Eva Dress, July's Exceptional Vintage Lady.
I first read about Eva Dress in an issue of Threads Magazine some years ago and have been a fan ever since. When she began to blog I was over the moon being able to read about her sewing process, and pattern development with the occasional glimpse into her life. Her intelligent, creative and elegant aesthetic is a grand contribution to the on line Vintage community.
I am so pleased she agreed to be the first in this six month series spotlighting Exceptional Vintage Ladies.
Without further adieu I present to you Eva Dress.
Photo Credit Cynthia DeGrand
Photo Credit Cynthia DeGrand
Sewing and architecture are two threads that have continuously run all through my life. As a very young girl, I spent much time in my bedroom draping scraps of fabric upon my dolls and I also spent much time re-arranging the furnishings in the room. It wasn’t until I was much older when I came to realize those two activities in which I engaged so much were about creating space. I specifically regard clothing as the most intimate and primary space we inhabit and then (edifice) architecture to be the secondary space, although I recognized very important relationships between the two.
As I grew, my sewing interest went the way of vintage largely because my dad’s parents had a great deal to do with my up-bringing. They were young parents who raised two babies into young boys during The Great Depression, so my grandparents’ values and convictions were instilled since they were such a big part of my life in formative years. On that account, I embraced all that I perceived to be ‘old fashioned’, especially clothing.
For the longest time, I’ve had an affection for technical aspects, so my father having been a builder taking me to jobsites, architecture really appealed as I became fascinated with joinery and connectivity aspects in construction. By the time I was 17, I was set on going through architecture school, yet I never let sewing go the wayside. I sewed my formal high school dresses and I even emulated a frock that I spotted on my grandmother in a photo of her from the early ‘20’s.
When I first happened upon vintage patterns in the late 90’s, I instantly realized that they offered a much larger range of technical possibilities than those of their contemporary counterparts. I was an intern at a large international architecture firm at the time and as I started sewing 30’s dresses to wear to work. Architects all through the place would stand up to look at what I was wearing everyday and they were taken with the loads of details in what I wore and readily made remarks about them.
What was a personal hobby loaded with technical opportunities in making my own ‘vintage clothes’ piqued the interest of a particular viewer of my web site upon which I demonstrated my personal work vintage patterns. She asked if I would sell her the copy of an un-copyright protected pattern (to which I answered affirmatively).
I graduated with a Bachelor degree in Architecture and I worked in the field until the world economy changed. This was just when my career path was starting to swing toward my ‘other architecture’-that of of a pattern maker, fascinated by the architecture of vintage clothing.
Photo Credit Cynthia DeGrand
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