Uggggly dresses (she's baaack!)

Can't you just block this twit from writing you? If she were to keep writing me, I think I would seriously consider reporting her to her ISP for 'stalking.' Does she think you're going to fall on your knees and beg her forgiveness for voicing an opinion?

Poor child is so confused! Fine workmanship doesn't make up for ridiculous design. Now, apparently there is a demand for ridiculous design, if what I see on MTV and the award ceremonies on the Big Three is correct. But for people who don't get their clothes lent to them by big name designers to wear once, and who don't spend a year's wages on an outfit for one occasion. weird clothes are just that - weird. It really doesn't matter how much skill goes into the construction.

What *I* find interesting is that while reprimanding those who did not like the dresses, your correspondent was not hesitant to mock quilters and crafters.

PAT, quilt> My correspondent seems to have remembered Computer 101, and she wrote > me AGAIN: >

...cut...

Comments addressed to the driven writer, not our Karen:

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA! If you ever saw the hand crafted bears a pal of mine (lady who taught my son James at school these last few years) makes that would put Stieff to shame (she spends upwards of 30 hours on a 6" bear!), or some of the quilts at some of the big shows (several hundred dollars/pounds/euros worth of fabric) with piecing to kill for and quilting that makes you think heaven is here on earth, and which can take as long to make as any beaded competition ball gown (I'm thinking

80-100 hours), you wouldn't dismiss those skills at all! Don't you know that many skilled couture sewists hone their accuracy in cutting and matching on things like this, and quilt to relax?

If any

They do: cheap, badly made trash for the lowest price they can get it made in China, selling for insane prices in the USA and anywhere else the manufacturers can dupe the gullible.

Was it 100% silk tartan, hand woven in Scotland (I can get that: I can even order it in the web of my choice rather than lurid but boring old Royal Stewart or military and funereal Black Watch!)? Was the plaid properly matched? Did they hand work the loops for the buttons, make the covered buttons all by hand, use hand made lace to trim, and hand finish all the seams and insides? If not, it ain't couture! Is there only ONE of each gown, made for an individual person? No? So not even exclusive! And factory made certainly isn't couture!

The only hard work in these gowns is put in by the machinists, who work looooong hours in manky conditions for minimum piecework wages in places like Korea and PRC. And THEY certainly don't care about the 'gowns'. They are only interested in getting as many as possible done in as short a time as possible so they can earn enough to feed their families. And no one person makes a whole gown from start to finish: you have one set of folks seaming left skirt side seams, another doing the right ones, some other set putting zips in, another bunch on hems... And check the quality of the finish: do they get silk thread to sew on the buttons? Nope - cheap and nasty poly serger thread, same as the rest of the factory uses!

It's market driven, lass: folks will get what they pay for, and if they don't know what couture and bespoke and hand made REALLY mean, they can be duped VERY easily. Looks like you got suckered in by the sales pitch!

I'm no fashion analyst: I'm deeply uninterested in 'fashion'. I'm faaaaaaar more interested in style, in professional finishes, in proper fit, and in giving my customers a personal service and a gown that really *is* exclusive - a one shot wonder no-one can ever repeat! Who do *I* aim to emulate, one day if I get that good? Jean Muir, Coco Chanel, Tommy Nutter (you may never like is style, but up close and personal his finish is to die for! Ye Gods! If I could hand work buttonholes like those... ), Vivvienne Westwood (even the punk trash is beautifully cut, and as for the couture stuff... Swoon!)... Do I need to go on? And for killer details I go back to the V&A again and look at things like Tipoo's coat and another Indian muslin one with a hand rolled hem of exquisite stitches - that is 75 metres long!

Now THAT's couture!

Don't blame you, Karen! She's obviously so unsure of her words that she cannot post to a public forum with her name on her drivel. Now me, I'm well known for posting exactly what I think, how I arrived at those thoughts, and with my name on it. Bold hussies, aren't we! ;)

She's blocked. I have the option of reviewing Nigerian/Viagra scams prior to deletion.

Here's the part I can't fathom: the original (hilarious) mini-reviews were posted on a completely different forum by SOMEONE WHO IS NOT ME. I thought y'all would enjoy them (just like I posted a link to that Burger King commercial full of nifty costumes shaped like lettuce and hamburger patties). So I did, and "girlfriend" got all bent out of shape, assuming that I had written the original snarkiness. I informed her that this was not the case, and she still went off on me.

So now she's griping (to me!) about comments that all of YOU (like-minded, experienced sewists) posted in this forum. Again, SOMEONES WHO ARE NOT ME.

Since she can access this newsgroup, and apparently understands how to type a message, why can't *she* post all her hostile defensiveness of these poor sensitive designers who are working soooo hard? Why is she poking sticks down holes and then whining about the results?

In a month or two when she returns to "You've Got Newsgroups!" she'll see this latest round of posts. More whining expected.

--Karen D. used to teach computer classes, but not service providers

This designer is so famous I can't find any pix of the gowns/dresses, nor any mention of her on the net...

Would it be this one:

don't recall any of those dresses being in the ugly dress discussions, butperhaps I missed one. :)-j

Far too frou-frou for my tastes. And nothing hand made about anything visible on the web site. As for the prices! Yikes! I can make truly individual hand finished stuff for kids for a lot less than that!

Hm... Several puckered seams there too! AND I've seen better finished details on quilts! ;)

What? You don't like tassels on the ends of a little girl's sash? tsk tsk

(reminds me of the kind of dresses you see in children's 'beauty pageants'.

Doreen in Alabama

The most frou-frou things I've ever made were bridesmaid dresses for kids, and they are the baby pink ones on my web site. Lots of folk love them, but to me they are just TOO MUCH! And they are pure silk dupion, all hand finished, and cost a LOT less than $300!

All I can say is that the people who are buying things like that in Saratoga Springs are the same one who can afford to spend $200.00 & up for poorly made Tee shirts in Sax. Money is not an issue, it's what I call verrrrry wealthy grandma purchases. Juno

Those are little kid dresses! Not wedding gowns or gowns for women.

Yes, I examined the dresses and I found them totally unoriginal. Take a look at the basic parts....they are all the same basic shapes. The only things that make them "couture" is the fabric and a few "tricks" with stripe of fabric sewn into the basic shape. And oh boy, there are some ruffles on that ones hem. One doesn't need a degree in fashion design to see this.

Not worth a dime of my money. AK in PA

I went back and read this squirrels post again and it's obvious she is the owner of this company, Johanna Grace, I believe she said that was the name. She mentions the name far too many times and protests over and over she doesn't work for them but is a "design analyst." Yeah, right. If she was not the owner she wouldn't have gotten her panties in a wad over any comments that were made on another thread or board. And if she weren't the owner she wouldn't care less what was said about those dresses. She's so obvious in her protestations it's comical.

"Each and every Johanna Grace dress is custom-made to your child's measurements, by one couturiere...

My dictionary spells it "couturier."

"...from start to finish. We use the finest, old-fashioned couture sewing techniques, and all details are done by hand, from bows to flowers to hand-set zippers. We start with the essentials: lovely silk duppione..."

Would that be dupione?

Are misspelled words and typos and extra spaces somehow symbolic of "class"?

Oh wait, some poor webmaster worked soooo hard to code that HTML. And here I am being snarky like Joan Rivers! Soooooo mean! Horrible! Blah blah blah!

--Karen D.

If you gold-plate a cockroach, it's still a cockroach.

And at ridiculously adult prices.

-j

'Methinks the lady doth protest too much'? You could well be right!

And as I looked through the site I didn't see a detail on those dresses that wasn't machine stitched, from the seams to those silly flower things. I gave up on it in the end: too many spelling and grammar errors and too much over-hype of very ordinary items made in less than top quality dupion, with (in some areas) a less than professional finish.