I was recently in Sweden and while I was there I had a phone conversation with Gia Kourlas who is one of the dance critics for the New York Times. In addition to writing for the times she also writes for TIme Out New York. The Interview Came out last week and I was amazed by how exactly it follows the conversation Gia and I had. I was very flattered to have been chosen for this interview, and I am very happy for the attention it has received.
Thank you Gia.
Click HERE to read the interview
New York Fashion Week has come and gone...... so... after some research i have compiled my top 10 collections.......
I've chosen my 10 favorite looks from each collection and I won't bore you with too many words.
In no specific order my favorite lines of the season were..... click on any of them for additional looks and reviews from Style.com
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I live with 2 extraordinary women. Lindsay Clark and Jenna Fakhoury. I have worked with both of them in various dance companies, and now we occupy a spacious 3 bedroom in Brooklyn, where I do most of my work. Here are some images from the years I spent dancing with these women.
These days, I am not on stage dancing with Lindsay and Jenna... though they continue to work as 2 of the finest female dance performers in New York.... So now... I have them be my models for various projects I am working on.....
To thank them for their generosity in helping me to see my progress.... I will occasionally make them special pieces they can have and keep.
I can't thank these ladies enough. I am sure there will be lots of clothes for them to try on in the future... and hopefully I will have lots more custom made couture garments to give them in return........
When I don't have one of their bodies to use..... sometimes I have to resort to my own.........
I spent 3 years at the Fashion Institute of Technology. In my first semester... somewhere in the first few weeks of taking fashion art 1, I started to hear the name Steven Stipelman. Mary Bridgman was my first semester fashion art teacher, and was profoundly influential in my time at F.I.T.. She urged those of us in her fist semester to class to try to get a space in Steven Stipelman's 2nd semester Fashion art class. At this point, I had no idea who was who, or what was what.... but I did as I was told, and I got a spot in his class. As it turns out, Professor Stipelman is a rather celebrated fashion illustrator who worked on staff at Woman's Wear Daily for many years and illustrated for many of the great designers of the 20th century. He is on faculty at F.I.T. now, and continues to illustrate collections for those designers who don't want the initial viewing of their clothes photographed.
Second semester was about to begin and I realized that I would be on tour dancing during the first meeting of his class, so I sent him an e-mail asking him to let me know what I would be missing. His reply to me was that I should consider dropping the class, and that missing information from his lessons set me irreparably behind. ......uh oh.... I then replied to him that I had no intention of dropping the class and I would be sure to make up any missed work.
I did manage to make up missed work, but his scare tactics were founded in the reality that his lectures were saturated with an unbelievable wealth of information. It was in his classes where I really started to understand the psychology of designing a collection. It was also the first time that I felt incredible emotional connection to a drawing. Having the opportunity to watch him draw was really magical. To watch him render chiffon or wool or Taffeta, was like watching someone actually feeling the fabric with their hand. The way he placed pencil to paper was always extraordinary, and to watch his chalk demonstrations on the board was at times shocking. In mere seconds and in a couple strokes he could capture the slung pelvis of a three quarter view model in an evening gown, or the profile of a woman in full pants and a trench coat walking at full tilt down the street.
We all grew tremendously in that semester, and I was lucky enough to have him again in my last semester. I want to share some of his drawings with you. I wish I could show you a film of him making a drawing... but you will have to imagine it for now.
CDG is what we call Commes des Garçon in my family. My mother wore 1980s CDG religiously. It was during a time when Rei Kawakubo was reimagining the plainest of garments from both european and japanese culture. This was a time in the history of Commes des Garçon before the clothes became unbearably avant-garde, and is what I consider to be the hay day of the label. My Mom was very good about saving much of this clothing..... and now seems to be passing the pieces onto me and my friends. Here are some images of a few of the pieces..... and then my mom wearing them.... and lastly the next generation of people wearing them.
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