If you can't beat them, should you really give up and join them?

You know, I really used to like Prada. I have a few Prada pieces myself. Nothing major, just enough to send a nod off to Miucccia that, "Hey, I salute you!" But then she had to go and do something like this:

Miuccia, Oh Miuccia! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME???!!! Just remember where you saw it first guys. I've had this idea for years now everyone's going to be comparing me to Prada. Grrr. How can I compete? No one's heard of me, everyone's heard of Prada. Even though I titled this post, "if you can't beat them..." I'm somehow feeling a little renewed feisty-ness coursing through these veins! I know!! Maybe if when people see these, they'll think a). I want these now, where can I find some embellished tights?, search on Google and find me. b). Think, "love those tights, but they're way too expensive," search on Google, find me and say, "love those tights, but they're WAY too expensive! Who does she think she is, Prada?" or c). Think, "I love those tights! Maybe I could just knit them myself, or get Grannie to do it." If only I could just get an investor. Ah, oh well. One can dream. Guys don't you worry, I've got some ideas for more tights/leggings and socks. I'm such thankful it wasn't a complete direct rip or different kinds of embellishments on the tights because then it'd be a lot worse. In the meantime, keep checking here or isobelandcleo.etsy.com.

Bring it Miuccia. Any last words?

Excuse me while I go knit till my hands fall off.

Past Isobel and Cleo Styles:

It's is interesting to note that Prada's Embellished bits are on the front of the leg. Perhaps she thought of what all the people have been saying to me: "But how are you supposed to sit down?" "That looks so uncomfortable!" Etc, so on and so forth.  For the record I'd like to say, I thought of those same questions, who knew! These tights are so damn comfortable when I tried them on I wanted to move into them and start paying rent! I wonder what the massive department store Liberty, who just told me three weeks ago, that my knits were: "not commerical," and, "couldn't imagine how to style them," let alone "wear them" would say now. Probably the same thing. Sometimes I still feel like I'm in high school and I'm just not in the popular crowd.  xoxo, Gossip Girl

Knit of the Week - Cleopatra's Got Nothing on You

Knit of the Week for Feb 10th to 16th:

Drum roll please!!!!!!!!

This week's Knit of the Week is inspired by the fantastic and jewelry laden Egyptian queen Cleopatra. I think every incarnation of Cleopatra would be proud, from the queen herself to Vivian Leigh, Sofia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor. The collar is made from 100% lambswool that I handwashed to make it feel extra soft. Wear it as a scarf or a necklace, either way it looks great over just about anything. I kept trying it on with dresses, tube top shapes look especially good underneath.  Handmade in the UK.

The Cleopatra Neckpiece on sale for one week ONLY here.

Week Three: I am the MOST indecisive person on Planet Earth

Right. So this week we were supposed to make a garment based on what we learned over the first 2 weeks.  Out teacher encouraged us to build/upon existing swatches we'd made during that period. Totally my kind of teacher. You saw the first swatch I did, but here's the second:

  

I've tried to cable cables here with varied success, but it's the idea that counts. Now because that tiny section took just about 50 billion years I decided to turn last week's swatch into a garment. That was 1/16th of the battle. The other 15/16 was trying to chose one of the following as the final look (an infinitesimal part of that last fraction was making the back, bust and shoulder straps of the top). 

but of course the mannequin wasn't enough, so I had to get one of the other students in the workshop to pose for me:

which idea won out? Check back soon for more pics and more stories!

You Don't Even Know My Name - New Designers and Self Promotion

Regis McKenna once said, “Advertising can reinforce positions in the market, but it can’t create positions.” The large-scale ad campaigns and the catwalk shows of London Milan, Paris, and New York, are not the only outlets with which designers can publicize themselves. In fact, the cost of holding such a massive event, complete with models, lighting, music, seating, space rental, and the requisite goody bags for the press and the after parties, isn’t the most cost effective way of advertising yourself if, as McKenna implies, you’re not already well established. However my brief wasn’t really concerned with established designers. I was expected to find out how new designers were making their names known. What I discovered was that none of the designers I researched used any paid advertising. Most of their business had snowballed because of seemingly insignificant things like word of mouth and online social networking pages. Sites like Facebook, Myspace, Etsy, Twitter, and personal websites and blogs, coupled with the ease and near expectation that users will constantly have access to the internet via cell phones have created a formidable force of free advertising.

Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter in particular have grown beyond their modest roots as networking sites geared to American high school and college students. Today, politicians, celebrities, charitable organizations, magazines, retail stores, and of course, new and well-known designers have pages to support them. All but one of the designers that I will discuss in this post use social networking websites as a way to expose and endear themselves to the general public.

However the internet isn’t the only thing designers use to get amongst the public. Many collaborate with other designers and artists, some participate in design competitions, and others find industry related work as costume designers, stylists, or artists. A perfect example of this is the miniature knitter, Althea Crome. Crome was enlisted to create the knitted garments for the puppets in 2009 film Coraline. For three years Crome knitted garments at 1/12 scale; she claims to be the only knitter in the world that makes garments that small. Still other designers instead of working outside their labels use showrooms, industry connections, consign their garments to local stores, or participate in craft fairs to raise awareness of their brands. 

Sandra Backlund

Sandra Backlund started her label in 2004 after graduating from a design course in Sweden. Since then she has marketed herself well; her Facebook page has over a thousand fans, and other supporters have started a separate Sandra Backlund Facebook group. She has participated in museum exhibitions on design and has either been nominated for and/or won a design award nearly every year since 2005. She has collaborated with other designers including Louis Vuittion and she is even a proud feature on the Swedish tourism site. 

Love it, hate it, or completely don’t understand it, Backlund has found a demand for her knits. They may not be the most practical, functional designs, but her style excites and mesmerizes nonetheless. No matter how much other designers change and reinvent their labels season after season, one knows what to expect from Sandra Backlund. That’s not to say that her work has become utterly predictable, it’s more that buyers will know who to go to when they want sculptured large-scale knits. Though dependability may seem a bit conventional, it itself works as advertising and will keep your customers coming back for more.

Yokoo

Yokoo is basically one of the coolest, if not THE end all, be all, COOLEST mo-fo out there. Please forgive it you’re reading this Yokoo, I mean it as only a loving admirer can. Yokoo makes chunky knit accessories like enveloping scarves, giant boa constrictor necklaces, and lush and voluminous pom-pom headbands (I really want one!). To sum up: everything is just thrilling and massively scaled. There really should be more accessories in the world that make you feel like they are wearing you, but wearing you in a good way. Like you look good on them. But until that happens, Yokoo is our salvation.

In just under two years she has become a famous fixture on handmade indie site Etsy.com. She’s so famous that there are artists on the site that actually use her as a subject in the work they sell. She has been interviewed by Etsy, Nylon, and Vice Magazines, and has been featured on countless blogs, including Urban Outfitters’, and just recently, I believe she made her first celebrity sale to Gwen Stefani. This is a pretty impressive list coming from someone who when asked, “How do you promote your work?” responded with, “ I haven’t done too much promotion. I post to Flickr every so often…” Not to contradict Miss Yokoo or detract from her intoxicatingly hip creations, I do believe that her best marketing tactic is that she in fact does promote herself through the quirky, cool, ad like photographs of her work. She is her own model and photographer and the images she uses on her Etsy site, are just as desirable as art pieces as her knits are as fashion accessories. You go Yokoo, I love the multi-tasking quality of your work; it sells itself. Her images are becoming so iconic that the Atlanta native has become somewhat of a celebrity. Recently on a trip to New York City, a fan in the APC boutique spotted her. Yokoo is definitely moving on up to the East Side. 

Isobel and Cleo

Isobel and Cleo was started in December 2008, in a miniscule college dormitory room, with a few knitted accessories, a 12in PowerBook, a digital point and shoot camera, a Paypal account, and a strong desire to procrastinate from doing end of semester final projects. I contacted the team to talk about how this young line has gone about promoting themselves. Run part-time while the invisible designers (Isobel? Cleo? Both? Neither?) complete their masters, they have garnered a fair amount of attention in five short months. They’ve been approached by eight boutiques interested in carrying the line. Of those, six were stores who were either former employers or business owners they had met at gallery or art related parties. Some say it’s who you know, and in the case of Isobel and Cleo, it is partly true. They’ve sold merchandise at several indie craft fairs and were featured on the Heart Handmade blog after being open on Etsy just over a month. Before appearing on the blog, the most page views for any one item was just over 100. After Heart Handmade wrote about the label’s “Bubba Scarf” the page views jumped to over 600 visitors in twenty-four hours. Heart Handmade is exactly the type of press a young designer would want to get. It is an established blog with a dedicated readership, a group of people who will regularly check the site because they know they’re going to receive insider information about interesting designers. It beats searching the internet for hours and coming up empty handed.

Even more entertaining is the attitude of the duo, who claim, “we didn’t really intend to start a business, we just had some space filled with yarn and we need to clear it out.”  They just needed space? So, sounding a lot like a bad ex-boyfriend, they broke up with part of their immense yarn collection, whipped up some sweet accessories and sold it off on Etsy. Now the problem the girls face is keeping up with the Jones. They’ve started something on a whim, but now they can’t let it go. The longer they go without adding new merchandise on the shop, the harder it is to generate and hold interest, so they’ve decided to make more of an effort to introduce more items every week. Pretty ambitious, but the girls feel the need to keep a good thing going.

Just this week the team created a Facebook page for the label. Considering how addictive Facebook can be, it’s not a bad idea to let the site do some promoting for you. The internet never sleeps (usually), constantly bringing Isobel and Cleo to people all over the world 24/7.  Right now the pair is working on a logo as they believe that it will validate the label and consequently create more interest. They’ve enlisted an old friend from school to design it, and of course this old friend has some pretty, uh… shall we say conspicuous clients and projects under his belt. Never burn bridges. When Isobel and Cleo graduate, they may be lucky enough to already have something that looks a bit like a following.