In Harvey Nichols yesterday with my sister we came across the Alberta Ferretti dress I hope to have copied.
It's a stunning dress but, as my sister pointed out on close examination of it, do we really want to pay £895 for a garment whose side seam is puckered from under the sleeve to the bottom of the hem? And would one put up with that if one was having it made by a dressmaker?
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Made in Italy?
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7 comments:
You most certainly would not. And if that dress was made in Italy then I'm Karl lagerfeld.
As a sister-sewist to Phyllis, I say "absolutely not!!" But then again, I reject stuff from H&M that's made badly as well. It takes the same amount of time and labor to do it correctly as to do it incorrectly. So, wherever it was made, it means negligence at every step and no quality control.
That indeed is a problem with purchasing so-called luxury goods. A few years ago I ordered a brown suede YSL bag in the shape of a rose--the Nadja, if memory serves. When it arrived, the edges were scuffed and used-looking, the dust bag tossed in the box instead of neatly packed. I'd have passed up the bag at an eighth of the price.
Ughh, I agree with Phyllis and Toby. The dress shouldn't have made it past inspection with puckery side seams. Of course, I'm assuming factories still have quality control!?! I'm looking forward to seeing your made-to-measure version.
I wonder if we'll ever return to the days when department stores use their own staff to reproduce designer goods. (I realize some looks were licensed while some were pirated.)
My husband and I were recently talking about the good quality store labels ('30s through '70s) we've found in second-hand shops. Coats, dresses, mens and womens suits.
I suppose it would be too expensive and designers would be afraid to have their patterns out there, but it would cut down on overstock, ensure quality, and provide good local jobs.
-- desertwind
As an IP lawyer, may I strongly recommend that you do not copy Ms Ferreti's design? Allowing it to serve as an inspiration is so much safer.
Of course, no one would ever put up with this poor level of workmanship from a dressmaker whom they knew and could hold accountable. However, as relatively few of Ms Ferreti's customers would bother to do so, and as she presumably manages to sell at least of the some sub-standard garments, why bother fixing her quality control issues? Even if she loses you and your sister as customers, she will pick up another few thousand possibles on the back of her next Vogue spread that is run off the back of her undoubted talent as a designer, some of whom she will be able to convert into actual sales. Advertising and investing in her image as a sought-after designer is a better investment, economically, than producing better-made clothes.
Since the grain of the front of this dress is (from the bottom, moving upward ) cut on the straight, then the bias, then the crossgrain, then the bias again and finally on the straight once more, I can see where it would be very difficult to sew it to a back that was essentially cut on the straight without the puckering showing up somewhere.
But that's the job of high end designers; to be sure that not only do the designs look good, but that they are able to be assembled without this type of problem.
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