Featured boutique- Madame Fancy Pants!

One of the best things about working with small, independent shops is that you really get to know the owner/s. Actually, come to think of it, some of my closest friends are people I've met because they started carrying my line in their store. For example, my now studio-mate Angie, Katie and Regine from Victoire, and my sweet friend Erin from Sodafine. I guess it's a great way to meet like-minded entrepreneurial spirits.

I was super excited when Claire contacted me about selling Supayana in her cute New Zealand shop. She is so sweet and always a pleasure to work with. We soon became facebook "friends" and she is super rad! She plays music, makes jewelry, and looks like a lot of fun.

Here's a picture of the shop. If you look closely you can see some Supayana dresses hanging on the rack...

Here's an excerpt from their website:

"Madame Fancy Pants is a brick and mortar store based in lovely lil Wellington, New Zealand and is also the name of the (made) in store jewelry label by owner and designer Claire Terry.

Madame Fancy Pants opened its Cuba Street doors in April 2007 and has been providing its lovely visitors with gorgeous, trinkety, limited edition, loveliness ever since!"

The store has an online shop which carries lots of cool artists and designers from New Zealand and beyond.

Supayana at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris!

A few months ago I entered Lenzing's design competition. The object was to create a garment using the same white fabric that they supplied to all of the contestants. Five people were chosen (out of 60) to win a free booth at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. I was one of the lucky winners! Woo hoo! The show is happening from September 1-4. Unfortunately, I can't be there in person, but Janie and Andre are holding down the fort for me!

I'll start with a pic of the finished dress (taken from Lenzing's blog).

I'll take you through the process of creating the dress. The fabric was bright white....a real blank canvas! I stared at it for days...a blank canvas can be so intimidating!

I wanted to change the color but I wanted to do it with as little environmental impact as possible, especially since the contest was to win a booth at the Ethical Fashion Show. So I dyed the fabric with tea, making it a creamy yellow color.

Here's the hot tea bath! I swirled the fabric around in the water for about 20 minutes.

Here's the white fabric side-by-side with the tea dyed fabric.

Then, I took the fabric over to my studio and took out all of my vintage trims that I've been hoarding for years.

I picked out some black pom pom trim and some super soft black vintage lace.

Since I was creating a one-of-a-kind piece, I didn't need to make a pattern for it. (I HATE making patterns, by the way) So I kind of free-hand sculpted it on the dressform...I made darts as I went. I guess that's not the "real" way to do it but it's so much more fun.

Here the dress is almost finished. Needs something. Hmmm how about some pom-poms and lace sleeves?

Here's the finished dress!