Fashion Future: Crafts, Consumer/Designers & SELF

The new postal stamps, with “Quilts from Gee’s Bend” are very inspirational and timed well to what I see as an extremely important development in the fashion industry for DEs (Designer Entrepreneurs) and consumers. For those who are very creative, and love to play with art, graphics and colors in fashion, the spring/summer season is great for experimentation, especially for those DEs that sell directly to consumers. The sleeveless jacket and skirt is one from the 1980s of my huge vintage collection. The photo is by Ron Ranere, Positive Image, http://www.positiveimage-boston.com. It is in Ivory colored leather with the leaf patterns (front & back) in different colors of lambskin suede. It could sell very well this year, but I’m not selling anymore. I simply want to inspire you. Can’t you see using some of those color combinations or even some patterns of the quilts as appliqués or pieces of the garment shape in a dress, skirt or top?

I have been very busy helping DEs locally in Boston. As you well know, I am organizer for the Boston Fashion Industry Meetup, for all aspects of the industry to help one another, by meeting face to face locally. http://fashion.meetup.com/1/ You also know that I organize the Fashion Product Development Meetup, that is now completely virtual, online for CHAT discussions. I make announcements on this web site for when I will be online to talk. You can join (anyone, anywhere & free) and then learn when. http://fashion.meetup.com/221/ I now have just added a third meetup, Boston Craft & Fashion Sellers Meetup. Ivy Glass is my assistant organizer, and we hold the meetups at her studio in the artists spaces at Fort Point. It’s purpose is to research all the craft shows, fashion shows for DEs, and set up some as well as trunk shows and home parties in New England – all for selling direct to consumers, that helps you to make an income. If you go to the web site, you will see the same photo of my leather outfit with the leaf patterns. Click: http://craftsellers.meetup.com/76/ We will be having our first meetup Feb. 8. I’m telling all of you about it because eventually, once we get it well established here, those of you in other parts of the country could also set up a Craft Sellers Meetup (and I will help you). Then, we could even exchange products and help each other sell over all parts of the country. Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of “organized selling power”?

There’s some other things that keep me very busy as well, all for helping young DEs. I am a business consultant for the Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) in New England. They have the best and cheapest business advice and classes. If any of you are in this area, you should check them out. http://www.cweonline.org I just met one of their clients that is really interesting, and represents the wave of the future in fabric coloring. She has been doing customized fabric dying for chains like the Gap, Ann Taylor, etc., and now is going big. Everyone is interested world-wide because she has established STANDARDS for fabric coloring, globally, and will be having it digitally as well. In my talk with her, she knows that the future is for consumers, and small businesses on the web, and eventually will have something for you as well. I will keep you posted. Go see her web site. http://www.precisiontex.com/index.php

All the work in SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion) keeps mounting, because the group of members are all each making a tiny collection of dresses for spring/summer that are based on my Generic S-Patterns, both to test them and to help the members develop their styles. There is a great deal of graphics and craft influence in what we do. Unfortunately for you, this is completely local. We are having a meeting on the 3rd. and will keep you updated on what we set up. We also have one member that I’m helping to set up a business for sourcing cottons and silks from India. Once some of these things are set up then we can offer it to you as well.

By now you must realize that I do not have the time to set up an online teaching structure for learning about the S-Patterns. I’m sorry that some of you had hopes of this. Maybe I will meet someone in the local area that I will teach and she or he could do it?

If any have questions, please ask me. I love to answer them. My commitment is to help young DEs for a very interesting 21st century future.

S-PATTERNS Will Be a Part of the Future Technology Wave

First, I must apologize to all those to whom I said the 3 “Fashion/Pattern Design” classes for understanding how to work with the S-Patterns would be online by this past weekend. I’m sorry but it is going to longer to get it set up for the web. At this point we’re not sure, but maybe another week or two. Meanwhile we are continuing to develop the Primitive and Generic Patterns so they will be available for delivering to you.

(From the Boston Globe: "A modified iRobot Create can pick up a piece of paper. iRobot, unlike the Roomba, does not vacuum or clean.)

My “Chemise Theory” and Robotics today
Some of you, who have read my posts last September, might remember the one I wrote about my successful “chemise dress” I designed in 1957. (Click September in right column if you want to read the whole story.) The chemise was a fad, died and then was reincarnated as the “shift”, and has been a successful seller ever since for high fashion or commodity designers. Even more interesting is that the chemise is having a great high fashion comeback for spring, 2007. In all of my engineering design papers, related to my NSF research grants, I explained the story of the chemise dress, and used it as a social theory to explain how most fads rise, die, and come back again as more ubiquitous and not faddish. The primary example for which I used the chemise as analogy in the late 1980s was robotics, and I predicted its comeback. That is, robotics, at that time, was a “fad”, big in the media and everyone talked of the great things it would do for people at home. Robotics then died in the public eye, only being considered in robotic arms on factory floors.

For awhile I have been watching robotics making a slow comeback into importance, as I predicted, as the Roomba, vacuum cleaner. Now, it’s evolving. In yesterday’s Boston Globe, 1.8.07, “Technology clears a path for putting robots to work … emphasis is beginning to shift away from robots that entertain and towards robots that labor in the home and the office.” But, the most exciting and key aspect is the “development of a common platform like Create or Microsoft Robotics Studio that will allow hobbyists, students, and entrepreneurs to play around with creating robots without having to become an expert in every aspect of robotics. …software that allow people to use their products as a starting point to create something of their own….build on top of it and go further. …after finding that robot hobbyists were trying to customize the Roomba.”

S-Patterns as a common, foundation, platform.
This is precisely what I am trying to do with the technology idea of S-Patterns. The purpose of the original Stylometrics system, in the 80s & early 90s NSF research grants, was to be a “common platform” for the American apparel industry. They would not accept it, as Sears Roebuck and the Dept of Defense had also tried to do, for 20 years previously. So, in 2004, after my workshop at MIT, I decided to take Stylometrics, my “common platform” for pattern engineering, to you, Designer/Entrepreneurs (DEs) and to consumers. It’s purpose, likewise, is to allow you to play around with creating high fashion clothing without having to become an expert in every aspect of the fashion industry.

In my nine Primitives for NSF research grants, I validated that they could be a common platform in women’s wear, for every style that ever was, is, or could be. The Generic Patterns that we are now developing are an “evolution” of those Primitives, necessary for making the system simpler for developing some more complex styles. As we go in SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion) we will develop more complex shapes, to gradually make more styles easier for you. However, please realize that all of this will take time. I no longer have any grant funding, and don’t want a business that makes money. But I do have some devoted people, self-employed, working with me to help, and I am deeply appreciative of that. Eventually (much later) we will set up what I call “FitAWear” standards, to simply changing patterns to fit some common problems. We even have “StyleAWear” and others under the umbrella of “SelfAWear” coming over time – all for you.

When we say a “common platform” or “standardization”, that means that every pattern style evolves from the foundation Primitives. You will note in the 12.9.06 post “More on SELF…” I showed the sheath dress sketch, or AB Primitive. Next to it I showed the sketch of an empire waist sheath, or AB-1 Generic. Size and measurements of the two are identical. The jewel neckline, sleeve, armhole are identical. The only difference is the waist and midriff, which is not as simple as it seems at first glance, because the empire waist indents under the bust more, and therefore also needs more length under the bust. After we have more generic dresses, tops, skirts, blazer, etc., we will also have generic necklines, collars, sleeves, etc. Later we will do pants. And even much later we will do some foundation construction technologies. All this for you at low cost, and some things will be free.

I’ll keep you updated as we get things ready. Happy New 2007!

S-Patterns and SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion)

As an important reminder I will mention about S.E.L.F. structure on each blog post, that we are a Laboratory for research and solving problems in couture and high fashion design and production – for DEs and consumers all over the world – because you are the ones that need our help, and to whom I am committed. The same solutions can be used in lower priced apparel and big name manufacturers, but it is the high fashion market that desperately needs to learn quality yet also cost-effective ways of producing.I could give you many examples of bad shape/fit and poor workmanship on shape/fit on $2000 and up brand label apparel. But, if you truly want to sell and you’re not a “brand label”, then consider trying out our “S-Pattern” system. Yesterday’s blog post gave you a little on the S-Patterns for developing a fashion style. And in order to get these patterns you must learn first how to use them – in 3 learning lessons.

By January 6, 2007, we will have the first lesson on the web for you to do. You must email me of your interest to get the URL in an email reply.
1) The first lesson is about learning to SEE inside your mind, the 2-D & 3-D translations, which is what creative pattern making is all about. That is my Stylometrics system which I spent years researching with grants from the National Science Foundation, and is a non-mathematical system. You must have experience in sewing clothing to comprehend the system. Hopefully you have the ability to send me some sketches of shapes you draw by email. If not, then you can send by regular mail.
2) The second lesson is the experience of manipulating a primitive pattern to a new shape, still a creative, observing methodology.
3) The third lesson is the experience of adding seam allowances in such a way that an industrial stitcher can make the style cost-effectively.

Some have been asking me questions, such as learning ways to get better fitting. This is way down the road, and there are many new things to learn first about a new system. “First things first” and “One step at a time”, are some philosophies to guide you. Remember that the S-Patterns are “standards”, that are used to evolve all styles, shapes, and fit from. It’s the key by which we can help you with every pattern evolved from it. I’ve had a university in Singapore quote and praise the concept in the mid-1990s. A CAD vendor in Germany in 2001 contacted me about using the Stylometrics system. We emailed back and forth, until I realized he wanted me to design a way to put my system on top of his CAD system. I said no way, being a “standard”, he had to design a way to put his CAD system on top of my pattern system. We failed to agree, and I now realize that it’s best to teach it to the young DEs and consumers, and forget old hat CAD vendors & apparel manufacturers.

Please email me and let me know your interest, so that as soon as the URL is ready I will send it to you. Meanwhile, have a Happy & Successful New 2007. Shirley

Generic S-Pattern & Developing a Dress Style Idea

On 12.9.06 I showed you the Generic Empire Sheath, which we are now calling “AB-1”, and is shown again here on the right. “AB” is the title of the basic sheath dress as a combination of A Bodice and B Sheath skirt. I just designed the draped dress, sketched on the left, and it will be developed from the Generic Empire Sheath Dress, or AB-1. The new style has draping that takes the place of darts, something I love to do. By developing it from the generic, the dress will maintain a “standard” of sizing and shaping, which is an imperative for those who are repeating a style for customers. The new style is a “simulated wrap”. That is, the piece diagonally crossing over the front covers the side zipper and is attached after putting the dress on. There are some complexities, but they are in the “construction”, not in the development of the pattern shape. As we are developing the many generic patterns for DEs (Designer/Entrepreneurs), we are also going to develop a small collection for spring/summer that will test these generics, and will be sold to consumers. Not only can DEs buy the generic patterns, but they can also buy the patterns for the styles we develop.

I know I said I would give you more on setting up for beginning instructions on S-Patterns. But, this was all I could get done today. I will continue tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR * LET’S START S.E.L.F. IN 2007

While selling my design and manufacturing business, “Shirley Willett, Inc.”, I wrote this book, “Let’s Design A Dress” and published it in 1980. There were a few reasons that I sold my business. I hated the big size that it must become if you want to maintain success, I was at the mercy of the new young 60s workers who were demanding and not like the family feeling of older stitchers and my once smaller business, and I wanted to be happy, not caught up into the making of great profits and lose my creative soul to big designer retailers. But most of all, I wanted to teach, and leave my legacy to young designers: of great styling that consumers bought and loved, and my creative and technical mastery of pattern engineering and production. I could never teach at any of the fashion schools or colleges, because with intense jealousy from teachers who could only teach what they had been taught - the old hat rules from past technical books – there would never be acceptance of creating technical systems. So, I wrote a text book that I used in the 1980s in fashion departments I set up myself at colleges or community/adult education, or with private clients in a re-incorporated, Shirley Willett, Inc., as a small business consultant. This gave me great experience with testing my innovative ideas of a new and easier methodology for pattern making – and to realize how successful the concept is.

After working on my NSF grants through the decade of the 90s, and presenting my ideas at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January, 2004, I again made the decision to teach and leave my legacy, successfully testing my more advanced ideas for pattern making. Now, I want to test them online for all of you, the readers of my blog, Fashion Solutions.

I created the concept of “Self-Employed Laboratory of Fashion” (SELF) with some protégés I have here locally, that are willing to help me. The most important word is Laboratory, that is we will research problems and create solutions. At this stage of a “research lab” I do not personally want a business for making money, although there will be costs. That does not apply to others working in SELF, who are each self-employed with fashion clothing businesses, or aspirations to develop one, that is not dependent on SELF for primary business income. We are going to open up the concept of SELF, for all of you that are interested in becoming a part, whether you are in a business designing for others, or just want to design and make clothes for yourself and friends. There are requirements and benefits. The great benefit is that you can get some “Primitive and Generic Patterns” (called “S-Patterns”) for a low cost, and have the ability to get your pattern problems solved free. One requirement is that in order for you to understand how to use these patterns you must study three programs of many that I designed for classes here, and give us feedback. The programs, as we are designing them for online, are necessarily different than face-to-face in a classroom. So, we are making them free, but the feedback is an imperative. Remember we are a research lab, so we need a commitment and a willingness to think about how you can help us, and help others in a system that can become worldwide, and perhaps even help the poor in developing countries eventually. And that is a really exciting legacy to be a part of.

Tomorrow I will continue this discussion with more details. I have already discussed this idea with Tracey in the U.K. and Diane in Colorado, and a few that are closer that will do it on computer. Please give me feedback now if you are interested, so that we can determine if we use the blog and my web site to present the programs, or do it with a smaller group. My protégés and I are busy preparing it for after the New Year. Continued tomorrow…

Meanwhile Happy Holidays and a Happy, Successful New Year, 2007,
Shirley

SELF (Self-Employed Laboratory for Fashion) – Coming!

In 1980 I published a book, “Let’s Design A Dress”, mentioned in an earlier post. I had developed a set of nine Primitive patterns to make high-quality pattern making much easier. Many have asked me for this book. But I took it off the market later in the 80’s when I was awarded a series of National Science Foundation grants for researching and developing this system, I called Stylometrics. The book was only 2-D, and now I had the system as 2-D, 3-D and 4-D. I tried for years to get the CAD-CAM vendors to work with me, but they only stole certain parts, never the whole system. In January, 2004, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Dept. asked me to represent the fashion apparel industry in a workshop to compare design practices between industries, and talk about Stylometrics. It was then I realized that the way to get this system out to the world was to teach it to young designers and help them start a whole new kind of fashion industry that will benefit them instead of big retailers and apparel manufacturers.

Teaching alone, however, wasn’t working that well. Only a very few could really go further by themselves without continued help. This past year I began to take on protégés that I would mentor. Tess, (see the post on her success and production in China) is one of those protégés. As more young designers want this, I realize I cannot continually take on single ones to mentor. Now going on 74, I realized I must create a “business system” that can be passed on to some, who can then pass it on to others. SELF, Self-Employed Laboratory for Fashion, is the result. As a research laboratory it will be structured to accommodate the continual and fast changes in the fashion industry. Having my Stylometrics Pattern Engineering System, as a base is a recognition that what makes any high fashion apparel business successful are the patterns, their beautiful shape, fit, and the cost-effective production systems they are designed to achieve. This is far more important than simply getting low-cost production overseas.

The fundamental product of SELF, therefore, will be patterns. After years of testing the set of nine Primitives (P), I discovered there were really only five that were important, P-1 Bodice, P-8 Skirt (as a dress in first sketch); P-2 Blazer, P-7 Pants (in second sketch); and P-9, Gored Skirt (in third sketch). I have a team of five young designers, each of whom will have their own design businesses. We will start with their needs, and develop a list of “Generic Patterns”, or the next level up of pattern design changes. There is a great deal more to this whole idea. I have four steps, all very creative processes, in the product lifecycle: 1) Creativity, Research & Resources, 2. SELF Pattern Designs, 3. Production, and 4. Marketing & Sales.

This is all I’m saying about it now. But, please ask some questions and let me know your interests, because it can influence our direction to help all of you. I will continue to tell you more in the next posts.