Valley of the Dolls | Jeffrey Turns 10 - The Moment Blog - NYTimes.comValley of the Dolls | Jeffrey Turns 10
By Bee-Shyuan ChangTo celebrate its 10th anniversary, the luxury retailer Jeffrey is creating its own “Valley of the Dolls.” Its owner, Jeffrey Kalinsky, tapped the designer Jason Wu (who started out creating fashionable dolls before scaling up the fashion rungs with Michelle Obama’s inaugural ball gown) to create a series of limited-edition dolls, which were in turn sent out to a who’s who of designers to be dressed in the season’s looks.
Along with Wu, more than 50 designers signed on for the fashion-in-miniature project, including Thakoon, Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni, Rick Owens, L’Wren Scott, Christophe Decarnin of Balmain, and Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte. Barbie, eat your heart out.
The dolls will go on display at Jeffrey’s New York store starting Aug. 10 with bids via silent auction starting at $250 for each doll. Bidding will close at the end of New York fashion week (Sept. 17), and proceeds will go to support causes that Kalinsky has long championed: the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to support breast cancer research and the Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund.
With designers sampling looks from their fall collections — Phoebe Philo for Celine replicated a sharp gray jacket and tailored black one-piece, Martin Margiela went expectedly avant-garde with disco-ready mirrored pants and a stocking bodysuit, and Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy created a black strappy minidress with arched shoulders, plus black stiletto boots and bunny-pink lipstick — the highly detailed miniature mannequins are turning out to be a chic illustration of fashion meets craft.
We stopped by for a little (pun intended) chat with Andrea Karras, Proenza Schouler’s patternmaker, to get the details on the more technical side of dressmaking in miniature versus real-life prêt-à-porter.
Q.How did you come about working with Proenza Schouler?
A.I’ve been working with designers Jack [McCollough] and Lazaro [Hernandez] for the past two and a half years. But I also freelanced with Gap and Banana Republic and had my own design business in the ’80s that was carried at Barneys.
Was patternmaking something you picked up while owning your own business?
I actually went to school at the École de la Chambres Syndicale la Couture Parisienne, the French school for haute couture. It’s very technical, and by the time I graduated and moved to the U.S., I already knew how to make patterns.How did you approach making doll clothes for Jeffrey’s exhibition?
They [Proenza Schouler] involved me right from the start. I thought, Well, let’s do a fall look. And I was going to live off this fantasy and I wanted to do lots of little pieces. They do great sportswear, so I flipped through the fall show and copied a coat and a knitted sweater and shorts and tights. Oh, and the P.S. 1 bag. I had to do the bag. It’s become one of the label’s signature looks.Were there special challenges to crafting looks in miniature? How did you put it all together?
I had to buy smaller knitting needles. I bought some Size 1 knitting needles that are usually for socks and gloves and knitted the little sweater. I used a sewing machine for some parts, but putting on the sleeves was tough — I had to do that by hand. I did have to buy some doll shoes; I tried everything including papier-mâché but couldn’t get it right. So I doctored these doll boots from a Japanese Web site that sells doll supplies. They carry Jason Wu’s doll pieces as well.How much time did you spend on the project?
I put in about three days of work on the pieces. But working on the project, it was fun! I felt like a little girl, but had all the skills to make it look good.Do you think learning the craft first has been key to your longevity in the industry?
It’s one of the reasons why I’m still here. Patternmaking is not really taught much anymore, and it’s a long process to learn how to do it. It’s a dying profession, with most of the work going offshore. I could say it’s a lot of hard work and not a lot of glory. You have to know how to sew and know fabrics and have a logical mind.What about designers today — do you think it’s important for them to know patternmaking or have some technical skills?
I think a good designer has this part of them that understands technical things. A lot of the job for designers is about drawing the picture, but Jack and Lazaro can get pretty technical. And I enjoy working with them because if I have an issue, they can get right at the solution to the problem.