Sleep-away camp crafts get a stylish Gretchen Jones DIY makeover.

I’m a collector of the natural kind. Rarely do I go on a hike, to the beach or park without scavenging up some relic from nature to take home with me to my apartment in Brooklyn. Being environmentally disconnected from grass and trees has made me want to integrate it into my life in new ways, even as accessories.

Today’s DIY was quite literally inspired from the overflowing bounty of driftwood that sprinkles my household’s corners, baskets and shelves. When I bring such findings home with me, I sometimes think to myself- “self, what on earth are you going to do with this once it’s home?”
So today is the day I put some sweet natural scores to good use.  

Being stylish to me has very little to do with how much money you have in your checkbook, and far more to do with the resourcefulness and imaginative ideals one can come up with on their own.
I asked myself how I could translate all these treasures into an earthy, hand crafted and playful version that spoke to my memories of my craft store scores decades ago.< With only a few hours, a few supplies and a very easy to follow set of instructions, you too can create a DIY necklace that makes you yearn for sleepover camp craft rooms and hazy summer days where what might be stuck in your braces had more precedence than how your lipstick clashed with your shoes.

I might not wear friendship bracelets anymore, but trade me something like this and I’ll be your best friend forever!

Supplies

• Fimo Dough in the Colors of your Choice [Available at most Craft Stores]
• Acrylic Paint to Mix/Match Fimo Selection
• Paint Brush
• Driftwood or a Twig/Branch of your liking
• Yarn, String or Fishing Line for Stringing Beads
• Tape
• Scissors

Beads

• Mix & Match Custom Fimo colors by Needing colors together.
• Roll into balls of varying sizes to your liking
• With a toothpick create holes in each bead approx 1/8″ wide for easy threading
• Lay beads on cookie sheet lined with tin foil/wax paper
• Bake at 275 degrees for 15 minutes
• Let cool

Driftwood Art

• Pour out colors for mixing onto plate
• Use paintbrush to mix/match custom color palette to match beads
• With pencil, etch out design onto wood for tracing lines
• Carefully paint in design to your liking (There are no rules. Do what you want.)
• Let air dry

Stringing

• After letting beads cool [while paint on driftwood is drying] start stringing beads
• Choose amount of beaded sway below the piece of driftwood you want and mark
• Mark driftwood back and tape/tack string in place so beads are fixed below.
• Finish beading to desired length
• Tie knot to fix sides for clean finish [**Measure head to make sure necklace can fit over without breaking]
• Voila! One custom summer brights Nature vs. Urban Yoked necklace!

Designer Gretchen Jones is a New York City designer creating under her own eponymous label. Jones was also the winner of Project Runway Season 8.

The post DIY Friendship Necklaces with Gretchen Jones as Camp Counselor appeared first on EcoSalon.

I never thought I would love a classroom, as I usually lean towards learning outside its four walls. Yet a gaggle of fashionably clad students were in attendance recently at Tara St James’ Study NY A/W 11′ show at New York Fashion Week and their schoolmarm need for attention was met by the excited crowd. Here was a presentation that felt different from the other shows I attended. Warm and cozy, I found myself waiting for the next lesson, next look.

James’ music choice sounded like effervescent bubbles popping and set the tone for a collection that was effortlessly organic: Nubby, rich sweaters of every kind made me rethink my desire for warmer days. I wanted to cozy up in the sweater skirt and textured crew right this second.

Blanket Coats that reminded me of Pendleton frocks I coveted throughout my childhood rekindled the beauty of history and heritage and that ever-rising trend towards quality vs. quantity we are seeing.

The jumpsuit made me think of the ski slopes I raced down as a little girl (but were far more stylish, of course).

The collection is extremely wearable, too – easy to approach and even easier to integrate into your wardrobe, but each with a signature Study NY vibe.

The show stopper? A skirt made from 4,000 silk cocoons by CPALI, “a nonprofit that introduces farmers who have been economically displaced from the Makira Protected Area to new ways of earning income that invests them habitat protection while develop their own sustainable enterprises.”

Stunning and inspiring. The fashion forward potential of sustainable fabrics just keeps evolving.

The show ended my NYFW experience, reminding me of just how unique our industry is. You can be anything you want to be in the world of fashion, and you can push yourself in any direction, so long as you commit.

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What is it that makes a designer inspiring?

Why is it that we do not approach sustainability in a way that embraces ecological thoughtfulness of any extent, rather than total prosecution for trying at all?

Gretchen Jones, Sara Didzinski of Better Late Than Never jewelry and Austin Bates, production manager at Pamela Love

I came to New York City as a designer so I could be a part of a strong movement towards good design, not just green design, but design that will last a lifetime based on how and where it’s made and its inherent, timeless style. So on the 5th day of NYFW at Pamela Love’s A/W 2011 collections, all I can feel is pure love for the opportunity to view designers doing their best to inspire – and to be as conscious as they can.

Pamela Love’s presentation took hold of the 8th floor studios in a manner that demanded undivided attention with six white angels for models, gigantic crystals as backdrop (and infused in the jewelry) and ethereal lighting to make us think we were somewhere in the clouds.

I wanted to be those girls.  Wanted to fill my jewelry box with huge cuffs, even bigger necklaces and focus on the centering energy of a quartz crystal.

The post New York Fashion Week With Project Runway’s Gretchen Jones appeared first on EcoSalon.

What is it about a presentation that makes my heart race?
Why is it that I don’t bleed red but thread?

Stumbling into my first New York Fashion Week experience, still in awe of where I now stand, I am realizing my dreams faster than I can acknowledge what it is I’m achieving. My focus this season is in observation and research, adoration and, at times, ecstasy. I aim to get my feet wet, set my eye on the next prize and walk away motivated by the creativity surrounding me enough to take flight towards my own fall presentation.

It’s time to get dressed again (perhaps the first time in a while my outfits don’t stick out), lace up my platform wedges and get my pen and paper ready.

This girl means business.

Richie Rich, fall 11′

I’ve knocked the first few days of NYFW out with a random array of shows.

Last night, Richie Rich’s show was all about trashy chic: Wild hair, bigger make-up, MEGA ‘tude’ and a ridiculous amount of spectacle, but that’s what Rich is known for and we got every bit what we wanted from it.

My good friend and sustainable jewelry designer, Andy Lifschutz, adorned all the models and I have to say his jewelry definitely kicked the looks up a notch and was where my attention stayed.

Richie Rich, fall 11′

John Patrick Organic was a study in  restrained English riding with a hint of tomboy chic. Textures ranged from sheer, hand dyed silks and vegetable tanned leathers to rich hand knit wool.  Slightly youthful, yet ever sophisticated, the collection left me with a longing to read Jane Eyre.

John Patrick Organic, fall 11′

Cropped sweaters, beaded belts, layering pieces in a way I wish all women would, the collection softly whispered in my ear to take it home and wear it right away. I walked away feeling as if sustainable limitations are a thing of the past and a girl like me can make whatever it is she wants thanks to all the options out there. The extra effort to obtain it seems to always be worth it in the end.

John Patrick Organic, fall 11′

Mara Hoffman has been on my covet list for years now with all her hand-dyed silks and inspiration from nature. I sat in line for an hour just to get my 15 minutes of merriment at her presentation, finding myself surrounded in a sea of black clad fashion folk – but this just reminded me how fun it is to stand out dressed all in neutrals. Hoffman’s rich colors, enchanting textiles and braided appliqué were something to behold and I can’t wait for fall when they make it into stores.

As swiftly as they came in, the models were then escorted out.  My moment with the rich red and khaki kaftans and body-con kaleidoscope dresses was over. My pocket book will soon be as empty.

Mara Hoffman, fall 11′

I tried (I swear I did), to run across town to one of my favorite shoe designers ever, Rachel Comey, but high heels, dead phones and taxi lines out the wazoo turned my window of opportunity into nothing more than an empty seat.

By far the show I anticipated most was the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation’s winning presentation of The Lake & Stars.

Those girls have topped my girl crush/style crush pile since teddies came back into my vocabulary. Always a little tongue in cheek, always super chic, Maayan Zilberman and Nikki Decker turned it up and out. Ice blue velvet, sheer nude mesh, Kelly Green and black and white?  Somewhere between form vs. flow and play vs. business, they got the job done. I wanted every piece on the models. Dancing between Italian Neo-Classicism and famed architecture group Superstudio, the collection felt nostalgic and modern all at once. I aim to hang with this tag team and I’ll even let a little campy S&M into my panty drawer if they tell me to.

As my feet ache, brain overloads and personal deadlines weave in between my fashion schedule, I find myself asking why I waited so long to immerse myself in live fashion – and when can I do it again?

The post Week 7: My Designer Life (At NYFW), With Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

It has been a long distance sprint to the finish line. You know when you think a reprieve from the hard work is just around the corner, so you run your hardest thinking the finish line is coming up? Alas, it’s just a mirage and there are more hills to climb.

It has been a very difficult month, but today I woke up before my alarm clock which I haven’t done in weeks. I’m guessing it’s because this past week I actually finished my collection in the tiny home studio I like to call Armageddon (because that’s what it looks like in here). I made the deadline with six hours to spare.

I woke before dawn, packed my collection and hailed a cab into Manhattan. I was filled with fear that perhaps I had made a body of work that wasn’t me and wouldn’t work. Had I forged a new path with blinders on?

But I arrived to smiling faces who were eager to play dress up and cheer me on. The wonderful photographer made me feel like a “real designer.” The Green Beauty Team (of course, I used an ethical girls dream team) was ready to make my vision come to life on a model that was sweet and different than the “MothLove” girls of yesteryear.

Everything about this day was new. I had never worked in an environment with a professional team. It made me feel like Super Woman, but Super Woman after a long battle. At one point I almost cried. The model was dressed, her hair and make up finished. The lighting was ready and music played the anthem of the day. Then my concept came around the corner and looked better than I could have imagined. It was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The new Gretchen Jones appeared.

And just like that it was over. You might think I’d be relieved, yet my to do list seems larger than ever. The next leg of this race involves branding and launching, with a turn-around-time that seems impossible to achieve. But again, impossibilities seem to knock on my door more often than a friend these days.

As I wrap up one project and move onto the next I wonder when it will hit me, just how far I’ve come.

The day after wrapping my shoots I was at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) presentations watching Bliss Lau’s artful show of ballerina dancers entangled in the most incredible leather and chain garments. A designer I’ve admired for so long, right there in front of me, pushing herself the way I hope to. Making me want more, never looking back except to appreciate where I’ve been.

This season I find myself submerged in the scene, rather than looking through the window. Fearing I still don’t speak the language, I have to jump in. This game isn’t for the light at heart.

My dance card is full this week and NYFW beckons me like a moth to a flame. I may be a whole new me, but I’m just learning how to spread my wings.

Image credit: Gretchen Jones

This is the sixth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 6: My Designer Life By Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

The price of fashion, at least the price of being a designer, costs a whole lot more than any dollar sign could ever quantify.

I’m exhausted mentally and physically. My brain cells need to be fully restored. Emotionally, I feel withered away. The last time any friendly interactions were had without that ever-present subconscious awareness of deadlines looming seems so far away.

To be honest, I cannot remember the last time my pace was slowed – perhaps it was as far away as the summer of 2009. Having the opportunity to smell the roses and truly relax, relate and replenish has taken a back seat to ambition, desperation (at times) and timing. Yes, I’m sure you think that with all my opportunities life would be nothing but cheery – but it’s actually the opposite. Added pressure, not enough time, new found stigmas attached to my personality, pressure, exhaustion in the idea realm – shall I go on?

The glamorous facade we all see in magazines and red carpets is truly the smoke in mirrors that barely reflects the realities of playing fashion hard ball. It’s a labor of love, nothing more. No one should work 18 hour days, six days a week while basically playing a risky game of roulette.

Did you know that the average start up cost for developing a single collection is over $30,000?

The estimated funding/backing needed to launch a label is 1.5-2 million, with a solid $250,000 in the bank ready to pay out for first collections – just to develop samples, shoot them and prepare for sales (all this with no guarantee of success). Plus, the time lines for developing and preparing collections are usually at least four months. I’m working on about two months and much less than $30,000. It’s as if the drug is the stress and the high is the finished body of work. It’s never finished until the deadline hits, when you go dark for a second and then pick yourself up by the (hopefully chic) boot straps and prepare to do it all over again.

So I find myself wondering, at the final hour with three garments to finish, two to edit and 23.5 hours to go – is it worth all this stress and sleep deprivation, lost relationships and risk of ending up broke?

Yes. Of course.

The least I can say is that I can’t get enough of it and it has always been that way. Fashion chose me, not the other way around. As I progress as a designer, I’m finding that I would like to refine the approach.

And I hope that in 24, excuse me, no, 23 hours, the cost of everything I’ve put myself through will come to fruition. It’s never good enough, I always wish I could do things better, I always walk away with a million ideas that didn’t get the time to be developed…but that’s what the next collection is for, right?

This completed collection – the one after I show you what I’ve created in a tiny room on the floor – will deliver some free time to embrace where it is I have come from. It will give me a momentary respite so I can take a long walk in the park, be proud and get back up again to try to one up myself next time.

The learning curve is just too fun to ride. I guess I’ll just stay buckled in.

This is the fifth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 5: My Designer Life By Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Take off the blind fold will you. I mean, will I, can I?

Tunnel vision, oh god, I have had such a serious case!

After hours spent alone in the house, after sewing non stop for days (insert Project Runway flashbacks) and after vision skewed physically and mentally, the arduous process of inner struggle took hold. And I found myself wondering – is the role of a designer to tell you what to wear now, or what to wear next?

First and foremost I am a woman. And on a personal level, creation is about asking the question, “What is it that I want to wear, can’t find or what speaks to me personally?” The benefit of being a designer is getting to translate desires into design. I want to make clothes, not costumes. I myself play dress up daily, to self express. Designing the items that lack in a wardrobe, my wardrobe is the approach I take.

What makes a good designer great is their ability to listen to their own creative voice and intuition, rather than the public or mainstream. Translating to you, technically speaking, what it is we want to wear. And for you that means what we want you to be wearing next.

After a mildly terrifying review (to be honest the most “positive-bad” critique of my life), during the midpoint in this season’s sampling, my intuition was confirmed. What I had created and presented throughout past seasons and the viewing of PR, had lost its relevancy within my creative hand. And did not and does not work within the context of the direction my work (and self) is taking. Which begs the question – are designers dictators or fortune tellers?

Perhaps a little bit of both.

If you liked what it is that I have created, if you want what I was feeding you a year ago, even six weeks ago, why wouldn’t that be my focus, the next idea? The beauty of this industry is that it works with the way I create. The second I am finished with a concept, I move on. Not holding onto what it is that I have created, but what it is I will create next. Fashion design enables constant dialogue. Communicating in a manner that translates the context or chapter last lived and exposed to, while looking onto the next horizon. Anna Wintour once said “Fashion is not about looking back, it’s about looking forward.”

Agreed.

As I left my critique this past week, with three out of nine designs safe, two in critical care and a few left for the morgue, I thought to myself – what is it that I wasn’t listening to or seeing? My intuition, that’s what.

I am where I am today because I stay convicted. I trust in the direction I am taking because I must. The best part about fashion is that it is objective. If the direction doesn’t suit you, if it doesn’t look like the road you were on with me last season, you can hop off. Or you can trust that your future may just come in a different shade of Gretchen.

For now, eight days left, eight garments remaining.

This is the fourth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 4: My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Ugh.

I’ve hit a wall. I hate everything I’m making. I have no energy or love for what it is I am creating and I feel like I’ve stepped down a path I’m not sure I am in love with.

I hope that this is a perpetual feeling all designers feel. My fingers are crossed.

As I face unchangeable choices, decisive distinctions in the aesthetics of this new collection, I doubt my talent. I doubt the color pallette, the concept, the conceived silhouettes.

I’m frightened and the truth is, designers do not like to express such fear, the dark side of a glamorous world meant only to entice, not to share our insecurities with you. The truth is, I’m an artist and I am frightened. So much anticipation and interest in what I do next is making me totally freak out!

I have been given very little time to pull it together and I push to create work that inspires, yet pays homage to the work I’ve done in the last year, to give the garments people seem to have connected to a chance. Yet, from a creative point of view, it’s like painting with colors you mixed from a series past. I am not inspired to be re-hashing old concepts, I’m just not, but I feel drawn to giving them the chance to be loved and worn in a way I think they deserve. Double ugh.

The company I keep right now is solely the pattern paper on my floor (still cutting on hard wood floors as I was pre-Project Runway win) and it is begging me for more time. I am faced with the focus on refinement. On doing the best version of ideas I’ve already had. Once again the reality of design, rather than art hits me. I am creating for you, not me – or at least to some extent. Many of the pieces I am designing are in some sort of way retrospective, re-worked garments that you connected to but that I have just fallen out of love with. A “lovers quarrel” so to speak, but one within myself. I think for better or worse, that’s a sign of a good designer. Moving on the second they grow.

Perhaps it’s time for me to stop working on the elements within this collection that reflect on past works, and move onto the pieces that will challenge me, challenge you to think outside the box of what you think of as “Gretchen Jones.” It’s time to think architectural elements, not “Lady Of The Canyon,” or better yet, how I can meld the two.

I can do it, I am doing it – its just hard to do it alone. We artists [we designers], need our cheering sections. Especially coming off of a year/experience that so harshly critiqued not only my every stitch, but character. If I am to fail, I say fail hard. Blow it all at the craps table – I may just win big.

What a blessing it is to be troubled with issues such as these. Fifteen days and counting til the finish of a collection I hope to die for. Sleep and restful thoughts are just a glimmer on the horizon.

This is the third piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 3: My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Time stand still, please, could you?

That damn designer dilemma is here again with the always impending deadlines. And now with a trip to Costa Rica, I must learn how to accept it, how to use it and more importantly, how to embrace a break without letting go of momentum.

In Costa Rica, I wake to rose petal waves gently unfolding on the velvet shores and at the same time think how I could have left my life in this state of ground break? Construction just starting on a collection I can barely break from my breast yet had to. I needed to not only walk away from the studio in order to stop coddling it, but to these moments of sheer bliss before my entire life changes with the new collection.

I also needed to take off my rose colored glasses and settle into a new pair, ones that are the dark shade of inspiration.
My Costa Rican “quickie” couldn’t have come any sooner.

While there noticing the dark, heavy, glittering sand layered with lighter (in weight and color) tan powder, like two universal matters filtering through a flour sifter – yet somehow perpetually linked hand in hand. Coral matter flecked along the shore line like burnt umber freckles dancing atop the tan bosom of the sea. Sunsets so vivid and rich that the equator seemingly swallowed them whole, I let go of some worry while watching them be consumed. I left some of myself down there.

Walking off the plane back into the brisk east coast air, I feel baptized by the book of travel. I resolve to do it again soon. The creative spirit needs that. It needs new lenses and appreciation for other ways of life, as that is how we translate our character into the concept. Ethnic interpretations and texture from far away ground you, ground your designs, give you perspective, and a new way of speaking your own truth.

My bible is made of silks and wools this season which will envelop those restful nights like the warm winter blanket of work ethic. Back to the drawing board and sewing machine for me.

This is the second piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 2: My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Craft. Tradition. Skill. Sustained aesthetics.

As I find myself forever linked to native influences, I tend to think about the skill it takes to make things, well, well-made.

Time, action, finesse and a little bit of human mistake, too. It’s what makes a piece feel special – it’s the soul that is inevitably left by the maker. In some Native American crafts, mistakes are made intentionally, as it is believed the only one(s) who can be a perfectionist is the divine. I like that. I like being able to sense a person’s hand in what I am purchasing. It’s what makes it special, and in turn, worth the investment.

And as I find myself ever more connected to my trade skill and hands-on learning approach – I’m self-educated and apprenticed in many areas of handcraft – I am reminded of the wonderful quote:

“And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.”
– Wole Soyinka

I like the school of life, rather than the classroom.

This week’s imagery is pulled from areas within my own studio and soon-to-be launched new collection, but also many images that have formed my “signature” as a designer. I hope as you look at it, you can see past the label – and into the soul that feeds it.

This is the first in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.