Archive for September, 2014
The nightlife of TREES
What a delightful purchase. It took me a total of 1 second to decide I was going to buy this book. One look at the cover and I was ravenous for more. Each page is filled with screen printed images of magical trees. I grabbed a few snapshots with my phone to share with you. If you need to own it too, go to Drawn and Quarterly on Bernard.
I met a fairy bride yesterday and she wants a fairy dress!!!
Since I had to spend 5 hours of my day waiting for a Bell technician yesterday, I took advantage of that time to do some full colour sketches. This amount of time was a treat I rarely indulge in – I opened the color pencil box and they were all still long and perfectly sharpened.
Here are the three sketches I have sent to my future bride, along with photos of the materials I would suggest.
The greens
Green, Ivory with a touch of lavender
All fabrics I feel could be appropriate for this project…I especially love the ruffle chartreuse mesh at the far right.
I’ll let you know what she chooses:)
I just couldn’t do it anymore. It was starting to feel repetitive. Formulaic even. Flowers, ruffles, frills, lace, appliqué, embellishments. I just wasn’t feeling inspired to wear my own clothes. But I also feared that change would spell the death of my company, and I had a new baby to keep me up at night, so innovation was not on my mind. Banging out a sellable collection of pretty clothes was my goal and I kept the old flavor going way past it’s expiration date.
The I turned 39. The nine years are always trouble for me. I went through two weeks of “What am I doing?”, “How can I change this?”, “I don’t like what I am making.” It was a very moody period. Talking it through, walking it off, thinking, thinking, thinking. I decided I wanted to shake it up. I took all my flowery, ruffle and lace fabrics and dropped them off with one of my suppliers. I exchanged $2000 of fabric for $200 in credit. I felt like I was opening up some space.
Then I thought deeply about what I do best and what we (including me) want to wear. I came to the conclusion that I cannot escape the cozy shirts and stretchy jeans world of today. It’s what I want. It’s what I will offer.
I designed a collection based on high-tech athletic lines, classic sporty tops and new non-figurative details that still evoke the “Katrin Leblond” signature. Below you will find one of 4 tops for this Fall: The baseball top (with thumb-hole cuffs). It has a sleeve line that is raglan at the back and S-curve at the front shoulder all top stitched in ton-on-tone thread. The back panel is a soft double layer of viscose. It comes in 7 colours and retails for $88
The jeans are by yoga jeans and they are fantastic for layering under tops and tunics this Fall because of their zipper-less pull-0up waist line. They come in blue only and retail for $94
The sweater coat is by IVKO. It is 100% lambswool and has a two way zipper. I love the box pleat at the back. You can buy it online here. It retails for $397.
I do have an online store specially devoted to Ivko. You can find the biggest selection of Ivko in North-America in my store (or so my sales-rep says.)
