by Anita Sands Hernandez astrology@earthlink.net
I. CHINA GIRL. Check
out the website
http://www.shanghaitang.com/shanghaitang/index.jsp
This line of dresses/coats/suits was just featured on ABC news. IT
IS SO HOT it made network NEWS. The PACIFIC RIM angle was so novel, I guess,
that it got featured. Pittsburg girl makes good in China. I watched the
fashion show, on TV just now, my jaw droppped. SILK, CASHMERE, HANDICRAFTED
brocade accessories. Every gal's wet dream. Now, it was pricey. Garments
shown are $400 to 700$ U.S. cy. But in defense, these are Normal Bergdorf
or Nordstom's prices for real silk, cashmere. The designer features Brocades
embroideries. Cashmeres, and western style knits. Odd to find KNIT dresses
made in CHINA. I believe China has a history of making the lowest
cost cashmere sweaters on the planet. So Clingy cashmere knit dresses are
a good use of local knitting factory resources. The Pittsburg girl's designs
are superior. Obviously the owner tracked a sweater back to
the factory abroad. Not hard now that we have INTERNET.Who financed her?
Did she write a
PROSPECTUS?
Showed the webpage to my list and a Boy member of our Free Importing Studies school (meaning he's a recipient of our list, which I built by putting ads at CRAIGS LIST), STEVE, said 'wow, these dresses are very costly stuff.! Hey, Steve, if you don't like prices today, don't get married! YEP. Very high end luxuries. silk and cashmere. Bet if you or I did a line in China, lived there, we could get it down to Walmart prices. That's the glory of the third world, of China. Or Bali or wherever. Depends on where you wanna live a few months out of every year. Wool producing island in Irish area? BALI? BATIKS would be your media. In INDIA perhaps sari silk could be better used. Mexico has cotton, Ireland Linen, Italy really fine shirt silks. My pal, the MASTER JULES had to live in HONG KONG a few months out of every year. He was manufacturing art deco furniture replicas. Arnold Quinn, his partner is still alive today doing ART DECO statuary and prints.
There are fabulous homespun cotton, manta and cambaya (they call it) in MEXICO. Wow! Could't find pictures of MANTAon GOOGLE IMAGES When I did put in the word 'manta', Google kept giving me lethal killer fish! But I still wrote an article on the three best fabrics, (CLICK ON IT right there, above.) Mexico has a fabulous homespun upholstery weight cotton industry. I always used to buy it in plaids, but not Scotch plaids in forest green and red, no way. More like Henri Rousseau delectable frosting colors gumdrop pastels. I'd order the plaid lines I wanted, an inch of pink, inch of lavendar, half inch blue, then when you do it in two directions, they cross into squares which create new colors, mixes of the two. The fabric looks handloomed but it is done at factories. Then, the embroideries that the INDIAN WOMEN have the patience to do is amazing. Touches of folk embroideries can be done on yokes or hems, then yokes assembled into dresses. If you can give the women sewing machines, you could have a village 'taller' (pronounced TAY-YER, meaning a small work room, not a factory,) in your Mexican villages.
BACK TO the CONCEPT OF ASIA. Steve then wrote, a day later, that by
serendipity he'd run into an American lady artist, at a health spa in Austin,
Texas. Who uses CHINESE elements in her art. A star in her field: TERI
JO SUMMER works in fashion bringing elements from CHINA. She premiered
in NYC galleries doing jean jackets with CHINESE TEXTILE TRIMS but she
made enuf money to move herself to a HOME on
an island in PUGET SOUND, Washington. She has worked in china I BELIEVE
to develop elements of this line.
TERI JO does chinese textiles that remind me of what MARLA
MALLETT gets thousands for,
onto DENIM JEAN JACKETS. I think one should study textile and
fiber art briefly. There's a website that will give you an idea of what's
out there.
http://www.fabulousfibers.com/page.asp?n=Fibers
With someone aware of possibilities, clothing becomes a work of art.
She is a teacher too
You can write her and study with her.
http://www.terijosummer.com
shows her designs.
You see the GREENWICH VILLAGE tone to her DENIM designs,
and the MANHATTAN look to her brocade coats.
It is all very high end and very beautiful.
http://www.terijosummer.com/new.html
you
click on a photo, then they
show you whole garment. that you would like!
II. MULTIPLE UTILITARIAN ITEMS FROM ONE COUNTRY!
IF I were working in those countries, I'd also find glass factories
and wood carvers
and bring home articles we all need and use. CUPS, GLASSES,
BOTTLES, VASES
and CHAIRS and BUREAUS which are the number one glass and wood items
we want
and find UTILITARIAN in the home. Do EACH as superb, hand blown or
handcarved folk art.
For instance, They carve a chair in morelia, Mexico. The chairback is
intricately carved,
the rungs are so heavily carved that each rung looks like a swag wreath
of flowers.
Then color-enamel its convolutions so it's made of what seems to be
live blossoming
bold, ROUSSEAU flowers. It's not found on the internet, I saw the chair
on a documentary
featuring Mexcan folk art and they said it came from MORELIA, a state
capital in Michoacan
MEXICO. This area, close to MEXICO CITY, a day's drive, is a fabulous
place to investigate.
PRIMARILY AGRARIAN products. Mountains are cold, Wonderful sheep/wool
industry.
So you could do NEEDLE POINT there. Pillows. The valleys are so warm
that they can grow
papayas and mangos.
III. GLASS BEADS
ON DRESSES,
BELTS, BAGS.
The jeweler cannot SURVIVE without the jewel. He cannot make art or
a living without the jewel. He or she needs inexpensively produced beads
and pearls. The JEWELER NEEDS THE raw material SUPPLIER. That's obvious.
LESS obvious is that a manufacturer of jewels needs THE JEWELER! That means
YOU! t. Google keywords like Peking Glass beads and see who you can find.
They'll send you samples. I googled "chinese bead manufacturers" and got
CHINA
BEADS
TURQUOISE BLUE PEARLS, wholesale. I can imagine them
with a bigger stone and a talisman or pendant. So right now, search around
the goods at those Chinese factories, write emails asking, how much for
a thousand beads? Sign up at BEAD STRINGING CLASS at Adult High School,
At art School, college extension. My high school had an ADULT HIGH
SCHOOL system with a professional level JEWLERY MAKING class in their catalogue.
Learn to KNOT between pearls and beads. CHINA town has women who
do it. You can get your pearls or beads restrung in CHINA town right now
and pay for a lesson in doing it. Or meet a dozen old chinese grannies
who can do your bead necklaces. WHEN YOU WHOLESALE beads, you wholesale
to designers. Gets you into the most posh workshops in town! Great networking.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~~^~^~^~
THESE PEOPLE do not want your l00$ for the first shipment of beads.
They want you to order beads for LIFE. To make necklaces for life. To distribute
their beads to fabric and notions stores, jewelry fixing stores. FOR LIFE.
Import/ export chinese glass beads. Take an ordinary dress, stick a few
beads on it, you can
make a thousand bucks. Listen, I cannot bear to watch prime time TV
without being busy hands, doing arts and crafts or craigs list ads or something.
YOU WILL WATCH A LOT more TV if you bead!
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