3 DAYS TIL RUNWAY?!??!

What's it all about?  Take a look at a behind the scenes peek at what went into the Design Lab Fall 2014 le Sacré Coeur Collection ...

Special thanks to Luminetic Media for putting this promo vid together for us, we really hope you enjoy a little glimpse of what goes on over here, and what you can look forward to seeing on the runway Saturday, March 22nd at 5:30pm at the Shops at Canal Place during Nola Fashion Week

Get your tickets to the show and learn more about the organization here

Started from the bottom now we're here...

Sneak Peek...come see the real thing during New Orleans Fashion Week, March 15-22nd

In honor of Marcella's FAVORITE Drake song (referring to the title of this post)...just kidding, she despises it, but seriously, she's come such a long way...Is it really possible that this will be Marci's first runway show ever?!  She seems like a seasoned designer to us at this point; she was so ambitious during this whole journey, and it has really paid off! Everyone is going to be so impressed once her designs hit the runway.

She started with such little experience in pattern-making and construction, and her skill set has evolved exponentially!  We know she's talented, but we're still shocked and amazed everytime we see her pieces come to life on the dress forms...we're so excited and proud of her and we cannot WAIT for her to show 3 of her custom designed and executed pieces in the Design Lab Sacre Coeur Collection during New Orleans Fashion Week, March 15-22nd!  (details on specific show date and time TBA)

We also love that we have somewhat documented the journey, so enjoy our homage to Marcella below :)

First Torso Drape 

Converted torso drape into custom design

choosing fabrics for her custom designs

editing her torso pattern

Flat patterning her trouser foundation...

It's in the details...

Started with inspiration, created custom embroidery designs through Embird Software, and we watch our pieces come to life

Each garment that's in our upcoming collection has something unique to offer that you really cannot find anywhere else.  We've talked a lot about our custom printed fabrics (which can be seen in our previous posts), but we're also adding details through custom embroidery.  The 2014 Fall Sacre Coeur Collection by the Design Lab is heavily influenced by the religious iconography that is infused throughout our city's culture, history, art, architecture, and overall presence here in New Orleans.  Images and inspirations of Mary and the Sacred Heart are found throughout the collection through many different details, and we cannot wait to share each and every detail with you during Fashion Week in New Orleans March 15th - 22nd, 2014.  Stay tuned, we'll be fitting models all this week, so we should have some great posts and images very soon!

Forward Progress...and more SNEAK PEEKS

a little background/behind the scenes work...

 

work in progress...but things are moving right along...

More custom fabric detailing combined with our custom prints here at the Design Lab.  We're hoping things can keep progressing (on the design side, not on the baby delivery side!) as we get closer to Fashion Week which starts March 15th here in New Orleans.  We also have some great promotional video additions in the works courtesy of Luminetic Media, so stay tuned for big updates...hopefully not big embarrassments...talking is harder than it looks ;) !

 

                         

Art Show Exhibit

Had so much fun displaying a piece at the N.O.N. Gallery Design Art Showcase.  The garment isn't 100% finished...but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to display next to some very talented artists and an eager audience.  The showcase was intended to display different genres of art and each design process from start to finish of production.  I tried my best to give a glimpse into what goes into each garment design process...inspiration, rough sketches, patternmaking, fabric design, pattern placement, construction, and finishing...to name a few of the key components - the last image is how Ayo Scott displayed all the different pieces at the Gallery; couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

inspiration: religious iconography - this print is found hidden in the fabric

 

inspiration: religious iconography - this print is found hidden in the fabric

Fabric manipulation: creating a perforated vegan leather for the panels

Fabric manipulation: creating a perforated vegan leather for the panels

pattern/print placement: figuring out what part of the textile to feature within the pattern pieces

embroidered details

embroidered details for accent

"final" product!

On display at the N.O.N. Gallery - loved how Ayo Scott curated the entire event!

Custom Fabrics...more than just prints...

Expanding on our custom prints, we also have several other unique fabric traits going on in the upcoming Sacre Coeur Collection here at the Design Lab...custom embroidered pieces will be seen throughout the collection as well...check out our design process using this AMA-ZA-ZING Brother 6-needle embroidery machine (Marcella is one lucky lady, and we're so thankful/lucky to be able to use her machine throughout this collection!)

Check out some sneak peeks of preliminary fabrications...HOPING (fingers crossed) to be showing off our custom prints and embroidery at the upcoming Art Show this Saturday, February 8th (see our previous blog for deets about the art show)...just the tip of our embroidery iceberg...get ready to see MUCH more about this amazing machine and our crazy experiments...

a little troubleshooting in action...setting up embroidery hoops in an experimental way...

"it's alive!" testing out our experiment...

just the tip of the experimental iceberg...

 

print placement for each specific pattern piece is crucial!

 

Come check us out on Saturday, February 8th!

Loving our new tech!

So I know I've already raved about the Dell Inspiron 23, but it's just making design life SO much easier and so much more FUN...

When dealing with incorporating custom prints into a collection, there's A LOT of unseen work...using Adobe Illustrator is a key tool that has helped us to narrow down print selection and placement for specific pattern pieces.  Once again, I hope I'm not giving too much away with our images below...but we're having a lot of fun with this collection...just hoping we can get it all done in about 3-4 weeks (insert crazy face)...enjoy some preliminary roughs/thoughts below

the SACRED collection - Sneak Preview....

We're so excited here at theDesignLab to launch our Prefall 2014 "Sacred" Collection.  We still have A LOT of work to do in order to actually show during New Orleans Fashion Week, BUT, we feel confident we can pull it off (despite a LOT of obstacles that are presenting themselves...but as fellow designer and friend Lisa Iacono recently told me, "that's the story of our lives in this biz!" so I guess I better get used to setbacks, it's not just me!)

Waiting for our fabrics to come back from the printer and we're super excited, so we decided to share a few previews...these aren't to scale, and they're kinda lackluster viewed so small, but we didn't want to give away TOO much, so here goes nothing (or everything)...fingers crossed they come back from the printer and we love them...excited to share and hope you enjoy...going from illustrator on to a body is always a huge guessing game, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.  Anyway, enjoy your sneak peak of a few SACRED prints from our 2014 Prefall Sacred Collection by the Design Lab...

Prepping Marcella

deep thoughts...by Marcella Perino ;)

Piggy-backing off one of my last posts, we're so excited to launch Marcella Perino's first capsule collection under the Design Lab label!  Pictured above is a small glimpse into some runway collection preparation - from sketch, to fabric swatch selection, to print selection, to required yardage, and much more thought and time that goes into runway prep!  Marcella has come such a long way here at the Design Lab...below are some progress pics of her learnings and progress toward her first capsule collection which can be seen during New Orleans Fashion Week in March 2014!

drafting her first trouser pattern!

first attempt at a trouser, not too shabby...this pic is PRE-edits

Torso drafting and sew-up

a Marcella Perino original, from sketch to dress form :)

Fashion week is rapidly approaching...

Trying to remain calm...but we've got so much going on over here it's hard to keep our heads on straight!  First things first, let's get organized and get some fabrics printed so we can clothe some models...keeping true to our socially responsible roots, all our fabrics are organic and eco-friendly, so we start there; then we make sure they're PFD (prepared for dyeing - which organics and eco-friendly fabrics usually are).
I've been working on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop on and off since August/September to create prints for this season - I know that seems like a long time, but there has been a lot of work that has interrupted progress, so it hasn't been as consistent as it should've been, but now we're putting finishing touches on the PDFs so they're ready to go on the fabrics.
In attempts to be as efficient as possible (without higher level software to do the leg work for me...stay tuned cause it won't be that way for long...) I then have to figure out what print goes on which fabric, and exactly how much should be printed of each...spreadsheets help with the organization of this...it can get a bit crazy with 20 looks (over 30 styles to organize fabric, print, and yardage for each)
ANYWAY...I digress, we're getting fabrics printed this week and I'm EXCITED!!!!
Theme of our show and prints to follow soon...stay tuned...

It might look like a mess, but it's MY mess! Got my essentials: swatches, prints, sketches...let's make some magic?