Pencil Shirt Preview

Pencil shirt

available in March

at five8ths.com

Fabric

I was in NYC in early February to attend an expo of fabric and notions suppliers.  I spent many hours paging through fabric swatch cards from many different companies.  There were a few companies offering organic and recycled fabric, and even a tiny amount of hemp and bamboo, which was pleasantly surprising.  I am a thorough decision-maker, so my initial round of selections were plentiful.  Most of the swatches have arrived now, so I am  starting to think about fall designs and new additions to my line.  All of the fabrics are beautiful, and seeing them again in my own studio has already clarified some things and reduced some of the agonized decision-making that will take place over the next few weeks.

On a related note, while at the expo, I came into contact with many people who plan to operate their small fashion businesses following the larger-scale, fast-fashion model of breaking down each stage of the process of designing and producing clothing into separate jobs handled by many different people.  More copies of a particular line or design are able to be produced in a smaller amount of time with this method---this reduces the amount of profit needed to be made on each garment, reducing the price.  This has become the norm, and the expected.  Distilling the work of designing and making clothing into distinct processes, and then being involved in only a portion of those processes, is a very different activity from the "slow design" that I practice.  Sharing an atmosphere with the people and industry practicing fast fashion further solidified my grounding in the hand designed and drafted, handmade, custom-fit, limited-edition, thoughtfully designed world in which I'm operating now as five8ths.  The ground seems firmer and stronger here.

Artisanal Clothing

Check out this article, "It aint just pickles", from the NYT.  I would lump artisanal clothing in with the artisanal food and other products mentioned in the article; the expertise gained over a period of time specializing in this work renders beautiful, well-fitting, well-loved clothing.


"It’s tempting to look at craft businesses as simply a rejection of modern industrial capitalism. But the craft approach is actually something new — a happy refinement of the excesses of our industrial era plus a return to the vision laid out by capitalism’s godfather, Adam Smith. One of his central insights in “The Wealth of Nations” is the importance of specialization. When everyone does everything — sews their own clothes, harvests their own crops, bakes their own bread — each act becomes inefficient, because generalists are rarely as quick or able as specialists.
"For most of human history, though, people needed to do a bit of everything to survive. The result was a profoundly inefficient economy that required almost everyone to work very hard just to create enough of the essentials for survival; even then, famines were still disturbingly common. Efficiency, Smith explained, comes when individuals focus on specific tasks. The miracle of the Industrial Revolution was that through specialization, humankind became far more productive."

Website upgrade

Finally, five8ths will be easier to find online!  Now, "five8ths dot com" is all you need to remember!

Check out the new look, too:

five8ths.com

Lawn shirt preview

Here's a glimpse of the newest prototype for my spring/summer line, the Lawn shirt.

Available in March!

Deconstructing the shirt

When handcrafting a piece of clothing, attention is paid to every detail, from material choices, to cut, to construction technique. Wearing, touching, and seeing these details in person is really the best way to get to know them. Although it may not be conveyed quite so well via image, while working on a standard men's shirt (custom ordered in this particular fabric), I captured some of the details in-process.

The five8ths logo and size are manually embroidered on the inside yoke.

The bottom edge of the shirt is finished with a rolled hem.

The front band is finished at the hem with a triangle point on the inside of the shirt.

Collar-stay slots are sewn into the under-collar.

The collar is eased so that it rolls both around the neck and over the fold, and maintains that form on its own.

 The sleeve-placket is fastened with a button.

Sleeve placket

The hem edge of the side-seams are finished with a contrasting placket.

Beautiful, Bernina 830 Record buttonholes on the front band.

Buttons are sewn on by hand, and finished with a thread shank.

An extra button is included with every shirt, sewn to the inside of the front band (so it's easily found when needed).

A view from the inside of the shirt of the flat-felled armscye/shoulder seam.

The flat-felled seam from the outside of the shirt.

The side-seams and armscye seams are flat-felled.

Contrasting facings and details

Made-to-fit

The beauty of handmade clothing is that it is made one piece at a time.  One of the keys to creating clothing that will be well-loved is to ensure that it fits well.  five8ths clothing is made to order, and made to fit.  Making a shirt with a particular person in mind is so much more gratifying than working on standard sizes (for unknown people), because I know from experience how wonderful it's going to feel when that person puts on something that fits well.  When clothing hits just right in all the right places---it's that feeling of resonance like the perfect blending of two sounds...harmony.  And then that harmony might inspire a spring in the step or affect the way we move, and on and on.

A recent customer ordered a semi-custom Shacket, made-to-size for her friend who is thin and 6'3”. His chest/neck sizes corresponded well to a standard size, but he needed 37” sleeves and a longer waist-length to accommodate his height.

I cut the standard-sized pattern at the natural waist and added 2" there to accommodate his height

I added enough extra length to the sleeve pattern to create 37" sleeves

The finished semi-custom Shacket