Starting out

If you were to tell me then that I would be focused on tee shirts now, I would have laughed. Maybe not out loud but certainly to myself and with a definite gasp at the possibility. You know, that clutch at the throat that means you've had an "yikes" moment. I could NEVER change that much. I was the girl who gobbled up every issue of Vogue and Bazaar, especially the French versions, with a reverence reserved by some for Hemingway and Dostoyevsky. I saved them you know. Have them still. I was the girl who did more than window shop at St. Laurent. The girl who knew the layout of every trendy NYC
boutique intimately. It was my habit to walk up and down Madison Avenue filling my eyes with every new thing–feasting. Much more satisfying than food.

I had dreamed of living in New York City from the minute I first saw its face from a train window as a kid. WOW! Love at first sight. I knew it was the place for me. So as soon as the diploma was dry, with some help from mom and dad, off I went to seek fame and fortune. Now, this was around the time when hot pants were hot and girls were very busy burning bras and the boys, their draft cards. Patchouli was in the air–thank God. Everyone was letting their hair grow–long and longer still. It got to be very difficult–sometimes embarrassing–to tell the boys from the girls. Well, beards were some indication of maleness. In this hour unisex was born. All in all, a very surreal time. And one day–pinch me–I found myself working as an assistant to a Coty Award winning designer right there on Seventh Avenue in the heart of fashion city. FYI, the Coty Awards, referred to as the Oscars of the Fashion Industry are no more. Sadly, they ended in the mid-eighties. Her winner was a menswear inspired evening dress–an elongated tuxedo shirt in white cotton, rows of fluttery ruffles with tiny pleats in between cascaded down the button front which of course remained seductively unbuttoned, halfway down and up. I wish I had at least a photo of it now. Being her assistant was rather amorphous. I would scour the market for the right button one day, be fitting a garment the next and then some days, I'd be modeling the line for a buyer who happened by. I never knew what to expect and that was OK. That style of work suited me and the times. Things changed overnight back then. We were in a recession. Businesses would be open one day and gone the next. Sounds a bit too familiar. My wonderful job–poof–disappeared with her atelier but not before I had the chance of seeing myself on Page Six photographed in one of the masterworks–I'm including that photo. A lot has changed in life and fashion since then as you will see if you visit their site. I'm also sharing a somewhat fuzzy, happy snap of me in one of my own creations from that era. And one of my wonderful parents, who I love dearly. They were the best.

Back then

I remember shopping at a store on Chestnut Street called Pappagallos. They sold shoes that were the craze. We all wore them–the college girls. The store was in a townhouse. Or, maybe it just looked like someone's home. Painted furniture and colorful displays of huge Mexican paper flowers in the windows. A fireplace on each floor. I remember the flats in fine glove leather with soles so thin you could feel the stones in the old cement pavements as you strolled around town looking so fine. They served coffee while you tried on every pair. My friend we'll call her Mindy had a rose tattoo–they too were popular then–on her ankle which added something wild to the refined effect of those shoes.

I digress a bit but truly I'm still on topic–fashion. We're getting to the tee part. Back then I was a college student studying Fashion Design and influenced by my time. Clothes were still made here in the US and not too many of them stretched. We didn't have lycra then and velcro wasn't invented yet. Gees, pantyhose was a new thing. So I guess that in today's terms I was working in the dark ages. Diane Von Furstenberg hadn't done the wrap–dress, that is. But I had my icons–the heroes whose shoes I tried to fill. Coco Chanel, Nina Ricci and Balenciaga, Norrell, Claire McCardle, Anne Klein, Charles James, Yves St. Laurent. Creating clothing drama was what I was thinking about while boys were fighting in Viet Nam. It was the dawn of the tee shirt as fashion. Pushed to the fore by the rock concert, a tee shirt chronicled every event of my era and continues to do so. I didn't see it then. They weren't glamorous. I certainly didn't want to wear someone else's name on my chest or a slogan that sold an idea I wasn't sure of. So I created something else to wear finding inspiration and style in other places. I've included a few photos of my college design work. I was good enough to win awards and recognition for my fashion sense. I didn't see the tee shirt 'til now. Basic and dependable–it was not a part of what I thought of as fashion. Too humble to be honored.

The beginning

Fashion became very real to me in college. I was an Interior Design major at Drexel when I happened to be approached by a fellow student–someone I didn't know–and asked if I would be interested in being her model for a design she was draping. Intrigued and somewhat skeptical I said, "Maybe". She lead me to a huge lab room with about 20 girls and as many dress forms and hundreds of bolts of fabric and huge cutting tables and I liked what I saw. But I really liked what I felt–energy. Fingers flying, slicing through beautiful silk and cotton in orange and gold and indigo. Those same hands taking those flat pieces of cloth and shaping them into flowing forms. It looked like magic. "Yes," I said to her right then and there. I didn't know whether she was talented or if her project dress would make me look good or bad. I didn't care. I just wanted to be in that room–be a part of that energy and make magic. Very shortly after that day I changed my major to Fashion Design. When I think back though, I'm sure that I was predisposed to love making clothes because of my Grandmother. She made all of our dresses. My sister and I and all of my cousins had special, frilly, one-of-a-kind creations a la Granny. They were finely crafted and they fit us beautifully. I wish that I had them still not because she was a professional but because they were made of the fabric of life. So I'm sharing a photo of her and me in front of her favorite tree. And one of my sister and me in her creations.