I took the Handmade Pledge

I initially began working on my shop because there's always been such a dearth of well made yet unique children's clothing.This is the 21st century but many are still approaching children's wear with antiquated concepts or a model based on inferior off shore manufacturing. Take your average streetwear label, right? They make oversized shirts for daddy so why not a few little onesies for junior. The problem is that the idea translates into let's take inferior goods manufactured in far off lands for extremely low cost in conditions that are either sweatshop-esque or only slightly better, ship them back to the US and then hike up the price by about 110% , slap our name on and call it style. Often streetwear manufacturers as well as other clothing genres believe that children's clothing really just means smaller versions of the usual junk. They aren't kid's wear manufacturers after all. Then there's the other side of the coin with the items that are incredibly well made BUT they look like they were made by the little old lady who lives alone with her 70 cats and who also makes toilet paper cozies on the side.
In other words, decidely old school....and not in the good way. Where is the happy medium? Is it possible to merge coolness, good taste, and quality into one working conglomerate for children's apparel...we'll see.


Above you see a picture of my studio work table...now I'm just waiting for my labels. My shop on Etsy will open sometime in Spring 2009 on Etsy as well as my own site(currently under constructions). I'll be offering children's clothing infants-5 yrs initially but I plan to branch out into larger children's sizes after my initial phase. Most of the items will be limited editions and/or one offs...I like to keep it fresh.

Vintage Run DMC

I am up at 3 AM in the morning working on the line sheets of my kids clothing shop. Everyone is asleep in my home allowing me the rare peace necessary to finish a thought. I have the TV on in the background and I guess on the weekends during the morning hours, the station that I am watching broadcasts vintage shows. At 2:30 AM, what should come on? The Soooooooooul Train! Circa 1986! Serious blast from the past. I'm checking out the bubble pants, and asymetrical fades wondering if they were a bit insane. I mean how did the men dance in pants that were that tight? I'm so happy that women finally realized that vibrant slashes of burgundy blush from jawline to hairline is not flattering...well, some of us.

Let's see, I would have been about six almost seven years old at that time. I remember waiting around on Saturdays afternoons after the cartoons went off for Soul Train to come on. Before the internet, Youtube, and downloadable music; the two shows that were the epitome of coolness were Soul Train and Friday Night Videos. They provided the only mainstream venues for viewing the latest musical acts and dances.

Crazy thing: I am watching the show for a bit when suddenly I recognize this little short Boriqua really strutting her stuff on one of the Soul Train platforms: Oh My! Why it's Rosie Perez!!! Long before her Flygirls/In Living Color fame. Okay so I get it, in addition to Soul Train being a platform for listening to the music of the time and seeing the latest dance steps, for the people that danced on the show it was a way of being seen.

Finally lo and behold the main act of the evening is none other than....drum roll....RUN DMC!

Wow, blast from the past. Here are all the guys in their uber cool leather suits, major gold chains, fat laced Adidas, and Kangol caps.

So the legendary Don Cornelius asks the Rev. Run (although back then circa 1986 he was just Run), "what do you think the future of rap will be?"

BWAHHH!

Run answers, " Rap isn't a music, rap is rap, meaning I can rap over rock music, over jazz, over anything."

Don Cornelius further elaborates for Run by saying, "...So you think that the future of rap will depend upon the music itself, meaning it can go anywhere."

Fast forward 22 years later.... and rap has taken over the world, ahhhahahaha (that was my best Dr. Evil laugh)