Photo by Jennifer Harvey, model Olivia Cadwell

When designing clothes it is actually kind of hard to decide when to release pictures of certain items. Questions like, “what if someone steals my ideas?” go through your mind and doubts like, “what if people do not like these things?”, creep in. My advice, “get over it.” There will always be someone out there ready to steal your ideas and there will always be someone out there who is not going to like what you make. The other sides of those coins are that there will always be someone ready to put good money down for items they truly want as well as people who really like and praise your designs.

Original design and concept by me, Kirsten Longly

In this spirit of promotion here is a design of mine that I am trying to decide whether or not to take to Portland Fashion Week. This is actually a hard decision to make because I can only take 15 for the runway. I will probably take all 30 designs and change my mind a half dozen times but I thought I would put a few out in the aether to see what people like.

Photo by Jennifer Harvey

This beautiful piece originated because my mom and I decided to get into jewelry making and made Christmas presents one year for all the nieces and aunts. We ran across this really neat little way of doing bead crochet with jewelry wire and crystals. This of course started the idea percolating in my head of how to achieve yardage in bead crochet to do what I wanted it too on the body. I should probably mention that I cannot crochet to save my life, nor can I knit or do cross-stitch. Anything to do with counting stitches throws me off and it ends up with holes or looks like a mess that the cats got a-hold of. I ended up finding a very talented jewelry artist here in Spokane by the name of Roberta Hay. She has an ETSY site called
Single Chain Bouquet.

Photo by Jennifer Harvey

Moving on, this design is not the original but came about because I already had another design drawn and then I met this woman named Dannica. I knew the first time I saw her what I wanted to design for her to wear. It would accentuate all her curves and show off what a beautiful woman she is. The dress started of course with a fabric that I had in my stash of fabrics that took me forever to figure out what it was. I am still not quit sure I have the fabric identity right but I am sure it contains silk plus an acetate or nylon, which is usually something I can not stand working with but this fabric is so different in its make up that it was not like working with nylons or acetates at all. It is a sheer but unlike anything I have ever run across and is a beautiful color of peachy-pink. It is not a salmon and it is not a true pink either but somewhere in between. I lined it with the same color in a rayon because rayon is naturally static free and these things must be considered before making anything. If it does not wear well then why bother buying it?

Photo by Jennifer Harvey

The original beads ordered turned out to be the wrong color, I will tell that story later, so Roberta and I had to go find a matching color of Swarovsky crystal. Turned out that we found one at Rings & Things right here in Spokane WA. The color is called Papradasha, sounds exotic does not it? So the dress is called the Papradasha Dannica to differentiate between the others and there are more, you just do not get to see them yet.  It took a little while to work out the kinks in the design but I finally made it to where I can remove the fabric from the jewels in order to launder it. It is in fact machine washable but should probably be dry cleaned by the average wearer to avoid any accidental washing in the wrong temperature or settings. This dress is also a one of a kind. I cannot find any more fabric like the exterior.  If anyone sees it let me know, I want it!  I can however repeat the design itself in other materials and colors.  As the days and weeks continue there will be more postings of the other designs to show the varying ideas. I hope you like these pieces as much as I enjoyed making them. If you want to see others please check my web page at KirstenLonglyDesigns or follow me on Facebook.

Photo by Jennifer Harvey