Subscribing sounds like 1.) Spam, 2.) Expense, 3.) Invasive Emails. For me, it’s a way to communicate with folks who are really interested in sewing, style, fashion, flattering looks, and above all fun! I’m a huge advocate that life should be fun and fulfilling, and sewing for me qualifies!
So what does a subscription to my weekly email entail?
Well first of all it doesn’t cost anything – I promise – OK, it does cost a little time to read, but I promise nothing out of your pocketbook.
It’s not spam – why? Cause if you don’t like what you read, get off. We all have way too much in our email inboxes already, and I don’t want to be that one other thing that never gets read. As a matter of fact, I go through my email software and if you don’t open my emails, after a period of time (don’t worry, it’s about twice a year), then you’ll have to subscribe again to get back on. So I don’t spam and take huge steps to prevent that.
Finally, I do NOT have invasive emails that lure you with exciting, alarming, or otherwise eye/heart-grabbing titles. On the other hand, I do talk extensively about not only the state of fashion now (which is pretty deplorable – the manufacturing as well as the styling sides), but I also talk about how to take that style and make it flattering for you. This is probably my raison d’être – really! I see so many folks wearing the wrong thing and with a simple thought here and there, it can be corrected beautifully.
I used to say that my mentor had lived (and styled and designed) from the shoulder pads of Joan Crawford to Alexis Carrington and knew all about the extended shoulder, the tailoring (you had to have some pretty good structure in the shoulder and upper chest to support that huge shoulder), and composition (you can not have a very dinky lapel in those strong shoulder pads – the proportions just don’t work). As a result, she was experienced in all the styles in between.
Believe it or not, structuring styles really don’t change that much. I mean the human body is pretty set in design – one head (hopefully), two arms, two shoulders, two hips (yeah, I could do with one thankyouverymuch), two legs, and one body. Now with that, there are infinite variations – some have a hip higher than the other, one leg is longer, one arm is shorter, one person relaxes with the head tilted to one side, while the other has the head tilted to the other side. Even though the base is pretty much the same, we all differ in that base structure. As a result, fitting techniques that were used in Victorian times can and often do work the same as fitting techniques in more modern times.
My bet is that there was just as much corseting and waist-cinching for this style as there was for the Victorian styles that were almost exclusively a corset from the hips up.
There might not have been as much corset-wearing in the 1980s for those “power suits”, but that didn’t mean that ladies didn’t tighten that belt as tight as it would go around the waist.
This is the sort of thing that I discuss in my weekly emails as much as how to sew the styles, and how to sew styles that work for individuals’ shapes and sizes. It’s really the fashion that I love so much, but in search of that fashion, I had to learn to sew, which was a whole other world of wonderful creativity that benefited with fine fashion and style.
Here’s the proof – the photo on the left was taken before I moved into my one-level dream home (and out of my 3-level monstrosity – aka auto Stairmaster), and I have gained weight because I’m not doing the Stairmaster every day. Because I use some sleight-of-hand, tricks of the eye, and other proportion and design techniques, I have comfortable, easy-to-wear, and flattering clothes, and I do NOT feel deprived. People tell me that I haven’t gained a pound or look any different. They automatically assume that I don’t have a weight or figure problem. Yeah – right — in my dreams! The upshot is that I do not look like I’ve put on the weight I have put on.
The truth is that my figure has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the past 20 years like everyone else’s does. But Like Karl Lagerfeld’s marvelous quote:
…and I decided not only not to give up or lose control, but look better than I had before. Yes, that involves some effort and thinking, planning before you start out and most of all some information about how to do this and even why some things work and other things don’t.
This is probably the main purpose behind my subscription emails – to not only show you how to look like this but also to show you how to make this for yourself. And if you want to know why it works, I can tell you that too! For almost 50 years I’ve been doing this for my clients and loved doing it, I love the challenge of the scoliosis deb who wants to wear a strapless dress, the mastectomy mother of the groom that wants to look like “fun” for her son’s wedding, and the dwarf bridesmaid that wants to wear the same look like the other bridesmaids.
Click here (or the graphic above) to subscribe – for free, no spam, and gobs of great info to help you look better AND comfortable.
