designers and industry professionals.
If we had the magical power to shrink ourselves down to mini-Darlings (Incredible Shrinking Darlings?) … we would have hopped into the suitcase of independent designer Karelle Levy this weekend and gone to Berlin for Bread & Butter. Watch this B&B video to learn all about their history and feel like you are there too. Happy Friday darlings!
BERLIN BREAD and BUTTER
July 5 – 8, KRELwear designer Karelle Levy is pleased to announce her participation at the Bread and Butter Sport and Street Dessert Land from July 5-8, 2011. An installation with her signature Quickie Couture project encourages audience participation, while KRELԳ DiscGlo Party Girls for the trade showԳ opening reception promises pure entertainment.
Happy Friday Darlings! This news is a few days old but we like to start Friday off with a little giddy cheering (or squealing if you are TrishDarling). Frock — the home of Smashing Darling, TrishDarling’s line Mergirl, and the fab Whosiepie as well — took a lovely 2nd place in the E-List’s CT Shoreline Readers Poll for Best Women’s Clothing! Yahooooo! Darling Dina Varano also took 2nd for Best Jewelry along with a bunch of other favorite shoreline spots for vintage, food, and more – see the entire list here.
In case we have thoroughly confused you about how Frock and Smashing Darling are one…just watch this video below…
As the slow cloth/fashion movement grows alongside the development of even higher-tech fabrics, textiles will become even more enmeshed in our daily lives. Read more…
We stumbled upon this post from Sarah Scaturro in response to a video interview (below) where trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort entertains the notion of textile extinction. Can you even imagine a world without textiles? If you can, please…stop. We may have a itty-bitty darling tantrum, and you don’t want to see that. (Please don’t make TrishDarling cry…) We just can’t believe that textiles are going extinct; we have to believe textiles are in a state of transformation, a re-birth if you will. We hope you will *believe right along with us. For magical inspiration, let’s go full circle back to the initiative curated by Lidewij Edelkoort: Talking Textiles. If you are in NYC, don’t miss the Knoll Textiles at Bard Graduate Center.
How many graphic tee shirts do you own? Where did you buy them? Do you know who designed and printed the image on your favorite tee? For about the first year Smashing Darling existed we had a bit of collaborative fun with young designers for our SMASH UP printmaking project. We bought the tees (or undies, or onesies); the students came up with a design and did all of the printing. All of these products are now for sale in the Student SMASH UP store. Mickey Zacchilli was one of our Darling collaborators back then and it was great to get in the studio with her now in this video below. Thanks to the Providence handmade darlings at Craftland for sharing the screen-printing studio love!
Fashion reality shows move into the Facebook realm and Fashionably Marketing has the story. As fashion becomes more accessible and possible to design and manufacture anywhere … small niche fashion industries are popping up in cites and towns everywhere. This is a dream for independent designers not located in or near NYC, the capitol in U.S. fashion. They no longer have to pack up and move to the city to live their dream. Kenmore recognized this and decided to have their reality fashion show take place in Chicago, shedding even more light on independent designers in the Chicago area. One of the contestants, Anna Hovet, is also a darling designer and we are so happy for her. She won the first design challenge that was more of a styling challenge to some. But not to Hovet, she rocked the design of the outfit she created without one stitch from her machine in sight. We love how sure she is in all of her answers. There is a lot to be learned by watching her. She answers with confidence that is never cocky. It is very clear she knows who she is and what her style is. Enjoy the first video below, and tune in on Thursdays for more. #VoteHovet!
