So much new stuff!

I just spent the most amazing Monday afternoon in Laurelhurst Park with my buddies Lisa, Aidan and Zerrin. We laid on a giant green cloth, ate veggie platter and salami, and decided it might be cool to do a photoshoot. Here’s what we came up with. ALL of these pieces are available at paperdollfashion.etsy.com!

EXPLODE INTO COLORS….the shirt

Well we’re back from SXSW over in warm Austin Texas.  My musical group Explode Into Colors made a little tour down there and played a bunch of really fun shows.   Also,  we have some great shirts for sale!  You can email me directly or the band: explodingcolor@gmail.com if you’re interested!  I can’t wait for the heat to come to Portland.  SUN SUN SUN.

XOXO
Heather

oh, and we have a blog: explodeintocolors.blogspot.com where we share our adventures.

Love is in the Air!

Recently I got an order from Missy for a See You at the Opening turtle neck. It was a rush job to be finished by an earlier date because Missy was going to be wearing it for her ariel dance performance. How awesome right?! I mean, what fashion designer wouldn’t be stoked to know her piece was going to be flying around in the air admired by onlookers while it’s wear-er would be contorting and gliding on a piece of silk? Well, I was sure happy to receive the links to the video of the performance as well as high quality pics of Missy wearing her new top. Check out the shoes! Limited edition John Fluevogs…

Mad props to Missy for supporting independent fashion and sending photos of herself wearing it!

check out her creations at:

sugarcookie.etsy.com

Custom is the new black.

Paperdoll Fashion is now accepting custom orders! Turn your dream hoodie, top, skirt, dress, jacket, sweater, leggings, cloak into a reality by emailing me your ideas. Let’s work together to build your ideal outfit! My rates are pretty reasonable, custom hoodies range between $100 and $250.

contact me at: heather.treadway@gmail.com

p.s. I also do gift certificates, ask me about them!

Check out these happy campers in their custom made matching Paperdoll Fashion wedding hoodies:

Mirah in a custom Paperdoll Fashion hooded top sold on Etsy.

Triangulator

Guys, you too can wear Paperdoll Fashion. These lovely woven jerseys are available at:

Arkay Workshop -San Francisco

Zebra Club – Seattle

Olio United – Portland

Foundation Garments Inc. – Portland

Sword + Fern – Portland

Buyolympia.com – Online

Or if you prefer something a little more exciting, check out this number worn by Christopher of Hooliganship:

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and my crew about making a sweet custom garment for you!

XOX Happy Winter,

Heather

Portland Fashion and Jewelry Event!

Guys, there’s going to be a holiday sale extravaganza happening on December 13th.  I’d love to see some friendly faces!  If you can, come out and share in the festivities!

POOL was awesome.

Hey guys! Well, the Fashion Fight Club is back from Vegas unscathed and unbroken.  We had a blast actually. I was interviewed by a Japanese fashion newspaper and a couple of fashion blogs, like this one from M.I.S.S. Also, I’ll be featured in the next edition of Campus 101 as well.  People were really into the Paperdoll Fashion technology used to create sweet clothes.  Weaving, quilting, and futuristic fabrics, it’s what we do here at P.D.F.

Here are some photos to document our time at POOL. Enjoy!

This first one’s what my booth looked like the first day of setting up…pretty sparse, but filled with potential.

Here’s Kenya’s booth. She and Seth are busy getting their stuff together. She was so lucky to have such a good helper!

Over here we’ve got Layer’s Squared…

And the lovely Reif.

Chelsea’s Erhart was a hit! She sold like…50,000 pieces to Japanese buyers! Really!

Here’s us having some fun…

Isaac: Antic

I think he’s wearing an American Apparel top…or at least trying to.

Chelsea: Erhart

woah…

Kenya & Seth: sky&boat

Heather’s booth: Paperdoll Fashion

The view from our little Portland section!

So, I didn’t do any of the Vegas-y things you’re supposed to do when your in the glittery city. But it was definitely interesting. The weather was amazing desert weather, about 105 degrees the whole time, warm nights, and beautiful sunsets. The sounds were different too, lots of chirping cicadas! We were lucky enough to get to stay in an amazing condo thanks to Mr. Spiegel (Kenya’s pop). I think I will do POOL again. It was challenging and worth it. I even saw Jared Leto! He liked my white and suede batwing. Ahh…what a cutie.

Well, until next time. Stay true and thank you for supporting independent fashion!

xoxo

Heather

POOL

What does Vegas have to do with fashion?  I’ll tell you.  The POOL Tradeshow!  That has a lot to do with fashion, and is totally involved with Las Vegas Nevada.  How?  Well, Las Vegas is home to many a tradeshow.  For some reason, people love to go there to buy and sell in huge groups at the convention center.  It’s real hot in August, but that’s when this one is scheduled to take place.  It takes place twice a year, once in late August, and again in February.  It’s POOL guys!

So, this  year I have decided to take the plunge.  I bought my ticket and I’m not returning it.  Luckily I’ve got an amazing posse of fellow designers coming with me.  My Fashion Fight Clubbers are coming along and I am so stoked.  We’re borrowing a huge van for 3 of us to ride down in, the others are flying.  Smart.  But boring right?  I’m excited about the idea of a fashion oriented road trip!  We’ll have tons of clothes, hangers, banners, signs, cards, billboards, flags, bags, and computers all piled up in the there to use over that hot late-August weekend.  In honor of our Portland environmentalist spirit, we will be located in the Eco section of Pool.  Most of us use organic fabrics or end-run materials (end-run means when the fabric is being discontinued and therefore basically must be bought up or it will be thrown out) and all of us manufacture in the States.  Some of us even manufacture by ourselves.

They call it POOL, maybe because they want to create an oasis of fashion.  Maybe because it sounds like the place you want to go when it’s hot.  Maybe because it rhymes with cool.  Who knows!?

I hope to see you in Vegas August 25-27.  I’ll be there in my huge 8′X8′ booth, drinking emergen-c and sneaking in some yoga moves when nobody’s looking.

BOMB SUMMER! Paper Doll Fashion 2008

Let the magic commence…

These are available for sale at: www.paperdollfashion.etsy.com and some items are coming soon to Olio United in Portland Oregon.

Fashion Fight Club!

Bring on tha noise what?!? A fashion fight club here in Portland “PDX” Oregon? WERD! Go over to our blog and check us out! We’re a collective of local Portland fashion designers who share our strengths, ideas, goals, and friendship over coffee every couple of weeks. From these meetings spawn delicious ideas for events ie. Renting the biodiesel bus to take down to the Pool Trade Show in Vegas, planning a sewing party to make clothes for the Junk to Funk fashion show, and organizing underground warehouse trunkshows! It all started when Kenya got to thinking “what if all the independent fashion designers pooled together instead of stayed in their own little mini-ponds…wouldn’t that only make us stronger?” And she was right! We’re about 8 people strong right now, and growing.

I am so pumped! If you want to know what happens during our meetings, and what be brewing in our creative minds, please go and check out our blog. www.fashionfightclub.blogspot.com!

Some of our contributors include:

Sky&Boat

Erhart

Filly

Reif

Layers Squared

Foyer Clothing

Failure of Industry

There are links to all of these great designers at the blog. You can also recognize us at

myspace.com/fashionfightclubpdx

Living

Monday was memorial day. This year memorial day actually meant something personal to me. I have spent all other memorial days in quasi observance until this Monday, the 26th of May 2008. It’s the day my cat died. Now, don’t get the wrong idea here. I’m not going to dwell on death in this blog, believe me when I say that yes, I have thought a bunch about death the last couple of days, and yes it’s hard, and yes I’m in pain. But YES also, that death and cats and hard experiences deepen us and make us more aware of life. My friend Lindsay came by on Tuesday to share a bottle of Molly’s (imitation Bailey’s Irish Cream) and talk about the good times with Le Chat. We called her Chignon, pronounced SHEEN-YO(N). She was the BEST BEST BEST thing ever. Just a bundle of joy I tell you. I never understood how the power an animal’s spirit and personality could affect me. She was like a person. And yes, some of you reading this might be like “duh of course animals have personalities” but hers was the first to really strike me. Plus she was mine. I mean, I guess I’ve known other animals and seen how they’re different from others, and gotten a sense of what they’re like. But this little animal was with me. It was like she was my child. This is all new to me see… I had a cat growing up, for a few years between the ages of 12 and 16 I think. But my mother put her down when she didn’t stop peeing and tearing up the furniture. It was TERRIBLE. I was so angry at her for doing it, but really guys who wants a cat that no matter how much treatment, therapy, love, guidance etc. you gave it, just wouldn’t stop thrashing your home and attacking any child that came into the house. She was a HELL CAT. Seriously, plus, and now I’m not being biased here, really she wasn’t very cute. She was a child of nature, yes, she was a special creature here on Earth, but she wasn’t what I’d call “pretty”. So she had two strikes against her the poor thing. Ugly, and socially inept. Her name was Sydney. Mom tried to pawn her off on one of her friends who lived on a farm. We thought Sydney would have a good life out there, with other animals, breathing country air, living the leisurely country life. But it didn’t really work out like we’d planned. She ended up hiding in a tree stump for a few days, not coming in to eat, not leaving the stump at all. The friend brought her back. She kept peeing, she kept scratching, she kept hissing at children. Mom put her on a permanent small dose of valium to keep her peaceful. One time she gave her too big of a dosage and Sydney lost the use of her back legs for a day. We were at a loss. The vet eventually told us “Sydney isn’t going to stop thrashing your home” She was taken away from her cat mother too soon supposedly and hadn’t formed any social behavioral skillz. What a shame! Poor kitty. Jeez, what a wretched ending to a pretty rough life. Well, that was my only other cat. Sydney. I lived on and off with other cats throughout my adult life…a favorite is named Kai:

Aka baby kai kai – he is a hunter. He was a spirit guide to those of us in that house. He had a psychic connection with his loving roommate Warren. Kai was like Valcor from The Never Ending Story. Remember that guy? The big white furry dragon who carried Etrayu off into the night. This shot taken here was an extremely rare moment of loving peace on Kai’s face. Usually he was stalking around, stealthy, focused, and in tune. Not one to lose himself to mindless pleasant abandon – what a ninja. I guess this was my first experience with a socially adept, “awesome” cat. Besides Lara’s cat growing up… Oden. He is still alive and probably the best cat in the world…after Chignon. I lived with some other cats, one of whom has recently passed who was endearingly named Pookers. She was a bitch. I’ll say it, she was mean, and rightfully so. She kept her guard up ’cause Pookers didn’t take any shit from anybody. She was a feminist too. And she was kind of crotchedy. An old lady feminist semi-aggressive bombshell. What a babe. I don’t have any photos of her, but she was brown/gray with black tiger markings and big greenish eyes. You would pet her on your lap, and she’d be purring and loving it, then suddenly without ANY warning (still be purring) she’d bite down hard on your finger. Then she’d quietly growwwwwwllllll until you managed to get her fat butt off your lap. Then she’d stalk away, like “hey buddy, what’s YOUR problem?” I like cats that have personality. That have a bit of a mean streak. The pushovers aren’t as fun. Maybe that’s from years of training with Sydney. If your cat is going to be agreeable 24/7 may as well get a dog. They’re even MORE fun! YAY! I was always a dog person. I always thought I was a dog person. Until I met Chignon. She changed my world. She made it okay to be a brat. She was so perfectly content to just play with her feather toy, and then when I’d stop, meow at me for more, and meow, and meow, and jump on my fabrics, and meow and drink out of MY personal water cup until ……”OKAY! GOOOODDD I’ll play with you Chignon hold on!”. Then she’d be happy and content and just play and play. Then, when the time was right, she’d curl up and sleep like an angel from heaven. Seriously, like an ANGEL UP IN HEAVEN with the cherubiest expression on her perfect face until it was time to get up and eat some din. What a charmer. She walked like an elephant. Melanie and I were just saying how we should have called her Elephante, but in French so AY-LAY-FONT. She thundered around that house, THUD….THUD….THUD…”chignon!!” THUD THUDTHUDTHUD run run run…..jump! Onto the bed. Jeez, I am going to miss that missy. I never knew how much I could love a furry beast.

So the day Chignon died was a sad day, and so was the day after, and today, which is 2 days after. It will be sad. Losing a beautiful loving smart and feisty friend is always hard. Even a kind of good-looking, mediocre friend is sad to lose. But a cat that you loved with your whole heart, who taught you how to love unconditionally, who dies suddenly and unexpected, now that’s a big loss. Hmm….

Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, Lindsay came over with that bottle of Molly’s and a Martha Stewart’s Living magazine. Inside the magazine is an article about a family of women who make beautiful shell art. This art is incredible.

Is that Rachel Nederveld in the top lefthand corner?

I wish this photo was larger so you could see all the amazing detail in these pieces. It’s very inspiring. Just think about 10 middle-aged fingers guided by years of experience and imagination gluing shell after tiny hand painted shell onto a canvas. Creating scenes of valiant horses, birds, flowers, ships, people, and landscapes. Thank goodness these ladies are out there doing there craft, and getting recognition for their work. Unsung heroes, well a little sung. Martha sang them.

So today, as I was bundling myself up to go out into the world. I walked past my coffee table on the way out of the front door and noticed this big word that just said “LIVING”. I stopped and had a flash of hope. This feeling filled me. It was an affirmation. It’s been so hard these past few days to remember to live. REALLY live. And guys, look at Martha Stewart. This bourgie white collar criminal all painted up and smiling. She says “FUCK yeah, I’m living. I’m gonna do a whole lot more living too. Right or wrong, good or bad, legal or illegal. I’m gonna have a good time”. That’s what her face is telling me in this photo. This photo under the caption “LIVING”. That’s all we can do anyways, just live to the fullest, despite the bad things that may come our way. The losses, the fights, the imprisonment. Whatever brings you down.

Until next time, remember to LIVE, to use your fingers, and to play with your cats.

-Heather