Fall Fashion Week is nigh. If you don’t have tickets to the shows, fear not. You can meet some of the most innovative and exciting fashion designers every weekend in the markets of New York City.
AngelRox - St. Anthony Market
AngelRox Designer Roxi Suger has done runway shows and loved the experience. But once her business became more established, she found that she preferred to meet her clients in the markets.
Suger meets all kinds of people on the sidewalks of Soho. “At the St. Anthony’s market in particular, I am blessed with creating customers from all over the country and world and expose myself and product to a wondrous range of ages, lifestyles, faiths & needs.”
Angelrox designs are also available online and in boutiques across the US and in Europe.
Nature vs. Future at The Market NYC/Young Designers Market
Clothing designer Nina Valenti is leading the way in eco-fashion. Her fashion line represents both beautiful design and environmental conservation with an eye towards the future.
Valenti achieves these lofty goals by selecting fabrics that feel luxurious and drape beautifully while retaining the structure of each design. The fabrics she uses are eco-friendly, sustainable, and recycled, as well as local surplus materials. In addition to fine tailoring, her designs include edgy details like cutouts, draping, and asymmetry that make them easily identified with the brand. All Nature vs. Future items are handmade in New York City, giving them little or no carbon footprint. Each garment is a modern classic, made to be worn with style season after season, well beyond the fleeting trends.
“Buying less but buying better is a conscious effort a consumer can make,” says Valenti.
See www.naturevsfuture.com for information about Valenti’s appointment-only boutique. She will also have a pop-up shop at the Madison Square Market, opening Saturday, September 25, 2010.
Printmaker, clothing designer, seamstress, and entrepreneur Karin Persan has made major contributions to the design community, the markets, and to her neighborhood of Bushwick. Persan’s clothing line is branded Better Than Jam, which is also the name of her shop, a co-op featuring 30+ New York indie designers, many of whom also sell at the markets.
Says Persan, “Markets are great because they really grab people out of their routines, promising that they'll see new things all in one place.”
Persan starts each collection by hand printing 7 yards of fabric at a time in her Bushwick studio. She uses 3 or 4 different colors on solid-colored fabric. She then cuts out a pattern freehand and sews the individual garments while minding the Co-op, which is located in the recently renovated Loom Building. The results are flattering and flirty dresses, skirts, and accessories in bright colors. They are quite versatile. With the right accessories, they can be worn to work, to a show, or to the neighborhood greenmarket. No design is ever duplicated, so if you see one you like, you’d be best advised to purchase it immediately.
Persan is a member of The {NewNew} New York artisan group. So when she can’t be at the markets, her colleagues sell Better Than Jam garments on her behalf. You can meet Persan at the Brooklyn Indie Market’s Fall Fashion Preview on September 18, 2010, as well as the Atlantic Antic on September 26, 2010.
Fofolle – Brooklyn Indie Market
Fofolle is a French term meaning “wacky girl.” If designer and founder/manager of the Brooklyn Indie Market Kathy Malone is in fact wacky, she certainly channels it directly into her form fitting skirts and repurposed velvet jackets.
Malone has invented a clever garment that serves as a skirt and a poncho. It looks great in either mode. Each piece is individually crafted on the bias from jersey knits, linens, and even soft upholstery fabric. As a skirt, it hugs the hips perfectly. The angles of the strips of fabric draw the eye in and down, so you really cannot help but look slim and trim in these shirts. When worn as a poncho, the neckline becomes a large cowl that you can drape down the front or back, or spread across the shoulders. The only issue with these garments is the decision around whether to wear them as a skirt or a poncho on any given day. Of course the solution is simple: purchase two!
Malone enjoys managing her own market and selling her creations there every weekend. “I get to make sure the fit is perfect and won’t let anyone walk out of there with a Fofolle skirt unless I know they are happy.”
You can try on Fofolle skirts every weekend in Carol Gardens at the Brooklyn Indie Market. Malone also sells Fofolle piece at the Better Than Jam Co-Op and in her online Etsy shop.
Grace Napoleon Folk Couture – Brooklyn Flea
Grace Napoleon hand makes clothes from clothes. The results are eco-friendly, one-of-a-kind, and loads of fun to wear.
Napoleon calls her design style “folk couture.” This term aptly describes her quest for materials and her unique design style. “I hunt the world for pattern and texture,” she says. She shops for garments and fabrics at Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, and occasionally her friends and customers will donate fabrics for her to use. She has a talented eye for color and patterns and how they will work together, often in the most unlikely and beautiful combinations.
Her spring and summer pieces are light and fun, with pretty pastels and appliqués. College coeds and hipsters drool over mini-dresses, hoodies, and blouses. But Napoleon excels with fall and winter colors, textures, and layers. She has many repeat clients, including women of a certain age who refuse to wear mass-produced fashion. Napoleon’s clients value the design and craftsmanship that goes into each individual garment.
You can find Grace Napoleon’s folk couture line, as well as her vintage wares, at the Brooklyn Flea on Sundays at One Hanson Place. She often sells at the SOWA Market in Boston.
Discover New York City's Markets
with Karen Seiger, author of Markets of New York City
The NYC Insiders Guide
for women who aren't kids
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Karen Seiger first fell in love with New York City during a university semester program with the United Nations. Upon completing a graduate degree at Johns Hopkins, she worked for many years in international aid and development in Latin America and Africa. Karen moved to New York City to work in international marketing for American Express and later as a business consultant. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, Flemish and Italian.
Karen lives in the West Village with her husband James, a cat they saved from the streets of Mozambique, and her collection of rescued orchids. She volunteers with the September 11th Families Association as a tour guide of the World Trade Center site. When she is home, you can find her at the Saturday morning Greenmarket at Abingdon Square.
She is the author of Markets of New York City. Visit her web site:
Fashion Weekends at the Markets
AngelRox designs versatile, comfortable, and timelessly stylish. Suger created jeans that are flattering and sexy with a mesh waistband and her signature baroque angel wings embroidered on the pockets. She has a line of sleek eco wear shirts made from soft organic stretch jersey cotton, “grown and sewn in the US.” One of her most brilliant designs is The Wrap. This piece is a length of earthy colored bamboo jersey that can be wrapped around your body in myriad ways to create dresses, skirts, shawls, wraps, and more. If ever there was a perfect travel garment, The Wrap is it. Many AngelRox designs are also unusually suited to cross over into and out of maternity because they are made from stretch jersey and they drape so beautifully on all body shapes.
