Now in Chicago!

Hello friends,

I'm just sending out a quick note today to let you know that a big shipment of Cabiria dresses is going to be landing on store shelves at Vive La Femme in Chicago in a few days, so you lucky folks in the Chicago area can go check out the goods yourselves!

Also, Cabiria is now going to be stocked through Pionna, a Seattle based plus size e-commerce site as well. Don't forget about Bombshell Boutique in St. Paul, MN and Madison Plus Select! More ways to get your hands on Cabiria dresses, now that the weather is about to turn towards springtime and fresh frocks. Exciting!

Have fun and think of spring,

Eden

Factory updates!

Hello friends,

I've been very busy since the Kickstarter campaign ended, and been a little lax in my public blog posts. I am now going to correct that.

By the time you read this post, ALL of the incentive packages for Kickstarter backers will have been mailed out, minus the dresses from the line. As mentioned earlier, those folks will receive their swag now, then when the factory is done and everything is double checked, they'll receive their dresses in a separate shipment.

More good news: all the fabrics and stuff that goes into making garments are in the factory, and in the process of being cut. I dropped by yesterday, and it's really exciting to see all the bundles of fabrics and cut pattern pieces ready to go to the next step, sewing. I love these surreal moments!

In the next few days, I will be reissuing swatch cards to reflect the real fabrics per real styles being offered in the Spring/Summer 2013 line. It will be different than what you may be accustomed to seeing, as there will be limited quantities of each item per fabric. I will update that in the Cabiria Store as well as specifically letting my retailers know what they can order. It's coming together, folks!

In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and much peace, health and prosperity in the coming year.

All the best, Eden

this is the beginning of packing up all the incentive boxes with our dressform standing watch:

and this is another beautiful silk jersey fabric that will be in the line. Surprise!:

Swag Report and Money Spending

Hi everyone,

I have been busy receiving shipments of swag to my workroom, and it's very exciting! Today the DVDs and tote bags came in, and yesterday the chocolate arrived. I've hidden it from myself or there's a risk of a highly sugared and caffeinated designer running amok.

I've also been working on the cutting tickets, which are the numbers for the factory to Cut, Make, and Trim ("CMT"), and scrambling around buying more silk jersey to complete the orders. Such a great response means that for all my preparation, there's more success to meet expectations! I consider this a wonderful and honorable problem.

Tomorrow the fabrics are being taken to the factory in midtown (made in the USA!), and then we are off to the races making these beautiful things! Hooray!

Thank you all for making me step up my game. And for those who haven't completed the surveys I sent last week, please do! I need your info to ship the magic to you!

All the best, Eden

Almost ready to Launch!

Hello friends,

It's been pretty busy here with Cabiria - we're gearing up to launch the e-store, the Lookbook and Collections Catalog will be online shortly, the Behind-the-Scenes video is almost cut, and we're about to launch a public crowdsource funding campaign next week!

I will be sharing all of the links to our visuals next week when we're 100% ready, but here's one I love from the photoshoot. The lovely Maxey Greene enjoying life on location with a little help from her waiter Josh and a Pinot Grigio. Hard work, right?

Oh, and that's the Giuseppina dress in our Butterflies 100% silk jersey she's wearing.

Please stay tuned for the launch coming very very soon!

-Eden

Re/Dress, Salon Z, and Deserving Good Things

Hi folks!

I just got back from an evening workshop at Re/Dress in Brooklyn - a space that has provided both fat community and amazing vintage and resale fashion in true plus sizes these last 3 years. Glenn Marla and Hana Malia led some wonderful exercises about exploring what it would be to let go of a lot of internalized fatphobia, and I was reminded again how lucky we've been to have Deb Malkin's amazing store these last several years.

Here's a photo of Glenn and I at Re/Dress in 2009:

Sadly, the physical store is closing November 20th, and with it goes the community space she provided in which to be fat and gloriously, fearlessly fashionable. The same week this information was released, news that Saks Fifth Avenue is removing ALL Salon Z plus size sections from it's stores to an online only model. Another venue where the economy is partially at fault, but marginalized selling floors and inconsistencies in quality (as in the quality across the price point is NOT equal to similar price points in mainstream sizing) are the real culprits.

As a fat person with money to spend on clothes (ok, theoretical money right now, but hey), I still say there's a market there for well made, comparable quality at comparable price point clothing. Hearing all the women at the workshop talk about the internalized sociological shame we all work very hard to combat during waking moments, no wonder we're tired. All that energy just geared towards facing the world, facing the fear, and facing what we're told we don't deserve.

I can't wait to change that and let all women feel entitled to inhabit whatever body they have gracefully and beautifully. I can't wait to show a woman my size (18 - 20, for the record) how nice Italian silk jersey feels on the skin, and how different that feeling is from polyester or rayon. How good fabric pays for itself by not needing to be replaced after a few wearings because it's pilled badly or the high spandex content is deteriorating. How a fashionable item can remain a staple in your closet if you feel confident wearing it time and time again.

Wish me luck, people. It's rough out there, but I've got some great role models.

-Eden

New York, New York!

Hey folks!

Sorry I haven't been posting often here, but it's been a crazy few weeks. Some may know that I'm decamping from Georgia to New York, and I am now in MD, about 2/3rds of the way to New York. Today the adventure was talking to federal and state agencies to transfer my business over legally so I can maintain my WBE (Women's Business Enterprise) and DBE (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) certifications. I thought it would be so much easier, but then bureaucracy is not something I tilt at every day. Silly me.

Did you know there's no business license class for "Clothing Designer", but there is one for "Bootblack" and "Blacksmith"? Weird.

My friend Christine got to see me wearing an early sample from a long ago version of one of my designs. This was when I wisely realized that I should hire professionals to produce my clothing if I wanted to sell it, but I still love the swingy dress on a hot day. With that in mind, I present to you LUCIA!

This is a halter neck sundress with a smocked back and a peaked center front waistline. The bat wing halter ties are weighted so the weight of your bust is cantilevered over your back instead of against your neck. The shape of them add two other features: the width of them drape across your back, revealing and concealing enticingly, and (here's the super cool part) they are shaped with a button and loop feature that attach in a way to let you have bat wing sleeves if you so desire. "Oh, here I am at this conservative thing. I wish my shoulders were covered." Done. "Such a nice day, I want to feel the sun kiss my shoulders!" Done again.

I'm so into this design, it's why I've been messing with it for such a long time.

Hope you enjoy!

-Eden

Moving to New York!

Hello, folks!

So there's been important moves happening for Cabiria - we're moving to New York!

Eden has been a New Yorker most of her life, and this move will facilitate ease in working with the gifted patternmakers, samplehands, and fabric stores available in the New York area.

It also means that there's a possibility that there's going to be a lull in updates over June and July as everything shuffles. Hopefully we'll be able to be up and running quickly from there.

For now, I'll simply leave you with a little treat: VALENTINA! A swingy knit dress with a center back zipper and a split Mandarin collar, so when you look up, your neck doesn't pull against your bust and cause pain. Of course, there's pockets, too...

Enjoy, and hope to update you soon!

-Eden

the next set for your enjoyment

Greetings from sunny Orlando, Florida!

I wouldn't let you guys go without new dresses just because I'm on the road. This week's dress composite is the AIMEE (last week's was the SOFIA, if I forgot to mention it). All of my dresses are currently named after actresses or character names in Fellini movies, however I have a special perk. One of my donation incentives, albeit at the $5,000 level, is that you get to name the dress styles. It could be your own name, it could be someone you'd like to honor, it could be your superhero name! If you look at lifetime costs of having a child or a pet, it's really a bargain...

So onto the new dresses! Again, please let me know your opinions, comments, and constructive criticisms. The Aimee has an elasticized waist, a flyaway wrap skirt, pockets, and adjustable 1/2" straps on metal sliders. It's made of silk knit jersey, which can be hand washed in cold water and laid flat to dry, or dry cleaned.

Again, please be constructive in your criticisms and opinions! You can dislike something, but not telling me why doesn't help me change it for the better!

-Eden

Anticip........ation!

Hi all!

It's been a busy several days here at the Cabiria Studio! Part of compiling images for a combination of uses - investor packages, potential line sheets, sussing out details for the samplemakers, etc. - is the actual DESIGN of the clothes. What fabrics work with what designs? As a small company dealing with limited yardage runs, I don't simply design the clothes, pick a fabric, and then cut and sew x number of them in that fabric. I've got 65 yards here, 206 yards there, 9 yards somewhere else of different fabrics. Which creates EXCLUSIVITY! That dress in the green zebra print silk jersey? Only 14 yards of it in existence. Which means there's very few of those cut. The dress in the crazy Peter Max Goes to Hawaii cotton sateen? Just around 100 yards of that in house. Sounds like a lot, but really in Plus Size land, it's more like 28 - 35 dresses. Boutique limited production runs in practice!

So let me introduce you to some of the possibilities. Each dress is a specific style (in this case, the "SOFIA") shown with what it would look like in a number of different fabrics. Let me know your opinions, please! (But try to be civil. If you're going to be specific, or your comments are long, email me personally at eden@cabiriastyle.com, please.) Nothing helps me develop as a business more than knowing what my potential clients want.

This dress is featured in both woven and knit, has a slightly elasticized waist, a 3 button placket, and reaches just below the knee in a generous A-line. Also please note I'm not a graphic artist or Photoshop wizard, so the underlay of the fabrics for each dress might not be perfect, but it's pretty close. Don't judge my Photoshop skills, please!

Let the games begin!

- Eden