Folk Couture » Markets of New York

Recycle Your Closet Party With Grace Napoleon

I’ll never forget the first time I met Grace Napoleon at the Brooklyn Flea in the summer of 2009 under the Brooklyn Bridge. Her tent was swarmed with hip, cool women of all ages trying on her dresses, skirts and tops. Each garment was unique and made by hand from other pieces of clothing. They were flying off the racks then, just as they do today!

Grace is the founder of Folk Couture, the art of making clothes out of vintage and previously owned clothes. Since Grace first, well, graced the Brooklyn Flea, her Folk Couture has garnered a cult-like following. Her clothes themselves are perfectly wonderful, whimsical and often wild. Her use of existing clothing as virgin fabrics makes her work eco-friendly. She has an eye for color and pattern combinations; pieces I would never think of putting together become a vibrant new dress that turns heads on New York City streets.

The term “Folk Couture” is perfect for Grace’s creations, which are handcrafted designs, one-of-a-kind, and stylish. (Check out these images of her collection.) Purchase a piece of Folk Couture and rest assured that nobody else in the world will ever have the same one.

And now Grace will teach you her secrets! She has started giving Recycle Your Closet Parties. We all have beloved sweaters or dresses we can’t bear to part with, even though we know we’ll never wear them again. Now you can invite five or more of your best friends to bring their favorite no-longer-used clothing. Grace will help everyone turn their pieces into something brand new that they will wear and love. She brings the buttons, threads, ribbons, trimmings, scissors, pins, and more, and she will help each person create and stitch a new garment. She has an amazing talent for determining what will look good on someone, and she’ll sit on the floor, cut up the pieces with you, and help you sew them together – every step of the way.

The fee is $50 per person — barely the cost of a random sweater at Macy’s or The Gap. Your friends will go home with new, exciting pieces of clothing they made with their own hands — and a little more space in their closets!

If you’d like to host a Recycle Your Closet Party, simply send Grace an email for details!

Grace sets up shop most weekends at the Brooklyn Flea, and sometimes at the SOWA Open Market in Boston too. Follow Folk Couture on Facebook for inspiration and for updates on where she’ll be showing her creations next!

(Photos provided by Grace Napoleon)

The Market at the End of the World – BKCC’s Shop the Arch

If the world ended today, I figured a) I might as well go strolling through a lovely market with James, and b) if I’m underneath a huge concrete archway tucked in a corner of Brooklyn, maybe all the fuss would simply pass us by. Fortunately, at least in my book, the world is still here. And happily, Brooklyn Craft Central’s Shop the Arch was a wonderful market in a groovy, airy, rain-proof location under the Manhattan Bridge.

I could tell you lots of stories of wonderful people we met, the beautiful birthday gifts we found for our sisters, and the delicious taco from Hermelinda Tacos that I had for lunch. However, this market was so visually unique, and the light was so remarkable, that I thought I’d just show you what it was like in this BKCC Shop the Arch Slide Show:

The talented artisans featured in this slideshow are, in order of appearance:

Astor Knot - Appliqued Totebags
Chop Shop – T-Shirt Designs
Metropolis Soaps – Soaps, Creams, and More
Annabuilt – Jewelry and Sculpture from Recycled Tins
Sourpus Pickles – Pickled Vegetables of All Kinds
The Chocolate Swirl – Mini-Cupcakes, Truffles, and Brownie Pops
McFlashpants – Jewelry Made from Vintage Cutlery
Rocks & Salt – Handmade Hats, Skirts, and Bags
Twitch & Whiskers – Jewelry Made from Vintage Obects Including Thimbles and Wooden Nickels
Grace Napoleon’s Folk Couture – Clothes Made from Clothes and Now Furniture Too
Lauren Blais Jewelry Design – Jewelry Design
Filomena DeMarco Jewelry – Jewelry Design
Vaya Bags – Messenger Bags and Accessories Made from Upcycled Bike Tire Tubes and Sails

Twitch and Whiskers: Vintage Thimbles and Upcycled Treasures

Twitch and Whiskers is a featured vendor at Brooklyn Craft Central’s Shop the Archway on May!

Mei-Ling Uliasz of Twitch and Whiskers creates truly unique, one-of-a-kind designs using upcycled materials. Based in Connecticut, Mei-Ling scours the northeastern region’s markets, often in the company of fellow designer Grace Napoleon of Folk Couture, where she finds vintage jewelry and other unusual items, which she combines to create wonderful new designs.

I met Mei-Ling at the Prospect Heights Craft Fair in early April, where I got to admire her work firsthand. The Twitch and Whiskers Thimbalism Collection features vintage thimbles combined with sweet charms. They resemble colorful, whimsical bells to me, and it’s fun to look at all the great thimbles, which are tiny bits of history. They were used to advertise everything from fabric stores, household appliances, and savings and loans, to Eveready batteries, utility companies, and even funeral homes. Mei-Ling combines each thimble with a fun and surprising variety of charms, including whale tails, hearts, astronauts, hula girls and many many more. So you can find a piece that symbolizes something very special for you or a friend.

Mei-Ling is also a school teacher, and her classroom is a design inspiration. For some mysterious reason, she finds numerous magic marker pen caps on her classroom floor at the end of the day. Where the pens themselves end up is anybody’s guess, but their lids could end up on your wrist as a REcap bracelet.

At the craft fair, Twitch and Whiskers had a statement necklace with a large cameo of a little girl, with pretty pink flower accents. It made me think of Alice in Wonderland. However, Mei-Ling told me that the design was actually inspired by outsider artist Henry Darger, whose work I find extremely disturbing. So I’m sticking with Alice. But that’s what makes Twitch and Whiskers so wonderful: the fact that it is so creative and evocative that it can mean many different things to many different people.

So visit the Twitch and Whiskers blog and Etsy shop, and better yet, come to Shop the Archway on Saturday, May 21!

Folk Couture Designs by Grace Napoleon

Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market Featured Designer!

Grace Napoleon has an eye for colors. And for patterns. And buttons. And somehow she can see how they all might work together in the must unusual ways as she cuts up recycled clothing and stitches the pieces together to create an entirely new, singular design. “I make clothes from clothes,” she says.

I met Grace two summers ago at the Brooklyn Flea underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. She had a gaggle of hip girls under her tent trying on adorable mini-dresses with stripes, appliqués, and other unusual details. Grace has a lovely, fun manner, and a glorious head of long, salt and pepper curls. Her displays at the Flea are always inviting. She sells vintage items, from eyewear to kitchenware, but Grace’s clothes are what first grabbed my attention. She calls her designs Folk Couture. The concept is around creating new and fun things to wear out of previously owned pieces. They are handmade, unique and meant to be worn every day. You and I might wear a sweater for a few years and then discard it. But if you are Grace Napoleon, you breathe a whole new life into it instead.

Now that it’s wintertime, Grace has brought out her one-of-a-kind designs for colder temperatures. She’ll cut out the collar from a colorful sweater, add a beautiful button accent and some bright embroidered details, and voilá! It’s a stylish new neck-warming accessory! She cuts the sleeves from a sweater, passes a few stitches over them, and suddenly you have yourself a pair of stylish and practical fingerless gloves. Her dresses feature combinations of colors, fabrics and patterns, and they fly off her racks every weekend, both at the Brooklyn Flea and at the SOWA Market in Boston. For me, though, Grace’s sweaters are where the real fun is. She has been doing lots of scalloped cuts and asymmetrical wavy necklines, with swatches of brightly colored appliqués and vintage buttons sewn onto felted wool cardigans and pullovers. No two Grace Napoleon Folk Couture Designs are even remotely alike.

Starting in January 2011, Grace will be offering Recycle Your Clothes Classes. Invite 5 or more of your friends over for wine and snacks, and have them bring 2 or 3 pieces of clothing to turn into one great new item. Grace will spend the evening helping everyone figure out what to do and then how to put it all together. At the end of the party, everyone goes home with a great new thing to wear and a little more room in their closet. The fee is $45 per person, and Grace supplies all the needles, thread, great fabric swatches, loads of patience and great advice. If you are interested in learning more about these classes, leave a comment here. Grace will get back to you!

Come see Grace Napoleon’s designs for yourself at the Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market!

Every Weekend is Fashion Week at the Markets!

Nature vs. Future at the Young Designers Market (photo by Yucel Erodogan)

I write a monthly column for The Three Tomatoes, and this month’s piece is about the wonderful fashion designers who sell their unique clothing at the markets every weekend.

The article features five designers:

Roxi Suger of Angelrox Designs – St. Anthony’s Market
Nina Valenti of Nature vs. Future – Young Designers Market/The MarketNYC
Karin Persan of Better Than Jam – Brooklyn Indie Market and the Better Than Jam Coop
Kathy Malone of Fofolle – Brooklyn Indie Market
Grace Napoleon of Folk Couture – Brooklyn Flea

Read all about them on The Three Tomatoes! Even if you do have tickets to the Fashion Week runways, visit the heart of fashion innovation at the markets every weekend.