fabrics

It all started when I was visiting a dear friend of mine in Shanghai last August. I´ve been to Shanghai several times before, but it´s still about eight years since my last visit. And a l o t has changed since then. So, I started digging into my drawers and travel diaries, checking some old business cards and pictures, going through mails and contacting a few people, all with the intention to find my favourite places that I haven’t visited in so long.

Luckily it didn´t take long until I found the address to one of my old gems, the textile market on Dongmen Road. For me, as a creative textile freak and designer, it´s heaven. And here you bargain. I mean, really bargain. I love it, really gets me going :).

At the market you can find almost anything related to clothing. They have all kinds of fabrics; silk, cotton, jeans, jersey, wool, wool mix and so on, as well as sewing accessories as zippers, buttons, threads or anything you´ll need. I bought a bunch of fabrics, all of them really nice and some of them very cheap. That of course depends on the bargaining skills. You never know what you run into and this turned out to be my lucky day. I found a lovely fluffy fabric I have been longing for. I immediately knew I ran into my future favourite coat.

Here they are, The-Fluff-Coat-to-be-fabrics. The fluff and the silk lining.

Later at home, I started drawing and do some sketches and different designs. I also prepared a few inspiration boards to get me going, just to get the taste of the style I was looking for:

Design Inspiration

As always, the idea developes during the process, but pretty soon I had my final design all figured out:

The very first drawing

Including the fabrics. Here also a sneak peak of the colourful silk fabric I bought for the lining

Modelling the jacket, so this is what it will look like wearing it.

As I had my design ready the next steps would be pattern making, cutting and then sewing. Here we go!

The sleeve. I drew a new pattern as I did not find any ready made for this style as it is my own design.

Placing the patterns on the fabric, figuring out how much fabric is needed

Starts looking like a coat?

All eager to se some results I took me about four nights to make this beauty. It was a really fun project to work on. The only challenge was the fluffy-fabric, it turned out to be very slippery and almost to thick when working on it. But I have to say, the jacket is supernice, I just love it! And wherever I go I get tons of compliments and people asking where to buy one. And here it is – my Fluffy Coat! 🙂

I love wearing it with sneakers ❤

The Fluff Coat

Not used to take selfies but I am sure I will manage…

Here it is the jacket, varm and fluffy.

Close up of silk lining

Here it is, finally there.

First time live out on the street.

Thank you Shanghai for providing me with the nicest fabrics ever! I´ll be back soon ❤

I was lucky to catch foggy Shangai on a clear day! View from the Bund.

This use to be one of my favourite street, before the sky scrapers….

Only in China, always a pleasure seeing different kinds of replicas 🙂

Chennai, the sixth-largest city in India and 31st-largest urban area in the world. Chennai, on the list of Lonely Planets top ten cities in the world to visit in 2015. Chennai, the only city in South Asia and India to figure in the “52 places to go around the world” by The New York Times. In addition to that, National Geographic ranks Chennai as world’s 2nd best food city. Not bad at all. Well, here I am, exploring what Chennai has to offer.

After a long travel I am eager to get out there, but let´s get started with breakfast and some local news before that.

Chennai – it is lively, colorful, smiling, full of traffic and of course… hot. Today we have 36 degrees celcius and hitting 39 degrees in the afternoon. Hot hot hot. One of the main attractions in Chennai are the temples. After consulting my driver for the day, which I was happy to have, I decide to postpose the temple visits to another day. The local recommendation is to visit the temples in the mornings, as the Gods are present only then. Instead I decide to hit the markets of T. Nagar and Teynampet to explore the local bazaars and do some fabric shopping. Oh boy, what I found. Shop after shop full of fantastic saris, kaftans, indian dresses and silk and cotton fabrics. Beautiful stuff!

In other words, the perfect place to look for fabrics for interior decoration :). Even without bargaining I got this beautiful piece of cotton fabric that I will use as a table cloth for 650 INR (Euros 9,50€) for 5 meters. So happy about this, will definitely go back and do some more shopping!