PinkyShears

Exciting news from our sister site, WouldYouRockThis.com

On January 11th, 2011, WYRT won a PowerUp! grant.

Fashion Illustration Portfolio Review:  Tips You Can Use

by Caroline Brown, handbag designer for Rosetti Lei & Fung and Brandon Graham, WouldYouRockThis.com brand manager.

Join us for Fashion Drawing Session next month and get feedback on your portfolio.

How To Find Production Sourcing Overseas

Fashion Illustration As A Visual Merchandising Tool

I stumbled across these fashion illustrations last week in the windows of The Plaza Boutique and Barami. To be honest the Barami selection needed some improvement – the illustration style was very elementary.  I took pics with my cell phone.  Here’s what I saw.  What do you think?

Hella interviews Helen Breger about her life: from Fashion Illustrations to Fine Arts

This interview was so inspiring and sparked so many ideas in my head.  Looking forward to contacting Hella and Helen.

What you can learn from a children’s book illustrator.

Silent James from http://silentjames.com/ spoke yesterday at FIT about knowing your audience. This is an excerpt from a lecture titled: Three Top Illustrators Share “How I Got My First Job.”

Introducing Lara Bly, Designer and Illustrator.  Part 1

Designer and Illustrator, Lara Bly

Studying fashion design and marketing at the American Intercontinental University in London, then living and working in cities like Beirut and Los Angeles as well as New York gives Lara Bly a uniquely cosmopolitan perspective on the business of fashion. She has held a supervisory position at Sacrosanct, a company based in London and Beirut. She is developing her own fashion line for women. Lara Bly and her husband share a studio in the Banana Factory, a Pennsylvania art space supporting local creativity. She shared some of her thoughts with PinkyShears about the fashion industry, aesthetics, and getting a business started, as well as her insights fabric sourcing.

About Lara

Lara Bly Collection

Lara is developing her own line of women’s clothing, in addition to doing fashion design and fashion illustration on a freelance basis. Currently based in Pennsylvania, where she’s from, she has worked in a number of places, including London, where she studied fashion, and Beirut.

She loves color, and envisions her line as “feminine and flirtatious, pretty, floaty, and kind of whimsical,” geared toward women from ages 25 to 45 or so. She likes to add a little sparkle to pieces like evening wear. The next phase would be to have a wholesale collection become more widely available.

Whimsicle. by Lara Bly

Having her own line has been the realization of a dream Lara had nurtured since she was in seventh grade. Laughing, she remembers “I thought I had the best hair in the world, and I thought I had really good taste in clothes to match my beautiful hair. But, looking back, I didn’t really have good taste until I moved to London. And my friends will vouch for me on that one.”

Flat sketches from the Lara Bly Collection

The American Intercontinental University in London was where Lara Bly began her fashion studies in earnest, and formed close, key friendships that continue to this day. Although fashion was her greatest love, she also had an interest in astronomy and history, which she continues to find fascinating. She and her fellow students plunged into hands on classes, like basic sewing. But, like many other designers and industry professionals, Bly says that her professional work experience taught her even more than her studies. Remembering her first job, she is grateful for the guidance they gave “a hardworking young kid, who was trying to learn. So they were willing to let me make a few mistakes, and I got so much practical experience, doing cost sheets and the technical side. I learned flats from Lucinda Lee, my first boss in London. She was very very tough but she was good at what she did, and she was a wonderful teacher.”

Lara Bly Collection

The fashion marketplace was different in Beirut as well. Sacrosanct’s business served a wealthy clientele, both for prêt-a-porter (ready-to-wear) and couture custom gowns. Conventional wisdom in the fashion industry says that it is almost impossible to make money off couture gowns, but Bly found that Sacrosanct’s gowns, the product of several weeks of hands-on labor, could cost $16,000 to make, and, marked up, would still turn a profit. “I mean, you could buy a dress at retail for $5000 to $10,000.  You’re making good money. It was really beautiful, really expensive clothes, but it was in Beirut, and the market didn’t really translate to New York. You’ve got to understand where you are.  You’re in the Middle East.  You’re in Lebanon.  You’re at a place where not just Lebanese people are coming.  You have people from Kuwait, Saudi, all these women with major money, and they’re coming to Lebanon to shop.  They’re coming to get gowns. So, they’re coming to us.  They’re going to Abed Mahfouz.  They’re going to Elie Saab.  They’re not just going to one couturier.  They’re going to all the couturiers.  You see what I mean?”

[Click Here for Part 2]

What It’s Like Designing Your Own Line.  Lara Bly, Designer and Illustrator Explains.  Part 2

Lara sourcing fabrics for a client at Mood Fabrics in NYC's garment district

Her experience working for others as well as starting her own line makes Lara Bly a great resource for beginning designers.  Beginning to work on her own line, she remembers, called on skills she hadn’t used in a while.  “It was a big change after having patternmakers and machinists working for me at Sacrosanct. It took a while to remember what I knew about sewing. I was rusty, but it came back quickly. It took me a while to transition away from Sacrosanct’s way of doing things,” she remembers. “I would call them up, and ask ‘could you get me in touch with those people who did the beading?’ or try to track down my old favorite machinist.  It was like I was teaching myself all over again to do patterns.”

She remembers it took her a while to trust her design instinct as well. “I didn’t know who I was anymore as a designer, because I had gotten so used to designing for other people for so long. I didn’t like the first few pieces I was doing. They weren’t bad sewing, it was just that I didn’t like them.

But, in drawing and launching her own line, Lara Bly reawakened the instincts and eye for color that inspired her to pursue her career in fashion.  “I remember I did one dress, and I thought ‘God, I love this dress. It’s so beautiful, and so me.’ After that, other dresses and designs, just followed naturally.”

Lara says she is thriving in the artistic community at the Banana Factory, a studio space run by Arts Quest.  “I have a place to show my work and an audience because we have First Fridays so you open your studio up.  So, you get people coming in on a regular basis looking at your clothes, looking at other people’s work.  The artists and photographers and I are like one big family, helping each other.  I’m the only fashion designer there, practically one of the only fashion designers in Lehigh Valley.”

She loves the search for the right fabrics and colors. “A lot of the time, I know what I want, what I’m planning when I see it.” Being able to work for herself gives her the freedom, she says, to “sit down and sketch, and see what comes,” and then find fabric to realize that vision.

Seascape. by Lara Bly

She prefers not to outsource design and manufacture at all, unless she’s crunched for time. “As long as I have time to do it, I do everything myself, I design it, make patterns and sew it. Having some skill as a patternmaker or a machinist, not just a designer, a great way to save money, if you want to start your own business. If you’re doing samples yourself, and something goes wrong, you don’t have to pay for mistakes, the same way. It’s part of your own learning.”

As much as she enjoys having creative control and autonomy, she acknowledges that there are limitations and compromises she has to make. “I have a beautiful design- and then I have to find a way for it to fit perfectly, little things like maybe I’ll use linen instead of satin, and oh my god, I have to sew those pockets!

“Being on your own and hiring a patternmaker, someone you don’t have a relationship with on a daily basis, that’s very difficult. It’s difficult to make a beautiful sample.  Not impossible, just difficult.

“On your own, it’s hard to be great at all three things. It’s hard to be a great patternmaker, a great machinist and a great designer all at the same time. So, I’m glad that I have the skills to do all of those things, but it’s so much better when you have someone you trust, or someone in-house, and an ongoing relationship. What I’d love to have is a working relationship with a great patternmaker, who can just totally get it on the bulls-eye for me, and get the exact fit that I want, get the trouser to fit exactly the way I want, because that’s what they’re good at.

“If everybody plays their role, you’re going to be able to create something amazing.”

Introducing Lara Bly, Designer and Illustrator.  Part 1

See more of Lara’s work and pictures of our day with her shopping for fabric in NYC’s garment district on PinkyShears’ Facebook Page.  Click Here.

Fashion Illustration Internship for WouldYouRockThis.com

Find Out What Segment of the Garment Industry is Still Going Strong.  Meet Steve Steinberg of QST Industries, leading supplier of innovative men’s, women’s and children’s apparel construction components.  Part 1

The many facets it takes to create a garment are not made within one company; the devil is in the details. No one understands this better than Steve Steinberg, manufacturer of textile goods and salesman at QST Industries Inc.
Steinberg graciously made time to speak with PinkyShears.com about being a salesman in the ever-changing garment business. In a bleak economy, Steinberg is feeling fairly confident about being in the fashion industry.

Steve Steinberg of QST (left) and Brandon Graham of PinkyShears (right)

Steve Steinberg: I have two business cards, one I use just for the military and the other one is just a general card.
Brandon Graham: I’ve spoken with a button designer for the military and it seemed interesting. How is working for the government?
SS: It’s actually the only business for now that’s fairly busy in this country. Commercial business is very weak. Military contracts are usually three to five years. So, if you’re in the middle of it, it runs pretty smoothly. I’m doing a lot of work with the battle uniforms. I’ve worked on the army uniform that’s in Afghanistan, Iraq,uniforms for the Marine Corps, Navy, and the sleep tents. I’ve just developed a lot of different items for the military.
BG: Like what specifically?
SS: Nylon tapes, fire retardant tapes, infrared tapes, webbings. We’re working on a fire retardant (FR) pocketing because from what’s happened in Iraq over the last few years with all the IEDs, they’re developing a lot of the uniforms with fire retardant. So they need everything else to be FR. The fabric they’re using now on the uniforms is FR but that’s extremely expensive at $16/yard, so we’re developing a pocketing they can use inside the pants at about $10/yard.

Various curtains/waistbanding

QST has made available an infrared nylon tape finish for military uniforms. This tape cannot be seen at night without night vision goggles, and the purpose is to prevent friendly fire.
Besides the military uniforms high-tech advancements, QST creates many small, yet crucial products within the commercial market.

SS: A lot of people do not realize what goes into creating a garment. I’ve been in this industry for 41 years, and years ago when I came in people had a background because they started in factories. They didn’t necessarily go to the designer schools. Some of them did, but they still worked in factories so they knew how to sew. Pattern makers knew how to do everything, designers knew everything. Today is very different, people are compartmentalized into certain areas and I deal with a lot of people who are responsible for a lot of different items, who have no idea how a garment is put together. They’ve never been in a factory, they’ve never seen what goes into it, they just think you take the right half, the left half (claps hands together), put it together and there you get a pair of pants or a jacket.
BG: Some people ask me when they find out I’m a designer, “Can you make me a suit?” And they think I can go to the fabric store and start cutting. When I start breaking it down to them, they start getting that glazed-over look. Sometimes it seems keeping the details to yourself is the best way to keep their interest.
SS: If I’m the smartest guy in the room, and for example I’m dealing with clothing manufacturers, it’s a problem. I shouldn’t have to explain to them how to make a garment and what goes into it. Now, I can’t sit down and sew a garment, but you show me a garment and I’ll tell you what goes in there, what’s not in there and what should be in there. It’s somewhat disconcerting, but that’s what’s happening today. People that do SPECs or BOMs (Bill of Material), they don’t realize where the items go sometimes. I have to explain a lot and I have to do it in such a way that is not patronizing to people who are up here (gestures above his head). Sometimes they’ll listen and see what I’m talking about. It’s not just me, so it’s good if you [Pinky Shears] can get people to know what’s happening.

QST was opened in 1880 as a family business and remains that way today. That’s about all that has stayed the same in the company. In the 1980s QST expanded globally to South East Asia and the Pacific Rim, Mexico City, the Caribbean and Central America.

BG: QST has warehouses all over the world correct?
SS: It’s a tough industry, very tough. There’s always, always something going on. We’ve added Viet Nam, which we’re just putting up a factory there. Romania, Morocco and we have Pakistan, Shanghai, Dominican Republic. The U.S. is minimal now. The only thing the U.S. is doing is military because anything for the U.S. military has to be made in the U.S. at our North Carolina factory. So all the trim, everything, we call it ‘from the ground up’. There’s something called the Berry Amendment and everything has to comply with that.
BG: Is there a big process to get those kinds of military contracts?
SS: Big time! You have to go through a tremendous amount of paper work, a lot of SPEC-ing you have to do. They’ll show us the garment they want to use and we’ll see what items we can supply, elastic, pocketing, tapes, and things like that. It’s a very difficult process. We’re listed, for pocketing, in the ACU which is the Army Combat Uniform. It says that you can use a predetermined fabric for pocketing OR an alternate QST product. So what you want is to have your name in there.
BG: By being everywhere, you guys can strategically decide where to make your products.
SS: The good thing about dealing with a company like us, and a company like Polo, is that wherever Polo makes a garment in the world they can have the same quality pocketing and waistband. Whether it’s in Turkey, China, etc., we can make it in one of our factories and it’ll be the same. Now, some companies don’t care. They don’t want to know where, just make it cheap. But companies like Polo, Liz Claiborne, J. Crew, they want to control what’s in their garment. We offer them that control.

Read Part 2

[Click Here]

Fashion illustrators and authors Bil Donovan (left) and David Downton (right) after the presentation by Mr. Downton at FIT on 10/15.

Downton was promoting his new book Masters of Fashion Illustration.

Host Bil Donovan also has a fashion illustration book recently released titled Advanced Fashion Drawing:  Lifestyle Illustration.

In addition to this pic I also recorded a video clip of Downton speaking that day.  (Working on the video quality…  I know.  LOL)

Enjoy,

Brandon

The Power of Line. by David Downton

Video I recorded on my camera.  Time to get a new photo/video camera.  LOL.

-Brandon

New Menswear Illustrations.

These are a few of my illustrations about to be colored. I think I'm going to do a paisley print for the shirts in light browns, sand, and beige colors (safari-like colors). The interesting thing you might miss is the layering. Under the shorts are knit leggings.

See more of my work at http://coroflot.com/brandongraham

Wanted to share with you guys some fashion illustrations by Nathaniel “Nene L.A. Shiro” White.

I’m helping promote this upcoming show called ANEPIPHANY Hair and Fashion Show set for Sunday, October 17th.  You know I’m a big fan of fashion illustration so I asked one of the organizers if she could put me in contact with some of the designers to see if they had any sketches they wanted to share.  This is what I received so far.  If you can, come join me on the 17th.  Go here http://www.c-manepiphany.com/page-2 to get your tickets.  -Brandon

Vote on this sketch at http://wouldyourockthis.com/vote/current/479/

Vote on this sketch at http://wouldyourockthis.com/vote/current/481/

Vote on this sketch at http://wouldyourockthis.com/vote/current/480/

Sketches in My New Fashionary Sketchbook.

I bought this really nice sketchbook last month and just wanted to share a page with you.  The nice thing about this sketchbook is it has a template of a figure to help you draw.  You can buy one of these at http://fashionary.org/ I look forward to speaking with the founder, Penter Yip,  soon to see if I can sell sell his sketchbook on the WouldYouRockThis.com site.  That product is perfect for the WYRT user.  Wish me luck, but enjoy the sketches in the mean time.  : )

These are just some unrelated ideas I'm playing around with and might push further.

Here's a pic of the women's version of the sketchbook.