Half Dot Brooklyn

We are so grateful for the amazing press coverage we’ve received on our webshop opening and fall/winter 09 debut! Thank you to all!

We spotted a really cool growth chart at the DWR Tools store and immediately snatched up two of them – one to put up on the wall for our little guy and one to give to his cousin.

Coincidentally, during our visit to the Museum of Modern Art over the weekend the little son became a part of the Measuring the Universe exhibit ~ his height, name, and the date were recorded on the wall alongside (well, beneath, actually) the thousands of others who have passed through the room during the course of the exhibit. Very neat idea. Though one wonders why no one has thought of this before (or maybe they have?) and how the show pushes the boundaries of what art is.

Patterns, markers, samples, fabrics, notions – everything for the fall/winter 09 collection is now at the factory for production.

During the entire process, I have found one thing absolutely invaluable – having a UPS shipper’s account number. There is a lot of important stuff traveling back and forth and oftentimes you are asking third parties to do the shipping for you – you have to trust that they send it the right way (without racking up an insane shipping fee for you to pay later) and they are putting on the right shipping address. Having a UPS account number pretty much ensures you can keep an eye on all shipments, and god forbid, if you see through online tracking that one package might be heading to the wrong place, you can have it intercepted and re-routed. Why UPS and not FedEx? I cannot say that I have had any good enough experiences with FedEx for me to entrust them with anything important.

Over here, I’m working on the details for the webshop opening in October. And the sewing machine is out again as I begin sewing prototypes for spring/summer 2010. Considering how it’s been thunderstorming every afternoon over here in New York, I am definitely thinking about summer raincoats.

It’s been a really busy month over here. I learned that if you really care about the details when it comes to production, you should factor in an extra month of just overseeing those things. There was a 3-week holdup at the cutting room as I insisted on getting some final adjustments made. Now everything is at the grading company where the final markers are being printed. Over here in the studio, I’m writing up specs, packing things up, and getting ready to ship everything over to the factory.

Work on the webshop has also begun – we are on schedule to open in October. Excited!

And of course, while all this is going on, its also time to start making samples of the spring/summer 2010 collection. Full speed ahead!

Photographer Emily Travis recently worked on a piece for a local Brooklyn magazine and I was thrilled when she asked to include my coats in her photoshoot. She chose the super cool Community Bookstore (infamously known to have housed the giant iguana) as the venue for the shoot. I highly recommend Emily if you’re looking for a kids’ photographer. Her portfolio is great and she’s such a nice person to work with. Budget-permitting, we’ll be asking her to help us with the lookbook for one of our future seasons.

Above, our lovely little models are wearing the Half Dot Starter Cape (left) and the Boys’ Sport Coat (right).

For those of you who decide to venture into the New York City Garment District for your fabric needs, here is a list of the places I’ve been into during my search for fabrics for this current season, and my thoughts on each of them:

Mood. Yes, all you Project Runway fans, it’s the store where all the fabric madness happens. If you squeeze past the camera-snapping tourists, it is a great place to get some quality fabrics (clean and undamaged) for discounted prices. You might even be lucky enough to find a considerable amount of yardage (in the fifties to hundreds) for small production runs. The staff is incredibly helpful (they know their fabrics very well), the store dog is cute, and I did see Christian Siriano there a couple of months back, but of course there were no tourists around that day and the rest of us were all too calm and collected to even bat an eyelash.

B and J Fabrics. It’s one of those places that supposedly can serve all your fabric needs. I say go there only if you are feeling very wealthy and intend pay a lot more than your fabric is actually worth. It’s a pristinely-kept space and feels more like an art gallery than a store. Then again, if practical isn’t what you’re going for, and you’re on the lookout for something feathery, scaley, or handwoven on an antique loom by some aged person atop of some sacred mountain, then you’ll probably find it here.

Paron Fabrics and Paron Annex. Some people seem to like this place. I haven’t had any luck finding stuff I like, and even less when it comes to acquiring anything in stock for over 50 yards. It does boast some good discount pieces by designers, so if you’re looking for one-time fabrics, this might work out. I seem to get severe asthma and blurry vision every time I’m in the place (and have since decided to never step foot in there again), so I’d say clean whatever you buy from them.

J. Lefkovits and Co. This is one of those wild cards, a hidden gem of a place. I found their listing on the internet and decided to pop in and take a look since I was in the neighborhood. The office looks like its a hundred years old. And the jolly old men in there do too. Get past the antiquated look of the place and check out their fabric selection – it is pretty good. And the wholesale prices are remarkable. Unlike other fabric jobbers who don’t have much on hand to show you, these guys have swatches of everything that’s on the racks, so you can go through it, choose, and find out how much yardage is available right away. And since I’m a clean freak, I was smiling when I saw their storage facility – all the bolts are wrapped in plastic. Oh and did I mention these jolly old men are really nice?

What makes garment design and manufacturing so much fun (and at the same time so nerve-wracking) is how much detail is involved in every step. Every decision I make ties into something that will appear later on. Such is the case with my woven labels, which I ordered back in March right before the Bubble trade show.

I’ve encountered my share of prickly and stiff labels so when I was making my material selection, I asked for the softest weave. I was informed that would be 50 denier damask, with the number in front indicating the width of the thread. I also requested that the background be bright white and that they pantone color match the daschund image. I ordered them here, and I think I’d order from them again, considering how helpful they were and accurate the turnaround time was.

The completed woven labels arrived quickly and I was very happy with how they looked. They’re a bit silkier and more refined than I’d wanted, but that just means choosing a thickier thread and semi-damask next time around. There was one big concern though – the labels would work if I put them on a dark colored surface, but on top of the natural/ivory cotton lining of my coats, the darker color threads woven underneath showed through! I was devasted, to say the least. After quite a bit of fretting, I did some experimenting and found that if I first sewed the label onto a matching plaid patch, which I then sewed to the lining, the overall effect was pretty neat. And that’s the label design which will appear on all the fall/winter 09 pieces.

Sometimes you get some nice results when you least expect them.

And yes, that’s junior, snoozing right beside.

My husband laughs whenever I tell him about my days running around from one place to another in the Garment District here in New York. He can’t quite understand how people there don’t communicate by e-mail (fax is still preferred over pdf). I tell him that emailing is frivolous when you look at how everything else is done. You have to befriend and tote your wares from one “professional” to the next as you progress from sampling to production. You go to one person to sew your samples and make your initial patterns (the cutting room) – and you go there countless times as you edit your pieces, another place to size and mark the patterns (grading company) – make sure they are reputable, have proper computer grading programs and gigantic drum printers before you hand your precious paper patterns over, another to cut your fabrics (a cutting service), and then everything goes to the contractor for sewing. You have to keep track of the progress of everything (phone calls, phone calls), and at the same time be sourcing all fabrics and materials from a bunch of other places. The thing to remember amidst all this is that each of these people is truly an expert at whatever they deal in. It may be tiring to be marching back and forth to all these different places, but it is refreshing (and incredibly time-saving) to hear their advice and pointers when they’re helping you with whatever part they know best. After all, they are the experts.

I was very thrilled and honored (and humbled) to be included in the LMNOP Mother’s Day feature, alongside so many uber-talented super moms.