Thursday, September 23, 2010
McGrew Studio
Posted By Gavin Sheehan on September 23, 2010, 12:17 AM
Often overlooked but very essential to local fashion, those working in costuming and design play a much bigger role than sometimes given credit for. Putting out creations that you see at festivals, theatre productions, dance troupes, major events and even just a night out. The work done by these individuals plays a vital role in the entertainment community as well as specific apparel seen all over town, even when not fully acknowledged as full fashion. Which is why, especially with Halloween on the way, businesses like the one we're chatting about today continue to thrive and help that community out.
--- McGrew Studio started off as a tightlace custom creations boutique out of the Salt Lake City founder's home. Since that time the creative seamstress has been able to provide her works to several companies and productions while still being able to cater to the laced crowds that originally pushed her business, all working from Pierpont as one of the few remaining businesses still striving along the street. We got a chance to chat with Jennifer McGrew about her career and works, plus her thoughts on local fashion in various aspects. Not to mention photos of the studio for you to check out here.
Jennifer
McGrew
http://mcgrewstudio.com/
Gavin:
Hey Jen! First off, tell us a bit about yourself.
Jen:
Born in Las Vegas, Air Force family, both parents worked at the
Nevada Test Site then. Sometimes I joke that this fact explains
plenty about my behavior. Lived as a youngster in Colorado for ten
years when dad worked at NORAD, first moved to Utah as a high
schooler in 1979, then lived all over the place including both coasts
and wound up relocating back to Utah in 2001. Lifelong interest in
making stuff: Costumes, furniture, electronics, puppets, stuffed
animals, fashion, decor, etc. Been working as a designer,
cutter-draper and part-time college instructor for many years
now.
Gavin:
What first got you interested in theater costuming and fashion?
Jen:
In the early 1970s my friends and I were skilled at entertaining
ourselves. We had to be. TV was pretty crummy after school. You could
only tolerate the Brady's and the Partridge Family for so long. So we
made things--collages, paper cut-out stuff, puppets, haunted houses,
soundtracks and crazy commercials recorded onto my dad’s old
reel-to-reel machine, circus acts, costumes, ray guns, monsters,
everything. Other kids’ moms just loved how their little darlings
came over to my house after school because we were doing creative
stuff and “staying out of trouble.” Luckily we were pre-hormonal,
not even teens yet. My parents owned home and industrial sewing
machines, plus there were all those power tools around. I started
early, duplicating crafts I saw in the stores, clothing, furniture,
purses, stuffed animals, Barbie decor, even a Barbie Townhouse with a
working pulley-operated elevator made from a three-shelf kitchen cart
on casters. My mom was aghast that I’d commandeered her cart for my
project, but after all, they’d refused to buy me a real Barbie
Townhouse for Christmas.
Gavin:
You went to Weber and then Utah State for your Masters in Costume
Design. What made you choose those schools, and how was each program
for you?
Jen:
No one really chooses Weber, do they? Weber chooses you. In those
days it was sometimes referred to as “Harrison High School.”
Probably still is. Perfect location and affordable tuition for
someone living nearby, like me, whose parents insisted their daughter
go to college. A big plus is that Weber’s an outstanding
institution. I got lucky. Some great professors in all my
departments. I was mentored by some strong faculty who I still
channel to this day, or at least try to in my work as a part-timer
there as well as at my own shop. At one time the UTA buses had big
WSU vehicle wraps that read, “The good news: The instructor knows
your name. The bad news: The instructor knows your name.” And it’s
true. The costume professor at Weber, Catherine Zublin, has always
been one of my most important role models even though she’ll
probably never know it. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to
emulate her artistic energy and ethic as well as her persona, you
might say. I never knew that theater and costume were academic
subjects until right before I graduated. I’d dropped in and out of
college for about ten years. When I returned for the final attempt,
equipped with a Pell Grant, work-study and a determination to finish
up the last few credits for my English degree, I was required to be a
full-time student. Looking through the catalog and spotting the
costume history class, I thought, “Huh, this looks interesting.”
I nearly had an emotional breakdown the first day of class. Theater
and design were exactly what I’d been working toward my whole life
but hadn’t known. I could have graduated that semester but decided
I needed to learn more about these new subjects. I stayed and earned
another minor in a year. When I considered grad school, Zublin
suggested, “Why don’t you go study with Nancy Hills” at Utah
State. It was another extremely supportive environment. I flourished
there. I do though sometimes wonder in retrospect if I shouldn’t
have set my sights on Carnegie-Mellon, Yale, or Stanford. But where I
come from, my people just aren’t that presumptuous. I amazed
myself, my friends and my parents by actually graduating with a
bachelor’s degree. I don’t think anyone ever thought I’d finish
anything I started.
Gavin:
How did you end up at New York University to complete your
studies?
Jen:
When we were all first enjoying the Internets in the late 1990’s, I
was increasingly stunned that there was this huge body of discourse
that I’d somehow completely missed out on during my years of
cafeteria-style education. So I went on this autodidactic rampage,
trying to read as many critical theory and cultural studies texts as
I could. At that time I was living in Santa Cruz, California,
designing costumes for a ballet company and an all-girl private high
school in Monterey as well as for a community college in Salinas.
Feeling a little stuck in the provinces, I started obsessing about
NYU’s Performance Studies program, so I applied. The grandstanding
by all the grad students was amazing, sometimes brutal. It was
exciting, too, at times, me playing the role of “bland but
eccentric white woman from somewhere out west” thrown into the
shark tank with all these astonishing scholars who’ve been
bottle-fed since on critical theory since birth, the international
students with so much perspective, the east coast Jewish
intellectuals, etc. It was a total gas. A completely mind-expanding
experience.
Gavin:
Considering the experience and education you have, what made you
decide to come back to Utah instead of pursuing a career in NYC or
LA?
Jen:
There’s still family here. My parents. They’re not getting any
younger and I love them so much. It was just time to come back. I
missed the mountains and the views and I missed having some of my
long-time friends around. After working in New York and New Jersey
for a few years I came back to Utah in January of 2001 to regroup and
have stayed ever since. My life has never been what most people would
consider mainstream. And I’ve made my choices. Most ambitious NYU
grads probably go directly into fantastic academic, nonprofit or
public sector jobs, but not me. In many ways I’ve been my own worst
enemy. I’m just terrible at office and university politics. I’m
biologically incapable of sucking up to anyone and I’ve also chosen
to live in obscure geographical locations with people I cared for
instead of staying on the glamorous career treadmills in NYC and LA.
Because fifteen years ago I wanted to live with someone I loved on
the central coast of California instead of in LA, I probably shot
myself in the foot with regard to any potential full-time,
tenure-track employment, even though full-time professorial stuff is
what I’d always trained for. Why the hell else would any sane
person go to school all those years, then teach college part-time for
ten more?
Gavin:
Considering the field, how limited is the academic job market in
costuming these days?
Jen:
Most university theater departments have ONE costume faculty
position, if they’re lucky. Now compare this in your mind to any
math or English department, which need dozens of faculty. I don’t
want to live in Akron, Ohio, even if a position opens up there. In
academic costume, one usually has to wait for a position to open when
a faculty member retires, then you must submit your CV along with
literally hundreds of other applicants in most cases. But I must tell
you that I’ve learned many things over the years by taking the road
less traveled, by working with young people, their volunteer parents,
community groups, by working resourcefully within modest budgets, by
working with many many theater groups in smaller cities, with people
who are really earnest about doing creative work, who are fun to work
with and who love how they are creating their communities. It just
seemed like it was time to finally settle back in Utah and start
building the kind of community I’d actually want to be a part
of.
Gavin:
How did the idea come about to start up your own costume shop?
Jen:
You can’t own as much equipment and materials as I do and not have
some place to use it. Anywhere I’ve ever lived, whether I’d
brought along two machines or twelve, I’ve always let people know I
can be their hired gun. I’ve always been at least partially
self-employed by making all kinds of things for people. It’s just
that the sheer scale of what my crew and I are doing here now in SLC
is bigger than anything I’d ever had before at my house or in any
other space.
Gavin:
What was it like for you getting set up and opening your business up
to the public?
Jen:
A good experience, mostly. I had to move it out of my house and
downtown in 2003 when things just got too crowded there. I’d
accumulated too many machines and tools to fit in my big living room
and auxiliary bedroom. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a
custom tuxedo I was tailoring to go OVER an existing sumo wrestler
costume that this technology company client had rented for a big
event. I was using super-heavy-duty polyester fabric and the cat hair
would literally fly across the cutting table to cling to it. It was
simply time to find a public space. In our space downtown, we are an
animal-free, smoke-free shop, which matters professionally,
especially to people with allergies. Our shop downtown was located in
a second-floor loft for a number of years, then we expanded and moved
it downstairs into a storefront two years ago when a space opened
up.
Gavin:
One of the primary focuses of your designs is in corsets and
tightlacing. What made you choose that specific type of fashion
designing as your centerpiece?
Jen:
It was kind of a fluke at the beginning that led to a discovery.
After I’d moved back to Utah in 2001 I was teaching at Weber and
periodically at SLCC but still needed to supplement my part-time
faculty wages, so I put out the Salt Lake Slipcover shingle and
decided to run some ads in Catalyst Magazine. Catalyst has
a chatty “comings and goings” section that provides info about
new businesses who sign up to advertise or businesses that move or
close down, that sort of thing. In the write-up they did about my
slipcover and interior design workroom business, they added, “she
also makes custom corsets and costumes.” I think I’d merely
mentioned them in my phone conversation with the ad rep, but
Immediately, my phone started ringing. There were people looking for
this service and it became obvious that Salt Lake was ready for a
real corset shop. It just seemed I was the person who could or should
make it happen. I’d been making them for years anyway. I had the
experience, the equipment, and the tenacity to do something ballsy
and ridiculous and do it right. What the hell else is a moniker like
“Salt Lake Tightlacer”? Anyway, my shop makes the best. Real
ones, with real steels, real grommets, real attention to perfect
custom fit and details. Oh and did I mention we have custom order
layaway? Haha!
Gavin:
For you, what's the process like in creating a new costume, from
design to final product?
Jen:
It’s based largely on taking the steps necessary to give the
client what she or he wants. If it’s corset-related, steampunk or
Victoriana, I’ll usually have some samples in the boutique for
clients to try or at least see see what’s possible. The client, my
crew and I are creative partners. I’ll have our guests pick
elements out of a lineup in costume history books, comics, history
books, film and more sources. We ask clients to bring in their own
clipping file, to collect pictures of what they want. We take
measurements. I create sketches and renderings to show how all the
elements fit together, calculate the yardage requirements and develop
a bid for individual pieces, usually based on a per-yard labor rate.
I may develop original patterns, further cutting diagrams or sketches
to give to my first hand, or I’ll tell her which existing patterns
to pull from stock if she’s going to help me on the project. The
client gets to look at our fabrics and select from them. If we don’t
have the ideal fabrics, the client goes shopping, or we do.
Typically I use a combination of draping and flat pattern drafting to
get what I want quickly, and I also love researching period costume
patterns in museum books, then drafting those out and modifying them
to suit the client’s tastes or mine. I love it when I get to
develop new patterns. That is never boring. I love complicated,
fitted garments and tailoring and it’s so much fun to work with a
client who has a sense of the possible, of the fantastic.
Gavin:
As well as corsets you also have full costumes, masks, jewelry and
more. What made you decide to expand the business and how has it
worked out for you?
Jen:
My creative partners and I at one time thought that the boutique
part of our shop needed to have something for everyone, so we
accepted lots of consignment items, used costumes, collectibles, etc.
Last month, I decided that it all has to go, and it has. We’ve
sent more than 90% of the consignment items home with their owners or
makers because the clutter just wasn’t working and our environment
became stifling. There was nowhere for the eye to rest in our
boutique. As we continue with our remodeling, we will be showcasing
the work that our own crew makes, then adding our guest artists back
into the boutique very selectively. The criteria will definitely be
related to genre, articulation, quality craftsmanship and appeal of
their items. Among the designers whose work will get to stay are
Jordan Halversen, Second Skin Leather, Davey Stevenson, Milivoj
Poletan and hopefully, Dreamland Sideshow. I need to mention the
specialties and talents of our resident artists here. Mel B. Jones is
a fantastic jewelry and assemblage designer plus an outstanding
graphic designer. Lots of people these days are stringing a bunch of
hardware together and calling it steampunk jewelry, but they lack
Mel’s skills, training, and couture hand-made silver ear wires
which raise every piece to a whole new level of art. Melissa
Welinsky is a gifted designer whose felted wool, crochet and upcycled
creations are sumptuous and inspiring. There’s Becky Young, my
right hand, who is a trained corset maker (by me) and is also a big
anime fan. Plus she handpaints corsets, reaching new clients I didn’t
even know we could have. We have also Tony and Lyra, who have busy
schedules but come in periodically to pinch hit. Tony loves making
gowns. Big ones. He loves wearing them, too. Lyra is a painting and
sculpture major at the U and has also completed corset apprenticeship
with me. She is one competent corset maker as well as an innovator
when it comes to wearable art and sculptural clothing.
Gavin:
Over the years, what's been your most favorite custom design to make
for someone?
Jen:
The “pot thongs” I designed back in April for Dark Horse’s
production of Reefer Madness
are pretty memorable. In the musical, there’s a “reefer orgy.”
It’s an opium-den inspired number with exotic dancing girls,
everyone humping and grinding, and during this number, every single
cast member strips away at least one item or many, some down to just
their pot leaf - boxers or nude body-stocking with pot thong over it.
Working out just the “right” amount of nudity, implied nudity or
lack of nudity for each individual cast member with the director and
production team was definitely an organic process. I’m not saying I
thrive on stress, but it was tricky to please the director and the
rest of the artistic staff by achieving the “right” amount of
coverage in the right fabrics, correct positioning, construction and
details. The design went through a few evolutions and the stakes
seemed to really matter. We’re in Utah, after all, where sex seems
pretty taboo despite the fact we have one of the fastest growing
populations in the country and Utah’s famous for it’s huge
families. Go figure. Anyway, it was so cool to see how a company
would naturally, publicly stand behind its production decisions. The
shit even flew a little after a couple of critics cringed and a
Facebook flamewar erupted, that naturally, I incited. That reefer
orgy is a really sexy number, and I loved the discourse, stakes and
controversy around it maybe as much as I loved making costumes for
Dark Horse and that musical. But I digress. One of my absolute
favorite costumes is actually one I’m making right now for a
private collector. It’s a whole outfit, cira 1886: A lobster bustle
in gold fabric with black details, buckles, and separate, flounced
bustle pad on top with petticoat, onesie, corset and layered, bustled
skirt and jacket combo. This whole outfit is so gorgeous and in such
beautiful fall colors and unexpected tones, even the corset and
underwear! My least favorite items to make are black corsets, which
clients ask for regularly. Someone please pass the Prozac! I’m
really happy when I get to work with colors.
Gavin:
Some other services people might not be aware of is that you also do
props and slip covers, as well as production services. How did you
get into doing that?
Jen:
I’ve been doing this type of work for so long I can’t really
remember a time when I didn’t make these things. I “officially”
started up the slipcover business in about 1995 in Monterey,
California, helping an interior designer friend, then later opened
Santa Cruz Slipcover. Because of the diversity of our design work
here and extended network of artists, our activities segue nicely
into talent management and event production, which I also do and
love. I have such a great community of talented friends, performers,
directors, choreographers, visual and 3D artists and other creative
types. Providing referrals for them and booking them for events that
we stage ourselves or coordinate for others is a part of life
here.
Gavin:
What kind of work do you do with the theatre productions in our area,
and what plays have your designs been featured in?
Jen:
Most recently there’s Dark Horse Theater’s Reefer
Madness and the whole “pot
thong” phenomenon I described, plus the numerous 1930’s period
costumes its ensemble cast required. I’ve designed Saturday’s
Voyeur for Salt Lake Acting
Company, designed many productions for Utah Musical Theater, Weber
State and Utah State. I’ve done design for performance art
productions at the Dark Arts Festival, plus even designed some local
burlesque costumes and wardrobe pieces for some local bands. If you
attend Jazz games and watch TV commercials, you’ll soon be seeing
the mascot that my shop built for the ad agency handling the America
First Credit Union campaign, plus other mascots. My colleagues and I
are actually quite fond of working with individuals and groups beyond
the traditional theater communities, actually, where you can just
exhale and let go of all your carefully instilled notions about
“high” and “low” culture. These include the steampunk crowd,
burners, goths, fairies, Victorians, themed wedding parties, the Girl
Scouts of America, the Higher Ground Learning kids at fashion camp,
the Furries, the Dandies, the BDSM and leather crowd, the Lolitas,
the re-enactors, the trannies, the closet cross-dressers, the secret
superheroes and many more than I can possibly describe. It is a
really rich ecosystem out there!
Gavin:
What's it like for you personally to see someone in one of your
pieces?
Jen:
It’s always awesome. Very satisfying. But if it’s something I’ve
made for a stage production or event, I usually want to fiddle with
it or do an alteration, especially right before final dress
rehearsal. If it’s something I see on someone at an event or at a
club, I also love it because it demonstrates that the person has
identified with the piece and wears it to create whatever persona he
or she is interested in projecting.
Gavin:
How did the opportunity come about to move into Pierpont, and how
has it been for you taking over the new space downstairs?
Jen:
I moved the shop to Pierpont about seven or eight years ago. The cat
fur at my house and the polyester tuxedo for the sumo wrestling suit
I described to you earlier... it made the move imperative. Our
neighbor, Lindsey, closed her frame shop and gallery when the
sidewalk out front collapsed several years ago and was blocked
entirely then under reconstruction for far too many months under the
aloof management of ArtSpace, which still leased the entire building
at that time. Art Access Gallery moved over into to the recently
refurbished ArtSpace building a block west of us, yet people STILL
keep showing up on Pierpont on Gallery Stroll night in SLC. It must
be force of habit. We try to keep them entertained with something new
every month. New art in our gallery, new costumes and
work-in-progress in the boutique, plus we have a disco ball!
Gavin:
You've also been a major participant in fashion events around the
state. How is it for you going out with your work and showing off
along side other local designers?
Jen:
If I do decide to participate in an any given event, I have to make
a huge personal commitment because I have a need to visually dominate
the space. That means I have to design more fashions, bigger
fashions, cooler fashions, unexpected fashions. There would be no
excuse for someone with my age and experience to show up with a
paltry offering. It’s part of my personality. When I showed my
combat tutus for the first time in a public performance, I’d
convinced Julie McDaniel, one of the best choreographers in SLC, to
choreograph my piece, and that was just for a fashion show. If it’s
a public performance I’m producing, I always have to raise the bar
by doing something unexpected or over the top. Because we have a
brick and mortar location, I don’t always feel obligated to
participate in public fashion events, and I’m growing less
interested as time passes and I get older. There’s usually not time
anyway for such big commitments because we’re so busy trying to
meet deadlines for custom orders. Even if I’m not showing, I do
always enjoy attending events, chilling out, chatting and
congratulating designers on their hard work. That can actually be
more fun. Everyone is so much younger than I am these days and they
are so damn cute.
Gavin:
Are there any plans for you to expand beyond what you're doing now
or are you good with the way the store is now?
Jen:
We’re paring things down, remodeling, refining our presentation so
we can be more efficient, more beautiful, more oriented toward our
custom orders and our customer service rather than offering such a
hodge-podge of consignment items. Our boutique was once a
heterotopia, but we are reconfiguring it now to more of a salon-like
atmosphere with a fixed milieu. We’ll of course offer consignments
but because of of space limitations, most of them will go into the
virtual store and online catalog for sale and rental. We just can’t
be Pib’s Exchange and we don’t want to be. For one thing, we lack
their square footage. We also laughingly scorn the “Halloween
whore” costumes made in China from cheap fabrics that Pib’s sells
for around forty bucks. But the truth is we just need breathing room
and the space in which to do our own excellent work, rather than
catering to every taste.
Gavin:
Going local, what are your thoughts on our fashion scene both good
and bad?
Jen:
Local itself is a problematic term, given the truths about where our
material goods come from. Sure, it’s great to use upcycled
materials, eat local food and so on, but that’s not really where
most material goods originate, especially fabrics. If you want a
whole earful about this, go read my recent film critique of "Handmade
Nation" on my blog. The film was
shown last month by the Salt Lake Film Festival in conjunction with
Craft Lake City. A more accurate definition of “local” with
regard to fashion and costume probably means “local” skills and
“local” relationships. You have some personal connection with the
shop keeper, or you went to school with her kid or you actually met
the artist who made your hat and you have a sense of origin about its
maker and the skills involved in its construction. The skills,
knowledge and labor are local. Any fabric mills or textile factories
here in our state? No. But there are lots of people who sew, quilt,
knit and crochet, and they have to get their materials somewhere.
Local events including Farmers Market and Fashion Stroll are
important socially here, perhaps more than they are
economically.
Gavin:
What's your take on localized fashion events, and are they more
important socially or economically?
Jen:
Events such as Fashion Stroll are part of the fabric woven into
larger a larger social context. Here’s one example: I recently
chatted with Brad Di Iorio, the sales manager from Q Salt Lake.
He was dropping off some ad rates, reminding me that I haven’t put
a listing in the QPages for over two years now. Anyway, I asked him
what the fashion scene meant to him and what his impressions of it
were, and he immediately raved about an early September event in
which the Bastille Clothing store here in the Gateway, as well as its
chain of stores nationwide, helped coordinate their own local fashion
shows for a charity. He praised the noble spirits and talents of his
friends who put their local event together, but when I asked where
the ticket proceeds went, he couldn’t name the charity. Now this is
not to lambaste Brad, who is a great guy. It’s just to underscore
that each of us has selective recall of events, interests, attention
and most importantly, relationships. We will each focus on
particulars because we are predisposed to look for them. One of the
major social forces or benefits of the indie-craft movement is the
social one. Crafters seem to take sustenance by hanging out with
other crafters. It can be a lifestyle choice. As a person who tries
(sometimes haphazardly) to run a business, I admire Angela Brown’s
shrewd business instinct and her move to initiate Craft Lake City,
thus harnessing a colossal nationwide zeitgeist we haven’t seen
since the late 1960’s: The huge indie and underground craft
movement. I should add that the other crafters we met when we vended
Craft Lake City did not really seem to be making much money at the
festival, but the event’s sheer size, hype and attendance has
boosted SLUG’s visibility and organizational presence into
the stratosphere, reaching more mainstream audiences than they
probably dreamt. Brilliant leadership.
Gavin:
While we're on the topic, what's your take on Fashion Stroll and the
part it plays in our local fashion scene?
Jen:
Fashion Stroll probably parallels the experience of going to the
theater in the centuries before the houselights were dimmed. The
actual play or catwalk event itself may not even be the most
important thing going on. It’s an event where one goes to see and
be seen, where the fops and dandies and fancy-pants people inevitably
converge, flirt, fight and engage in politics, like teens at any
coffee shop or mall. And also to bum cigarettes and occupy valuable
table space. Haha. There’s this quote attributed to some theater
historian or anthropologist who’s name I can’t remember at the
moment who argued, “every community gets exactly the kind of
theater it deserves”. Salt Lake’s Fashion Stroll is probably
just about right for Salt Lake. Art makers and art wearers arguably
need ritual displays and competitions and they also need witnesses. I
love that there is no law in the arena, only predictable behavior. A
“fashion stroll” is a very interesting staged event. Its festival
atmosphere makes it a “performance of magnitude” where there are
activities and mini performances everywhere you look, all happening
at the same time. No two people attending will have the same
experience of it or focus on the same things. Our local stroll and
fashion scene seems well-suited to younger designers who are possibly
still in school and/or living at home, and who wish to make their
mark on a local level. Jared Gold might have been the anomaly. Like
Rachael Domingo after him who took up the reins at Black Chandelier,
Jared has a real education and professional training. He dominated
the scene here for a time, but even he seemed to sense the finiteness
of our local market, plus there were all those headaches that came
with the corporate investment and meddling in his creative work.
Danni Nappi was successfully invited to fashion week in LA, so there
are occasionally cases of national high visibility. It doesn’t seem
that the stakes are very high for our local fashion stroll or the
potential rewards all that grand, given the amount of work one must
do to make a good showing. The young movers and shakers who are truly
motivated will unquestionably migrate to NYC and LA for schooling and
careers because the stakes are higher in those arenas, and the
payoffs, if one succeeds, more promising. It can be painful, too.
Keith Bryce, my neighbor on Pierpont who did not make it through to
the finals on Project Runway, now keeps his blinds closed to the
public and a low profile. And who can blame him?
Gavin:
Is there anything you believe could be done to make it more
prominent?
Jen:
Fashion Stroll is a fun event, a pleasant night out. Maybe that’s
all it needs to or should be. It’s hard to say if it should be more
prominent and who this would matter to the most. A bigger event means
you need more crowd control, more portapotties and facilities, more
organization and cleanup, and you also have to factor in the unseen
costs of how you are impacting your neighbors and their businesses
positively and negatively. Fashion Stroll might consider
strengthening its act in a few ways, though. No more hip hop frat boy
announcers, please, whom one cannot possibly understand, especially
on a crummy sound system. And yes, get a proper sound system, some
proper lighting, a proper catwalk and a stage manager, all to
demonstrate respect to the ritual art form as well as to the
designers and the audience. If Matt Monson and the coordinators want
to strengthen its profile, they might consider inviting out-of-state
or impartial judges with credentials or possibly celebrity status, if
any will come. That means stroking some egos and putting guests up at
a hotel or at someone’s house, which all have their costs in time,
money and energy. Perhaps SLC is not ready for this because we may
need a stronger contestant/designer contingent. It’s arguable that
SLCC’s fashion program should also grow substantially and become
fully accredited, because this is where many of the next generation’s
designers here with any training will come from. I don’t know
enough about the situation to know if Mojdeh Afshar is trying to move
things in that direction or if she is standing in the way of it. If
Fashion Stroll is worth doing, maybe it’s actually worth doing
well. At least we should all be able to see, hear and appreciate
what’s going on. It’s possible that budgets won’t allow for any
of this, including outdoor gas heaters, which the event will likely
need this year, being so close to Halloween. These are many things
fashion stroll could do to elevate its profile and production values.
I recently chatted with my Pierpont neighbor, photographer Brandon
Flint, who shares studio space upstairs with Mitch Meyer and a few
other photoraphers. I asked what his impressions were of the fashion
scene and the fashion stroll in SLC. He replied, “There’s a
fashion stroll?” And this upcoming event is the tenth one. His
reaction tells me that even guys like him who’ve done plenty of
local fashion photography still are probably not being presented with
the whole picture. It could be a marketing problem or perhaps the
Fashion Stroll organizers are wise to omit directly and aggressively
marketing to the thousands of photographers here in the area.
Thousands of photographers are just too many. Just look at how many
of your Facebook friends are calling themselves models and
photographers these days. Too many makes it hard for anyone to grow
beyond hobby status.
Gavin:
From earlier, what's your view on fashion and the economy being tied
together?
Jen:
No one really needs
fashion, do they? During China’s Cultural Revolution you could just
pledge your allegiance and sing patriotic songs while wearing a
standard-issue gray quilted jumpsuit like everyone else around you,
and then get on with your life. The Marxist perspective on topics
such as fashion can be a grim one. But even in times of severe
financial duress or war, fashion still holds an importance for many.
I was recently rereading a text about fashion in 1940s England that
reported how the “mend and make do” attitude pervaded public
consciousness during this time of war and clothes rationing. One
magazine editorial writer from that decade argued, “Now that
clothes are rationed, we shall all be better dressed. Just as food
coupons have raised the standards of English cooking, so dress
coupons have raised the standards of English discrimination,
stimulating our taste and ingenuity.” The “mend and make do
attitude” sure sounds familiar now that we’re in a double-dip
recession. I’ve heard reports about statistics being up for shoe
repairs, clothing alterations, auto repairs, etc, because these may
be cheaper than forking out money for new items. Recent fashion
trends I’ve read about have congratulated designers for creating
practical clothing right now instead of fantasy designs which no one
actually buys or wears. Fashion is definitely driven by economics but
it’s also damn capricious and arbitrary.
Gavin:
What do you mean by fashion being capricious and arbitrary?
Jen:
I mean that the industry, economy and social structure within
fashion can be capricious and arbitrary. So much of the fashion scene
seems to be about hype, designers’ pet ideas and mutual
ego-stroking, which may have value, but it can be difficult to name
flattery’s true price until money actually changes hands. Artistic
ability and skill sets can be up for barter on so many levels. While
chatting with Brandon Flint, one of my photographer neighbors here on
Pierpont, he admitted that since the economy’s tanked, he’s
largely switched his focus from fashion to portraiture and family
photography because it’s still a service which people will spend
money on. My guess is it’s largely the same story for Mitch Meyer
and their other studio-mates. Sighing, Brandon said, “ I took
photos for Danni Nappi of Nappi Clothing once, and he couldn’t even
pay me.” I’ve had similar experiences, too, when friends and
colleagues have wanted me to donate costumes or corsets to their pet
projects and photoshoots, and even if I’ve said yes, because I
respect them and love them or their work, the process itself always
takes so much valuable time out of my schedule which I’ll never be
compensated for, and I often can’t say, either, that my doing a
favor for them has helped me economically or aesthetically. Yet, it
may still be in my best self-interest to do an artistic favor for
someone because we are weaving social fabric. Regardless, my favorite
photographer is still my true love, Robert Hirschi, and he always
gives me top quality images that I can actually use. Also, the ways
that fashion trends form can be nebulous. There seems to be no set,
guaranteed formula for creating something popular that trickles
either up or down the fashion ladder. Trends can be quite
mysterious.
Gavin:
With regard to fashion and costumes, what are some similarities and
differences?
Jen:
The terms have historically and contextually been interchangeable at
times. At other times, not. My most curmudgeonly feeling is that
fashion itself should be understood as a form of Darwinian natural
and sexual selection. But some prefer to define fashion as an art
form. Either way, it’s a way of communicating one’s rank,
importance, artifice, mood or personae. You’re a winner if you can
successfully learn to out-design or out-dress your rivals, thereby
winning the best mate and/or vanquishing your enemies. But above
all, fashion is somewhat analogous to language, as in, “you don’t
speak the language... it speaks you.” In academic-speak, the
phrase is, “the subject is spoken,” meaning, as an individual,
even if you do have some choices within your own wardrobe or closet,
there are larger social forces which govern what you actually will
and will not wear in different circumstances. With regard to
costumes, as young theater designers we used to recite, “we make
clothes for imaginary people.” Clothing is more often called
“costume” when it is being worn for twice-performed behavior of
the type we see during holidays, rituals, narratives or problematic
trials, like the sort presented to us in dramas, musicals and
so-on.
Gavin:
Who are some of your favorite local designers right now?
Jen:
In addition to my own resident artists, my favorites, hands-down are
Jordan Halversen, Hraefn, John Thompson and Vancy Marcotte. I
admire them because of their ideas, their craftsmanship, their
attention to details and their unstoppable work ethic.
Gavin:
What are your thoughts about other local retailers, especially other
costume places in town, and the way they do business?
Jen:
They definitely focus on the “buy cheap-sell dear” model of
business, which is a pretty good business model and actually makes
money. I should consider adopting it, but I’m vain and stubborn.
They are not selling their labor and skills, which for artists are
always undervalued. They also probably eat three square meals a day.
They have space, inventory and plenty of ready-made costumes from
China, India, the middle East and Indonesia, which we’ve largely
decided to avoid. Most other places don’t manufacture on site but a
couple do some of their own repairs and alterations. That’s all I’m
really going to say here about them. Utah Opera and Hale Center
Theater’s rentals help their organizations support their
productions, and they have far more rental stock than we will ever
have or want to have.
Gavin:
Do you have any favorite shops you like to work with or shop
from?
Jen: We
haunt the fabric stores. All the chains in our area, plus Yellow Bird
Fabrics, Silver State Suppliers and Keyston Bros. Because I keep
creating or fixing displays and because I design and build mascots
that often have interesting internal construction and moving parts,
I’m also frequently at Ace Hardware and Home Depot searching for
just the right widget. Our jewelry designer, Mel B. Jones loves the
hardware side of NPS/Market Square. On the way to Home Depot on 300
West are My Dough Girl and My Thai. Yummy. We sometimes grab snacks
around the corner at the Jade Market, Caputo’s, Carlucci’s or
Bruges Waffles.
Gavin:
What can we expect from both you and the shop the rest of the
year?
Jen:
More guest curators and artists in our gallery. Salt Lake’s Gallery
Stroll night is on the third Friday each month, and we host open
house and new 2D shows on those nights. We’re planning to expand
the inventory and items offered in our online catalog. More
workshops. More sewing cafe time slots in the schedule, where you can
sign up and on a structured fee scale use our big cutting tables,
industrial machines and even our expertise for your projects. I’ll
probably even design some more stage productions, time permitting.
Whatever happens, Mel, Melissa, Becky, Lyra, Tony and I will always
have a good time being creative and laughing at each other.
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