Location locked!

Hello friends!

I've been Tweeting away in 140 character updates this week, but it's been pretty spectacular for updates. We've got our location for the catalog portion of the photo shoot locked down inside the epic Archive Building in the far West Village:

So far, I have 3 finished sample dresses in my hands, courtesy of the superlative Michael Bevins at 4 Seasons Fashions, who slaved away during NYFW for me. The brilliant photographer Matthew Powell and I have been scouting the exteriors with a lot of promising results. If I haven't already mentioned it, Cabiria is lucky to have the stellar talents of Farrah Olivieri

Maxey Greene

and Allison McGevna

Insane how gorgeous these ladies are! We've also found great, hardworking PA's and the hair and makeup dream team of Fabian Garcia and Stella Sensel, as well as the talented behind the scenes documentary shooter Jendra Jarnagin and our inimitable video segment director Colleen Davie Janes.

SO MANY WONDERFUL PEOPLE!! I am so lucky. Can't wait for this all to come together in a few weeks, but in the meantime, back to paperwork and permits... it can't all be glorious, right? So why am I smiling so wide?

-Eden

Next round, coming up - this time with finesse!

Hi folks!

I know I've been very slow to post and report lately, but there's been movement on the Cabiria front, I promise.

As you saw before, dear readers, I hit a bit of a snag with my plans in Bangkok. When I came back to New York, the extraordinarily talented Michael David Bevins extended technical help my way through his company 4 Seasons Fashion. I'm diligently working away on patterns now, with a real class act providing the art of finesse. Such heartening news!

In the meantime, I leave you with this image from "Mad Men", returning to television in a few weeks. I am obsessed with border prints and the magic that they can do for any figure, slim or plus. Discuss.

Here's to new updates faster, sooner, and with more new dresses!

-Eden

Bangkok bound!

Hi all,

I have been an errant blogger, I know. So many things were happening in PersonalLand, that it made it hard to stay on top of the demands of a hungry blog audience. I am back now, though!

So the current news is that I will be going to Thailand in December and January, and while there, I'll be working with a wonderful Thai costume shop called Siam Costumes to build my patterns and first samples. They have experience working with vintage clothing cut for modern bodies, and a backstock of period fabrics as well. I'm really excited!

I still plan to manufacture the production line in the US, but there's just no way I could resist master cutters working on my samples while I ride elephants and give monkeys cocoanuts. Truly.

In other news, I'm also going to work on the Fall Winter 12/13 patterns and samples at the same time. This way, no matter what season we end up launching, Cabiria will be ready to go running into production. How exciting!

With that in mind, here's a dress, sans fabric, from the FW12/13 collection. You, my readers, are the first to see it!

There are many changes afoot, and I think the new approach will better serve my vendors and customers in the long run. Making plans then completely remodeling them seems to be in the air lately, but it's all good stuff!

Let me know what you all think, and I'll try to be more diligent on that blog posting thing!

-Eden

Heads and Tails

Hello all,

This past few weeks has been interesting, for certain. I found out that I'm a pretty good patternmaker in my own right, but unfortunately I had to learn that by reviewing the work of the professionals I'd contracted to make some of the patterns and realized they'd been done all wrong. Please note! Werkstatt did NOT end up doing my patterns - they are far more professional and couture for me to have been able to handle, and I am in no way implying that they messed up. I have not worked with them - merely met them in their immaculate studio.

I sprained my wrist pretty badly, which has been making drafting the patterns challenging, and working on the financials, which I definitely could use a hand on, but I am trucking along. I'm the little engine that could.

One thing to remember in the face of all this, though, is that trouble comes and goes, but you can rely on yourself to pull on through in the end. I believe in me, and I am very fortunate to have a lot of others who do too.

Have a glorious few weeks until I post again. I know - I really need to be more diligent with that! In the meantime, I leave you with an image that seems to explain my life a lot lately:

Pattermakers, Accountants, and Other Fun Updates

Hey there folks!

It's been a few weeks, and there have been some new combinations afoot. One of the things I'd done was learn Adobe Illustrator, at least the basics, so I could make flats of my garments for the patternmaker. Since I seem to do everything from the ground up, I'll happily share my flat plus size template for drawing out clothing on a truly plus size figure:

There were many like this available in mainstream sizes, but of course, like with so much in the plus size world, I found none so I drew that one myself. You like?

I've also changed patternmakers - while Werkstatt is a wonderful resource and she is obviously a talented patternmaker, it wasn't the perfect fit. I did manage to track down the patternmaker and samplemaker I'd worked with over a decade ago, when we were at Lucy Barnes (now wholesale private sales only). When I designed the line and envisioned the quality, it was always with this woman's craftsmanship in mind, so it's pretty genius to get her on board.

Finally, I've been reworking the business plan. I'd always thought of starting up with crowdsource funding and using that collateral to gain business loans, but now I'm trying to research what options are available with business partners and shared equity. I'm a workhorse, but I don't know everything about business and accounting, so finding someone gifted in the arena would be amazing. If you, dear readers, know of anyone who would be interested in contributing knowledge, resources, or/ and funds to bring Cabiria to market for love and profit, please contact me. I'm very open minded!

Monday begins a new phase of development, and hopefully my next posts will be about finding wonderful size 18/20 models in the New York area soon!

-Eden

At the patternmaker now!

Hi all,

After the crazy week with hurricanes and earthquakes, I finally got everything together and now have the Spring Summer 2012 line at the patternmaker's studio. That's right, those were dates you just heard.

The pattern maker is this cool woman named Tina Schenk who owns Werkstatt NY in the garment district. I worked on all my notes to translate to flats, and am now looking to book the samplemaker too. Tangible clothing! After that, the next steps will be finding gorgeous models, a photographer, shooting the lookbook, and pre-selling the production line. Awesome, right?

Here's a little bit about Werkstatt in the meanwhile. Updates soon!

Werkstatt NY

-Eden