Sustainable has become the big word. What is sustainable? Using our resources well? Using our time well? Saving time, energy and resources? Or is it endurance?
What do we need? What do we want? Seems like I have more questions than ever.
So I began working on my Fall collection by looking around at what we have that we can upcycle.
Fabric. Not just from inventory but also from our archives. I became a project of invention and imagination and most fun of all - discovery!
From 2008, a plum melange silk taffeta cut on the bias in to a comfortable elasticized crop pajama pant worm with a day-glo turtle under a diamond quilted coat.
The water repellent fluorocarbon resin dayglo coat is in leftover fabric used to make a man's sarong for the opening night party of Bravehearts: Men in Skirts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 4th, 2003.
And a re-discovery of an all time favorite silk Duchess Satin from the 90's shown here in a Box sleeve jacket worn with a jacquard halter, fabric from 2016, and a Japanese crepe back satin skirt from 2018.
The collection is balanced out with fabrics from the fifth season, a term coined in 1998 by the late Richard Martin, scholar, critic, lecturer, and Curator in Charge at the Costume Institute, to describe my work as "clothing that often surpasses the seasons, allowing wearers to function in the year-round wardrobe of urban life as urban nomads."