at the end of spring 2007, i owned all this beautiful fine gauge silk/cashmere overstock because small designers are forced to meet unfortunate minimums to go into production, but that is a whole other post. after learning that natalie chanin (formerly of project alabama) had re-organized and started alabama chanin, i decided to email her and see if she was open to working with other designers in an effort to give her stitchers more work. i mentioned my beautiful overstock and that i would like to take old stock and applique it onto old stock to create new and more thoughtful garments thus the term up-cycling vs. re-cycling. you are taking something recyclable and recycling it into something of greater value, upcycling. some of the pieces i had produced did not arrive as ordered or i had an abundance of one particular style and those would be cut up and stitched onto my more basic silhouettes as photographed here. the inspiration for the spine applique came from frida kahlo, who despite breaking her spine in her teens and being plagued by chronic pain there after lived a larger than life, potent, influential, iconic life. there is a quote from a 1953 diary entry that says, "feet, why do we need them when we have wings to fly?" that reminds me its just really mind over matter and reappears in my fall 2008 collection.
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