High fashion meets the road in Cherokee Bespoke

Click to enlarge

• PHOTO KELLY Glueck
• Dorothy Jones put a dress.

As Victoria Cates moved to St. Louis to New York last year, his plan to launch a fashion company was her embroidery skills - his first great adventure.

In the process, Cates, 30, met Dorothy Jones, owner of Bespoke, a clothing store than at the corner of Ohio and Cherokee. Jones, 60, was on the journey of his life in a different phase. After more than 30 years to travel from one ocean to another, costume shops on Broadway bouncing and their own business decisions had manage corset in San Francisco and Rhode Iceland, Jones and her husband moved Nevelow Marcos in St. Louis opened in 2005 in the past November was the business, he said, his last great adventure.

For Jones, as represented a real creative opportunity, after years of models from other manufacturers. Each garment is customized for each customer - something that is only true for the most expensive sewing normally.

"I on new own clothes to make began because the corsets were boring. Ultimately, it is the same thing over and over again," he said. "Could for a sample to make a prototype, to calculate the cost of the pattern, go to a factory, the service is not really here, and only accidentally landed here with her. I realized that I prefer it even to do. "

In pursuit of this dream, in 2014, Jones and Nevelow acquired space for the tent over the Cherokee. The couple spent a year and a renewal of half of the building. (They were, say Nevelow to "completely and totally crazy" take.) But despite having full of dead pigeons cellar starts and a hole through the roof, as now has the charm and character one by one expect niche business artsiest in the district of City.

It looks like a luxury boutique, but in the front. suspend Furthermore Jones finished workshop, where everything is still in progress. The space will be consumed by four long tables, all crammed with sheets, rules, and sewing thread spools. long fabric rolls from the sample along the walls as well as collages of fashion magazine clippings hanging. semi-finished garments are put in sporadically placed in the workshop the seamstress. It is in this space where Jones and two other workers hand sewing to your customers are affordable and adaptable.

See also: A look inward as

If the customer into the store, you can learn about available basic shapes and patterns, you can in sizes up to 20 "Bespoke the world there are around people who do not have the ability in a business to go and buy something fits and looks good. very few people are fit model size, "Jones said. No matter what size you wear, it focuses so it deserves.

Once customers see something they want, they can be adjusted to the desired setting. But unlike a normal game, the customer can take the role of the designer: the addition of a collar, sleeves would like cutout.

"We are not designers. We are engineers. We are good options, and our customers are designers," Nevelow said. "In some ways it's like the opposite fashion. The fashion industry people who dream of what you should use and which are not."

Click to enlarge

• PHOTO KELLY Glueck
• Victoria Cates

It was opened not long after Jones and Nevelow Cates in November 2015 time looking for a job. I was to assist in search of something, determine its place in the fashion industry. In New York he made beads for a company to make sewing.

"To work through the process for them, I began to love hand embroidery," Cates said. "I think I'll be a designer in a job in a company at the end is and the type of design [computer aided design] and could not bear the thought."

After Cates his sister and a friend who travels to San Luis helped to start his own business, he was inspired to stay. "There is so much creative energy here and it's not what I thought," he said. "The people I met were so encouraging and spirit could be brought open to new things here, and I had the feeling that's exactly where I need to be straight."

Cates met when Jones, the connection was immediate. "It's like you just mainly Geeked" Cates said. "We have the same interests and values on the way."

In Cates, Jones saw a talent that reminds him of his job at costume shops in New York. Is the kind of profession you can not find in the United States, Jones said. "She walks in the door with this capability, this miraculous ability that can not see, and I'm like," I do not care what happens, we will find a way to cooperate. "

This feeling has become a fashion line for women who want to give out the event during a show at Bespoke April 29 is Amare Elementorum called, and the issue is a cabinet of curiosities. This will be an informal reception with wine, cookies and a playlist for the festive atmosphere.

The collection is a mix of styles for women: high-end has both evening and just a hint of color embellished linen tunics for embroidery Cates. Dresses, separates, and even a combination of the mixture are part.

All rooms feature an embroidered piece by its thematic vibrating rods sea snails inspired a formation of coral reefs and all other creatures Jones and Cates always imagine in the deep ocean.

• PHOTO EMILY Higginbotham
• Jones works formed with complicated, beading coral reefs as Cate in a silk dress Dupioni.

On a recent morning at the store for the show dressed, covered in a dummy, put in its unfinished state. The dress is made of rich silk, red Dupioni sources of Jones from a factory in India. The neckline sleeveless dress cuts diagonally across the chest, and the diagonal movement repeatedly in the stomach again, where it is folded three times. The pleats are fastened with pearl buttons, of any kind and to look with colorful beads and the order such as coral reefs. The buttons occupy parts of the dress that makes the part design embroidery dress. It's a beautiful piece.

Cates called her fashion show with no clue. At the exhibition, the pieces are displayed on mannequins, reinforces the idea that this kind of fashion is not only for stick thin models.

The idea is, the extent to show what they could do for the customer, then lower the tone and portable of. loupes will be on hand, so that customers can get a complex view of beading even closer.

Cooperation between Jones and Cates is underway. Both want to spend the rest of his adventures to do something unique in its kind for every customer who walks through the door.

"People forget that the clothes can be very valuable, because it has become a commodity. It is an object from the box as it is, and has been made for them out there," Jones said. "But you put into your body and that reflects who you are, and people make judgments about you on what it is. In fact, it is a very intimate part of you and a great way to something to bring expression, if you can get something that is yours. is not difficult, but people have forgotten that they can do. "

And from an unlikely place smackdab in the middle of flyover country, the two designers have a beautifully embroidered argument that can do everything.

"I love St. Louis. It is a city so easy to take a chance. It's the best thing about it, because it does not take especially the ribs on the back," Jones said. "You can work here and economically is a welcoming community.

"If you have a strange idea, they're like, 'Really? Can we come and sit next to you? Can we do it with you? We have 11 years here, but it is now clear that we have this animal, is the where we are going to be. "

See also: A look inward as