How a dressform is made

Jeanne is my new addition to my mini sewing studio (I named her after Jeanne Paquin the famous designer); she came to me via 1st price in the re-design (recycle garments) competition at the Fashion Symposium 2011. Although, Jeanne looks fabulous, I still have a emotional attachment to Maggie my first dress form (Maggie is not as fancy as Jeanne, but she is dear to my heart!).

In no time I was surfing the Internet to find out more about the history of dress forms; and, I had an interesting article on Wolf Form (US company in the East Coast) on one of my Threads Magazine issues. This company, has really high quality dress forms and they have being around since the 1900"s. They provide to designers custom made forms for their clientele and market needs.

Enjoy the video!

Momotaro Jeans - Japan's most expensive!

And more about expensive jeans...lovely loom...

$46,000.00+ for a pair of Levi's Jeans!

Forbes.com has a very interesting article on Jeans and the business of manufacturing them. I was very surprise to read that Levi Strauss & Co. bought a pair of Levi's Jeans from 1880 for the sum of $46,532.00. Well, I am sure that Levi Strauss & Co, has plenty of discretionary income to do this: according to the Forbes article just women's jeans alone in 2004 were $7.4 billion in profits, and most likely on the rise since then.

These are some of the couture and ready to wear jeans and their price tag (in US dollars):


Escada $10,000.00


APO $4,000.00


Escada $3,250.00


Dolce & Gabbana $2,995.00


Dior by John Galliano $1,700.00


Cavalli $1,440.00


Chanel $1,120.00


Stella McCartney $575.00


Gucci $460.00


Moschino $420.00

The swatch thief...

Creating a library of swatches is a pastime that I have. You can find free templates in the Internet to classified your swatches and write all pertinent information; there are some on-line stores that will provide free swatches (as many as you like) or swatches for a low fee. One of such on-line store is www.fabrics-store.com, they specialize in Linen, Linen/Cotton, Cotton (Jacquards, canvas, printed weaves); the prices are the best I have found so far and the quality is superb. This fabric store sends free swatches and they organize them for you in a very neat way: small swatch cards (5 swatches per card) and behind the swatches, they print the name of the fabric, fiber content with number of waft and weft yarns!, and catalog number. Super cool store!

So back to the main story, last weekend I went downtown L.A. to get swatches for my project, and also, look for the new trends within the textile world. As usual, I went over my parking limit and end up paying a bit more than expected. In any event, I was pleased with my new swatches and fabric purchases. I came home and settle my fabric and swatches in my "sewing area", then I went about doing other chores.

The following morning "Bigotes"- my tuxedo cat- jumped into my bed and she had something fuzzy in her mouth...I pull out of her mouth one of my swatches! I went to check the stash of swatches and found that they were all scattered around the house....aaaagggh...I spent hours trying to find the little pieces of fabric: Bigotes hide most of them and to this day I have some pieces missing!

So, Cat lovers, be aware of your little kitties: they not only love to chew on your paper patterns, mess up your yarn balls, eat the thread, climb dress forms until they look like they had chicken pox, play with pins; but also, become a swatch thief...:0.

This is the photo of "Bigotes the Swatch Thief":