Ugly

I have this fascination with anything that can be deemed ugly, ridiculous or absurd.  Ugly is the best word for this rant though.  At a point in my life, I realized that I want everything to have a chance to be beautiful.  An ugly fabric for example, if used in the right way, could become a beautiful garment.  (I also like to remember that calling a print or a pattern ugly could be demeaning that textile designer's masterpiece - unless they're like me and they kind of dig ugly).  For many years I have recollected the famed Warhol line, "if everybody is a beauty, then nobody is", and considered its meaning.  Warhol's obsession with mass production pointed out that when we are given too much of something, it loses what makes it special, so if everyone looked like a standard beauty, we would all be the same and therefore unattractive.  I think about this concept, and I look for the beauty in things that would not otherwise be considered as such.  There's been an ongoing joke in my life that those of you who know me well are aware of - I like to collect ugly things, including the men I find attractive (to clarify, I don't mean to say I go after ugly men, I just have such different tastes from my friends that it has led me to believe I pursue the off beat type and not the "standard", I personally find them very attractive).  Similarly, I am notorious for wanting the granny furniture because I want to give it a chance to be loved, or picking up the ugliest dress in a store because I need to know if it looks better on the body than on the hanger, or finding the ugliest art and believing it should belong to me because it is so ridiculous, or wanting the ugliest animal in the pet shop because it's so ugly that it's cute.

People talk about soul mates, and how there is someone out there for everyone, I like to think there is something out there for everyone.  As a designer, no matter what you design, someone out there will like it - even if it's really only just one person.  Creating is a beautiful thing as long as it fulfills something in someone, even if everyone else in the world thinks what you have created is ugly.

---End Rant---

my niche?

I've designed 3 seasons now.  Each season I've learned more about the business, more about how to relate to my (or any) pattern maker, more about the types of fabrics I want to use, and more about what I do best. While I really do like this last collection, I think I got a little lost trying to fill several categories and be marketable in all of them.  The pieces do go together and work together, but somewhere along the line I lost my original intention, and now its time to regroup.

The interesting thing I learned post trade show is something I'd suspected after my second collection - my leggings have the potential to be my design niche in the fashion world.  I'm actually really amused by this because a few years back when leggings began to make their way back into mainstream fashion, I absolutely resisted.  I resisted skinny jeans too though, and I think it had to do with adjusting my mind set toward a new silhouette.  But now, here I am, hoping to finalize larger orders on leggings.  It's definitely made me start to rethink the direction I take the line in, or at least it gives me something to design around for the next couple of season.  Basically, expect less silk, more cotton, leather, and lace.

On a somewhat related note - Keri Hilson was the host of the official Grammy's after party this year, where she was wearing the original Linden moto leggings (pulled by her stylist from Gather, 630 S Main St Los Angeles CA 90014 - www.gatherla.com).  Here's the best photo I could find via google, but I'm working on getting a better one.