Notable Hands - The Magazine

Hi everyone!

This is the newest version of Notable Hands - the magazine.

You will find long form features from our favorite  designers, trend pages, shopping guides, and editorial shoots. hopefully you'll be inspired by it, and follow the showcased notable crafters that inspired us in the first place.

Enjoy and don't hesitate to comment!

Open publication - Free publishing - More artisans

Notable Hands - Craft - Knitting

Learn the beginning steps of hand-knitting in the video below!


Enjoy!

Notable Hands - Craft - Dyeing Fabrics

Rodarte Fall 2008

Let's talk about dyeing fabrics at home.

This is also one of the essential tools in textile design, and one that designer usually opt for when they’re looking for specific shades in their own collections - ones that are not available from fabrics manufacturers.

Rodarte, the brand created by sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy, works with a specialized fabric-dyer to get a unique shade for their collections. For instance, once they spent months looking of the perfect red-cock shade. This means that they use a lot of time, and resources for the coloring of their collections. That’s how important color is.

You can practice fabric dyeing at home too - either with natural, or synthetic colorants. Say you want a shirt to look ivory instead of crisp white; you can just dip it into a black tea pot for a few minutes/seconds until you see the perfect shade. Remember, after the fabric dries out, the fabrics looks lighter.

But when you are using strong colorants, it is always useful to try the exact shade you want with a small piece of the same fabric you’re using beforehand, and after you got it, you can actually dye the real fabric.

Some fibers are easier to dye. With synthetic materials, you might not even be able to change their shade, but wool, silk, cotton and linen are the best and friendlier materials to dye at home.

Dosa

Artisan dyeing fabric with indigo

DIY dyeing at home

Try it out, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is.

Image via Style.com, Streets and Yo's, Dosa, Google

Notable Hands - Craft - Embroidery

Let's talk about embroidery.

Beading and embroidery are techniques that usually get confused. Embroidery is the art if decorating fabrics and different materials with a needle and thread, or yarn - while Beading is the technique of sewing beads and sequins into fabrics.

Embroidery is a very exciting technique, because while someone can think embroidered fabrics look outdates, many luxury labels also used them to add textures and pattern to their original materials.

Embroidery entails everything from chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, cross-stitch, when it comes to handmade techniques. However, embroidery can also be done by machine, but these pieces are less original and cliché examples.

Artisanal embroidery looks very unique, but once you know the basic technique, you can basically embroider paper, and furniture materials.

Chanel

Missoni

Maiyet - sold at Barney's

The possibilities are endless.

Images via Barney's and Style.com

Textile Design & Silk Screening

Humans have been dying fabric ever since times started. It is no secret that there are countless of techniques, industrial and DIY involved in the process of putting color and prints into woven surfaces. Some of the most artisanal techniques are Batik, which is based on wax to create patters, the most well known tie-dye, woodblock printing, which is an Indian specialized technique, and one of the most common, yet sophisticated techniques – silk screening.

This technique can be practiced at home, at the same time that the most high-end labels also use it to print unique motives into their fabrics. A silk Hermès scarf can be silk screened with more than 40 different patterns – one for each color – at the same time that someone at home can make a cool t-shirt or a canvas tote out of one and only screen. The possibilities are endless, and the process is pretty much 100% manual.

In order to work with silk screens, the specialized textiles designer or artisan uses a woven mesh that acts as a blocking stencil. The fabric has to be placed on a flat surface. After the screen in located in the right place on top of the fabric, ink is poured horizontally on the screen, and a blade is then slid across the length of the screen, and back. This enables the ink to flow uniformly within the mesh pattern on the screen, and no residues are left behind. Only the open mesh areas can transfer ink into the materials, and it’s possible to see the result instantaneously.

Also, any kind of flat surface can be printed, starting with natural fiber fabrics to canvases, and even knits.

Erica Tanov's totes being silk-screened

Take a look from the Hermès demonstrations in San Francisco, and Erica Tanov’s unique tote designs and production.

Final Tote

Hermès printing demonstration

Erica Tanov's images via http://ericatanov.blogspot.com/

Erica Tanov Collaborates With Paper Artist Emily Payne

It's hard not to fall in love with the seamless collaboration between fashion designer Erica Tanov (feature coming soon!) and artist, and paper specialist Emily Payne.

That's when craft enables you to turn simple objects into wonderful, dreamy pieces.

Paynes piece will be showcased at Tanov's Berkeley store until January 6th!

See for yourself!

Erica Tanov / Emily Payne from Emily Payne on Vimeo.

Satya Twena Creates Lush Hats!

If the art of dressing up our own bodies is a matter of countless conversations, then imagine the fuss that comes with wearing objects on top of our heads. We are here to talk about some headpieces that have actual heads turning around in the streets – Satya Twena collection of women’s hats. 

Satya Twena is not the kind of designer that used to create paper and flower hats ever since she was a kid. She is the kind of creative persona that only after growing up discovered a way of expressing her creative anxiety through design. (Actually, some of the most interesting designers we know didn’t know that they would turn out finding their true passion in fashion and accessories design). This former interior designer was never a stranger to the art world, but she discovered her love of designing hats by chance, taking an evening class at FIT in millinery in 2009.

Pooka Hat

Satya Twena New Campaign

Shortly afterwards Twena’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which resulted in the initiation of her now lauded millinery career, as well as the realization that she wanted to live every day to the fullest. What started as a hobby turned out to be a way of expressing her own creative self, as told by the designer in an e-mail interview we conducted last month. “I just had all these energy and didn’t know how to release it… it just ended up being creating energy.” (see Jacob’s Creek True Character Series).

Twena business grew rapidly from making hats and caps for her mother, to receiving orders from friends, family, and word of mouth clients. Twena is one of the fewcouture milliners based in New York City. She sells to a range of upscale boutiques and department stores, and also enables customers to shop from her own e-commerce site and have costum hats made personally! Talk about small luxuries.

In ST’s collection there is a hat for every kind of woman – and a range that goes from casual to black-tie occasions, with new takes on felt fedoras, floppy wide brim chapeaus, 20s-inspired cloches, and equestrian riding hats. The designer describes her line as “feminine with a hint of vintage and a dash of sexiness,” which is a product of her use of deep jewel tones, high quality materials and sweet elements, such as pearl pins, and a flower or ribbon here and there.

Satya Twen wearing her own design

Twena has kept her business small and intimate. Every hat she produces is made by hand in New York, and although she offers ready-to-wear pieces, the designer continues to design custom hats. “My focus is on quality, longevity and art, not quantity.” Twena has become a master in the art form of transforming a person’s look and style with a single piece. “Also, being able to see and work with the craftsman making your hats – that is true luxury,” says the designer.

Through her craft, not only has Twena found who she is, but she has also strived to reflect her client’s personality through her designs. “What differentiates me and my work is my ability to see past the physical and tap into my client’s character and desires to create wearable art.”

Twena’s newest endeavor is ST’s sister company Discover Pique, a hosiery line that acts as a “monthly curated hosiery subscription.” Sounds like the perfect compliment to the ST woman. Just take feminine classics like a back seam, fine dots, and lacy tights, and top any getup with one of her lush hats!

Jacobs Creek Presents True Character Series – Satya Tweena from Soap Creative on Vimeo.

Images Courtesy of Satya Twena

Our Next Favorite Statement Pieces - Nathalie Costes Collarettes!

Nathalie Costes

I’ve been quite obsessed, if nothing else, with knitwear since I started making knitwear pieces during design school, about three years ago.

Those days are not gone, but I also enjoy looking at knitwear-design behind the scenes for inspiration – the possibilities are countless, and much more modern and unique than those granny sweater we always think of when seeing a crochet hook, and those two long needles.

Crochet and knitwear are both made of a single yarn (any kind of yarn), yet their look and possibilities are completely different.

So, in my search for some unique applications of crochet I happened to find the most charming artist, Nathalie Costes, who makes no other than cotton crochet collars, or what she calls in French, collarettes!

These small and dreamy pieces are an example of a unique, and simple idea turning into something wonderful, and a model of how unconventional pieces can also be very wearable ones! Just take what you love the most about clothes and make it your own! But it doesn’t go as easy as it sounds.

Needless to say, I’m drooling here over Nathalie Costes ultra-femenine collarettes! To me, the rufflier they get, the better! And they will definitely change any simple, and not so simple look, in a second.

Check her site/e-shop out after you read what this lovely French designer has to say! 

1.  Nathalie, can you tell me a bit about yourself?
I’m just a simple woman, mother of three children, two girls and a boy – ages 20, 19 and 17.  I’m looking for a simple life, trying to worry less and giggle more. 

2.  Where are you based?

I left Paris 4 years ago after stopping my wooden necklaces business. I’m living in the Southwest of France, not far from the sea, not far from Spain, and not far from the mountains in a small town calling PAU. I like to go to Paris for small journeys and I’m always happy to come back to the country.

Workshop

Nathalie wearing her design

3.  How long have you worked in fashion- designing such beautiful accessories?

I started to design fashion accessory in 2003, with my lacquered wooden necklaces. I wasn’t conscious that they would be such a success. After four years, I decided to stop as I felt like a prisoner with all those beads. The production wasn’t easy.


4.  How would you define your style, or the girl that you design for?

I don’t really know how to define my style. I think it’s simple, elegant, and joyful. I don’t think particularly about a girl to design for. What I love is when different kind of people can wear what I design. I like it when different girls wear the same accessory in their own style. 

Gravel & Gold – Find Out Everything About Their Community Of Artists And Their Crafts

How often do you ask yourself where your oranges and tomatoes come from? Do you ever wonder where on earth were the clothes you wear made, and how? I guess the meaning goes beyond a tag.

Living in San Francisco, we have come to fall in love with a counter culture of products that are basically opposite to the overwhelming fast-fashion merchandise at department stores. Most of us will rather focus on the people, fair trades and the crafts essential to the creation of things we eat and use every day.

Now, shopping is already exciting, but it gets so much better when you know that what you are buying is special. Now, imagine entering a store where every product sold is especially chosen because of the message behind it?

Treasure-hunt spot Gravel & Gold is one of these unique stores around the Mission district, where blankets, knives to hand dyed ties, funky jewelry and organic cotton clothes coexist in the same space.

You feel like visiting a funky friend’s house when coming into the corner store on 21^st Street and Lexington – a naturally lit living room with rights to cozy sofa in the corner and wooden décor. The point is to hang out and discover what the charming, ‘70s looking place beholds. For instance, their charming wooden wall- and mosaic/tiled-dressing room transforms into a catering and bar station during dinner parties, and food–related workshops hosted at the store.

Is/Was Projects Ties

Random notes are also pasted on the walls besides products to remind us a bit of how merchandise, like belts, jams and leather sandals are made – by whom, and where. “A huge part of the shop is putting the emphasis on the makers themselves,” said manager Em Gift on a visit I did last week. That might explain not only the fact that they know their vendors personally, but the personalized space that each one is given inside the store, and in Gravelandgold.com – where a small profile and links to the brands’ own website can be found.

What we have here is a network of artists connected by Gravel & Gold. The store was founded in 2008 by friends Cassie McGettigan, Lisa Foti-Straus and Nile Nash. None of them had experience in fashion, or actually created pieces like the ones they feel proud to sell today, but it was a junction of similar sensibilities towards what goes on behind interesting products. “Where do you buy your socks, your soap, and who makes this leather bag?” were questions that came up regularly, making it a point to build a place – pet project – where unique, high-quality products, eco-friendly practices, fair trades, and some dinner parties here and there would link.

“An additional way to activate our emphasis on the creation of the products is to get makers to come in and host workshops,” said Em about the limited to 10-folks events that range from learning the art of pepper jelly, to how to craft leather pot-hangers for floating indoor gardens. “It’s just another way to sort of build a community around makers.” Great relationships, if not friendships have been the outcomes of these collaborations.

Original Gravel & Gold printed dresses and shirts

That’s where G&G’s newest endeavor falls in. They’ve started special product collabs with the likes of R.P. Miller Stripey Shirts from Pennsylvania, which translate into essential pieces that also carry a G&G tag. “Now we are also starting to produce our own stuff, and design textiles. – a new chapter of Gravel & Gold.” Canvas totes with leather handles, pillowcases, and interesting types of cotton and silk-wear, with exclusive boobies- and panda face prints, are highlights inside the store.


After a lot of traveling, shared interests, and opened mind and eyes, everything pretty much fell into place. “We care about things that are made with quality and distinction.” I guess we do, too.

Selection of R.P. Miller Stripey Shirts

Rachel Corry Leather Sandals

Photos and text by Laura Acosta

More videos of Hermès - Festival des Métiers

I hope you've enjoyed the videos on the Hermès Festival last month in San Francisco.

Here is another video of some of the other crafts presented within the same tent!

Enjoy!

Silk-Screen Demonstration

Take a look at this scarf silk-screen demonstration from the Hermès - Festival des Métiers event in San Francisco

Enjoy!

Merging Jewelry and Clothing – one Fashion Designer – Isabella Coraça

Isabella Coraça's design

Copper hasn’t always been a designer’s prime choice when it comes to making jewels.

It does oxidize easily, and changes its own look, as well as other metals it alloys with. But once in a while, especially in fashion, it is the underdog that become the superstar.

What does the idea of jewelry mean to us? Diamonds, sapphires and emeralds set in gold and silver are not the only ones worthy of the connotation. We might want to open our eyes to 21^st century statement jewelry – designers continue to create statement pieces for the body, but a lot of things have changed. Let’s start with scale and materials. Who said we cannot dress ourselves in jewelry, rather than just mere garments?

Isabella Coraça is someone who might have found jewelry by chance, and yet she discovered so much more in an art that many people would take as limited to the great jewelry companies. As a full time curator-assistant at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and part time fashion and jewelry designer, Isabella ties her love for fashion history and designing in the shape of one of a kind neckpieces, or better said, collars. Plus, she might have made copper one trendy shade to covet.

Here’s a little chat we had about her day to day in London, and her latest piece – an orchid necklace made specially for a bride to be.

Hello my dear! What are you working on right now?

Hello my darling! Right now I'm trying to figure Christmas presents out. I always try to create some sort of jewelry for my close ones, so it's personal and unique. Besides, they are my best clients!

17th century-laces inspired necklace

"Style, just like most things, takes time and effort to evolve." 

How long ago did you start designing jewelry? Would you consider it a hobby now a day?

Well, I started designing jewelry in college. At the fashion school I attended in Brazil, we had to go through most aspects of fashion, from women’s wear to textile design to marketing... Jewelry design really clicked for me, so I decided to graduate with a jewelry collection. It was great fun, best way to sum up the four intense years of college. My collection ended up being really well received, which also helped! For a while I considered becoming a professional jeweler, but life took a slightly different path. Soon after I graduated, I got the opportunity to move to London, study fashion history and get into the curatorial world. Then again, I am not quite sure if I would call jewelry a hobby, I can still see myself doing something with it. It's just not the priority right now.

What is your idea of contemporary jewelry? And how would you describe your style?

To be honest, I don't think I have produced enough to be able to develop my style. Style, just like most things, takes time and effort to evolve. I do, however, have some features that are quite occurring in my frame of work. For instance, I tend to put a lot of focus on texture and materiality, either by mixing contrasting materials and/or by manipulating them. I also prefer to design larger pieces, almost as if they were the continuation of a garment. I supposed this is in part because of my formation, which is primarily of clothing design. When creating a piece of jewelry, the body plays as an important role as it would for the conception of a dress. Maybe this is where my style is evolving to, the merge between fashion and jewelry. 

 

Do you wear the pieces that you design?

To be fairly honest, I don't really wear my creations. I am captivated by jewelry and accessories in general, and I believe they can do miracles to an outfit. Still, you can count in your hands the amount of times I've changed my earrings! On a daily basis, I just prefer not to draw too much attention to myself, and as I mentioned, my creations are usually quite large, if not extravagant. Besides, at my work is preferable not to wear anything that might damage the objects I handle.

What inspires you on a regular basis?

History, always and forever! Everything that I ever designed, in fashion school or professionally, I always had at least one historical reference. So now that I work in museums, you can imagine how influential history is to me. Basically, it's all I think of! Last year, around Christmas time, I was working with a lot of 17th century laces, so guess what was the inspiration for the Christmas presents?!

What was the inspiration for your orchids-necklace?

The orchid-necklace was a special case. Usually I start my designs with a mood that progressively evolves into imagery references and inspirations. For this necklace, however, I started with a question that asked for certain features. In a way, I took a rather architectural approach. I needed to create a piece of jewelry to complement a full lace wedding dress. It had to be something large enough to create a focus of interest over the simple front, but not too intricate to fight with the beautiful Guipure lace. It had to be asymmetrical so to contrast with the straight neckline, and it could not disturb the detail of the back. 

Necklace sketch

Isabella

Tell me a little bit about the process of creating it? It looks very intricate and detailed. I love IT! (What materials, techniques did you use)

Working on those aspects, I ended up with a shadowy outline, which I sketched over and over on a picture of the bride wearing the dress. I still needed a proper shape to fill on of the edges of the necklace. At the same time, I kept thinking of the orange blossoms that brides used to wear during the Victorian period, and the thought of using some sort of flower was very appealing, conceptually and visually. Finally I came up with orchids, mainly because they were around the house! Also, they had a simplify shape that would be easier to recreate.

Orchid-necklace

What do you feel seeing your jewelry being worn by someone close to you, as Ju?

I think the best part of having your creation worn by somebody close to you is the complicity it creates. During the whole design process, I had my friend in mind. She was as much part of the necklace as its shape or color. And by the time she worn it, it felt like she was wearing a piece of me. Besides, there's the mutual trust, from me to create something beautiful, and from her to accept my ideas and judgment.  And of course, there's the pride and relieve when everything works perfect and successfully!

Where can we find your jewelry, fashion designs? 

Right now, I think the only place to find my designs would be in my private archive (a.k.a. my parents' house!). In 2011 I had my graduation collection exhibited at a gallery in Stockholm, but since then, nowhere else. I definitely plan on having a venue for my jewelry, but that is something for the future.

Images courtesy of Isabella Coraça

For more information e-mail her at isabellacgv@gmail.com