On Vacation

To celebrate the arrival of summer, we’re taking three whole glorious weeks of vacation!

We’ll have access to email and internet, but as Lisette is fond of saying, too much internet on vacation sort of defeats the purpose of going…

That said, we will try to check in with you all from time to time, and we do have some scheduled posts planned for you all; that way you can have new and interesting things to look at even when we’re not around!

We’ll be back in the sewing studio in early July, ready to finish all the custom work and start in on the Fall line (yes, we’re already planning it!).

Until then,

Melinda, Melody, Samantha, Kirsten, Lisette and Sophia

Two bits of gorgeousness

After spending literally five minutes browsing the Met Museum’s Costume Institute, looking for 1920s sailor dresses, I found myself left breathless by these two numbers. (And of course, I had to share them with you all!)

Aren’t they stunning? The one on the left is a 1948 Dior creation (doesn’t the twist in the skirt just make you melt?) and the right is a 1920’s Poiret dress. I just love the diaphonous sleeve and the way the one little green splash breaks up the gloriously textured ivory monochromatic scheme!

Melinda

PS– Updates on the custom projects coming soon!

Connie’s new 1950s dress

Well, now that the Spring line is over, it’s time to start in on the custom work! And what a more lovely way to begin than with this dress?

 

This charming number is destined for Miss Connie Bonacorsi of Badger’s Wood, and we were so excited to start working on it! The lines are fantastic and when I (Melinda) found some gorgeous blue silk duppioni to make it up in, well — the rest, as they say, is history.

Anyway, we’ve done the mock up and last night I sewed the main pieces of the dress together.  This means that right now it definitely looks like a dress, but it’s still a ways from being completed — for one thing, it still needs a zipper! Then we’ll have to do all the finishing work. But for now, enjoy the pictures!

The dress by itself, front view

The final ribbon will be blue, not white, but I just grabbed something of the right width to test the scale.

As you can see, it's just pinned up the back at this point. But that will change soon!

–Melinda

What’s coming next

This morning I took the last three dresses to the post office. Yes, they’ve all been sold; and within three days, too! I’m absolutely astonished at how quickly they all went. Anyway, we’ve heard from several of you that you’ve already received your dresses; the rest of you should be finding large, suspicious packages on your doorsteps soon! They went literally everywhere: Washington, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, California, Florida — and two are also on their way to Canada as well!

So, now that we’ve finished the Spring Line, it’s time to start working on some custom orders. We have several that have been waiting patiently for the Spring Line to be over, and it’s time to give them some attention! I think you all will like them; they’re going to be pretty fabulous! First up is another 50’s dress for Connie over at Badgers’ Wood (pictures coming soon); then we’ll start work on a charming 1920’s sailor frock, a pink wool coat, and perhaps even an Alice in Wonderland dress! It’s going to be exciting, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted on what’s happening around here.

Thanks again, everybody, for all your enthusiasm and your thoughtful comments; this Spring Line was a phenomenal success, but it wouldn’t have been that way without you all!

Melinda

Thank you, everybody!

Thank you, everybody, for your tremendous response to this year’s Spring Line! You all write such lovely comments — and, while I was planning to make my run to the post office this afternoon on my bike, I think I’ll have to drive; we’ve already sold more dresses than I can keep track of at once! (Fortunately Samantha’s got it all figured out, so everybody will get what they ordered…)

It’s been an unprecedented first day — both the Mint Vivacity dress and the Sweet Darling dress have both already sold out, and I am humbled, overjoyed, and astonished. What a day!  Several people have already asked whether we’ll ever replicate the Mint Vivacity dress, and we’re still thinking about that possibility; of course, we’d never replicate it exactly, since, like the rest of our designs, it was a limited edition. But perhaps someday we’ll make a Mint Vivacity Encore…

So, to all our wonderful customers and blog-readers, thank you, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful first day of Launch! If you were fast enough to get your hands on a dress, we sincerely hope you enjoy it! (And as always, send us your photos for the customer photo page…)

With profoundest gratitude,

Melinda (for all the MVC staff)

Welcome to Spring!

Hello everybody! I’m delighted to say that our new Spring 2010 Collection has officially launched!

Melody and I have always loved stripes, so we decided to just give in and make a collection devoted to these lovely parallel lines. However, each dress explores stripes in a different way; Stripes Ahoy! features classic, traditional woven stripes, Mint Vivacity has ‘applied’ ribbon stripes, Sweet Darling is a plaid pleated to make stripes, and the Tropical Sunshine dress has ‘constructed’ stripes, made by stitching two colors of fabric together. Click on the photo above to go see all the new dresses!

And all the dresses should be up in the Etsy shop (we’ve listed all the dresses at once, so whatever is in the shop reflects our actual inventory).

Happy Spring from all of us at MVC!

Melinda, for all the MVC staff

We’re back and sewing!

As you might guess from the title of this post, life caught up to us in the last couple of weeks, and we haven’t had much time to devote to the Spring Line or to our most recent couple of custom orders. Oddly enough, however, ideas have been coming out our ears — mine especially! It was a bit frustrating to have all these ideas and then no reality to show for it. However, all that’s changed this week, as we’ve finally had time to start diving into some fabric, and the results so far are really lovely.

Anyway, this means that the Spring Line is at last well underway, and we’re looking at a tentative launch date within the next couple of weeks! Hooray! And just in time for Spring, too — isn’t Saturday the day spring officially starts? We know you’ll love the new dresses; they’re all so delightfully cute!

Off to sew some more! One of us will post again as soon as we’ve got a launch date for you to look forward to…

Melinda