Did you know Juliette Fabbri is now stocked in 22 boutiques across 13 states? What began (and continues!) here on our website is now a coast-coast kind of thing. To find the store nearest to you, just keep reading.
Alchemy Works
Newport Beach, CA
Alchemy Works
Napa Valley, CA
Amy Atelier
Scottsdale, AZ
Angel
Santa Barbara, CA
Dutch + Bow
Bend, OR
Garmentory
Online
Gentle People
Ventura, CA
Goldbug
Sullivan's Island, SC
Lakeside Goods - Shore
New Buffalo, MI
lala - a Kerry Cassill store
Laguna Beach, CA
Leelanau Goods
Santa Monica, CA
Ollie Shop
Houston, TX
Salchicha
Bozeman, MT
Shipwrecked
Kauai, HI
Slate
Martha's Vineyard, MA
Studio RA
Seattle, WA
The Fold
Omaha, NE
Weekends
Boulder, CO
Well Heeled
Stowe, VT
Wendy Foster
Santa Barbara, CA
Willa
Seattle, WA
But equally, I was pulling images from Vogue and covering the wallpaper my mother hung in my room, laying on my bed and dreaming about how it would feel to wear that gown, to have fun with those people, to be looked at like that. I loved designers, their stories, the models, and it was all only two hours away from my suburban Connecticut hell. Looking back, I think the dream of being a designer and creating beauty was a much-needed escape from my actual reality of divorced parents who hated each other, a mostly empty house where I figured stuff out on my own, and the confusion of friends and social interactions at school.
That bedroom
When my mom, whom I never felt wanted the best for me, offered to send me to fashion school out of high school, I declined assuming if she supported it then it wasn’t smart enough. For however I view that assumption now, I believe if I had become a designer at that point, I would have been unbearable. The designer stereotype you think of – that would have been me. Although my path to get here has been long, I have learned so much about what being a designer means to me.
In college, while studying to be a biologist for environmental causes, I spent all my free time as an activist. I co-led a non-profit to support traditional Navajo’s who were being forced to relocate off their ancestral land, to make way for coal mining. We would raise money, purchase much-needed supplies, solicit donations, and over spring break we’d caravan down to the reservation, deliver supplies and stay for a week to help with whatever needed to be built, fixed or planted. For me, to be able to do something to help someone else fight injustice felt like a meaningful way to spend my time. It’s also when I got my first grey hair.
Straight out of college, working as a biologist on recovery of endangered salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest, I knew I didn’t fit but I was determined to make it work. I remember one day I showed up to my biology job in a tight midi length pinstriped pencil skirt, silk blouse, leather boots, hair done. NO ONE dressed like that in my office. At best, everyone wore jeans and Patagonia jackets. I would even tell them when we were in the field that someday I wanted to be a fashion designer, and they’d look at me like huh? It was so far from the realm of biology. I realized I wasn’t happy around people that would rather be in their office alone working, then be together talking/working on something. I loved collaborating and creating things, especially if it involved color and design. How could I combine these passions with a meaningful cause?
A friend suggested advertising and I found my way to an agency. Then to brand strategy, then to working freelance on branding fashion businesses and as a business manager, then to teaching how to launch your fashion brand at the University of Washington, then to styling and art directing photoshoots; until I finally found the courage to accept myself as I was and do the thing I really truly wanted – enrolling in fashion design school. Because this time around I wanted to know everything, instead of figuring it out as I go.
Through it all, being a designer kept whispering to me. I’d look up design schools in London, Italy, NYC, request catalogs and consume every word, imagining what it would be like to go. Every couple years I’d do the intro tour at Seattle Central’s Apparel Design Program (where I eventually went), look at the other people there and think, I’ll never be as good as them, who do I think I am.
When I was an activist/biologist, my biggest risk was getting arrested. Today, my biggest risk (bigger than all the obvious risks of running a business) is putting my design ideas into the world. For everyone to see, and to critique. This is the scariest thing to me because I must be vulnerable for my work to be true.
If I have a cause now, it is this: to create a space where women can feel beautiful and comfortable, that clothing can be effortless and interesting, that we can accept ourselves for how we are, love our bodies at all the sizes we are – free from the confines of our culture’s definition of a ‘fashionable sexy woman’. That is why I created Juliette Fabbri.
When we connect to that state of mind, everything else is just that much more possible. My first collection of spare and voluminous dresses began as an exploration of sleep clothes. The shape is generous and adaptable; you can layer over and under it, or wear it with nothing at all. I sourced premium crisp cotton shirting because I love how it feels and the way it gets better and better over time. It’s also a nod to everyone who has slept in someone else’s button-up.
Looking back, I realize all my detours were where I learned how to create a fashion brand, what it feels like to work hard for something you believe in, that the people you’re in it with matter more than the cause. I see now I was building a strong foundation all along. It wasn’t time wasted, but time well spent.
]]>Okay, now that we’ve all settled into this new year and started to make it our own, I want to share a little bit about our behind-the-scenes process with you. While there’s so much that goes into planning our shapes and colors, our photoshoots, and our overall visual language … we also put so much into planning our growth and our staying power as a brand. And I want you to know about it!
Each quarter and each year, I identify what I'm going to focus on. These ideas become like mantras for me, and they help me make big and little decisions. They come to me like reminders in the moment, and are there as an overall arch for the timeframe at hand.
These are the ideas that are shaping everything we do right now:
Love from Seattle,
- Juliette
Smoke, 1989, folio 9 of 19. Etchings by Joan Mitchell with poems by Charles (Hank) Hine.
Joan Mitchell, A Few Days I (After James Schuyler), 1985.
Joan Mitchell, A Few Days II (After James Schuyler), 1985.
Poems, 1992, folio 8 of 8. Lithographs by Joan Mitchell with poems by Nathan Kernan.
Paris, France. Monet - Mitchell and Joan Mitchell Retrospective
October 5, 2022 - February 27, 2023
Fondation Louis Vuitton
1. THE NEW WEST SHOWROOM; I am so proud to be represented by Jenny and her lovely team at The New West
2. STUDIO RA BOUTIQUE: I love that my dresses are for sale at Studio RA on Ballard Ave in Seattle, handpicked by Ramona
3. THE WHALE WINS restaurant by Seattle native and James Beard award winning chef Renee Erickson
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Welcome to the first edition of Juliette’s Journal! We’re so glad you’re here.
It’s been just over three years since we started Juliette Fabbri, and in that time we’ve never really had a steady, long term relationship with newsletters. For one thing the notion of a “newsletter” never felt great. Funny how changing the language around it opened up so much more. While our Journal is absolutely a digital artifact from the digital age, we really are hoping it will feel more engaging, more connected, more friend-to-friend. That’s definitely how it feels to create and plan them.
But there’s something more to this whole effort—something even more personal.
Even though I love writing, doing so for my brand and my business usually feels more challenging and it always takes me away from what I do best. Designing new shapes, sourcing beautiful fabrics, collaborating with impeccable tailors, connecting with wonderful shopkeepers and beautiful clients. And ultimately helping women find the dresses and separates that help them feel more like themselves. The more I grow, the harder it is to pour myself into tasks that aren't my forté.
But we can do hard things! Especially with a team! That more personal part that I referred to earlier is about me challenging myself to share more and to be more consistent ... to build trust in myself that I can. It's about creating a world where I can approach the more difficult parts of running a small independent and female-owned business with the same love and attention that I use to design and create.
I do feel a little vulnerable sharing this part with you, but I think as women we should be okay saying, "Hey, this isn't easy but I can do it." As women business owners we should be okay telling our communities that what we do is both beautiful and hard.
So thanks for letting me say that. It feels hard, and it feels beautiful, too.
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JF-------If our purpose is not a job, but an emotion or feeling we seek to amplify, how would you describe your purpose?
Oh, just a simple existential purpose question, haha! It is funny that these questions become enormous for us adults, occupying much space in our heads, and that my answer today may be different tomorrow. For today, I’ll say that we seem to be born with an easier relationship with purpose - before it reaches our brains, we live it through our be-ing.
Thinking back to when I was young, I recall my chief concerns as things like reading other people’s cues, snuggling, yummy foods, twirling, not stepping on cracks, caring for animals, coloring, and seeing what’s happening in the sky. In a panned-out view, these are all acts of love, and allow me to see my purpose as returning over and over again to this knowing: that being a human body, consciously connected to my place, people, plants, animals, and objects around me is purpose and that’s enough. That, and to turn norms on their heads! Questioning jobs that are gendered, that we can’t make new choices later in life, and that following our hearts is risky.
JF-------Before I was a designer, I saw it as this precious thing that felt unreachable, but once I started to meet actual designers, I realized it’s just a job that many people have. And also, not something everyone wants to do. But I wanted to do it and that had to mean something. How did you see woodworking before you got into it, and how do you see it now that you’re doing it?
My relationship with design and the word designer has always been tense, in that I’m totally drawn towards it while being equally critical of it. Starting in school where I studied Urban Design. I was swept into the dream of urban design’s potential in my final project for a landscape architecture class, designing a garden around a specific emotion. But subsequent classes taught me about things like designing public space for social control, and the long history of this. I became aware of “hostile architecture” and I could see nothing but uncomfortable park benches, out-of-service drinking fountains, and cities made for cars, where people are confined to small sidewalks or called jaywalkers and liable for fines. I became critical and despondent; it was impossible to find meaning there.
Fast forward 20 years and a few careers, and I had the opportunity to consult on the restoration design of some cabins on Orcas Island. Simple, fun things like where windows and doors should go, which siding to re-purpose on what walls…. Consulting turned into the opportunity to frame-in the doors and windows, and hang the siding, and I ended up partnering with my friend and unofficial mentor Arne to build two cabins. We lived on the property as we worked, so it was natural to talk about it holistically, expanding to what furniture and cabinets we would make. Back home in the city, Arne and I got to work on these new pieces and have been building together ever since.
This shift from design to building was a major AH-HA! for me, it was like finding the missing link. Whereas previously all my design ideas needed to be explained, believed in, and executed by someone else, this I could do myself, on-the-fly, designing as we went. It re-oriented my center of power: from one of ideas to one of ideas + action, grounding me in the physical reality of materials and the work of assembling them. I loved the nature of it, being tired and satisfied at the end of a workday and having an actual thing to show for my labor.
JF-------How important is collaborating to your work?
Collaboration is at the center of everything I am interested in, and I aim to practice co-everything. As a strong-willed and opinionated first born child, I’ve also found these strengths can be blind spots. I’ve come to see in the design space, my ideas are stronger when tempered with other people’s ideas, contributions, and lived experience. This has not been an easy lesson, it’s taken me years to acknowledge, and all I’m admitting is that I see it as something to work on, not that I’m good at it! Partnership is difficult, and yet collaborating is always more fun.
JF-------How did you build a habit of trusting yourself?
To talk specifically about learning to trust myself in the design process, I’m 40 years old now and have been working in creative capacity all my life, which is important only in thinking about developing self-trust like any other muscle, through time, attention, and work. It’s cringey, recalling the “self-trust” I had as a young person, which vacillated from an ungrounded and dodgy confidence to its opposite, being crushed by feedback or ideas not working out. I had lots of time to cut my teeth in this sphere as a visual designer at Nordstrom, merchandising the store interiors and creating window displays. The feedback I received there was constant because the work was so big and public, for better and for worse.
But what gave me a home to build trust was a close partnership with my mentor, Robbie. We were the window building team and he taught me to conceptualize space and use power tools to build it. Because it was just us two in the windows, I could make mistakes without melting down; he taught me that messing up was part of making, and the difference between a beginner and a pro is knowing how to hide your mistakes. Robbie is one of many people I have aligned with to learn new skills, and I see this mentorship space as invaluable for building self-trust. If I have any advice worth sharing, it’s to find someone whose work you admire and learn from them first.
JF-------I’ve been reading this book you lent me: Proposals for the Feminine Economy. How has this book evolved what you are doing and your vision for how you would like to create?
I love Jennifer Armbrust’s work because it reminds us that we always have the power to make new choices. Yes, we currently live in a culture that holds up traditionally masculine values - individualism, domination of people and nature, speed and efficiency, etc. - as the norm, and skips over the other half of what makes us whole human beings, the traditionally feminine aspects. But as a small business owner and self-employed creative, my daily practice and business structure is a perfect laboratory for the practical application of feminine values and making new choices.
Proposals for the Feminine Economy suggests a redistribution of values and asks what it would look like to build a business around interdependence, connecting with nature, generosity, ease, and so much more. More than evolving what I am doing and my vision for how I would like to create, this framework feels like returning to what I have always valued: reading others cues, snuggling, yummy foods, twirling, not stepping on cracks, caring for animals, coloring, and seeing what’s happening in the sky.
]]>I recently had the pleasure to meet Lentine, and below we talk about riding into the unknown, competition, living well, panchakarma, and reshuffling priorities.
But what do food and cycling have to do with fashion? Everything it turns out. As you may know, I took a circuitous route to becoming a designer. Cycling was where I learned to build courage, courage to leave the life I knew and set out to become a designer under my own north star. Which required me to redefine my ideas of what is valuable. Cycling was a way to build it physically in my body before I could express it in my wider emotional life.
I believe we are not one-dimensional beings. So often, when I meet someone new, they confess to me they were so nervous about what to wear since I am a designer. If only they knew! What I value most is creating beauty that comes from being comfortable in our skin, and that doesn’t just happen because of clothes. It’s an inside outside thing, and however we get there feels important to talk about.
And Lentine created a special recipe in honor of our nightdresses, read on.
JF-------I’ve always been enchanted by your easy joyful nature on the bike, and that you were a badass pro lady cyclist. How did you get into cycling?
LA-------I started cycling in earnest when I was living on a tiny island in Southern Japan. It was a remarkably beautiful place, but it was a time in my life where I felt I was navigating through dark clouds: my then-partner was spending a lot of time abroad in dangerous theatres, I had left my professional interests behind in the United States, was learning my place in two foreign cultures at the same time (military culture, Japanese culture.) I felt lost. I bought a used bicycle from a friend and started taking it out on little rides around the island. As I rode into my own unknown, dove into being afraid, and tried to be brave, slowly the place and its people started to unlock. The natural beauty, internal curiosity and sense of wonder within me began to bloom as well. The bike became my tool for navigating a foreign place - inside and outside of myself. For all intents and purposes, my bike plays the same role in my life today - a tool for discovery + exploration - emotions and landscape within, and the big beautiful world outside.
JF-------How do you approach the competitive aspect of riding?
LA-------Competition was a large part of my cycling life at one point in time. The little rides that I went on to explore our island grew longer and longer, my body became stronger and stronger, and out of curiosity I began racing endurance distance events. I unexpectedly won the first triathlon I entered, and quickly found myself competing on the world stage. I raced as a pro for 9 years, competing all over the world and reaching some of the highest echelons of endurance sport, but I was never going to be a reigning world champion because the spark, for me, was never in winning or prevailing over my competitors. It was about discovering new levels of myself, seeing the world through new eyes, challenging myself against the elements.
And the truth is, fixating on someone else being faster or stronger than me, took me ever further from those goals. I don't compete anymore, but I still love finding spots of fear within myself -- then confronting them head on. It turns out, I'm my biggest rival. There's nothing more rewarding than finding a fear or a doubt within and facing it. There isn't a single title that someone else could award me that would overcome that joy.
JF-------I’ve heard you say performing well is the product of living well. What does living well mean to you and how do you create this in your life?
LA-------It's true. If we aren't living well, we won't perform well. If we aren't living our BEST, we won't perform our best. Food is a great metaphor here because literally everything we put on and in our bodies becomes our bodies and brains. LITERALLY. If we put only microwave burritos in, the energy we put out, the shape our bodies take, and the shape of the thoughts we create are a product of that burrito. If we put organic, whole, energy-charged natural foods miraculously sprung from the Earth, our bodies use that miraculous fuel to spring thoughts, actions and, yes, prowess.
This applies to the thoughts we have, and space we create for ourselves too. In my own life, I notice that when I am just going through the motions, checking things off the list, that my work and my performance aren't up to the standard that I want to see. If I don't take time to let my thoughts flush out, if I cram too much into my days, my work lacks creative luster. If I don't take the time to stretch and refuel properly, my riding and physical prowess suffers. And you can't take a "supplement" for any of that. It has to come truly, deeply from an intentional place.
Intentionally carving out time to prioritize - I think this is really the way "living well" takes shape in my life. I feel like the word intention gets tossed around easily these days, but when you're being intentional you FEEL it, and it takes a reasonable amount of energy and focus in our modern lives. For me, that means sourcing and curating the highest quality ingredients to work with, intentionally carving out time to ride or stretch or run so that I can really be in it out there. Creating enough space around my work to let ideas flush themselves out. I guess it means that I check fewer things off the list each day, but the things I'm doing/creating/experiencing -- I'm 100% in, without taking a shortcut.
JF-------These photo of you in the nightdress were taken on a recent trip to Joshua Tree for panchakarma. How was that experience this year? What did you let go of? What did you take in?
LA-------Over the past couple of years, I've started doing bi-annual panchakarma retreats. Panchakarma is a seasonal cleanse in Ayurvedic medicine, meant to unseat deep imbalances in the body and mind. It can be used to address deep dis-ease, but it can also be used as time dedicated to letting go of whatever doesn't serve us anymore as the season shifts...and that's the reason I carve out the time.
This fall was a particularly poignant experience with the pandemic thrown into the mix. There were so many physical and emotional practices that had woven their way into my life as coping mechanisms, and it took me clearing my calendar and leaving my day-to-day life behind - including my bicycles, exercise routines and every single screen and device - at home. I practiced deep silence out there and discovered a lot.
Despite the fact that I had all sorts of organization patterns, rituals and practices in place, I wasn't really good at carving out time for myself. My self-care was the equivalent of junk food, getting squished in wherever I could fit it. On the retreat, I got to repattern that. I recognized that mornings in my home were like falling out of bed into the onslaught; from the moment we woke to the moment the lights went out we were "taking care of business," in a curated and calm way, but we were constantly moving and absorbing.
On the retreat, mornings were completely silent until 8:30am, and in that early morning time, I had the space to do a breathing exercise, short yoga practice, connect with nature and record thoughts and inspirations in a journal. Those practices allowed me to let go of a lot of anxiety, to feel more grounded in the present, and to embrace the fact that I can't control my future right now (and maybe never could), but I can feel more settled wherever I am by really, intentionally setting my feet on the ground and letting my breath in.
Back at home, my breath practice and yoga practice are still strong. I'm sticking to the boundary of not doing anything I qualify as "work" until after 8:30 am, and am feeling so much more spacious, curious, energized, and frankly, happy, free. Connected to my spirit. And to my partners too. It was really just a reshuffling of priorities, a reorganization of the hours in our day. It was easier than I thought, and it was worth the effort to make it happen.
JF-------What advice do you offer women interested in cycling?
LA-------Don't be intimidated by these gorgeous machines, or by the things you find when you get on one. Lots of women I meet learning to ride are nervous about being uncomfortable or being lost, or being unable to climb that hill. The hills will be big, and the learning curve might be even steeper. But it's nothing in comparison to the feeling you'll have when you realize that you're stronger than you think, more capable of pedaling over mountains than you ever imagined, and it's impossible to get truly lost when you're following your heart as a compass. And for all the other times, there's Uber ;)
** And now, for the pièce de résistance, Lentine developed a lovely, luxe twist on a favorite holiday recipe in honor of our nightdresses. Please meet the Molasses Masala Snap Cookie along with her beautiful story on bringing the Jo Nightdress along for a week in the desert. Enjoy!
As a designer, I’m interested in how things feel. I’m not so drawn to trends but what feels fresh and interesting, what feels good on the body, what can be worn any season. For a while I’ve been absorbed with voluminous clothing - oversized, minimal lines, monotone colors.
I would later write down my dream designer job – where I worked on her team, earned this much, did these things every day, and felt this way about my life. Then I forgot about it because it was clear I needed design school before I could have such a job.
Fast forward five years, post school, I’m working with her on a design team at Nordstrom, and when cleaning my studio I found that vision and was like, holy shit, this is exactly my life right now. How did this happen? I think that’s how setting intention works. We are constantly supported by the universe in our true intentions, and experiences like this are proof. If it’s meant to be, you trust the process and leave the rest to the universe.
As I’ve been working to build my brand, I’m lucky to call Marion a design mentor and sounding board. We got together recently over coffee/tele, here’s some highlights from our conversation and her stylings of the nightdresses.
Describe your life right now.
MZ-------We live in Park City Utah in the mountains, a half hour east of Salt Lake City. We moved here for my husband Ben’s job a year and a half ago, we [all 5 of us] were hesitant to leave Seattle because we loved it so much. But we’ve found we really appreciate the outdoors - the mountains, hiking, mountain biking, Nordic skiing - there’s so many lifelong sports here to continue learning.
How is social distancing going for you?
MZ-------It has brought our family closer together. It has meant that my husband doesn’t travel anymore – and it’s actually been really nice. You know, you get used to routines, especially to a significant other being gone so much, and if that changes you worry it won’t work out, but in fact it’s been really nice.
Having kids around all the time has its struggles because they’ve lost their structure. But it allows us to interact as a family as we haven’t before. We’ve had to be more accepting of one another, I think that’s a good exercise as a family. We get to watch more movies together and not feel too guilty. Not getting kids up at 6:30 for 7:30 out the door has been really nice.
How was it for you leaving your design job?
MZ-------It was really tough. I had a nice flexible job situation with Nordstrom. I knew I’d never have that type of setup again, it’s rare in our industry. I loved the people I worked with. That’s the area missing for me in my life here – the job, that environment. But on the flip side, I have reminded myself how much I love the mountains – I grew up hiking, backpacking, camping and skiing every winter since I was six. After living in the city for decades, I feel very at home here.
How did you come to be a designer?
MZ-------As the youngest of four children, I got all the hand me downs. Before my mom went back to law school she taught my sisters and I how to taper our Levi’s. I thought, this is so cool, I can use my sewing machine to alter my clothes and they become something new. I’ve never been a great sewer, but I loved the feeling of making something and wearing it to school the next day, I always got such positive feedback. It became my defining trait.
I lost it a bit in college, studying art history and French; and only after graduating did I realize how much I missed making clothes. After four years of academic studies, I wanted to get back to that tactile experience, and so I pursued a fashion design program. I was worried my family would think my college years were a waste - fashion is not an intellectual field - but in fact they were very supportive, and when I got back into sewing and learning patternmaking it just felt right.
Tell me about your time working at Nanette Lepore – what was your job, how did you work together, what was your favorite part?
MZ-------Before I worked for her, I worked for a Liz Claiborne company, it was very corporate. Nanette was a new up and coming designer and I really wanted to work for a small company. She owned the business with her husband, her dad re-mortgaged his house to give her seed money in the 90s. When I joined in 2001 it was very small, the design team was Nanette and two woven designers. We did everything - fabric sourcing, print design, embroidery design, working with the sample room to create our designs. And we’d do what you would consider the production teams job - consulting with the Cutter, especially when prints were being cut; we did all the costing and pricing, and yardage yields. It was really a wonderful learning experience on what it takes to run a small business. I had dreams of doing my own line, but after spending a couple years there I felt maybe I don’t want to run my own company – I loved being a part of realizing others visions and making that happen.
How is that experience different from working as a Design Director on a corporate private label?
MZ-------It was a big transition for me not having a sample room, I was very used to going from idea to garment. Nanette would have us drape ideas before we’d sketch and give it to the patternmaker. While that was not always the cheapest way to work, it was certainly artful, and made us all realize 2d doesn’t always come through in 3d. This whole process was not available to us at Nordstrom, but you have a technical designer – and they are amazingly talented – but ultimately its best-guess work. You hope you articulated your idea well enough in your sketch and tech pack for the factory to get it right. Six weeks later you get your sample back and that’s your sample, there’s no time for changes.
We never had meetings at Nanette Lepore, they just didn’t exist. She said, why would we waste our time with meetings? There were pros and cons. Nanette’s company grew organically along every part of the process, at Nordstrom you are much more siloed. You are not as involved in the development of the styles, it’s a much less tactile experience and you go to a lot of meetings, there are processes to follow – but also a more realistic business environment. And those efficiencies at Nordstrom have paid off for the business.
Do you think it’s possible today for a designer to work as you did with Nanette?
What would they need to make that feasible?
MZ-------Yes. I think it’s about the timing of your deliveries and having a sample room. Small designers would like to change the course of how fashion operates on a season, and because you are small, you have the advantage of working the way you want, with your deliveries. It depends on who you work with. Some buyers will want things shipped in real time – buy now wear now – which is more realistic and where the industry is headed. You don’t need to operate on the scale of the big guys.
Having a sample room is where the development of a style happens as you move through the idea, iterating and making big and little changes until it looks right. I think there’s some devaluing of the creative process that goes into actually making something – how the idea changes and improves as you work with it. That’s an important part of the process.
What do you want people outside of the fashion industry to know about our industry?
MZ-------I think there’s a real stigma attached to our industry as a bunch of dumb, frivolous partiers. People see the media side – the magazines, the models, the fashion shows, the movies, and they think it’s all about the party lifestyle. They have no clue how hard we all work. I’m always struck by how much talent I’ve been lucky enough to work with throughout my career, and how smart and driven these people are. My own family has made comments on how people in my industry aren’t particularly smart, but they have a very narrow definition of what “smart" means. Fashion design is a business, just like any other, that has a bottom line to meet. To be a good designer you need to be savvy about what it is you are trying to accomplish. 💛
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