Designer

……………..July 05…….was the beginning of a new Fall/Winter season……The Double Breasted Suede jacket had the additional of a side zip closure down the side front next to the buttons…..just for an extra touch of GOLD….It also had zippers on the sleeves and ZIPPERS IN THE TWO BACK SEAMS at the HEM. This allowed for more hiney room and was very sexy when they were opened.The jacket was an exact copy of one I did for Anne Klein except the Anne Klein jacket was in a beautiful Italian soft BLACK LEATHER……Even the GOLD NUGGET BUTTONS were duplicated from the original. The black leather version was one of Jac’s personal favorites…..Elizabeth Taylor wore the black leather jacket on the Johnny Carson show. It was so much fun to see her sitting there looking fabulous! She was a frequent customer…The suede jacket came in BLACK, MAGENTA, BRICK RED and OLIVE……The turtle neck tunic had side slits with gold zippers. It was an Every Needle Rib sweater so it had body, but I can’t remember the exact yarn….it was a rayon blend and had a beautiful hand and sheen. It was heavier than the WK….It was in the black, magenta, olive and brick red to match the suede jacket………The blouse at the bottom left was made in SILK….everything was made in silk! However, they were dry clean only! Actually, you could hand wash them if you knew what you were doing. My mother always hand washed her silk blouses…..The blouse was no ordinary blouse. It had French Cuffs, but the magic was the removable RUFFLE JABOT. It buttoned onto the buttons on the placket so you could wear it with or without…….I see that the sketch has the “Streamer Ties” that were a separate addition. They were 3 long streamers in the self fabric that were sewn together at the center. You would wrap them under the collar and knot them in the front…giving you 6 streamers….I don’t remember if we sold the streamers with the blouse along with the jabot, but I do know I did do a blouse with them…..The blouse came in Magenta, Olive and Ivory…..all to work with the suede jacket or any jacket that worked with them………The last item was a rayon/nylon raglan sleeve sweater. It had a ballet neckline and long sleeves. It too came in Black, Olive and Magenta. It had a very wide band of faceted, flat back jewels all hand sewn on. They were in beautiful colors. The photo does them no justice!!!…The chart at the lower right is what I made for the embroiderers to follow………Three of the four styles were reordered!

………………….May 05 was my fifth year at QVC, and the business just continued to grow……everyone was happy. By now I knew the workings of QVC and most of the players. The models had become close friends with Jac and myself, and a good time was had by all…..This was a two hour show and it was chock full of great items…….The jacket at the upper left was in the stretch cotton sateen that was becoming a staple fabric. The quality, with its’ subtle sheen, was a superb fabric. It had body seams which gave it a great shape and inset band pockets. It had 3/4 sleeves with slits and turn back cuffs…..It had a three button front with beautiful gold crest buttons……but……..the surprise was in the back. There were tabs that came out of the seams that buttoned with the same gold buttons….however it also had a multi row of real gold chains that could be attached to the buttons under the tabs or not, so it was very versatile….The fact that the chains were real gave the jacket a very designer look…..The coordinating crop pant in the cotton sateen also had the tabs and removable chains on the waist band……To layer with the jacket there was a cotton/rayon 2×2 rib tank with lurex trim. There was also a sleeveless TN , but I’m not sure if it was part of the group…….There were THREE SILK SHIRTS…..a work shirt with tiny gold buttons in beautiful colors…..a random stripe shirt in three different color combinations, and a beautiful floral in two colors. This beautiful floral had GOLD TINY SEQUINS outlining some of the flowers which made the shirt very festive!……There was also a gored floral skirt…..and a print TEE WITH JEWELS outlining the neckline……..this wasn’t the end of the May Anniversary show…….there’s more to come!…………..scroll down

…………………There were some wonderful items in the May 05 group…….the cotton tunic shirt at the upper left with the thread and jewel emb. was one of Jac’s favorites and she would take it away on all of our trips. It had the look of a Mexican wedding shirt. It came in the white and turquoise with multi color emb. I believe we ended up putting jewel buttons down the front to match the emb. The buttons were in muli colors. The inspiration for the top came from an emb. shoe that Jac owned………Now she had a top to match her shoes!!!! That’s the advantage of having a designer for a husband!………..The next tunic was another top that Jac wore often in the Caribbean. It was in  a sheer silk crinkle georgette with a matching tank…….The jewel and sequin emb. was multi color and had a Moroccan flare…Some of the jewels outlining the opening were triangular in shape…..I loved the way this tunic came out. I thought the colors were very special and not commonplace..It came in Spice and Violet with multi color jewels and sequins…..I remember copper and turquoise sequins on the spice…The silk CDC and Chiffon tunic, the cotton/span legging the solid silk tunic and pull-on pant, the sequin V-neck sweater were all reordered styles……The georgette gored skirt was a knew skirt………………My 5th Anni. was a success.

……………..The day started with a magnificent sunrise, but the storm clouds were already coming. Here, on the shore of CT., it didn’t start to snow until early evening, but when it did start it came down with a vengeance! The wind off the water was so strong that it blew the snow right off of my driveway never covering one half of the driveway [photo at upper left] leaving the black top exposed. Where ever the wind hit my roof, no snow gathered. You can see the path by the water is clean of snow and the grass is still showing through. However, in the back where the wind didn’t blow everything away we had a good 16 to 17 inches of snow. In the picture to the lower right you can see a path I cleared away. What you can’t see is that there is clear plastic on top of the bricks. I have the area outside my back door and just beyond the gate, and the area around the garbage bin covered in plastic. When all is over and the snow is shoveled away…..I have Franco take the plastic up and my bricks are perfectly clean…..no ice or slippery spots for me to slide and fall on……All in all it was a beautiful snow fall!

……………………In what I like to call “The Golden Age of QVC”……..once upon a time they used to have elaborate shows called “The Designer’s Gallery”. These shows started off each new season…..one for Spring and one for Fall….They created elaborate stages and runways in the cavernous warehouse. The host would stand at the top of the runways and each designer would have their turn with the host presenting their group of new clothing on models……The shows were so long they usually had two hosts to do these shows…..I’ll give you one guess who did the second half……They were very exciting shows to do and there was makeup and hair avail to the models. The QVC hair and makeup vendors were there to create looks for the girls…….Those were the days………….For this particular presentation I created a very special tweed that I had duplicated as close as possible to a tweed I used at Anne Klein. The original tweed was made by an incredible fabric company that was located outside of Brussels. They were know for making most of the Chanel fabrics. This was a company that was a few hundred years old! I made special trips just to work with them!! The company was in an idyllic setting. The buildings were all two or three stories high made out of wood, with old wide plank wood floors. They still produced their fabrics on old wooden looms. Their fabrics were all hand woven. No modern machinery here! They produced fabrics with a plethora of yarns in fabrics that could only be made on hand looms. Their buildings and looms, and walls of bins with hundreds of different yarns in different colors was a dream and looked like something from “Romeo and Juliette” or “The Taming of the Shrew”. I was privileged to have worked with these incredibly creative people. It was a family business, and like many of these very old companies eventually there was no one to leave them to or no one interested in continuing to run them. I was very sad when I heard they were closing…..Another chapter in Fashion History coming to a close…..That is the reason the Chanel Company has purchased many of these businesses like Lasage, one of the finest and oldest embroiders that ever exited. They bought a company that specialized in feathers and making custom shoes, and creating fabulous costume jewelry and many others…..all to save them from disappearing…..This was something that Karl Lagerfeld felt was so important…..and he was so right………The jacket was a 3 button shaped silhouette with set in band pockets…..It was lined in a FLORAL PRINT……..the same delicate floral that I used for a crinkle silk bow blouse. The bottom of the sleeve was slit so you could see the floral print. I believe we used real abalone shell buttons……I did the jacket in butter with blush, and mint with lilac, but there were fancy yarns also woven into the plaid. The blouse was a simple shirt body with front and back yokes that had shirring to add femininity. The sleeve was also shirred into the cuff……The cardigan and coordinating tank were in cotton and rayon. They had beautiful GOLD BUGLE BEADED borders, and tiny gold buttons on BUTTER, IVORY or BLUSH……The ribbed cardigan at the top had gold lurex trims, and gold buttons…..but…..what was spectacular about this cardigan was that in between each rib were rows of tiny gold sequins….the tank worked with both sweaters. This sweater was in ivory with gold and navy with gold……………The beautiful two button blazer and coordinating pant was in a new fabric…..a two way stretch gaberdine. They came in BLUSH, IVORY and NAVY. The top pocket had an incredible embroidered crest. It was emb. in GOLD LUREX. and outlining the lurex were tiny gold bugle beads……which were added by hand……The beautifully cut pant was back zip. I love back zip pants and did them many times at Anne Klein…….however…….I quickly learned the QVC lady wasn’t fond of back zip trousers…….they sold because they went with the blazers, but reluctantly….,..It was my first and last back zip pant for QVC…..LOL…………..continue to scroll down