When a photo shoot goes smoothly, you can be sure it’s because hours and hours of work went into preparing for it beforehand, long before anyone showed up on set.
When we arrived at the studio for the Lisette shoot for our inaugural collection, we had spent days and weeks selecting the fabric and colors, the shoes and other accessories, and the model (as well as deciding on her hair and makeup). But if you think we had a lot of decisions to make, consider the people from Simplicity who were shooting their entire spring pattern collection that week.
When we arrived at the studio, they were very welcoming, and they already had everything set up for us. Here’s a little tour of the shoot.
Here are some samples and accessories, laid out and ready.
This is the hair and makeup station, complete with a very capable and talented stylist who understood the look we wanted for the first Lisette shoot.
The shoot stylist had gathered all sort of materials and had posted tearsheets and trends just outside of the changing room.
We had tables and tables full of shoes, just in case the ones we had selected didn’t work out.
By this point all the hard work had been done. Now it was time for the fun part!
So there’s your sneak peak of the four styles included in the Spring 2011 Lisette collection. Over the next few days, I’ll be previewing each of the outfits we shot that day.
There must be a genetic wanderlust in my family.
My scientist-professor father travels constantly for his work. He goes to Antarctica for six weeks almost every year. (He’s even had a mountain named after him there.) After the fall of the communist government, he spent a year living in Albania, working with the new government to establish a watershed. And he regularly makes trips to do research in South America, Europe, China, and the Arctic circle.
A bit closer to home, my sister and her husband recently purchased a vintage Airstream trailer in which they hope to spend their summers moving around the country. And before the birth of our daughter and the launch of our company, my husband and I regularly traveled all over the world for business and pleasure.
So it seemed natural that the story behind my new Lisette brand would be based on travel and people with an adventurous spirit. The idea of an Adventurous Spirit, actually, is so important to the mood I wanted to convey with this line that I’ve used that name for our first collection of sewing patterns and coordinating fabrics.
With the direction my life has taken in the last five years, I don’t get to do as much travel as I would like. But I’m fortunate to live in New York City, where I can interact regularly with people and styles from many different cultures. Here I can be collect the same global influences as my fictional Lisette without having to rack up the same number of air miles as she does.
Here is a little inspiration book I put together more than a year ago, when the idea for Lisette first came to me. The book is a scrapbook full of photos, sketches, and notes that I assembled and presented to our business partners when we first started talking about the Lisette concept.
In addition to helping me tell the story behind Lisette, it also contributed to the final look of the Lisette brand. Each pattern envelope is designed to look like a page from a scrapbook in which a designer (my friend Lisette, perhaps?) has assembled photos, sketches, and swatches of fabric as she works out her ideas and makes her selections.
I hope you’ll be inspired by Lisette and will, in turn, create clothing that you love using our patterns and fabrics by making them fit your own look and lifestyle. I can’t wait to see what you sew!
Welcome to Lisette, the newest brand of sewing patterns and fabric designed by Liesl + Co.
I launched the company’s first brand, Oliver + S, in 2008. During their first year in the market, these sewing patterns for children’s clothing developed a reputation and a following for their contemporary take on timeless classic styles, their clear and detailed sewing instructions, their unique and interesting dressmaking details, and their accurate fit.
Since launching Oliver + S, we’ve heard from innumerable enthusiastic seamstresses around the world who love our patterns, and their most frequent request has been, “I want that pattern in my size!” Lisette is our answer to that request.
To that end, we’ve partnered with the worldwide powerhouse Simplicity Creative Group to bring you exactly what you’ve been asking for: wearable and appealing contemporary styles for women with clear sewing instructions and a timeless appeal.
These are the patterns I hope you’ll return to over and over again. Depending on your choice of fabric, these styles are as appropriate for dressy or business occasions as they are for taking the dog for a walk or the kids to the playground. I hope that you’ll get lots of use out of them and will be inspired to make them in a variety of ways.
So where did the name Lisette come from? Lisette was my class name when I started taking French in high school.
In some ways I think Lisette is my alter-ego. When I design, I like to tell myself little stories, and the story behind Lisette is that Lisette is an interesting woman who travels the world (while I’m here in New York, working away) gathering inspiration everywhere she goes.
She’s sketching and taking photos of everything she sees. Italian millefiori, Moroccan and Turkish tiles, Indian saris, Scandinavian furniture, Persian rugs, and Chinese pottery all catch her eye and inspire her. When she returns home, she takes all the items she’s seen in her travels and filters them through her own imagination to create fabrics and clothing that she incorporates into her life.
That idea has inspired me to create this new line of sewing patterns and fabric for you. I hope you’ll find these new products inspiring as well.
Newer posts →
