Ready-to-wear clothing is drearily ubiquitous. Google “Dior T-shirt” and see for yourself. It is, therefore, an immensely pleasant treat to find an RTW label that is so special that you are, in fact, ready to wear it. And you’ve got to do so right this very second. Truly, Internet shipping methods are not fast enough to get the latest Pretty Snake apparel from Rhode Island designer Joseph Aaron Segal into your hands.

Clothing by Joseph Aaron Segal

“I would say my stuff is fun and exotic and adventurous,” Segal tells me one rainy Providence morning. “I try to keep everything fresh. The way I make patterns is something I can’t control.” And lo, bright tongue-in-cheek prints crisscross on sleek spandex silhouettes and dare you to try them on. Chuckling, Segal says, “I’m competing with big stores that are selling things for way less money, [though] I don’t think my fans will spend more than $100.”

Fans are truly what they are. Segal’s designs are so popular that he continually receives offers for collaborations, and even said big stores like Urban Outfitters can’t order enough of his merchandise. Young shoppers care about local fashion, and Segal’s pieces offer more character, ingenuity, and frank sophistication than the marginally cheaper options.

Clothing by Joseph Aaron Segal

Segal’s story is as enticing as his brilliant pieces. After seeing some glass eyes sewn onto a cat sweater at a thrift shop, Segal took a cat design from his days at the Rhode Island School of Design, knitted it onto a smart pullover, and then finished the kitties off with a handful of plastic eyes. Within a year, the sweaters were so popular on Etsy that Segal was selling them as fast as he could produce them out of his basement. Beyond cat sweaters, Segal impressed as one of the final four designers on season 11 of Project Runway in 2013. Pretty Snake has since expanded into menswear, womenswear, and accessories. Now Segal has the finances to not only continue Pretty Snake but also grow his high-end line, World of JAS.

Clothing by Joseph Aaron Segal

“With the high-end stuff is where I get to play more with materials and fibers and construction,” Segal says of World of JAS. Indeed, metallic prints, experimental knits, and crisp structure make World of JAS a real powerhouse for innovative design. “That market is more in New York—half the battle is just being in New York. But I feel like for what I’m doing, being in New England is actually perfect.”

Clothing by Joseph Aaron Segal

All of the fabric, printing, and production for Pretty Snake happens here in New England. Segal sources local textiles, and he says it’s easier than in New York. “With the Internet, you really don’t need to live anywhere specific, you just need to time production right!”

Top photo ready-to-wear clothing by Joseph Aaron Segal | All photos by Izzy Berdan

The post Kitty Eyes & Spandex appeared first on Take Magazine.

Period pieces are incredibly trendy right now. No, really. Netflix is awash with notable actors gliding around million-dollar sets of Buckingham Palace and Renaissance-era Florence. Hollywood is churning out critical darlings like The Witch and Silence. Hamilton has revolutionized Broadway. Even HBO’s record-breaking sci-fi masterpiece, Westworld, revolves around our collective nostalgic thirst. Joyfully, dedication to historical accuracy plays a critical role in the success of productions like these. It has been a boon to artists and designers who’ve mastered historical techniques that have been long overlooked. It should surprise exactly no one that New England is home to one such artist: Justin Squizzero and his fellow weavers, dyers, and upholsterers at Eaton Hill Textile Works in Marshfield, Vermont.

Justin Squizzero

“It was one of those historic crafts that I could foreseeably do, as opposed to building a blacksmith’s [shop],” Squizzero says of his start in weaving, “My family was involved in historical reenactments; the idea that this was something people did was not foreign to me.” This explains why he’s the youngest weaver’s at Eaton Hill, and youngest teacher at the accompanying Marshfield School of Weaving. The school was started in 1974 by Norman Kennedy, a Scotsman who learned weaving from the last of the British handweavers after World War II. Kate Smith began studying under Norman in 1976; it was she who taught Squizzero before she officially re-opened the school in 2007.

Marshfield School of Weaving and Eaton Hill Textile Works are intrinsically tied to rural Vermont, as the institutions rely on their unrivaled collection of authentic 18th- and 19th-century hand looms. “The frame is the same as [an 18th century] house or a barn—it produces a very sturdy piece of equipment,” explains Squizzero. They take around two hours to thread, but once there’s an experienced weaver at the helm, they can produce about a yard of fabric every 45 minutes. “We do small orders—small batches of dying. It’s appealing for people who want to buy a small amount of very unique fabric for, say, one piece of furniture.” Production of the fabric starts by sourcing historically accurate yarns and worsteds—locally, if it can be accommodated. Eaton Hill does all its own dyeing, and Smith has a sample library of every color she’s ever produced, complete with recipe, that’s over 30 years old. According to Squizzero, “It’s probably the most valuable part of the enterprise.” The majority of work Eaton Hill receives is from museums and historical sites who need either specific colors, or, harder still, exact matching replicas of upholstery or rugs.

Eaton Hill Textile Works | materials | Photograph by Justin Squizzero

Eaton Hill was commissioned to do a custom stair carpet for Dumbarton House, a Federal-era mansion museum in Washington, DC. Squizzero cites the project as one of his favorites, because the research involved thumbing through some fascinating 18th-century artifacts. “We chose a design from a weaver’s notebook from Connecticut,” he says. “It has some of the first, if not the first, American carpet designs. People don’t expect it, but it could be made here—and it was! [The weaver] gives the color names and number of threads for production.” Ah, but how to know if the finished result is historically accurate, when there’s no picture or sketch? “When the weaver from Connecticut said ‘orange,’ it could mean anything,” Squizzero explains. “But there’s this book at the MET in New York, a dyer’s manual from the 1820s or teens, and he dyed a sample of each recipe and placed a sample inside the book so they’re preserved.” So take heart, fellow history buffs: we can still know exactly what orange looked like during the first Adam’s administration.

Dotted along the Eastern seaboard are a handful of historical sites that now contain Squizzero and his colleague’s work, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, James Madison’s Montpelier, several Federal mansion museums in Philadelphia, and even some Antebellum plantation museums in the Upper South. Eaton Hill also does contemporary work, from unique furniture upholstery to custom table linens. But for Squizzero, the work is more important than the project. “Much of the agrarian history of Vermont fits into a whole different way of working and living,” Squizzero says. “The people who were [weaving] in Britain were cranking out yard after yard, but the people in New England were doing it for homewares and farm work. It’s a nicer pace.” Much about what Eaton Hill represents is a commitment to quality that simply can’t be achieved with modern-day production methods. The integrity of the craft is what defines its luxury.

Justin Squizzero Weaver Loom

Eaton Hill is the only mass producer of authentic 18th- and 19th-century textiles in the country, and Squizzero says business is always good. “The equipment we use and the techniques we use is a constant—it will always be these 200-year-old hand looms. For me, the fabrics are completely interwoven with this culture and place, and our identity. It’s authentic and genuine in a way that I always want to work in.”

All images courtesy Eaton Hill Textile Works and Justin Squizzero
Marshfield School of Weaving on Instagram, Facebook
Easton Hill Textile Works on Instagram, Facebook

The post Throwback Threads appeared first on Take Magazine.

“How many people wanted to work in a brewery in 1979?” asks Jacob Long during our discussion about fashion. Long’s American Woolen Company (AWC) is one of only two luxury worsted and woolen mills in the US. “It’s about craftsmanship applied to all – look at the beer industry,” he explained. “American brewers have been able to establish for themselves a proprietary taste in craft beers.”

Long makes a compelling case. As with American breweries, American fabric manufacturers can bring new, luxe products that are created with skillful artistry with New England especially primed to provide a home-base for these new luxury industries. The proprietary product of American Woolen Company, located in Stafford Springs CT, is unabashedly unique, but its potential to become a massive cultural movement and economic powerhouse comes from our history.

“No one wanted to work in a brewery then,” Long finishes, “Now? Kids are dying to get an interview and start a career at breweries.”

The prêt-à-porter and couture fashion seasons begin with fabric manufacturers about two years ahead of when the clothes will be sent down runways. Fashion designers work with these luxury mills to establish colors, textures, source material, and numerous other details. As the only mill in America that produces fabrics in alpaca, noble fibers, and cashmere, American Woolen Company fills a vacuum in the indulgent fabric market. As a result they’ve become a huge hit with younger designers who want to domestically source their material.

Red Color Story Fall/Winter 2017 |
Photo courtesy of American Woolen Company

Color, says Long, is what really ties the product to New England. “Europeans, by and large, think of American-style as either southern California or old New England,” Long explains. “Much of what we do is try to define the New England color aesthetic.” Each season’s color story comes from a different geographical region. Hudson, NY is influencing the AWC Fall/Winter 2017 scheme, with the town’s whaling industry past bringing bone white into the collection.

Long’s design model revolves around the idea that an American luxury aesthetic must begin with culturally-sourced colors and palettes. American fashion has long embraced buying extravagant fabric and materials from overseas, which brings the color trends of the Italian and French designers to American department stores – often resulting in higher sale prices. The clothing might embrace American design, but if the colors were American inspired, they tended towards stereotypical California beach tones or the hues of an autumnal New England meadow.

“It is a New England cut? An American cut?” Long extrapolates, “Sure, but it terms of the fabric there’s a lot of variables to be explored. The emphasis [by the fabric production industry] wasn’t on the advancement of an American fashion aesthetic all its own. Anyone can sell you fabric, but only we can sell you American woolen fabric.”

Successfully marketing a proprietary product is proving easy for American Woolen Company. Within their first year of opening, domestic fashion brands reached out to the company. “We are present at New York Fashion week…every brand we’ve been working with has an American capsule collection on the market, on the drawing board, or in the works.” Long says ninety-nine percent of their advertising is word of mouth with much of their clientele of young designers providing copious helpful publicity through their social media engagement.

Photo courtesy of American Woolen Company

Long seems thankful but unsurprised by AWC’s immediate popularity as fashion brands embrace several different types of American cultural looks. Although, Long still feels that, “[Americans] have fashion brands but we don’t have iconic luxury manufacturing. We don’t have them because we don’t have production in America.”

Indeed, in his search for livestock to get wool from, Long ran into a quantity problem. American sheep that are bred for woolen knits have extremely high-quality wool but there simply aren’t enough of them. Sheep farmers can make more money raising them for food. And yet, “Made in America, Made in New England – has tremendous export potential,” Long said, “People want to know what farm their food comes from, and want to apply that to clothes”.

Manufacturing, according to Long, is the key and revitalizing the industry in this country. Long was shocked to discover that New England, in spite of a lengthy and historic relationship with the fashion production world, has minimal textile production infrastructure. “If I can’t get workers at a machine, I can’t get anything,” Long explains, “but can you imagine if our consumer tastes shifted to Made in America, how many jobs we could create?” Rebranding textile manufacturing to be an appealing and lucrative career path might seem like a fruitless venture, but Long points, once again, to American breweries and their renewed cultural and economic prominence.

Jacob Long | Photo courtesy of American Woolen Company

Although Long’s past is in the business industry, his reverence for the fashion world is evident, “First, get the fashion right.” Craftsmanship takes priority overall, as it is with a great number of artistic industries in New England, but Long’s vision is to make the northeast the center of an American artistic revolution. In today’s political and economic climate, it is refreshing to hear an optimistic voice. Even more uplifting still, is to observe a company like American Woolen Company skyrocket to early success.

The post Seriously Fashionable, Made in America, Textiles appeared first on Take Magazine.

Trending is so deftly sought after. The internet has spawned a whole job market focused on the art (or accident) of how to trend. Refreshingly, Jonas Clark and Amanda Rinderle of the Connecticut-based Tuckerman & Co. don’t need any clickbait help. Organic Italian cotton dress shirts with modern silhouettes are Tuckerman & Co.’s exhibit A on the profitability of the growing slow fashion movement.

With a sustainable fabric choice and use of local production resources, their profitability is not just for the company. Of their customers, Clark says, “they like the feel-good of what we’re trying to do, but also just the quality. They know their shirt is going to last”. This is no accident, Tuckerman & Co.’s shirts are art that’s worth trending.

Amanda Rinderle and Jonas Clark of Tuckerman & Co. | Photo courtesy Tuckerman & Co.

“Cotton has a sort of staggeringly large [carbon] footprint” said Jonas about their search through over 400 mills for fabric sourcing. After some narrowing down, Clark and Rinderle, spent a few days in Italy pursuing one particular mill that met their standards. “It was a lot of knocking on doors and sending emails to find people to work with us” said Jonas of the of the organic cotton search. Both Clark and Rinderle are, in Clark’s own words, “Business school types – definitely not scared of spreadsheets.”

After securing their fabric mill, they turned their sights on New England for production. Both hail from the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts and both attended Yale Business School, so they are familiar with, as Clark says, the “really long history here of textile production”. And lo, tucked into historic Fall River is a garment production gem that’s been producing high quality clothing since the 1870s. The factory is a major source of jobs for the Fall River community and is one of the more feel-good examples of a business on the rise after having briefly halted production during the recession. “They started back up with just six people but they’re up to 65 now,” Clark says fondly.

Italian Fabric Rolls | Photo courtesy Tuckerman & Co.

Feeling good about your shirt is great, but the cut along with the quality allows you to feel good in your shirt as well. “We take customer feedback pretty seriously, so we have tried to incorporate that into our process early and often,” says Clark about the pattern selection process. After several samples, he said they finally found a cut somewhere between the classic relaxed fit and the popular ultra-tailored look. The customer feedback was key, said Clark, “they prefer a nice tailored look but they also want something that they’re comfortable in all day.”

Slow fashion is a progressively growing trend, but Tuckerman & Co. is an exception to that rule. “The goal is to make that level of quality as accessible as possible,” Clark states as their mission. “Part of what started this was to have some impact on a larger scale.”

Tuckerman & Co. shirts are on sale now at their website and Clark says they have growing customer bases in the West Coast and Canada. Clark tantalizingly hints at expanding fabric choices and possible collaborations, and yes, they are expanding into women’s shirts soon.

For more information, follow Tuckerman & Co. on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Top photo: Tuckerman & Co. Navy Gingham Check shirt | Photo courtesy Tuckerman & Co.

The post Shirts that do good and look good appeared first on Take Magazine.

His cat sweaters caught the attention of many fashion-lovers, but Joseph Aaron Segal’s designs are more than just adorable.

Ready-to-wear clothing is drearily ubiquitous. Google “Dior t-shirt” and see for yourself. It is, therefore, an immensely pleasant treat to find a RTW label that is so unique that you are, in fact, ready to wear it. And you’ve got to do so right this very second. Truly, internet shipping methods are not fast enough to get the latest Pretty Snake apparel from Rhode Island designer Joseph Aaron Segal into your hands.

“I would say my stuff is fun and exotic and adventurous,” Segal tells me one rainy Providence morning, “I try to keep everything fresh. The way I make patterns is something I can’t control.” And lo; bright tongue-in-cheek prints criss-cross on sleek spandex silhouettes and dare you to try them on. Chuckling, Segal says “I’m competing with big stores that are selling things for way less money, [though] I don’t think my fans will spend more than $100.”

Fans are truly what they are. Segal’s designs are so popular that he continually has offers for collaborations, and even said big stores like Urban Outfitters can’t order enough of his merchandise. Young shoppers care about local fashion, and Segal’s pieces offer more character, ingenuity, and frank sophistication than the marginally cheaper options.

Segal’s story is as enticing as his brilliant pieces. After seeing some glass eyes sewn onto a thrift shop cat sweater, Segal took a cat design from his days at the Rhode Island School of Design, knitted it onto a smart jumper and then finished the kitties off with a handful of plastic eyes. Within a year the sweaters were so popular on Etsy that Segal was selling them a fast as he could produce them out of his basement. Beyond cat sweaters, Segal impressed as one of the final four designers on Project Runway Season 11 in 2013. Pretty Snake has since expanded into menswear, womenswear, and accessories. Now Segal has the finances to not only continue Pretty Snake but grow his high-end line, World of JAS.

“With the high-end stuff is where I get to play more with materials and fibers and construction,” Segal says of JAS. Indeed, metallic prints, experimental knits, and crisp construction make JAS a real powerhouse for innovative design. “That market is more in New York–half the battle is just being in New York. But I feel like for what I’m doing, being in New England is actually perfect.”

All of the fabric, printing, and production for Pretty Snake happens here in New England. Segal sources local textiles and says it’s easier than in New York. “With the Internet you really don’t need to live anywhere specific, you just need to time production right!”

All photos by Izzy Berdan

The post Kitty Eyes & Spandex appeared first on Take Magazine.