- Today is playtime on Fit 2 Stitch.

Our goal is to take the design concepts of Veronica Beard and mix them with the style of Donna Karan.

Donna Karan believed in dressing women to look strong and beautiful.

What do these labels have in common and what is our takeaway?

I'll share some ideas on how to adapt their concepts in such a way so as to save you lots of money.

Donna Karan said, "Accent your positive and delete your negative."

Some say, "Delete the negative and accentuate the positive."

But either way you say it, the message is clear.

Learn more today on Fit 2 Stitch.

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(bright piano music) - One thing we know about designers just like history, fashion definitely repeats itself.

And if we know the history of fashion we definitely can let it help us not just dress well, but dress classic and really put those design principles and bring them currently.

Back in 1988, Donna Karan came out with a concept that was called Seven Easy Pieces.

I've dressed these two mannequins in those seven easy pieces.

And I wanna take a look and show you exactly what they are.

And for many of us we remember, we'll remember this as I go through it.

This was like deja vu going back on all of this.

First, it was the body suit.

And remember the body suit snapped in the crotch and all those fun things.

The body suit, the jacket, a classic pair of pants.

Then we had the white shirt, a cashmere sweater, a skirt and tights.

So what's updated about all this is we still have the jacket, we've ditched the body suit and the body suit's turned into a t-shirt.

The classic pants have really turned into jeans.

Jeans are much more prevalent for us than what black pants are.

Not that we don't have them and wear them, but just as a base wardrobe and the tights turned into leggings.

So that's kinda cool because you can see these seven easy pieces, again, back in 1988 were very core.

Every designer, the goal is to really find the hole and fill it.

It's a business philosophy.

It's the same in fashion.

If designers can find a hole and somehow fill it, their name can rise to the top.

Clearly in this case of Donna Karan, Donna Karan went on over her 40 years to do many, many, many more things.

So it's not that you have to stay with that but something has to change the mark and get it above.

This is a perfect example.

Eileen Fisher in 1982, which was years before actually Donna Karan, remember 1988, I'm sorry, 1984, Eileen Fisher actually had a base concept but because Eileen Fisher started her design line with only $350, she just wasn't able to get the name out as quickly as what Donna Karan did.

Eileen Fisher has done a beautiful job, but if you ever shop or notice Eileen Fisher, beautiful basis beautiful mix and match pieces, very similar.

Her fabrics are very, very quality.

This cropped poncho.

What I love about Eileen Fisher is the simplicity.

And so if you're ever looking for ideas or things to do I'm always gonna go to Eileen Fisher because I can see some ease in her styles and in her dressing.

In this particular case, this little crop poncho, we're gonna make this today.

Because there are so many ways to do it and there's so many fabrics and every time you do it it's gonna be completely different.

And the beauty of it is it takes one yard of fabric.

So this is just a really fun wrap to do.

I've done this out of a, whatever you use, whatever the fabric is you use, you want it to somewhat be good on both sides.

And you notice in this case, this is like a faux suede.

It's got stretch to it.

It's just gonna have beautiful drape, beautiful hand and both sides are gonna be shown and both sides are going to work well.

So I've just cut one yard.

Again, I always wanna bring out whenever I'm working with fabrics, I just wanna bring out the beauty of the fabrics.

And I absolutely just love the selvedge that that has.

And so I'm naturally going to leave it there.

And because the fabric was wider than I wanted.

Remember this is called the cropped poncho, which means it's a shorter style.

I'm always able to change it and do what I want with it but it's only 20 inches in length.

So because I wanna use that selvedge, what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna take the 20 inches off this way.

And even though the original does not have a seam here I'm actually gonna create a seam which will go into the neck line and create the wrap to look that way.

So once you've established the base and where you're cutting, just kinda fold it in half and that way the cut will be more accurate.

You're still gonna sew and you're still gonna clean it up and you're gonna get everything to be clean and good.

But that way I can just cut through several layers at one time, as opposed to cutting just one.

And I'm more likely to get it to be straight.

All right, so now I've got the cropped poncho and the only reason I did this otherwise you just leave the fold at the top and just cut off the bottom, I just wanted that bottom selvedge because I just loved the way it looked.

So you can always use your fabric, utilize it the best and go from there.

That means this is the middle.

And what I'm gonna do to the middle is I'm gonna use my French curve and just cut a neck line.

What I know about a neck line in order to get it over my head, I want it to be about eight inches wide.

So that means 16 total.

So I've folded this in half so this is center front and I'm gonna lay my French curve on here to where I get about eight inches and just let it naturally curve.

Doesn't really matter exactly where it is.

It's gonna be almost like a little boat neck line.

So I'm gonna place the numbers.

I've got 19 here and I've got a 20 here, no 20, I'm sorry.

That's, I'm reading backwards and upside down.

It's 13.

So I'm gonna move it to 12.

So I have those eight inches.

So I'm just gonna cut right along here.

And again, that's just to make sure I can get it over my head.

If you cut it too small, you guys know you can go back.

If you cut it too big, it's hard to kinda fit.

Well, I've got a seam up here so actually it's easy to fix it.

All right, so there I have it.

On the sewing machine, I'm just gonna sew my two seams here and then just finish my neck edge.

And then the only other thing you're gonna do is I've cut two pieces of soutache and it could be any ribbon, it doesn't matter what it is.

I've cut two yards.

So usually each side is about 18 inches whenever you do a tie.

So I'm gonna cut one yard for each side, and then I'm gonna cut each tie to be 18 inches, which would be half of that yard.

And you're gonna sew them right about 10 inches up.

And if you didn't remember this, you can always go and just try it on.

You wanna leave room for an arm hole.

So I would stitch it right here.

We're not gonna literally stitch it, but you're just gonna kind of see.

Well, what this does is once you have the neck line and the arm hole or you haven't stabilized at the side seam, that's what keeps a garment in place.

So here, what I'll do is I'll tie this in a little bow here.

And so those will be my ties.

And clearly you could do them in the same color fabric lots of options you have.

But that's it, that's just that little crop poncho.

And you can see what a nice drape it has on the side.

Again, we go from this straight to this bias even though it's a knit.

And that bias drape is just really pretty on the side.

That poncho was $250.

So just recognize that all of these wraps and little things that designers do, they can be very, very pricey, but the idea is all we need and the ideas, of course, are priceless.

But once we get those ideas, we can really bring them to home and duplicate and save a good amount of money.

So as we went forward, and one thing I wanna say about Eileen Fisher is Eileen Fisher did and still does do an incredible amount of donation and making sure her fabric is correct in tune with the environment, organically done, the donations that this company gives.

So I think always as I look at designers, I look at what do they do personally, and what is their lifestyle?

And I think that's really important to support a designer.

And sometimes for me that makes a decision where I actually buy it or don't buy it and that's just me.

Okay, so now I wanna do a move along.

And what we're gonna see is how these same ideas evolved because we fast forward 21 years from remember that Eileen Fisher was 84, Donna Karan was 88, now we're in 2009.

And to me, I would think in 2009, how can anyone move into the fashion industry and find a hole?

How can there possibly be a hole in 2009 because everything's been done and done and redone all those other things.

We saw the wrap dress, Diane von Furstenberg actually reinvented it.

She didn't create it but she was given credit for actually creating it.

But if we remember the collars and the little collars that it wore and how they evolved.

We'll take a glance and we'll remember that these little things became popular.

So the way to change up a jacket, it wasn't just the collar anymore, it was actually a dickey and they sold these little dickies and I don't know if you ever wore them.

I certainly did.

I just remember being somewhere and the end of the dickey was sticking out and it wasn't laying flat and it wasn't doing even anything close to what I wanted it to do.

And so they were out there.

They just didn't really work.

They definitely, the idea was to change up the look with a simple little piece and you can see from collars and all the other things we've talked about, that idea has been chased for many, many years but I don't think it's ever been done as successfully as what, 2009 Veronica Beard did it.

So, let's take a look at this dickey idea and what exactly she did with it.

Veronica Beard is actually not one person.

It's two, there's two Veronica Beards.

Veronica married a brother and Veronica married brothers.

And it just so happened that the two in-laws were both named Veronica.

They both got together and start a dress line and they named it after both of themselves, Veronica Beard.

But I think it's the only time in history and certainly they're creative and amazing that two people had the same name and they were both the designer.

So there's two designers and they always say two heads are better than one, so maybe that's the case.

So this particular dickey was taken off the idea of what was originally there, except this time, the concept was to put zippers on the side of the dickey.

So the dickey now became more stable.

If you notice it goes around to the backside and I'll take it off here and show you all the details.

But it actually buttons in to several locations and it's got zippers on both sides of it.

So the actually didn't stop there.

What they did was go the next level up and this is a Veronica Beard jacket.

And they not only did the dickies but they made the jackets that had the zippers in them.

So now they had a line of jackets with zippers and a line of dickies that could zip in.

So all of this now became interchangeable but not just interchangeable, it became stable.

And as women truly traveled and they needed to take three shirts, they could grab three dickies and one jacket and make it happen.

That was a game changer.

So we're gonna take a closer look at this jacket and we're gonna really see what they did, how they did it and why the success.

If you go anywhere and I'm talking even eBay and look at these dickies, they are over a hundred dollars a piece.

Now, remember they're about eight inches wide and about 20 inches long.

So, we've talked to designers about how much they charge and how many hours go in and Robert and the hand beading and how many hours goes into all that.

That can't be said about this, because it's a genius idea.

But certainly I thought to myself many times, "Somebody should just start making dickies."

Okay, so the goal is we wanna look inside this jacket.

When you're selecting a jacket, you really wanna select a jacket that has some stability.

If you notice that this particular jacket, they actually put a dart in here and they can anchor that zipper to that dart.

An easy way to go about that is to just simply choose a princess seam.

And a princess seam is, the fit is easier to accomplish anyway, the seam is already there.

And when I look to go inside, bam!

I've got that same allowance and I can just anchor it right into that seam allowance.

Even if it's lined, I can still anchor the zipper right into that particular seam.

So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna look at the inside of this jacket and we're going to grab this dickey and we're gonna see how they work together.

We're gonna understand how it's done and then we're gonna duplicate it.

So in each case, you're dealing with two separating zippers.

I'm gonna recommend that these two zippers, you're gonna wanna use a lighter coil.

Teeth, a zipper have teeth sizes.

This is probably about a two.

One being the smallest two, three, four, as you go larger t-size, it gets bigger.

But this one is about a two, maybe three, but again, it has to be separating at the bottom.

So I'm not gonna tell you this is the easiest zipper in the world to find, but it's out there.

You've got a internet, you can find a zipper.

So I'm gonna zip that up.

And again, for each one, I'll need two zippers.

We'll look at that.

All right, so then you just see that when you sew it, you've got to put the right zipper on the right side and your zipper tab is right there at the bottom.

Certainly when you see that zipper tab, you don't wanna know it's there when you take that dickey away.

So I think that's the key thing.

If you notice this, this is just some fun details that I just noticed, is the zippers don't even match because the zippers always match the dickey or the zippers always match the jacket.

So you've got two different zippers sewing together.

And as long as you're using the same consistent zippers it doesn't make any difference.

All right, so that one sews in this side, this one sews in this side as well.

All right, we'll go all the way down.

And again, I've done separating zippers before and you just gotta make sure you've got the right zippers on the right sides.

So I actually go through and I literally zip them up.

I'm not going to 'cause I can't get that.

But anyway, all right, then what it does is when the dickey comes up and around it always contains a back piece.

And if you notice there's a button and that button is just a couple inches down from the shoulder, that's an important location because your jackets always have they don't have a button hole, they've got a little loop right in that same place.

Remember that it's just down from the shoulder.

You can always do this after the fact, it doesn't have to be done right away.

And I don't know that there's a magic place for the button but a lot of times the reason I duplicate, is so that I don't have to recreate the concept.

Trust that they've put lots of hours and time into this and so where their buttons are I'm gonna copy their buttons.

They've also got a button right at center back.

And again, they've got another little loop right here.

So they match how far down it is.

And that goes there so that the hood comes to the outside and then a third button.

And again, a little tiny loop right where that button goes together.

If you'll notice across the board on all dickies that's characteristic.

The jackets themselves all have the loops in the same places and the dickies always have the three buttons, two just below the shoulder, one at center back.

And if you notice the buttons there are flat quality, they're not thick.

You don't wanna even know they're there.

And again, remember once you take this dickey away you're not even gonna notice that there's a jacket without a dickey because all it has in it is the zipper which is very fine and small and then just three little hoops that go around the buttons.

And just use some elastic.

Just any elastic cording would work fine.

The buttons are pretty good size.

They're about a 5/8 of an inch.

So it's very easy to do.

And also what they've done is they've made the garment itself have a zipper so that you can actually put it into the jacket and then put it on.

So the ease and convenience I just think they've thought of every little detail.

And somehow I think they must have had to go to private school and wear these little dickies and the how they came up with this.

But it's just great.

So the biggest way we can save money is this concept is brilliant to me.

But what we're gonna do is we're gonna take it and we're gonna put it onto a shirt that we've had for a while.

And for me, I started looking at some of my shirts and I've got some really favorite shirts that I have but one has a hole in the sleeve or one is just old, but I still love it.

And I wear it, but I really shouldn't be.

So I thought that's a perfect place to start making dickies.

So we're gonna take this dickey and we're gonna copy it.

Now, I don't know that you necessarily need to copy this one but what I'm saying to you is you're gonna copy the width of it and you're gonna copy the length of it.

So you'll compare it to your neck line and I would zip it all the way up so that you can see where the shoulders are.

And you can see there are a couple inches down from my shoulder seam and then I'm not gonna worry about the styling but I am gonna worry about how far it comes down in the back.

Because in this particular case, my shirt is the turtleneck.

I'm gonna preserve the turtleneck and make the turtleneck fit into this particular jacket.

And I'm not worried about matching.

I'm just really worried about it all going together.

So we're gonna take this up in here.

And what I wanna do is make sure that I have enough in the back.

And that back portion is only about two inches wide.

So even if you don't have a dickey, you wanna make it go princess seam to princess seam which is typically about eight or nine inches.

I wanna come up over the shoulder and I wanna leave it about two inches wide in the back.

Enough to where it will stay down and behave itself.

All right, so there's my pattern.

So you ready?

Here we go.

And it doesn't hurt to cut the first one a little wider.

Remember, we can always make it smaller.

We can't make it wider.

So, I'm just gonna cut this off.

I'm gonna leave a little bit of a seam allowance so that I can tuck that back.

We'll go add the zipper here in just a few minutes.

All right, that's one side.

I guess I can always make sleeve warmers out of what I've cut off, right?

We sewers are extremely recyclable people.

All right, so we're gonna take the sleeves away and remember, I've just cut the whole front and the whole back together.

So I'm gonna flip this over and I'm just gonna use that to cut the back.

Here's the collar section there.

And I want this to be about two inches.

Now, on this back section, remember that's where button goes here, button goes here, button goes there.

I would just serge that to just finish it up.

Then this backside is gone.

Look at there, there's my new dickey.

Is this so much fun?

This is way too much fun.

All right, the next step then is to make sure I've got the right zipper on the right side to match my jacket.

So what I'm gonna do is put the zipper and they're just straight up.

Yeah, it's not hard, but just undo this side.

This side would go to the jacket and this side goes to the dickey.

So, what I do is when I'm doing this on the table just to make sure I don't flip that, I go ahead and just pin that in place.

And once I've got one pin in place, I'm good to go.

I do want you to notice a few little sewing things.

Notice on this, the zipper is actually raw.

They don't cover it, they don't do anything, but they do tuck the edge back.

That's an option that you don't have to do if you don't want to.

I think in this case, it's gonna sew a little better just to leave it flat but I could serge the raw edge.

All those sewing things are really up to you.

It just wouldn't really make that much difference.

All right, so we're gonna put this in and let's go sew the one side.

Or at least let's start it so that you can understand what we're doing.

And then of course the other side would be the exact same but let's do this.

Okay.

Again, I'm gonna use a 3.5 stitch length and I'm gonna put on a zipper foot just to make sure that I'm clearing my zipper and I'm gonna move my needle all the way on each side, you're gonna move in a different direction.

So in this case, I'm gonna move it all the way to the right.

Okay, I'm gonna sit that in, sink it in.

And there we go.

It's that easy and just keep sewing right along.

See, that's why I say, even when you're sewing a knit it's really easy just to sew the two together.

The needle slide a little bit on you but just as it does, that's okay.

Just keep coming up.

And I also think the closer you get to the edge, the better off you're gonna be.

I think it'll keep it a little more stable in there.

So now by the time I've sewn this, I've got the zippers on both sides and I've got my little dickey.

Now, here's other couple of things you gotta remember.

A zipper, all zippers don't match other zippers.

Obviously the teeth have to be the same size.

So, if I tried to pick up and make dickies to go inside of these jackets, I'd have to make sure that the zippers matched.

If I made my jacket and made my dickey, I'd be in great shape, no issue.

But just heads up that this zipper would not fit into this one because the teeth size is just a little bit off.

I could go in and replace the zipper, that would be no problem.

But just to let you all know I don't want you to think, "Hey, mine didn't fit."

All right, so then I wanna show you something that's just really fun because dickies really do make such a difference.

So I'm gonna show you here that I can just take this dickey off and I can completely change my outfit and go from one thing to another.

And so they do make a difference and they're just a lot of fun.

So it's fun to see the evolution of clothing.

It's fun to see how all these years, all of these ideas haven't been abandoned as much as they've really been preserved, refined, developed, and made even better and better.

For me, because I really clearly know at this point in my life, I'm not the visionary, but I can be and I can kinda see what's out there and I can duplicate it for myself.

I can figure out how it applies to me and how it works.

And I'm a traveler and I really enjoy not checking luggage or I really enjoy not carrying a whole bunch of stuff with me.

And when I understand that a jacket now, especially if it's a solid and I can switch out those interim pieces, they're just so much easier to dress to do all the things I need to do.

One designer's name is respected above all others.

This designer label is expensive, has higher residuals and is coveted by most women around the world.

Next time we'll explore the insides of those Chanel jackets here on Fit 2 Stitch.

(bright piano music) - [Man] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Kai Scissors, (bright piano music) Bennos Buttons, (bright piano music) OC Sewing, Orange County, (bright piano music) Vogue fabrics, (bright piano music) Pendleton, (bright piano music) Imitation of Life, (bright piano music) and Clutch Nails.

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