Jobbers and the Black Dress

Today my school will be getting a semi-annual visit from “The Brothers” as they are so called by the students and staff. The Brothers (S. Rimmon & Co.) are jobbers who operate out of LA. A jobber is fashion speak for fabric suppliers who get their stock by buying “leftovers” from fabric mills and clothing manufacturers. They usually have small quantities of fabric and you can’t reorder, but these guys in particular have always got some beautiful designer fabrics and sell for amazing prices.

Anyhow, I’m pretty excited to check out their selection and possibly make a few purchases! What I’m really on the lookout for is some fabric for my black dress. The black dress is the first big project that I’ve been working on for school (it’s our pattern making final), and I’ve been procrastinating on buying my fabric for it. I’ve got to have all of the pattern pieces cut out of the final fabric and ready to sew by the 2^nd week in July… never mind that my pattern isn’t done yet J If I don’t find any fabric for it from the brothers I’ll have to buckle down and buy some at retail price, but I’d honestly rather not!

The guidelines for the black dress are:

1) It has to be black (duh).

2) It has to be appropriate for a job interview (or appropriate with a jacket over it).

3) We are designing it to fit ourselves, so body shape should be considered.

4) We will have to grade the dress later, so it should be fairly simple. (Grading is the process of sizing a pattern up or down, more on this later)

 

The silhouette is inspired by a Chloe creation from FW06

 

 

The Chloe, as worn by the beautiful Jessica Stam. (Loves it!)

(Photo courtesy of Style.com)

Rough sketch of the black dress. More of a shirt dress than the Chloe (shirt tail hem + cuffs), with some pleated pockets. The back will have an inverted kick pleat and the waistband will tie into a bow in the back. And of course, picture this in black!