Fashion: Swan Song

Swan Song.

A folk myth about the first and last song a mute swan sings before it dies.

Also, an idiom referring to a final great 'act' before one death an interesting factor one has to consider is that the 'actor' has to know he's going to die.

An ironic name for a dress I consider my #0 or my first dress but I can't help associating the mood of the fabric to the said idiom. Plus it's a very very good reminder that a designer is only as good as his last dress...

Dress.

This dress is from my archives. Done way back in December 2008.

Dress is made of blue silk (most likely synthetic) with pleather detailing

and black wool base. All by Mara Chua. Leggings also by Mara Chua.

Shoes are store bought.

To contact:

chua.mara@gmail.com

More Relevant Matters: The Cost of Your Dress and That Nice Lady Who Makes It

Stemmed from a conversation I had with my mom earlier today.

Injustice.

I really find great injustice in how people treat the local fashion designers... especially when it comes to the labor side of things- which involve 2 kinds of people under my direct employ

a) the seamstresses and b) the pattern maker/ cutter (the embroiderers and embellishers and the iron/ steam lady and the quality control are excluded in this discussion because most the the time the same people double for the said jobs and of course, for the purpose of simplicity.)

It infuriates me that people (clients) can take for granted the extremely highly specialized and skilled type of labor these people (seamstresses and pattern makers) can offer and ask for DISCOUNTS. Armed with the thinking that sewing and pattern making are 2 very easy jobs! How dare they?!?!

Here's a reality check:

I function as the designer and the master pattern maker in the studio.

I've been doing this for at least five years (3 years semiprofessionally and 2++ and counting professionally.) In that time span, an entry level employee in any corporate office setup can make his/her way to a junior manager position on average.

Pattern making for the uninitiated involves geometry. I employ 2-3 of the 12 postulates every time I do my patterns. Yes, aside from the pythagorean theorem and pi, I also use the sin, cos , tan functions. While, cutting involves precision, cutting right before the outline, nothing more, nothing less.

To be honest, I don't mind being paid less than a junior manager because I acknowledge the fact that the bulk of the labor comes from my seamstresses.

Nice ladies who expertly and perfectly piece together intricate puzzle pieces made of fabric to make that dress, YOUR DRESS. AND that's just the beginning... I could go on and on and on about the 1/16" double hemming, the hand draping, the blind stitching, the hand finishing and those zippers! that you think takes no more than 5 minutes to sew can make fledging designers cry with frustration. Let's not forget, you want SWAROVSKI on your dress too! that's countless hours of individual application of crystals and beads.

Here's an even bigger reality check, any man can till the soil and plant rice stalks. Any man can fry chicken, burger and fries. Any man can mix up coffee and cream and syrup and reheat that puff pastry in the display. Any man can lay hollow blocks on top of one another and put cement in between (fine, any strong man can. I went through a bit of construction worker phase too, so I know how hard it is). BUT, to sew a perfectly straight line takes weeks of practice and then you move on to sewing a perfectly curved line and then to piecing fabrics together while you avoid puckering at all cost... NOT any man can do that.

And to pay them 402 PHP/day (minimum wage in Manila, Philippines, that's around 9-10USD for the foreign readers)?!?! Tell me junior manager how your ass would feel if you get paid the same amount for that much work. Take note, my seamstress might me the more useful and productive employee between the two of you.

So the next time you go to your local designer. Please think about this. All of us, me and my seamstresses would have to shoulder that discount you ask for. We can't make our prices like the ones they have in SM Department Store because a) we don't have the capacity to produce enough to simply demand a wholesale price and b) you don't have the capacity to buy 1000pcs of the same design per color per size to even dare to demand an SM price.

Please bear in mind as well that what you're paying for isn't just a dress but also personalized service. Don't expect me to dish prices like ZARA because unlike ZARA, I make clothes that will fit you and only you. Unlike ZARA, your dress is one of a kind.

Ask for discounts if you can make your own dress and still think it's a piece of cake. Until then, you avail of my or any of my co designer's services precisely because it's beyond your capacity and skill to make a dress. It's high time you value the hard work that goes into what you wear because honey, it's a lot more complicated than you could ever imagine.

Fashion: Migrant

Digging through my archives as of the moment. This dress was done way back in 2009 for my exhibit in New York City. Inspired by the yearly emigration of jellyfishes to the banks of Bantayan Island, Cebu during the month of May where I used to spend my childhood summers and the parallelism of this phenomenon with the Filipino diaspora ('nomadism').

About the dress:

Dress is made of (very expensive for 3rd world/ developing country standards) pure linen and sating bias strips the lining is very delicate impossible to work with charmeuse.

Fashion: Mum's Dress, Tentatively titled: The Fall of Icarus

From the Mara Chua Bespoke Collection tentatively titled: "The Fall of Icarus".

It's my mom's dress for a wedding where she's participating as a sponsor (ninang).Im using her as my latest guinea pig (opportunity) to experiment on newer techniques and to carry out certain ideas lingering in my head for a few weeks now. Ideas I want to make a collection out of for my Mara Chua line.

I guess this dress will serve as my prototype for the other looks. And I hope I do get to finish 7 looks. Considering all 7 are pretty ambitious and costly.

I'm still not yet sold on "Fall of Icarus"... While, the gold fabric reminds me wings and flight and classical Athens, it's very easy to go cliche and extremely inaccurate if I use Icarus and Greek culture as my central theme. Considering that the setting for Icarus is Crete and the Cretan (Minoan) civilization is very very different from the Greek ones of the time. Sure, it was told from the point of view of Greek poets... I just dont want it too look all drapey drapey and flowy flowy 'Greek'.

Picset:

In the pictures posted above, you will see a bit of the development process. From the final fitting where the dress is 90% done to the beginnings when we were hand stitching pleated material onto the bodice. :)

Fashion: Mock dress

While in the previous fashion post I mentioned about my love for pattern experimentation, that experimentation is usually derived from an already drafted basic bodice pattern. That being said, an ill fitting bodice will result in an awkward and disproportionate looking shape relative to the body.

What I'm trying to get at? There's wisdom in something as basic as perfecting the fit of your bodice pattern and knowing how to make the bodice fit different body types properly.

This rule/ wisdom applies especially to designers who offer bespoke/ couture services since the bodice in question changes on a per client basis. A designer concentrating him or herself in pret- a- porter only needs to base her proportions on predetermined industry sizes... This means that, he/ she doesn't have to concern his/ herself in certain 'nuances' like say a certain individual's wider bust (apex) distance or torso and then paired with, say,a narrower chest width- considerations when you're in the business of engineering patterns and creating clothes that should fit the individual perfectly.

I could go on and on and on about the importance of knowing how to properly draft, construct and finish the basic bodice. If fashion had its own "pillars" like Islam does, a properly drafted/ draped basic bodice would be one of them. It can make or break your garment since the bodice is the foundation of your garment. Poorly made foundation is just inviting trouble and lots of additional unnecessary work and wasted time. A good fit and a bodice you can consider successful is usually achieved through detailed measurement taking and certain adjustments you only really know by instinct/ experience and a good grasp on basic mathematical and geometric equations... Before I lead anyone to believe that you only need to know drafting to be able to successfully make a garment. Drafting is only the beginning phase of the process. I feel the need to highlight what I previously mentioned: constructing and finishing are 2 very different stories since they involve a certain level of competence/ mastery of a completely different skill called sewing.

*In the picture is a mock dress made of canvass for my wedding client to fit soon. The the said dress is an additional feature for wedding clients to give them an idea of the general silhouette, determine if the length of the dress and straps are right and most importantly to further ensure that her wedding dress will fit her like a glove. As it would be pretty costly to make mistakes and wrongly cut wedding fabrics.

I chose the picture since it showcases a dress in it's most basic/ naked form. You can pretty much see an unobstructed view of the bodice. A good dress/ bodice should be clean from the inside out. By clean meaning, smooth lines and shape, no puckering, no loose thread, generally uniform seam width and a good fit.

new year

lots of things happened. most of them good.

i'm rather optimistic, positive about the coming months/ year.

the purpose for this entry was to do a bit of recap of what happened from my last blog entry until uhm now but running through everything that transpired is such a chore. i guess i should be more religious about chronicling those said events. for reference/archive purposes of course- the main reason i probably created this blog in the first place.

i'm posting this particular piece (refer to pic) to, at least, fulfill the purpose of this entry. this piece is a personal favourite and to be very honest, i consider this a personal milestone. it's symbolic of me (reluctantly) embracing the world of weddings and bespoke garments. as for the reason behind the reluctance, i think that deserves yet another blog entry. :)

this piece is "002". it's made of cream chiffon circles and bias strips on charmeuse base.

pawn

i have this thing about naming clothes. i find it cheesy. im more comfortable numbering my clothes instead. prolly cause im more likely to remember numerical combinations than names. though exceptions do happen.

and this one's called pawn.

*dress is made of draped multi-tone jersey

with patent waistband