About the Designer
I curse.
OK. I curse a lot.
As a parent, I’ll rate that as not so bueno. As a clothing designer … well, I’ll rate it as an occupational hazard.
A designer’s inspiration comes from a myriad of different things … stargazing, a favorite book, the rhythmic roll of the word “habadashery.” As a mother, my inspiration sometimes just stems from the frustration of not being able to find my son the perfect shirt to go with those awesome little sandals I bought him the other week. So I said to heck with it. I’ll make him a shirt. (hello, Moonfly!)
There are a ton of things in this world that make me giggle like a gal with five grand in a Manolo Blahnik boutique, but my soul is happiest in those moments that slip quietly between waking and sleep.
Wait.
Who am I kidding? I don’t sleep. I’m a mother with a child under two. My nights have been replaced by various installments of “Nighttime With Nicholas,” (the latest episode being “How to Poo In Your Jammies All the Way Up To Your Neck ” and, my personal favorite, “Let’s Listen (again) to the Lullaby CD that Skips and Hisses Like Something Possessed”). My husband accuses me on occasion of thinking myself awake. I have no idea what he means. There is no way possible for me to “think” myself awake with a toddler who has mastered the task on my behalf (insert child screaming at 3 a.m. HERE). Thus, as I wile-away the hours with Nick in my arms at o’ dark-thirty at night, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s an opportune time to get some thinking/designing done. And it beats vacuuming.
Come to think of it, I broke a vacuum about a year ago. OK, I didn’t personally break the vacuum, but the lamp that fell on it broke it. My son, Nick, pushed the lamp off the table, and after seeing at the shattered pieces on the floor, dropped the S-bomb as one of his first words. Dare I say I was unabashedly proud? (Oh, the timing, the enunciation, the perfect context of it…!)He reminds me as a designer that color in life comes from a variety of influences, not merely what the eyes perceive.
