FRESH MEAT. A draft PS makes its debut.
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:16 pm
This PS was born of my desire to write about a topic that says something about me and what makes me tick--how many twentysomethings have a well-appointed sewing room but no TV?--and also responds to the skepticism of friends and colleagues about whether law school will "waste" my creative abilities by forcing me to conform to the BigLaw life that some of them are probably unhappy in.
To anyone that knows anything about sewing with fine fabrics, this is the muslin mock-up, a SUPER rough draft for general adjustments and fittings. I will ultimately revamp most of the actual prose to make things flow and fit better. If you really feel the need to pick apart usage or phrasing or any sentence that really bugs you, go ahead, but what I'm really interested in are general comments on the message or impression you take from it, what you want to know more about, what you think it says about me, etc. If you need to be a dick because I've been a dick when commenting on YOUR PS, that's perfectly fine. Thanks!
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Some teenage rebels had skateboards and cigarettes; others, guitars and garage bands. I had a 1954 Singer sewing machine from an estate sale, and a major objection to the notion that anyone not clad in the latest generically trendy designer labels was doomed to high school invisibility. Without formal training beyond 4-H sleepaway “clothing camp” years earlier, I taught myself a craft largely forgotten by my generation by dissecting the previous generation’s rummage sale castoffs, deducing the basic principles of grain, darts, and finishing by retracing the steps of the original sewers. I mastered through trial and error whichever skills I needed to complete the project at hand, learning welted pocket techniques for a blue faux-fur trenchcoat and installing my first invisible zipper on a neon purple punk-rock prom dress. Limited only by my imagination, I sewed not so that I could have the clothes I couldn’t afford to buy, but rather a one-of-a-kind wardrobe that could not have been purchased in a store for any price. [maybe need a line here about how others reacted to my clothes, or wouldn't be caught dead in them, but how I didn’t care because *I* liked them].
As a young professional shaped and matured by the passage of time, I no longer have the economic impetus or over-the-top flashy persona that motivated my early sewing. I could afford many of the clothes that I see in glossy magazine spreads, and I no longer possess tastes so eclectic that they fall wholly outside the realm of ready to wear. Yet the Singer still occupies a place of honor in my new studio apartment, one of the few physical possessions to endure six years of young adult wandering since I left my parents’ home. As the unflinching and reliable facilitator of countless iterations of my creative process, it is still as relevant my newly-minted household of one today as it was a decade ago. The cut of my garments may be more conservative and my color palette more muted, but my enjoyment of the simple act of conjuring something wearable from a shapeless pile of thread and textiles has not faded over time. No longer is my focus on shocking the eye, but on learning advanced techniques and refining my construction process so my finished garments fit smoothly and last indefinitely. My M.O. is no longer to stitch flashy rebukes to mainstream fashion, but to draw inspiration from department store windows and couture magazines and then challenge myself to not merely make the same clothes, but to make versions that meld “trendy” with “[my first name that happens to have a similar meter/sound pattern as 'trendy'],” merging contemporary style with my own personal aesthetic.
The ultimate sewing success is no longer to create something so ostentatious it cannot escape notice, but to produce something that doesn’t look out of place at first glance as I walk down [name of big fashionable street in the city I work in] or into my firm’s high-rise offices. Increasingly, it is more difficult to convince admiring co-workers that something is my own creation and not store-bought, and reactions sometimes take the form of remarks like “why would you go to law school if I can do THAT?” or “why wouldn’t you go to fashion school and really put that creativity to use?” There is no simple answer; the reasons are really embedded in the history of what sewing has meant to me. It has never been about the fashion, but about the creation. To make this hobby into a career would actually distance me from some of the things I enjoy the most about sewing: while a designer technically has full creative control over her line, she can only make her rent if those designs have sufficient commercial appeal. It would make one of my greatest self-expressive joys into a simple mercenary act.
I try to take incredulous remarks as compliments, but implied in these sort of questions is some notion that the demands of a highly professional career will crowd out a creative pastime, and insinuations that someone capable of flat-drafting a dress pattern in a single evening isn’t suited to drafting discovery motions by day. I do not see any such contradiction. Ultimately, I find similar satisfactions in these two seemingly-disparate pursuits: the “aha” moments of finding fabric with just the right drape for a bias-cut skirt or finding the perfect case to cite for a particular response, sometimes altering the work others have done on vintage clothes or form responses and sometimes creating from scratch to meet some specific need, and being able to do things many would not think themselves capable of. Yet just as I never wanted to dress like everyone else for the mere sake of fitting in, I’m not interested in pursuing any off-the-rack career that might dull my creative spark or require me to abandon my sewing room. I see myself taking a similar approach to my practice: the path I choose will not likely require—or metaphorically resemble—a starched white shirt or stiffly pressed dress slacks.
The professional future I envision for myself is structured but flexible, like a double-knit jersey, with the fluidity of a silk chiffon. Just as bold prints and unusual fabric combinations can be made wearable and even look professional if they are cleanly finished, well fitted, and perfectly tailored, I have learned through the years that attaining excellence by some mainstream standards can go a long way to excusing unconventionality. This is my motivation to excel in law school. My law school achievements and eventually my degree are to my career what my sewing machine has been to my wardrobe: the only tool I need to create something that might not look like everyone else's, but will fit me perfectly.
To anyone that knows anything about sewing with fine fabrics, this is the muslin mock-up, a SUPER rough draft for general adjustments and fittings. I will ultimately revamp most of the actual prose to make things flow and fit better. If you really feel the need to pick apart usage or phrasing or any sentence that really bugs you, go ahead, but what I'm really interested in are general comments on the message or impression you take from it, what you want to know more about, what you think it says about me, etc. If you need to be a dick because I've been a dick when commenting on YOUR PS, that's perfectly fine. Thanks!
--------------------------
Some teenage rebels had skateboards and cigarettes; others, guitars and garage bands. I had a 1954 Singer sewing machine from an estate sale, and a major objection to the notion that anyone not clad in the latest generically trendy designer labels was doomed to high school invisibility. Without formal training beyond 4-H sleepaway “clothing camp” years earlier, I taught myself a craft largely forgotten by my generation by dissecting the previous generation’s rummage sale castoffs, deducing the basic principles of grain, darts, and finishing by retracing the steps of the original sewers. I mastered through trial and error whichever skills I needed to complete the project at hand, learning welted pocket techniques for a blue faux-fur trenchcoat and installing my first invisible zipper on a neon purple punk-rock prom dress. Limited only by my imagination, I sewed not so that I could have the clothes I couldn’t afford to buy, but rather a one-of-a-kind wardrobe that could not have been purchased in a store for any price. [maybe need a line here about how others reacted to my clothes, or wouldn't be caught dead in them, but how I didn’t care because *I* liked them].
As a young professional shaped and matured by the passage of time, I no longer have the economic impetus or over-the-top flashy persona that motivated my early sewing. I could afford many of the clothes that I see in glossy magazine spreads, and I no longer possess tastes so eclectic that they fall wholly outside the realm of ready to wear. Yet the Singer still occupies a place of honor in my new studio apartment, one of the few physical possessions to endure six years of young adult wandering since I left my parents’ home. As the unflinching and reliable facilitator of countless iterations of my creative process, it is still as relevant my newly-minted household of one today as it was a decade ago. The cut of my garments may be more conservative and my color palette more muted, but my enjoyment of the simple act of conjuring something wearable from a shapeless pile of thread and textiles has not faded over time. No longer is my focus on shocking the eye, but on learning advanced techniques and refining my construction process so my finished garments fit smoothly and last indefinitely. My M.O. is no longer to stitch flashy rebukes to mainstream fashion, but to draw inspiration from department store windows and couture magazines and then challenge myself to not merely make the same clothes, but to make versions that meld “trendy” with “[my first name that happens to have a similar meter/sound pattern as 'trendy'],” merging contemporary style with my own personal aesthetic.
The ultimate sewing success is no longer to create something so ostentatious it cannot escape notice, but to produce something that doesn’t look out of place at first glance as I walk down [name of big fashionable street in the city I work in] or into my firm’s high-rise offices. Increasingly, it is more difficult to convince admiring co-workers that something is my own creation and not store-bought, and reactions sometimes take the form of remarks like “why would you go to law school if I can do THAT?” or “why wouldn’t you go to fashion school and really put that creativity to use?” There is no simple answer; the reasons are really embedded in the history of what sewing has meant to me. It has never been about the fashion, but about the creation. To make this hobby into a career would actually distance me from some of the things I enjoy the most about sewing: while a designer technically has full creative control over her line, she can only make her rent if those designs have sufficient commercial appeal. It would make one of my greatest self-expressive joys into a simple mercenary act.
I try to take incredulous remarks as compliments, but implied in these sort of questions is some notion that the demands of a highly professional career will crowd out a creative pastime, and insinuations that someone capable of flat-drafting a dress pattern in a single evening isn’t suited to drafting discovery motions by day. I do not see any such contradiction. Ultimately, I find similar satisfactions in these two seemingly-disparate pursuits: the “aha” moments of finding fabric with just the right drape for a bias-cut skirt or finding the perfect case to cite for a particular response, sometimes altering the work others have done on vintage clothes or form responses and sometimes creating from scratch to meet some specific need, and being able to do things many would not think themselves capable of. Yet just as I never wanted to dress like everyone else for the mere sake of fitting in, I’m not interested in pursuing any off-the-rack career that might dull my creative spark or require me to abandon my sewing room. I see myself taking a similar approach to my practice: the path I choose will not likely require—or metaphorically resemble—a starched white shirt or stiffly pressed dress slacks.
The professional future I envision for myself is structured but flexible, like a double-knit jersey, with the fluidity of a silk chiffon. Just as bold prints and unusual fabric combinations can be made wearable and even look professional if they are cleanly finished, well fitted, and perfectly tailored, I have learned through the years that attaining excellence by some mainstream standards can go a long way to excusing unconventionality. This is my motivation to excel in law school. My law school achievements and eventually my degree are to my career what my sewing machine has been to my wardrobe: the only tool I need to create something that might not look like everyone else's, but will fit me perfectly.