6.09.2004 Fiber Artists take note: Cavalli's skirt, Bazaar Mag. June 2004

If I have a favorite designer, it is Roberto Cavalli. On the cover of Bazaar
Magazine this month, you'll see a $21,000 outfit; the greatest proportionate
cost is the skirt fabrication which was painted entirely by hand. To my fiber
artist friends, if you like this look, would you be interested in learning a
method I invented to do this? Actually, I have the audacity to dare suggest
that I've invented a method Cavalli himself would buy as it would
dramatically increase the quality and uniformity of the skirt's design and at a
much, much lower cost (production, not retail cost). I've been making skirts
similar to this one with this method since 1999 or so but never developed the
idea into a "product" (information I'd sell as a how-to magazine article for
example). The method also requires a pattern which people would have to
buy although they could just as well draft their own once they understood the
process.  Also, this process is closely related to another project I've been
working on, that of permanent pleating at home. Imagine, home sewers and
small design operations would be able to do their own pleating in-house
rather than shipping the goods off to an apparel industry contractor (known
as a "novelty house"). Is there any interest in this sort of thing? This last
process requires consumables in the form of safe and easy to use chemicals
which would require actual product packaging and marketing for resale in
fabric stores and the like, but I don't know that interest justifies the
expenditure of time, effort or money. If you're a fiber artist, I'd like to hear
your thoughts on the matter. I think I'll post a photo of a skirt using this
method and see. But first, I'll have to find one of these skirts I've made and
I'm sure it's stuck in a project's box somewhere in my warehouse...oh dread.

Return to main projects page

If you'd care to submit suggestions for my site, I'd appreciate it greatly. Go
back to the contact me page to submit your ideas.

This site was last revised July 26, 2004