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Member Benefits!
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Join us and be a part of the
pattern people
community!
Annual Journal
Newsletter
Discounts on Courses and Products
Invitations to Special Events and Tours.
Access to the Center Library
Employment Opportunities
Networking Events
Consultation Services
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It's Spring
and along with all the blossoms, creativity blooms too -- new ideas, new events and a new passion for the fundamentals, meeting the challenge of expressing ourselves in cut and design with a new emphasis on those basic skills, like creating your own pattern or cutting through pattern conventions if you're a pro.
It is time to learn and try out different aesthetic directions, visions that will come to define this new century and ultimately ourselves.
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NEWS FROM THE CENTER FOR PATTERN DESIGN
- Our First Conference! On October 3rd in San Francisco at the Art Institute of California/San Francisco on Market Street. All things pattern and pattern design -- new concepts, people, products, software, specialty patterns and workshops before and after. Save the date and look for details in the next newsletter and on our site.
- New Patterns
 At long last Julian Roberts' first Subtraction pattern, the "Smaller Dress", made famous in his Red  Dress Series, is out in Subtraction Cutting format. It is dramatic, looks different on everyone and can be made in any fabric and combination of prints and colors. See the Store.
Also available is the Pyramid Dress, a Center Subtraction pattern cut out of a complete circle, on the bias. Take a look at both.Watch for our new ArtCoat series.
- New Website, Same Address After a long wait and a restart with company number two, we are finally about to post a new website which will enable everyone to access more and more quickly. I hesitate to name a date since it may jinx the thing! We will begin posting new books and patterns at a faster clip since it will be easier! Whew! The website world is complex.
- New Tools
 There is a new emphasis on art principles in the design of clothing, making an understanding of proportion much more important. We have a new tool, the Golden Mean Gauge (above), which can be used to determine your best personal proportions and also those of your designs. Fine tuning proportions makes you a work of art. The Gauge is joined by other new tools, the  Large Calipers, which give you an instant read on the proportions of your silhouette, and the Phi Ruler which also gives you accurate linear proportions. See the Store for more info.
- New Class Draping for Design, Level 1, August 21, 22, 23 and Level 2, August 28, 29, 30. Both will take students through the full range of unusual draping techniques and incorporate the use of the new proportional tools. Save the date -- Sign up online; registration information will up May 15th!
- New Trip Meet Me in Paris!! (September?). I'll be there to see the Vionnet exhibition at the Mus�e des Arts Decoratifs, running until January 2010.
 I can guarantee a fabulous tour of the show -- this museum is the recipient of 750 of Madeleine Vionnet's toiles and all her papers. I believe this show is the first time since 1939, when her house closed, that they have shown her work and it probably will not be shown again for another generation! I can give travel recommendations but everyone must get there on their own. Let me know if you're thinking about it and I'll keep a list for contact purposes.
Please encourage donations of books and patterns if
you know of someone who would like to donate them for preservation. Recently,
we have received a donation of approximately 20 hat patterns and instructions from wartime
1940's from the Legacy Shop in Sebastopol. We will be making the Legacy Hat Collection available to the public, while protecting the originals.
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EVENTS
 - "Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity" going on now until May 17 at the Museum of the City of New York. The book, with the same title, by Kohle Yohannan, is a rich resource of Valentina's work, never exhibited before.
- The Fifth Annual STYLE 2009, An Art-for-Wear Trunk Show & Sale, Saturday, April 25, 2009 / 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. 35 Bay Area Artwear artists! www.paacf.org/style
- St. Vincent de Paul's Fourth Annual Discarded to Divine Show, Friday, April 17, 5:30 to 8:30PM at the Gift Center on Brannan in SF. Donated clothes are transformed into one-of-a-kind couture creations by students from local design schools and independent designers, drawing inspiration from the de Young's various works and exhibitions, including Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes, Yves Saint Laurent, and Warhol Live. The show helps to support the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Loads of cutting ideas! Get the details and go to the opening party!
 ARTWEAR at the de Young Museum, May 1 & 2. The Bay Area's best clothing artists! This area is ground zero for artwear so the creations will be spectacular. The new thinking says buy one great thing you will love forever! In case you're fuzzy on the idea, read about what is truly luxury these days!
- Surface Design 2009 Association Conference, Off the Grid, Kansas City , MO, May 28 -31, 2009. The place where textile artists go to soak up ideas and more ideas! Combine an amazing fabric with a perfect cut in a single garment and you are completely dressed, nothing else will matter.
- Association of Sewing and Design Professionals Conference, Chicago, October 14 - 18, 2009 at Indian Springs Resort.
 This year will honor Madeleine Vionnet with an award to Betty Kirke, who wrote THE Vionnet book (valued at over $600 shortly after its first publication and now on its third); I will present a 2-day Vionnet Master Class and there will be many members who create Vionnet designs for the Conference. It will be wonderful to see them modeled. This year is the 70th Anniversary of the closing of the House of Vionnet in Paris. All are welcome to register. See ASDP.
- Claire Schaeffer's Sewfari Workshops.
 In addition to two construction and design workshops, Haute Couture, June 2-7, 2009, and Chanel and That Suit, January 10-15, 2010, Claire is also offering Historic Dress For Modern Design with Tim Long, coming up in January 2010. Tim Long is Curator of Costumes the Chicago History Museum and an adjunct prof at the Art Institue of Chicago. Mr. Long did Chic Chicago, an exhibit & catalog to die for, last year. See his video.
- Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out
June 17 through September 26, 2009 at the Museum at F.I.T. in New York.  "The Cuban-born fashion designer Isabel Toledo is often described as 'a designer's designer'. As the late fashion journalist Amy Spindler once wrote, "Only great designers can dispense with themes and theatrics and let the work speak instead. Ms.Toledo does just that . . ." With the exhibit is Valerie Steele and Patricia Mears' new book by the same title. Ms. Toledo is one of the premier pattern designers in the US, if not THE pattern designer, recently in the news for designing Michelle Obama's Inaugural ensemble.
- And now a legal event! Trovata vs. Forever 21 case is set for trial. After two years of legal wrangling, Trovata's lawsuit alleging that cheap-chic retailer Forever 21 copied its designs is headed to trial next month, and the outcome could have implications for both vendors and retailers in this age of fast fashion. Pattern copiers may need to take note.
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PATTERN PLAY tm
- Isabel Lott at Patternworks International, the genial genius who has developed the most useful software, PWStudio 2.0, for small businesses there is also teaches workshops in her Grand Rapids, MI studios, great for those in the midwest. Upcoming Workshops at Patternworks Studios are June 25-28th: 4 days, Thursday through Sunday, $440, and August 6-9th: 4 days, Thursday through Sunday, $440. Check out the details!
 ArtCoat 1, forecasting a new artwear pattern series from the Center, currently in production -- ready for sale in May to coincide with the opening of the Surface  Design Conference. The series ultilizes one or two pattern pieces, is often on the bias and yet is unusual and easy to put together. We start with ArtCoat 1 -- it will be free to new members from the start of the SDA Conference on May 28 to June 30 and discounted for current members.
- Onion From Threads we have news of Danish pattern company in European sizes 34 to 46, children to adults, check out ShopOnion.com.
- Pattern & draping classes you recommend! Please let us know if you have a pattern design or draping class that you recommend, anywhere, and we will publish a list of the best of the best. Send in the name of the instructor and the title and location of the class. Our email: pattern@CenterforPatternDesign.org
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At last, we are finished with stair repair, pattern and library organization and general set up and
will open for appointments this summer. In the next newsletter we will feature pattern book reviews, new reprints and a bibliography of the CPD pattern book library.
Watch the website for Pattern Design Conference plans as they are confirmed!
Thank you all for your support and encouragement!
Sandra Ericson, Director
Center for Pattern Design
Unfortunately, this must be the last complimentary newsletter that will be sent to those who are not yet members or industry partners. CPD events will be posted on the website in the public section. |
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Fall 2009 are over and, as ever, I look for the best cutters. There were several but two emerged this year as standouts, 
(left) at Jil Sander and 