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APPAREL Why do you sew clothes by hand? Because this is the traditional French way of sewing hand crafted clothes; I am half French. Hand work gives a softer finish than machine sewing, it is particularly suited to sewing fine fabrics such as silk because the hands “feel” the fabric and thereby control the “tension” of the sewing. Hand sewing lends itself well to accurate interpretation of intricate shaping. There is only a minimal risk of hand sewn stitches damaging delicate, expensive fabrics. What is bias cutting? Bias cut garments are cut across the diagonal of the weave of the fabric, rather than on the straight grain of the weave. Bias cutting creates soft, fluid, drapey clothes. Cutting garments on the straight grain produces a more structured look. Are the designs unique? Yes; each design is created individually. A one off is an original work of imagination. I am happy to work with ideas during the design process. Do you sell readymade clothes? Although most clothes are made to order, I do have some sample garments for sale, off-the-peg - see Special Offers Why don’t you make trousers? Basically because I am a dress designer, not a tailor. I have a natural instinct for cutting patterns for dresses; I am hopeless at cutting patterns for trousers; I only work from my own patterns because I trade as a Designer/Maker. ART Why are you a visual artist as well as a dress designer? Because drawing was my first love. I started designing clothes professionally for other people because other people said they liked the clothes I designed for myself. I was brought up from a very early age to sew my own clothes, as were my three sisters, and I started designing my own patterns when I was very young because I could not find ready made paper patterns for the clothes I wanted to wear. I have created and sold visual images in conjunction with designing dresses throughout my career. If you place so much emphasis on hand produced products, why do you draw with computers as well as by hand? When I first started working, computers could not yet draw (well not properly anyway) so all the studios I worked in produced artwork by hand, even in the drawing office at NCR. The only exception to this was the text, which was typed on separate sheets of paper, although some publications also used calligraphy (hand written text). The paper that the text was printed, or written on was then cut manually into a shape that would fit into the hand prepared artwork. The paper was stuck with special glue that enabled the paper to be moved around on the main artwork until it was in the right position. The excess glue could be removed from the paper without damaging the artwork. When computers mastered the art of page layout, they continued to use the terms “cut and paste” which originated from the hand work that “paste-up artists” used to do. From the late 1980s I used an electronic typewriter for my correspondence, but I would not have a computer because it did not really fit with my ethos of keeping hand sewing alive, producing old fashioned frocks and gowns, and also producing hand made artwork. However, by the mid 1990s, I succumbed, and when I eventually discovered how easily I could draw with a mouse, and realised that digital techniques could really expand my artistic horizons, my sojourn into digital art was born, along with the name of my computer, which is also the hostname for my website and email: mignonne….. a sweet little ….. What are giclée prints? They are prints produced using specialist ink jet printers, created for printing high quality prints of photographs, graphics or fine art onto various media, .e.g. quality photo paper, fine art paper, canvas. The inks are guaranteed to last for at least 75 years, or longer depending on the media they are printed onto. These are archival quality prints which are fast becoming the normal format for 21st century Limited and Open Edition prints, that will last for generations. The fine art paper I use for giclée prints is made from 100% cotton rag. ON-LINE SALES Do you plan to sell your products on-line ? I may do in the future. In the meantime, if you want to pay for goods from a distance, by debit or credit card, I can send you an email from the PayPal site which has a link back to the PayPal site. You do not need a PayPal account, but this link will enable you to make payments for my products, via PayPal, by debit or credit card. Please contact me if you require further information. COMMISSIONS Do you only undertake private commissions? Although a lot of my commissions are for private clients, I also undertake commissions for the commercial sector.
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