How to make a wedding dress - Part 5 - 2nd fitting and shoot

It's been over a month since we shot Katrin in the completed dress, but Ferris is worth waiting for (by the way, she is a very talented wedding photographer). It was an extremely hot and humid day, and we shot Katrin in the dress in Ferris' apartment in Brooklyn. Katrin's mom was starving but she hung out like a champ, and we locked up Katrin's fiance in the other room so he wouldn't see the dress. We put Ferris' white comforter on the ground because I wanted the backdrop to be white so that the tulle would stand out.

I took some extra tulle and made a makeshift veil for the shoot, which Katrin and her mom liked so much that I will likely be repeating it for the actual wedding in August. I made Ferris take off the necklace and bracelet from J.Crew that she was wearing and put it on Katrin. She put some makeup on, and her shoes for the wedding, and Ferris shot some images. She looks absolutely gorgeous, n'est-ce pas?

I pinned the tulle to her hair, bunching it up to mimic the dress.

Back detail. The fabric is sheer with little crinkles in it. There is just the one layer on the shoulder straps, and the bodice and skirt are lined.

Skirt detail. I hand sewed the tucks in the skirt.

The over skirt consisted of gold colored tulle with some peach colored tulle mixed in to heighten the three dimensionality. The straps are a little loose here -- I shortened them after the shoot.

Me and Katrin.

Upcoming Balenciaga exhibit

From the Cut blog -- Cristóbal Balenciaga exhibit curated by Hamish Bowles at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute on the Upper East Side this coming November... should be interesting!

Balenciaga “Infanta” evening dress, 1939 (left); Balenciaga evening dress and stole, 1952.

Balenciaga flamenco-inspired evening dress, 1951 (left); Balenciaga evening ensemble with toreador bolero, 1946.Photo: Henry Clarke / Vogue; Copyright © Condé Nast; Christian Bérard / Vogue; Copyright © Condé Nast.

After the presentation... or the Recession makes life difficult for everyone

In my last post chronicling my path as a designer, I discussed the planning and execution of the presentation.

After the presentation, my friend Michelle (who was helping me with operations at the time) and I started talking to different stores about carrying the line. At the time, Emily, one of the girls who had helped me produce the presentation, was working at Henri Bendel, which would have been an ideal outlet for the line. She helped us set up a meeting with one of the women's buyers. We took the collection to the Bendel offices on 5th avenue, and she agreed the line would be a great fit for the store because it was colorful and youthful. We decided to set up a trunk show for June. I was very excited as it would have been a great opportunity for Graey.

Note that I said would have. We solidified the details in late April, but soon after I saw a NYTimes article announcing that Bendel's would stop carrying clothing in favor of focusing on their accessories business. Alarmed because I was about to start production for the trunk show, I tried to contact the buyer and got radio silence when I tried emailing and calling. I got in touch with Emily who informed me that without a warning, the entire clothing buying department had been let go the day before the article came out.

Desperately, I called the main corporate office at Henri Bendel and got in touch with a VP who informed me that there would be no trunk show. I was devastated to say the least, and tried to figure out what to do next.

New favorite song

loving this song by the black keys... and the vid is pretty funny too.

I did another sale today and...

a girl walks in, takes a look at the stuff, and tells me apologetically that she's in the poorhouse and can't buy anything. Then she proceeds to ask my advice on what she should wear to her job interview for a media company, not realizing I'm the designer of the clothes she's looking at. I thought that was funny.

Planning my first presentation

First off, my apologies for not posting more substantive posts in the past couple of months. This past month, I was busy pursuing a potential break that didn't end up working out, but I'm (relatively) at peace about it.

Secondly, my friend Ferris shot photos of Katrin's completed dress last week, so hopefully I'll be getting the processed images soon and posting them.

Thirdly, I'll be doing another sale this Friday at 434 e 9th st, so everyone come on by!

Fourthly, Ray Lamontagne is coming out with a new album in August! His music is so cathartic for me, and I love his voice -- I can't wait to hear the new album.

I realized it's been a while since my last post about developing as a designer, so I thought it would be good to write one now.
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I left off with mentioning that I had decided to do a presentation for my Fall 09 collection. From the beginning, I told Emily and Noelle that we had a very limited budget, as in, almost nonexistent. Therefore, planning the presentation was an exercise in resourcefulness and the skillful use of smoke and mirrors.

Noelle scored a coup for us by using her real estate contacts to find a space for us. She got us the use of two beautiful duplex apartments at Morgan Court, a luxury apartment building that was very close to Bryant Park. They were looking for exposure and we were looking for space, so it worked out very nicely.

My friend Kellan got me in touch with Barefoot Wines, which hooked us up with wine and bubbly for the presentation.

I contacted different modeling agencies, and got in touch with bookers at Trump, Major, and Direct, whose newer models worked the show for trade (which means you give them clothes worth a certain value in exchange for work done).

Another friend gave me press lists to contact to invite to the presentation. Noelle, Emily, Michelle, and I worked together to invite press and coordinate logistics for the show. My other friends agreed to play live music at the show. Emily's cousin, Doug, gave us a deal on lighting and created an amazing gobos design that flashed the company logo on a nearby building.

Through Craig's List, I was able to get hair and makeup people. Another designer lent us shoes, and the rest of the accessories were either borrowed from my friend Sarah, a jewelry designer, or from the collection of my friend, Diana, who helped with styling my photo shoots. I bought the tights at Strawberry and Ricky's over Halloween.

A bunch of my other friends volunteered to help out day of with dressing the models and other backstage and traffic flow duties.

We contacted press beforehand, getting a preview article on Glamour.com and after meeting with WWD, they came to our show and did a review as well.

Here are some photos, taken of course, by Ferris Vanderveer:

The stage.

The opening scene.

Switched positions.

Graey logo flashed on a neighboring building.

With the models afterward.

With my co-conspirators.

Non-traditional engagement rings, from Refinery29

Click on title link to see article.

Spring Sale today!

If you're in New York, don't forget to stop by our sale! We'll have free cocktails courtesy of Hpnotiq!

Spring Sale this Saturday in the East Village -- up to 60% off our dresses!

Graey Spring Sale!

CRAFTernoon recap

I realized I never did a recap on the CRAFTernoon event I did back in March. It was great. We had a modest turnout which actually worked out for the best because Di and I were able to give more individual attention. Everyone did a great job, and here are some images of final products:

Jess showing off yet another piece of Gator paraphernalia.

Diana's cute headband.

Hopefully we will do another one in the near future. If you have any skills you want to learn, let me know!

A scarf I made for my b

Also, a random photo I took that I like:
Too bad I'm good at so many other things, or I would be a photographer (kidding).

How to make a wedding dress - Part 4 - 1st Fitting

Katrin was in town for a family friend's bat mitzvah, so she and her mom and a friend came up to my tiny apartment to do the fitting. Normally when I do custom work, I test the pattern in muslin, but one of my other clients had coincidentally given me a few yards of the exact fabric that Katrin had indicated was her favorite among the swatches her mom had picked out at a store, so I figured I might as well use it. As is often the case, I wasn't able to get as much done as I had planned, and when they arrived, the dress was only half finished. I frantically sewed the lining to the outer part of the dress while they waited patiently. I didn't even have a chance to sew the zipper on her left side seam, so you can see the fabric awkwardly sticking out on the side, and that the bodice doesn't fit as neatly as it should a result.

Nevertheless, for the most part, the garment fit her very well. She didn't like the amount of volume at the waist so we decided to take the gathers out of the skirt and the lining. I also didn't have a chance to sew on the overskirt you might recall in the sketch and drape that will be in the finished garment, but we played around with using the tulle that was for the overskirt as a veil, which you can see in the photos below - a sneak peek at the work in progress.

If you look closely you can see the tucks in the skirt (sorry, I really need to get a nicer camera), which I sewed by hand.

Katrin pretending to paint the painting on my wall.

The straps were a little too loose as well (if you look closely you can see where I've pinned them on her left shoulder) so those needed to be taken up about an inch on each side, and we decided to add tucks on the top tulle layer on the underskirt, which is tan (which you can't really see in my iPhone photos), so the peach one underneath could be seen. Katrin and her mother really happy with it, so I was happy and relieved. I am going to make the adjustments we discussed before our next fitting in June. You can't see the detail in the fabric either, which has this wrinkled look to it. Hopefully for June I will be able to get my photographer friend Ferris to take better shots of the dress.

On a side note, I was able to achieve the vintage effect on the photos using this Photoshop tutorial.

ACE 27

Just got back from the ACE 27 fashion show -- I'm about to turn in because I have to wake up early to finish Katrin's dress for her fitting tomorrow, but I wanted to post about it before I went to bed. After tonight I felt like I had come full circle, from producing my own fashion show with my friend Michelle in college (and soliciting clothes from other designers) to being asked by college students to lend clothes for their fashion show.

Here are a couple of photos from my iPhone:


In many ways, their show was more professional -- the A/V and lighting effects, set design, numerous sponsors, and gift bags for every member in the audience! Plus yummy snacks and beverages during the intermission. But maybe it's just nostalgia kicking in, I don't know, I'm inclined to say we had better models and MCs... :-) It's funny for me to watch amateur fashion shows after being involved in the industry for the past several years.

All in all, my friends and I had a great time. They gave us great seats in the front row and Lindy and Dave had me laughing the entire time as we provided each other with commentary on the show.

Thanks ACE 27!

How to make a wedding dress - Part 3 - draping

Based on the sketches, I started to drape the dress on the mannequin. Katrin's measurements were close enough to my mannequin's that I could just drape on the mannequin and add/subtract as necessary when I created the flat pattern from the drape later.

First, we started with the underskirt. Normally, when you drape, you only drape the mannequin's right half, since most patterns are symmetrical, which is why you only see half a skirt on the mannequin below. When you look at the photos, you'll notice that there are bits of fabric sticking out here and there -- that's because you leave an excess beyond the seam (which is marked in pencil) which you trim later. The drape of the dress is a far cry from the actual dress.

underskirt front

underskirt back

Next I draped the actual skirt of the dress. The underskirt will actually probably be doubled, so one layer of lining, and one layer of organza to give the skirt volume, over which is the actual skirt (which will be attached to the bodice). We had discussed tucks which, I put in the skirt. You can see the underskirt peeking out.

Next I draped the bodice of the dress. If you recall, Katrin wanted a sheer neckline. It might be difficult to see in this photo, but the bodice is separated along the neckline.


Finally, I draped an overskirt out of tulle. The color is not the one we'll use (and neither is this fabric, called muslin, the fabric we'll use for the actual dress!) but is good for seeing the sort of effect the tulle will have. She had mentioned she wanted the overskirt to look "accidental" so I draped the overskirt a little messily.


Now I will submit these photos to Katrin for review before transferring the drape to a paper pattern to make the "muslin," or prototype.

Ray LaMontagne Rocks My World!

Whether it's a musician, designer, writer, or artist, I tend to either be totally obsessed or disinterested. If I like a particular artist, I will start manically googling him or her, trying to find interviews, bios on Wikipedia, experience the person's entire canon of work thus far, figure out when the next show is, and get totally immersed in it. Therefore, I'm often a little skeptical or hesitant to listen/see/read/try new things when they are recommended to me, because I invest so much energy into investigating the artists I like, I don't really want to waste time listening/seeing/reading things that don't excite me. I also don't like going to see a concert or a movie unless I think it will be awesome. As a result, I often don't really give things a chance until a while after they come on the scene, and I've heard about 10 people tell me I should check it out. I figure, why not let other people vet things for me, and if something is really awesome, I'll hear about it eventually.

Anyway, I recently became totally obsessed with Ray LaMontagne, who's been around for a while. I'd heard the name tossed around but I didn't really get into it until I started listening to Damien Rice several months ago (also been around for several years before I gave it a chance). I heard a cover Damien and Ray did together of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody," and I was haunted by Ray's soulful, raspy voice. You'd think it would be then that I'd check him out, but fastforward a couple of months and he kept coming up on my Pandora so I finally checked him out. One song I especially like is "Let It Be Me," from his most recent album, Gossip in the Grain. I thought I loved Damien Rice, but I LOVE Ray.

Below is a YouTube video of a live recording of Let It Be Me.



Dude totally looks like a hillbilly with his huge beard, but he's really got soul. Makes me want to go up to Maine or Vermont or wherever he lives and hunt him down. Or maybe just go to his show in Long Island this summer...

Project Runway is casting again!

If you're a designer, Project Runway is now casting for season 8: http://www.bunim-murray.com/index.php?session=casting&id=17

My dear friend B told me about it.

I have been less than impressed with the current season, but in many ways, it would be a great opportunity -- the $$$ and the exposure especially. The only thing that discourages me is that the fashion industry has largely disregarded the contestants on that show.

Who thinks I should try out?

CRAFTernoon tomorrow!

We got a mention in TimeOut Magazine's "Things to do in NYC this weekend" -- check out the third paragraph: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/own-this-city/80781/things-to-do-in-nyc-this-weekend/2.html

Should be a good time -- hope to see you there!