inspiration

One of the Japanese models that I really like is Jessica Michibata, and I’ve been following her blog for a while. One day last week, I saw her wearing a black leather backpack with beige trench coat, and since then I get obsessed with chic backpacks!

I’ve never own a single backpack in my life. I spent one year in high school in Florida. There, almost everyone was wearing a Jansport backpack to carry their stuff (I think a lot of American high schoolers wear backpacks?), but I stuck with a tote bag. But now I really really want a backpack, and just ordered one off ebay. Can’t wait to receive it in the mail!

Images: Top: Jessica’s blog, Middle: fashiontoast, Bottom: That’s Chic

If you visit BurdaStyle website often like me, you might have come across some creations by bows – a.k.a. Isis. When I first spotted her on BurdaStyle, I almost favorited all of her creations. Her clothes are girly and classy, something that I would love to have in my closet! Also they drew my attention because her dresses has interesting names, like “pimpin be easy” or “slim thug”, something you don’t imagine from those girly dresses:) I also love all her photos. Red lipstick, hair band and 60’s-ish pompadoll updo – they are all so cute.

She was a featured member at BurdaStyle, and you can check out more of her creations here.
I had a chance to interview Isis, and wanted to share it here!
Here is Isis:)

1. Please introduce your self:) Where are you from, where do you live, what do you do for living?

Hi my names Isis. I’m from Guelph ON but I’m currently living in Toronto. I just moved back to
Canada from Japan so I’m just trying out some different jobs in the fashion world. Right now I’m
working as a stylist which I’m really hoping to peruse further.

2. How did you get started on sewing?

I got started on sewing one day last summer when I asked my sister if I could borrow her machine just to try out. I wanted to teach myself so I spent hours in my room just trying to sew things whichever way I could. It was a 100% trial and error but after a while I had the basics. Now I’m actually taking an introductory sewing class to refine my skills which is a lot of fun.

3. How long have you been sewing?

I’ve actually only been sewing just over a year now.

4. What is your favorite project you’ve made? What’s your least favorite project and why?

Hmm I don’t even really know how to answer that. I guess my favourite project would have to be my Pourin purple stuff skirt. It’s not the fanciest project or even the project I wear the most but I think it’s the first thing I made that looked semi professionally done. I actually took the time to finish all the seams and hide all the raw edges so in the end I was quite proud of it.

As for my least favourite project…well there’s just too many of those to name. When I was starting out I made quite a few outfits that are just ugly or completely unwearable. I had no idea what I was doing so I just threw together fabrics and saw what came out (it wasn’t pretty).

5. You always have interesting names for your dresses – how do you come up with them?

Haha yeah a lot of people ask me about the names. The names for my older stuff came from just trying to think of something catchy that went with the style of the dress. To tell you the truth though all the newer stuff comes from gangster rap songs. Now I’m not a gangster rap kind of person at all! I listen to soft happy music most of the time but for some reason every time I sew I like to listen to this album called Ratatat remixes. It’s just a really fun album that’s super upbeat and happens to be remixed with some really hard rappers. The first dress I named like that was the low back white dress I called Pimpin be easy- I thought it was such a funny juxtaposition since it was such a beautiful and classy dress with such a very opposite name. After that I couldn’t stop pulling out funny names from the songs. I don’t know what made me decide to start using quotes from the album as my dress names but I really like the outcome.

6. What’s your creation process? Do you sketch first?

My creative process is all over the place, most of the time I’ll just find a fabric I love and then think about what I want to make with it. From there I usually just start draping or cutting and see what happens. The only time I’ll ever really sketch something is if I just randomly get an idea and just have to write it down but that usually only happens when I’m not sewing.

7. Where does your inspiration come from?

My inspiration comes from everywhere! I get inspired by fellow sewers, current or past trends, travel, movies and art. I know it sounds kind of cheesy but I really do get inspiration from the oddest things.

8. What is your favorite place to shop sewing material?

My favourite place to shop for anything is my mom’s basement. It’s full of amazing treasures. For some reason (even though she doesn’t sew) there’s always great fabric down there. Other than that I’ll get my fabric pretty much anywhere I can find it. I’m definitely not a fabric prude that only shops at high end fabric stores. You can find beautiful fabrics in a lot of different places.

9. Any advice for fellow sewers?

Just keep on doing whatever it is you’re passionate about.

I borrowed this book from the public library the other day. It is a Japanese book, titled, “Otenbana Boushi” (おてんばな帽子）by Yumiko Itoyama (糸山弓子）. I like this book, because all the projects are sewing projects, not knitting. I would love to be able to knit and crochet, but I don’t have enough patience – compared to sewing, I feel like knitting takes soo long, time wise.

I think I can use old sweater to make the hats, especially the two hats in the bottom pictures. I wish I didn’t take all my old clothes to recycle shop! I got rid of a bunch of clothes when I moved two months ago:(

The same author has two other books about hats: “Wagamamana Boushi” (わがままな帽子）and “Oshaberina Boushi”(おしゃべりな帽子）. I would love to check these books out too!