I owe a lasting personal debt to Italian fashion designer Valentino (whose long career was glorified at this recent retrospective in Rome). Last year I was making a skirt for my daughter and struggling with a side-seam zipper. The fabric was embellished with swirling appliqued strips in heavy taffeta. These created three-dimensional surfaces on the fabric surrounding the zipper, which then would get crushed in a conspicuously unattractive way under machine stitching. Just at that time I visited the
de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and saw a collection of garments from the collection of famous New York fashion person Nan Kempner. On one of the mannequins was a 1970s Valentino gown in red silk chiffon with a bodice of tiny horizontal pleats. It zipped up the back. I stood and gazed at that zipper. It had evidently been hand-stitched with each stitch placed BETWEEN a pleat and NEVER on top of a pleat. Afterwards I went home and redid the skirt zipper for my daughter entirely by hand, using the Valentino method.
I owe a lasting personal debt to Italian fashion designer Valentino (whose long career was glorified at this recent retrospective in Rome). Last year I was making a skirt for my daughter and struggling with a side-seam zipper. The fabric was embellished with swirling appliqued strips in heavy taffeta. These created three-dimensional surfaces on the fabric surrounding the zipper, which then would get crushed in a conspicuously unattractive way under machine stitching. Just at that time I visited the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and saw a collection of garments from the collection of famous New York fashion person Nan Kempner. On one of the mannequins was a 1970s Valentino gown in red silk chiffon with a bodice of tiny horizontal pleats. It zipped up the back. I stood and gazed at that zipper. It had evidently been hand-stitched with each stitch placed BETWEEN a pleat and NEVER on top of a pleat. Afterwards I went home and redid the skirt zipper for my daughter entirely by hand, using the Valentino method.