At age 13, I decided I wanted to get serious about learning to sew. I'm short and curvy and I hated the mall shopping ritual where I couldn't find clothes that I liked and that fit. My mom taught me all she knew. At age 15, when I brought a blazer pattern down to her for help, she told me I was on my own from there.
During high school, I made most of my own clothes (dresses, skirts and pants) in every wild pattern from Monopoly to sushi. I finally conquered blazers by deconstructing a thrift store find and tracing the pieces onto wrapping paper. I became obsessed with making blazers, and during a summer between college years I made 30 of them.
My brand name popped into my head while I was at my machine sewing one of those blazers, and I never doubted that it was right.
During college in NYC, I became friends with the co-owner of an East Village boutique called Mayhem. It was an all-female co-op of jewelers and a leather worker/hat maker. Everyone worked a couple of shifts a week and kept most of the profits for the sales of their handmade goods. After being a paid shopkeeper substitute for a while, I was asked to be the regular shop girl on Sundays in exchange for selling my own jewelry, neckties and handbags. For 3 years, I got to experience the joy of watching shoppers fall in love with and purchase things I had crafted with my own self-taught skills.
By way of a dream in 2012, I was moved to enter the realm of making guitar straps. I outfitted West Philly psychedelic rock band Radio Eris with some, and sold many to musicians who played shows at legendary underground venue Eris Temple Artspace (2005-2016 RIP).
I lost my regular 9-5 in 2020 and once again dusted off my sewing skills to join the COVID-19 mask making effort. I started by using only fabric and supplies that I already had on hand, primarily silks (from JoMar, Philly people!) that served as my curtains for a bunch of years. By summer, I began purchasing and cutting cotton fabric for a fun new rollout of masks for the holiday season 2020. I was ready to do some swift business.
On the last day of September, our pitbull bit off my left index fingertip. It was a long, lonely and painful road to recovery. Even though the finger will never be quite right, as of mid-January 2021, I am finally able to sew again. I couldn't be happier!