Major update. Long, but very, very important.

The past two years of lockdowns and cancelled events, never knowing week to week what’s going on, weddings postponed and cancelled, supply chain issues and availability of the fabrics I need, etc., has really taken a toll on me. It’s taken something I’ve loved to do for most of my life, and turned it into a major source of stress and outright anxiety. Believe it or not, it’s very, very rough to pour your heart into something and then having it cancelled or abandoned without word and with unpaid balances, and it’s very, very stressful having to figure out what to do when a supply or fabric becomes unavailable after you’ve ordered it, and very stressful dealing with the clients of a different business altogether.

It also doesn’t help when an event in cancelled and a client forces a refund of their deposit because they no longer need what they commissioned…after you’ve already bought the fabrics and have started their gowns. I’ve learned the hard way that, if someone disputes a charge before you’ve shipped an item, then their card issuer won’t care that the reason is the balance wasn’t paid.  They’re getting the deposit back, and guess who has to pay for it.  Me. I even had a local client at the start of all of this who picked up her gown in person, then disputed the charge when her wedding was cancelled and I refused to let her return the gown for a refund.  She ended up getting a refund, and since there wasn’t proof of shipping, she got to keep the gown too.  Makes the abandoned and cancelled orders preferable. I don’t usually like talking negatively about clients because most have been absolutely wonderful, but there are three in particular who’ve broken me, and right now, I’m dealing with a fourth, another abandoned commission with an unpaid balance wanting either a refund of a finished commission or for it to be sent without the balance paid.

About HALF of the commissions I’ve started over the last two years have been abandoned by their commissioners, usually due to the events they were for being cancelled, though in a couple cases, without any word at all, and I’ve been unable to reach them by mail or by phone. This actually includes a well-known celebrity as well as a minor celebrity (I do not disclose names, even on non-abandoned commissions). But the ones mentioned above…

The only commissions that have been followed through on reliably have been things for children.

Despite having a contract that covers abandoned commissions, it’s still extremely stressful becsue imagine this: You’re paid for the supplies to do a job and a bit of the labor, and then you spend 80 hours of time on a job. But then never get paid for it, and worse, while doing the work, you now have it in your head that there’s a good chance you won’t be.

So in addition to the sadness of cancelled events, there’s also so, so much time of unpaid labor that, honestly, feels like wasted time after a while.

I know times can get unexpectedly rough, but frankly, that’s not a good reason to treat me like this.

This doesn’t touch on supplies. When I give a quote based on expected availability, then that thing goes out of stock with no restock date and how I’m having to pay as much as 4x the expected cost on the secondary market, it’s rough. Rougher still is when it’s for something that gets abandoned.

It also doesn’t touch on how that stupid, stupid business in Massachusetts, Aria Couture Inc, still hasn’t made it clear that I’m not them, and I’m STILL dealing with their angry clients, and I’ve had to deal with pissed off reviews meant for them being left for ME instead (there is still one woman who refuses to remove her review for them, despite acknowledging having left of for the wrong business in DMs). Having to continue acting as defacto customer service for that business is UGH.

So right now, I’m finishing a teacher’s Titanic dinner gown, and I’m hoping so hard that the school event that this is for will get to go ahead. It didn’t last year, nor the year before.

But after this, I’m planning to basically take this year off. Any commissions I would even consider will have to have something especially compelling, or from a repeat client, because I just don’t want something I’ve been so passionate about to be something I cry in stress about because I haven’t been able to reach the person it’s for in a couple weeks, or have the absolute heart-punch of something no longer being available after an order was placed.

Still send inquiries, but just be forewarned that there’s a real chance I may pass. I’d rather love what I’m doing and making rather than to be stopping because I’m crying in stress about, even if that means taking time off to wait out the ongoing state of the world. Hopefully, by next year, things will be reliably normal enough that I can look forward to sewing again.

There are two things I’ve been doing that have been a source of some happiness for me. One is that I’ve started on an English degree. Yes, classes are ALL still remote. 100% remote. But it’s something reliable that I can do, and I need reliability. It’s an actual mental health need. I’m in my second term, more than full time (4.0 so far).

And a very dear friend and I are writing books. The first in our series is even available for preorder though Barnes & Noble, to be release February 6th. 1930’s mafia. This is another reliable thing, though I admit that it’s stressful not knowing how much longer it’ll take to get Library of Congress control numbers, which are taking more time due to remote staffing, and FOIA requests (we go hardcore in researching…) more or less have no timeline now either, for the same reason, but lockdowns and cancelled events actually mean more time to write.

So these are the things I’ve been able to look forward to.

Sewing will fit in around these things, and will need to have something compelling about them (or be for children). I think that, on this page, I’ll spend a bit more time sharing some historical research that Lisa and I are doing for this series.

I just need a break and a chance to regroup. I need a chance to get back to a point where I love doing this again without it being a source of constant stress and anxiety. I had a breakdown over it in November, and then delayed addressing this because I just couldn’t do it. But just having written this to post address it makes me feel a bit better, and that indicates that this is the right move I need to make for myself right now. I’m human and have limits on how much I can handle, and I hit that limit almost a year ago, and ignored it, and just can’t anymore.

So please, just bear with me this year let me know what historical and fashion eras interest you, and let’s keep trying to get through the ongoing uncertainty in the world.

Sorry, but I can’t share my sources for some very good reasons

The Suez Canal issue exacerbates it.

The last several months, I’ve gotten more inquiries than ever about where I get my fabrics and trims since they’ve gotten so much harder to find, especially good quality, much less high quality.  I’ve gotten questions about that for years, but more so since last summer.  Prior to the lockdowns, and for a while into the lockdowns, my answers were the same: Some of my suppliers aren’t available to the public and are through connection-only, and some are shops that don’t sell online, hence having to go to Paris and London in person.  But when it comes to what I can order and that the public can also order from, I’ve spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars over the years researching my sources, ordering swatches to verify quality or even that a fabric is what they say it is (very often, it’s not, and even Joann Fabrics is VERY GUILTY of this), reordering on occasion to ensure reliability and consistency, and when a fabric is discontinued, starting the process over to try to find new suppliers of that fabric, and really, that’s a large investment to just give away.*

And now?  I don’t know.  I’ve got nothing.  A lot of my best suppliers, the ones I’ve gotten the best silks and softest, airiest cottons and such from, have gone out of business altogether, and of the ones available to the public, they’ve merged and offerings have shrunk.  The ones I sourced in person, who I sought out in person in Europe, tracking some to literal underground shops literally underground where you have to know which unmarked door to go to and buzz and who to ask for…I can’t know which of them are even around now until I go back and check, which could mean trips that are fruitless.  Yes, it’s always fun to go to Paris and London anyway, but a huge disappointment when shops you rely on are gone, and it’ll be heartbreaking since a lot of those are small shops owned by families.  None, NONE, are chains.  I’m expecting to be sad a lot when I go back.  I developed the business relationships needed to get suppliers to go to their back rooms to look for silks for me.  The red duchess silk I got the last time took one shopkeeper a couple weeks to personally find for me.  We talked about our same-age kids a lot when I went there in trips before that, and he finally met my daughter the last time I went.  Who knows if his shop is still there.

I’m scrambling myself to find new reliable suppliers, and so far, have found none that are up to par, and so I’ve been relying on my stash, the stash that a lot of people in my life thought I was “crazy” for amassing, which I did with the mindset of “what happens if this stuff can’t be obtained one day”…which…well…and having to put out feelers to people I know to see who may have what I need and be willing to part with it.  There is one fabric I’m still hunting for for another seamstress I know, but otherwise, I’ve been lucky finding just enough of what I need, but this isn’t enough to call a source.  It’s scrambling.  I’m spending more time scrambling now than sewing, and it’s frustrating.

So when I DO happen to find a source, I’ll be holding that close to the chest for a while, not only because of the substantial time I’m putting into it (labor has value), but because even I can’t know now if a source I may have this moment could unexpectedly be gone next week, and so this is the one area I kind of feel the need to be selfish on.  I haven’t felt this lost in the fabric world since 2006.  That’s how many of my suppliers are gone.  Thank goodness for my stash.

When it comes to my stash, getting me to sell any of it would be very, very hard since I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be able to get more of what I have.  I’m honestly sick with worry that some of it won’t be obtainable again.  I’ve fought against the urge to mark up the costs of the gowns I can create out of my stash, which I would justifiably do due to scarcity of supplies, but just can’t make myself do that.  It feels like profiteering.  Instead, I’ve nixed my pricing structure (and have corset commissions for months, and nope, I won’t be making a penny off of labor, but it’ll help keep me on a schedule and is good for my mental health).  There are only two people who would have access to it besides myself, Carol and Nora, and that’s really it.

So we’ve got suppliers going under, suppliers collapsing into fewer suppliers…most of the big online shops are owned by two companies now, though you wouldn’t know it since they keep all the old websites up, and no, those aren’t the ones I go through because their quality isn’t up to my expectations…an inability to even access some of my suppliers to see if they’re even around anymore, global supply chain issues that started a year ago for obvious issues I can’t mention without my entire website getting knocked down in search engines (yup…it’s not just YouTubers being demonetized and excluded from searches if they dare even breath that C-word once)…

And now we’ve got that issue with the Suez Canal.  Though most of my supplies come from Europe not only for quality, but because I really try to find manufacturers that are ethical since quality and ethical manufacturing mean more to me than cheap pricing (keep in mind I’m not making crucial necessities), and it’s a small fortune flying stuff in, the canal is expected to cause flight issues as a lot of manufacturers of non-household goods are starting to compromise and fly half their goods and boat the other half.  Uh, yeah, that may mean higher shelf prices.  But it also means that the reliability of stuff that needs to be flown in could be dicey.  There aren’t magically more cargo planes to meet the demand.  Experts are saying it can be several weeks to months to get shipping back on track.

So…yeah.  That’s why I couldn’t share my sources before, and why I can’t share them now. I’m scrambling too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I kinda think I’ve already given away a lot, what with the costume-studies I do, between cost of traveling, buying equipment to take the best pictures (this is one of the lenses I bought, and I upgraded to this camera, which was more since it was newer at the time, specifically to get the Sarah ball gown photos so detailed, and no, I wouldn’t have upgraded otherwise since the T6i I was using was perfectly fine for my needs otherwise), the time of it all (8 hours of driving for each the three time I went for those photos alone, plus the time there, then going through the photos, making posts…), and then sharing it for free, without even affiliate ads of any sort to offset the bandwidth bills we still get every month from the traffic to my costume study posts, instead of keeping it to myself so that only I could know the details to make the most accurate ones out there.  Right now, I’m waiting for clearance for another photo op, which, when it comes, will likely be short notice, and my husband knows to expect me to bolt with a night’s notice when I’ve got the go-ahead.  Cameras (got to have backup) and everything are ready for me to hightail it several hours (unlike most people, I still get weekly Covid tests, so don’t panic, am actually the at-risk one with a severe autoimmune disease).  So I’m still planning to plunk down more money and time for studies I will be giving away, and doing this is exciting.  But it is a financial investment that I will never see a return of even a penny on.  If anything, I lose potential commissions since my photos have encouraged at least a few people I know of to take a stab at it themselves when they were initially looking into commissioning from me, and I’ve encouraged them.  So this is what I mean.

The Aria Couture shop in MA/RI IS NOT ME

Please be aware that this Aria Couture is NOT the shop in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  My business is a one-woman operation in Washington State making custom items while they sell off-the-rack stuff on the east coast.  As of right now, their website, AriaCouture-dot-NET, isn’t even working, and hasn’t been for a while now.  That company has been far too happy leaving me to deal with their dissatisfied and confused clients.  I don’t blame their clients, but am furious enough at the company to take it public.  I can’t keep it hush-hush anymore, not with how often people contact me looking for them, or are unable to contact them and want me to help.  They’ve been made aware of this MANY times, and what have they done?  Nothing.

I’ve directed numerous clients to their correct contact information, and have contacted them more times than I’ve been able to keep track on on behalf of their clients who’ve contacted me, and that business’s managers have either ignored me or come up with pathetic excuses for why they “can’t” contact their own clients.  They have chosen to do nothing to make sure that their clients clearly know how to reach them, nor to make sure their clients are even aware that the top-level AriaCouture.com domain isn’t associated with them.  In a day and age where it’s Business 101 to make sure to come up with a business name with an available dot-com, they didn’t stop to think about how they were going to cause confusion.  (To be clear: Aria is a pretty name to them, but to me, it’s my actual legal real-life legit name.)  Instead of a different dot-com, they chose a secondary-level domain.  A simple “Not associated with AriaCouture.com” on their cards and website would go a long way toward making their clients aware of the difference. Have they done so?  Nope. They’re happy to take your money, then good luck to their clients if there are problems, and tough luck to me for having to deal with the fallout that belongs on them.

I won’t give prom dress refunds for them, can’t cancel orders for them, etc.  I didn’t receive money for them, can’t access their database, etc.  This company is the sole reason I had to shut off my Facebook reviews.  I was the one getting their negative reviews!!!  And I’m sick of it.  But please, PLEASE be aware that our businesses are entirely unrelated.  I am the very original, and started my business back when most people couldn’t even say Aria right.  “AIR-ea” and “are-EYE-uh” were common mispronunciations at the time.

If they rip you off (and some of their clients who’ve contacted me have done so regarding orders they never received and they’ve been unable to reach the correct business), please contact me though and let’s see what I can do to help you.  I can’t replace orders they don’t deliver, but may be able to work with you on a discount of some sort for something custom to offset your losses with them, but please don’t expect custom work done by one woman in the United States to be price-matched to off-the-rack items made in Chinese and Indian sweat factories.  This’ll be the absolute best I can do.  

Please don’t take your anger at that company out on me.  I am truly a one-woman business operating out of my house in Washington State, not in any way associated with the stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Some underbust corsets on an actual person

Just a heads up that this post will contain pics of me in a corset, and not in the historical sense.  No nipples will be showing, but all the same, I know there are people out there who are offended by photos of people in corsets.  Seriously.  But after my post yesterday about nixing the pricing structure I had, I had quite a few people message me about underbust corsets (I have enough inquiries now for corsets at the example price range that I really don’t think I can do more at that pricing right now) for boudoir and to try to feel sexy and attractive again after a year of being locked down without being able to go to gyms and do other things that fall under the self-care umbrella, and several included inquiries about if I had photos of any of my underbust corsets on people.

Howdy, world. How ya doin’?

Obviously society tends to get the vapors about this sort of thing, so I haven’t shared any previously, only on dress forms which tend to lose a lot of the effect.  So I decided to go ahead and share some of my own.  If anyone’s going to take heat for photos like this, I’d rather have the heat directed at me (might save money on my electricity bills since it’s cold…so aim that heat here, please!) rather than to ask anyone I’ve made this style of corset for to send pics for me to share.  I’m pretty sure it’s understood why many people would be shy about doing that.  Body confidence is hard…incidentally, I had more of it when I was 400 pounds than I do now…and there are many cruel jerks on the internet who get off on being mean and trying to tear people down after downing a handful of red pills.

But I personally don’t care and will eat incels for breakfast, so I post my own photos online, if you get my drift, yet am giving you that big long teal deer explanation anyway.  Insulting me only makes me post more to spite those infected ingrown hairs on horses’ butts.  I started to do it partly for the same reason as most of the inquirers–to try to not feel so blah over a year of not getting to do anything.  (And yes, I know there are people who live in various states of quarantine every year–I don’t get into my own medical history too much, but suffice it to say that I’ve got 28 years of experience and scars from my body rejecting some of my own organs, so I understand VERY well.)

To disclose, all photos of myself are selfies.  I don’t have the confidence to let others take pics of me.  Ironic, I know.  C’est la vie. Just mentioning that since I’ve had some people surprised that they’re selfies and I just want to be clear that I’m not withholding photo credit from anyone.

So you can see the very different fit on me versus on the dress form.  Even though it’s super dense foam, the lack of a skeleton means it looks crinkly.  This is one of my two primary underbust corsets that I have photos of.  This one is silk with more money than I care to admit being spent on Swarovski crystals.  The embroidery on the ribbon is only on the ribbon, and the design comes from the wedding gown at the end of the live action Cinderella movie.  To be extra, the modesty panel in the back is also embroidered and fully crystalled.  Speaking of modesty panel, is anyone else amused at the name?  As if that’s what makes corsets modest.

You can see some of that more in this video, which is on a weird spot on the page and I don’t know what do about that.

 

And the other I’m sharing is my silk dragons corset, with silk velvet binding.  I don’t have photos on a dress form for this one.  It is underbust.  What appears to be a corset top is a bra.  I do wish I’d enameled the busk gold as I did for the one above.

The back of this corset comes up a good bit higher than usual, as you can see in this one and only photo I could find from the side or back, though I could have sworn I had more. It’s similar to the back of the crystal corset though.

So here are just a couple of the underbust style.  That specific cut.  I didn’t expect so many people to be so interested in this same style at the same time, but I actually think it’s pretty awesome.

New pricing structure

My previous structure was:

+estimate cost of fabrics and supplies
+estimate hours times direct labor per hour
+a universal fee that covers things like wear and tear on machines and other costs not covered by the supplies and labor, like time researching and sourcing
                                                                     
=Cost

When a quote would be requested, this is was my starting point.  If fabrics or other supplies came from my stash, I’d use the approximate price I paid, which means that things I stocked up on while on sale would some with a bit of a savings, and sometimes I could use antique supplies, like easy 19th century trim, that I wouldn’t be able to find spur of the moment.  And then creating things would have priority when it came to my time rather than come after other things.  If I missed an event for my daughter, then I did.  If I missed volunteering for something, then I did.

But at this point, supplies are just sitting there, and time is an abstract concept.  The only scheduled thing is some performing I’m working on and show-kittening.

My new structure, for the time being, is that there isn’t one.  If there’s something you’re interested in and don’t have a close or strict deadline, let me know what it is, and your budget (either in one lump or in payments), and I’ll see if I have the supplies already and either comp them entirely or discount them steeply.  The more free time in my schedule, the more I can come down on pricing.  I need a reason to get out of bed by 2 in the afternoon. 😂 And you need something more to look forward to than endless nothingness, just…who knows what there is to look forward to in the future when we don’ know if we’ll even get to have the holidays this year or if it’s another year not seeing loved ones.  So let’s put at least something out there to look forward to.

Want an icy blue silk Victorian corset with some silver embroidery on a couple of the panels and can pay $150 (they usually start at $500) and I have the supplies? My thought process: the busks I use and have right now, are German steel spoon busks that I had custom made for about $40 each (made in Germany, custom, no cheap but amazing), and the particular boning I use works out to about $40 per corset, and the silk was 60€/m, plus other supplies like grommets, lining, coutil interlining, etc..  The cost of supplies are more than that $150, meaning technically a financially loss to me whenever I get around to restocking, BUT they’re also just sitting there doing on one any good and I don’t foresee the economy bouncing back to the point that I’m likely to need to restock soon anyway.

So…you got it!  Custom embroidered silk corset for $150 and something to look forward to, and I have something to help me keep on some sort of schedule for my sanity.

Want Christine Daeé’s mirror robe in a soft cotton for $250 (usually starting last $750)?  My thought process: I have the perfect cotton, so that one would depend on if I have the lace already.  That one uses a lot of it, so I might have to add in the cost of the lace, but otherwise…sure.

There will be some reasonable limitations. Want something that would take 300 hours, and 18 yards of French silk taffeta for $500?  Or 100 cotton face masks for $100?  That’ll be a No, so please understand that, while I’m very willing to scale back a lot and comp a lot more than usual, there will still be some lines beyond which I will say no.  Still, go ahead and send your inquiries and offers, and you might find a Yes where you’d expect a No since what I’m considering reasonable is quite far down right now. I’m pretty sure the difference between a corset that’ll take about 15-20 hours, include custom drafting and embroidery, and $150-ish in supplies I already have sitting there several times over, for $150, and something taking taking 300ish hours and $1,400 in supplies that would use all of that fabric that I have left, for $500 is kinda apparent.

If you send an open inquiry, I’ll reply with what my normal quotes would have been or with a link to this post.  Right now, it’s less about a for-profit business (if you knew how much time and supplies I donate to non-profits in a usual year, you’d question if this is actually a for-profit business anyway, considering I put more money and time into 501(c)3’s than I actually talk about, and I’m lucky to be in a position to do so), and more about let’s just all try to help each other get through this and have some reasons to smile.  The for-profit-ish side of things can wait until life is back on track.

Let’s see who gets the reference in this image, which was going to be my closing line to this post until I amused myself by singing it. 😂

In fact, I dare you to send those offers you’re thinking right now. 😁

Announcement of a pricing structure change

I may be walking into a virtual minefield here, but between the magazine I flipped through mentioned below, this HuffPo article, and couple things that happened on the way to a book store yesterday, I decided to go ahead and do what I wanted to do last fall and throw my pricing structure out the window, and scrap even discounts, and instead move to a new system for a while.  I’m going to post about it tomorrow.  For right now, I just want to explain the reason why because anything to do with money right now risks making people mad.

Since last fall, when I predicted this was going to go on for quite some time (and was called out as “pessimistic” by people in my personal life who thought the end was going to be before Christmas…), I thought about lowering prices to reflect what’s happening, but then worried that that would be seen as opportunistic.  The FTC even had to come down on MLM hunbots who were trying to poach people’s stimulus money, making price-adjustments more iffy.  So I nixed the usual Black Friday/Cyber Monday stuff I’ve done every year for many years.  It didn’t feel right, but I did it.

At about 3am or so yesterday, I read that Huffo article and read every comment on Instagram and Facebook, and it was sad.  I think we all know that society in general has just hit walls.  It’s hard to feel any reason for continuing to exist when there’s nothing more to look forward to than vague “one day, when this is over”‘s, and there’s so much shaming of people who want to celebrate anything, and even for those who can ignore that shaming, there are still a lot of financial issues for so many because of extremely obvious reasons.  So it’s just running repeatedly into a wall and breaking into apathy.  It resonated deeply and descried pretty well how I felt at the worst of my illnesses growing up.  I kept mulling over some of those comments though…

Then yesterday morning at around 9am (no sleep FOR THE WIN…and it’s 4:35am and I’m awake still) I was walking through the fabric store yesterday getting spray paint, as one does when getting spray paint, and walked by the magazine display.  I saw a magazine for weddings*, and decided to flip through it really quick, and was struck by how much thinner the total magazine was versus issues a year ago.  I get it.  Really.  When so many people can’t travel or are afraid to even in areas where local rules make it okay, big weddings just aren’t happening.  It’s a social gathering, and where I am, those are limited to 15 people, but only outdoors, and some states and localities still have stay-at-home orders altogether, or bounce back and forth between having them or not.  Hard to plan anything when what’s allowed day to day is iffy.  So who wants to rush ahead planning weddings?  So what’s happened is pretty much most people who wanted big weddings either scaling back altogether because why bother having any part of they dream, or pushing it back until 2023 or later. It made my heart sad since, for some people, weddings are their ultimate way of declaring love, and they can’t. (*I know weddings aren’t for everyone…stay tuned for an upcoming post about this.)

The two thing that pushed me over the edge into deciding to go ahead and do this happened when my daughter and I were on our way into Portland to pick up some music books.

Let me preface this by saying that she was just cast in an Oregon Ballet Theater production last year when the lockdowns hit.  That was taken away.  The horse camp she and her Girl Scout troop worked for was taken away.  Everything she worked for was taken away.  Nutcracker.  School.  Halloween.  Everything.  All because Covid makes it so that literally everything in children’s lives is now subject to being taken away.  Why have goals?  That’s been severely depressing her and has had her in suicide watch at various points.  That’s how I lost my dad in 2003, and so this has been especially hard for me too.  Something as simple as a goal to look forward to, that can’t be taken away…

So in the car I played a Lord of the Rings song for m daughter that she said reminded her of Star Wars, and she wished she could play it on her flute.  Well, the books we were going to pick up were flute music books, which she didn’t know at all, just that we were going to pick up a few things, and one of them?  STAR WARS.  They’re beyond what she can do right now, but she got so excited and said it’s something she can work for that can’t get taken away. Just…a simple goal.  Something to look forward to.  No student concerts, no one will see, but it’s something she can work toward and reach now.  I thought about the magazined I’d looked at and how wedding goals were smashed.

Without thinking, I told her to look up Galadriel on her phone, and she did, and said she wanted the dress Galadriel wears.  I hadn’t made her anything in a year because…why?  What for?  I decided that, since I still have some of the fabric left over from making one before, and nothing the foreseeable future, why not offer to make it, even if only to do some photos.  Sure, it’ll be a financial bloodbath (something like $400 or yard…ouch), but the fabric is just sitting there, and if it could potentially make her even a little happy…

Folks, she was over the moon.  So over the moon that it seared itself into my head in the way that I can tell you the exact spot of the interstate we were on   Just the prospect of a pretty dress to wear, even in our backyard, lit her up.  A goal that couldn’t get taken away, and then a dress.  It gave her a distraction from the doldrums of daily life, and just…something to look forward to.

I decided then to do what I’d been wanting to do for months now, even though it will undoubtedly make some people try mad and think I’m being an opportunist.  It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  Raise them, and you’re taking advantage if people, lower them, and you’re an opportunist.  What my plan is will probably result in a net loss for me, but eh.

Regardless of what’s happening in the world, we all need reasons to be happy and to have something to look forward to.  (Don’t even start on “but people are dying”–unless you know the extent and severity and length of my medical history, you have less than no room to lecture me on this.  None.)  That’s what helps get is through the rough times, something positive out there in the future to reach for and to pull us through the quagmire.  So I’ll be doing that in the way I know how.  If that makes some people mad, so be it.  For others, it might be the boost needed to look forward with some happiness, and that’s more important than trying to keep some people from getting mad.  More people need to get to feel what Charlotte felt today, and I hope to get to make that happen.

So I’m going to write up the new stuff and get it posted by tomorrow.

Money-matters during a time hard to think about money

I’ve had a few people inquire over the last several days about if my pricing will change a lot since there’s this event later this year or that next year that they’re hoping to still get to attend.  Since I just read something concerning that I knew was likely to happen, but now have confirmation, I’m going to address this here.  Money is never a comfortable topic, but even less so now that the world has been upended.
Many fabric manufacturers have stopped producing fabrics for the time being. I’m not sure who all retailers and wholesalers those manufacturers ship to, though I do know that Gap Inc (owner of Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy) is among them, and I’m not sure yet what that will mean for us here in the future. Right now, I do have a stash to fall back on (thank goodness–I was called obsessed and crazy and all kinds of things by old friends for my stash…well, good thing I didn’t listen), and will be trying to stock up on anything else I can that I anticipate needing to try to prevent having to increase pricing, and to lower some where I reasonably can, effectively a pay cut.
That’s the short answer.  Of course a short answer means there’s a longer, expanded answer as well.

Continue reading “Money-matters during a time hard to think about money”

Important update, and why big companies can’t just pay people

Not my favorite kind of post to make, but I’d have a handful of people ask a question that I feel a need to address.

Will you be offering discounts like a lot of stores are?

No, I won’t, and I really can’t.  Stores are offering deep discounts, often on brand new items that would normally be full price through May, to move inventory they have on hand and can’t return.  Big companies are scrambling to liquidate right now.  Things in the industry are very, very dire right now. The extremity of this can’t be overstated.  Right now, the Fall/Winter 2020 season is very likely to be cancelled altogether.  That is not just talk or an exaggeration.  The fashion shows are cancelled, designers can’t get things produced, and if they could, who is spending money on luxury goods?  And fast fashion won’t make it up when the stores are closed and not many people are buying clothing that has a very small profit margins per piece.

I get some industry publications, and have been following this for the last few weeks, and let’s just say it’s not a matter of of any companies will fold, but rather which ones and when.  Neiman Marcus is in chapter 11 bankruptcy talks.  Nordstrom just has a very wide retail layoff with much of corporate furloughed without pay and the entire board going without pay until September.  When retailers struggle, they can’t order products and return or cancel shipments.  Those supplies in turn have to cancel their own purchases or cancel then with manufacturers, who in turn have to cancel orders with suppliers of various materials, and those suppliers stop making supplies.  This disrupts the whole supply chain, resulting in retailers having to discount stuff to bring in cash.

This also means that getting materials is going to get substantially harder.  I can’t get fabric from my European suppliers right now.  Retailers and wholesalers in the US can only rely on the stock they have on hand, with no real idea of if they can get more anytime soon.  This means I have to rely on my stash, and let’s say it’s substantial.  I’ve had a lot of people tease me and call me crazy and say I’m OCD (I do legitimately have OCD-tendencies, but that’s not what they’re talking about) and obsessed and need mental help (this will be the topic of another post probably later this week) for my tendency to hoard fabrics and notions and various other supplies.  But I was a tech worker in Silicon Valley at the start of the last recession.  I went through a period of not being able to get supplies I needed (Aria Couture was concurrent with working in tech), and having to turn down desperately-needed commissions.  After that, I began to hoard, just in case, and right now, that’s coming in handy.  I can still make many, MANY things, but the catch is I can’t rely on getting more, and when I can, there’s no telling how much the prices will go up.  So what I have is what I have.  When it’s gone, there’s no telling when I’ll be able to get more.*

This leads in to a question I have personally received, but that I’ve seen asked all over the internet.

Why can’t that company just pay people?  They’re a couple hundred million.  They’ve got the money.

Because they can’t pay people in cartons of clothes.  What a company is worth has nothing to do with how much cash they have on hand.  Worth refers to the value of assets, and that includes cash, but also includes their inventory and other items, whether intellectual or physical.  The very name of a company carried value.  Their domain name carries value.  Their unsold inventory carries value (and that value decreases as time goes on).  A clothing company with a value of $100mil might have $10mil in cash, which really doesn’t go as far as it seems it will when you consider the cost of salaries and all the overhead from rent on locations to the electric bills on down to the supplies to clean the floors, with $90mil in clothing that they sell to make the money to continue paying people.  If the economy shuts down, like it is now, their ability to sell is diminished severely, and they can’t move those products.  No products moving means that that cash isn’t going to last long if they continue trying to pay everyone their full salaries, on top of having to continue paying rent on the retail and office locations, and then they’ll have stale inventory if they can even get back up and running.  And no, retailers can’t just open back up.  They need money to be able to pay salaries when they do, and they need that money before they start.  Spend all their cash on hand at the beginning of a recession, and there’ll be none to pay people if they can remain in a position to re-open.  It’s important that they re-open (yes, it’s important for people to have money now as well) so that they can recreate jobs because people need money they as well.

In other words, there’s a whole lot more to it than just writing out paychecks and calling it a day, especially when so much of the value is in something other than liquid cash.

If you see companies deeply discounting things, it’s because they’re trying to offload inventory while they can since some liquid cash is better than none, and they’ll likely use some to pay people a while, but also bank some in hopes of reopening later.  The unfortunate reality is that a lot of them won’t.

Where do I personally stand in all of this?

I’m fortunate.  As of right now, I can skate by.  I don’t have revolving expenses, haven’t hired anyone, have a stash I can fall back upon.  But when this recession is over, how people spend money will inevitably change with a probably emphasis, at least for a while, on sustainable fashion and less on the frivolities I provide. I’m not planning to go anywhere for the foreseeable future. I’ll be staying put.  I acknowledge my privilege that I can do this, but I’m also working on something new that, due to the intellectual nature of it and not wanting a novel idea to be stolen by a larger company that does manage to stick around, I will not be able to get into it very much. I started on patterns for Sarah and Jareth, which will be put aside for the time being.  Hardly seems worthwhile when getting the fabrics for them is so iffy to nearly impossible.  But this new idea I have will, hopefully, actually lead to something that will create jobs for others while not competing with the typical Aria Couture fare.

For some fun, I’m also going to finally go through some of the many thousands of photos from one of my trips to the V&A and start on some analyses, as well as posting photos from the Marvel costume exhibit, and a few other things.  Just because the world is stressed like hell doesn’t mean we can’t try to find some things to enjoy and unwind. I’m also going to start posting more in-progress pics, just completely random shots, just for a little distraction from stress.  I need a bit of relief, and suspect many of you may need it as well.

If there are any questions or concerns or anything, please feel free to contact me.

*Also, I am in the very fortunate position of my husband being with a company that pays enough that his income is what pays our regular bills, and he is in a position that is now vital to the company (there are four people, with him in charge, who were providing support to 525 people, and now there are 475, and they’re now all remote–good luck hiring someone new and trining that person in the ins and outs of the company, remotely, then telling that person to now do the tech and other support without having support….and he’s the only one involved with some security stuff and a few other important projects…basically if he goes, it’s because the company’s folding, and they’re providing some vital server stuff to companies like Walmart, so they’re good).  So I’m in a better position than many.  There are seamstresses right now deeply discounting their services due to being the ones to support their families.  If I were to discount, I could easily compete and likely take away those commissions, and I don’t feel right doing that when I’m okay right now, and so many others aren’t.  A lot of them probably won’t be able to do this much longer, and I want to give them the space to do what they need to do to get by without me trying to fish in the same pond right now.  So I’d rather back up and give them space to try to meet their needs first.

When did the US start using the imperial system (inches, feet, yards, gallons, etc.), and why?

Some trivia for you:

Q: When did the US start using the imperial system (inches, feet, yards, gallons, etc.), and why?

A: Prior to 1965, even the UK was on the…imperial system. The metric system wasn’t even official in the UK until just 54 years ago. The US didn’t change on this. The rest of the world did.

When global trade started becoming more common, there came a desire for a worldwide standard. France proposed the first metric system in 1790, which was met with considerable resistance. Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg were the first to require its used in 1820, and France followed the mandate in 1837. The alternative was the imperial system, which was too closely associated with Britain to be palatable.

In 1875, most industrialized nations, excluding Britain but including the US, signed the Treaty of the Metre. The definition of a metre has changed over time, though, and a lot more recently than most people realized.

Initially, the definition was one-ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the north pole. You might see the problem with this. The earth isn’t entirely spherical. So which ten-millionth? For which starting point? Thanks, France.

In 1983, the definition moved away from geographical distance to using lightwaves. As far as we know, light travels at the same speed, or some such nonsense that will be debunked a few centuries from now, as everything seems to be.

It had been changed in the meantime between 1791, when the first meter was officially set, and 1983, when it was set at its current length, the most recent prior it 1983 being 1960. The 17th Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures now defines a meter as:

The weight of the kilogram has also changed over time, including in the past few months, but I don’t work in weight, making this really irrelevant, though still interesting. Here is a starting point for your own research on this, and how there are three keys kept in separate locations that all must be brought together to access the official kilogram, which is a physical object kept under a series of bell jars, Whoville-style.

Seriously.  It is.  The real one rarely sees the light of day because Science, but this is a replica.  Now off you get to do your own research.

Consider this your  moment.

The devil went down to Portland, he was looking for a soul to steal

He was in a bind ’cause he was way behind.  So he was lookin’ to make a deal.

And whoever lost that deal doomed Vancouver as well.  It is HOT.  Miserably so.  It is after night night and still almost 80 outside. My makeup melted off ages ago. When I got up off the leather couch in my sewing room, it hurt because I was stuck to it. My grandma always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow. I’m not sure which could be blamed for me being glued to my seat so that I had to painfully pull myself off of it. I’m a Californian, and this heat is reminding me of being a kid and cursing the existence of summer.

Hot Aria says bonjour au monde!

Not sticky and icky now, so almost time to resume sewing. Finishing a corset, then a fitter for the Belle bodice, then to redo part of the elevator gown, the part I had finished right before finding new photos.  Because that happened.  Years of no new photos, only low resolution photo with the original white flower, and the flash in the movie, and then there is a new photo.  In the words…word…of John Oliver,