The Fashion Sewing Group  It's about the clothes.

As if we needed the incentive in spring to choose color, it is mandatory this season. I've been encouraging brights including colored pants and matching jackets since spring 2009 with emerald and cobalt and now surging into corals and more. The pantone color Tangerine Tango is the newest name for coral with it leaning more toward orange. Poplins are available in all of the most flattering brights, some with coordinating solid sweater knits--for newsletter subscribers first, of course. Then there's the print story with everything from polka dots to tropicals--to make those work, you really need great styling advice. It's not so much how you make them but rather how you wear them--how you coordinate them into an outfit without looking like you're wearing clown pants or worse.

Those are the things that are in the stores and what you'll find on the street--not what you'll find on the pages of the fashion magazines that no longer bear any resemblance to how real women dress. Pick up a Vogue or Bazaar from 20-30 years ago and it would match how women really dressed. No longer is that true today. The fashion magazines are as out of touch with real women as Washington is with their constituents. Just when was the last time you saw anyone in your typical day wearing anything presented like an editorial page? Of course you take a piece here and a piece from there to make it work. It's fascinating to me that store web pages show garments on 5'10" size 4 models but then when they show their handbags on silhouettes that are 5'5" tall? I'd love an explanation for that.

Seminars and Trunk Shows
If you are interested in an Erickson seminar event for your sewing group or retail store, just email me and we can discuss topics that would be of particular interest. All of the sewing events are customized to each sponsoring group and typically include a fabric boutique set-up for the group's shopping convenience when fashion fabric is unavailable in a particular area. For retail stores, the seminars attract the elusive fashion sewing customer who is looking for clothing and fit inspiration. This customer has been missing from the sewing machine departments for many years. It's time to bring her back into your store.

Programs have been given to the sewing guilds in Indianapolis, Chicago, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa, Kearney, Nebraska, Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, as well as G Street Fabrics, Maryland, Harpers Fabrics in Kansas City, Ginny's Fabrics in Rochester, Minnesota and many, many others over the years.