Seasonal trends and must-haves aside, there is one accessory category that never loses its magic. Inherent opulence make jewelry the undisputed icing on the cake of fashion, so what better topic for this week’s Garmento? We visited the Soho studio of Carmen Fritsch, of MeshNY, to learn the process of jewelry design and find out what it takes to start your own line.

Carmen is a descendent of 3 generations of jewelry designers, so after taking classes with industry veteran Boris Goynatsky, starting a line together seemed like the next natural step. They developed a signature technique, and then combined their skills in design, production and marketing to create an initial collection made exclusively from precious metals. Three years later, MeshNY has been featured on TV shows from Desperate Housewives to Lipstick Jungle, and on the pages of Elle and Lucky Magazine.

MeshNY’s intricate designs are glamorous, but their development and production is all hard work. Jewelry design requires tons of start-up capital (way more than apparel design), and in recent years, many local jewelry plating businesses have closed because of increasing health concerns and overhead costs. At MeshNY, each piece is made of either pure sterling silver, sterling plated with gold, or pure 18k gold, because metal alloys can’t be plated and aren’t as long lasting as silver or gold. Boris showed us how wax carving and metal-smithing are used to make the first molds, which are then cast into a more permanent silicon mold, from which multiple copies of a design can be made. Some pieces are too intricate or three-dimensional for this technique, and have to be individually reproduced. Check out the video and photos below to see the equipment jewelers use to make a mold.

Working against the odds to make their design dreams a reality has given both Carmen and Boris a great sense of humor. When asked for advice to give aspiring jewelry entrepreneurs, the duo cracked a series of jokes before suggesting that serious financial backing, unique design concepts, commitment and a little luck are the key. Here at Garmento, though, we know that learning to laugh in this industry will take you a long way, too.

About Garmento: Garmento is a weekly feature on Coutorture devoted to giving you an inside look at the real fashion industry. Before the runway reviews and the photo shoots, before the ad campaigns and the Vogue editorials, an enormous network of fashion professionals are involved in the creation of every garment. Check us out every week for a new perspective on each step, from trend forecasting and design to manufacturing and sales. With every new profile, you’ll see that whether your fav outfit is from H&M or Hermes, the process is the same. Don’t become a fashion victim- inform yourself weekly with Garmento, and unleash the smart and savvy shopper within.

About Bob Bland: Bob Bland is a freelance writer and professional menswear designer with experience at Triple Five Soul, Rugby by Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Banana Republic. She is also the designer and founder of Brooklyn Royalty, a Williamsburg-based line of men’s and ladies’ apparel. Founded in 2006, the line combines timeless design principles, premium materials and hand-printed graphics for indispensible garments that are meant to look and wear better over time. For more on Bob Bland and Brooklyn Royalty, check out www.brooklynroyalty.com.

Links:
MeshNY
Garmento:Inside Trend Forecasting
Garmento: Inside Denim Fabric Sourcing
Garmento: Inside Boutique Owning
Garmento: Inside Leather Manufacturing
Garmento: Inside Screenprinting

Aside from fashion designing and styling, one of the most popular aspirations of budding fashionistas is to open their own boutique. We caught up with Rony Vardi, owner of popular Williamsburg boutique Catbird, to get a reality check on what it takes to bring that dream to fruition in NYC.

Rony decided to start Catbird because she saw a gap in her local neighborhood…there weren’t really any boutiques with designer brands and super-wearable clothes. On her daily trek from the Lorimer L train, she saw a tiny shop in a great location for rent, and decided to take the leap into boutique-owning. Several years, a second location and an e-store later, she’s happy that she took the risk. Her business has been steadily growing, and allows her to do what she loves, while spending time with her growing family. Rony and Tiffany Porter, her right-hand manager/assistant buyer at the Metropolitan Avenue location, gave us some advice for those considering boutique-owning as a career:

*Get the experience you need to own a boutique by managing one first…that’s what Tiffany is doing, and she’s gotten great experience buying, merchandising and managing as a result.

*Be aware of the neighborhood you are in- where the high-traffic areas are, what nearby shops stock the brands you are looking for, what the local shopper wants to buy.

*Be a good judge of character and only work with people who are reliable and you can trust…your boutique is only as good as the staff running it.

*The financial commitment to starting a boutique may not be as enormous as you think…financial back always helps, but at some point you have to take the leap!

Catbird may have started small, but between the two locations they have expanded from ladies apparel to jewelry, accessories, shoes, home goods, kidswear and more. For more information, check out www.catbirdnyc.com. Catbird is located at 390 Metropolitan Avenue and 219 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.


Video by Justin Perkinson

About Garmento: Garmento is a weekly feature on Coutorture devoted to giving you an inside look at the real fashion industry. Before the runway reviews and the photo shoots, before the ad campaigns and the Vogue editorials, an enormous network of fashion professionals are involved in the creation of every garment. Check us out every week for a new perspective on each step, from trend forecasting and design to manufacturing and sales. With every new profile, you’ll see that whether your fav outfit is from H&M or Hermes, the process is the same. Don’t become a fashion victim- inform yourself weekly with Garmento, and unleash the smart and savvy shopper within.

About Bob Bland: Bob Bland is a freelance writer and professional menswear designer with experience at Triple Five Soul, Rugby by Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Banana Republic. She is also the designer and founder of Brooklyn Royalty, a Williamsburg-based line of men’s and ladies’ apparel. Founded in 2006, the line combines timeless design principles, premium materials and hand-printed graphics for indispensible garments that are meant to look and wear better over time. For more on Bob Bland and Brooklyn Royalty, check out www.brooklynroyalty.com.

Though the term 'trend forecasting' may evoke images of crystal balls and tarot cards, in the fashion world it is a booming industry that has more influence than you might think. The Direction Textile Design Show in Penn Plaza is a bi-annual must for mainstream fashion designers, so the Garmento team attended seminars and visited booths at this trade-only event to get a deeper look into trend forecasting as an enterprise.

Direction’s format is similar to the two biggest names in the game, Premiere Vision (Paris) and Pitti Filati (Florence), in that it quick-connects designers and textile manufacturers and provides them with insight into trends up to 24 months in advance. As part of a textile design show, Direction exhibitors sell their unique artwork and forecasts to large corporations (Macy’s, Dillards) and small ateliers alike. The seminars went a step further, and ranged from predictions of seasonal colors and silhouettes to future-thinking instructionals on sustainability and local production.


After absorbing a presentation on Ladies, Men’s, and Denim Trends for Spring/Summer 2009, we caught up with Melissa Moylan, Managing Editor of Fashion Snoops. Though her new offices in Paris reveal a vastly different stylescape than the Garment District, Moylan said the needs of the fashion professional remain the same. Designers can’t be everywhere, and Fashion Snoops and their competitors offer up-to-the minute resources including international runway coverage, window shopping, trend analysis, even original artwork, flat sketches and more! All this work by hundreds of forecasters is meant to be initial inspiration for fashion creatives; a jump-off point from which they can develop distinctive styles each season.


With so much more information available to the fashion industry than ever before, why does every season, every store and every brand look increasingly the same? Independent publication PSFK brought up the idea of the biggest forecasting agencies strangling creativity back in 2007, but the truth is there is no one corporation to blame. The only way to ensure that fashion design remains a dynamic and evolving conversation is for you, the consumer, to demonstrate with your shopping dollars a preference for ground-breaking and independent designers.


Video by Justin Perkinson

About Garmento: Garmento is a weekly feature on Coutorture devoted to giving you an inside look at the real fashion industry. Before the runway reviews and the photo shoots, before the ad campaigns and the Vogue editorials, an enormous network of fashion professionals are involved in the creation of every garment. Check us out every week for a new perspective on each step, from trend forecasting and design to manufacturing and sales. With every new profile, you’ll see that whether your fav outfit is from H&M or Hermes, the process is the same. Don’t become a fashion victim- inform yourself weekly with Garmento, and unleash the smart and savvy shopper within.


About Bob Bland:Bob Bland is a freelance writer and professional menswear designer with experience at Triple Five Soul, Rugby by Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Banana Republic. She is also the designer and founder of Brooklyn Royalty, a Williamsburg-based line of men’s and ladies’ apparel. Founded in 2006, the line combines timeless design principles, premium materials and hand-printed graphics for indispensible garments that are meant to look and wear better over time. For more on Bob Bland and Brooklyn Royalty, check out www.brooklynroyalty.com.

Our next installment of the Garmento series led us to KnoxNY, a leather goods manufacturer in Red Hook, Brooklyn. At first glance, the studio of Jessica Maxcy seems too small to design in, let alone create a significant collection. But looks can be deceiving…


Leather bag design starts out similarly to apparel design, with a technical sketch that is measured (or “speced out”) and then converted into a paper pattern. From that point on, the process of turning a skin into a purse is very different from that of converting a fabric bolt into a garment. Let’s just say, cows don’t come in rolls, and since you can’t buy a yard of cow, material waste is a huge part of what makes leather so expensive. Maxcy gave us an example of a cute leather shirtdress, which would have taken no more than 2 yards of poplin, required 8 animal skins to complete! Also, leather is cut with utility knives instead of scissors, and can’t be sewn with your mama’s Singer…check out the video below to see all the specialty machines and equipment involved in making just one bag.


Another interesting dimension of today’s leather market is that the vast majority is now made overseas. Both NYC leather suppliers and leather manufacturers are dwindling in numbers, making locally-produced leather goods a rare commodity among the fashion cognoscenti. The current lack of American leather resources translates to big trouble for any indie designer interested in launching accessories, because high minimums and customs on Asian goods prohibit most small companies from getting in the game. Despite the difficulties of producing luxury handbags locally, we find that Maxcy’s own line is available in 20 stores across the country, and has been pulled by WWD on multiple occasions. Check out our video interview and photo gallery with Maxcy in her studio.


Link: Garmento video series
Link: KnoxNY

About Garmento:Garmento is a weekly feature on Coutorture devoted to giving you an inside look at the real fashion industry. Before the runway reviews and the photo shoots, before the ad campaigns and the Vogue editorials, an enormous network of fashion professionals are involved in the creation of every garment. Check us out every week for a new perspective on each step, from trend forecasting and design to manufacturing and sales. With every new profile, you’ll see that whether your fav outfit is from H&M or Hermes, the process is the same. Don’t become a fashion victim- inform yourself weekly with Garmento, and unleash the smart and savvy shopper within.


About Bob Bland: Bob Bland is a freelance writer and professional menswear designer with experience at Triple Five Soul, Rugby by Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Banana Republic. She is also the designer and founder of Brooklyn Royalty, a Williamsburg-based line of men’s and ladies’ apparel. Founded in 2006, the line combines timeless design principles, premium materials and hand-printed graphics for indispensible garments that are meant to look and wear better over time. For more on Bob Bland and Brooklyn Royalty, check out www.brooklynroyalty.com.