Analogue Chic

Posts Tagged ‘grace napoleon’

Head on over to Danbury’s indie news magazine, The Mercurial, for my reporting on the Mother Earth Fashion Show that took place in Bethel, CT on April 12.

As a local designer and fashion blogger, I looked forward to an injection of style and conscience into the closets of my fellow Danbury-metro dwellers.  I dressed for the evening in my usual mix of high and low style, new and vintage, mass market and indie designer.  My hair was newly trimmed by Tiffany of Tease Salon at Martin’s in Danbury, and colored, incidentally, by Jackie at A New Beginning.  My eyelids were enshrouded in brown shadow by Ecco Bella plant based cosmetics, available at Chamomile on Newtown Road.  I layered a black tuxedo jacket over my pink wrap sweater by Grace Napoleon, a featured designer for the event, and dark jeans.  Gray spectator-mary jane-hybrid oxfords finished the look.

This tree-hugging fashionista went the extra eco mile and rode the number 2 HART bus from Main Street, Danbury to the front door of the Stony Hill Inn, with time to spare.

Read my review, over here!

Hooray!  Grace Napoleon, whom I profiled a while ago on this blog, will be showing her upcycled apparel in a runway show to benefit Clean Ocean Action, sponsored by A New Beginning Salon in Bethel, CT on Monday, April 12.  Tickets are still available!

I will also be reporting on the event for The Mercurial, Danbury’s online news magazine.

A New Beginning Salon & Spa is an Aveda Wellness spa. Every year the Aveda company encourages their spas throughout the country to participate in fundraising efforts to benefit an earth-friendly organization. For the second year, Clean Ocean Action will receive 100% of the net proceeds of this event.

There is also an opportunity for tickets to be purchased and donated to The Women’s Center of Greater Danbury. All ticket donations will be distributed to clients of the Center.

[...]

According to Clean Ocean Action’s advocacy team, as a result of years of ocean dumping, a legacy of pollution remains in the ocean off the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to New York and Connecticut’s shores of Long Island Sound.

[...]

Clean Ocean Action leads informed campaigns against these sources of pollution and advocates for environmentally sound solutions.

The organization was recently instrumental in lending its voice to help defeat the installation of an LP gas pumping platform off the Branford coast that would have measured three football fields in length, and compromised recreational and commercial boating throughout much of Connecticut’s coastal waterway.

Quotes via The Newtown Bee.

Please!

I am a contender in the Independent Design Blog Off at WhatDesigners – the winners will receive gift certificates to Smashing Darling!

You can vote for me to be a runner up!  I entered my interview post with the fabulous Grace Napoleon!

Go here, click ‘vote’ at the end of the article,  and look for the Analogue Chic link (#9).

And, if you really love me, tell your friends and family to vote for me too.

Thanks so much for your support!

xoxo

A

Congratulations to Grace on her recent trunk show at Sequel in Bethel!

Image copyright Grace Napoleon.

To learn more about Grace and her creative process, you can read my interview of her here.

You can meet Grace Napoleon and her wares at the Brooklyn Flea most weekends – get her upcoming appearances and start shopping at her Etsy shop!

{UPDATE: This post is now an entry in the Blog Off at What Designers. Vote for me!}

The standing joke among we handmade artists is that any  money we make from selling our crafts goes into feeding our addiction for pretty supplies and cute things made by friends.  In that spirit, a few months ago I treated myself to a Grace Napoleon original, a pink, ruffly wrap sweater.  But seriously, these purchases and the bonds we make in our raucous real-life meetings and in online forums are an important conduit for exchanging ideas and business advice.  In an effort to record this movement of self-employed women artists, and to preserve the lessons and inspiration I glean from them, I am beginning a project of interviewing women who have inspired me as an independent fashion designer. 

I met Grace at a meeting of our local new-wave craft club, and watched with admiration and curiosity as she handstitched her woolly holiday projects.  I finally sat with her on a recent evening for tea and dessert to talk about her evolution as a textile artist.

Grace is a Danbury, CT-area artist who designs and creates women’s clothing made from clothing– that is, she deconstructs secondhand clothes and re-assembles them in unexpected and charming ways.  Every new seam is stitched by hand.  She offers her clothes and other fabric crafts, along with vintage housewares, in her online store at Etsy.com and at regional craft shows and flea markets.

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