Developing the New Collection

I've been busy working on the new collection. Here are a few pics from around the studio:

I am aiming to have the collection finished in June, so watch out for the fashion show announcement this spring!

Teaching How To Make A Duct Tape Bag

Recently I've taught a few classes of middle school children how to make duct tape bags. For anyone who doesn't know me, I should explain that I used to have a business in high school selling duct tape bags, wallets, flowers and clothes. My collection of duct tape garments that I made for high school art class was even sponsored by 3M. I haven't been as active with the tape designs in the past few years, but this foray back to tape has been really fun!



The teaching experience has been rewarding each time. All of their bags turned out so successfully. Everyone had their own creative ideas of how they wanted their bags to look or function. It was great to set them to a task and have everyone come out of the class having successfully made a cool looking bag that they can use.

I feel that teaching the next generation of kids that cool and useful things can be made out of household items is an important lesson. The world is so consumer driven, I want to throw more makers into the mix! I am such a compulsive maker; it is often difficult for me understand the actions of people on the other end of the spectrum. If more people have the basic knowledge or instinct of how to create things for themselves, I would feel much more comfortable in society. People could be more self sufficient and many more creative ideas would come to fruition. More people would know the feeling of accomplishment that goes along with creating something, there would be less demand for mass produced junk and creative expression could flourish! Making duct tape bags is a good first step. It is fairly easy, very accesible and highly customizable. 

I made detailed instructions for how to make this style of bag for the class. Now that the classes are complete, I though I would share! So, here is a link to the Duct Tape Bag Instructions! There are a lot of photos, so it might take a little while to load. This is the most simple, basic bag design; I would recommend that if you want your bag to be able to carry a lot of weight, you should reinforce all of the seams and stress points with extra tape.

Enjoy!

Pay What You Want Sample Sale Party!

This weekend I will be having a sample sale fundraising party at my studio! The funds will go towards making my upcoming sci-fi themed fashion collection and related short film.

Clothes from my past three collections will be available to buy. The format of the sale is pay-what-you-want (as long as the price you offer is at least as much as it cost me to make it). Along with the clothes I’ve made, there will also be vintage and second hand clothes and accessories for sale as pay-what-you-want with a minimum of $5. Cash, check and PayPal will be accepted.

Coinciding with my real life sale will also be an online sale! Items on my Etsy store marked “SAMPLE SALE” will be available to buy as pay-what-you-want, if you message me with the price you want to pay.

The event at the studio will be the first chance to see a preview of clothing from the upcoming collection on display.

If you want to help fund the new collection without buying clothes, I will also be accepting donations and there will be several optional reward tiers for donors:

1. $5 Get onto the donor email list with exclusive previews of the collection

2. $10 A personalized thank you card, and previous reward.

3. $20 Be among the first to read my Sci-fi story that the new collection is based on (digital copy), and previous rewards.

4. $30 Get a digital download of some of the songs I listen to while sewing, and previous rewards.

5. $40 A ticket to the fashion show event this Summer, and previous rewards.

6. $60 A DVD of the short fashion film, and previous rewards.

7. $100 A bound book of photos of the collection, and previous rewards.

8. $300 An item of your choice from the collection up to $300 in value, and previous rewards.

9. $500 An item of your choice from the collection up to $500 in value, and rewards 1-7.
10. $700 An item of your choice from the collection, or two items equaling up to $700 in value, and rewards 1-7.

If you want to donate, but can’t make it to the studio this weekend, I am also accepting donations via PayPal, and will soon have a page set up for that.

But everyone who is able should come to the studio this weekend! It will be fun times and pretty clothes and delicious snacks! What could be better?!

141 The Commons, 2^nd floor, Ithaca, NY, USA

Saturday and Sunday 9^th and 10^th March 2013

 1pm-7pm

Amanda Palmer's TED Talk- Interacting with a fan base

Amanda Palmer's TED Talk "The Art of Asking" was really inspiring. Anyone who is an artist or creator should watch it! And everyone else should watch it too! It deals with a lot of issues (and gives some insight to the lives of living statues).

So much of her talk was relevant to me and they way I work and the way I try to conduct business. It really hit home a lot of ideas for me and made me feel more justified in all of the ways that I feel unsure. Particularly about asking for help and about interactions with fans. And about whether my job is real or not.

She used to be a living statue. She would make a decent and predictable income from it, but people would still tell her to get a job. They didn't understand her job. They didn't understand the exchanges she would have. Her presence and eye contact were a gift of interaction that many people lacked in their daily lives. It was an equal exchange, to those who put a dollar in the hat. An effortless personal interaction. And when her band got more popular, and she stopped being a statue, she still wanted to have the personal interactions. She didn't want to lose something so valuable. And that is really what the point is. Personal interactions have value. A lot of value! Fans find these interactions valuable enough that they take care of her. They invite her into their homes and thank her for staying because she means that much to them. When she wonders if getting things for free is fair, she is met with the resounding answer that it wasn't free, being able to help her and interact with her is enough of a payment. People will help if you ask for it. The situation doesn't work for everyone. But having day jobs doesn't work for everyone either.

I have had two successful Kickstarter campaigns, and I have definitely noticed that my friends, family and fans love to help when I ask for it. And people have told me numerous times that they felt like they got MORE than their monies worth from the experience. Every time I start a new fashion collection, I have a huge amount of people asking what they can do to help! I am so thankful for all of the help that people give me, and I always feel terrible that I can't afford to pay anyone, but I know that they help because they want to and the value they gain from the experience, or the validation of being able to assist is payment enough. It IS a fair exchange. It is one that I feel constantly self conscious about, but I shouldn't. All the Kickstarter money gets spent on fabric and materials so quickly, I really can't afford to pay people for help. There are probably people who would fault me for that, like people fault Amanda for that when she made money on Kickstarter. They don't understand that the creators themselves aren't making money off of that, they are spending it all on the project. And the haters don't understand the value of the interactions. Being able to help someone who's work you admire is a value much deeper than dollars. People even feel disappointed when I don't find anything for them to help with.

People want to help, and I need to stop feeling guilty about asking for help. Society wires us to put a dollar price on everything, but that isn't what motivates people.

The value of interaction is something that I have been thinking about a lot recently, which is partly why Amanda's speech struck such a cord in me. Lately I have been sending messages, thanking people who "favorite" my Etsy store, and asking them to also "like" my Facebook, if they want to keep up with what I'm working on. At first, I felt like maybe it was a bit to close to spamming people, and was a little uncomfortable, but the response was so strong in the other direction! Not only did most of these people "like" my Facebook page, but I started getting replies from people, telling me how much they love my work, and I am an inspiration and they were so glad to find me, and thanking me for existing! And sometimes their friends "liked" my Facebook page too! And every time I would get a message back, or a new "like" I understood that I wasn't sending out spam, I was making a personal connection and helping them discover more of my art. Those are things that they value and I find value in it too!

One of my rare ventures out to interact with fans in real life.

The other part of this issue is that for many people, money is not the main motivation for what they do. You can watch a TED talk about that too. There have been tons of studies about the subject. For the most part, anything involving creativity, is usually not motivated by money, it is motivated by several other factors. Wanting to create something beautiful, do a good job, learn, and master my skills are huge motivations to me. Money actually makes me less motivated. Usually by the thoughts that I'm not getting paid enough for the job I'm doing. Doing what I want to do, for the reasons that I want to do it, is going to result in the best work, at the fastest rate and it will be more likely to become something that I am proud of. I know that I don't personally make any money doing my job, but I keep doing it, because it is what I'm driven to do. It is the way that I work best. And It gives me the best quality of life, because I get to spend all of my time working on what I like to do. I don't need a fancy apartment or possessions, those aren't the things that motivate me.

I still need to make money though. I can't give my clothes away for free; they cost too much to make. I wouldn't be able to afford my fashion studio. But something I can do is let the customer decide what they want to pay. That seems like a much fairer business model. I hate the idea of placing a monetary price on any of my work, but I will feel better about it if it is an exchange. An interaction. A fair trade. I will start implementing that system soon, and I'll let you know how the experiment works out! Feel free to contact me if you want to commission me to make clothes. Or donate your time or dollars to my next collection. Or if you want to tell me how great I am. That works too! Rachael at Rachaelreichert.com

Current Social Media

I am never very good at taking time away from making clothes to post on the internet, but I am trying to do a bit more of that so that the public can see my process and have a better idea of what projects I'm working on. So if you want to keep up with me in one way or another, here are a few way:

I just joined Instagram! Follow me to see what I'm working on at the studio.

 Facebook is the best place to find out about upcoming events as well as see pictures from all my collections and fashion shows.

Whenever I have new items for sale, Etsy is the place to find them. You can also follow me on Etsy to see all the other treasure I find on the site.

 Spoonflower is where to find my print design work. A few of the designs are even for sale.

 Tumblr has a huge amount of photos of my work! Follow me to stay up to date with the photos I post.

 I just started using Twitter. I might decide I hate it and stop using it. But for now I will give it a try.

It is kind of overwhelming to juggle them all, but I understand each one has it's own function and people have preferences of what kind of news they want and in what format. Each one has it's own unique raison d'etre. 

New Arrivals

After a long period of working on custom designs for clients, I have finally had a chance to work on a few new designs for the webshop! Check out Etsy for more info on each of them. They are all made of organic cotton and available to purchase made-to-measure.

 

 

 

DJing

My friends have been putting on awesome parties that I've been DJing at!

Here are my playlists from the last 2 events:

December 22, 2013

1 Eleven Pond - Watching Trees (Bedroom Mix)

2 Violet Tremors - Future Love

3 Visage - Fade To Grey

4 David Bowie - Rebel Rebel

5 Siouxsie & The Banshees - Red Light

6 New Order - Age Of Consent

7 OMD - Enola Gay

8 The Cure - Close To Me

9 Ze Dark Park - Strange Planes (Cold Mix)

10 Cosmetics - Sleepwalking

11 Grimes - Oblivion

12 Swans - See No More

13 Death in June - The Calling (MK II)

February 2nd 2013

1 Wumpscut - Outside

2 Ministry - Revenge

3 Joy Division - Walked In Line

4 The Cramps - Strychnine
5 The Cure - Accuracy
6 Revolting Cocks - Crackin' Up
7 Clan of Xymox - Stranger
8 She Wants Revenge - Black Liner Run
9 Violet Tremors - Nothing
10 IAMX - You Stick It In Me
11 Light Asylum - End Of Days
12 Prince - Kiss
13 Cyndi Lauper - Change Of Heart
14 David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
15 Swans - Amnesia
16 Purity Ring - Belispeak
17 M83 - Midnight City
18 Grimes - Vowels = Space and Time
19 Crystal Castles - Air War
20 Violet Tremors - Autosuggestion
21 Portishead - Wandering Star

If you are into that kind of music,  or just want to hang out with us, check out SyntheticHope.com for upcoming event info.

Spoonflower Bats and Typewriters

At Central Saint Martins I got my degree in Fashion Print, but prints aren't something you see much of in my work anymore. That's largely due to not having a print room in Ithaca. I do still design prints sometimes, and I am trying to start using printed fabric in my designs again. So I've been investigating Spoonflower for getting digital prints. They make the process really easy! And they even have organic cotton as one of the options for printing on! I feel sad about the loss of the process of printing by hand, which I always loved. But I still hand screenprint all my labels, so the process is not entirely lost. Anyway, here are some pictures of prints I've worked on recently:

Around Halloween I designed this bat print and had enough printed to make this dress (which is available on Etsy). The print itself is available to buy on Spoonflower.

 This print is a manipulated photo of sand

Yes, that is me, doing a ribbon dance with the typewriter ribbon and spilling letters everywhere. I know I'm not supposed to, I just couldn't help it. This print is available to buy on Spoonflower too!

And this is a special sneak peek of a circuitry print design for the upcoming collection!

To see more of my print design work check out the Rachael Reichert website and my Spoonflower portfolio.

Burlesque Costume Roundup

I've been working on a bunch of burlesque costumes over the past few months. It has been a very different way of working, but it's been really fun! A lot of the work was on a tight deadline, so I didn't have much time for taking pictures, but here are some photos I managed to take:

 If you are in NYC, you can see some of these in the Burlesque Soiree that happens at the Triad Theatre occasionally.

Millinery at Norisol Ferrari

A couple weeks ago I was in New York City, helping make hats for the Norisol Ferrari Spring/Summer  '13 collection that showed at New York Fashion Week. Working with Norisol and her design team was  exciting and inspiring! 

I was working under the in house milliner, Ann Morin, to help construct each of the hats that walked the runway, and many more that didn't make the cut. 

The hats were specifically designed to shield your skin from the sun without messing up your hair. They only sit on a tiny portion of the front of your head, so when you remove your hat indoors, you won't have hat hair. I was completely on board with the concept! Anything that is designed to shield me from the sun AND look gorgeous is something I want! 

Most of the hats in the show have a brim with a continuous spiral stitch covering the entire area. I sewed them on a machine and felt quite dizzy by the end of each one. There was also a lot of hand sewing involved in each hat. Several different types of stitches were necessary to construct them properly. Then stretch velvet ribbons were attached to secure them onto the models heads. 

It was also exciting to be backstage and get to see everything we all worked on come together and look so beautiful on the models. That is always one of my favorite parts of creating something! It feels so satisfying when everything comes together!

I also helped drape and construct the lovely bridal veil with hand made duchess satin bias binding.

I had never made hats using conventional techniques before. It was a wonderful learning experience for me to find out more about hat construction. I also really enjoyed being in the atmosphere of the busy studio, and everyone working towards a common goal together. It was definitely a fun experience and I am very pleased with the hats and with the collection! It is always exciting to be part of creating beautiful objects.

Photos from zimbio.com and wwd.com